Hangovers & Hot Flashes

by Kim Gruenenfelder

  Hangovers

  &

  Hot Flashes

  ALSO BY KIM GRUENENFELDER

  Love the Wine You’re With

  Keep Calm and Carry a Big Drink

  There’s Cake in My Future

  Misery Loves Cabernet

  A Total Waste of Makeup

  Hangovers

  &

  Hot Flashes

  KIM GRUENENFELDER

  This a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  HANGOVERS & HOT FLASHES. Copyright © 2018 Kim Gruenenfelder

  All rights reserved.

  To my sister Jennifer, my first girlfriend, and to all of the strong girlfriends in my life since. And to Brian, Alex and Dad, because the men in my life have been pretty awesome too.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to every woman who bought this book. I’ve been wanting to write about 40something characters for years, but was afraid no one would want to read it.

  Thank you to Kim Whalen, my amazing agent, who encouraged me to move out of my comfort zone and write something new.

  Thank you to Quinn Cummings, who not only read and gave a great quote for this book, but also gives me love and support and so much laughter all the time.

  And thank you to all of the other strong, loving women I’m so lucky to have in my life: Jennifer Gruenenfelder, Carol Campbell, Haley Edwards, Maibre Edwards, Dorothy Kozak, Nancy Redd, Carolyn Townsend, Lila Funge, London Hayes, Melissa Masters, Gaylyn Fraiche, Jennifer Good, Suzi Hale Sexton, Janis Forster Gruenenfelder, Jean Campbell, Katie Kelly, Bridget Kelly, Shana Campbell, Leigh Harrison Helberg, Sonja Warfield, Laurie Lehman, Michele Carroll, Zaina Dadah, Cassandra Campbell and Faa Brimmo.

  One

  Alexis

  “What do you want from your life? When you're sitting in your rocking chair, fifty years from now, will you have done everything you wanted to do? Will you be the person you wanted to be?”

  If all goes according to plan, in fifty years I’ll be dead, I think to myself as I look at my crystal scotch glass, currently drained to a few half melted ice cubes. I wonder how soon I can refill my glass without my sister Lauren giving me the look.

  The beautiful young woman with the long, shiny, shampoo commercial blonde hair and beach volleyball body standing in the front of my living room continues talking, “I’m going to guess that at this exact moment in your life, you’re not where you want to be.”

  You got that right, baby, I tell her silently in my head. And by ‘baby’, I mean zygote.

  Walking Malibu Barbie won’t quit talking. “Most of us are so focused on the day-to-day struggles of life that we lose track of our long term goals. But then one day we look in the mirror and think, ‘Who the hell is that?’”

  I gave up swiping Tinder tonight for this? Seriously – I could be making out with a random thirty-two-year old right now who thinks my beach house is cool and my blowjobs are hot.

  Barbie continues to address my living room full of women, “Maybe you hit a fork in the road when you were young and made a left when you should have made a right. And that one mistake has haunted you for decades.”

  I look over at my friend Zoe, typing on her phone, and realize she is texting our friend Michelle, sitting next to her. Michelle laughs aloud as Zoe shoots her a proud smirk.

  “Or maybe it wasn’t a fork in the road. Maybe at some point, you just ran out of gas. Or you never had the confidence to do what you really wanted to in the first place.”

  My eyes wander the room until I land on Kayla, my old college dorm mate, who eyes me as she turns her index finger into a pistol and pretends to shoot herself in the mouth. I smile approvingly.

  “Some of you have lost focus because, for the most part, things are going okay. You have some of what you want, and you don’t want to risk losing it. You don’t want to complain, rock the boat, be selfish. But then you can’t sleep at night because you’re wondering, ‘Is this all there is? Will I have no new adventures for the rest of my life?’”

  My sister Lauren, dear, sweet, anal-retentive Lauren, appears to be taking notes. Of course she is. One year younger, Lauren is still super cute at forty-four and, much like a supporting character in a bad romantic comedy, has her life completely together at all times. She is one of those women who, despite enduring the full time job of mothering four beautiful boys, seems to cobble together enough free time to run marathons, run the PTA at two different schools, and run a dance studio. Everything in her life is perfect, and I mean that in the most exhausting way possible. Even her hair is exhausting. She calls it “Auburn Balayage." I call it wasting six hundred dollars every six weeks to pretend that at forty-four she has the same hair she did at eighteen.

  I get a combination of “soft blonde” lowlights and “pale blonde” highlights to match my pale skin and blue eyes, and I don’t pay six hundred dollars for the privilege. According to my hairdresser, this washes out my face and makes me look older than my forty-five years on this planet. You get told crap like this by people who cater to well-off women of a certain age. I have never been told this by a straight man, by the way. Particularly when the lights are out and my mouth is...

  “Are you living your dream right now, or are you living someone else’s dream and pretending it’s your own? And are the actions you're taking today bringing you closer to your dreams, or pushing them farther away? It’s time to wake up and ask yourself: 'What do I really want out of life, and what am I willing to do to make it happen?' That’s why you need a life coach. That’s why you need me, Britney Blake. I’m going to help you make all of your dreams come true.”

  My hand shoots up. Britney smiles and points to me. “Yes.”

  “How old are you?” I ask in a tone that is part derision/part if you steal one more man from my age group I will gut you like a catfish.

  Britney looks stymied. Manages to stammer out, “Age is a concept we humans created. It is meaningless. Why the immortal jellyfish…”

  “I’m gonna cut you off right there. Name three Charlie’s Angels.”

  Britney appears confused by my question, but eventually answers, “Lucy Liu, Drew Barrymore, and Cameron Diaz?”

  “Wrong. First episode of ‘Friends’ you saw at 8:00 on NBC?”

  “Uh… I don’t think I ever saw it at 8:00. Used to be on twice a day when I first…”

  “Wrong!” I interrupt, then continue my rapid fire questioning. “First president you remember?”

  “Bush,” Britney answers confidently.

  “H.W. or W.?”

  “Huh?”

  I wave her off. “I retract the question. First celebrity crush?”

  “Justin Timberlake.”

  “Who’s the real Batman?”

  That last one really stumps her. Britney takes a stab in the dark. “Christian Bale?”

  I look over at the group. “She’s twenty-eight.”

  And my living room erupts into gasps reminiscent of a room full of extras in a ‘Law and Order’ courtroom after Sam Waterston gets a witness to confess on the stand.

  “Okay, yes, I’m twenty-eight,” Britney admits. “But…”

  “Lauren, why on earth would you hire a twenty-eight year old to give advice to a bunch of fortysomethings?” I ask my sister. (Lauren also has time to organize these activities for our group of women friends. Sometimes her activities are a hit. I particularly liked the “Cabernets of Napa” night, for example. And sometimes they are a twenty-eight year old life coach.)

  “I didn’t!” Lauren insists. “I booked Dr. Leslie Etchins, author of Oh, Hell Yes!”

  Lauren ho
lds up a hardcover book, which features an older woman with white hair, even whiter teeth, too much makeup, and a smile so wide she’d make a muppet look grumpy.

  Kayla, as an African American, is the only one among us who can state unequivocally, “That woman is way too white to say ‘Oh, Hell yes.’”

  “So what are you doing here, Barbie?” I ask.

  “Britney.”

  “Yeah, I don’t care. Why are you here?”

  “Um… well…” Britney stumbles. “I am Dr. Etchins’ protégé… and she… graciously allowed me to take her place this evening after…” Britney looks around the room nervously. “Being arrested for trying to stab her husband with a fork.”

  Lauren gasps. Zoe appears amused.

  “It was only a salad fork!” Britney quickly adds. “She didn’t really mean it. It was a regrettable reaction to her husband announcing that he was leaving her for their daughter’s…” Britney can’t bring herself to say the word. Finally utters under her breath, “Stepdaughter.” Then she tries to win back the room. “But I’m good at this job! Just give me a chance. As a younger person, I can help you get back your passion for life.”

  “Ha!” Michelle chortles. “When was the last time you had sex?”

  “Yesterday!” Britney announces proudly. (I’m not sure if she’s proud to finally get a question right, or just bragging.)

  “I haven’t had sex in almost a year," Michelle tells her. “How do you propose I fix that?”

  Britney face brightens as she points to Michelle. “There are a lot of good dating sites…”

  Michelle shuts her down with, “I’m married.”

  “Oh. Okay, then. Have you tried…”

  “I’ve tried date night, booze, toys, dirty talk, role playing, hotel rooms, and porn. I’ve tried begging, demanding, nagging and crying. Thoughts?”

  Britney squints her eyes, and furrows her brow. (Damn her and her furrowed brow! I’m jealous of anyone who doesn’t have to Botox the crap out of her forehead every four to six months.) “Well… Maybe you don’t really want a guy who wants you when you’re crying…”

  “I even put on a pink fuzzy bear suit," Michelle continues. “Please don’t ask me for details.”

  “I’ll ask you not to give details," Kayla says, only half-jokingly. Kayla takes a sip of her Champagne, then asks Britney, “You know what I want to know: How do I get back to actually wanting to go out on a Friday night, rather than wanting to pour myself a glass of Sauvignon Blanc, assume corpse pose on the couch and see what’s on Amazon Prime?”

  “Oh, Friday nights," Zoe sighs, waxing nostalgic. “Remember actually going out AFTER 10 p.m.?”

  “And having the biggest worry of the night be, ‘Who am I going to meet?’” Lauren says, continuing Zoe’s thought, “Rather than, ‘Is my husband going to want to have sex when we get home?’ I love him, but let’s face it, four natural births without an episiotomy can make sex painful.”

  “Not as painful as a whip and tickle,” Michelle challenges. “I mean, when you get the wrong end. The marabou feathers are okay.”

  “Why would you want marabou feathers on a whip?” Lauren asks in confusion.

  “Do you really want me to tell you?” Michelle challenges her. Lauren quickly shakes her head “no” several times, then takes a nervous sip of her club soda.

  “You can’t feel bad about your diminishing sex drive," Kayla, a urologist, tells Lauren. “A lack of sex drive is completely normal for women our age. Women’s vaginas start to dry up as early as forty, and between that and the tearing you get from childbirth if you don’t have an episiotomy, you can be looking at major pain.”

  “Do you think that’s the biggest reason your patients don’t want sex?” Michelle asks her.

  “I’m not sure if it’s the biggest reason,” Kayla answers. “Honestly, after listening to women complain for almost two decades, I suspect the biggest obstacle keeping the average woman from wanting sex isn’t pain, it’s exhaustion. If a husband really wants sex at the end of the night, he should get to work on the real foreplay in your forties: cook dinner, help with homework, do a load of dishes or laundry, and make sure the kids are bathed, brushed and in bed.”

  “Kids in bed. Preach!” Zoe concurs. “Go the Fuck to Sleep isn’t just for toddlers. There should be a teen edition.”

  “I think we’re veering off course a little…” Britney pipes in sheepishly.

  “Speaking of exhaustion: I want to know how to get my energy back," Michelle commands. “I used to be able to go on three hours of sleep, some jalapeno poppers, and a bag of Chips Ahoy. Now if I have a snack bag of Fritos with my salad, I can’t button my jeans the next day.”

  “Oh. Jalapeno poppers," Zoe, still holding onto a few pounds from her pregnancy (seventeen years ago), says wistfully. “And fried food. And pizza! Back in college, I could eat everything, all day, and never gain weight.” She turns to Britney and asks, “How do I get back my lightning fast metabolism? How can I get back to eating whatever I want?”

  Britney looks up at the ceiling for inspiration. “Well…”

  “Forget the lightning fast metabolism," I interrupt. “How do I get back my lightning fast energy? I have interns and PAs who can work a twelve hour day, go out partying until two in the morning, then somehow get their asses back to the set or the office by eight the next morning ready to start everything all over again. And they’re not even getting paid well.”

  “That’s because they still have that optimism that comes from youth," Kayla answers.

  “She’s right!” Zoe says, pointing to Kayla. “It’s not just the energy to party until last call for one raucous weeknight. It’s having that energy all of the time, fueling that feeling of optimism, knowing everything is going to work out if you just go for it.”

  “Jesus, I miss being that naïve," Michelle says, shaking her head. “Having all of these really grand ideas about how my life was going to turn out. Knowing exactly what my husband would be like, how many kids I’d have and what gender they’d be, how my career would soar because the women’s revolution was over, and we won…” We all snicker at that one.

  I chime in, “How about being absolutely certain that whatever I was doing at any given moment was absolutely the right thing to be doing? No doubts. No second guessing. I was always sure I was doing exactly what I needed to at that moment. I was invincible.”

  Britney pipes up, “Okay, that I can help with, because…”

  “It’s easy to be invincible when you know there’s no chance you’ll land splat on the ground. We also had safety nets back in our twenties," Kayla points out. “If you had to, you could move back home. Embarrassing, but it was there. And there were no mortgages. No spouses or kids relying on your paycheck…”

  “Or parents," Michelle chimes in.

  “Right," Kayla agrees, maybe a little bitterly. “Plus no retirement funds to worry about, or college funds.”

  “Any money you made could be spent on you and your dreams," Zoe adds. “Do you know once, back in the 90s, I spent sixty-five dollars just on a red lipstick and matching liner. And I looked good!”

  “Of course you looked good. We all looked good," I agree. “With our tight bodies that we thought were fat…”

  “Boobs that defied gravity…” Kayla adds wistfully.

  “And eye shadow that could be applied smoothly, without that crepey feeling you get," Zoe tosses in.

  “Don’t get me started on the crepey skin. Ugh… and the amount of foundation we now use to cover up wrinkles and under eye circles," Michelle adds. “Hey, remember when hair color could be bold and silly? Jet black with pale skin or bright pink with a tan? Now the stylists are telling all of us to highlight and color to a specific shade of blondish brown, whether we have olive skin or ivory.”

  “I call that color Brentwood Blonde," I say.

  “I think they’re calling it Beverly Hills Blonde these days," Zoe says, squinting her eyes as she lifts a tuft of Lauren’s hair to
scrutinize the color. Irritated, Lauren gently takes her hair back and lightly smacks Zoe’s hand.

  “Kayla, do you know if women can safely dye their pubic hair?” Michelle asks out of the blue. “I mean, to a normal color.”

  “I’ve seen it on some of my patients.”

  “Ah… your first gray pubic hair," I snarkily state. “That’s a fun age to get to.”

  “I also want to know what idiots decided that, as a collective society, we should agree to wear four inch heels for decades," Kayla says as she stands up to head to my kitchen for a refill. “I mean, shoes designed to give us plantar fasciitis? The Marquis De Sade? Henry VIII? I’m taking names.”

  “Okay, guys, we seem to have lost the point of this life coaching session," Lauren tells us, using her stern Mommy voice. “If all we wanted to do was sit around and bitch about being in our forties, we could have done that at a fake book club meeting.”

  “Why aren’t we doing book club anymore?” Zoe asks. “I miss the cocktails and the camaraderie.”

  “What you don’t miss, Zoe, are the books. Because none of you ever read any of the books!” Lauren snaps in exasperation.

  I try to defend us by weakly saying, “Well, not every chapter.”

  Lauren whips her head around to me. “You thought Sweetbitter was a cookbook. Now can someone please ask Britney, who we are paying by the hour, and who charges more than a stilt walker…”

  “How would you know what a streetwalker charges?” Zoe asks. “Wait, was that woman who gave us lessons on how to give the perfect blowjob a streetwalker?”

  “I said ‘stilt walker’," Lauren huffs. “Remember the circus class?”

  Collective groans from the rest of us.

  Lauren takes a deep breath to center herself, then in her I will turn this car around voice threatens, “I am going to count to three. And if, by the time I get to three, no one has asked a productive question, so help me God I will bring the eighty-two year old sex therapist back to our next meeting. Who, by the way, is not a streetwalker. What would that street even look like?!”