The Widows of Sea Trail-Vivienne of Sugar Sands

by Jacqueline DeGroot

  I walked down the hallway and into the garage. I tucked the picture into a zippered compartment on the side of my golf bag so I could turn it in the next time I played golf on the Maples Course. I looked out the window of the garage and sighed. Were those snowflakes? From the look of things, it appeared it could be a long time before I had those clubs in my hands again.

  Chapter One

  Mmm . . .beans for breakfast This is by far the strangest diet I have ever been on. Yesterday I had triple chocolate frozen yogurt and a bowl of red and green vegetables for breakfast, shrimp and sausage links for lunch, ham slices and low fat milk for dinner, and a bowl of green beans for a late night snack. Today, I started with a bowl of pinto beans and a bowl of oatmeal and I can’t wait for lunch, as it’s turkey slices with bacon and a fresh orange.

  The diet regimen Tess and Cat gave me is called the eleven-day diet or something like that, but it’s really fourteen days—the last three days being free days. This is my second cycle so it’s almost been a month now. The first eleven days I lost ten pounds but gained three back on the free days. That’s not too shabby as far as diets go, but tomorrow starts my free days and this time I am not going to go hog wild and eat freely just because I can. With luck and will power, I will drop twenty of the thirty pounds I’ve targeted in only three cycles. Of course exercise has helped. I know, I said I wouldn’t, but I did.

  The girls are making it easy for me. Most days they collect me at 7:30 and we ride over to the island. Bundled up to beat the band we walk from the pier to the beginning of Bird Island, or until our noses freeze, whichever comes first. I am amazed at the difference—I have finally lost my belly.

  On a man it’s called a beer gut, or a paunch, and they swagger with it out front, tucking their belt under it with pride, oblivious to astonished stares because they look six months pregnant. On a woman it’s called a belly and when it makes itself known, it’s the beginning of a timeworn battle with support hose, girdles, and constricting spandex. For the first time in years I do not have to wear a girdle or slimming underwear. It is so nice to breathe freely, to actually be able to take a full, deep breath again.

  Tessa and Cat are on their way over for lunch and they say they have a surprise for me. Their last surprise was this diet, and although I wasn’t thrilled at the time, I can appreciate how hard it was for them to broach the subject and launch me into this very strange food odyssey. The four little meals a day, which thankfully, allow for one glass of wine, haven’t been all that hard to take. Of course, I fill the biggest wine goblet I have—to the very rim. Interestingly enough though, I am finding that lately I can’t even finish it. I also have more energy and a niggling desire to have sex, which confounds me, as I’m not sure how to begin this process again. But I’m working on it—in a selfish, one-sided kind of way—if you get my drift.

  The doorbell rings and I run to answer it. I can’t wait for my surprise.

  “I know you said noon, but we thought we’d come a little early, we just couldn’t wait!” Tessa said, waving a newspaper in front of her face.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “A hoot is what it is,” she replied.

  “Or a motive for murder,” Cat mumbled, following her in. Then she added, “Just remember this was her idea, not mine . . .”

  “What?” I asked, trying to take the paper from Tessa’s hand. She hid it behind her back. “No, not yet. Let’s have lunch first since there is the distinct possibility that you will kick us out when you hear what we’ve done.”

  “Again, it’s not really we. Remember that when you go for your gun,” Cat said and then asked, “It is locked in a gun case without bullets so we can have a head start, right?”

  I was starting to get a frisson of worry inching up my spine. “What have you done? You didn’t put a personal ad in the paper on my behalf did you?”

  Almost immediately there was an awkward pause. Both of them hesitated in their stride toward the back of the house where the kitchen was, and looked askance at each other.

  “Tessa! Cat!”

  Tessa turned around and walked backward, still keeping the paper behind her back. “Not exactly.” She broke into a huge grin and winked at Cat who was putting her purse on the counter.

  “Cat, tell me what’s going on. And please, please don’t tell me my picture’s plastered on that paper with a Man Wanted sign over my head.”

  “Sit, sit. While I pour the iced tea Tessa will fill you in.” Cat went to the fridge and took out the pitcher of tea I had made that morning, rounded up the prerequisite yellow paper packets, and the bowl of sliced lemons I’d left on the counter.

  “You will be pleased to know that we did not place a classified ad for you,” Tessa began.

  “But . . .” I urged her to continue, waving my hand frantically.

  “But we answered one!” she practically sang out.

  “Oh no!” I moaned as I sank into a chair and let the breath I’d been holding whoosh out of me. “Oh no,” I repeated. Visions of toothless geezers rotated in my mind, one with wisps of white hair over each ear, one with a severe comb over, and one with a ridiculously bad toupee.

  “No, it’s all good. Wait ‘til you see.” Tessa pushed the newspaper in front of me but held her hand over the bulk of it. Words were gushing out of her at warp speed so I knew she wasn’t about to let me read this for myself.

  “He lives in Charlotte. He’s fifty-nine. He’s a professional and he wants a wife, a fabulous wife. He’s very picky so he’s hired this woman from New York to interview women who have all the necessary qualifications. It’s like a casting call. And guess what? You’ve been asked to audition! Someone’s going to be calling you tomorrow!”

  “What?” I was clearly flummoxed.

  “We responded on the matchmaker’s website, answered all the questions, checked all the appropriate boxes, and wrote a little something. And yesterday, we got an email back. He or one of his assistants is going to call you here—tomorrow! And, they’re bypassing the matchmaker’s screener. He wants to talk to you directly!” Cat, who up to now had been fairly laid back about this, was now becoming something akin to a squealing teenager. “You’re in!”

  “Oh. Dear. God.” I slumped even further into the seat. “I don’t believe this, you’re joking right? Why would you do this?”

  “No. This is no joke. This multi-millionaire, who’s supposedly way too handsome, and way too busy to find his own wife, wants to talk to you!”

  “What the hell did you tell him?”

  “The truth,” Tessa said, and looked at me with her head tilted to the side and her eyebrows arched high as if even suggesting they’d lied was beyond the pale.

  “Well, maybe . . .” Cat interjected.

  I grabbed the paper from Tess and sat up to read it. Key phrases from the ad they’d answered jumped out at me:

  Mature and emotionally ready for a lifetime commitment Marriage to a compatible mate is the ultimate goal- there can be no impediment to marriage

  Prefer someone close in age. Mid-fifties to early sixties

  Looking for well-educated, sophisticated, yet down-toearth individual

  Someone who loves to travel and who is active

  Must be attractive

  Must have a great sense of humor

  Please no whackos

  Screening by email

  Phone interview for fifteen finalists

  Blind date for five chosen women

  Romantic inclinations essential/sexual compatibility a must—forward thinking in this regard mandatory

  Picture required

  No cost to apply

  “I am hardly the fabulous wife this man has in mind.” “Oh yes you are!” Tessa replied. “Yes, you are. You’re beautiful. You’re the right age. You’re educated, sophisticated, and down-to-earth. Well, you don’t love to travel exactly, but you don’t hate it, you’re active—now at least. And you have a great sense of humor. The sexual compatibility thing will just h
ave to work itself out, but we’ve kind of left him wanting there.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa! What’s that?” I hollered. “Exactly what did you tell him?”

  Cat had the decency to look contrite. Tessa looked down at her hands.

  “Well?”

  “We uh, kinda . . . told him that you used to be a stripper.”

  “You what!”

  “Well you said that you worked at a topless bar to raise money to stay in college that one time. But had to give it up on the very first day when one of your clients, namely Dale, forced you to quit and marry him. We thought telling him that you had been a stripper once was a more interesting past and would show you had a forward thinking mind with regard to sex.”

  I groaned. I could not believe my best buds were doing this to me! “What picture did you use?”

  Tessa hopped up and down on her seat. “That’s the best part, the one taken at my wedding reception. Remember how flattering that one was? You were wearing that really slimming sheath dress and you and Roman were dancing, both in profile, and he was smiling at you with a sexy grin and you were laughing and smiling up at him. You never would tell me what he said to you to make you laugh so hard, and he absolutely refuses, saying, ‘It was a private conversation, if you don’t mind.’Are you ever going to tell me what it was he said to you that day?”

  I was defeated in more ways than one right now, so I mumbled my answer hoping they wouldn’t hear it. “He said, ‘I can feel your quim shivering against me, you naughty girl.’ Can you blame me? For five minutes there, I was dancing with sex personified.”

  Tessa snorted. “Been there, done that. It’s almost as if you have no choice when that man holds you in his arms. The juices just flow. Quim, huh? I wonder if that’s European slang for the whole labial area or for the clit itself. I’ll have to ask him about that.”

  “Don’t you dare! And don’t tell him that I told you what he said. I mean it Tess! I’ll never be able to face the man if you do.”

  “Okay, okay, I’ll go online as I am incredibly curious.”

  “Meanwhile,” Cat said, “we have to get you ready for this interview tomorrow.”

  “Why is it so important? I don’t need a rich, handsome, man of the world. I just want Joe Schmoe.”

  “Let’s just try this one out shall we? If nothing else, it’ll be good practice.” These were Cat’s words of wisdom, but I wasn’t at all ready for this. I wanted to lose ten more pounds before being thrown to the wolves.

  “Do you even know this man’s name?” I asked.

  “The email said a Mr. Philip Camden would be calling. So I Googled him. Would you like to see his picture?” Tessa asked with a huge all-knowing smile.

  “No. Absolutely not. I’ll do far better on the phone if I haven’t seen his picture. I can imagine him as Daffy Duck, and that way, I’ll have the upper hand.”

  “Trust me, he’s no Daffy Duck. He’s Sean Connery, Roger Moore, and Rutger Hauer all rolled into one.”

  “That combination doesn’t even sound good to me,” I said reaching for the picture. “Oh let me see the damned thing!”

  I snatched the paper from her and looked down. “Oh dear God.” An older version of that stunning Swedishlooking Chaps model you see in all the high-class magazines stared back at me. Only his blonde hair was a bit shorter and had steel grey threads liberally mixed throughout. But the blue of those eyes, the full arrogant lips, the high, chiseled cheekbones, and the scruffy two-day beard were exactly the same. He was a beach bum from the 70s dressed in Armani and I could practically smell the Chaps cologne as if this was a scratch-and-sniff photograph.

  “He’s really quite marvelous isn’t he?” Tessa said with a broad grin.

  Cat picked up the folded newspaper and began fanning her face. “Believe me, I’m perfectly content with Matt, but there’s something about this man, something primal. Just looking at him makes you want to be touched in all those special places.”

  “You got that right,” I blew out in long exaggerated syllables. And I felt a ridiculously delicious tingle go throughout my entire body. “What time did you say he was calling tomorrow?”

  Chapter Two

  Angst like a teen

  I stood in front of the mirror in my bathroom after I

  had gotten myself ready for bed and did an inventory, trying to honestly appraise my sixty-something body. I no longer kept track of the exact number of years I had notched on my lease for life.

  I leaned over the sink to get a close look at my face. Nice eyes. I’d had Lasik surgery seven or eight years back so I didn’t wear glasses. That was a bonus. The minute crow’s feet at the corners of my eyes were not terribly noticeable and went well with my smile—made it seem more genuine, or so I thought. My nose was nicely shaped and fit my face; it was the nose of a fox as compared to that of a pig. And as everyone is classified as either one or the other, the fox certainly worked for me. My skin was smooth and frecklefree, courtesy of Mom’s never-ending potions and creams, and I had nice, white teeth. I’d always been fanatical about taking care of them. I was fortunate, at my age many women had age spots, wrinkles, and generally loose skin, mine was without blemish and still relatively tight. I had to chalk it off to good genes—mother, with all her quirks, was still a very attractive woman.

  My brows, one of my best features, were dark and expressive. I kept them trim, in slanted arches over my vivid blue eyes and it was a nice effect, each complimented the other—the dark brows bringing out the blue of my eyes, and the light irises making the brows seem that much darker. With the right eye shadows I could get that smoky-eyed sultry look a la Ava Gardner that men loved so much. My hair was a shade of black that had more of a matte finish than a shiny one, and of course, I had that one prominent strand, a bright shock of white that accentuated my widows’ peak and defined the wave that sent a jaunty swirl over my left eye. Many people thought it was becoming; I was so used to it that I didn’t even see it anymore. I’d had it since puberty kicked in.

  The chin I’d had lifted in my late fifties so I had no jowls to speak of, and the turkey neck thing had never really been an issue in my family. But I did have those damn telltale wrinkles that marched in a vertical row across my upper lip giving me a just-sucked-on-a-lemon look. I had been told they were caused by the top lip loosing its plump, fleshy texture and caving in on itself. It happened to men too, this thinning of the lips, sometimes much worse, especially if they smoked, so I didn’t dwell on it too much. Kissing was only for the very young, right?

  I opened my robe and pulled my nightgown tight to my body. The body was maybe a six or seven on a scale of ten. I exercised, but not strenuously—some line dancing at the Pink Place every now and again, a Pilates class with Tess when she dragged me, and a bike ride with Cat when she positively couldn’t find anyone else to go with her. Because I slowed her down considerably, I was always her very last choice. But my body wasn’t bad, what flabbed did it in a nice way, and what was supposed to be plump and pert, still sorta was.

  The waist had thickened more than I had been aware of, and those Sophia Loren hips had a bit more padding than was currently in vogue. I had noticed lately that I had a shelf for a bottom sometimes. Unless I was wearing a long tunic, it took mere minutes for the back of my sweater, shirt, blouse, or tee to settle on the shelf of my behind. Nothing fell or draped anymore, it bunched on the curve of my ass and I hated that. That was definitely something that needed to go.

  I wasn’t tall but I wasn’t short and my legs were still shapely, with only a few areas that had that faint blue spider webbing just below the skin, mostly on my right ankle. It was the foot I usually led off with and also the one I had sprained every third or fourth year since being a teenager. I really was something of a klutz if truth be known. I looked down at my feet and shuddered. Wow, I needed a pedicure in the worst way, and some serious sloughing on those heels. Two toes had once been hammer-toe bound but thanks to my almost nightly wearing of Yoga Toes, I had a
voided that unpleasantness and the resulting surgery that was often required. But since the sandal season had passed, I had seriously neglected my feet, stuffing them into clogs and loafers without doing much more than trimming the nails. The pedicurist at Karen’s was certainly going to earn her tip.

  I stood back to assess the total woman. Damn! I was still fat. No doubt about it. I stepped on the scale 155. Yikes! To be the best me I could be, I would need to lose twenty more pounds. Jeez . . . Remembering the Body Mass Index formula I’d recently read in Reader’s Digest, I did some quick calculations. Holy schmoley! I was not only fat, but by a few pounds I was technically obese. How the hell had that happened? I looked through the door to the bedroom and spotted the glass of wine on my nightstand table waiting beside the book club novel I had just started. That’s how, I muttered. And though it pained me to do it, I walked over and got the glass and poured the red liquid down the sink. This would never do. If all went as planned, I could have a blind date in a few short weeks. Grimly, I shook my finger at the reflection in the mirror. I had some monumental work to do between now and then and that lady looking back at me had better be on board for it.

  So naturally, I didn’t sleep at all well that night. When I wasn’t holding two-way conversations in my head, with a very handsome man—and being as witty as only the dream version of me can be—I was hearing a phone ringing and though I ran for it, I never seemed to get there in time. It was the angst of being sixteen all over again.

  When I finally dragged myself out of bed, threw on a jogging set, and made my way to the island for my morning walk, I was sure this phone interview was going to be a complete waste of time. I mean, sure, I was pretty in that you’re-not-getting-older-you’re getting-better kind of way, and I did know my way around the bedroom, or at least I used to, but there were thousands of women out there who had to be prettier, sexier, funnier, thinner, and more savvy in ways I clearly was not.