I did. She offered me the job on the spot. I said yes.
It certainly wouldn’t be a relaxing summer, but that was okay. The way I figured it, the busier I kept myself, the less time I’d have to wonder what Simon was up to.
Chapter 15
Laura
Tip #65: There’s always a man older than you. So, you’re forty-five? Go for a sixty-five-year-old. So, you’re fifty-five? Find yourself a seventy-five-year-old. What do you care if his ass hangs down to his knees? You’re in it for the money, honey.
—So She Married a Millionaire: How to Beat Those Whores at Their Own Game
“He has no butt,” Nell whispered.
It was true. Alfonse was boyishly slim. But that didn’t seem to bother Grace, who, let’s face it, weighs like ninety pounds herself.
“Since when do you notice men’s butts?” I asked.
“Since I’ve been back in the game, I’ve realized that I like a man with a nice butt.”
“You don’t want one too big,” I said.
Nell gave me an odd smile. “Of course not, Laura.”
We were at Grace’s apartment for a little party. Grace wanted us to meet Alfonse. Personally, I thought the whole thing was a big waste of time. We all knew Alfonse would be gone before long. But, you know how it is. Sometimes you have to humor your friends.
Grace joined us, a smile on her face. On the other side of the living room, Alfonse and his three friends stood in a huddle, drinking some foul-looking stuff from odd-shaped bottles. I guess it was one of those hip drinks you see advertised on television. You know, in commercials where everyone looks like a super-gorgeous model. Anyway, since we’d arrived, the three friends hadn’t said more than “hey” to us, and even that “hey” was said like they didn’t mean it.
“Grace,” Jess said, “the place looks really nice.”
Grace smiled again. I had to admit she seemed pretty happy since Alfonse had come along. All that sex, I guess.
“Thanks,” she said. “I finally got around to repairing some of the damage Simon caused.” Grace pointed to our right. “I repainted this entire wall. Remember the time he used bicycle grease to make a self-portrait?”
“Ah, yes,” Jess said. “The great bicycle grease experiment.”
Grace rolled her eyes. “The great medicinal marijuana experiment. An altered state of consciousness might help some people create, but not Simon. Even he thought the drawing was horrible. When he recovered two days later. But of course he was too lazy to paint over it.”
I popped another pig-in-a-blanket in my mouth. I’d brought them and so far I was the only one eating them. People can be so weird about food. Like there’s something wrong with a classic like pigs-in-a-blanket? My mother served them all the time!
I looked at the newly painted wall. It was a shade of green I couldn’t name. Not my taste at all. Anyway, I tried to imagine a picture of Simon in bicycle grease. I couldn’t. I swear, I really don’t know how Grace put up with all that nonsense from Simon. If Duncan had ever scribbled on a wall, I would have called the men in white coats.
Then, again, Duncan wasn’t the type to act out. Really, he’d never once embarrassed me in public or left the toilet seat up when I asked him to put it down or farted at the dinner table. He even wiped the sink clean every time he shaved.
I shoved aside the somehow disturbing memories of Duncan’s many positive traits. I would find another man with even more good qualities. Soon. Think positive!
Alfonse called out to Grace just then and she went scurrying off to join him.
“Doesn’t Grace see that Alfonse is just another version of Simon?” Nell said in a stage whisper. “When is she going to stop dating boys and find herself a man?”
I watched Grace and her boy toy interact. He touched her cheek fondly. She kissed his cheek in response.
Well, Alfonse was okay. I mean, he was polite and all and he definitely looked cleaner than his friends. He gazed at Grace a lot. I personally don’t like that sort of thing; it kind of creeps me out, but Grace didn’t seem to mind it.
But like I said, Alfonse’s friends were another story. I frowned at them. They thought they were so cool but I thought one was skankier than the other.
“That one with the soul patch is very rude,” I said. “Did you see the way he pushed past Grace in the kitchen before?”
“They’re beyond rude,” Nell said. “They’re indifferent to us. They know we exist, but they just don’t care. They’re not the least bit interested in us as women.”
Jess frowned. “They’re not the least bit interested in us as people. Has one of them said a word to you besides that half-hearted greeting? Has one of them asked any of us a question? Even offered a social smile? It’s disgusting. I hate being so ignored.”
“On the other hand,” Nell said, “do we really want to be recognized and acknowledged by these kids? Who are they? Why should we care about them?”
“We shouldn’t care about their opinion of us, but it’s hard not to.”
“I have an idea,” I said. “After this, let’s go to Bar Loup. It’s just full of single guys and it’ll be fun. Really. Maybe we’ll all meet someone!”
Jess shook her head. “No thanks. I’ve heard of Bar Loup. It’s a meat market. Besides, after this I’m going home to bed. It’s already ten o’clock and I’ve got a busy day tomorrow. There’s end-of-semester work piled on my desk.”
I looked to my sister. “Come on, Nell, how about it?”
“And run the risk of bumping into one of my kids’ friends? No, thanks. But you go, Laura. Have fun. Maybe you’ll meet your baby’s father.”
“I can’t go to a club alone! I’ll look—desperate.”
Nell smirked. “Aren’t you?”
I know she’s my sister but sometimes I really hate her.
Anyway, Alfonse and his friends left soon after that; they were going to hear a friend of theirs who performed experimental music, whatever that is. We girls stayed and helped Grace clean up.
“Don’t you want to go with Alfonse?” I asked. I picked up a soiled napkin with my fingertips and dropped it in the trash. Ick.
Grace laughed. “I might be comfortable being with him in the privacy of my own home, but I’m not entirely comfortable being out in public with him. I know, how provincial of me, but I’m doing what I can. Besides, he and his friends stay out way too late.”
“Aren’t you afraid he’s out flirting with other women?” I asked.
“No,” Grace said, “I’m not afraid. He probably is flirting with other women. But I can’t really do anything about it, can I? I mean, we don’t have a commitment. I don’t want a commitment, not with a twenty-one-year-old. And frankly, if he’s flirting with a nineteen-year-old, I don’t want to know about it.”
“What if he’s sleeping with a nineteen-year-old?” Nell asked.
“Then I definitely don’t want to know about it.”
I looked at Grace, shocked. “You don’t care if he’s seeing other women?”
“Of course I care,” she said, dumping half a glass of beer in the sink. “We have protected sex, but if he’s sleeping around, there’s still a risk I could catch something. Okay. Can we change the topic? I’m feeling all queasy now.”
“You know,” I said, “dating services are allowed to screen for STDs. Anyway, I think they can.”
Jess laughed. “Everyone lies in personal ads and with dating services,” she said.
Sometimes she’s so cynical.
“Not everyone,” I protested.
“Everyone. It’s the extent of the lie that matters. I mean, if you tweak the truth, if you describe yourself as voluptuous instead of fat, that’s just good marketing, that’s smart self-promotion. But if you claim to be forty when you’re really sixty, well, that’s false advertisement.”
“A lie is a lie,” my sister said. “But I see your point.”
Grace leaned against the counter and folded her arms across her chest. She’s re
ally flat, maybe like a 32A.
“I read somewhere recently,” she said, “that non-Jewish men and women are looking for dates through Jewish dating services. Sometimes, they’re open about being Christian or atheist or whatever they are. Sometimes they even promise to convert. But sometimes they say nothing about religious affiliation until they’re actually on a date with someone. And then, ‘Hi, I lied; I’m not the nice Jewish man you hoped I was.’”
“That’s just wrong,” Nell said. “What kind of woman would stay with a man who starts a relationship with such a big lie?”
Jess shrugged. “ A desperate woman. A woman with no self-esteem.”
I considered. A nice Jewish man. Why not?
“You know,” I said, “the Jewish tradition is very family oriented. Maybe I should try one of their dating services. I would join their church. I don’t really care about God.”
My sister gave me one of those annoying looks, the kind that make you feel like you just said something really stupid, even though you know you haven’t.
“What?” I challenged. Nell turned away and began to load glasses into the tiny dishwasher.
“You’d have to agree to raise your children in the Jewish faith,” Jess pointed out. “And in that case you’d have to at least pretend to care about God.”
“Well, duh, I wouldn’t marry a really religious man, like someone who keeps kosher, or someone who’s, I don’t know, Orthodox.”
Nell whipped around to face me. “News flash, Laura. A religious man wouldn’t marry you, either.”
Grace unfolded her arms. “But what if Laura happens to fall in love with a man who keeps kosher?”
“She won’t,” Nell snapped. “This quest of hers isn’t about falling in love. It’s about having a baby. The man really doesn’t matter. Only his seed matters.”
I felt like I’d been slapped. “That’s a horrible thing to say! And it’s not true. Of course I want to fall in love again.”
“Do you?” Nell turned back to loading the dishwasher.
Jess patted my shoulder. “I’m calling it a night. Does anyone want to share a taxi?”
I thanked Grace and left with Jess. I didn’t say good-bye to my sister.
Chapter 16
Jess
Forget fad diets. Forget programs that charge an arm and a leg for tasteless frozen meals. The best way to lose weight is simply not to eat.
—The Post-Divorce Diet: How to Shed Those Unsightly Pounds You Put On Over the Years of Your Miserable Marriage
It was bound to happen sooner or later.
I’m not usually in the Downtown Crossing area but I needed a new pair of navy pumps. Stylish navy pumps are almost impossible to find, but I figured that somewhere within those twisting, busy streets a pair might be lurking.
Besides, shopping for shoes, even basic, sensible shoes, is always an uplifting experience. Is this something to do with female hormones or simply social conditioning?
I took the T to the Downtown Crossing stop and emerged into the uncomfortably humid afternoon. I headed toward the DSW store. At the next corner I stopped with the crowd to wait for the green light.
And there he was. Matt. My ex-husband, hand in hand with a woman.
The woman was beautiful in that all-American way, tall and blond, far more attractive than me. Even I could see that she fit better with Matt than I ever had.
I stood to Matt’s left, an old woman between us, waiting for that light to change. And suddenly, I felt scared. What if Matt saw me, what if he confronted me? I was just about to slide away when Matt turned his head.
He saw me. I know he did. I felt my mouth form a small, involuntary smile.
His sunglasses hid the expression in his eyes. His mouth indicated no particular emotion. He looked away. The light changed to green and he and his companion stepped into the street.
I didn’t cross with the others. I watched him go and as I did I realized that seeing Matt with another woman hadn’t caused any feelings of deep regret or overwhelming sadness. Mostly what I felt at that moment was relief that he hadn’t shouted, “Adulteress!” or something worse, something obscene, not that Matt was prone to using foul language, but still.
And, of course, I felt a renewed wash of guilt.
Always guilt.
For the first time since I was a moody teenager mad at the world, shoe shopping failed to lift my spirits.
There was a bomb in the mail when I got home that night. Not a literal bomb, of course, a figurative one, but one that caused some bloody maiming nonetheless.
The letter from my mother was addressed to Mrs. Jessica Fromer. I had never taken Matt’s name, but my mother had never accepted that. Now, I was divorced and she was still referring to me as someone I had never been.
I don’t remember my mother ever sending me a letter before this one. Birthday cards, Christmas greetings, even the occasional newspaper clipping, but never a letter.
I opened the envelope with some trepidation. The trepidation was warranted. My mother had taken it upon herself to scold me for the divorce. In her mind, my inability to stick with the marriage was related to my inability to stick with anything.
In her words:
In short, I’m concerned about your inability to stay with anything you start. In third grade there was ballet. You refused to go after the third lesson.
Yes, I remembered. Because one of the girls was a horrible bully and I was scared. Mom didn’t seem to remember that part of the story.
The summer you were sixteen you bought a book about chess and a chessboard and never touched either once school started in September. That was a real shame as you had so much talent at the game.
No, I didn’t have talent. I was completely untalented. And the other reason I abandoned chess that fall was because my course load was enormous what with all the Advanced Placement credits I was determined to earn before starting college.
Did my mother remember that I saved my parents the price of twelve college credits by working myself senseless that senior year?
And I’ll never understand why you left that nice young man you dated your sophomore year in college. He was so serious about you and you broke his heart. Your father and I were so disappointed . . .
I couldn’t read any more. I wondered if my mother had ever known me, even just a little bit.
That nice young man I’d dated in sophomore year of college, Bart, hadn’t been serious about me; he’d been obsessed, insanely jealous of any other male within yards of me, horribly suspicious of my every move. When he finally threw me against a wall for talking to a fellow classmate about an assignment, I’d had it. And my father had been there to support me through the process of reporting Bart to the campus police and getting a restraining order and then helping me get through the rest of the school year, avoiding Bart’s menacing presence.
Where was my mother through all this? I wondered now if my father had kept it all from her, knowing she would become part of the problem and not part of the solution. Maybe she had known what was going on but had found it convenient to forget the ugly truth.
Whatever the case, I felt stunned and hurt. Why had my mother felt the need to reopen all those old wounds? The memories had scarred over nicely but now, all these years later, they felt raw and tender again.
I reached for the phone. It was another first; I don’t think I’d ever placed an emergency call to a friend. What was happening to me? I wondered if I was breaking down completely.
“Nell,” I said, “I need to talk. Are you free?”
She was. I told her about running into Matt. And she tried to make me believe that my lack of emotional response to seeing Matt with another woman was nothing more than an instinctual response.
“Your self-preservation instincts kicked in,” she said. “That’s normal. Just because you didn’t fall weeping to the sidewalk doesn’t mean you’re incapable of love, or whatever it is you think you’re incapable of.”
“Maybe,” I said.
Then again, maybe not.
Then I told Nell about the letter from my mother. It lay where I’d tossed it, on the coffee table.
After a few sounds of outrage, Nell offered her advice. “As for the letter,” she said, “throw it in the garbage. It’s invasive and hurtful and completely out of line. And I say that as a mother myself, one who tries very hard not to cross the line between valid concern and unhelpful intrusion.”
I smiled at the wall. “My mother never could keep her mouth shut. It drives my father crazy.”
“And that’s why you’re in Boston and she’s in Florida. You don’t have to listen to her, Jess. Tear up the letter, hang up the phone, delete the e-mail. You have the power.”
I laughed. “Have you been watching Oprah?”
“No, but I am reading her magazine and I love it.”
“Maybe I should pick up a copy.”
“Maybe you should. And I should go to bed. Long day.”
I said good-bye to Nell and hung up. And then I stuffed my mother’s words into the garbage, as advised.
Chapter 17
Nell
Men are lazy. They fall into habits and stay there like a wheel stuck in mud. If you think a separation will make your husband realize how much he misses you, you’re just plain stupid. One week on his own and he’s an entrenched bachelor.
—Trial Separation: Is It for You?
His name was Charles Taylor. He was retired as the CEO of a small manufacturing firm. He’d lost his wife to ovarian cancer five years earlier. He had two grown sons. And Dr. Lakes had assured me that he had a fine moral character.
What she had failed to mention was that he was old.
I’d always been fond of Dr. Lakes. I’d been going to her since just after Colin’s birth. For almost twenty years I’d been a loyal patient. So, how did she figure I deserved this interesting surprise? Was Dr. Lakes a secret sadist? Was she fond of playing cruel jokes on unsuspecting single women?
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