The Hot Flash Club

by Nancy Thayer

  “Look,” Shirley said, holding the bag open.

  “You want me to look inside a bag of manure?”

  “Please.”

  Alice looked.

  “Jesus Christ, Shirley! This bag’s full of cash!”

  “I knew you’d have a fit.”

  “But what are you thinking, keeping money out here in the garage where anyone could steal it?”

  “Well, it’s not as much as you think. I don’t think there’s another hundred-dollar bill in here.”

  Alice pulled out a crumpled wad of bills. “But there’s a fifty, and plenty of twenties. Let’s get this inside.”

  Back in the kitchen, they cleared a space on one end of the table, dumped out the money, and split it between them, counting the bills as they straightened them out.

  “Shirley,” Alice grumbled, “don’t do it that way.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s confusing. Put all the ones in one stack and all the fives in another stack, and all the tens in one stack, and all—”

  “Hey, there’s more than one way to do things! It will add up the same whether I put them in their own little anal pile or in one great big pile!”

  “Shirley. Humor me. You’ve got a lot of money here, and we’re going to need to count it twice. And if you accidentally think a one is a ten, for example, or a five is a fifty—”

  “All right, all right.”

  They added it once, then again. Their hands smelled dark and earthy, and the table was covered with small black crumbs of manure.

  The total amount was $3, 245.

  “Wow!” Shirley said. “This is way more than I thought I had.”

  Alice washed her hands, then collapsed in a chair. “Why was all this money out in a manure bag in the garage?”

  Shirley stuck her chin out defiantly. “For a very good reason. I’ve kept my savings like this all my life, because of my ex-husbands and my boyfriend Jimmy. If they’re low on money, and they always are, they don’t think twice about going through my wallet and taking what they want. I tried hiding it in the house one winter, and my second ex-husband sniffed it out like a bloodhound.”

  “But Shirley, why didn’t you put it in a bank?”

  “Because this money is just extra cash, tips for a massage, and usually when I got home from work I was too tired to go to a bank, or the bank was closed. Besides, if I’d kept it in my checking account, they’d have found out about it and made me give it to them. We’re talking about extremely determined men.”

  “You could have put it in a savings account. It would have earned interest.”

  “And the bank would have mailed me a statement, and Jimmy would have read my mail. He’d have gone ape-shit that I was stockpiling money. He’d have gotten it.”

  “You could have rented a special post office box just for your bank statements.”

  “I could? What’d ya know. I never thought of that. Anyway, Jimmy’s gone, and I’ve got over three thousand dollars, which no one stole!”

  “What were you planning to do with this money?” Alice asked.

  Shirley shrugged. “I don’t know. Save it for a rainy day. Buy a great dress if I ever met a decent man. Use it in an emergency.”

  “What are you going to do with it now?”

  “Put it in a bank?” Shirley said hopefully.

  Alice leaned forward. “Didn’t you tell me that one of your customers plays the stock market?”

  “Yeah. Julie Martin.”

  “I think we should go see Julie Martin.”

  18

  MARILYN

  Thursday morning, fifteen men and two women sat around a long executive table in the TransWorld conference room for a getting-acquainted, brainstorming session.

  Melvin Watertown, senior vice president in charge of international expansion, was holding forth. “—only natural that when two companies merge, positions will overlap. But when you see job cuts in this office, remember we’re expanding worldwide, opening offices in Canada, England, Australia, and Belgium, and investigating other territories.”

  Alice Murray had a place at the table. Marilyn sat behind her, taking notes. Alison Cummings was directly across from Alice—by accident or choice, all the TransContinent people were on one side of the table, the new execs from Champion on the other.

  Alison was obviously the youngest of them all, and lovely. She radiated enormous energy, even when she wasn’t saying a word. Her soft hands, nails tipped with the lightest of pinks, rested on the table, on either side of her pile of folders, but her eyes whipped from speaker to chart to speaker, not losing a syllable. Behind her, her executive secretary, Barton Baker, sat, tapping away at his Palm Pilot. Occasionally he shot Marilyn a quick, cryptic smile that made her toes curl.

  Marilyn reminded herself to concentrate on Alice, who held her back so ramrod straight she nearly quivered with the strain. Alice and Alison were responsible for creating a detailed personnel policy to cover new international territories, investigating labor laws in each country, devising an organizational chart, job descriptions, and annual job performance evaluations, formulating an employee handbook to cover job discrimination, personal and health leave, health benefits, salaries, and promotion. It would be a massive undertaking, involving a score of accountants, international law experts, and management specialists.

  “Any thoughts, Alice?” Melvin Watertown suddenly barked.

  For a terrible moment, Alice didn’t reply. She cleared her throat, shifted in her chair, and rifled through the papers in front of her. From where Marilyn sat, it looked as if Alice was actually squirming.

  Alison Cummings spoke up. “For our purposes, the British branch will be the model.”

  When everyone’s attention shifted to Alison, Marilyn scribbled a note and slipped it to Alice, who showed no signs of reading it.

  “It depends on where they decide to house the headquarters.” Alice’s voice was firm; she was back in control. “If they choose Manchester, they’ll halve the costs.”

  “Manchester is hardly chic,” Alison scoffed.

  Alice shrugged. “So they’ll put a small image office in London.” Her voice grew stronger. “I think Canada will be the model. She’s our neighbor. Canadians speak our language. They have a similar economy.”

  “I think you’re right, Alice,” Marvin said. “Now about tax laws that impact retirement benefits. Henry?”

  Marilyn saw Alice’s shoulders relax, just a little.

  The rest of the meeting passed without incident.

  Afterward, in the sanctity of her office, Alice said to Marilyn, “Thanks for slipping me that note. The frigging underwire in my bra broke loose and jabbed me in the armpit. Kept it up all through the meeting.” She tugged angrily through her clothes. “How am I going to get through the day? I can’t go without a bra!”

  “Take it off,” Marilyn told her. “I’ll tape the wire back in.”

  Alice went into the bathroom and shut the door. A few minutes later, she extended her arm, a contraption of spandex and silk hanging from her hand like a collapsed parachute.

  Marilyn took it over to the desk, laid it out flat, studied it for a moment, then pushed the offending wire back down into its silken channel, secured it with several strips of fibrous tape, and stapled it all several times for good measure.

  “This should last the day,” she said, handing it back to Alice.

  “Thanks.” Through the slightly open door, Alice said,

  “You’re lucky to be so slender. When you’re my size, nothing fits. My bras ride up, and my underpants curl down.”

  Marilyn cocked her head, thinking. “Perhaps if you wore fasteners, like garters or suspenders, between the two, they’d stay in place.”

  “More likely they’d break from the strain.” But the image made her smile, and she relaxed slightly. “I shouldn’t have gone blank in the meeting like that.”

  “You’re under an enormous amount of stress with this merger,” Marilyn re
minded her.

  “That’s no excuse.” Lowering her voice, she asked, “How are you getting along with Barton?”

  “We’ve been having lunch together, getting to know one another. He’s from Texas, he’s divorced, he’s terribly nice, actually—”

  “What does he say about his boss?”

  “He thinks Cummings is brilliant. Ambitious.”

  “Is Barton loyal to Cummings?”

  “I’m not sure, but I’ll find out.”

  Marilyn shut off her computer. It was the end of the day, and she was exhausted. The pressure of the two colliding megacompanies made everyone tense, even Marilyn, who didn’t even really work there.

  Barton Baker appeared in her doorway. “Want to go have a drink?”

  “Yes, please,” Marilyn said.

  The new TransWorld building had a cafeteria and a coffee shop, but no bar. Also, there was no anonymity.

  “Let’s go to the Cottonwood Café and do tequila shots,” Barton suggested.

  Marilyn had never done tequila shots. “Okay.”

  “Let’s take my car,” Barton said.

  Marilyn paused. At this time of the evening, city traffic was a nightmare. If she rode with Barton, he’d have to drive her back to her car, but she wasn’t in any hurry, and she was supposed to be infiltrating the enemy camp. “Okay.”

  “What a car!” Marilyn exclaimed when she saw his bright red turbo-charged Miata convertible. He opened the door for her as she slipped in, and she noticed how he looked at her legs, which, now that she studied them, appeared sleek in her new expensive stockings, and sexy in heels higher than she’d ever worn before. While Barton went around to the driver’s side, Marilyn wondered idly if there were a scientific heel-to-arch ratio to predict how to achieve the sexiest leg.

  On the ride, Barton concentrated on navigating through the heavy traffic. “I don’t understand why there are so many one-way streets,” he grumbled.

  “Boston roads were originally cow paths,” Marilyn told him. She hoped he wouldn’t find the ride too distressing. Men found uncertainty so upsetting. Theodore always sulked for days if he’d had to drive along a new route. The first time he drove them out for dinner at the Eastbrooks’ home, she’d been afraid he’d have a stroke.

  Fortunately, Barton quickly found a parking spot on Newbury Street. They hurried along the crowded side-walks to the restaurant and were soon seated at a horseshoe-shaped bar. Barton ordered tequila for them both.

  “Salud!” he toasted.

  “Salud!” she replied. He tossed back the liquor, so she did, too. Her throat burned and heat flashed through her like a lightning bolt. Blood rushed to her cheeks.

  “This hits the spot, doesn’t it?” Barton said. “What a tough day. Want another?”

  Her whole body tingled. “Sure,” she agreed. “I’ll have another.”

  He ordered. They clicked glasses and drank. The tequila tasted earthy, primal, the way the world must have tasted when it was brand-new. How fascinating. This was what trilobites tasted five million years ago.

  “More?” Barton asked.

  Marilyn laughed. “More.”

  The control knob of the universal laws clicked up a notch. Colors were brighter, sound more intense. The beat of background music, something Mexican, exotic, contagious, bounced off the pulse of her blood. Everyone else in the room looked young, hip, and happy, and for the first time in her life, Marilyn felt young, hip, and happy, too.

  She’d never sat at a bar with a man, and she found it a bit terrifying, in an enjoyable way. Her stool had no back, and it swiveled, like something at a playground or amusement park. Across the bar, another man gave her the once-over. Marilyn blushed and wobbled.

  Barton put his hand on her back to steady her. His touch loosened every tendon in her body.

  “I don’t go to bars often,” she confessed.

  “Me, either,” Barton told her. “But I just can’t face my pathetic rented apartment just yet.”

  “Oh, too bad. Where are you living?”

  “Arlington. After the merger, I had to find a place fast, just to eat and sleep in. But I’m looking for something a little more comfortable. Where do you live?”

  “In Cambridge. A nice old house.” She remembered she was supposed to be widowed. “It’s too big for me now that my children are grown and my husband’s gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “He died, two years ago. Heart attack.” She clicked her fingers. “Just like that.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you.” She was slightly appalled at how much she enjoyed being widowed. “It was hard, of course, but the fact is, we hadn’t been—close—for years.” This was the truth, and it felt fabulous to say it.

  “A beautiful woman like you,” Barton mused. “What a shame.”

  More tequila arrived. She tossed it back. “I’m embarrassed I said that. Way too much personal information!”

  “I’d like to know everything about you,” Barton said, looking warm and sincere. Moving closer, he put his hand on hers.

  She stared at their hands. They were emitting a weird kind of heat that lit up her body all the way down to her crotch, which glowed like an outer space alloy. Surreptitiously, she glanced down: Nope, nothing showed.

  “It’s a hard world we work in,” Barton confessed softly. “Competitive and aggressive. We wouldn’t be in it if we didn’t enjoy the challenge—and the money—but sometimes I think I’d enjoy a less combative kind of work.”

  “I know exactly what you mean,” Marilyn agreed.

  “And as much as I admire Alison Cummings,” Barton continued, “by the end of the day I find her fairly exhausting.”

  Why, it was easy, doing this detective work, Marilyn thought. And it was fun!

  “I’ve only worked for Alice for a few days,” Marilyn said, “but I have to say I find her rather abrasive.” Her elbow almost touched Barton’s, and her knee actually did touch his now and then, when her stool swayed a little to the left.

  “Hey, they’re all abrasive,” Barton said. “It comes with the job description. And we like some of it, or we wouldn’t be working for them. I certainly want to rise in the company. But for people like you and me, well, with all the stress and pressure, we have to be sure to balance our lives with indulgences. ”

  “That’s very insightful of you.” Marilyn studied Barton. How young he was, to be so wise. His dark eyes were liquid, electric, and transfixed on her face.

  Barton leaned close to her. “Alison Cummings is a Type A personality: driven, egotistic, obsessed with Champion to the detriment of any private life. That’s not what I want for myself. I want success, achievement, but not at the cost of personal pleasures.”

  “Personal pleasures,” Marilyn said seriously, “are very important.”

  Other people were edging up to the bar, pushing against Marilyn’s arm, making it impossible for her to pull away from Barton’s powerful sexual force field. She felt like a meteor being pulled into the track of a potent star.

  “How’d you like the meeting?” Barton asked.

  “I found it fascinating,” she answered truthfully.

  “You were pretty fabulous, passing that note to Alice Murray.”

  Bells went off in Marilyn’s head. “Note?”

  “Don’t try to kid me. I saw you.”

  Perhaps it was the tequila. Marilyn burst out laughing. “God, this sounds just like high school! And the note, for your information, said, ‘Alison Cummings is a snot.’ ”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Why? Because she had her fingertips on information your boss didn’t know?”

  “Listen, Alice knows everything, believe me.”

  “Hey.” Barton put his hand on Marilyn’s. “I’m not trying to pick a fight. I didn’t mean to insult your boss. It’s just that I really did think she was kinda slow off the mark a few times during the meeting.”

  Marilyn gazed into his dark seductive
eyes. Focus, she ordered herself. “Well, I’m new at TransWorld, but I think Alice has an incisive mind and an encyclopedic grasp of her field. She’s been in this business for a long time, after all—”

  “That’s just the point.”

  His hand was still on hers. “What’s just the point?”

  “She’s been in the business too long, perhaps, to deal with a business the size and complexity of TransWorld. She’s okay for TransContinent, but too antiquated for TransWorld.”

  “That’s not true!” Marilyn snapped, and to her intense embarrassment, she burst into tears. With a rush of chagrin, she realized she was drunk.

  “Oh, God,” Barton said. “Oh, Marilyn, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “Could we leave?”

  “Of course.”

  He threw some bills on the counter and, putting his arm under her elbow, escorted her out of the bar and down the street to his car. He settled her in the passenger seat, went around and got in the driver’s seat, and started the engine, but didn’t put the car into drive. Marilyn pulled tissues from her purse and wiped her eyes and blew her nose. She wondered if her mascara had run. She wondered what women did when their mascara ran. She wondered if the formula for mascara—

  Barton turned toward her. “Marilyn,” he said earnestly. “I apologize.”

  Marilyn looked at Barton. Antiquated, she thought. Alice is antiquated, and so am I, and that’s wonderful if you’re a trilobite, but pretty awful if you’re a living woman.

  Barton looked distressed himself. “I never dreamed I’d upset you so much. Please—” He put his hand on her shoulder. “Marilyn—”

  Then, to Marilyn’s amazement, Barton had his arms around her. He was kissing her, ravishing, hot, furious kisses, kisses like an astronaut returning from space, a soldier returning from war.

  And Marilyn was kissing him back.

  19

  Saturday morning Shirley drove to Jennifer D’Annucio’s home on a tree-lined street in an idyllic neighborhood of Stoneham, all single-family homes, with picket fences and birdhouses and tree houses and trikes and bikes in the driveways.