OLD WIVES' TALES: Bedtime Stories Grandma Never Told You

Charlotte wonders if the contented old-lady image she's comfortable with is less like Opie Taylor's Aunt Bea and more like her grandmother's idol, Mae West. Charlotte begins to explore the sexual pasts of women almost no one notices—lollies toting shopping bags huddled in the back of the bus, humped-back grannies fumbling for their checkbooks in the grocery line—faceless barricades among the harried crowds rushing past. Could these invisible souls once have been beauty queens, models, call ...