A Slight Change of Plan

by Dee Ernst

  She stared, then took a deep breath. “Okay. Well, what should we fix first?”

  I grinned sheepishly. “Yeah, I know. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I had this great life plan, you know, and now…”

  “Now what? You’re not happy with how it’s going?”

  I shrugged. “It’s not that, exactly. I mean, everything is going pretty much on course, but, it’s not…” I shrugged again. “Not what I expected.”

  Cheryl made a face. “Kate, really? You’re just finding this out now?”

  “I don’t want to play golf,” I muttered.

  “Well, thank God you started with that one, because at least we can fix that. Cancel. Where is it written you’ve got to play golf?”

  “What the hell else am I going to do with my time?”

  “That we’ll save for your second piece of chicken. Get over Elaine. I know that she doesn’t think Regan is the most wonderful woman in the world, and that hurts your feelings. It doesn’t bother Regan, so why should it bother you?”

  The waiter came with our food, so I couldn’t make my icky face.

  “And get over Jake,” she went on. “He’s not part of your life anymore.”

  I smashed four pats of butter into my potatoes, and ripped open three packets of salt. “I know. It just freaked me out to see his face after all these years, and I thought he might actually want to see me again. I even imagined he wanted to maybe begin a relationship with me. Then I find out he’s in a relationship with a woman young enough to be his daughter who’s all boobs and not much else. It’s like a slap in the face.”

  “I thought you weren’t even going to wave back. What changed your mind?”

  “Desperation? Nostalgia? Whatever it was, it was too late. Or just a ridiculous idea to begin with.” I took a bite of chicken and glared at her. “What else? Go on, get it over with.”

  “You and Tom had sex and it wasn’t great? So what? You’re not in love, you’re not eighteen, what the hell were you expecting? Give both of you a break and some time to get used to each other. And I’m telling you, it may never be great. At our age, sometimes things work, and sometimes they don’t, and all the technique in the world isn’t going to change that.”

  I picked the last bit of meat off the bone. “Really?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Really. It’s not about the sex. It’s about the closeness. It’s about intimacy. It’s about trusting someone enough that you can be vulnerable and real. Did you at least enjoy being in the same bed with him?”

  I nodded.

  “Good. That’s a start. I’ve discovered that knowing that there’s someone there to hold me in the middle of the night if I have a nightmare is worth more than anything the Kama Sutra has to offer.”

  I stared at my empty plate.

  Adam and I had a marriage that had made me feel lonely and angry in the last few years before his death. Sex became the only real connection we had, even though I knew he was sleeping with other women. I wanted to feel safe, like I belonged, and I still mattered to him. And that feeling had come only when we were alone in the dark.

  “You’re right. Thank you. Now, can you find me a job?”

  Cheryl laughed. “What do you want to do?”

  I thought. “Maybe I could write. I’ve always wanted to do that. Remember that woman a couple of years ago, who wrote about going to Italy and eating, then going to India and joining an ashram, then going someplace else? I could do that. I mean, I’m great at eating, I love Italy, and I’ve taken a yoga class before. I’m already halfway there.”

  Cheryl laughed again. “You do know that she was a writer before, right? And that her editor paid for her trip? It’s not like she was a random person who just happened to write a best-selling book. Have you ever written anything?”

  “You mean besides letters to the IRS? No. What about travel books? I’m a very good traveler.”

  She pushed away her plate. She had eaten a very nice chopped salad and a piece of grilled chicken, and was looking smug and healthy. “I think you need to be more than a tourist to write travel books. My God, Kate, you have a law degree. Shouldn’t you at least try to make some use of it?”

  “If I wanted to do that, I never would have quit my job. I’m tired of the law. I’m tired of rich people trying to get out of paying what they legitimately owe the government. Maybe I could write about that. Do you think a riveting account of tax evasion has a chance of making it to the Times Book Review?”

  Cheryl was gathering up her things—purse, sunglasses, and her Bloomie’s bag. “Kate, you know I love you, but if you’re having problems, have you thought about a therapist? Maybe if you talked to somebody, you’d feel better.”

  I stood up, gave her a kiss, and waved her away. I sat for a long time, looking at my drying potatoes and picked-over bones. I actually had thought about calling somebody, but I kept thinking I’d just wake up one morning and something would change that would make me feel so much better. So far that hadn’t happened.

  But when I got home, I clicked on the computer, and there it was—an e-mail from Jake Windom. Saying that he’d love to see me again, and would I consider coming into Manhattan for a drink?

  I spent a long time looking at the e-mail. Then I clicked my way over to his Facebook page, which I had bookmarked as per Alisa’s instructions, and looked long and hard at Sandra the Beautiful. How could I possibly compete with that?

  But did I want to compete with that? Or did I just need to see him so that I could finally feel like it was over, thirty years after the fact?

  So I e-mailed him back, asking him to name the time and place. I’d be there.

  Alisa found a job. Being a brilliant girl, with a degree in neuroscience from one of the country’s leading universities, and being a doctoral candidate with another one of the country’s leading universities, she got a job completely in keeping with her education and intelligence—in a coffeehouse as a barista.

  She was very excited. It was right in town, she could work four mornings a week, and they were starting her at ten dollars an hour.

  Normally, something like that would have caused me to roll my eyes and mutter, “Are you kidding?” but since I couldn’t even manage to get an interview at a coffeehouse, I kept my mouth shut.

  When I told her I was going into New York on Thursday, to see the new exhibit at the Met that I’d been planning on seeing for weeks, and, oh, yes, afterward have a drink with Jake, she jumped up and down and dragged me into my bedroom.

  “You need to wear something fab,” she said, heading for my closet.

  “I don’t have anything fab,” I told her. “I was a lawyer. I have seventeen different black suits. That is not fab.”

  She was staring into my closet. I kept waiting for her to say, “No, Kate, we’ll find something,” but she didn’t. She finally turned around to look at me.

  “How many black suits?”

  I cleared my throat. “Seventeen.”

  “You kept seventeen black suits? That makes no sense. Unless you were thinking about finding a job at a funeral parlor.”

  “No, I was not, but I didn’t want to get rid of thousands of dollars’ worth of designer clothing simply because of color. It seemed wrong.”

  She nodded. “Okay, I can understand that. But where are all the rest of your clothes? I mean, you haven’t worn one black suit since we moved in, and I know that you’ve been out with Tom a few times, so I’m assuming there’s an alternative wardrobe somewhere.”

  I walked into the closet and pushed all the suits aside. There, stuffed into the corner, was a flash of color.

  Alisa looked at me sternly. “Kate, get rid of the suits. Donate them to Dress for Success or something. At least half of them.” She grabbed a five-foot length of black suit, lifted it up, and handed the whole thing to me. I staggered out of the closet and threw the suits on the bed, then went back in.

  Now that there was a little more room in the closet, and the overwhelming sense of doom
was lightened, she started looking through my clothes. She finally grabbed a few things and threw them at me. “Try those on,” she ordered.

  She was right. I had gone out with Tom, but for our first date I had worn my semi-chic standby—a loose pantsuit in sapphire blue that I usually wore to informal dinners with my former law-firm buddies. I’d worn it because I wanted to look confident and successful. What did I want to look like for Jake?

  Alisa had found two very colorful sundresses that I had completely forgotten about. She also pulled out a few pairs of linen crop pants and some great sleeveless silky tops from Chico’s. Perfectly acceptable to wear for casual drinks. We tried everything on.

  “You have a great body for someone your age,” she said.

  I tried to not cringe at the age thing. “I’ve always been built like a piece of decking—long and narrow. I’d kill for boobs, or even a little butt.”

  “Yes, but you look so great in clothes.”

  I sighed. True. But out of clothes, I looked like a pale, slightly wrinkled two-by-four.

  We finally settled on one of the sundresses, because the ruffles around the neckline gave the illusion of breasts. I didn’t know why I was bothering—Jake had seen me naked—often—and he had never minded my flat chest. In fact, he told me more than once he was not a boob man. And he would joke—“Why bother with a bra? I like easy access.”

  Apparently, judging from Sandra the Breast-iful, things had changed.

  Now all I had to do was stop feeling guilty about seeing him. Tom and I had spent another night together, with a bit more success in the ecstasy department, and he had been calling every day. Just to check in, he said, but I was not at all girlishly delighted by his attention. I didn’t need anyone checking in on me. Not yet, anyway.

  I did not feel like I was cheating on Tom, for several reasons. First, I didn’t feel committed to him in any way. Second, I was just having a drink. With an old friend. Who was currently dating a woman who could easily slip into the Miss Universe bathing suit competition and feel right at home.

  So there was nothing for me to feel guilty about.

  “So then why,” I asked Cheryl the next day, “do I feel guilty?” I had picked her up just a few minutes earlier, and we were on our way to New Hope for a day of shopping and lunch.

  She looked thoughtful. “Maybe you feel guilty about all your fantasies about him,” she said at last. “Because you dreamed of finding him again and jumping his bones and having him fall madly in love with you, and then you could live with him in his fabulous estate in White Plains and live the life of a pampered CEO’s wife.” She sighed. “So the two of you could vacation in Paris and Tahiti, and go to the kind of charity functions that get your picture in Town and Country magazine.”

  I glanced over at her. “Cheryl, have you been smoking again?”

  “Oh, yes, but I still think I have a valid argument. You’re not feeling guilty about what you’ve done as much as what you’d like to do.”

  “I don’t think,” I said slowly, “that I want to be a CEO’s wife.”

  “Course you do. You were a great doctor’s wife, so it’s only natural. Yes, I know, you were a lawyer with a master’s and blah, blah, blah, but really, wouldn’t you love to be rich?”

  “Cheryl, you can’t do this anymore.”

  She glared at me. “What? Tell you the cold, unvarnished truth?”

  “No. Get high without me. When you’re stoned, my only defense is to be just as stoned.”

  She reached into her massive Coach purse and pulled out a joint. “Here. I found one of those great do-it-yourself rolling machines online. Do you want me to get it started for you?”

  I instinctively looked in the rearview mirror, expecting flashing blue lights and a siren. “Please put that away. Not when I’m driving—are you crazy?”

  She sighed. “Remember the good old days, when I would give you a shotgun at forty miles an hour?”

  “Cheryl, don’t you think you’re smoking a little too much of that stuff? I mean, I get an occasional Friday night, but seriously? At ten in the morning?”

  “Well, it’s better than drinking at ten in the morning, which would have been my choice three months ago. I started smoking pot so I wouldn’t drink too much.”

  “Maybe you need to figure out why you were drinking too much.”

  “I know why. I was lonely and bored. What the hell else does a fifty-five-year-old single woman do who doesn’t work and has lots of time on her hands?”

  Since that described me to a tee, I felt a little nudge of concern. “You’re not lonely anymore,” I said, grasping for any straw in the wind. “Aren’t you dating three men?”

  “No, just one now. Marco.”

  I glanced over. She looked fairly inscrutable. “Really? So, he came over…?” I asked.

  She continued the Sphinx look. “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “Well, the good news is that I didn’t embarrass myself. And I came so hard I practically threw myself off the bed. But he has a very tiny penis.”

  I concentrated very hard on keeping the car on the road. “Oh?”

  “Yes. You know all the stuff about how it’s not the size of the ship but the motion of the ocean? Well, that’s crap. Luckily, he’s aware of his own, ah, shortcomings, and has found creative ways to compensate. And he’s a lovely man, truly. But he’s very busy. Sure, I’ve got great Monday nights to look forward to, but what about the other six nights? And seven days? That’s a long time to be alone, rearranging closets and avoiding the treadmill.”

  I had absolutely no words to say, so I kept my mouth shut.

  “So,” she said after a few minutes, “how are you and Tom getting along?”

  I shrugged and kept my eyes on the road. “Fine. Things are a little more interesting in the bedroom, and we’re having a lot more fun doing a few things together. But it’s weird—I had invited him to come with me today, but he said he was busy. Then I told him you were coming as well, and he was suddenly not busy and asked if I wanted to drive down the shore for the day instead. I mean, really? And now it seems like he’s checking in with me. A lot.”

  “You don’t want one of those insecure, possessive types. They’re killers. Really. They choke the life right out of you.” She suddenly sat up. “Look, a McDonald’s. Could you pull in? I’m starving.”

  Of course she was. I parked and she ran inside, emerging a few minutes later with two bags and a large drink.

  “Jeez, Cheryl, got enough food?” I said as she strapped herself in.

  She put the drink in the cup holder and opened one of the bags. The scent of french fries filled the car, and I immediately wanted at least sixteen of them.

  “I wasn’t sure what I felt like, so I got one of everything. And extra-large fries. Wanna share?”

  Of course I did, so we pulled back on the road, and I snacked on fries while she took four bites out of everything in the bag. When we arrived, I was bloated and slightly nauseous from the smell of fried food.

  New Hope, Pennsylvania, for those who don’t know it, is an odd combination of hippie, New Age, and biker. Lots of what used to be called head shops and turquoise jewelry, psychics, stores selling Wiccan supplies and leather, and biker bars. There are also lots of vintage clothing and jewelry shops, some great art places, and at least three pet-themed shops. If you cross the bridge to Lambertville, it’s a bit more upscale—less Harley-Davidson and more twee.

  Cheryl got out and began feeding quarters into the meter. “Is four hours enough, or should we count on staying a bit longer in case we have lunch?”

  “Cheryl, honey, how can you possibly think about food?”

  She conscientiously threw away both bags full of leftovers. She took a deep breath, flung open her arms, and pushed forward her chest, causing a man walking his dog up the sidewalk to bump into a tree.

  “It’s a beautiful day,” she declared. “Walking around in this glorious sunshine will stir the juices, I promise. Le
t’s shop.”

  It was a Wednesday, and during the week there were fewer motorcycles and more dog walkers on the streets of New Hope. The trees had all leafed out, the sidewalks were fairly empty and shaded, and all the shop doors were open to the warm breezes coming off the Delaware River. There was a hint of incense in the air, mixing with the smell of grilled burgers and roasting garlic.

  We were trolling a vintage clothing store when Cheryl grabbed my arm and pulled me into a corner.

  “This shop is for sale,” she hissed.

  I looked at her.

  “What? For sale? How could you possibly know that?”

  “Because I was eavesdropping, that’s how. The owner over there was on the phone with a broker. The whole building, inventory and all, is up for grabs. Buy it with me.”

  I stared at her. “Cheryl, why would we want to buy this place?”

  She looked around lovingly. “Didn’t you read that great book about the woman who had the vintage clothing store, and how every piece of Chanel had a story, and there was an old lady, and kind of a romance? It was charming.”

  “That is not reason enough to buy something like this.”

  “Well, you need something to do with your life, and so do I. We could be partners.”

  “We know nothing about retail. Or vintage clothing. And it’s an hour commute each way. And if I know you, you’d spend all your time wearing the inventory.” I shook my head. “First Alisa and her cupcake shop idea, and now this. Why would I want to start my own business in this economy?”

  “Because,” Cheryl said, “you have nothing to lose. You’re smart, hardworking, and if you don’t find something to occupy your time, you’ll end up like me. Stoned and miserable.”

  I looked at her. “Oh, Cheryl, I wish I could find something like in your book, really. I’d love to be your partner in something really great. But I don’t think this is it.”