I've Got Sand In All the Wrong Places

by Lisa Scottoline

  And I’m just one person, so shouldn’t I be thinking about downsizing rather than upsizing?

  Unfortunately, the only way my sizes ever seem to go is up.

  Not only that, but I started to wonder if I should just be happy with what I have. I already love my house. I’ve painted it red, orange, yellow, green, and blue. You see I have a thing for color. It’s like living in a paintball war.

  Plus I just added a sunroom that I love and use as an office. I renovated the sunroom in my fifties, but is sixty the cutoff?

  It made me think of the larger question, which is, if renovation is growing, do we ever stop growing? Does the garden? Or the weeds?

  Evidently not.

  Writing a book is the same way. You can always edit it to make it more like what you want it to be, or what you have in mind, its best version of itself.

  So you see where this is going, and now I do, too.

  If a book and a garden can always be improved, then so can the kitchen.

  And so can I.

  No matter how old I am, I’m going to keep trying to grow and improve, into some final edited version of myself, full of color and fun, until I have to type The End.

  I want to be a page-turner of a person.

  Or a garden so great that you can ignore the weeds.

  And then I can die.

  So I just decided I’m giving myself a kitchen renovation as a gift for my sixtieth birthday.

  I want to be closer to my daisies.

  Until I’m pushing them up.

  Topping the Leader Board

  Lisa

  Mama’s got a brand-new bag.

  As in golf.

  Fore!

  Watch out, friends!

  Stay off the course. Also any adjoining roads in the tri-state area.

  When did this insanity start?

  After my last birthday when I realized that procrastination is a luxury I no longer have.

  And for the past few years, I noticed that when a golf tournament came on TV, I left it on. Not that I actually sat and watched it, but I had it on while I worked, like suburban background noise.

  And every time I looked at the TV, the screen showed pretty green grass. The only way to improve it would be to add perennials.

  I wonder how many golfers are also gardeners.

  Or as I prefer to call us, weeders.

  Maybe people golf to escape weeding?

  My plan, exactly.

  Plus I liked golf on TV because of the whispering voices of the commentators and the polite clapping of the spectators, punctuated by the occasional thwack of the ball.

  It all seemed so relaxing, for an alleged sport.

  There was no running around, or even exertion in general.

  I work up more of a sweat at the mall.

  Where I walk from store to store.

  Shopping is cardio for women.

  Just kidding.

  I know that women play golf, but I can never find a women’s golf tournament on TV.

  There’s a surprise.

  Plus, the golf on TV shows lots of good-looking men.

  Hey, I’m not dead.

  And all the men in golf tournaments are dressed so nice.

  How often does that happen in reaI life?

  Not at the mall, am I right, ladies?

  Women dress up for the mall.

  God knows why.

  We go to the mall because we have nothing to wear, but we have to find something to wear to the mall.

  Ironic.

  Anyway, to stay on point, men don’t bother to dress up for the mall. They just find a chair and flop. If they’re dressed up, they must have a funeral after.

  Or a wedding.

  Or a golf tournament.

  Anyway I mentioned my interest in golf to my best friend Laura, and lo and behold, for my birthday, she surprised me with a set of golf clubs!

  Wow!

  They were women’s clubs, a pretty blue with little rhinestones on the bottom, which actually appealed to me.

  Diamonds are a golfer’s best friend!

  And the tag on the golf bag said these clubs had “increased distance, accuracy, and ultimate forgiveness.”

  Who doesn’t need ultimate forgiveness?

  These are golf clubs for people with feelings!

  Girls!

  Also, the clubs have socks that match.

  So they’re better dressed than I am.

  I unwrapped the clubs like the rookie I am, introducing myself to the mysteries of my new hobby.

  For example, all golf clubs have numbers.

  Who knew?

  Unfortunately, there was no number 1, 2, 3, or 4 club in my new bag.

  My set might be defective.

  And one club had an S on it.

  For Scottoline!

  Another club had a special sock that read DIVINE.

  So clearly, somebody has an attitude problem.

  Obviously there’s a lot I don’t know about golf, so I bought a few golf books, then I went online and emailed a bunch of local public and private courses for lessons.

  A few of the private places said I had to be sponsored by people to join a club, but I don’t know any sponsors, or how much it costs for a membership, or which club has the best-dressed men.

  Heh-heh.

  But one club said I didn’t have to know anybody to take lessons, so I signed up and I’m in!

  I have to fit them in on a weekly basis, with my busy schedule of weeding, bicycling, and riding Buddy The Pony. Oh yes, and writing three books a year.

  This must be why people retire.

  Because earning a living gets in the way of living.

  So my life at sixty will be divided into fore and after.

  I start my golf lessons after I come back from tour for our book, Does This Beach Make Me Look Fat?

  I may even have a title for the next one.

  DOES THIS GOLF COURSE MAKE ME LOOK FAT?

  Upgrading the Macaroni Necklace

  Francesca

  When it comes to giving a gift to your mother, kids get a pass for a long time. But when your mother has a milestone birthday like sixty, a macaroni necklace will not do.

  It was time for me to get my mother a grown-up gift.

  This is not to say that I haven’t gotten her nice things in the past, but this year I wanted it to be really special. Maybe because I know that my mom is single, I wanted to get her a gift as nice as a husband would get.

  Not one of her husbands—a really good husband.

  I got in my head that it had to be jewelry.

  I’d never bought a piece of fine jewelry before. First, I studied. For months leading up to her birthday, every moment of procrastination was spent searching the websites of jewelers and department stores for every item within my budget.

  Since I couldn’t afford ninety percent of their inventory, this took less time than you might think.

  After obsessively zeroing in on a few favorite options, I decided to make a trip to Cartier. Embarrassingly, I’d dressed up for the occasion. I wore a shirtdress that I thought said, “I use ‘summer’ as a verb.”

  Happy Birthday, Mom!

  Then I took the subway there, because real rich people are cheap.

  I arrived at the flagship store on Fifth Avenue. The storefront’s heavy, rotating door expelled the dirty city air from entering its pristine interior with a satisfied sigh.

  Luxury, vacuum-sealed.

  As soon as my feet sank into the cream-colored carpet, I felt self-conscious. Maybe it was just the tiny spotlights dotting the ceiling. I suppose they’re meant to make the diamonds sparkle, but it felt like high-end interrogation lights.

  Also, there were almost no other customers in the store, so I felt the hopeful eye beams of every sales associate appraising me and their possible commission from behind the glass countertops.

  I couldn’t make the first move. Thankfully a saleswoman with perfectly lined red lips stepped forward.


  She asked if I’d like anything to drink, because the world of Cartier eliminates minor suffering like thirst. “Water, coffee, champagne?”

  I said water and immediately regretted it. I should’ve gone for the booze.

  Always go for the booze.

  But I didn’t feel like I was going to spend enough to earn it. I was surprised they offered me anything. Free liquor? How gracious and generous of them!

  I didn’t connect that, considering my intended purchase, I had just refused the most expensive glass of free champagne in the world.

  Then she asked me if I had a budget in mind. I told her my budget, my voice apologetic.

  You know you’re a people-pleaser when you feel guilty for giving someone your business.

  A true professional, she didn’t blink and pleasantly showed me around.

  I had three items in contention, which I had reviewed so many times on the website, I could’ve recited the model number.

  But I wanted to seem cool and casual, like I impulse-buy jewelry all the time. So I played dumb and let her explain each piece to me.

  “Piece” is how you refer to jewelry if you have a lot of it.

  Also, I love spiels. If I’m going to spend this much on a gift, the least they can give me is a good story to tell.

  She talked to me about the materials used, the origin of the design, and all available variations. The one detail they don’t include is price, unless you ask.

  I couldn’t afford to be cool. I asked.

  It’s good I went into the store with a clear and firm budget in my mind, because the consumerist thrill is a real thing. There’s a magpie effect when you’re looking at those shiny objects; you get hypnotized. Plus the saleswoman got me chatting about my mom and our relationship, which got me thinking about love instead of money.

  Can you put a price on Mom?

  My bank account can.

  I settled on a necklace.

  “I’ll take it.”

  The saleswoman beckoned me to a private booth where I sat across a desk from her. I was offered water and candies on a silver tray. I held out my credit card, which she quickly put out of sight somewhere under the desk, so I couldn’t suffer the obscenity of seeing her swipe it. We chatted, and she printed out the receipt, an eight-by-ten piece of paper for me to sign with a fountain pen.

  My undergraduate thesis wasn’t printed on such fine stock.

  Again, at no point does anyone say the price aloud. It’s too crass.

  Then, a new sales associate appeared at my side to present a freshly boxed version of the necklace for my inspection. The item looked perfect, but the box had a small ding in the corner. I touched the dent lightly and frowned.

  “We’ll find you a new box,” the saleswoman said, shooting her colleague a pointed look. He swept away.

  I smiled politely, now fluent in their nonverbal language of luxury. She nodded in apology.

  They had created a monster.

  After I’d approved the new box, we went through the inspection process again after it had been elaborately wrapped in white origami paper and sealed with an actual red-wax stamp. I was impressed. Finally, my gift was placed in its little red bag. I reached for it.

  “One more thing.” She pulled out a white cardboard bag and put the red bag inside it. The white bag even had a flap over the top to hide it entirely from view.

  “Is that a decoy bag so I don’t get robbed on the way home?” I joked. Well, half-joked.

  She looked at me aghast. Crime, like tap water and curling receipts, do not exist in the world of Cartier. “Oh no, the forecast said it may rain today. This is to protect your bag.”

  A bag to protect my bag. Of course! I can’t present my gift in some rumpled bag. They think of everything.

  When I left, the streets looked dirtier than I remembered. Descending to the deepest depths of the M train, I clutched my bag-in-a-bag to my chest like it contained the Hope diamond.

  But inside, I was giddy with excitement. You would have thought I had bought my mom a house, I was so happy.

  Spending money is so fun!

  But of course it wasn’t that. It was the feeling of accomplishment when you have achieved a degree of independence and success that allows you to give back to the person who got you there. To indulge the person who sacrificed for you. To repay a debt, or start to.

  It was the joy of showing someone that you can take care of them.

  I’ve never been so excited about a present in my life.

  When I gave it to my mom, she cried.

  And the next day she looked up the price and yelled at me.

  The Amazing Disappearing Middle-Aged Woman

  Lisa

  My garden isn’t growing that well, but my garden room is getting bigger by the minute.

  You may remember that I have been thinking about renovating the kitchen so that I could see the garden. Presently, when I sit and eat at the kitchen island, I’m facing the aluminum backsplash to my oven, which takes up the entire wall and at its cleanest, hosts my own blurry reflection.

  No woman wants to eat watching herself eat.

  Especially when the blurriness adds two inches all around, so that it’s either the best way to stay on a diet or the fastest route to clinical depression.

  There are two windows on that wall of the kitchen, but they flank the oven and are too far apart to see from the kitchen island, so I have been thinking about just replacing the whole wall with French doors and adding a patio, so I could not only see the garden, but step into it.

  Cool, right?

  And since it was a tricky job, I hired an architect who drew up some plans, and a contractor to price it, which was when I got sticker shock.

  It would not be cheap.

  Again I revisited the question of whether I deserved it, but the more I thought about it, I thought, not only did I deserve it, but I deserved better.

  Or more accurately, I realized the project was going to cost a lot, and if it was going to cost that much, then maybe I should put a roof over the patio and get more use out of the room.

  Oddly, it seemed the most practical to spend more money.

  This would be the same rationale that makes me buy bigger quantities of things on sale, sometimes even things I don’t want.

  Because it was practical!

  But this time it wasn’t something that I didn’t want. It was something that I wanted after I started thinking about it. And then I couldn’t get it out of my head.

  Please tell me that I’m not alone in this.

  It’s like when you paint the living room, then the dining room looks crappy, so you have to paint that, too.

  Which is something that I’ve also done.

  By myself, I might add.

  I once painted the interior of my entire house on a Memorial Day Weekend.

  Yes, it was a small house.

  And a very memorable Memorial Day.

  Anyway, you see where this is going, with respect to the garden room.

  I knew it would mean that I had to draw up new plans and get a new price from the contractor, but if I was going to do it, I wanted to do it right.

  Plus I had resigned myself to the new higher costs. Financially speaking, I was over the dog, so I could get over the tail.

  So I called up the architect, and he sent a junior architect from his office, and we discussed my new wish to build an enclosed porch. I told him exactly what I wanted it to look like, and he agreed, then went back to the office to draw up new plans.

  Happy ending, right?

  Not yet.

  A month later, they sent me the plans, not for the garden room that we had agreed to, but a little “alcove,” which didn’t have any French doors or other things that I had wanted and we had agreed to.

  I didn’t understand.

  And I felt a little nervous about it. And angry. I couldn’t process what had happened, and I knew that these drawings were going to cost me a fortune.

  I confess th
at I didn’t know what to do, at first.

  I had a talk with myself and decided that I had to assert myself, so I called the architect and we had a big conference call and I asked him what had happened. And he said very politely that he had decided that the garden room I wanted wouldn’t look very good on my house, so he had simply decided that I should have an alcove instead, which is what the drawing showed.

  My mouth went dry.

  My heart beat harder.

  I tell you these biological details because I want you to understand that I’m not always the tough girl you may think I am, or even that I should be. I felt intimidated and strange, but I didn’t say any of that on the phone. I merely said that I wished he had solved the problem differently, either by calling or emailing me before he had these drawings made up, and he apologized.

  That was nice, but I told him I wanted to think about what happened.

  We hung up, and the more I thought about it in the ensuing days, I got madder and madder.

  At myself.

  I felt wimpy.

  I felt as if a man would have handled the phone conversation differently than I had, maybe even yelled or made a point more forcefully.

  I never yell, except at the dogs, and they don’t listen.

  And even though the architect apologized, I knew that in the end, it would still cost me money.

  I wondered if the architect would have even done that to me, if I had been a man.

  I wondered if this was sexism, or just merely individual ways of conducting business, but by the third day of rumination, I decided it didn’t matter.

  I called another architect, and he came to the house yesterday.

  I told him about the garden room, and he told me he thought it would look wonderful.

  I asked him if he would have done what the first architect had done.

  He answered, “No, you just weren’t listened to.”

  And I thought, Bingo.

  I had forgotten what it feels like to be ignored, ever since my divorces.

  No one’s around to ignore me anymore.

  And I love it. ☺

  I feel better and even optimistic, going forward with my new garden room. I lost money with the first architect, but it was a lesson worth paying for.

  Sometimes you have to fight for your happy ending.

  Bachelorette Bouncer

  Francesca