The Second Wave

by Jean Copeland

  Alice smiled. “It’s a lovely wish. Those were good times.”

  “Not for me,” Rebecca said. “I had to wear those awful crocheted vests and scarves she made me.”

  Alice laughed. “Those were all the rage in the seventies.”

  “I’ll stick with tattoos and Birkenstocks, thanks,” Rebecca said with a thumbs-up.

  “Should we go back and see how she’s doing?”

  “So you never answered my question before,” Rebecca said as they carried their trays to the trash receptacles.

  “What question?”

  “Were you and my mother ever more than friends?”

  “Rebecca,” a voice suddenly called out. Bill, Rebecca’s father, walked into the cafeteria and approached them.

  “Thanks for coming, Dad. I wouldn’t have texted you if I’d known you were away.” She kissed him on the cheek.

  “That’s okay, honey. I’d be mad if you hadn’t,” Bill said as he eyed Alice. While age had thinned his hair and stooped his shoulders a bit, he was still handsome.

  “Hello, Bill,” Alice said, extending her hand. “Alice Burton, Leslie’s old friend.”

  “I remember.” His tone was less than affable, his handshake flaccid. “How’s it going?” Without waiting for her reply, he turned to Rebecca. “How is she?”

  “Not better but not worse either. Stable.”

  Alice shrunk from the eerily familiar feeling of being the outsider during poignant Burton family moments. “I’ve got to get going, Rebecca.”

  Rebecca stopped her father to address Alice. “Are you heading back to Boston?”

  “No. I’m staying with my sister in Branford for a few days.”

  “Will you message me before you go?”

  “Sure.” Alice gave Rebecca a cordial kiss on the cheek and the obligatory courtesy nod to Bill before leaving.

  Driving back to her sister’s house in Branford, Alice missed the exit off the interstate as memories of Leslie hijacked her attention. She turned onto Route One and headed back toward her sister’s house in the Stony Creek section of town. When Abba’s song “S.O.S.” came on the oldies station she’d barely been listening to, she cranked up the volume. When she heard the line about how hard it is to go on when someone you’ve loved is gone, her eyes clouded with tears. Leslie had to wake up.

  Chapter Two

  The next morning Alice surprised herself with an impetuous decision to hop into her car and head to Yale-New Haven hospital. She couldn’t bear the thought of Leslie lying there alone in that bed; it had taunted her in her dreams. As attentive and devoted a daughter as Rebecca was, she couldn’t be there every moment of the day.

  Sitting by her bed, she caressed Leslie’s forearm, careful to avoid the IV lines taped to her wrist. She’d been in a similar situation at Mass General only a year earlier when her wife, Maureen, was dying from complications of MS. Too familiar, too soon.

  “I never imagined this is how we’d meet again,” Alice whispered. She wiped away a tear with the back of her hand. No more tears. She’d cried enough last night. “I can’t believe it’s been almost forty years since we met. First American Insurance doesn’t even exist anymore.” Alice settled into a chair beside Leslie’s bed as she reminisced.

  “I’ll never forget your first day at work. I felt so bad for you. You were such a nervous wreck.”

  September 1976

  Leslie O’Mara had returned to the workforce on the same day her youngest child, Rebecca, started first grade. Walking into the office after her employee orientation session, she’d had a look on her face similar to what her daughter’s must’ve been while climbing onto a school bus with her older brother, Billy, for the first time.

  With ten years under her belt, Alice was considerably more laid-back that morning. As the typing-pool supervisor at First American Insurance in New Haven, she was in charge of training all the new girls.

  She wheeled a chair next to Leslie’s desk. “So how does it feel to be back in the old salt mines?”

  “Scary.”

  “I’ll bet, but you’ll get back in the swing in no time.”

  “Let me apologize in advance for all the mistakes I’m going to make today,” Leslie said with a timid smile. “It’s been so long since I’ve worked in an office.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Alice said. “Everyone makes mistakes, especially the way some of these dudes mumble into the Dictaphones. They sound like squirrels storing acorns in their cheeks.”

  Leslie smiled and relaxed her shoulders. “Thanks. I’ll do my best to correctly interpret the chittering.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Alice said with a friendly tap on her shoulder. “So here’s the list of insurance agents we work for with their phone extensions, territories, and such. Later I’ll give you a list of the lechers you shouldn’t bend over in front of.”

  Leslie’s eyes bulged. “What?”

  “I’m just kidding.” Alice tilted her head in consideration. “Well, not really. But just make it clear right off the bat that they can’t pull that crap with you, and you’ll be fine.”

  “I’m safe anyway. Nobody’s going to get fresh with a married mother of two. I’m thirty years old, after all.”

  “You think that matters to some of these cats? The married ones will go gaga over you. You’re quite pretty and, even better, not in the market for a husband.”

  “Nope. Have one of those.”

  “Would you look at that,” Alice said. “It’s time for morning break. C’mon. Let’s get a cup of America’s famous Eight O’Clock Coffee that tastes like it was brewed at eight o’clock last night.”

  Leslie grinned. “I can’t wait.”

  As they headed down the hall toward the cafeteria, Alice said, “Gee, it’s refreshing to see that they actually will hire a woman over twenty-one here once in a while. It’ll be nice to have lunch with someone I can relate to.”

  “Aren’t the girls here nice?”

  “Sure they are, super nice. But aside from Myrna, who was probably transcribing onto stone tablets when her career began, most of the secretarial pool is made up of young girls hunting for husbands. And all the horny, highly paid executives here keep the cat-and-mouse games constant.”

  “Wow,” Leslie said. “I’ve missed quite a bit raising my kids over the last nine years.”

  “It’s rather amusing to watch, but I’m glad I’m past that stage.” Alice stirred Cremora into her coffee. “Look! You’re about to observe Julie, a young huntress, stalking her prey.” She pointed to a twenty-two-year-old blonde smiling seductively at a handsome young man with thick sideburns and wavy brown hair parted low. “That’s Steve Briller, an accountant. Tells the worst jokes ever, but he’s very available. Watch. He’s setting up the punch line right now.”

  Leslie giggled. “You’re pretty amusing, too, Alice.”

  “Shhh. Here it comes.”

  Steve became animated, and suddenly, Julie flipped back a mane of golden curls as she shrieked with laughter.

  Alice smiled with satisfaction.

  “That was amazing,” Leslie said.

  Alice shrugged. “Not really. Stick around for the next showing at lunchtime.”

  Leslie laughed and sipped her coffee. “I’m glad I’m over that stage, too. Bill may not be an executive with an expensive sports car, but I did all right with him. He’s a good man.”

  “What does he do?”

  “He’s in the carpenters’ union. Do you have a husband or children?”

  “Neither. Tony and I divorced three years ago, partly because of children. He wanted them, and I couldn’t have them.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  No matter how often the topic arose, Alice couldn’t help cringing at the outpouring of pity from fertile women when they learned she couldn’t bear children, like she was a raincoat that couldn’t repel water or something.

  “Had you discussed adoption?” Leslie asked.

  Apparently, this childless-woman thing wa
s more of a problem than she’d realized.

  “The Giovanni family doesn’t know from adoption,” Alice said. “Italian, hairy, and masculine, they don’t adopt babies. They just get a new wife who’s capable of harvesting their seed.”

  “Oh.” Leslie was quiet for a moment.

  “Hey, it’s no big deal. I’ve made peace with it. Not every woman is meant to have children. Surely, some of us can find another purpose in life, right?”

  “Of course,” Leslie said but looked like she couldn’t possibly imagine what that purpose could be.

  “We better get back to the office now,” Alice said, suddenly feeling awkward.

  As they left the break room, they were both quiet. Alice tried to imagine what Leslie must think of her. Obviously, she must’ve considered her a failure, divorced and childless at thirty-two years old.

  “You know something?” Leslie said as they arrived at their neighboring desks.

  “What’s that?”

  “You were obviously meant to be a career woman. Someone has to be in charge of us hapless moms stumbling back into the workforce.”

  Alice smiled with gratitude. “I’m gonna like working with you, Leslie O’Mara.”

  “Likewise, Alice Burton,” Leslie replied with the most adorable half-dimpled smile.

  *

  Early in the afternoon, Alice was summoned out of her reminiscence when Rebecca walked in with a bag of takeout from a nearby sushi place.

  “Alice,” Rebecca said. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”

  “I hope you don’t mind. I was thinking of your mom all night and wanted to talk to her.”

  “Did she answer?” Rebecca smiled ironically as she pulled up a chair and tore into her lunch.

  Alice shook her head.

  “And I don’t mind at all. I’m glad she wasn’t alone while I was at work. We’re just too swamped for me to take full days off right now. I think my brother was here for a bit first thing this morning. Of course, if she were conscious and needed me, that would be a different story. Sushi?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “So what were you talking to her about?”

  “Reminiscing about when we first met at work.” Alice kept glancing at Leslie as though any moment she might wake up ready to jump in the story with her version of it. “It’s nice for me. I’m remembering some really good times.”

  “I’d love to hear about some good times.”

  Alice smiled. So many fond recollections flooded her heart and mind. Some things she simply couldn’t share, not with Leslie’s daughter, anyway.

  “Let’s see,” she said, relaxing into her chair. “Your mother’s first night at our feminist crocheting klatch is definitely worthy of mention.” Alice laughed out loud. “She had no idea what she was stepping into.”

  November 1976

  Two months working together in the secretarial pool at First American had fostered a genuine connection between Alice and Leslie. They grew to be friends as well as coworkers, sharing everything from wicked office gossip to all the mundane details of their lives. Alice, for one, loved how her lunch hour had upgraded from thumbing through old Star magazines and eavesdropping on the conversations of semi-interesting coworkers to chats with a new friend and confidante.

  One day, Leslie seemed adrift in thought as she nibbled her turkey sandwich.

  “Is everything okay?” Alice asked.

  “Next week is the Thanksgiving pageant at Rebecca’s school, and I’m going to miss it. I guess I didn’t think about all the little things I wouldn’t get to do if I went back to work.”

  Poor Leslie looked so sad, a style that didn’t suit her usually effervescent, wildly-enthusiastic-about-life countenance.

  “What time are they having it?”

  “Around eleven a.m.”

  “Why don’t you take your lunch hour early and run over to the school?”

  Leslie’s eyes sparkled like a spinning disco ball. “I could do that?”

  “I don’t see why not,” Alice said, elated by her role in returning the light to Leslie’s eyes. “I’ll run it by Mr. Engle, but I’m sure he’ll be fine with it.”

  “That would be wonderful.” Leslie beamed. “You’re the best coworker I’ve ever had.” She squeezed Alice’s hand and took a hearty bite of her sandwich.

  “You should be able to go. One of the edicts of the women’s lib movement says that a woman shouldn’t have to choose between having a career and a family.”

  “It does? I thought they were against marriage?”

  Alice arched an eyebrow. “That’s what you’ve heard about women’s lib?”

  Leslie shrank in her chair. “Well, I, um, I guess because I’m married with children, I never paid too much attention to what’s going on with it.”

  “Every woman should, married or not. It’s about equality, fair pay, and economic independence,” Alice said, banging off the tenets with her fist on the table. “What would you do if Bill suddenly decided to split on you?”

  Leslie’s eyes widened. “He would never do that.”

  “A lot of women on welfare thought that, too. It’s a real issue for married women with children who are financially dependent on men.”

  “But Bill loves being a husband and father.”

  “What if he was a bum? What if you wanted to dump him because he was beating you or the kids?”

  Leslie scoffed. “He’s never laid a hand on me or the kids.”

  “It’s just a for-instance, Leslie. What would you do? Could you support yourself and your kids?”

  Two male coworkers walked by with their lunch trays. “Look out, everybody. Alice is firing off shots from her soapbox again.”

  “Sit on it, Freddie,” Alice said and returned her attention to Leslie without missing a beat. “Do you like to crochet?”

  Leslie appeared confused at the quick shift in the conversation. “I tried it once but wasn’t very good at it. I’d like to learn. I’ve seen some really lovely vests in Ladies’ Home Journal.”

  “Excellent. I’m certain you’ll find our little crocheting klatch very enlightening. Think you could get away for a few hours on Friday night?”

  As they cleared their lunch trash and headed to the garbage can, Leslie smiled as though unsure what to make of Alice. “Sure. I think I can manage that.”

  “Fantastic,” Alice said, pleased with her new recruit.

  *

  Friday finally arrived, and when Alice got home from work in the early evening, an inexplicable day-long anxiety was at its peak. She’d been assembling bi-monthly with her girlfriends for over a year now and felt she’d known Leslie long enough to feel comfortable around her socially. So why was she so keyed up? She sipped a glass of Cold Duck to settle her nerves as she brushed her hair and retouched her makeup before leaving for Leslie’s.

  On the ride to Cynthia’s house in Middletown, Alice’s angst faded as she and Leslie listened to AM radio. They laughed after a particularly loud, off-key sing-along to “Turn the Beat Around.”

  “I love disco,” Alice said. “I can tell this music is here to stay.”

  “For sure,” Leslie said.

  “Well, here we are.” Alice pulled up along the curb at Cynthia’s house.

  “Gee, I hope your friends don’t think I’m a big nerd.”

  “Nonsense. They’re gonna love you. You represent everything we’ve been talking about.”

  “I do?”

  “Absolutely—a woman tired of the drudgery of housework and child-rearing reclaims her individual identity by forging ahead with a new career.”

  “Actually, Bill and I just wanted some extra money to start a vacation club.”

  “They don’t have to know that,” Alice said out of the corner of her mouth.

  She knocked on the door, excited to introduce Leslie to her friends.

  “Betty, baby,” Cynthia said upon opening the door. She pushed her large Gloria Steinem-esque eyeglasses back up her nose and received Alice
in a hug.

  “Gloria, baby,” Alice replied, nearly choking in Cynthia’s grip. “Cynthia, this is my friend, Leslie, I was telling you about.”

  Cynthia nearly crushed Leslie’s hand in a firm handshake. “Leslie, my sister, welcome.”

  She indicated the pile of shoes on the floor by the door. “Make yourself comfortable.”

  “Thank you so much.” Leslie seemed a bit rigid as she handed Cynthia a bottle of wine.

  “Ah, the fruit of the goddesses,” Cynthia said with a smile. “Right on.”

  Alice removed her shoes and motioned for Leslie to follow her lead. They trailed Cynthia into the living room adorned with vibrant wall tapestries and a bubbly blue lava lamp.

  “Ladies, we have a new member to our organization,” Cynthia announced to Kathy and Dolores, both seated Indian-style, almost knee-high in a red shag carpet.

  “Welcome to the Second Wave,” Kathy said, and she and Dolores raised their crochet hooks in unison.

  Alice jerked her head at Leslie to follow her and take a spot on the floor within the circle. Leslie followed her so closely that she bumped into Alice from behind when she stopped.

  “What’s the Second Wave?” she whispered to Alice.

  “You’ll see,” Alice said, enjoying tantalizing her with anticipation.

  “We finally have our fifth member,” Dolores said. “She can be Bella.”

  “Bella?” Leslie said, furrowing her brow.

  “Bella Abzug, the congresswoman from New York,” Cynthia chimed in. “We’ve all taken on honorary nicknames of our foremothers. You’re the last one, so now our coalition is complete.”

  Leslie smiled. “I’m sorry, foremothers of what? Crocheting?”

  The room plunged into dead silence. Alice patted Leslie’s hand in solidarity.

  “No, feminism,” Cynthia said. “We have a little group. We call ourselves the Second Wave. It’s what they’re calling the women’s lib movement.”

  Poor Leslie appeared clueless.

  “The suffragists?” Cynthia said. “Surely, you’ve heard of them. They were the first wave.”