My Favorite Midlife Crisis (Yet)

by Toby Devens

  Ira sold real estate. Very successful but he had psoriasis. Ken and David whizzed by.

  Fleur jotted furiously.

  Next came Elliot, who spoke with a slight British accent. I perked up. Fleur shook her head no. Elliot had a sweet smile and a winning personality but kept kosher.

  Barry, Mark, Howard, Lester, and Sandy followed in a blur. And last, but certainly not least: Victor. “A raincoat salesman. But high-end. Very attractive. The women flock to him like birds to birdseed. Unfortunately, the kind he attracts, he doesn’t want. Listen.”

  “What I’m looking for is someone kind and generous, with a zest for life. A person who will share my interests such as Chinese cooking and going to flea markets. I’m also a sailor of sorts. I keep my twenty-two-foot Sunseeker docked in Annapolis, so I’m looking for a first mate.”

  Kat and I snorted and Fleur rolled her eyes, but she placed a check mark next to his name

  At the end Fleur decided on Howard, Victor, Barry, Ken, and Milton. Five more than she’d come in with.

  “Excellent choices,” Hannah kvelled, beaming like a lighthouse.

  I asked Fleur, “Are you going to mention that you’re a convert?”

  Hannah vetoed the idea. “Don’t go into it. They take one look at you, they know you weren’t born Jewish. They also know you’re Jewish now or I wouldn’t take you as a client. You don’t have to delve deeply for the introduction. Howard, the periodontist, didn’t mention he had prostate cancer. He’s cured.”

  Fleur had been a thin child until she turned eight, she once told me. After her father—the spouse with the money—divorced her mother—who had the better pedigree—Fleur and her brother Kenyon began to smother their sorrow in Cheetos and chips. Kenyon was pushing 350 pounds when he died of a heart attack at forty-eight.

  I didn’t define Fleur by her weight, but too often she did.

  While the camera rolled, Fleur also rolled merrily along with her narrative. She talked about her work, her interest in early American silver, and her love of English mystery novels. Then she said, “And I like all kinds of cuisine, as you might have noticed.”

  “Yossi, stop the filming,” Hannah called out. To Fleur she said gently, “I don’t think you should bring it up about your weight. It’s self-evident. Why make it an issue? They’ll see zaftig. Many men appreciate zaftig, but there’s no need to emphasize.”

  “Right.” Fleur resumed to explain why she never married. “When most of my friends were meeting and dating their husbands-to-be, I was in business school. Soon I started my own successful business, and I was spending all my time doing that and marriage didn’t seem a priority.” Hannah nodded happily through this. “Then I met that special someone and fell in love. We were together for fourteen years, but he never seemed to get around to proposing.”

  “Cut!”

  “The way it works,” Hannah said at the door, “is I’ll show your video to the five men you selected and they take it from there. And Fleur, if you don’t get a call by mid-week, phone me. Sometimes they need a little nudge.”

  I had the feeling she had a set of very sharp elbows.

  She handed us our jackets. “It was nice meeting you, Gwyneth. What kind of name is Gwyneth, if I may ask?”

  “I’m half German, half Norwegian. But I think it’s an English name. My mother took it from a book with a heroine named Gwyneth.” Doubtless one of those trashy novels she’d devoured. As if her fantasy life weren’t sufficiently vivid.

  No score on any count. Fleur tried to give me a boost. “Gwyneth is a doctor.”

  Hannah looked puzzled, as if she couldn’t quite fit the idea of doctor with this shiksa in a sweatshirt and jeans. It clicked finally. “Really? And your specialty is...?”

  “Gynecology. I’m a gynecologic oncologist, which means...”

  “I know what oncology means,” Hannah said. “You’re unusually attractive for a doctor. A classical face. It’s a shame you’re not Jewish. And you, Kat. So sweet and quiet. You’re not currently married either, I see.”

  Kat wasn’t wearing her wedding band. I hadn’t noticed before, but it must have vanished between cleaning out Ethan’s closet and the farewell to Lee.

  “I know I could find someone for you. If you sign up tonight, I’ll give both you and Fleur a 10 percent discount.”

  “I’m not Jewish either,” Kat said.

  “Greenfield?”

  “My late husband was Jewish, but I never converted. I’m Italian. Catholic. Kind of lapsed Catholic. And you wouldn’t want me anyway. I’m damaged goods.” Kat’s laugh was brittle.

  “What did you say?” I couldn’t have heard correctly.

  She ignored me. “I was just diagnosed with breast cancer. I’m being operated on next week. I may wind up with one breast. I don’t think they’re coming out of the woodwork for single-breasted women.”

  “You’re right,” Hannah said. “I won’t disagree with you.”

  Fleur’s face blanched, except for two pink alarm spots on her cheeks. And I said, “My God, that’s ridiculous!”

  “Please,” Hannah held up a halting hand. “Let me finish. Kat could be right that there are some men out there who would reject a woman with one breast. Who knows what evil or pettiness lurks in a person’s heart? But what I’d say to you about those men is why would you want them?”

  “I don’t want them. I’m just saying no man would want me.”

  “You think so? Because of a missing breast? I can tell you for a fact there are men who couldn’t care less about a breast. They look deeper, to what beats under it.”

  “Thank you, Hannah, that’s very kind of you.” Kat shrugged on her jacket as she shrugged off Hannah’s comforting words.

  But the indomitable Hannah would not be brushed aside. “I just wish you were Jewish so I could prove it to you. So I could line them up for you.”

  “Really,” Kat said, showing her discomfort, her need to get out of there. She’d been distracted for the moment by Fleur’s adventure, but now the entertainment was over and it was dark outside.

  On the car ride home, I fumed, “Where did that come from, that bullshit about damaged goods? That’s not you talking, Kat.”

  “Maybe not the old me. Maybe that’s the new one-breasted me.”

  I let it go by. But Fleur couldn’t. “First of all, I didn’t know you decided on a mastectomy. Second, whatever you decide, you have a man who would love you for yourself. Do you think Lee would leave you because you have one breast?”

  “Lee is irrelevant. Don’t bring up Lee.”

  A few minutes later she mumbled, “Summer thinks Dr. Sukkar is medieval for even considering a mastectomy.”

  Aha and of course. “Summer thinks?” I seethed. “Did Summer earn a medical degree when we weren’t looking?”

  “And even if he just scoops out a big hunk of my breast, she’s afraid I’ll look distorted. She really thinks he should do two small lumpectomies. She says breast-conserving surgery is what everyone is getting these days.”

  I shouldn’t have, but I lost it. I spun around in my seat and fixed on the shadow of her. “Just listen to you. This is not highlighting your hair or Botoxing your forehead. This has nothing to do with what everybody is getting, as if there’s a fashion to breast surgery. And it’s not like Abe is pushing a mastectomy. He offered you the option of a lumpectomy. He thinks you’ll do fine with that. Yes, he has to remove more tissue than if there were only one tumor. But if you’re not happy with your appearance, you can always have reconstructive surgery.”

  “I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror without cringing.”

  “That has nothing to do with your breast, Kat. If you don’t want to cringe when you look at yourself, stop giving in to Summer whenever she puts the screws to you.”

  Of cou
rse, I was sorry as soon as I said it. Kat made a umpf sound like she’d been punched and I curled into a cocoon of guilt and regret in the front passenger seat. Snapping at Kat when she was so fragile was unforgivable. And who was I to dictate the terms of her relationship with her only child?

  Then, just as we pulled up to her door, Kat’s new cell phone beeped. It was Summer, from the emergency room. She’d been throwing up all day and Tim was concerned she was dehydrating and insisted on driving her to the hospital. She was already hooked up to an IV to replenish her fluids and they were going to keep her overnight. Tim was with her but she wanted her mama. I couldn’t blame her for that. But she’d forgotten her overnight case. Could Kat pack it for her? She just couldn’t bear those icky hospital gowns. And don’t forget her hairbrush.

  Which steamed me all over again, but for once I kept my mouth shut.

  By the time we rerouted to Summer’s and dropped Kat off at the hospital, it was after midnight. Fleur was bleary as we walked through the Waterview lobby, but she revived enough in the elevator to say with some passion, “I can’t believe Kat’s allowing Summer to run her life. Taking orders from that prissy little twerp. Ditching Lee. It really burns me.”

  “Bottom line, it’s none of our business.”

  “Of course it is, we’re her friends.”

  “Her nonjudgmental friends until she gets the cancer taken care of.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” Fleur muttered, grudgingly. “But I swear, if everything turns out all right on that front, I’m going to take Summer on. Face-to-face, femmo a femmo. Either that or call Lee and make him come to the rescue.”

  “You wouldn’t. You’d better not.”

  “Just watch me!” Fleur said.

  Chapter 26

  Simon’s beach weekend with me began on a shaky note.

  In spite of his Church of England face, he was pulled out of line at Kennedy, wanded, and frisked, a jolt for someone whose standard airport greeters, like Dr. Tashiki back in London, tended to fawn and bow. Then he got stacked up over Baltimore-Washington International for twenty minutes and I turned up late because an airport cop chased me into circling for a half hour. So I expected a grouchy traveler. But no, when I picked him up at the arrivals curb, he radiated good spirits.

  He slid into the passenger seat and pecked my cheek. “I think the entire country is having a nervous breakdown—except for you and me, of course,” he smiled. “As for you, when I didn’t see the car I concluded you’d probably given up on me. But all’s well that ends well.”

  While a horn blared behind us, we sat just looking at each other. With the silver hair, the chin cleft, the clever gray eyes, he really was a stunner.

  Then he said to me, “I’d forgotten how damned attractive you are, Gwyneth.”

  “Well, thanks. But we’ll see if you feel the same way Sunday after two days together.”

  He threw his head back and gave a hearty laugh. “Ever the optimist, are you? We’re going to have a wonderful time.”

  By the time we arrived at Crosswinds, he was beat. I was wiped from the drive. We collapsed. In separate bedrooms, of course.

  Saturday morning I woke to an anemic disc of a sun cranking itself barely above the waterline. From my window, the sea looked insipid, the sand chilly and uninviting, and I wondered whether this beach weekend with Simon was one of my better ideas.

  Surprise. He was up, dressed, fully charged, and tossing through the kitchen drawers when I walked in on him.

  “About time, you slugabed.” He gave me a soft citrus-scented kiss on my neck.

  “I like your aftershave,” I whispered, tingling down to my flip-flops.

  He nuzzled the hollow of my shoulder. Oh, God.

  Gently, I managed to tug myself away to toast bagels and brew the coffee he opted for instead of tea-bag tea. Over breakfast, he regaled me with stories about his recent trip to Saudi Arabia, where he’d treated the women of the Royal Family. Afterwards I set him up in Stan’s study, a room the size of New Jersey, with a seven-foot-long Eames elbow desk that I’d bought to replace Stan’s antique partner’s desk.

  “Anything else you need?” I asked from a chary distance.

  He surveyed the desk, the sumptuous oak and leather ergonomically correct swivel chair, the light falling on his laptop screen from the wide-angled view of the beach through the window wall, and finally me.

  “I need a real kiss,” he beckoned. “Can’t work without one.” He corralled me into his arms. Oh, the man could kiss. This one was hot and sweet and tasted of hazelnut coffee.

  I caught my breath and plunged into a second kiss. And then, dear God, something delicious stirred below the equator. Before I had time to relish that sensation, he released me.

  “There, that should hold us for a while. Why don’t you do whatever it is you do Saturday mornings? Pop in about eleven thirty and we’ll see how far I’ve got with this damnable paper.” He applied a hand to my back and gently but firmly shoved me toward the door.

  Simon liked women. You can tell when a man really appreciates the opposite gender. Stan, for example, thought we were an inferior species and got itchy and bitchy in our company. This was something I observed throughout our marriage but understood only in hindsight. Simon, on the other hand, brightened with pleasure in the company of women. So I wasn’t surprised that women seemed to like him back.

  My neighbor and Crosswinds’ architect Sue Duffy, for example. Handsome at fifty, Sue was built like a mythical creature: beautiful woman waist up, all ass below. As an architect and a big-butted woman, she prided herself on seeing beyond structure. Her practiced eye drove through the struts and bones into the core strength of a house, she’d once told me. I suspected it worked with people too, because as she and Simon conversed, her eyes sharpened, calculating. Poised for good-bye on the threshold, she said out of his hearing, “Now that’s a fine example of the best of imported goods. When was the last time I had a conversation about Christopher Wren and English baroque architecture? Sweetheart, this one’s a find.”

  That afternoon, Simon discussed Persian art of the Qajar period with Yasaman Shariyeh, owner of the Afsoon Art Gallery, all of thirty-five and exotically beautiful with velvet brown eyes and luminous golden skin.

  As we were about to leave with his purchase of a small print, he handed her his business card. “If you find the match to that print, call me.”

  “Yes, of course.” She glanced down. “I’ll do that, ah, Dr. York.” Very proper, although she brushed her fingers against his in the transaction. He looked at me and frowned as if she’d misinterpreted his interest.

  Back outside, he bent down and rubbed his cheek against mine, like an eraser, erasing all doubts that I was his one and only. Then he wound his arm around my waist and we meandered like that to Rehoboth Avenue.

  He halted in front of the window of The Cook’s Tour. “You need loose tea and a tea strainer instead of those tea bags you use.”

  “Not here,” I said quickly, trying to steer him away from Brad’s shop. “Their prices are sky-high. There’s a shop down the street...” But he barreled in and I followed, praying.

  Brad was not in evidence. Thank you, God. No Stan either. Amen.

  Betsy Whitkin, who’d once cleaned Crosswinds as part of a Merry Maids crew, was languishing behind the counter reading Cosmo when we interrupted her. She nodded at me and talked to Simon about English cheeses until I led him into the aisles of Brad’s overpriced inventory. We collected a tea strainer, sacks of Darjeeling and Assam teas, a box of Duchy Gingered Biscuits, and a jar of Fortnum & Mason gooseberry preserves. All of which, it turned out, got him hot, because back at the house after a proper English tea, I’d barely wiped the crumbs from my lips when he took me in his arms and said in a hoarse voice, “I want to make love to you, Gwyneth.”

  Well, yes of course, I’d kn
own when I invited him it would happen. A beach house. Waves crashing. Gulls cawing softly in the distance. As the day chilled down, I’d turned on the gas fireplace in the living room which made authentic flickering shadows on the wall. Thanks to Stan’s state-of-the-art stereo system, flamenco music throbbed throughout the house. Everything encouraged us. Nothing stopped us. God knows, I wanted it. Whatever had stirred up the original coup de foudre was still working. My mouth was so dry with longing, I could barely get the words out.

  “Do you have protection?” I murmured. STDs were an age-defying menace.

  “I’m a physician, my darling. Of course.”

  “HIV test?”

  “Last time a month ago. Negative.” So romantic, the language of twenty-first-century love.

  What did I expect going in? Well, supereducated men tend not to be fabulous in bed. They work too much in their eggheads. Overthink the process. Make love as if they’d learned it from one of those Arthur Murray charts with the footprints. One, two, three, bump; four, five, six, grind. Lousy rhythm, no music. So I suppose I expected nerd-a-go-go.

  I got Baryshnikov.

  Joined at the lips and the hips, we inched our way into the bedroom. Two feet from the bed, groggy with lust, I fumbled with the buttons on my blouse.

  “No, let me,” he said. With his surgeon’s nimble fingers, he unbuttoned me, peeled down my jeans, and tossed them. As I fought to breathe, he teased me, slowly unwrapping me from the last layer of overpriced Victoria’s Secret froth, brushing velvet kisses on my shivering flesh.

  “Oh, God, Simon,” I heard myself slur, felt myself slip into that gorgeous drunken state where inhibitions crumble and every gesture is played out in slow motion.

  And then the cool air against my flesh stirred a frisson of worry. Just in case, I’d draped a silk robe the color of crème brulée on a side chair. Just in case, I’d set the lights low. And from the bedroom fireplace, gaslight flickered camouflaging shadows. But still, my nude wasn’t a sprightly twenty-year-old’s nude. Not even a ripe forty-year-old’s nude. And Simon, I expected, had his choice of vintages.