In the kitchen the women, half drunk and still drinking, let go of their inhibitions and cackled in delight. “Did you see those loins?” “You read too many romance novels.” “Rippling thighs.” “Ohhh, I like that.” “Sleek.” “Did you see that wry grin? He’s gonna get off on us, you wait and see.”
“Emily, this is the best idea, the very best. We are all going to dream about this tonight. I love living here, Emily. We’re like sisters. I can’t wait to go to work tomorrow. You’re taking pictures, right?”
“Oh, my God, I don’t have a camera. I should have thought about that,” Emily wailed. “Of course we want to take pictures. How could I have forgotten something so important?”
“I have a Polaroid camera,” the assistant librarian said. “I’ll just scoot up the back staircase and get it.”
“Hurry,” they called in unison.
Emily uncorked another bottle of wine. They liked living here. The women liked her as a person. They thought of themselves as sisters. They liked what she planned. Everyone was happy. For once she’d done something right. There was no Ian to criticize her. And when the night was over, there would be no one to say, dear Emily, don’t forget to iron my white shirts. She was giddy when she saw Zoë Meyers trot into the kitchen waving the camera. Emily immediately filled her wineglass.
“Oh my God!” they cried in unison when a trumpet beckoned them into the dining room.
“He has clothes on,” the assistant librarian complained as she tried to focus the camera.
“It’s one of those Velcro suits that come apart at the seams,” Emily hissed, never taking her eyes off the dancer in the middle of her dining room table.
A cane with a sparkling knob at the end snaked downward to press the button of his tape deck. Loud music, runway music, stripping music, blasted into the room. The women sat back.
He danced. He pranced. He gyrated. The sleeves came off his jacket. The rest of the jacket followed in slow, tantalizing motions, the dancer never losing a beat. Emily felt her forehead bead with sweat. She wondered if she was going to slide off her chair.
“Take it off,” Nancy Beckenridge shouted hoarsely.
“Everyyyyything!” Lena tittered.
“Let’s see what you got,” Kelly Anderson leered.
He showed them. His pants sailed over his shoulder in one swift, fluid motion. His red satin jock strap pulsated. The women clapped enthusiastically. Zoë whistled between her teeth. Lena hooted, and so did Emily. They all stamped their feet.
He was off the table in the blink of an eye and then he was in front of them.
“He’s going to throw his back out,” Martina, the nurse’s aide, whispered.
“Who cares?” Kelly said, reaching out to touch his oiled thigh. She squealed her pleasure. She recoiled at once when he thrust out his pelvis. Emily tweaked the elastic on the jock strap. “Is this a jock strap?” she asked hoarsely.
“It’s whatever you want it to be,” he leaned over to whisper. He did a wild series of bumps and grinds ending with a thrust of his pelvis in Emily’s face.
Emily did something then she never thought she would ever do. She cupped both her hands and brought them up like a cradle to cup the quivering red satin. The girls stamped their feet and hooted their approval. Her eyes wild, Emily smashed her face against the mass in her hands.
“Ooohhh, that feels gooodddd,” the Stud said, a wicked grin on his face.
“My turn, my turn,” the others called. Emily dropped her hands and pushed her chair back. Suddenly the camera was being thrust at her. She snapped and snapped and kept right on snapping until the dancer was back on her dining room table whereupon she thrust the camera back into Zoë’s hands.
My God, did she just…yes you did, Emily Thorn, you grabbed that guy’s balls and mashed your face in them. And you liked it, didn’t you? Damn right I did, she said, swallowing hard.
And then it was over and the Stud was wearing a red satin cape that matched his outfit. The raucous music ended and was replaced with Paul McCartney singing “My Love.” The Stud jumped from the table, landing in front of Emily. “Mrs. Thorn, would you do me the honor of sharing this dance with me?”
She fit perfectly in his arms. “Did you get your money’s worth, Mrs. Thorn?” he whispered.
“Yes, yes, I did. You gave an excellent performance. My friends enjoyed it immensely. Perhaps someday when we’re celebrating something, we’ll call you again. With a different routine, of course.”
“Of course,” he said, cradling her against him. “I have a wicked yellow Speedo that will drive those women to the brink.”
Emily smiled up at him. “It was a fun evening. You’re going to dance with all of them, aren’t you.”
“Yes. I try my best to leave everyone happy.”
“You succeeded. Your turn, Lena,” she said, stepping aside.
Emily watched as he danced with each woman to the strains of “I’ve Been Waiting for a Girl Like You.”
When the tape deck was packed in his huge duffle bag, Emily asked if he would like a glass of wine.
“Sorry, I have another gig at ten-thirty. Listen, I don’t know if you’re interested or not, but I sell a set of my pictures. Twenty bucks for twenty pictures.”
They each bought a set.
Before he left, he kissed each of them on the cheek.
When the door closed behind him, Emily said, “He’s some mother’s son. I thought he was rather gallant, all things considered. What are we going to do with these pictures? Ohhh, I like this one.”
“I have an idea,” Lena said. “Let’s make a border of them in the kitchen. We can use wallpaper paste. Eye level, of course, and we can stare at them as much as we want. We have six sets. They should cover every wall in the kitchen.”
“Sterling idea,” Emily said. “Let’s do it now. Tomorrow we won’t have the nerve. The paste is in the workroom closet.”
“It’s crooked,” Nancy said two hours later, “but I like it. I think we should get that one with Emily blown up to poster size and put it on the back of the kitchen door. Let’s vote.”
“I’ll take it to that one-hour photo place,” Lena volunteered. “I think posters take about a week.”
“Hear! Hear!” Emily said.
“Let’s finish the pie and coffee. I’ll get it ready,” Kelly offered.
“It was a fun night, Emily. It really was,” Zoë said.
“Who says you’re dead after forty?” Lena chortled.
When their coffee cups were full, Zoë made the toast. “To Emily, to calories, to caffeine, to wet dreams, and to our newly decorated kitchen.”
The Demster twins, Rose and Helen, who rented the apartment over the garage, slid off the kitchen chairs at the same time. “They do everything together,” Nancy said. “They were snakeroot after the first glass of wine. I think we should just cover them up.”
“Okay,” Emily said agreeably.
Martha Nesbit, a friend of the Demster twins, and who never said two words if one would do, looked down at the twins, reached for a cushion from the kitchen stairs, and lay down beside them.
“Great evening,” she said before she fell asleep.
“I have the early shift at the hospital tomorrow,” Martina said. “Leave everything. I’ll clean it up before I leave. I had a great evening, Emily. It’s real nice living here. Night.”
“Want to go for a walk, Lena?”
“Sure.”
“Just up and down the street. It’s a nice evening.” They walked a block in silence, then Emily began to speak. “You know, Lena, it’s been a long time since I really noticed anything but my own misery. I know I’ve had too much wine but that has nothing to do with it. Take right now, for example. The stars are out. I can see the Big Dipper. It looks like someone shook out a blanket full of bright sprinkles. The air around us is like crushed velvet, all soft and silky feeling. That’s because there’s no humidity tonight. The moon is gorgeous. Tomorrow it will be full and we’ll a
ll get cranky and out of sorts. Way back when I used to work at the clinics, you’d be surprised at the things that happened when there was a full moon. I can smell honeysuckle. It’s late this year, probably because we haven’t had much rain.
“I need to do something, Lena. I realized that tonight more than ever. Two years out of the mainstream of life wasn’t in my game plan—not that I have a game plan, but I need to get one. I need a life, a goal, something to work for, or toward, however you want to say it. I want to think and feel again. Tonight I did for a few minutes. I don’t mean that silly thing I did with…that silly thing I did. I’ll chalk that up to the wine. How about you, Lena?”
“I’m content, Emily. It doesn’t take much to make me happy. I feel like I found a family in my middle years. We all tried to tell you tonight, each in our own way, how grateful we are to you. Me especially.”
“Is that another way of saying you’re content to stay in the supermarket and be on your feet for eight hours and then go on to a part-time job?”
“I need the benefits, Emily, you know that. My husband, as well meaning as he was, thought any kind of insurance was a waste of money. I have no other choice so I accept it.”
“If I found something, a business, something that would earn us both a living, would you be interested?”
“If you provide benefits, I’d be delighted to join you.”
“I’m going to work on it. Maybe I can come up with something.”
“It would be great.”
“I wish every day could end as nice as this one did,” Emily said, turning around to head back for the house.
“I’m glad we took the time to become friends. My husband used to want all my time when he was home. I didn’t begrudge it, but I see now that I missed a lot. You’re a nice person, Emily.”
“I know that. Now. For so long…Forget it, that’s all in the past. I don’t live there anymore.”
Lena waved her arms about. “Welcome to the world, Emily Thorn.”
Chapter 10
Emily groaned when she sat down at the table for her first cup of coffee. This was her first hangover. The ones with Ian didn’t count. But it was worth it. The evening had been everything she’d expected it to be. If she hadn’t known before, she knew now that the diverse group of women who were her boarders, and now her friends, were true friends. They all had problems, though some were quicker to talk about them than others. Actually, what they were was a support group, something she’d only read about until now.
A gurgle of laughter bubbled in her throat when she stared up at the latest decorating endeavor. The laughter exploded when she tried to imagine the meter reader’s expression when he came to calculate her electric bill. He had to knock on the door and go through the kitchen to the laundry room. “Life goes on,” she muttered.
She had plans for today. She was going to hire a personal trainer to help her tone up her body. Weight loss was one thing; loose, flabby skin was something else. She didn’t even know if she could tone up, but she was going to find out if women over forty still had elasticity.
She eyed the bathroom door, looked away. Not yet. Soon. Maybe. Maybe never. Her gaze rose upward. Ian never looked that good. He’d been thin, stringy actually. For a fair-haired, fair-skinned man, he’d had little body hair, and what he did have was golden so it was hardly noticeable. Chest hair on a man was so…so…sexy.
“You are horny, Emily Thorn. You need to get laid, Emily Thorn.” She stared at the Polaroid shots on the wall and at the series of photos they’d all paid for. “Yesssss,” Emily said, breathing hard.
The realization that she wanted sex, needed it, was another milestone she’d conquered. Not too long ago she thought all her emotions were dead. The young, glistening body last night had proved how wrong that kind of thinking was.
Emily poured a second cup of coffee, lit her first cigarette of the day. She savored it. Okay, number one on her list of things to do was to get laid. Number two was to find a business she could go into and earn some money. Number three was to provide jobs and security for the women who now lived with her.
All of her boarders had been done in, one way or another, by men. Some willingly, some unwillingly.
Lena’s husband hadn’t provided for her in the event of his death because he didn’t want to pay premiums. Now she was forty-four, cashiering in a supermarket because she needed health benefits. She had nothing of her own, no nest egg in case something happened to her. Twenty years from now, if she was lucky, at sixty-four, she’d be ready for Social Security and still living in a furnished room, here or somewhere else.
Nancy, with no college education, was working as a clerk in the lumber mill for $6 an hour. Her husband had left her for life on the open road. She was forty-five and had nothing to her name but her personal possessions because she’d been forced to sell off the furniture in her one-bedroom apartment. She had limited health benefits and a bleak future to look forward to.
Martina, a nurse’s aide, had walked out on a husband who was a drinker and who refused to get help. She was in the process of getting a divorce, but the drunkard had a better attorney than she had. With almost no equity in the four-room house, she didn’t stand much of a chance of providing for her old age when and if the house was finally sold.
Kelly Anderson, age forty-four, held down two part-time jobs and had no benefits at all. She’d never been married, but had been in a fifteen-year relationship with a traveling salesman who said he would marry her, but died instead. Her future looked as bleak as the others.
Zoë Meyers, the assistant librarian, was poorly paid, and according to her, an old maid. She was forty-eight, the oldest of them all, but she was the one who might eke by with her small pension and Social Security.
Rose and Helen Demster, the forty-five-year-old twins, ran a tree-cutting service and lawn maintenance company. They had a small nest egg, but that could be wiped out in one bad year. They’d given up their garden apartment to move into the apartment over Emily’s garage. Neither had ever been married. Helen said it was because they wore bib overalls all the time and Rose said it was because they had big butts and no boobs.
Martha Nesbit, age forty-two, had been dumped by her husband of twenty years after she put him through law school. His parting remark had been, “Martha, living with you is like watching paint dry.” She’d gotten a $25,000 settlement and lifetime health benefits, but she’d blown the $25,000 in the hopes of snaring a husband. It hadn’t worked so she got a job as a mail carrier. She had bunions and bursitis from walking and carrying the mail bag. She hated men, lawyers in particular, and her car carried a bumper sticker that said FIRST WE KILL ALL THE LAWYERS!
All of them, including herself, were emotional cripples. Emily knew in her gut that none of them, including Lena, had the courage or the motivation to do anything about it except to go on as they had. If things were going to change, it would be up to her to change them.
Of all of them, she was the best off, if there was such an expression. She had a nest egg, the jewelry, and the furs. While she hadn’t actually received a salary while working for the clinics, Ian had paid into Social Security for her so she could count on that when she reached sixty-five. Few people could survive on Social Security alone. She didn’t plan on being one of those few people. She couldn’t, ever, lose this house. If she did, she would feel personally responsible for all her boarders’ lives. They were her friends now and she had to help them, the way she’d helped Ian. Only this time her reward would be different. There would be nothing sick and obsessive about her help, and there would be no white shirts. In her heart she knew that if she came up with a business that could earn them all a living and give them back their self-esteem, they’d work like Trojans. None of them would be an Ian Thorn. They would all give back, a hundred percent. Women helping women. She liked the way it sounded.
Emily let her gaze go to the closed bathroom door. It was amazing, it really was, how none of the women had ever asked questions
about that particular bathroom.
Before Emily left the kitchen to get ready for the day, she gave a jaunty thumbs-up salute to the dancer cavorting around the walls. “Nice buns.” She laughed. “Real nice. I mean really nice.”
Outside, Emily took time to admire the garden she’d planted years ago and still tended. Some of the flowers were going to seed, and the grass between the flagstone walkway needed to be sprayed. The lawn needed water, but she hadn’t been using the sprinkler system these past two years because she didn’t want high water bills. She didn’t care too much about the lawn because it would come back, but the shrubbery, which added eye appeal to the house, needed water desperately. She added it to the list of things she had to do at the end of the day. And if she didn’t get around to it, one of the other women would do it. Nancy liked to work outside and, from time to time, gave each bush and shrub a five-gallon bucket of water if it didn’t rain. If you watered by the bucket, you didn’t waste water, she said.
Emily reached down to check the dirt in the clay pots that lined the walk. Someone had watered the New Guinea impatiens and her glorious pots of bicolored dahlias. In another month the summer flowers would be replaced with mums and pumpkins. Her flowers and the garden had gotten through some bad times.
Emily gave herself a mental shake. The bad times, as far as she was concerned, were over. There might be a setback from time to time that she would have to endure, but she could handle it.
Her first stop on her list of things to do for the day was the ATA Fitness Center. She walked away with the names of three personal trainers who would come to the house. From ATA she went to the Inman Racquet Club and was told all their trainers were booked solid. She tried the YMCA in Metuchen, where she was given two more names. She then stopped at the First Fidelity Bank, where she asked to see a loan officer—the same loan officer who had given Ian the loan for the first clinic.
Five minutes into their discussion, Emily knew she would be fighting a losing battle to try and convince the officer that she was entrepreneurial material.
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