Back In the Game

by Holly Chamberlin

  “What?” I asked. “Is there something wrong with knitting?”

  And then Jess slapped the table, something I’d never seen her do.

  “You didn’t,” she said. “You did!”

  Nell grinned. “I did.”

  “What?” I asked, annoyed by this secret code or whatever was going on. My sister can be very rude. “What are you talking about?”

  Jess leaned across the table and stage-whispered, “Nell had sex.”

  I took a sip of water. The pizza sat like lead in my stomach. Why, I wondered, had I eaten that last piece, and so quickly?

  “Oh,” I said. Well. Sex certainly wasn’t knitting.

  “What was it like after so many years?” Grace asked. Like Jess, she seemed all excited and happy for my sister.

  Before Nell could reply, Jess said, “Who is he? Are you seeing him again? Where did you meet him?”

  “What’s he like?” Grace asked. “What’s his name? Did you go to his apartment?”

  I took another sip of water and wondered if I had any antacids in my purse.

  “No, no,” Nell said, “I took him to mine. I read somewhere about the home-turf advantage and believe me, I was nervous enough. There was no way I was going to a strange apartment.”

  But you had no trouble having sex with a strange man! I didn’t say this aloud. I’d done the same with Marcus, Mr. I Have Kids After All. Nell would love to throw that in my face.

  “So, are you going to see him again?” Grace asked.

  “I might. I suppose it would be mostly for sex. I mean, what sort of adult woman sleeps with a man on the first date and then expects a relationship? Anyway, I’m not looking for a relationship. I won’t call him but if he calls me . . .”

  I was not at all happy with Nell’s behavior. She sounded like, like a prostitute! “This is all Trina’s fault,” I said. “That woman is a bad influence on you.”

  “Her fault?” Nell repeated. “All she did was introduce me to Oscar. Anyway, nothing bad happened, Laura. I’m having fun, finally. It’s a bit scary but no one is putting a gun to my head and forcing me to go out at night. This isn’t middle school where peer pressure can make you do idiotic things just to be liked.”

  Grace shuddered. “Ugh, being a kid is not all it’s cracked up to be.”

  “Okay, so who is this Oscar?” Jess asked.

  “A friend of Trina, currently divorced, back in the game, and by the way, very attractive.”

  “Obviously!” Jess said. “He got the re-virgin into bed on the first try!”

  Nell grinned. It was getting annoying, all this grinning.

  “Actually,” she said, “we never made it to the bed.”

  “Oh, my God! Give us some details, a highlight or two, anything. I’m living vicariously.”

  Before my sister could answer Jess’s totally gross question, I said, maybe a bit too loudly, “Enough! I don’t want to hear any more of this.”

  “Since when,” Nell asked, “have you become a prude?”

  “I’m not a prude,” I snapped. “I just think what goes on between two people in the bedroom—”

  “Or on the floor,” Jess said.

  I glared at her. “Wherever. I just think it’s private. I don’t think you should sit around talking about it, especially not when you’re eating.”

  Grace suddenly looked to the empty pizza plate. “Hey, what happened to that last piece? It was mine. I only had one.”

  Well, you snooze, you lose, I thought. I turned to my sister.

  “Do you really not want to get married again?” I demanded.

  “All I’m saying is that marriage isn’t on my agenda at the moment.”

  I frowned. “You don’t want to wait too long to get serious. It’s much harder to get a man at fifty than it is at forty.”

  Nell gave me her angry look. Again. “What if you focus on your own life, okay?”

  Jess and Grace were very quiet. Suddenly, I felt very tired and close to tears. I don’t know why.

  I reached for my sister’s hand. “I’m sorry, Nell. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

  Nell squeezed my hand and slipped out of my grasp. “I’ve already been hurt. But thanks. I appreciate your concern.”

  I wondered if she did.

  “I need to rant for a minute.”

  I looked at Grace. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you complain. Except about Simon, of course.”

  “Well,” she said, “Simon’s part of this rant, too.”

  Then she told us about how her interns had gotten all excited about meeting Simon Trenouth, Mr. Moody Art Guy.

  “These girls were going on and on about Simon like he was a god or something,” she said. “I felt like shaking them and telling them the ugly truth, which is that Simon is human just like the rest of us. On his good days. On his bad days he’s more, I don’t know, wolverine.”

  “He always reminded me of something reptilian,” Nell said. “Maybe an iguana.”

  “Don’t insult iguanas,” Grace said. “They make excellent companions, which is a lot more than I can say for Simon.”

  “Anyway, Grace,” Jess said, “a groupie wouldn’t care what you had to say about Mr. Wolverine. A groupie thinks she’s the one woman in the entire world who really understands his tortured soul, the one woman who’s his true soul mate.”

  Grace laughed bitterly. “Just like I did. Boy, what a crock of shit. I’m sorry. I don’t usually use foul language, but listening to them made me very angry. I hate the fact that otherwise intelligent, self-respecting women get so stupid about the emotionally abusive men, the artists, the musicians, the poets. It’s ridiculous.”

  Really, sometimes I just didn’t understand my so-called friends. I’d never fallen for any of those awful types. I might have made some mistakes, but at least I hadn’t fallen for some guy with greasy hair, tattoos, and paint under his fingernails!

  “It is ridiculous,” Jess agreed. “But it probably will always be the case. No one really listens to sound advice when it comes to matters of the heart. Or hormones. All you can do is be there for the women when they’re left alone and drained of energy. And money.”

  “I suppose. But that’s enough, my rant is over.”

  “What about you, Jess?” Nell asked. “What’s new and exciting in your life?”

  “Absolutely nothing. My life is pretty dull right now and I’m glad. I work and I sleep and I watch an occasional DVD and whenever my girlfriends’ busy schedules permit, I see them for dinner.”

  “Nothing lasts forever,” Grace said. “A cliché but true. This dormant period will end. Your life will be vital again.”

  “Sigh. I know. That’s why I’m cherishing the peace while it lasts.”

  “And then it’s back in the game?” Grace said.

  Jess nodded. “Once more into the breach, I suppose.”

  “When you put it that way,” Nell said, “dating doesn’t sound very appealing, does it?”

  “No, it doesn’t. A battlefield is not a fun place to be.”

  “Speaking of ugliness,” Grace said, “I witnessed another example of ageism just yesterday. I was in a café waiting at the counter for my lunch order and standing right up by the counter was a woman probably in her seventies. She’d come in just after me and was nicely dressed, not exhibiting any crazy behavior, just a normal person. Behind the counter were two guys in their twenties, earrings, tattoos, no doubt convinced they were very cool. And then in walks this girl maybe eighteen, maybe not even, in the full standard outfit.”

  “Jeans so low slung they should be illegal,” Jess said, “a skintight tank top, belly ring exposed, messy hair piled on top of her head.”

  “Messy blond hair.”

  “Of course.”

  “Anyway, she flip flops right up to the counter—you know how young girls never seem to lift their feet?—and stands right next to the older woman. That’s it, it’s only the three of us so there was no possibility for confusion, and
both guys charge over to her, ask for her order, completely ignoring the older woman who I know they knew had been standing there while they took their lazy time making my sandwich.”

  My sister made a face. “Disgusting.”

  “What did the woman do?” I asked.

  Grace shook her head. “It was awful. I was stunned so at first I didn’t say anything. The woman kind of raised her hand a bit, like she was back in school, and opened her mouth to say something, but I guess she lost her nerve. So, I stepped in.”

  “You didn’t!” I squeezed her arm. “Good for you!”

  “Well, I don’t know how much good it did, but at least the woman was able to place her order. The girl just kind of looked bored and neither of the guys even apologized. You know what one said?”

  “What?”

  “He said, ‘Oh, I didn’t see you there.’”

  “Of course he didn’t,” Nell snapped. “She was over thirty!”

  “Ageism against women,” Grace said, “is something vastly different than ageism against men. Somehow it’s more humiliating. At least men once had the upper hand. At least they have their memories of social prominence. What do women have? Memories of a life-and-death struggle to earn respect in a world clearly skewed toward the penis.”

  I thought back to that horrible night with Barry, Happy Couples Match #1, and how his behavior at that bar had humiliated me. Ugh.

  “I agree. For both men and women,” Jess was saying, “aging is about loss of power—physical, intellectual, social. But for women aging seems much more unfair, much more lonely. Then again, maybe men feel the same way when their hair starts to thin and their belly starts to droop, that getting old is deeply unfair.”

  “I don’t care about men,” Nell said. “Let them suffer. I care about women.”

  “Our sexual appeal is a power we take for granted.” Jess almost seemed to be talking to herself. She does that a lot. “Even women who aren’t physically attractive by common standards have the power. It’s innate and it doesn’t go away inside us except that the world fails to acknowledge that power once we hit forty and fifty and sixty. We just don’t command the attention we used to command.”

  “Some of that attention is unwanted or abusive,” Grace pointed out. “Catcalls, whistles, crude comments. What woman needs that sort of thing?”

  “No woman,” Jess agreed. “But most women do want the appreciative glances and the romantically worded compliments.”

  I sighed. “Really! I mean, Duncan used to say things like, ‘why do you care if guys don’t look at you? I look at you, I love you, isn’t that enough?’ I’d tell him, no way!”

  “Men,” Nell said, “really don’t want to hear that their exclusive woman appreciates the attention of other men. That information is far too scary for them to process.”

  “It’s a macho thing,” Jess said. “Woman as possession. Still, flirting with one man when you’re married to another can go too far. It can become inappropriate.”

  Well, I thought, Jess should know!

  “Simon used to flirt outrageously right in front of me,” Grace said. “It’s amazing what you can get used to or what you can ignore if you choose to. I’m embarrassed for myself retrospectively. I can imagine what other people were thinking about me. I’m sure they thought I was an idiot for putting up with Simon. I’m sure they thought I had no self-respect.”

  “Well,” I said, “I wouldn’t have put up with Simon. I would have killed him!”

  “And gone to jail for murder,” Nell pointed out. “I think Grace’s solution was best, a nice legal divorce.”

  “Divorce,” Jess said, “is never nice, but I know what you mean.”

  It’s especially not nice when your soon-to-be ex-husband tells you he’s fallen madly in love with another woman before you can have one successful date!

  “The bottom line,” Nell was saying, “is that we need to recognize our sexual power early and have fun with it. We need to use it to full advantage while we can. When we’re young, we’re ignorant. We assume we’ll always be attractive and then we start to age and suddenly, we notice that we’re being passed over, simply ignored, and we’re shocked.”

  “No one’s ever prepared for the future,” Jess said, “no matter how carefully they plan.”

  “You know what I hate?”

  “No,” Nell said to me, “tell us.”

  “I hate how when an old man flirts with a young woman, everyone chuckles and says, oh, how cute, he’s still ‘got it.’ But when an old woman says she’s interested in a man, young or old, everyone shudders and says, ‘Ugh, how gross.’”

  Jess sighed. “I’m depressed again.”

  “Don’t be,” Grace said. “We’re still a long way from blue hair and rolled stockings.”

  “True,” Nell said. “But it never hurts to think ahead. Be prepared. Seize the day while you still have the energy to seize it, before your arthritis cripples you entirely.”

  “You’ve become pretty bitter,” I said to my sister.

  “No, no,” Nell said, “not bitter, just pragmatic. Richard’s leaving me opened my eyes to a world to which I was blissfully ignorant. Now it’s either win or lose, no coming in second. I’m learning how to turn the dating game to my own advantage.”

  “That’s Trina talking!”

  “It is Trina. But now,” Nell said, “it’s also me.”

  I reached for my purse. “I need to go home,” I said. “I feel kind of bloated.”

  Chapter 36

  Jess

  Just because your ex-husband slept with your best friend doesn’t mean your relationship with her is over. Men are disposable; a good girlfriend is worth hanging on to. Besides, it was probably his fault in the first place.

  —He Slept with My Best Friend: What to Do When the Unthinkable Happens

  “Hello, Professor Marlowe.”

  I turned from the graduate student serving wine in plastic cups.

  “Hello, Professor Morgenstein,” I said. “I haven’t seen you around.”

  Seth smiled. “And I haven’t seen you around.”

  In fact, I hadn’t seen Seth in almost five months. Our offices and the buildings in which we teach are on opposite sides of the campus.

  We moved away from the drinks table. “I’ve been holed up in my office a lot lately,” I said. “And I guess I haven’t been into the campus social scene much. I’m only here tonight because my department head guilted me into making an appearance.”

  Seth laughed. “Mine, too. Had you ever met Dr. Maynard before tonight?”

  “No.”

  “Me, either. So why are we at his retirement party?”

  “Professional courtesy?”

  Seth is very tall, almost six feet five inches. No one would call him handsome, but he has an undeniable appeal. It has something to do with his mouth, which the poets would call sensitive, and something to do with his eyes, which the poets would call soulful.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, and suddenly I remembered his mouth on mine. It was a nice memory but it called up no real desire. “About the divorce?”

  I smiled. “I will be.”

  “Good. You know, I still feel bad about—”

  “Seth, please, it wasn’t your fault, believe me.”

  Seth looked around to ensure our privacy before saying: “Are you sure you aren’t even a little bit angry with me?”

  “I’m sure. All you ever did was make me happy. While it lasted.”

  “Yes. While it lasted. And you made me happy, too.”

  I suppose I had.

  “So, what about you?” I asked. “How’s life been treating you?”

  “Better than I deserve. I just got a grant for some research, and with Dr. Brown taking a sabbatical, I’ll be teaching his genetics and genomics class this fall.”

  “That’s great, Seth. Even though I have no idea what it is you’ll be teaching.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “It’s a bit scary but I’m really gra
teful for the opportunity.”

  Scary.

  Suddenly, thoughts of Dr. Neal Smith, he of the bondage-as-therapy school, popped into my head. A quick check around the room told me he wasn’t at the party. Good. I remembered he said he’d heard I’d been around. Someone had been talking about me, but who?

  “Seth,” I said, “I’m curious. Did you tell anyone about us?”

  “No,” he said promptly and I believed him. “But people find out. I don’t know how, exactly. That’s more your department, no?”

  “Maybe. Human behavior. Sometimes I think I know nothing at all about it. I’m not even sure what I’ll do ten minutes from now.”

  “Leave this boring party with me?”

  “Excuse me?”

  Seth smiled. “I miss talking with you, Jess. Do you remember the passionate discussions we had, about everything?”

  How could I forget? When I met Seth I was so eager to talk and to listen, so needing to be heard, to engage in a relationship of words. Life with Matt was so—silent.

  “I do,” I said. “And I miss them, too. That was good stuff.”

  “Other stuff was good, too.”

  “Yes. But that’s—”

  “Over,” he said. “I know. Seriously, Jess, let’s get out of this place and go somewhere we can sit and talk for a while. If I hear Dean Roberts’s cackle one more time, I might be forced to do something desperate.”

  I grinned. It really was a horrid cackle. “Like what?”

  “Like stick this toothpick in my eye.”

  I put my plastic cup on the appetizer table. “Let’s go.”

  Seth and I spent close to three hours over several cups of coffee and a shared monster cookie at a Starbucks. We discussed politics, both national and world. We admitted we’d both seen the latest Owen Wilson comedy and loved it. He ranted about the head of his department. I told him about a certain professor’s penchant for S & M but didn’t, of course, mention his name. Seth told me he was dating a woman from MIT, an associate professor, someone his own age and not married to another man. I congratulated him on his mature decision.

  Seth was the same as he’d been back when I’d first met him—unassuming, attractive, intelligent, funny—but now I felt no sexual pull.