by Nancy Thayer
Tax laws. Pension and health benefits. Social security taxes. ERA. Job discrimination, federal leave, salaries and promotion, organizational charts, job descriptions, and annual job performance evaluations.
Could it be more boring? To become a certified masseuse, she’d had to learn the names of the skeletal and muscular system in the human body, and at first she hadn’t thought she could do it. The words had sounded so silly, and her mind had bubbled with questions like, if fingers were called phalanges and the penis a phallus, did that mean the penis was a kind of finger, or fingers a kind of penis? Her teacher had stopped calling on her when she raised her hand.
But she’d persevered, and if she could learn all that, she could learn this stuff. Shirley picked up her pen and pressed the point to the first page of her new lavender notebook.
A year. Twelve months. That was how much time Theodore’s lawyer told Marilyn she could have to move out of the old Victorian where she’d lived with her husband and son for the past twenty years.
In the grand scheme of things, a year was nothing. If all time were the size of the planet Earth, a year would be a paper clip, an eyelash, a staple. In her own scheme of things, a year was larger, but not quite large enough, Marilyn thought, for the job she had to do.
She wandered through her house like a tourist in a museum gift shop, observing with a ruthless eye what, of all the possessions crowding the rooms, she would like to take with her to her new life.
It was difficult to see the furniture. Most of it was piled with books, and most of the books were Theodore’s. Well, then, he could deal with them, he could pack them, or arrange to have them packed. The furniture was a strange mix of dark, heavy oak from his parents’ home and sleek teak and chrome they’d bought in their later years when they desperately needed a new chair or bookshelf. She had no use for any of it, he could have it all.
She climbed the stairs to the second floor along a narrow path between more books, journals, and lopsided stacks of clippings from newspapers Theodore had dropped on the stairs, intending to take up later, or, rather, intending for Marilyn to carry up. The hall was lined with bookshelves stuffed to overflowing, as were the two bathrooms and the four bedrooms.
Teddy’s room hadn’t been changed since he moved into his own apartment. She leaned in the doorway, a slight smile on her face as she remembered how life had once been. You could read the passions of Teddy’s life on the walls. Over the childhood dinosaur wallpaper were plastered posters, not of rock stars and blond babes, but charts of the planets, the anatomical structure of the human body, chemical elements, water fleas, flatworms, and gastropods.
Teddy and Lila were in the process of buying a house with rooms for lots of children. Teddy might want these posters, and all the books piled on his desk, bed, chairs, and floor. Well, he could take what he wanted from this room and toss what he didn’t. She closed the door and went down the hall.
For the past ten years or so, since Teddy left home, she and Theodore had slept in separate rooms. Though they’d agreed it allowed them to read late into the night without keeping the other awake, Marilyn knew it signaled a turning point in their marriage. Theodore’s interest in sex had always been, basically, an urge for something quick, oral, and just for him. Even ten years ago, he hadn’t been interested in touching her or looking at her. She’d been only forty-two, but she’d felt much older, her own body as stiff and dusty as a piece of shale, holding only the impression of what once had been a juicy, warm, living woman.
So many wasted years.
Well. She couldn’t bear to look at her bedroom, and she wouldn’t look at Theodore’s. Let him deal with that.
From somewhere in the house, a kind of music floated. After a few moments, Marilyn realized it was the phone ringing. Whisked back to the present, she zipped down the hall to grab the phone in her bedroom.
“Marilyn!” Alice boomed out, nearly breaking her ear-drum. “Do you have a moment?”
“Of course.” Marilyn sank onto her bed, leaning against the headboard.
“I thought you might be able to help me.”
“Well, I’ll try.” She rearranged the pillows more comfortably. “What’s up?”
“It’s um, this, um,” Alice mumbled.
Mumbling! How out of character for strong, take-charge Alice. Nothing intimidated her. Except—“Oh, Alice! Are you worried about tonight? Your date with Gideon?”
“Not worried,” Alice snapped defensively, then admitted, “More like terrified out of my skin.”
Marilyn laughed. “Why? You think he’s going to try to get you into bed?”
“Well, maybe.”
“Is Alan still living with you?”
“No. He found an apartment in Cambridge.”
“So the coast is clear chez vous,” Marilyn lowered her voice suggestively.
“Clear? For what?”
“What do you think?”
“Oh, Lord. I don’t know! This will be our third date, after all, because he took me to the jazz club the other night, and if I count the coffee after the symphony as a date, which probably I shouldn’t, but on the other hand, my thinking’s old-fashioned, I know young women do it on the first date, but what are the rules?”
Now Alice was babbling. Marilyn laughed indulgently. Their conversation stripped years off her life. She threw herself backward on her bed, sinking into the pillows. “Alice, I don’t think there are rules anymore.”
“But there are. I think someone wrote them down in a book.”
“Oh, yes, now I remember. But that’s for young women who want to get married. You don’t want to get married, do you?”
“I don’t know!” Alice wailed. “How can I possibly know what I want? This wasn’t in my game plan! It’s all happening too fast. I planned to crawl right down into a pit of depression and wallow there for a few months. And look what happened! I never should have left the apartment!”
“Come on, Alice, you’ve got too much energy to stay depressed. And you like Gideon, right?”
“He’s an intelligent, pleasant, attractive man. But—”
Marilyn smiled, twirling the long curly phone cord while she talked. “But?”
“But does that mean I want to go to bed with him?”
“You’re the only one who knows the answer to that,” Marilyn told her.
Alice sighed. “I wish it were that simple.”
“It is that simple!” Kicking off her moccasins, Marilyn brought her knees to her chest to get a better look at her toenails, which she’d painted a cheerful pink.
“Wait a minute, not so long ago, you said you’d forgotten how to feel sexual desire. Your exact words, if I recall, were that you felt like a purse that was all zipped up.”
“That’s true. But that was before—” Marilyn choked on her words.
Alice sighed gustily. “Go on. You can say his name. I won’t get mad.”
“I am so sorry about your job, Alice.”
“I know you are. Now forget it. Move on. Was Barton a good lover?”
Marilyn closed her eyes and made a funny noise.
“Marilyn?”
“Sex with Barton was wonderful. Of course it helped that he’s so handsome, and he has an amazing body—”
“—and now we know why.”
“Well, let me tell you, there was no silicone implant in his penis! It was all real!”
“So how was he on the foreplay?”
“Foreplay?” Marilyn concentrated, mentally beaming herself back to that night. “As I recall, there wasn’t anything you could technically call foreplay. We just kissed, and then we took our clothes off, in the bedroom, of course, and—”
“Wait. Did you leave the lights on?”
“No, but some light came in from the living room. I remember I’d pulled out all my white pubic hairs that morning, but I don’t think he even had time to look down there, everything went so fast.”
“Did you have an orgasm?”
“I think so. I
saw a trilobite.”
Alice was silent. Then she said, “You’re a little strange, you know?”
“The point is,” Marilyn began.
Alice interrupted. “I know what the point is.”
They both laughed. “My point is,” Marilyn continued, “I’m pretty sure the pleasure I had wasn’t because Barton was a good lover. I don’t even know what a good lover would mean.”
“Technically proficient?”
“That might have scared me.”
“Romantic?”
“Perhaps, a little.” Marilyn tried to remember the evening chronologically, but the memory rushed back in a misty blur, like a fog of perfume saleswomen sprayed in department stores. “Barton told me he was falling in love with me—but that was after we made love. No, I don’t think my pleasure had as much to do with Barton being a good lover as it did with my being open to the experience.”
“So to speak.”
Marilyn laughed. “I hadn’t made love with Theodore for years, and then it wasn’t making love, it was me giving him oral sex. He never thought I was pretty. I’ve never felt pretty, I’ve never been sexy—you know what I look like, a fishing pole. All my life I’ve been respected for my mind and ignored for everything else. But when I joined the Hot Flash Club, when you three made me get new clothes and a new hairstyle and I saw what I could be—it was like I blossomed. I started experiencing life in a different way. Why, suddenly my clothes felt so slinky and silky!”
“That’s because they were silk instead of polyester,” Alice pointed out.
“And the fragrance of my perfume and makeup and shampoo made me feel like I was always walking through a field of flowers. And all that made me feel sexy, all the time! It’s like I’m on some kind of great drug! I’m attracted to almost every man I see these days. I can’t wait to go to bed with Faraday!”
“Well, I’m happy for you, Marilyn, I really am,” Alice said, sounding as if she were about to slit her own throat. “But that doesn’t help me. I already wear silk and perfume. And I’m still just downright terrified of letting Gideon see me naked.”
“Alice, you’re beautiful.”
“I’m overweight.”
“Gideon knows what you look like, doesn’t he?” Marilyn pointed out sensibly. “It’s not like you’ve been hiding your weight from him.”
“As if I could.”
“He must have thought you were attractive, or he wouldn’t have asked you for coffee after the symphony, and then taken you to the jazz club. Maybe he likes plump women. I bet they’re more fun to cuddle than a bundle of bones. Besides, you can keep the lights off.”
“I suppose,” Alice capitulated in a little voice.
Marilyn pressed on. “The question is, are you attracted to him?”
Alice groaned. “I don’t know! Honest to God, it’s been so long since I’ve even thought about real sexual attraction without any strings attached, I can’t even figure out what I think or how I feel! You say you never felt sexy, so you didn’t have sexual urges, right? Well, I used to feel sexy, and I used it to my advantage, to flirt with a man when I wanted to get my way at work. But I disconnected my own reactions. I never let myself even consider whether or not I felt attracted to a man, because sex was all part of a very competitive game, and I wanted to win.”
“Did you go to bed with any of them?”
“I haven’t had sex with a man for twenty years.”
“Don’t you miss sex?”
“I have a vibrator. And I trust it completely. It would never pull the kind of trick on me that Barton pulled on you.”
“I know.” Marilyn groaned. “But desire is so illogical.”
“Where there’s a phallus, there’s bound to be a fallacy,” Alice joked.
Marilyn chortled. “Very funny, in a heady sort of way.” They both snickered. Then, turning serious, she said, “Listen. Remember what we talked about in the HFC the other night? We all agreed that whatever we do or don’t do, we won’t let ourselves be held back by fear. I had a great experience with sex with Barton, and I’ve got my hopes up about Faraday . . .”
“Have you been to bed with him yet?”
“Not yet. But soon.”
“Are you nervous about it?”
“Yeah, kind of. But that’s part of the pleasure.” Marilyn waved her toes at herself.
“Oh, man.” Alice sighed. “You’re a natural at this, I guess. I’ve always played competitive games. I’m not sure how I’ll do at a cooperative function.”
“It’s never too late to learn to share your toys.”
“Well, thanks, Marilyn. I wish I could phone you tonight when I get nervous.”
“It will come back to you,” Marilyn promised. “Just like riding a bike.”
38
In a pair of loose canvas trousers and her paint-spattered blue smock, Faye stood in her attic studio, palette in hand. That morning she’d set up a still life of daffodils and tulips in a clear glass vase on a cloth of pale rose. A pretty scene, stimulating and light. She’d clicked on a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, which always made her smile, and started to work. She stopped for lunch, then returned to her easel. No judgment, she reminded herself. She’d been away from her canvases for a while, she had to cut herself some slack.
The little brass carriage clock chimed four times. Laura and Megan would be there soon. Faye rinsed her brushes and tidied up her studio, then stopped at the door to look back at her work. It was fine. A perfectly decent rendering of spring flowers. People might even want to buy it to hang in their homes—it was cheerful enough. But Faye knew it lacked heart . Because her heart wasn’t in it. Something about the act of painting itself had changed for her. It was as if she’d spent the day watering a plastic flower.
Perhaps, she admitted, as she turned off the lights and headed down to her bedroom to change clothes, perhaps she found the work lonely. She missed the discreet bustle of the Eastbrooks, tea and scones with Margie, her exciting little visits with Dora, even the ordinary exchange of domestic information with Mrs. Eastbrook and the maids.
Before that, a little more than a year ago, her house had been filled with Laura and Jack; especially Jack. Her studio had been a refuge from the commotion of a busy life crammed with dinners with friends, social engagements related to Jack’s firm, and Laura’s wedding plans and baby showers. Also, she’d been busy with the normal work of buying the food and preparing healthy, delicious meals for two. Now she was alone in this big old house, and she could easily shop twice a week for groceries. Like her life, the house swelled emptily around her.
Then Laura burst in the front door and Faye hurried down to meet her.
“Megan!” Faye gathered her granddaughter in her arms. “How’s my wittle wabbit?” She rubbed noses with Megan, who chortled and clutched a stray lock of Faye’s hair.
Faye settled on the sofa with Megan on her lap, untied the baby bonnet, and slipped it off the baby’s soft, sweet head. Was there anything more enticing than this warm weight, these bright eyes, this fragrance of baby powder and baby?
Laura rattled around in the kitchen. “Mom!” she yelled. “Didn’t you buy any Ben & Jerry’s?”
“I haven’t had time to go to the grocery store,” Faye called back.
Laura entered the room with a box of Wheat Thins in her hands. “You’ve got to get some decent food in this house.”
“I have decent food, darling. Apples. Grapes.” She snuggled Megan down among the sofa cushions and handed the baby a fat rubber fish on which Megan immediately began to gnaw.
“They’re boring.” Laura tossed herself with a thump on the other end of the sofa, tucking her feet up beneath her. “I need comfort food.”
“Listen, Laura, I need to discuss something with you.”
“Okay.” Laura munched a cracker.
Faye turned to the right, toward Megan, double-checking that the baby was safe and couldn’t roll off onto the floor. She turned to the left, toward Laura, and saw how, quit
e literally, she had once again let herself get right in the middle of this little family.
She moved to the sofa on the other side of the coffee table. That was good. She could look her daughter right in the eye, without straining her own neck. “I’m going to put the house on the market.”
Cracker crumbs flew. “Mom! No!”
“Darling, I have to.”
“You can’t!” Laura protested.
Megan’s lower lip quivered.
“Don’t frighten your daughter,” Faye advised in a singsong voice that would calm Megan.
“Okay,” Laura sang back. She reached over to Megan and smiled. “Who’s got a rubber fishy?” Megan rewarded her with a grin that sent drool down her chin. “Mom, you can’t sell the house,” Laura said to Faye with nursery rhyme tones.
“It’s too big for me now—”
“But it’s my home, too!” Laura protested.
Faye peered steadily at her daughter without speaking.
“Oh.” Laura sank back in the cushions. “Oh, okay, I see what you’re saying. You’re saying I spend too much time over here.”
“I’m saying I need to start over, Laura. I’ve got many years of life left, I hope, and I want to live them happily, not stuck in the past. I think your father would expect that much of me.”
Laura’s face took on a melancholy cast, and she began to chew on her index finger. Faye watched her daughter regress to this old habit, the sign of stress Laura had displayed during her childhood and adolescence. Laura looked very young, her long dark hair falling around her face, her finger in her mouth, and also older than Faye had ever seen her before, her lovely skin engraved with lines around the eyes and mouth, lines earned by sleepless nights walking the baby, by lonely nights wondering where her husband was. Every single instinct in Faye’s heart burned and tugged and strained and longed to fix things for Laura, to offer her complete shelter here in this house, to keep the house exactly as it was so her child did not have to suffer yet one more loss.
She dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands, to keep herself from speaking.
