Children?
I would love to have a child with Jack, but sometimes we just don’t get what we want. And sometimes we get it when we least expect it. The traumatic experience of discovering Heath’s existence in the way he did, and the struggle to be allowed access to his son, has wearied Jack. For now, at least, we’re committed to each other and to getting to know Heath and our family seems whole.
Did I mention that family now includes a ninety-pound, very messy black Lab named James?
Katie and Alma continue to thrive. They bought a building in Dorchester, made some minor repairs, and flipped the unit for a very nice sum. Emilio is off to preschool and loving it. Although they never met Ross, Katie and Alma declare that Jack is a million times the better man. I suspect one reason for their enthusiastic approbation is Jack’s skill with the grill. Yes, I finally bought a charcoal grill, and Jack has proved he possesses yet another valuable manly talent. I don’t know how the neighbors on either side of us feel about our boisterous year-round grill fests on the roof deck, but we certainly enjoy them.
My brother and his wife continue to live their hectic lives. I wish Paul would meet someone, fall in love, maybe even get married again, but I don’t see any sign of that happening for a long, long time. It makes me sad. Bess and I have gotten past most of our post-divorce awkwardness; my own troubles helped me to understand something of what Bess has gone through. Now, at least, Bess and I have something in common. Painful experiences that seem to have left us smarter people. For my part, I’ve made a conscious effort to get to know Matthew and Emma better; Bess has been open to that. Maybe someday I’ll even be brave enough to babysit.
Kristen is starting to prepare for a return to work—paying work, that is—once B.J. goes off to daycare six months from now. Job hunting is going to be a logistical hell; adjusting to the life of a career woman with three young children is going to be almost as difficult. But she’ll make it work. I have a lot of confidence in my friends.
Jack, it turns out, is quite handy with a hammer. He and Brian spend one Saturday afternoon a month working away on the old Victorian. Afterward, while the men sit in front of the TV, grunt, eat pretzels, drink beer, and probably scratch, Kristen and I sit in the kitchen and chat over a glass or two of wine. This part of our life isn’t exactly glamorous but it is entirely wonderful.
I can’t resist reporting that Michaela finally gave up her quest for a child. I’m not sure why, exactly. Rumor has it that she was turned down by every legitimate adoption agency as “unfit,” but I suspect that particular rumor was started by one of her many enemies. Like the twenty-something DAR member whose boyfriend Michaela dramatically stole while the entire guest list of a black-tie fund-raiser watched in titillated embarrassment.
I don’t know how Michaela feels about losing the fight for a child, but I have no doubt that no matter how many enemies she makes, she’ll survive to fight another battle another day. I just won’t be there to witness her triumphs or failures.
Which leads me to the struggle I am witnessing. Tracy and Bill haven’t been able to get pregnant, yet. They’ve pursued a few of the most common therapies but without any luck. I don’t know how much longer they’ll continue to try to have a child. I don’t quiz Tracy on every little step she takes on this difficult road. I do, however, see that the process is taking a toll on her; she doesn’t smile as often as she used to, and her face is bordering on gaunt.
Sometimes I wonder if it would have been better if she’d never tried; I wonder if she should just have let it go. Maybe, I think, Tracy should have resigned herself to not giving birth to her own child; maybe she should have learned to be satisfied by what she already had—a good marriage, a career, friends. And then I take myself to task for forgetting, even for a moment, that at some point or another every single one of us is compelled to pursue what we really and truly need to be happy.
Or what we think we need.
And Alexandra? My dearest friend is still blissfully happy. Well, as blissfully happy as it’s in her to be. She and Luke are weathering his divorce and all the emotional horrors that go along with the legal proceedings, but they’re together, finally, and that’s all that seems to matter to them.
Of course, they get on each other’s nerves and fight over the things every couple fights over. “It took me about a month,” Alexandra told me once, “before I remembered in full-blown detail all the things about Luke that drive me crazy. Anna, I swear I want to kill him at least once every three days. But isn’t it fantastic that now I actually have the opportunity! I mean he’s right there next to me in bed. I can reach right over and strangle him. I am a very lucky woman.”
I hope she is. I like Luke, really, but I still harbor, maybe unfairly, a small doubt about his character. I suppose he’ll have to prove to us that he’s a good man. He did give Alexandra a lovely antique engagement ring as a token of his renewed devotion. That’s a start.
Did I mention that Alexandra is now always on time?
Ross Davis. Well, Ross got married not quite six months after we broke up. I hear his wife is very sweet, very blonde, and currently very pregnant. She’s only twenty-four. She is not wearing the three-carat emerald cut diamond ring that once was mine, but she is living with Ross in the apartment I once thought would be mine.
Which is fine because the life I’m living now is my own. Totally and completely my own real life, and Jack is an integral part of that, as I’m an integral part of his own real life.
The small reunion party I arranged for Mrs. Kent was a success. Occasionally, Mrs. Kent sends me a handwritten note on her personalized stationery. The note always ends with the same phrase: “Carpe diem, my dear Anna. Carpe diem.”
I think sometimes of Mrs. Kent’s lost daughter. I think a lot about my own lost child.
One last note. Those awful nightmares, the ones about not being able to speak, about choking, about not being able to see, are becoming just nasty memories. Someday, I hope, I’ll be free of them entirely, but I suppose they still have a few lessons to teach me before they retire.
So, that’s it. That’s my story, so far. Life, as you know, is deliciously uncertain.
First comes love. Then comes marriage. Followed by boredom, infidelity, nasty surprises, and divorce.
In this wickedly funny, tender and true novel, bestselling author Holly Chamberlin introduces four Boston divorcées looking for love, sex, fun—and themselves ...
Jess Marlowe didn’t mean to fall out of love with her husband. It just happened—kind of like the passionate affair with a grad student. Oopsie. Now her marriage is over, so’s the affiar, and Jess? Well, she feels like she’s just beginning. And the only thing scarier than being in a boring, doomed marriage is the strength of her passions now that she’s free ...
Nell Keats had it all: money, marriage, two grown children. . . until the day her husband announced he was leaving her—for another man. Now, Nell’s diving back into a whole new dating pool (since when did “Let’s do it doggie style” become a romantic pickup line?) and feeling her way around. And once she breaks out of her shell, there’s no going back ...
Laura Keats, Nell’s younger sister, wanted a baby; her ex-husband didn’t. No problem. Like a general mounting a war campaign, Laura’s on a mission to find out that P.F.M. (Perfect Father Material), a quest that will take her through outrageous chat rooms, singles’ clubs, parenting groups, and other disasters, and into the arms of the one guy who should be off-limits ...
Grace Henley is still financially—and emotionally—supporting her ex, a promising artist whose greatest talent was in bed ... mostly other women’s. She can’t seem to stop listening to his tales of woe, letting him crash on her couch, even lending him money. No more. It’s time for Grace to learn to live her own life and produce her own work. But letting go is even harder than holding on ...
Nobody said life was fair. That love was forever. Or that
getting back in the game would be easy.
&n
bsp; Then again, nobody said they had to play by the
rules, either ...
Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek at
BACK IN THE GAME
coming next month in trade paperback!
Jess
So he left you for a younger, more beautiful woman. It’s a fact; accept it. No one respects a whiner.
—What Now? How to Pick Up the Pieces and Save Your Pride
“Hi,” I said, tossing my bag on an empty chair. “It’s been ages. Why are we all so busy?”
Nell smirked. “Contemporary society tells us we have to be busy. If we’re busy, our lives must be important. Busyness, I am told, helps fill the emotional and spiritual void most of us find ourselves condemned to. Hello, Jess.”
“Aren’t you in a chipper mood,” I commented.
Nell just shrugged.
She’d arrived at the restaurant before any of us; she’s always just a bit early. She says she was punctual even as a little girl, punctual and in charge.
I met Nell a few years back at a charity event she was co-hosting. We hit it off when a particularly rude woman at our table was told off by the waiter she’d been abusing. Nell and I spontaneously applauded and met for lunch later that week. Though our lives were playing out very differently—Nell was married and I wasn’t; Nell has kids and I don’t; I teach sociology at Northeastern while Nell has chosen a more traditional manner of career as a full-time mother and volunteer—we had enough of the important things in common to make a friendship grow.
A love of reading, an interest in the arts, a sometimes wry approach to life, and a tendency to applaud when justice is served.
I never really got to know Richard, Nell’s husband, the man she’d been with since college. I saw him rarely and my general impression was of a quiet, intelligent, well-mannered guy, a tiny bit hesitant or secretive, or maybe just private. It was clear to me from the start that Nell adored him; they were best friends, really, and for a brief time I was almost jealous of their union. I remember thinking: that is what marriage should be. Somehow, Nell and Richard got it right.
Grace arrived at the restaurant just after I did and took the seat against the wall; she always does. She likes to people watch; she can hold an intense conversation with someone while at the same time noting minute details of passersby. I imagine this ability to focus on one thing and yet observe another is essential when you’re a teacher of nine-and ten-year-olds.
Grace and I met almost eleven years ago when I was seeing a guy named Carl, a jazz saxophone player. One night Carl introduced me to his friend Simon, and to Simon’s wife, Grace. Simon was a painter, supposedly gifted—not that I would really know; I appreciate art but don’t really know what I’m looking at—and sexy in that charming, bohemian kind of way. While Simon was charismatic, prone to dramatic gestures and a roaring laugh, his wife was more guarded in her behavior, self-contained. For a while I wondered if Grace was intimidated by her show-stopping husband, but when I learned she taught art at a prestigious, private middle school, I figured the discipline her job required informed every aspect of her life.
The long story short is that Grace and I became close and the guys didn’t last. Carl and I broke up—he was far too carefree for me—and Grace, finally tired of Simon’s infidelity and other costly antics, divorced him.
Around the time Grace filed for divorce, Nell invited me to a cocktail party at her beautifully appointed apartment on Marlborough Street. Temporarily single, I brought Grace along. That night we both met Nell’s younger sister, Laura, and her husband, Duncan. Duncan seemed a nice enough guy and made a nice enough impression on me. Laura and Duncan seemed well suited, as did Nell and Richard.
Well. It wasn’t the first time I was wrong and it won’t be the last.
Laura finally arrived at Café Alice. Her tendency to be late or to slip in just under the gate is only one of the ways in which she’s different from her older sister.
Nell is tall and slim, aristocratic in her bearing though certainly not in her attitude. She has a delicate beauty, with fine features, sapphire blue eyes, and sleek blond hair. Laura also has blond hair but it’s thicker and darker than Nell’s. She’s medium height and slightly plump in a way that might be a problem later but which suits her perfectly now. Laura’s eyes are wide and blue green and somehow innocent.
Grace is small and slim. Her hair is dark, almost black, and she wears it in a bob reminiscent of Louise Brooks. Her eyes are brown and doelike; her style, urban sleek.
As for me, at five foot nine inches I tower over Grace. I’ve never been shy about my height; I like being tall, though it can be difficult finding pants that fit properly. The rest of me is unspectacular. Brown hair to my shoulders, brown eyes. End of story. Well, I have heard that I have a good smile.
“Well,” Nell said when we had ordered a round of drinks, “I don’t know about you gals, but I’ve had quite a week.”
“What happened?” Grace asked.
Nell told us about the wedding invitation from the Smiths.
“That’s awkward,” I said. “So, did you ask Richard to respond?”
“I didn’t ask him; I told him to respond. And to explain to Mr. and Mrs. Smith that he now prefers the company of men. Rather, that he has always preferred the company of men but was too scared to admit it. So, what’s new with you, Jess?”
I related the sad tale of my conversation with Matt.
“So, it’s official,” I said. “We’re divorced and I’m single and Matt is miserable.”
Nell, not terribly demonstrative, patted my hand. “I still think we should raise a glass to the whole nasty business being over.”
It had been a nasty divorce, though it could have been worse. Much worse. My lawyer was very good and very expensive. The settlement was fair and equitable; my personal finances hadn’t taken too bad a blow, but my insides, my heart and soul and sense of myself as a decent person, felt crushed.
We raised a glass. The toast was restrained.
“Well, I’ve got some news,” Grace said then. “I’ve cut Simon off and before you say ‘again?’ let me assure you that this time it’s for good. No more taking him back, no more lending him money, no more help of any kind.”
Laura frowned. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” she said. “Seriously, Grace, sometimes I think you’ll be dragging Simon around like a bad smell for the rest of your life.”
If Grace was stung by this remark, she didn’t show it. “You’ll see,” she said. “This time he went too far.” And she told us about the outrageous charge on her credit card.
“How did he get the card in the first place?” Nell asked.
Grace blushed. “I let him use it. Once. Maybe twice. I suppose he assumed he was free to use it any time he liked. It’s my fault, really—”
“No,” I said fiercely, “it’s not your fault! Simon is a bum!”
“How did he get away with it, anyway?” Nell asked. “What happened to security measures like a picture ID? Who would believe his name was Grace?”
“Simon is charming.” Grace smiled ruefully. “He always gets what he wants.”
“Until now.”
Grace nodded at me. “Right. You know what the worst part is? The bauble he bought was for his new girlfriend. I swear in all the years we were married he never spent even a fraction of that amount on me!”
“Good riddance to bad rubbish,” Laura pronounced.
“Well, I wouldn’t call him rubbish—”
Laura cut Grace off with her own news update. “Duncan was served the divorce papers,” she said.
The three of us just sat there; even Nell, quick-witted Nell, had nothing to say.
“Well, aren’t you happy for me?” Laura demanded.
Grace and I mumbled something incomprehensible; I certainly didn’t understand us.
“Well, I’m happy.” Laura looked pointedly at her sister. “Not happy like I’m jumping up and down, but I’m glad the divorce is movi
ng along. The sooner I’m free, the sooner I can start my new life.”
I thought for a moment that Nell would have to be restrained. It was no secret she thought her sister’s divorcing Duncan was a huge mistake. We all did.
Nell’s continued silence was bothering Laura.
“Do I have to explain it all again?” she said plaintively. “It’s just that I see myself as a mother. It’s what I want more than anything. Why should I give up my dream? What do I get in return?”
Nell pretended to consider. “Well, let’s see. How about the love of a good man?”
“If Duncan loved me, he’d make me pregnant. He’d give me my baby.”
“Laura,” I said, finally finding my voice, “if you loved Duncan, you wouldn’t force him to do something he didn’t want to do.”
“I didn’t force Duncan. I gave him an option. Either give me a baby or we’re through.”
“That’s harsh.” Grace shrugged. “I’m sorry. It strikes me as harsh.”
“Becoming a father isn’t like sitting through a chick flick,” I said. “The flick is over in two hours. The paternity lasts until the day he dies. Maybe Duncan just needed more time to think things through. Most people don’t respond well to ultimatums.”
Laura frowned down at her Cosmo. She always orders sweet, colorful drinks.
“I don’t know why you just didn’t get a dog,” Nell said. “You could have dressed him in little outfits and carried him around with you. Besides, dogs are a lot cheaper than kids. No college tuition, for one.”
Laura looked up. “I don’t want to talk about Duncan and me anymore.”
“Fine,” I said, eager to restore some peace.
“So,” Nell said with false brightness, “here we are, four single women. Back in the game. Back on the market.”
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