by Judy Blume
After dinner she went back to her room and sat on the edge of her bed for a long time, feeling lonely and depressed, wanting to talk to someone, but not knowing who. She picked up the phone and thought about calling her mother, but she knew that as soon as she heard her mother’s voice she would start to cry and then there would be questions. So she did not call her mother. She knew a million people, but she had so few friends. Clare was one of the few people she felt close to. With Clare she didn’t have to say what was on her mind because Clare sensed it. She wished there were more people like Clare. She would have called Clare tonight but Clare was away too, visiting her mother on Padre Island. Should she call Margo? No, Margo wasn’t really a friend. Margo was just someone she sometimes saw for lunch. She reached for the plaque Sara had made for her at camp. Superwoman, it said. Was that really how Sara saw her, as a superwoman? And if she was, then how come she felt so small, so insignificant now?
She supposed she could call Mitch, just for old times’ sake. Maybe she would even invite him down for the weekend. After all, this was her birthday. She owed herself one. She picked up the phone and dialed his old number.
He answered on the third ring. “B.B.,” he said, “wonderful to hear your voice again.”
“I’m in San Diego . . . at La Costa . . .”
“Wonderful place, San Diego . . .”
“I thought you might drive down for dinner over the weekend . . . we could catch up on what’s been happening . . .”
“Love to,” he said, “but I’m all tied up. I’m doing a series, you know.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Yes, one of the top twelve.”
“That’s great.”
There was a long pause.
“And I’m living with someone . . . but surely you knew that.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes. She’s a producer too. We have a lot in common. It’s working out.”
“I’m glad for you,” she told him. And suddenly she remembered that the last time they’d been together she’d wound up with a black eye and a strained ligament in her left leg.
She hung up the phone, feeling humiliated, rolled over onto her stomach, held the bed pillow tightly, and wept.
After, she went to the bathroom and washed her face. It was puffy and splotched. Look at you, she said to her reflection. Forty years old . . . half your life, maybe more than half, gone. Look at those lines around your eyes, around your mouth. You’re aging, Francine. Oh sure, from a distance you could still pass for twenty-five, but up close, forget it. You’re not fooling anyone. Aging, she thought, was the least fair fact of life.
She took off her white chiffon dress. It was a mess now, wrinkled and without shape. She’d kept it tucked away for too many years. She’d bought it for a cruise she and Andrew had taken to celebrate their tenth anniversary. But Andrew had acted sullen and bored on the cruise, so she had flirted with the ship’s captain, letting him breathe into her ear on the dance floor, which had infuriated Andrew.
When they’d returned to their cabin, Andrew had practically torn the dress off her, pushing her down on the lower berth, standing over her showing off his erection and telling her exactly what he was going to do with it. But as soon as he entered her he’d lost it, and blaming her, calling her the ultimate C.T., he had run out of the cabin, still zipping up his pants. He’d returned at dawn to apologize, telling her that he’d been drunk and had been sick all night. Forgive me, Francie, he’d said. It’s just this goddamned cruise . . . I can’t take being cooped up this way. She had told him that it didn’t matter, that she’d already mended her dress. But when he’d tried to crawl into the berth with her, when he’d tried to hold her, to kiss her, she had turned away and pretended to be asleep.
She should have gotten rid of the dress a long time ago, she thought, tossing it into the wastebasket.
How was it possible, she wondered, as she got into bed, that it was working between Mitch and the producer when she had tried so hard to make it work with him and couldn’t? She had thought they would marry and move to Beverly Hills where she would find them a big, wonderful house with possibilities. She would open a branch of Brady Broder—Elegant Homes. Sara would go to school with all the right kids. She and Mitch would be part of a tight little social group of producers, directors, writers, and actors. They would all tell her that with her looks she should have been on the screen. She would just pooh-pooh them, take Mitch’s arm, smile up at him and he would feel unbelievably lucky to have her for his wife.
But Mitch never asked her to marry him. And she never asked him. Instead, his moodiness turned ugly. She could never figure out his hostile behavior. He was hostile even when they were making love. He would accuse her of either coming on too strong or not strong enough. She had tried so hard to get it right. To do all the things he said he liked in bed. She had studied sex manuals in order to please him. But nothing was enough. He became increasingly critical. Yet she was sure, if she was sweet enough, understanding enough, it would be all right.
He said she drove him to it, to his hostile, abusive behavior. To their battles. He said she was too controlling, too demanding. But what had she ever demanded? She couldn’t think of a thing. Okay, so she liked making plans. And she had a lot of plans for them. But that had nothing to do with control or demands.
Why had she phoned him tonight? What had she hoped to hear? That he missed her? That he wanted her? That he had changed his ways? Fool, she told herself. Goddamned fool! She should have called her mother instead.
The next morning she went to the pool to swim laps. She was getting anxious about being away from the office. Maybe she would cut her week short and leave the next day. At home, surrounded by her things, by the routine of her life, she would feel better. And in just three weeks Sara would return and she would have a reason for living again.
She was in the middle of the pool when she collided with another swimmer. He had been swimming underwater and she hadn’t seen him coming. He had kicked her in the head.
“I’m terribly sorry,” he said, coming to the surface, sputtering. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, I think so. Are you?”
“I’m fine.”
They swam across the pool to the ladder and climbed out. She felt slightly dizzy for a minute and he helped her to her lounge chair. “I’m a doctor,” he said. “Let me have a look.” He took her pulse, turned her head from side to side, then up and down, and pronounced her healthy. “But we should keep an eye on you today . . . to make sure.”
He pulled his lounge chair next to hers. His name was Lewis Branscomb. He was a cardiologist from Minneapolis, a widower, fifty-seven, with two grown children and two grandchildren. He was balding and not terribly attractive, but he seemed to be in good shape. By the time they ordered lunch she decided that he was not unattractive either. And she had always enjoyed doctors. They had a certain self-assuredness that she liked. She knew, before they finished lunch, that he would fall for her and she didn’t discourage him.
They spent that night together, and the next, and he extended his stay for the coming weekend. He was good for her bruised ego. He was good for her state of mind. He was sweet and predictable and in bed he expected very little of her. Not like Mitch, who had insisted that she suck on him endlessly, until she was sure her jaw would dislocate.
Lewis told her that he had never had such exciting sex. That just watching her undress was enough to make him feel nineteen again.
“I can’t stand the idea of losing you,” Lewis said on their last night together. “Come with me to Minneapolis.”
“I can’t,” she told him.
“Why not?”
“It’s too cold there.”
“I’d keep you warm.”
“You’re sweet, Lewis . . . but, no.
”
“I’ll come to Boulder, then.”
“Come for a visit in the fall, when the aspens turn color.”
“What am I supposed to do until then?”
She didn’t answer.
“If you marry me,” he said, “you can call yourself Triple B.”
She laughed. “That’s not a good enough reason to get married.”
“I’ll try to think of a better one.”
The next day, as they said goodbye, he gave her a gold bracelet, expensive and elegant. She liked this man. He had style. She liked the idea of having a lover far away. She could not handle someone new and nearby in her life right now.
She did not tell him that Andrew was coming to town.
Lewis phoned her in Boulder several times a week. He sent her cards with absurd messages, books he thought she might enjoy, cassettes, flowers. He had already booked a room at the Boulderado for the first week in October. He was anxious to meet her little girl, to see how she lived, to be with her again.
She did not tell him about Bobby.
He missed her terribly, he said. There was no one else for him. There never would be. And somehow he was going to convince her of this.
She did not tell him, when he phoned on Monday, that she had lain in bed the night before thinking about death, imagining herself hanging from a rope, or with her wrists slit and bleeding, or with half her head blown away by a bullet.
11
MARGO HAD CALLED PUFFIN twice since Clare left for Europe and both times Puffin assured her that she was fine. Clare’s cousin from Padre Island stayed with Puffin every year while Clare traveled. Margo wanted to have Puffin over for dinner so she asked Michelle and Stuart to choose a night that was good for them.
Michelle said, “Oh, Mother . . . do we have to have her over for dinner? She’s such a pissy kid.”
“Maybe she’s changed over the summer,” Margo said. “You never know.”
“She’s lost about twenty pounds,” Stuart said. “I saw her at school yesterday. She’s very together looking.”
“Well,” Margo said, “Thursday or Friday would be best for me. Let me know in the morning. I’m going to the movies tonight.”
“What are you going to see?” Michelle said.
“Apocalypse Now.”
“I hear it sucks,” Michelle said.
“I’m going anyway. I’ll be back by eleven.”
Margo went downstairs. She brushed her teeth, changed her shirt, tossed a sweater over her shoulders, then picked up the phone and dialed Andrew Broder’s number.
He answered on the first ring.
She thought about hanging up when he did.
He said hello twice before she responded. “Hello . . . it’s Margo.”
“Margo?” he said, as if he had never heard the name.
“Margo . . . from next door.”
“Oh, that Margo.”
Very funny, she thought. “I’m going to the movies tonight . . . to see Apocalypse Now . . .”
“Mixed reviews,” he said.
“I’m going anyway. I like Martin Sheen.”
“Not Brando?”
“Brando too. It starts at seven-thirty. I’m leaving in five minutes. If you decide to come meet me outside.” Before he had a chance to say anything else she hung up. She shouldn’t have called. She brushed her hair and glossed her lips.
When she got to her car, he was sitting inside it. “I decided to come along,” he told her.
“Good,” she said, as if they had just closed a business deal. She fished her glasses out of her bag, put them on, and drove to the Fox.
“I like the way you look in glasses,” Andrew said.
“I’m nearsighted,” Margo explained. “I need them for driving and movies.”
“But not for making love?”
She looked over at him. “Don’t you ever think of anything else?”
“Yes, sure . . . all the time,” he said. “I didn’t mean anything personal. I was just wondering.”
“Just for the record,” she said, “I don’t wear them when I’m making love.”
“Some people do, you know . . . but I guess they’re farsighted.”
“I haven’t ever thought about it,” Margo said.
“I guess it’s because I write,” he told her. “An offbeat subject like that could make an interesting article. I could sell it to the Optician’s Quarterly.”
“Is there such a magazine?” she asked.
He laughed. “I don’t know. There might be.”
She laughed too. It was hard to be angry at him.
The movie was long and tedious. After an hour Andrew pulled two small boxes of raisins out of his pocket. He passed one box to her. She hadn’t eaten raisins in years, not since she’d been sixteen and somewhat anemic. “Either iron tonic or a box of raisins a day,” her mother had said. “Which will it be?”
“Raisins,” Margo had answered. But after a week just looking at the red box had been enough to gag her. “I’ll take the tonic,” she’d cried to her mother one morning. “I never want to see another raisin!”
Andrew reached for her hand. His warm fingers wrapped around hers as if they always held hands, as if they went to the movies regularly. And later, when she felt herself about to doze off, her head went automatically to his shoulder. He gave her cheek a quick, gentle caress and his fingers brushed her hair. In the darkened theater they shared a smile.
Afterwards, she drove home.
“You’re supposed to ask me in for coffee,” he said, when they pulled up in front of her house.
“Really?”
“Yes, it’s in the Rule Book.”
“Okay. Would you like to come in for a cup of coffee?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’d like that.”
“My children will probably still be up.”
“That’s fine.”
“Just warning you.”
“Stop apologizing for them, will you?”
“I’ll try.”
Michelle was already asleep, but Stuart was in the kitchen making himself a peanut butter sandwich.
“It’s great on rye bread with lettuce and mayonnaise,” Andrew told him.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Stuart said.
“No, you should try it.”
“I like it this way, on gross white bread with grape jelly.”
“Andrew went to the movies with me,” Margo said, feeling an explanation was in order.
“Yeah?” Stuart said, as if he couldn’t have cared less. “So how was it?”
“Long,” Margo said.
“Your mother found it pretentious,” Andrew said.
“Not all of it,” Margo explained, as she put up the kettle. “I was moved by some of it . . . but the ending was . . . I don’t know . . . I just couldn’t get into it . . .”
“That’s because you were asleep,” Andrew said.
“No shit,” Stuart said, laughing. “She really fell asleep?”
Margo felt self-conscious. She busied herself pulling out mugs and plates and slicing up a loaf of banana bread.
“So how do you like Boulder?” Stuart asked Andrew.
“Hard to say . . . so far it seems okay. I’m going to be starting work on a new book soon. It should be a good place to write.”
“What kind of book?” Stuart said.
“Nonfiction.”
“What subject?”
“An in-depth study of Florida’s correctional system.”
“You mean prisons?”
Why didn’t Stuart just shut up and go to bed? Margo thought.
�
�Yes, but Florida’s not unique,” Andrew said, as if he needed to make Stuart understand. “The rest of the country has the same problems.”
“No shit,” Stuart said. Then he turned to her. “Say, Mother . . . Dad called. Michelle left one of her bathing suits at the beach house. Aliza just found it behind the bed. She said it was mildewed so she’s throwing it out.”
“Okay. Anyone else?”
“Yeah . . . some guy named Eric called. Said you met him over the summer in Chaco Canyon and he just wanted to say hello. He didn’t leave a number. Said he’d call again sometime when he’s in the neighborhood.”
Eric. That was all she needed now. “Okay . . . thanks.”
“Well . . .” Stuart said, balancing his sandwich and a glass of milk in one hand, “I’m going to bed. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” Margo said, relieved. “See you in the morning.”
“Goodnight,” Andrew said.
Margo loaded a tray with the coffee pot, the mugs and the dishes, the banana bread.
“Can I give you a hand with that?” Andrew asked.
“Yes, sure . . .” she said. He carried the tray into the living room and set it down on the coffee table. She turned the stereo to KBOD, classical, then joined Andrew on the sofa in front of the fireplace. It was too warm for a fire now, but in a month or so they’d have one every night. Oh, it would be so nice to share life again. To share it with a steady man. One who didn’t get up to go racing home at two a.m. One who slept with his arms around her every night.
Stop it! she warned herself.
“Nice kid,” Andrew said, bringing Margo back to reality.
“What?”
“Stuart . . . seems like a nice kid.”
“Last year at this time he would have just grunted at you. Now he reminds me of Freddy.”
