Saturday Night Widows

by Becky Aikman

  All of us were thoroughly marinated and tenderized by Lavender Garden Body Polishes and Delaware River Stone Massages, but no one could match Tara’s glow that night. I had never met anyone whose appearance changed so dramatically with her moods. She was thoroughly transformed since our first meeting, excitement giving her high-cheekbone features a radiant beauty as she flitted around the fire. She had switched out of her customary classic black cashmere for this occasion into white capri pants paired with a glittering orange, gold, and white tunic, accessorized with dangling beaded earrings and a big silver cuff bracelet. Everything shone.

  She and Dawn had become bona fide buddies by now, sharing private glances and inside jokes. We pulled some wooden rocking chairs up to the fire, and the two of them filled us in on the guy at the other end of the texts.

  “He asked me out on a date this weekend …” Tara said.

  “But she said no, because she was committed to us,” Dawn cut in. “I figure that will make him more interested.”

  “We met last week at a casual dinner with a few old classmates of my husband’s,” Tara continued. She wasn’t speaking slowly this time. “They were in the same class, but I had never met him before. His name is Will.” Unlike Recycling-Bin Man, she gave this one a name.

  “She likes this one.” Lesley rocked forward, giving us all an arch look.

  “And before I left for here, I got a call to have dinner this Saturday night.”

  “She fancies him,” Lesley sang.

  “Yeah … a little.” The fire caught Tara’s flushed expression.

  “Look at her eyes.” Lesley couldn’t have been more pleased if Tara had won the Mega Millions jackpot. “Did he smooch you good night the night you met?”

  “God, no!” The thought seemed to terrify Tara.

  “Do you see that look?” Lesley asked the rest of us. “You always know when you see that look.” We saw it.

  “He texted Tara this morning,” Dawn told us. “He said he wanted to see a picture of her at the spa.” So in the afternoon, Dawn and Tara slinked into the spa’s Whisper Room, where clients zoned out after massages and such. Dawn scooped some cucumber slices out of a water pitcher, plonked them onto Tara’s eyes, smeared some cream on her face and snapped a photo of her recumbent on a chaise longue, then showed her how to transmit the image on her phone. LMAO had been his response. Tara was passing around the picture when the iPhone lit up again. She snatched it away to read his latest text, keeping it to herself.

  “Now what do I write?”

  “TTYL,” Lesley said. “Talk to you later.”

  Tara’s thumbs went to work. She cackled. “I’m not sure I ever want to go out on a date with him. I would just like to keep doing this.” She hit send. “Because then the bubble bursts.”

  Dawn exhaled in frustration. “Have I taught you nothing! Take it back.”

  “Honestly, I’m trying to be realistic.”

  Everyone jumped in. “Don’t be negative!” Marcia ordered.

  “Oh! Oh!” Dawn wailed. “You are causing me physical pain!”

  “I’m sorry, sweetie, I’m sorry,” said Tara, embracing her friend. “You know what I’ll say to you? I’ll say: This is wonderful right now. This is fun right now. I haven’t had fun in a long time.”

  “Fun! Fun!” Dawn fixed Tara with a look and thrust both arms at her as if she were casting a spell.

  Six other women had settled into chairs across the fire and watched us with open curiosity. Tara, more chatty than I’d ever seen her, soon learned that they were five daughters and their seventy-year-old mother, celebrating her birthday.

  “You seem so close,” the youngest daughter said. “How long have you all known each other?”

  “Just since January,” I said.

  She looked shocked. “How do you know each other?”

  All six of us blurted out in unison, “You don’t want to know.” Our collective impulse set us off laughing.

  We went quiet for a moment, and I could hear bullfrogs croaking by the lake. I knew why none of us answered. We knew what the reaction would be, that pitying look. It wasn’t so much that we minded them knowing, even minded the sympathy, but everyone was having such a good time around the fire, and we knew our story would bring them down. It’s not easy being a walking, talking buzzkill.

  Tara owned up, but added, “We are not what you think. We are not like widows who go to depressing meetings.”

  Besides, here in this largely female sanctuary, there were ample reminders that husbands weren’t the only source of fulfillment. As we returned to our own conversation, the moms among our group boasted about the accomplishments of their offspring, and others relayed the satisfaction they drew from full-tilt work. Denise talked about a novel she’d signed up and how absorbed she became in bringing order to a muddled manuscript. “Editing is like the card game Concentration,” she said. “I can remember where the two of hearts is when I see it in the pile.”

  Dawn asked our advice on another business she might launch. “Another one?” I asked. “Don’t you have enough going on?”

  “I live for the thrill of starting businesses,” she said, looking as tickled as Tara. “It’s a more reliable thrill than a man, let me tell you.”

  Whether through parenting or work, we were finding happiness in the flow that psychologists had told me about, the immersion in tasks that both suited and challenged us, the gratification of goals set and met.

  Still, Dawn said widowhood had brought a new perspective to bear on her career. “I want to keep building my business, but have fun and keep it light. I don’t think I’ll ever again be as serious as I was.”

  It was Tara’s birthday that weekend, but there was plenty more going on with her. Since we last saw her, she had set a price on her house, the suburban family house, having decided that she wanted to sell it quickly and look for something smaller, maybe in the seaside town where Lesley had moved. If Tara didn’t find someplace new in time, Dawn had offered a room at her place. We asked Tara if it was hard giving up the home where she had raised her daughters.

  She thought for a moment. “I find it liberating,” she said. I could see the relief on her face at the prospect of being unburdened of too much space, too many things, unburdened of her past.

  “It shows,” said Lesley. “You are looking so lovely. Since January, I see you getting stronger and stronger.”

  “Hmm,” Tara said. “Dawn and I were talking about this today. Should you feel liberated? That you got a second chance? Or should you feel guilty for the sense of liberation you feel?”

  Whatever her feelings, Tara was turning a corner, making some moves, forcing changes. Why now? Why, fourteen months after her husband died, four months after she’d looked so burdened at our first meeting, why now did she feel this elation, so visible in the firelight? Tara had been puzzling over the same thing on her drive to the spa. The easy answer was that she had met a man, from her description a funny, charming, viable man, both interesting and interested, but she dismissed that before she hit the first on-ramp. It was likely his regard was a mere flirtation, most probably leading nowhere.

  Tara savored the monotony of a long trip. Two or three hours on the open road would give her time to reflect in the splendid isolation of her car. She thought about how she would turn fifty-five on Sunday. Fifty-five, no big deal. She had so much life ahead of her, and a responsibility to do something with it.

  She eased onto the busy bridge over the Hudson River, reflecting on how she had weathered some miserable birthdays in the last few years, some birthdays mired in family turmoil, some tucked into bed with Dude, her Pekingese. This birthday, she thought, could have been a repeat performance. Instead, she told herself, I am going to be with friends, supportive friends, and we are going on a journey.

  Halfway across the bridge, she had an open view of the water rolling below and the vast sky arching above. As views go, this vista might seem puny in contrast, say, to the Great Continental Divide
in Montana, but for those of us in the swarm around New York, it’s the best we’ve got, and crossing the Hudson heading west can feel supremely liberating. Tara felt the sensation of a curtain opening onto a wider world. In the last year or so, she realized, she was living behind that curtain. Closed off from a wider life, she had been forcing herself to go through the motions of recovery, looking within, taking care of family business. It was all thought out, structured, devoid of joy. She had never lived behind such a curtain before alcohol claimed her husband’s life. She had been an extroverted person, a person who acted with her heart and her gut. Driving west, alone in her car, she realized, I am beginning to return to who I really am. I’m letting my personality and my instinct take over again. She hadn’t achieved this state intentionally. It had arrived when she was occupied with everything else.

  She steered her car beyond the suburbs and crossed into Pennsylvania, where the highway melted into shaded country roads. She wondered, as I did: Why now? What had changed? Time had passed, certainly, since the loss of David. She had made the hard decision to let go of her house and find someplace new, someplace uniquely hers. She was fielding more requests for voice-over work, a talent she had never suspected she possessed before. The understanding companionship of the other Blossoms, as she called us, made her feel safe, inspired her to do better. And she mulled over her growing friendship with Dawn. The connection had been quick, impulsive, but Tara knew it would last. Dawn’s infectious optimism reminded Tara that her own nature was essentially optimistic. The hopeful, confident spirit had been there all along, waiting for her on the other side of the curtain, and Dawn reassured her that it always would be. They were beginning to share a vocabulary, and Tara found herself repeating some classic Dawnisms.

  That weekend, Dawn was cheerleading Tara through her budding courtship as Dawn continued to debate the merits of her relationship with Adam and his children.

  “We may go out when I get back Sunday,” she said with a shrug. “He may not be the forever guy. I make sure to tell the kids he’s just a friend. It’s touch and go. We’ll see.”

  “Baby steps for baby feet,” Tara said, a Dawnism if I ever heard one.

  The lodge, tucked into a forest, seemingly far from home, was turning into a refuge from everyday concerns, a chance to find perspective and get back in touch with happier selves.

  “This is the first time I’ve been away since Steve died,” Denise said, breathing the smog-free air and leaning back into a rocker. It was also the first weekend in months when she didn’t have to read or edit for work. She still felt pressure to sell her apartment and find a cheaper one, but instead she had rented out the second bedroom to an acquaintance who wasn’t there much, fortunately. That would give her some financial relief, although she still needed to earn extra money helping out at a yoga studio to pay the mortgage. “I can’t tell you how good it feels to get some space, not to feel like everything is closing in on me.” She smiled a normal smile, almost a Duchenne smile. “What a gift.”

  “Denise, what happened with that guy?” Lesley asked. “The one who brought you all the food.”

  Denise winced. “Disaster.” She had been enjoying their platonic attachment, when, after he treated her to dinner at a fine restaurant, he announced, “I think I’m falling in love with you.”

  “Well, hello?” Tara said.

  “I was horrified,” Denise said. “It was less than two months since we’d known each other—way too fast for me.” She didn’t answer him, and the silence was thunderous. He repeated what he’d said as if she hadn’t heard.

  “Oh, God,” Tara said. “Crawl under the table.”

  Denise cut the evening short. “I’m not in that kind of place,” she told him a couple days later. “If you are looking for a response, I can’t do that now.”

  He kept calling and e-mailing, but Denise stood firm. To her credit, she didn’t seem too shaken by the loss of the friendship. Having the mettle to let an uneasy connection go, I thought, was a form of corner turning, too.

  Tara’s phone lit up again, and she handed it to Dawn to read in the dark.

  “Nice … serene … hope it never ends.”

  “What’s he reacting to?” Marcia asked.

  “A picture of all of us,” Dawn said, “at the fire.”

  “That was really sweet,” Tara said.

  Lesley was right: Tara fancied him.

  Marcia yanked the cork out of a bottle of a full-bodied Spanish Granache and got down to the business of her wine tasting, pouring sips into glasses and handing us each a printed form to note our responses in categories like color, smell, and taste. I took a critical sip and wrote dark cherry next to color and raspberry next to taste.

  “What are you doing?” Marcia said indignantly. “You’re not supposed to write words. You’re supposed to rate them with numbers, one to ten.”

  The rest of us were baffled. “How do you rate a color in numbers?” I asked.

  “You rate how pleasing it is,” said Marcia.

  We couldn’t help but laugh. Only Marcia among us would try to quantify something as subjective as taste and smell. I randomly wrote down some sevens and fours. Is cherry a five? Maybe an eight. But Marcia filled in her form with certainty. It was Marcia’s job to establish the worth of things, their worth in numbers, anyway. Her work done, she sat back in her rocking chair and let us tease her about the forms for a minute as I wondered whether anyone else she knew had the nerve to make fun of her. Her husband probably had. I saw her mouth move to the side as she fought the urge to grin. It was the half grin I’d seen before when she talked about work, the same one I saw when she triumphed in the hula hoop class, the one I’d been seeing as she watched the rest of us kid around by the fire. Marcia waited for an opening to raise something new. She was trying to turn a corner, too.

  “Guys,” she said, “I saw an apartment a few months ago. I put a bid on it, but the guy wouldn’t negotiate with me. He won’t come down, and I really want this apartment.” She was fighting to keep her mouth straight, fighting that grin. “If I want it, I’m going to have to overpay.”

  Marcia cave on a business deal? Unthinkable. It would violate every tenet of her creed. And yet. She was looking at Tara and Dawn, watching for reactions, and they saw what I was seeing. Marcia wanted this place. Marcia wanted it so much that she was considering paying more than it was worth. She wanted it so much that she was considering going against her very nature. She wanted it so much that she was looking to Tara and Dawn for advice.

  Buying this condo, she said, wouldn’t be sensible. There were a lot of built-in shelves, so there might not be room for a mahogany bed from her husband’s family. Not such a downside, we thought. We did a quick survey—everyone else but Denise so far had replaced the bed since her husband died. The marital bed was a zinger, for sure.

  I thought that would be the end of it. But Marcia repeated, “I really want this apartment. It has this great open view over the city. It’s got”—she chuckled, half embarrassed at the frivolity—“a pool on the roof. There’s a steam room, a Jacuzzi …”

  “I think I paid more for my new house than it’s worth,” Lesley said. “But it came down to this: this is where I want to live. I haven’t looked back.”

  Tara began, “If you are going to be happy there …”

  Lesley broke in. “Marcia, is your life about money or passion?”

  The question seemed new to her. “You know, that’s an interesting point,” she said. “I make enough that it’s not a big issue.”

  “It sounds like you would have fun there,” I said. “You can hula-hoop on your roof, the whole city at your feet.”

  Everyone whooped at the image. Marcia’s eyes crinkled, and her mouth tried to curl up into a full-blown smile as she fought the impulse. The effort showed, but she succeeded. This was serious. She was measuring the value of pleasure.

  “I’m trying to be disciplined,” she said. “I’m a lawyer. I do this all the time. When you
do deals, you decide on an amount, and you won’t cross that line.”

  “But this is personal,” said Dawn, pleading. “Personal is different.”

  Marcia looked obstinate. I feared that a year from now, she would still be living in that depressing dorm-like apartment, scoring a victory for business over pleasure. The chance of Marcia giving in where money was concerned? I rated it a two.

  “All I can think about,” Tara repeated, “is Marcia in that hula hoop class.”

  Maybe a four.

  chapter

  FIFTEEN

  it depended which Marcia showed up at the table—the one in the Politburo suit, or the one in the kick-ass cowboy boots. From what I’d seen of Marcia up to now, it was the unrelenting dealmaker who usually dominated, and I do mean dominated. I still remembered how she cowed me during our first telephone conversation. She interrupted me with brusque asides to her assistant. “Tell him I’ll call him back in five minutes,” she barked. Or: “I don’t even know who that is. Take a message.”

  I tried to explain my theories about overcoming grief, and she cut me off there, too. “I heard you are starting a group. I want to join your group.” Bottom line.

  She knew what she wanted, but did I? I doubted whether Marcia would fit in with what I hoped would be a merry gang. I could almost hear her saying, “Let me in the group. Cross me and I will crush you.” My resistance crumbled, and I heard myself agreeing to meet her for dinner at a plush expense-account place near her office, around nine, after she wrapped up at work. She ordered foie gras to start.

  Marcia reminded me of one of those Galápagos tortoises, a thick shell protecting her from unwanted scrutiny, a blunt tenacity compelling her to thrive. She wasn’t like anybody else I knew. But as we set aside our menus and began to talk, her head poked out of that shell, just a bit, and I saw the gentle gaze of a tortoise that is visible only up close. This formidable woman had loved her husband, and for the first time in her life, she felt uncharacteristically weak. “I want to join your group” was less a command than a plea, however it sounded.