Living Single

by Holly Chamberlin

You remind me of my mother, men say, my teacher, my sister, my grandmother, my first girlfriend.

  Again: Was every woman All Women to all men? Were we so fundamentally interchangeable? Were we at once both mythic and unimportant in and of ourselves?

  Better minds than mine had pondered these questions.

  All I knew is that we found this flattering on the whole, the fact that we were known in some way, that we were recognized, though not for who we really were. Strange.

  Fuzzer yawned and shifted in my lap. It’s easier for kitties, I thought, isn’t it? It’s all about hormones and instinct and the simple, ruthless life force.

  Yes, it was much harder for humans.

  Who would JoAnne be without her breasts? To herself, to her friends, to men? I fervently hoped she would never find out.

  Doug managed to call from a pay phone on Sunday. I couldn’t imagine how far and wide he’d had to go to find a working pay phone. I didn’t ask. I also didn’t ask how he’d gotten my home number.

  Looked it up in a phone book, Reason said, clearly bored. Called Information.

  How bold! Romance crowed. Not to ask for your number, but just to seize it.

  I told him about JoAnne. I figured it was safe as he’d never met her and had no reason to tell anyone else her secret. Besides, I had to tell someone. It was too dark and bothersome a secret to keep inside.

  Doug responded with sympathy, and with the promise of concrete help. “Look, Erin, I’m on the endowment committee of my kids’ school with a guy who’s the best at reconstructive surgery. If it comes to that, let me get your friend in to see him. I know she’s a doctor, too, but trust me, this guy’s got a waiting list a year long. He owes me, he’ll see her quickly.”

  I was touched. Tears sprang to my eyes.

  “Thanks,” I choked.

  “Hey, don’t cry. Come on, we’ll deal with this thing. Okay?”

  I nodded, but he got the message.

  We hung up soon after that. I imagined Doug skulking around outside the bathrooms in a mall, looking over his shoulder for anyone he knew, hoping to get away unnoticed.

  He was such a good man.

  Two nights later I was sitting on the couch watching King of Queens—a secret vice—when the phone rang. I adjusted Fuzzer ever so slightly—he glared anyway—and answered.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s me. The biopsy was negative.”

  Tears sprung to my eyes and I screamed. Fuzzer glared again.

  “Oh, JoAnne, I’m so so so happy! You rule!”

  JoAnne laughed. I thought I heard genuine emotion in the laugh.

  “God, honey, I am so relieved. I feel ... I feel like ...”

  “Like this is a turning point? Like you got a new lease on life?”

  For a moment, JoAnne didn’t answer.

  “JoAnne? Are you there?” I asked worriedly.

  “Yeah. I am.” She hesitated. “Erin, you’re right. That is what it feels like. Like I got a big ole wake-up call.” JoAnne laughed again, this time more loudly. “And, honey, things are going to change! JoAnne Chiofalo is a new woman!”

  “I liked the old woman, but okay, you’ve got my support. So—what are you going to do first?” I asked, Kevin James and Jerry Stiller long forgotten.

  “Celebrate, honey. Meet me at the bar at Mistral in an hour.”

  “On a school night?” I joked.

  “Just be there.” JoAnne hung up.

  “Well, Fuzzer,” I said, rubbing his lovely beige head, “looks like our quiet night at home just got canceled.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  I’d suggested that Abby meet me at my apartment before we had to meet Maggie and JoAnne at Hamersley’s. Since she’d started to date my father, I’d avoided most of her calls. I missed Abby but I was also still angry at her on some deep, childish level. Angry at her for stealing away my daddy. But I was not so far sunk in self-pity that I didn’t also feel ashamed of this childish anger.

  So, I decided it was time I got over it. At least, it was time I pretended to get over it. “Act as if” self-help gurus suggest, and reality will follow. Besides, the more time I spent thinking about Doug Spears, the less time I had to think about Abby and Dad—doing it. I was ready to make peace.

  Abby arrived at seven, looking spiffy in a powder blue, knee-length dress with a matching, single-breasted jacket.

  “John likes me in blue,” she said when I complimented her outfit. Immediately, she clapped a hand to her mouth.

  “Oh, Erin, I guess I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.”

  I breathed and said, “Abby, it’s okay, really. Can I get you anything?”

  Abby sat at the kitchen table, a look of relief on her face. “Seltzer? Erin,” she blurted, “it’s so hard not to be able to talk to you like old times. I’m afraid that anything I say about—about me and John will be wrong and hurtful. I don’t want it to be that way.”

  So, break up with my father, I answered silently, but suddenly, that didn’t sound like the right thing to be thinking.

  Abby didn’t approve of my interest in a married man. I didn’t approve of her interest in my father. The last thing I wanted was for Abby to ride my butt about Doug. So, the last thing I’d do is ride her butt about Dad. I mean, John.

  But that didn’t mean I couldn’t ask for some ground rules. I handed Abby a glass of seltzer and sat at the kitchen table with her.

  “Can we make a pact about something? Can we agree not to talk about—uh, the personal stuff between you and—John.”

  “You mean, sex?” Abby said in a whisper.

  I put my hands over my ears. “Oh, God, yes. Please, please don’t even say that word. I so swear I’ll never ask for any information about—that. Promise me!”

  “Of course, Erin. I promise.”

  “Good. Thanks. Is there anything you want me to promise in return?” I asked. “Apart from—the personal stuff question.”

  Who knew I was such a royal prude?

  Abby thought for a moment before answering. “No. I don’t think so. But if I do think of something, I’ll let you know. Oh, wait. You could promise not to try to break us up.”

  “Of course,” I said, mildly annoyed. “I promise.” What did it matter now? I’d already tried and failed.

  The phone rang. I welcomed the interruption.

  It was Maggie. We spoke for barely a minute.

  I hung up.

  “Hmm. That’s odd.”

  “What is?” Abby asked.

  “Maggie canceled for dinner. It’s the third time she’s canceled in the past month.”

  “Maybe she’s just busy. She works really hard, you know.”

  “No, of course, I know.” Still ... “Abby, do you think she’s mad at me?”

  “At you? Why, what did you do?”

  “Nothing! But I can’t help wondering ... Maybe she’s bored with us. Maybe she’s found new friends.”

  Abby rolled her eyes.

  “Erin, this is not grade school. Adults don’t just drop good friends to hang with a cooler crowd.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. I just hope she’s okay. Maybe something’s bothering her. Maybe she’s sick. Maybe I should ask her ...”

  “I think we should leave her alone. Maggie’s a private person, Erin. She’ll talk to you when she’s ready.”

  I smiled. “You’re right. Sometimes I forget how smart you are.”

  “Thanks,” Abby said. “I think.”

  A package was delivered to my office from Trident. I picked it up at the receptionist’s desk and brought it back to my office. It had to be from Doug.

  It was. Inside was a book entitled Erotic Tales o f Ancient Japan. I opened the cover to find a handwritten inscription. It read:

  To a woman of wonderful complexity—From her avid admirer.

  I stuffed the book into a drawer of my desk and tried—unsuccessfully—to wipe the telltale grin off my face.

  Things had just been kicked up a notch.

>   JoAnne came by my apartment that evening. She was early. I left her to her own devices while I finished doing some hand laundry in the bathroom sink.

  When I returned to the kitchen, she was pacing.

  “Uh, have a seat?” I said.

  JoAnne ignored me, opened the refrigerator, sighed, and shut it again.

  “You want something to drink?” I said. “I’ll be ready in a minute. As soon as I feed Fuzzer.” The beast was slamming his head into my ankle as I popped the top of a can of Fancy Feast.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  I spooned beef chunks in gravy into a bowl and was about to put the bowl down when—

  “Oh, here’s news,” JoAnne blurted. “Martin dumped me.”

  “What? Nobody dumps you.”

  Fuzzer yowled. I gave him his dinner.

  “You’re the dumper,” I said. “You can’t dump the dumper.”

  “Apparently you can,” JoAnne replied archly. “Because Martin did. For the first time in my life, I’m the dumpee.”

  “Well, what did he say? Why did he dump you?”

  “Seems I made a huge mistake in telling him about the possibility that I was sick. He couldn’t get off the phone fast enough. He said he wasn’t good with sick people. And that he felt we’d been getting too involved and that he wasn’t ready for a commitment.”

  “The little prick.” I flung the empty kitty food can into the sink. Fuzzer didn’t even flinch, so absorbed was he in his dinner.

  “Well, I’m not ready for a big commitment, either.”

  “I don’t mean about that,” I said. “I mean his running away the second he thought you might need him. The second he thought he might have to hold your hand instead of fuck you. What a weanie!”

  “Yeah.”

  Something about that suddenly dispirited response caught my attention. Then—

  “You ... you cared about him, didn’t you?” I said. “Oh, my God, I never knew. JoAnne, I’m so sorry.”

  JoAnne shrugged dramatically. “Que sera, sera. Life goes on; tomorrow’s a new day.”

  “You’re taking this rather well.” Too well, I thought. It was suspicious.

  “Actually,” she said, rubbing her temples, “I feel like a day-old chicken part.”

  “What does a day-old chicken part feel like?”

  “Like shit. It feels like shit.”

  Now, that was more like it.

  Fuzzer sped out of the kitchen, bowl empty.

  “Do you still want to go out?” I asked.

  “Hell, yeah.” JoAnne grabbed her bag from the back of a chair. “I’m not dead yet.”

  We saw a mediocre movie, then went for a quick bite at Joe’s American. I was home by eleven; JoAnne had lost steam much earlier than she usually did. I wasn’t surprised. Before we parted, she told me she was going to tell Abby and Maggie about the cancer scare, if only to reinforce for them the importance of self-examination. I told her I was proud of her. She grimaced.

  When I got home I found a message on my answering machine from Doug.

  Hey. It’s me. I miss you. I hate not being able to talk to you... . Call me first thing Monday, okay? Bye.

  The sound of Doug’s voice in my home made me smile.

  And it made me think.

  What was it about JoAnne that had attracted Martin? Clearly, it was her strength—or his perception of it—not her vulnerability. It had to have been everything she gave, like sex, and not anything she wanted or needed, like friendship. The moment JoAnne needed support, the moment she needed Martin to be a friend as well as a lover, he’d bailed.

  Not for the first time I wondered what exactly it was about me that attracted Doug. Surely, he didn’t need the grief and pressure of a girlfriend on the side. If he was choosing me and doing it under less than perfect circumstances, something about me in particular, something about Erin Weston, had to be uniquely necessary to his happiness and fulfillment. It was an embarrassing thought in some way; I wasn’t used to considering myself as indispensable to someone.

  What drew me to Doug? A million things and yet, nothing I could describe. It seemed futile to try to explain the reasons for an emotional, physical, spiritual attraction. You could make a list of traits—I love him because he’s funny—a list of examples from true life—I love him because he rescued that stray puppy—but did any of that ever really touch the magic of an attraction that couldn’t be denied? No.

  So, I thought, what’s the point of even trying to analyze an attraction? Sure, therapists made a lot of money helping people analyze why they married the bums or bitches, the clearly “wrong” others they married. But ...

  I was content to let the truth stand unexplained and unadorned. Truth just is, I told myself. Truth is beautiful. And the beautiful truth was that I loved Doug Spears and though he hadn’t ever said the precise words, I knew that Doug Spears loved me.

  I slept very deeply that night, and dreamlessly.

  Chapter Twenty

  Erin—never got photo o f you; have you gained weight? Am down to 110 and look fab. M

  Friendship is about tolerance. It’s also about wearing each other down over time so that there are no hard edges keeping people apart. It’s about joy. When it isn’t about sacrifice.

  Each of us had hobbies or interests that not everyone else shared. Like, JoAnne’s devotion to exercise. She went to the gym regularly and when she couldn’t get there for some reason, worked out on a machine of some sort at home. Abby, Maggie, and I wouldn’t be caught dead going to a gym, each for her own reasons. Wisely, JoAnne had never even attempted to recruit us as gym partners.

  Occasionally, though, one of us would get interested in something and urge the others to join in, at least to give it a try. Like Maggie and volunteer work for the Women’s Lunch Place. She hadn’t fully brought any of us on board, but she was working on it. Or the time I got into bonsai and dragged everyone out to a class at Bonsai West in Littleton. Turned out no one shared my enthusiasm for severe pruning under the hot summer sun. Not even me.

  Or the time JoAnne convinced us to go skiing in Vermont for a weekend. None of us—including JoAnne—had ever been on skis, unbelievable as that might sound. The result was less than successful. After fumbling for twenty minutes with the stupid boots, I finally got myself clicked into the skis, fell facedown, and spent the rest of the weekend doing après-ski by the fireplace. Abby’s fur parka—once her grandmother’s—was stolen. Maggie sprained her ankle while stumbling downhill on the baby slope. And JoAnne? JoAnne—the only enthusiast among us—got called back to Boston two hours after we arrived at the lodge. One of her hospitalized patients had “taken a turn for the worse.”

  Now, it was Abby’s turn for a hobby. Somehow she’d gotten interested in scrapbooking and begged us to come to a home class she was hosting for a friend who was a consultant for Life Expressions, a scrapbook company. Maggie, much to my surprise, said yes, immediately.

  “You’re worse at crafts than I am,” I’d said. “Remember how we met? At that awful wreath-making workshop? Our wreaths were hideous. Even that eight-year-old made a prettier wreath than ours.”

  Maggie had shrugged. “I don’t know. I think it might be interesting. Plus, our being there means a lot to Abby, so ...”

  Well, if Maggie could spend the evening being sold scrapbook stuff by a woman sure to be perky, so could I.

  “No way,” JoAnne had said. “It’s going to be like a Tupperware party and I’ve paid my dues in that department.”

  “Tupperware is a good product,” I said. I didn’t really know that from personal experience but my mother had sworn by it when I was a kid.

  “Sorry. You and Maggie have fun, though.”

  In the end, JoAnne had come with us. The argument that had convinced her was the opportunity to buy Christmas and Hanukkah gifts for her staff in one fell swoop. JoAnne hated malls.

  At seven o’clock we gathered at Abby’s, a total of twelve women—none of whom I knew except for Abby, JoAnn
e, and Maggie. Talk was light and focused on the weather and the big sale at Ann Taylor. After some flavored tea and sugar cookies, Candace Recklet, the Life Expressions consultant, did her thing.

  After the pitch—which I have to admit was interesting and well-delivered—we were each given a blank white twelve-by-twelve scrapbook page and some materials and told to get busy. I’d brought a handful of photos I’d taken of Fuzzer. JoAnne had neglected to bring any photos so I gave her three of mine to crop and we moved off to the far end of the table to work. And to talk.

  “Our friend Abigail is suffering from a serious Cinderella fantasy,” JoAnne whispered, pushing aside a plate of cookies.

  “What brought that up?” I asked. “Anyway, aren’t we all, to some extent?”

  “Speak for yourself, honey. I rescue myself.”

  I wondered. “You know, sometimes I think I see myself as the prince. The rescuer, I mean.”

  “Nothing good can come of a woman rescuing a man from himself.”

  “Who said it’s from himself? Maybe it’s from, I don’t know, a corporate dragon. Pass me a cookie?”

  She did.

  “Your metabolism amazes me,” she said. Then: “Honey, the story is all about Cinderella being rescued from her own life. It’s about her being relieved of responsibility and the need to earn a living and the need to think on her own. A rescued woman is bad enough. But a rescued man? Disgusting. A pitiable wretch.”

  “I see you’ve thought about this before,” I said dryly.

  “Of course. Abby is a classic little princess just dying to be swept off her feet and taken care of. And if it happens, she’ll be suicidal by forty. And maybe an alcoholic. Most ex-princesses are.”

  “I think you underestimate Abby. She’s not as helpless as she seems. Besides, she is dating my father. That’s a—a good thing. A sign of some maturity,” I argued.

  “Maybe,” JoAnne admitted. “Maybe she has the potential to be her own woman. But she hasn’t tapped into that potential yet. Abby should rescue herself from her silly fantasies first, then go out there and find a man. No offense, Erin. I mean, a real man, not a fantasy father-man. He won’t be a prince—he might actually work for a living and so will she—but then she won’t be miserable for the rest of her life, either.”