Saturday Night Widows

by Becky Aikman

  I didn’t know how I’d find them, but I knew this: If I wanted to Move Forward After Loss, I’d have to round them up on my own. A support group of renegade widows—how bad could it be? The worst, you see, had already happened.

  chapter

  ONE

  i plopped a sad glob of guacamole into an exquisite black Art Deco bowl, and I knew. The guacamole would not be right.

  In fact, now I was sure, none of the food would be right. Potluck indeed. Too insecure about my cooking to prepare the dinner myself, I had asked everyone to tramp through the January cold with a dish. Now I didn’t know what would turn up—sodden casseroles, gluey bean dip, goopy guacamole. Oh, right, the goopy guacamole was mine, the same guacamole that once came in last in a family guacamole-making contest. And my family originated in Scotland. Worse, I had run out of time and left out the jalapeño, and I had forgotten the cilantro completely. And possibly the lime. So the guacamole, at least, would not be right. This party would be lost.

  The room would not be right, either. I could see that now, as I placed the bowl on a side table next to the couch and straightened up to scope out the scene. Denise had offered to host in her Upper West Side apartment, one of those classic 1920s buildings with French doors and endless bookshelves and rooms the size of Stockholm. It was the most convenient location for all of us. But now, after arriving early and waiting around for everyone else, I was sure that the living room would not be right for our purpose, the layout a nightmare, too spaced out for any real intimacy. There was a couch, backed up against the wall on one side, facing one lonely armchair along the other. I could picture it now, five of them, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder along that couch, like patients in a waiting room, waiting for bad news, and me in that chair, like Jonathan without his five stages of grief to fall back on, wondering whatever had possessed me to plan this evening.

  The people wouldn’t be right, either. They were strangers, a real grab bag. I was the only unifying factor. Me. They’d each met me, just once. Some of them twice. I’d collected them haphazardly by asking around, consulting friends and friends of friends. Only now, as Denise was dressing in the bedroom and I plunked down on that couch, sinking, sinking, it began to hit me: These women had practically nothing in common. The youngest was thirty-nine, the oldest fifty-seven. One was a blunt, scary-successful lawyer, one a chatty homemaker, and every postfeminist option in between. Some lived in the city, some in the suburbs. Some had children, some did not.

  I reviewed their names in my head, hoping not to botch the introductions: Denise, Dawn, Marcia, Lesley, and Tara. Why had I invited them? There was only one thing they had in common, and that was not the sort of thing guaranteed to light a fire under a party: Every one of them had become a widow in the last couple of years. And that was definitely not right. That was not right at all.

  What was I thinking? Why had I tried to orchestrate what would surely be a social debacle on the scale of … well, getting kicked out of my widows’ support group? I tried to remind myself that this evening had grown out of an idea that hadn’t seemed so misguided until a few minutes ago, an idea that grew out of my own confusion and pain and rebuilding when I too became a widow, and what I had learned from all that. What I still hoped to learn.

  The idea was pretty straightforward. I would invite these five women, five young widows, to join me once a month for a year. We would meet on Saturday night, the most treacherous shoal for new widows, where untold spirits have sunk into gloom. We would do something together that we enjoyed, starting small—this dinner would certainly qualify—and ending big, maybe a faraway trip. By the end, we would test my theory that together we might find a way to triumph over loss, take off in unexpected directions, and have some fun along the way. There would be setbacks and pain, I supposed. And tears, certainly there would be some tears. But there would be kidding and silliness, too. There would be progress. There would be hugs. No one would be asked to leave.

  If nothing else, these women would provide each other with traveling companions past the milestones of this common but profound transition—the first holidays without a mate, the first time taking off the ring, the first time daring to flirt. We would converge at this most vulnerable, weak, and awkward turning point and pledge to each other that this was not an end, it was a beginning.

  I also reminded myself that I was basing this project on some actual research. A fair amount of time had passed since I escaped the defeatist vibe at that widows’ support group, perhaps a low point in the annals of social services for the bereaved. Four years, in fact. Throughout that interval, I hadn’t been able to let go of the conviction that there must be a better way to help people move past heartbreak. I consulted scientists who were beginning to conduct serious research into our natural ability to recover after loss and learned that they were challenging the conventional wisdom. They were finding, to my relief, that the famous five stages were a bunch of hooey. Many of the researchers said that happy experiences with real people can be more helpful than wallowing in old-fashioned support groups based on outdated theories. Jonathan’s widows’ support group, I had learned, wasn’t only bad juju, it was bad science. This new group, I hoped, would be informed by the principles of what most helps those who have become uncoupled: friendship, practical help, openness to new experiences, and laughter.

  I was acting on my own intuition, too, gleaned from all the changes I had undergone in those four years. I had kept at it, plotting to start my own widows’ group even as my own life evolved in extraordinary ways. It was a long list, but an abridged version might include the following: I met a divorced dad, a writer who lived in another state, and married him a year and a half before this meeting. Quite unexpectedly, I now found myself with a new man, a new home, a new teenage stepdaughter, a new job, and a very old dog with one eye. I had learned that one life doesn’t have to end because another one does. Mine continued to offer up surprises, many of them happy ones.

  But it’s also fair to say that new relationships at this stage of life come wrapped in complications. Wounded as I was by grief, I was still full of doubts, still seeking guidance, still wondering whether I had what it took to work through all the complications—new man, new home, new stepdaughter, new job, and old dog come to mind—that arise from creating a new life when the old one is broken.

  So I would be the sixth member of the group that was gathering tonight. More as an observer—at least that was what I thought at the time. Whatever happened, the other widows and I would agree, we’d share it in this book.

  We would share our stories, and we would share one story. We couldn’t know where it would lead, but I resolved that ours would not be a story of sorrow. No, it would be an adventure story. Not that we’d be paddling through the deepest reaches of the Amazon or scaling the jagged walls of Annapurna, but an adventure story nonetheless. An exploration of life, of new opportunities, of newfound desires—dangerous territory indeed. The story of six women, remaking themselves. Six women seeking new discoveries and new purpose. Six women heading into the unknown, navigating life in extremis.

  THAT WAS THE THEORY. This was the reality: These women were strangers. They were widows. They were supposed to be sad. They wouldn’t like the guacamole.

  “Are you nervous?” Denise already knew the answer when she joined me in the living room.

  “No. No. Not at all,” I lied. “I’m completely confident it’s going to be great.” When what I really meant was, Would you mind if I step out … for the next few hours?

  Denise looked at me as if I were a mutt that she wished she could adopt. “I’ve had other parties here,” she said, taking in my dubious expression. “It always works out. People sit on the floor. I’ll have my shoes off by the end of the night.”

  If I was trying to calm myself down, Denise was the person to see. Her allure lay as much in her imperturbable composure as in the well-proportioned harmony of her face and body. Only thirty-nine years old, she managed to conceal the grief
she was feeling behind a serene mask. Denise was one of those people who practice yoga with the kind of discipline an honors student brings to final exams, and it gave her the grace of a gladiola, tall and true. Even her apartment was hushed, Zen, filled with books. Denise, in fact, was an editor of books, and I could tell that she had applied the measured care of her profession to organizing her library shelves, interspersing classics and current titles with black-and-white photographs taken by her husband. Now that Denise and I were sharing the room, I knew what had been throwing me off about it. This apartment was too spacious for one. Denise’s husband was missing. Together, they had been restoring the place and adding furnishings from the 1920s, like reclaimed lamps with shades made of mica, casting soft amber light. I could see his taste. I could feel his absence.

  I had shown up at this meeting dressed with no particular effort to impress, in jeans and a black turtleneck, and Denise had put me at ease when she met me at the door in her yoga clothes. Now, minutes later, she’d emerged from the bedroom, still casual, but in ballet flats and a bell-shaped black skirt with a boatneck sweater that showed off her waist. Her fine brown hair was slicked back, wet from a quick shower, her face free of makeup, the better to emphasize her eyes: the wide-set eyes of a sorceress, the pale, ghostly blue of a winter sky. Looking closer, I saw something beneath the surface of those eyes, a subtle expression that seemed to be saying, seemed to be whispering, Help me. It was the look of a tourist lost on an unfamiliar street but too timid to ask for directions. I recognized that look. I’d employed various masks to cover it myself.

  On the surface, though, as we waited for the others, Denise radiated thoughtful stillness. Whereas I radiated a sort of toxic anxiety.

  Would anybody show? Everyone had confided doubts about walking in on five unknowns with nothing but their stories to share. Who could blame them? Then the bell rang. Fortified by Denise’s encouraging smile—a smile informed, no doubt, by all the wisdom of Eastern philosophies that I did not comprehend—I opened the door, and our Saturday night adventure began to unfold.

  chapter

  TWO

  twenty minutes later, one of our guests was still missing. Perhaps she’d lost her nerve. But the four who had turned up so far were enough to keep me occupied. They made their introductions while I struggled to find my voice and retreated to the chair, nodding like a bobble-head doll. Denise nimbly folded herself cross-legged onto the floor and beckoned Lesley to join her. They seemed comfortable enough. Facing me on the couch, though, legs crossed and hands folded on their knees, sat as unlikely a pairing as I could imagine, a Cabernet and a cupcake, Marcia and Dawn. I winced as I realized that few people would have less in common.

  Dawn was pure confection. Everything about her said, This widow situation is not going to slow me down. In fact, she had told me as much when I answered the door—she was planning to dash out after dinner for a drink with a guy she had met the week before, and she was dressed to thrill. Her slim sheath of a skirt, printed with a pattern of black-and-white diamonds, had an I-dare-you silver zipper running up the side, and her black sweater featured a scoop neck that dangled on the risky side of low. All of it showcased a Barbie-doll figure. Long crystal earrings sparkled in her blinding blond hair. Nothing about Dawn indicated that anything was amiss in her life. If this was a mask, she wore it with flair.

  “Where do you live?” she asked Marcia.

  “Upper East Side. And you?”

  “New Jersey.”

  “Huh.”

  Dawn was forty-five, an Italian American from a working-class town near Newark. Now she lived farther out in the country, but clearly she was a Jersey girl through and through. Northern New Jersey—not quite the Shore and not quite New York, but one high heel planted in each, equal parts style and sizzle. Her voice was showy, too, musical and full of passion.

  “Belleville was the wrong side of the tracks,” Dawn explained. “The hometown of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. My parents took my name from the song.”

  Close your eyes and you could hear Frankie Valli’s high tenor as Dawn worked to find common ground with Marcia: “Dawn, go away, I’m no good for you!”

  I could only imagine her take on the woman planted next to her. Marcia was all business—serious, sensible business: rust-blond hair chopped in a sensible bob, sensible rimless glasses, and a sensible uniform of crewneck sweater and boxy jeans. It looked to me like the jeans had been ironed. Marcia’s expression gave little away, and when she spoke, her words were terse, logical, precise, and, of course, sensible. I understood what Dawn must be feeling—Marcia had frightened me the first time I met her at a restaurant after work. She had worn a black suit then that called to mind a member of the Politburo. At her office, she told me, she had been known to make underlings cry. I hoped there was more to Marcia than the brusque demeanor. It was only later that Lesley let me in on something she’d noticed about Marcia that night. Under that sensible getup, she was wearing a pair of kick-ass cowboy boots.

  Marcia and Dawn gamely faced each other across a wide chasm in the arts of feminine presentation. Seeing them there, I realized, I should have given more thought to compatibility when I assembled this group. They reached a truce, talking about Marcia’s favorite subject: work.

  “I have a big job,” she told Dawn, which was no exaggeration. At fifty-seven, she had risen to the top of her field as a corporate lawyer, making the kinds of deals you read about in The Wall Street Journal, working late into the night, every night. She lived alone and collected fine wines.

  Dawn was more of a mojito girl. You might think by looking at her that those shiny eyes would glaze over at Marcia’s talk about balance sheets and assets, but that would be a mistake. Over the years, Dawn had started a series of scrappy businesses. Now, she told Marcia, she ran a company that provided two-way radios to police departments, fire departments, and entertainment events like rock concerts and the Macy’s parade. Before she had children, Dawn had traveled the world helping acts like the Rolling Stones and U2.

  “Your kids must think that’s cool,” Marcia said without inflection.

  “My kids aren’t interested yet. They’re eight and nine. They loved the Barney tour, though.” I could see Marcia’s mind flipping through her mental address book. Barney. Barney who? Dawn continued: “But everyone loves Barney, because—a guy in a dinosaur suit—no entourage, right? And if the talent acts up they just get another one.” She laughed, a big, frothy laugh, as free as spun sugar.

  “Huh,” Marcia said again.

  I looked toward Denise to settle myself. She and Lesley were keeping up a steady chatter, or at least Lesley was. Apparently, conversation would rarely stall with Lesley in the room. She spoke with the animation of a teenager at a sleepover, clearly determined to keep it light. But what in God’s name would those two discuss? Denise, the editor, didn’t have children, and she ran in a circle of writers and artists. Lesley had met her husband when she was seventeen and married him by the time she was twenty. Now forty-eight, she had raised three girls, forgoing both education and career to manage a home.

  Miraculously, the two found a compatible wavelength. Denise listened with quiet attention as Lesley talked about a smaller house she was planning to buy near her old one in Connecticut now that the girls were grown.

  “I’m looking forward to playing in a new sandbox,” she said.

  I laughed. There was something youthful and flirty about Lesley, dressed down in jeans and a loose-knit sweater. It was hard to tell what was going on underneath. Could anyone be that cheery to the core, or was she protecting herself? Too soon to know. Only five feet tall, she reminded me of a Russian nesting doll. Short brown hair framed her round face, which projected an expression of perpetual surprise—eyes large, eyebrows arched, and mouth puckered as if she were always exclaiming a startled Oooh! She spoke in a high, chirpy voice with a strong accent from South Africa, where, she explained, she had grown up.

  “Everything sounds a lot se
xier when you have a little accent,” she confided with a wink. “Even after all this time, people have trouble understanding what I say.”

  “People have that problem when you come from Brooklyn, too,” said Marcia, picking up on the conversation.

  Tensions must be easing, I decided, if Marcia was starting to loosen up. Still, the women were drinking more water than wine. No one had touched the guacamole, no surprise, but they also shied away from a splashy platter of sushi that Marcia had brought. Soon, all that tuna and snapper would smell like the docks of Biloxi in July. I had known that such a gathering of strangers was bound to be stiff at first, and so it was. Denise, I noticed, still had her shoes on.

  Half an hour passed, and no sign of our sixth invitee. Of all the women, Tara had been the most hesitant about joining this project. She worried, she had told me, that meeting other young widows would conjure up memories she’d sooner put to rest, that the others wouldn’t understand the complicated nature of her grief, would draw out secrets she’d rather not share. Asked whether she’d ever considered joining a more official widows’ support group, Tara had told me, “I’d rather jump off a cliff.” Just when I’d decided she wouldn’t make it, the bell rang again.

  At the door, Tara handed over a gargantuan bowl of salad, but still she looked like someone carrying something heavy. We’d met before at her country club in a New York suburb. More in her element there, Tara, fifty-four years old, had been wearing black cashmere that day, her honey-colored hair in a luxe cut that swept dramatically off her face. She greeted friends with the innate sociability of a woman accustomed to playing hostess in a high-gloss world. Once, I knew, Tara had excelled in advertising, and later in philanthropy. Her two daughters had recently finished college. Tonight, though, there was nothing but tension in her face. Worse than tension—dread.

  “I’m sorry,” she said slowly, with stagey pauses between each word. “I underestimated … how long it would take me … to drive.” Tara’s voice was her most distinctive feature. A slow, deliberate, and sexy alto, like Lauren Bacall’s, it was filled with drama, commanding attention even though she kept the volume purposely low. Conversation stopped when she greeted the others and took the only chair. She wrapped a cashmere cardigan tighter around her. Lesley told me later, “I took one look at Tara and thought, such a broken woman.”