Happily Ali After: And Other Fairly True Tales

by Ali Wentworth

  I recently renamed one of our dachshunds “Six Miles.” So now at school pick-up I just say, “I walk six miles every day!”

  CHAPTER 18

  Ch-ch-ch-changes

  I bet you’ve never received this phone call—“Oh, hi! Listen, a Japanese pharmaceutical company is interested in having you host a panel for their new postmenopausal dry-vagina cream to combat painful sex.” Or maybe you have. My first response was to feel flattered that somebody wanted me for anything, let alone to host a panel. Then I was horrified to realize that they assumed I was potentially postmenopausal (for the record: as of the time of publication, I haven’t even reached perimenopause). And third, and most distressing, was the concept that at that later stage, sex is painful? Sex is painful at the beginning of one’s sexual life, but also at the end? I decided to take the job for three important reasons: I wanted to know more; they were paying me; and there was a chance I could get my hands on that cream for future needs. But really, they were paying me.

  I find menopause incredibly unfair. Why do women need a physical metamorphosis to trumpet to the world that they are no longer nubile and capable of procreating? Nothing happens to men! Why don’t their balls dry up and fall off like acorns in autumn? I also don’t like the idea that once we’re no longer capable of producing offspring we should just let ourselves go and take jewelry-making classes. But again, I’m fortyish with the ovaries of a teenager.

  I shuddered at the thought of discussing sex and vaginas in such a public forum. We never discussed sex growing up. Everything was learned on Animal Kingdom or via rambling misinformation from a few dimwits at an all-girls school. (I would be in my early thirties when I discovered that a gang bang was not a dance-off between two groups of inner city thugs.)

  I remember one Christmas Eve my mother and I stayed up late to stuff stockings. We were filling knitted socks with English chocolates and clementines. I was flitting about the tree with homemade popcorn and cranberry strings. My mother hummed along with “Oh, Come, All Ye Faithful” as it flowed in from the kitchen radio. Feeling a surge of endearment, I turned to her. “How come growing up we never discussed masturbation?” There was dead silence but for the sound of a tiny orange dropping. It rolled for an interminable amount of time down the wood-plank floor before hitting the fireplace screen. She continued humming. And that pretty much sums up the whole sexual education of my youth.

  The moment you have children, your sex drive seesaws between that of a sex-crazed Jezebel and a chaste Mother Superior. On the one hand, any hormonal surge can make you “hungry like a wolf” (I have heard of, but not personally experienced, this phenomenon occurring right after childbirth). But the opposite response—the equivalent of hanging up a “gone fishing” sign below—could be the result of a fetus the size of a canary melon torpedoing through your loins, resulting in a week of sanitary napkins and granny pants. Or perhaps the fact that a human being is suckling on your tit, stretching it down to your belly button. Or it could just be sleep deprivation that inspires you to eat cereal over the sink and let your armpit hair grow into dreadlocks. Take your pick.

  By the time you’re back in the sexual saddle, your children have grown into walking and talking libido stompers. The recurring nightmare that sends them whimpering into your bed every night and thrashing their arms in your face becomes your recurring nightmare that you will never have sex again. On a related note: our dachshund, Gilbert, insisted on burrowing under our duvet and nestling right between my husband’s feet and my own. If my husband moved in a way that so much as suggested an incoming kiss, Gilbert would growl so ferociously, we would hasten back to our opposite sides of the bed. My husband wasn’t the only one neutered.

  Nothing questions your outlook on sexuality like one’s own offspring on the brink of puberty. This past spring my fifth-grader’s school had a full immersion into the study and understanding of puberty and sexual reproduction. Now, in the olden days, we were taught with a tattered anatomical chart that had the genitals highlighted in primary colors. There was a diagram of a penis in various stages, from the flaccid to semierect and then erect positions. I thought the man in the chart had three penises (imagine the terror). And the fallopian tubes and ovaries looked like chicken livers. It was all very clinical and pleasure was never mentioned. But in this age of Internet porn, social media, and Gossip Girl, the antiseptic approach to sex ed does not suffice. It is no longer just the birds and the bees—now, the bird embarks on a relationship with the bee, realizes he’s gay, and goes back to a bird only to find out she’s transgendering into a beetle.

  I almost choked on a turkey meatball when my daughter innocently blurted out during family dinner, “Do you guys have anal sex?”

  I instantly transformed into a ninety-year-old woman from Footloose, with a lace doily around my neck, a wicker purse, and a Bible. “Is THAT what they’re teaching you at school?”

  She was startled. “Mom, there’s all kinds of sex; there’s straight sex, gay sex . . . you know Laney has two dads!”

  My younger daughter is privy to some of these inquisitions but hasn’t taken in what it all means. One afternoon we were unwrapping new bedding for the girls’ room; as she ripped the plastic off some mattress pads she innocently asked, “Are these for wet dreams?”

  I softly answered, “No, sweetie, mildew.”

  And now back to my future painful postmenopausal sex. Was I up for the task of openly discussing it? Did I have my own vagina monologue? And was I the only actress they could get?

  I was greeted on the twenty-first floor of a midtown hotel by a gaggle of young, fertile women in Club Monaco attire. They held clipboards and asked me if I needed to use the bathroom, wanted bottled water, or required some privacy before the panel began. I shyly told them I was fine and pretended to be busy on my cell phone. I clicked away as if I was in the middle of a Viacom deal, but was really perusing my kids’ Instagrams. I stole looks at the crowd filling the cool, retro space that overlooked the Upper West Side. Who would come to a panel about postmenopausal dry vaginas? Well, magazine health editors, bloggers, and the press. And a slightly bald, paunchy man who I think got off on the wrong floor, saw the cheese and cracker spread, and decided to stay. You should have seen his face when I opened the evening with, “I welcome you, but more important, my vagina welcomes you.” I think he may have bitten his finger off.

  The other panelists consisted of two highly reputable doctors who specialize in menopause and a sex therapist. They were attractive, brilliant women who were earning their Ph.D.s at the same time I was auditioning to be on One Life to Live. They were poised and completely comfortable discussing the medical remedies for the thinning and less flexible vagina. Many unappealing words were bandied about—irrational, moody, depressed, exhaustion, weepy, weight gain, dry skin, hair loss, and sleeplessness. And I countered with hackneyed jokes about “dry” humor and vaginoplasty. I was hired as entertainment, not for my biochemical expertise, so I did feel compelled to be more Don Rickles than Dr. Oz.

  In the middle of the event, however, there was a shift. I started asking genuine questions about what my sexual future looked like. What caught my attention was the term “atrophic vaginitis.” Wasn’t atrophy the wasting away of a body part? So my vagina was going to waste away? What would be left? I probably should have moved the event along, but I was dumbfounded. My whole body became atrophic! Oh, how naive I had been about menopause. I thought one just had night sweats and threw plates. We were suddenly discussing the breakdown of the vaginal lining because of lack of estrogen and mucus. And painful intercourse! I mean, seriously, how much pain are we talking?

  After the event I collected the doctors’ contacts like they were Major League baseball cards at a sports exchange expo. Women from the audience came up and thanked me for “starting the conversation.” I felt like my generation’s Betty Friedan. Wait, is she my generation?

  For weeks after the panel I was the postmenopause dry-vagina expert among my friends.
I would take walks, meet for drinks, or hang in the park at play dates educating my ladies on what to expect. They are all depressed now. But don’t kill the messenger, right? Like an old Jewish woman I keep saying with my finger pointed, “Estrogen, estrogen, estrogen!”

  I’ve never paid much attention to my sexual health. As long as I didn’t have an STD or I was pregnant when I wanted to be, I didn’t take notice. I hadn’t realized that sexuality had so many different peaks and valleys. All I knew was that we start in diapers and end in them. I just pray that after menopause there’s another sexual renaissance. After all, there has to be more to do than just play gin rummy.

  On a side note: I did receive a box of the postmenopausal dry-vagina cream. I plan on using it in my promotional book giveaway.

  CHAPTER 19

  Going for the Bronze

  When I was a kid, I owned a rock tumbler. I would find stones and bits of rough gravel, drop them in the machine, and set it churning until the rocks fell out smooth and sparkling. Oh, how shiny and beautiful they were, nothing like the rocks that went in!

  I believe there is an undisclosed, covert human polish machine in Hollywood accessible only to A-list celebrities. There is a sheen and silky glow to women like Jennifer Lopez and Angelina Jolie not found in the women I see at school drop-off, at Whole Foods, or in line at the DMV. How could I obtain access to such a magical churner that would burnish me into a semiprecious Sharon Stone? I have read all the blogs and studied beauty notes in magazines at the colorist, but soaking my hair in olive oil and doing leg presses with a huge rubber band wrapped around my knees while I watch Homeland just doesn’t seem to leave me with that same luminousness. I’m still indistinct rubble.

  I have heard all kinds of whispers about such things as human growth hormones, snake venom, and pig placenta being the special sauce for eternal youth in Hollywood. I’m not interested in pursuing these methods mostly because I’m petrified of snakes and wouldn’t know the first thing about extracting venom. As a drag queen friend of mine once said, “Gurl, if I ever ran into a snake I’d be so scared I’d drop a litter!” And pig placenta can’t smell good. I could never take human growth hormones mostly because I’d be afraid I’d Benjamin-Button back to infancy. And then I would have to take the SATs again. So I take what’s accessible to me, in my price range, and won’t involve a body scrub made from armadillo liver.

  I know spray tan has been around since pre–Suzanne Somers, but it seems the industry has progressed and you no longer have to lie flat while hundreds of small children hand-paint you with umber oils. A few women had told me that spray tanning makes you darker, thinner, younger, richer, and happier. . . .

  I can’t do the tanning bed. For one, it’s so 1970s. And two, I would have to dedicate way too much time in that claustrophobic capsule wearing white plastic swim goggles. With the amount of time I would have to commit to the tanning bed, well, I could go mulch some trees or get a mammogram, maybe read to my kids!

  It was one afternoon at the beach that I decided to take my pale exterior to the next shade. Sunbathing leaves me a rosy pink, slightly sun-poisoned hue, not a Mediterranean bronze. And I’m married to a Greek who even in a rainstorm will get Tootsie Roll brown. So I asked the pretty college girl, who I buy my Carvel Cookie Puss cakes from, where I could get me one of those so-called spray tans. I couldn’t tell if she was insulted or complimented when she answered, “You mean fake tan? I’m tan ’cause I’m a lifeguard. And it’s summer!” Every year I loathe young people even more.

  I Googled salons with names like Glowjob until I found one located near me and swiftly made an appointment. I wasn’t sure what to wear to the salon. Do I wear my one-piece Speedo? A bikini? The bikini bottom? Do I wear a robe to the salon? That would mean I’d have to drive, park, and walk the sidewalk in a robe, which could result in an arrest.

  When I asked the question I pose when facing all major quandaries in my life—what would Julia Roberts do?—I settled on a sundress. I entered the salon and whispered to the receptionist, “I’m here for a spray tan,” as if I was scoring amphetamines on the down low.

  I was escorted by a sweet non-English-speaking woman down the stairs, bypassing huge vats of peroxide and boxes of rubber gloves. It seemed the hair and makeup were allowed to flourish upstairs on full display, but the nasty little business of fake tanning and hair removal had to be executed below in the catacombs. As we passed the waxing room, I could hear the screams.

  We entered a nook the size of a Porta-Potty. The lady, like a disheartened mime, gestured for me to get undressed. I snapped my underwear to imply “Keep on, yes?” which was met with a slightly hostile look of “No, you idiot, get naked, I’ve seen ’em all.”

  She stepped out of the nook, giving me a chance to strip. I was surrounded by black garbage bags taped to every inch of the tiny wall space. I was a porno puppet preparing for the matinee.

  When the lady came back in, she inspected my body with intense scrutiny. I blurted out, “I know, I had pneumonia, so I haven’t worked out in a long time . . .” She didn’t care or understand me. She was just trying to figure out what color to spray my chicken flesh. She then did something I have not experienced since elementary school gymnastics; she powdered my palms and the flats of my feet. Was there a dismount I was not aware of? I suppose tan palms are a dead giveaway for artificial coloring. (A good reason to not take tanning pills, which contain massive amounts of beta-carotene and will turn every skin cell bright Oompa Loompa orange.)

  Suddenly, the hose and sprayer turned on with the thundering sound of a car wash. I closed my eyes and thought of Meryl Streep in the film Silkwood getting power washed to eradicate any nuclear particles. And I suddenly felt sorry for my poor dogs because I inflict this hose torture on them regularly. I swore from that moment on I would only bathe them in a warm tub with elixirs that smelled like bacon.

  I was signaled to stand to the side by a slight flick of her hand on my shoulder. And then to the back. And then to the other side. Somehow it was more humiliating than getting a real mug shot. I’m not squeamish about being naked. God knows my daughters can tell you that. But it’s hard not to feel exposed when an older woman is inches away from your vagina holding a pistol and spraying it like it’s infested with roaches.

  When she was finished, she eyeballed her work like a surgeon. I was asked to turn around once more as she squirted hidden areas (yes, creases). And then came the money shot. And for this one position I gave her a 50 percent tip. She signaled for me to turn around and face the wall while parting my buttocks. I laughed. She saw no humor. I pantomimed bending over and spreading my cheeks. Yes, she nodded. I gestured, “Oh, that’s okay, I’m good!” Who would be so close to my ass to see that my intergluteal cleft (or crack) wasn’t tan? But she wasn’t having it. She was quite serious. You’d think I asked Cezanne to just paint the apples and forget the oranges. And so I dipped down, exposing the area where, ironically, the sun never shines. I even held my breath for no good reason.

  As she used a damp sponge to blend any streaks, I found myself wondering if I could hire her to stain my wood floors. The lady placed the hose back in its holster. She gesticulated that I should stand with my arms spread for a few minutes. And then added, “Stay here,” which I’m glad she did because otherwise I’m sure I would have just bounced upstairs buck naked and searched for the new Glamour magazine. So there I stood. Talk about watching paint dry!

  I purposely refrained from eyeing the mirror behind the door. There was no need for any further degradation. My mind knows how to wander in most idle situations—in the dentist’s waiting room, on the subway, during sex . . . but at that moment, standing there nude in a tiny, black plastic nook, my brain settled on the film Taken starring Liam Neeson. In the film he plays a detective who rescues his daughter from some sex-trafficking bad guys who have kidnapped her. I recalled the scene where the daughter (drugged out) had to stand in lingerie in front of a bunch of thugs during a sex slave auction. And
at that moment, I totally understood what that daughter was going through. And then I wondered, if I was ever kidnapped by an international sex-trafficking ring, would my father fly to Paris, figure out what yacht I was imprisoned on, kill the band of assassins, and rescue me? And I decided he would. After all, I never thought of Liam Neeson as an action star before that movie and the same could be said for my dad. By the time my lady returned, I was comforted in knowing that if I were ever in that position—particularly as a middle-aged woman prone to yeast infections—I would be saved.

  I got dressed carefully. I didn’t want my new café au lait skin to rub off on my floral dress. The paint had a distinct chemical smell, like turpentine, and my skin felt sticky, like someone had rubbed a Butterfinger all over me.

  I walked through the city trying to make eye contact with passersby in the hopes of hearing, “Hey, Ali”—well, they wouldn’t know me so—“Hey, woman! Look at your glow! You’ve really got it going on!”

  But nothing. Not so much as a glance. And when I picked up my kids from camp? Nada. Even when I told them I had a spray tan, they inspected me and then accused me of lying. I mean, of all the things I could lie to them about, they pick a spray tan? They never questioned that TV only works in the rain? Or good things only happen to good people?

  I woke up the next morning under the delusion that somehow overnight the paint had penetrated my derma more deeply and I would rise as a Tahitian princess. I wasn’t cadaverous, but just as pale as the day I was born. What did get tan? My new Yves Delorme sheets I scored on Gilt.com! They were smeared in orange, as if Jackson Pollock had designed them for Macy’s. I picked up my sundress from the day before (yes, it was on the floor, it was a Saturday) and it was as if someone had murdered a tangerine.

  So maybe I will never have access to the miraculous and mysterious polishing machine. Maybe you need a platinum record or a Golden Globe to be granted such a pass. Otherwise, how would we sell magazines, clothing, cosmetics, and dreams? You often hear people say about movie stars, “Well, it’s their job to be gorgeous!” And maybe that’s true. I’m predominately a mom. So perhaps it’s my job to display the appropriate battle wounds. It is my job to have cellulite, age spots, stretch marks, ingrown toenails—and turkey meatballs on the table at 6 P.M. Let Charlize Theron try to do that!