“Hannah. You have a date,” Jay said, his eyes narrowed to slits.
“She’s turning bright red,” Chloe said, looking at me, “like a farmer’s market tomato.”
“It’s so SaMo to draw delineations between farmer’s market tomatoes and evil grocery store chain tomatoes,” Aimee said.
“How could you hold out on us?” Jay said. “We’re your best friends.”
“Who are, you know, still breathing,” Aimee added.
“Okay,” I said. “So … yes, I have a date. This Friday night. With Tom.” Jay hugged me. You would have thought I’d just announced I was giving birth to Gerard Butler’s baby.
“It’s nothing, just dinner and a movie, a French film.”
“The one with the two hot, young, smooth-skinned French-Algerian actors who get naked twenty-three minutes and twelve seconds in, or the one with the tits?” Jay asked.
“It’s too soon for anything French,” Chloe said. “Why not the Reese Witherspoon movie? I love everything she does. Did you know she picks up her kids from school every single day?”
“Hannah,” Jay said, “your chances of getting some just multiplied.”
“I’m not sleeping with him,” I said.
“Of course not,” Chloe said.
“Of course, yes,” Jay said.
“De rigueur,” Aimee said. “D’accord.”
“Exactly,” said Jay. “You know what this means, kids? It means … we have a project.”
“A raison d’être!” Aimee said.
“Something to do,” Chloe asked, “besides sit with our feelings?”
“I appreciate your concern, I do,” I said, “but I can handle this on my own. I’ve been on a date before.”
“When was your last first date?” Jay asked.
“Ah … over four years ago.”
“Before Twitter, before Facebook, before sexting …,” Jay said.
“Before papers,” Aimee said.
“Papers?”
“Call your gyno right now,” Jay said. “You need to get in before Friday. Girl, you need your papers!”
I hung up the phone. My gynecologist had a cancellation that morning—I’d be able to see her before my date with Tom. Not that we were going to go all the way (oh, dear God—my thighs were not ready for prime time) but the big show could happen someday, and apparently I needed to have my papers ready.
“My people always have their papers on them,” Jay said, fiddling with his iPod.
“They actually bring signed notes from their doctors?” Chloe said. “I’m so glad I’m not single.”
“But you are single,” we all said at once.
“No, I’m not,” Chloe said. “We’re separated but living together.”
“What do you call that,” Aimee asked, “besides a recipe for murder-suicide?”
Chloe turned to Aimee. “I bet you don’t have papers. Because then you’d have to tell the truth.”
“I don’t have any diseases,” Aimee said. “I’ve never even been pregnant. I can’t.”
“Pregnancy is not a disease,” Chloe said. “It’s a gift.”
“Snore,” Jay said.
“If it’s a gift, I’d return it,” Aimee said. “There’s no way I would raise a child in this world.”
Chloe clucked her tongue. “All that sex, and no baby.”
“No, but she almost killed a man once,” Jay pointed out. “That counts for something.”
Brandon looked up from buttering his toast. “What happened?”
“Darling, Aimee gave a man a brain aneurysm during sex,” Jay said. “He came within seconds of dying. And came within seconds of dying.”
“He said he was fine,” Aimee said. “It was a headache. Sometimes that happens after sex. Look it up. It’s called ‘coital cephalgia.’ ”
“She’s a loaded weapon, Brandon,” I told him.
“Aimee should come with a warning, ‘Do not ride if you have a heart condition,’ ” Jay said. Aimee threw an orange at Jay, who caught it and smiled. Brandon walked out, his toast left on the plate, half buttered.
“I feel like I’m debuting at the Met,” I said.
“Don’t think of it like the Met,” Jay said. “Think of it like dinner theater at Fort Lauderdale.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Now,” said Jay, “we have two days to get our girl in dating shape. On the third day, we pray. I’m sick of dying Ralph’s hair over and over and sewing him little outfits—I need this. Girls—wardrobe, plucking, waxing … then we start on Hannah!”
* * *
I sat in Dr. Batra’s waiting room, wondering how my hip, young Indian-American gynecologist could afford French Vogue and Italian Elle. I was old enough to remember when gynecologist’s offices only had Parenting magazine and the Free Press. Now there were the stand-up advertisements for Botox and Juvéderm and vaginal rejuvenation. Remember when vaginas were nobody’s business?
I was moved to a pastel green room with a pastel green reclining table, where I heard water gurgling through the walls.
“What’s that?” I asked the cherub-faced medical assistant, pointing to where the water sounds were coming from. “Broken pipe?”
She frowned. “It’s our sanskrit meditation series.”
“Oh,” I said. “I’m used to other sounds for my medical and dental needs—when I think dentist, I think Celine Dion and Bryan Adams. My gyno mix tape would be more like Tina Turner and early Madonna.”
She just stared at me.
“I forgot—mix tapes—they’re from the late eighties. You were probably just a kid.”
“I was born in ’91.”
Now it was time for me to stare. People born in the nineties should not even be talking yet. Or driving. Or feeding themselves. Enough!
“Please take off all your clothes and put on this robe.” She patted a pink, fluffy robe folded up on the examination table, and walked out.
Dr. Batra was my new doctor—she’d taken over Dr. Kelso’s practice. Dr. Kelso was old school. Dr. Kelso’s robes were made of paper. And music? Forget it. I undressed, first stop on the journey toward Grief Sex. I waited in my fluffy pink robe and read the latest Harper’s Bazaar with SJP on the cover. I was not at all comforted by her muscular arms, happy marriage, and twin babies.
Dr. Batra, all five feet of golden-skinned mellifluence, slipped into the room. She lowered her head, her shiny black hair combed back into a bun, gave me a warm smile, and took a seat on the short swivel chair that added an element of fun to a gynecological exam.
“So, Hannah,” she said, her voice like honey on bread, “how have you been? How long has it been since I’ve seen you?”
“A year,” I said. I’d only seen her once, one year ago. When everything was normal. I had a child, a husband, and a career. Now I was batting one out of three. I sighed.
“That bad, huh?” Dr. Batra asked. “Do you have any questions? Concerns?”
“I have many, many concerns. Only a hundred of which have to do with my nether regions.”
She smiled. Warmly. Again. It was hard to hate her, despite her youth, unblemished skin, and Harvard medical degree.
“Are you and your husband sexually active?” she asked. Her eyes flickered toward my ring finger, ever so briefly.
“Not exactly,” I said. “That’d be a neat trick. Not that I haven’t thought of it.”
I looked at her puzzled expression.
“He died. My husband died. This past September. I … I can’t take the ring off.”
Her big dark eyes turned sad, her warm smile vanished. “I’m so sorry,” she said, involuntarily rubbing her rounded belly.
“You’re pregnant,” I said. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you,” Dr. Batra said softly.
Uncomfortable silence made a guest appearance. Neither of us knew what to say.
“Shall we start?” Dr. Batra said. I put my feet in the stirrups, and Dr. Batra inserted a speculum inside me—a warm speculum
. I flinched.
“Is it cold?” she asked.
“No, it’s warm—when did that start happening?”
“Oh, we warm them up here. It’s much more pleasant.”
I lay there with the warm speculum inside me—not as sexy as it sounds.
“Forgive me for asking, I have to ask, are you ready to become sexually active again?” Dr. Batra said.
I snorted. Not smart when your legs are wide open, in stirrups, with a microwaved speculum inside you.
“Well, yes, when I walked in here, I was becoming open to the idea of having sex,” I said. “I probably won’t, though. I mean, I might someday. And if that happens, I should be prepared. You know, have my arsenal ready. My papers. I hear you have to have papers now, to have sex?”
“Some people are cautious that way,” Dr. Batra said.
“Where would you carry that? In your wallet?”
“There’s probably a special pocket in your purse,” Dr. Batra said. “I hear Prada’s started putting them in.” Of course, she’d know about Prada.
I looked at her closely. “Do you love your husband?”
“Oh, yes,” Dr. Batra told me, “I do. Very much.”
“I’m happy for you,” I said. “Truly.”
“Thank you,” Dr. Batra said, then, “You’re going to need to get vaccinated for vaginal warts.”
“That’s not the segue I would have selected,” I said. “Isn’t this what you give twelve-year-old girls?”
“Usually around fourteen. Before girls are sexually active.”
“Fourteen? Where have you been, Doctor?” I said. “Do you see what fifth graders wear around here? Nothing, but shorter than that.”
“You need this shot, Hannah.”
“Oh, dear God. I’m not sure I can even make out. And now, I have to worry about warts?”
It was all too much. I started to cry. I’ve never felt so helpless and alone before. Even though I’ve been both, I hadn’t been smart enough or experienced enough to feel alone and helpless. Now I was old enough to know.
“What kind of baby are you having?” I asked, changing the topic.
“A boy baby,” she said, smiling.
“Oh, nice. Enjoy,” I said. “Enjoy everything. With your husband, with your baby. Every sleepless night, every spit-up. Every discussion that turns into an argument. Can you promise me that?”
“You sound like my grandmother. She was married to the same man for over fifty years,” Dr. Batra said.
I sniffed the air. Someone was baking cookies. “Do you smell that?” I asked. “Vanilla?”
Dr. Batra peered up at me from between my legs, confused. Behind her, a dark-skinned man with a full head of jet-black hair and the doctor’s same almond eyes appeared. He also wore a doctor’s coat and a tie.
I jumped. “Ouch!” I said, as she poked me by accident.
“Whoa,” Dr. Batra said. “What’s going on here?”
“Do you have to show up now? Really?” I wanted to slam my legs shut, but there was the matter of the speculum.
“Hannah,” Dr. Batra said, “who are you talking to?” She rolled back on her chair.
Meanwhile, the man was trying to tell me something.
“I’m sorry, I—”
“Do you need … help?” Dr. Batra asked. Two sets of the same beautiful eyes staring at me, expressing concern. The baby.
“You want your daughter to get checked?” I asked the spirit hovering over Dr. Batra’s shoulder. Dr. Batra turned and then looked back at me, alarmed.
“Hannah, who are you—”
“Dr. Batra—Saria—you need to check your baby. The baby’s not getting enough oxygen—”
Tears were coming to Dr. Batra’s eyes. “Why are you saying this, Hannah? Why would you say—”
“Your father is very concerned. Please go today. Please. He loves you and the baby—”
“Hannah!”
“And would it kill you to call the baby Rajnan?”
Dr. Batra went white. She was about to faint. I grabbed her wrists as she went down. I was still in the chair, in the stirrups, with that medieval instrument inside me.
“Help!” I yelled. “Help!”
The medical assistant/toddler rushed in. “We need an ambulance for the doctor,” I told her. “And I need to get this thing out of me … Oh, and my papers?”
I glanced back up. The spirit was gone.
* * *
“The baby’s going to be fine,” I said, hanging up the phone in my bedroom. “I may have to find another gyno, however. Dr. Batra is completely weirded out.”
“This dead people thing is too much,” Jay said, from my closet. “Your schedule is filling up. You should be getting paid already. Now, get in here.”
Jay insisted on dressing me for my first official date of the postwidowhood millennia. Meanwhile, I was trying to ignore the dead girl with the black fingernails and frosted eye shadow trying to get my attention.
“Seriously, they are a pain in the ass,” I said as I went to the closet. “They’re used to rules—maybe I can set up my own rules. I mean, you’re right, it’s not like I’m getting paid for this.”
I held my arms out as he slipped a dress with a tag still on over my head. I squeezed into it and looked in the mirror.
“Hi, old hooker,” I said.
“Don’t,” he said. “My touchstone is Jane Fonda in Barbarella.”
I grabbed jeans and a pair of boots I hadn’t worn in a year. I hesitated for a moment—John loved me in those blue suede boots.
“Should I?” I asked, out loud.
“What is it your old friend Sylvia Sidney said?” Jay asked, already bored of dressing me.
“I’m not dead.” I repeated Trish’s words.
“I’d love to meet her, by the way,” Jay said.
“Trish’s more Georgia O’Keeffe than Sidney.”
I slipped on the jeans. They fit, though not as snug as they were a few months ago. I’d found the only way to lose weight and keep it off: widowhood.
Fuck off, Master Cleanse. We got this.
“Well, I’m not mad at Georgia,” Jay said, “but I adore me some Sylvia.”
I pulled the boots over the jeans. I was wearing a flesh-toned, stay-away-from-my-boobies bra. I opened my underwear drawer and pulled out the big guns—a black lace number I’d bought in a moment of insanity at La Perla. I’d worn it once. Frankly, I wasn’t the type of girl who was built for speed, if you know what I mean. I was built for comfort.
“Now, I know you want some,” Jay said. He put his fist to his mouth. “I think I’m going to cry.” I took off my granny bra. I never thought twice about undressing in front of Jay. We were like an old, married couple, down to the not-having-sex part.
“You know what I’m ready for?” I assessed myself. “I’m ready for mascara.”
“Oh, that reminds me,” he said, “I have a little gift for you. It’s nothing.” He handed me a silk pouch.
“You shouldn’t have,” I said. I opened the pouch. Inside were condoms and a small tube of K-Y Jelly.
“K-Y comes in convenient travel size?” I asked. “And Magnum condoms?”
“A boy can dream,” Jay said.
I left the house, waving goodbye to Jay, Brandon, and Ellie. “I’m proud of you!” Jay screamed, as I drove away. Two women walking Labrador retrievers, the NoMo drug of choice, paused and watched as I drove off.
Our French film (with tits) was showing at the Aero Theater on Montana, but first I was meeting Tom for dinner across the street at R+D Kitchen, an aggressively singles place. The bobble-headed norms were squeezed around tiny tables sipping mojitos and eating fourteen-dollar guacamole and chips. Why did other people look like they belonged no matter what? I felt like an outcast everywhere except my living room.
Tom was nowhere in sight. I sat at the one empty seat at the bar, made myself as small as possible, and tried not to throw up; I was suffering dating performance anxiety. I ordered a chardonna
y (which rhymes with outré for a reason) from the pretty bartender, and listened to conversations around me. The tennis-y blonde to my left, wearing chandelier earrings and a white halter top, complained that her JDate profile needed upgrading—the men she attracted were too Jewish-looking. The three men to my right, dressed as though they walked off a Duran Duran video, drank European beers and talked about the economy and Jennifer Aniston’s tits. I felt like I’d taken a barstool in the Village of the Damned.
The world had gone on. Like it had a right to. Before I fell into a black pit of depression and despair, without the poetry, I heard a familiar voice behind me.
“Hannah, I’m so sorry,” Tom said. He’d breezed in wearing a polo shirt and khakis, the Goyishe Uniform. “Have you been waiting long? My babysitter didn’t show up until late—I love her, but she’s not what you call punctual.”
I was so relieved to see him, I couldn’t speak. He kissed me on the cheek. His lips felt like cushions. I wanted more. I wondered what hell felt like this time of year.
“What are you having?” Tom asked. His thick, wavy hair was combed back, his light tan accentuating his perfect teeth. The blonde on my left had taken note, enough notes to form a book. She couldn’t have noticed more if he was carrying a midget on his shoulders. I felt her faux-purple-eyed laser-gaze on me. She took in my hair, my nondescript watch, the lack of fast-twitch muscles. I knew what she was thinking—What’s Mr. Hot, Eligible, Non-Jewishy Guy doing with that frizzy-haired monster who couldn’t manage a pull-up? Tom put his arm around my chair and I mustered a smug glance at the blonde. Smug is harder than you think; it took muscles I haven’t used in years.
A few minutes later, Tom and I were seated across from each other at a booth.
One and a half glasses of chardonnay (which, incidentally, was the exact quotient to get into my pants, circa ’87) and halfway into my cheeseburger, I realized I was surviving my first postwidowhood date. I pushed down that familiar feeling of guilt and self-loathing in my stomach (easy to do when you’ve got a quarter pound of beef and a slab of cheddar coming its way) and focused on Tom.
The After Wife Page 19
