Second Acts

by Teri Emory

  “Besides French real estate, what are you having her write checks for? I mean, are you spending your money on anything fun?” I ask her.

  “Books and more books. I’m starting a collection of works by the Algonquin crowd—first editions, when I can find them. The most fun I’ve had, though, is thinking about donating lots of money.”

  “I remember the first time Jim and I gave away lots of money,” I say. “It was to the art museum in Laurel Falls. They threw a big reception to announce our donation, and I made a speech reminding them that no one at the place had responded to me when I wrote asking for a job after college. I joked that our gift was dependent on their assurance that no poor art history major would ever be treated that way again. For the rest of the night, the folks on the board of directors were falling all over each other to apologize to me. Sweet revenge.”

  “And let me thank you for your gift to the Film Institute,” Miriam says. “If Jim hadn’t funded that and given Gabe his job, I might never have met him.”

  “So, what are you planning to do with your money?” I ask Sarah.

  “I want my first big donation to have special meaning,” she says. “I think it’s going to be the Ms. Foundation. I’m researching exactly how I want to earmark the money. Probably a scholarship.”

  “Fantastic,” I say. “One of us may finally get to meet Gloria Steinem.”

  “Could happen soon,” Sarah says. She leans forwards and drops her voice. “My people are talking to her people.”

  Miriam and I scream with laughter.

  “You have people?” Miriam says. “My God, Beth, Sarah has people. Do you and Jim have people?”

  “Of course we do. Doesn’t everyone?”

  “Life is so unfair,” Miriam says. “I want to have people, too.”

  “You’ve got something more important,” Sarah says. “You managed to nab the last decent middle-aged man on Earth.”

  In the center of our table, the waiter sets out a dégustation for us to share. Tuna tartare, celery rémoulade, three kinds of pâté. We fill our plates and I tell Sarah and Miriam about my day with Andrew, and my night with Jim.

  “Who knows if Andrew and I would have been happy if we had stayed together,” I say. “Anyway, after all this time it’s hard to imagine being married to anyone but Jim.”

  “Were you still attracted to Andrew?” Sarah asks. “You said he looked great.”

  I shake my head. “Oh, he’s still something, all right. But what I was attracted to was my memory of Andrew, of how we were when we were young. He’s handsome and seductive as ever. What I felt, though, was sort of an attraction once-removed. Like I was reading a book or watching a movie. My own coming-of-age story.”

  “And how is Jim about everything?” Sarah asks.

  “In spite of the way I told him about my day with Andrew—trying to make it seem as if I went to Andrew’s hotel to conduct a therapy session—Jim knew what kinds of feelings were awakened in me. But he loves me. In the end, our shared history and our future are what matter to us—more than what happened before we met.”

  The check arrives. Sarah reaches for the leather folder. “Mine!” she says triumphantly.

  “Hey, you know we always split the check,” Miriam says.

  “Not today,” Sarah says. “I haven’t properly celebrated the start of my new life yet. I was waiting for the three of us to be together. My treat.”

  “In our own ways, each of us is beginning something new,” Miriam says. “And we’re still together. Who could have predicted the lives we have today?”

  I reach across the table for their hands. “No one could have known how good we would be for each other,” I say to my best friends. “I love you both.”

  Epilogue

  To: BethJG@cyber.com, MiriamKap@McCSchool.edu

  From: SarahR@ParisTel.com

  Re: Movable feast

  18 September 2001

  Hi, you two:

  At last, my email is up and running. As I told you when we talked over the weekend, I had no end of problems with the first laptop I bought. Consumer rights appears to be an American concept not well understood here on the Continent. The people at the computer store nearly wore out their shoulders with Gallic shrugs, completely mystified as to why this crazy American woman kept insisting on a new computer simply because the one they sold her didn’t work. Obviously I prevailed, but not without giving my subjunctive a good workout.

  Like everyone else, I’m glued to the TV a good part of every day, hungry for images of Manhattan in the aftermath of the 11th. I keep thinking of your engagement party at Windows on the World, Miriam, and my long, happy conversation that night with your friends Wayne and Thomas. Wayne mentioned his fear of heights—said Miriam was one of the few people for whom he’d ride up a hundred and ten stories in an elevator. Thomas told funny stories about being a firefighter—he made me laugh with a slightly off-color joke that had to do with climbing up ladders and sliding down poles. Now that he’s buried beneath rubble in downtown Manhattan, I wish I could remember the damn joke. Can you tell me where to send a donation in his memory? And is there anything I can do for Wayne?

  Beth: I speak to Nicole every day. I was glad she could stay with me when they closed her school. They were wise to cancel classes for a couple of days. Everything even remotely connected to Americans who live here was shut down last week. Nicole is happy to be back in the dorm, dilapidated though it is. They’ve now got a security guard at the front door. Nicole seems fine, though she was beside herself at the thought that Jim might easily have been in the World Trade Center when the towers went down.

  Ellie’s classes at NYU resume this week, though they’ve been displaced to a midtown location. She’ll always remember her first month of law school. Doug’s classes were never cancelled at Columbia—far enough uptown, I guess, to let business go on more or less as usual. Today is Ellie’s birthday—I FedExed her a Chanel bag. Probably not different from anything she can find in New York, but I somehow feel Chanel you buy in Paris is different. Miriam, next time you talk to Ellie, will you try to get a line on how quickly she and Doug are moving towards the altar? Trans-continental prying is so inconvenient. Anyway, she’s more likely to confide in you.

  My friend Lawrence Zimmerman forwarded an article that ran in an online magazine over the weekend. It’s about businesses that have already figured out that there’s profit to be made from 9-11. The article was called “Notes from the ‘Greed is Good’ Underground,” and it offered a top-ten list of companies that were acting in unethical—not to mention heartless—ways since last Tuesday. Number 4 on the list, was . . . Tri-Tech. It seems that the company’s president, one Joey Selber, posted a note on his company’s website saying, “We want to remind our clients that they don’t have to travel to benefit from our expertise. We can put state-of-the-art video conferencing to work for you!” Joey’s bio and picture appear underneath. Some patriot, huh? To hell with trying to get people back on planes. Vive le Tri-Tech!

  Myself, I’m jittery about flying, but nothing will keep me away from your wedding, Miriam. Nicole and I will travel back to New York together, and then all of you can fly back over with us. Beth, I insist that you and Jim stay with me while you’re over here. Miriam, I’ve made your honeymoon reservations at L’Hôtel, just down the street from my apartment. The place is quite small, about twenty rooms. Oscar Wilde died there. I told them to give you the grandest room (not necessarily poor Oscar’s)—my wedding gift to you. I figure you and Gabe already have all the toaster ovens you need.

  Galeries Lafayette Maison delivered my new sofa one night last week. The guys made so much noise steering the thing through the narrow hallway that they woke my very attractive neighbor, Dr. François Dubreuilh, who came to the door in his not very attractive pajamas. He introduced himself; I apologized for the racket. Before long we were sipping brandy (he ditched the p
j’s for jeans and a sweater), and he was telling me how sad he was about the WTC and how he loves New York. Essential info: Doctors Without Borders cardiologist, heterosexual, divorced ten years ago, has a grown son in London. Speaks charming English, if you go for that Louis Jordain/Maurice Chevalier thing. I’m having dinner with him tonight. Full report to follow. Okay, I’ll allow you just one I-told-you-so. What can I say? Hope springs eternal.

  I’ve promised myself I will write every day. I shipped over some boxes of old files, blew off the cobwebs, and found notes I’d made years ago for short stories. They still look pretty good to me. I’ve got a few things on my side that I didn’t have back then to support my writing habit: menopausal zest and a fair amount of money. What is it they say in murder mysteries? Doing the deed requires means, motive, and opportunity. I’ve got all three now, but I’m not much for homicide. Guess I’ll try literature.

  Love, Sarah

  Acknowledgements

  Writing is a solitary business, but producing a novel takes a village. My little hamlet is full of bright, patient, generous, tenacious, and loyal denizens to whom I am thoroughly grateful.

  Many thanks to the dream team of talented pros at Amberjack Publishing. Dayna Anderson and Kayla Church embraced this book (and me) with warmth and enthusiasm from the start. Gaby Thompson was an early and persuasive fan. Jenny Miller, my astute, lightning-quick, and bravissima editor, nurtured every page. Cami Wasden kept all the moving parts moving in the right direction.

  Erica Stellar, Janet Burnham, Esther Marvet, Riva Naiman, Chani Steinmetz, the evanescent Michael Thomas, and the late, great MaryJo Milone (along with her Wallingford book group) read the early work in progress and provided invaluable, unflinching critiques.

  The good folks at the Authors Guild dispensed sensible advice in record time.

  This book is about female friendships. These women taught me what I know on the subject: Andrea Appelman, Glenda Greiff Kaufman, Pam Buchanan, Marilena Sanò, Elaine Rosenthal, Sylvia Handler, Eva Askew-Houser, Barbara Robertson, Donna Brown, Janet Burnham, Witty Muehlbauer, Angie Michael, Abby Moline, Carol Patton, Shelley Banner, Maureen Feduniak.

  I’ve also learned plenty from my friendships with Bruce Newman and Jonathan Weisgall, remarkable men who get it about women and always have.

  Loved ones and mentors live on in memory and inspire me to keep writing: My mother Stella, who provided Nancy Drew books, Broadway tunes, and a role model for chutzpah. My grandmother Sadie, whose default emotion was unconditional love. Mildred Lewis, my fifth-grade teacher at P.S. 186, who invited me to help her write the class play. Richard Dorfman, my English teacher at Great Neck South, who demanded a gazillion revisions of my paper on Look Homeward, Angel. Leslie Fiedler, my professor at the University at Buffalo, who gave me permission to disparage The Last of the Mohicans.

  Count Tolstoy contended that happy families are all alike, but I believe that my happy family stands apart. I am fortunate to have relatives who are loving by nature and literate by design and whom I would have chosen under any circumstances: My brother Steve, whose brilliant life is even more of a success than he realizes. My daughter Erica, son-in-law Dan, and grandson Eli, who are everything to me and a gift to the world.

  My deepest gratitude and love belong to the family member I did get to choose, the one I’d gamble on any time: my husband Ken. De tout mon cœur pour toute ma vie.

  ABout the Author

  Teri Emory is living proof that liberal arts majors are not necessarily unemployable. As evidence: She has taught writing and literature at the University of North Florida, Hunter College, Yeshiva University, and Fordham University. She lived in Rome, where she taught English to Soviet immigrants awaiting visas to the U.S. She survived an extended tour of duty as a corporate writer. Her articles and poems have appeared in print and online publications. She has edited essays and book-length manuscripts on absurdly esoteric topics.

  Teri was born in the Bronx and grew up in and around New York City. She is proud to have been educated entirely in public schools, from kindergarten at P.S. 77 through grad school at U.C. Berkeley. She has lived and worked in several cities, some more fun than others, and has traveled widely. A devoted mother and besotted grandmother, she now resides in Las Vegas, married to a man whom she re-met, after almost forty years, at their high school reunion.

  Visit her website at www.teriemory.com.

  Discussion Questions

  1) How does the structure of the novel—with three narrators—add to the reader’s understanding of each character? Are they all reliable narrators?

  2) Every chapter begins with a lyric from music written in the 1960s, and additional lyrics are scattered through the book. Why did the author include these? What role did music play in Sarah, Miriam, and Beth’s generation?

  3) Each of the main characters experiences the loss of someone close to her. How do these losses affect them? What do they learn about forgiveness, and about themselves, as a result?

  4) How does the era in which Sarah, Miriam, and Beth first meet—the late 1960s—color their friendship? Which elements of the friendship remain the same over time? Which change?

  5) Sarah faces sexist attitudes at work, from her boss and even from a female co-worker. Could Sarah have done more to combat sexism at her office at that time (the end of the twentieth century)? Have things changed for women at work since then?

  6) Miriam relates many of her experiences to movies she loves. Has her appetite for on-screen romance given her unrealistic expectations about life? What role does her keenness for movies play in her relationship with Peter? With Gabe?

  7) Beth notes that she, like one of her patients, is part of the “first generation of women to feel entitled to interesting lives.” Beth also says that, “…we speculate from time to time about what life might have held in store had we married different men, or not had children, or not married at all.” What does Beth mean by these observations? Are they contradictory? What do they reveal about Beth’s marriage to Jim?

  8) Though the three main characters are New Yorkers, they spend time in, and have emotional connections to, other locations as well: Acedia Bay, Savannah, Rome, Paris. Are these places “characters” in the book? How so?

  9) What do Sarah, Miriam, and Beth think about marriage? Are they optimistic about it? Resigned? Cynical?

  10) Sarah raises her daughter mostly alone; Beth loses a son; Miriam has no children. What does the novel have to say about motherhood?

  11) How did trust between Sarah and Kevin erode? In what ways is Kevin’s behavior like that of Martin, Sarah’s first husband? Were there signs that Kevin was distancing himself? If so, why did Sarah ignore them?

  12) Each of the women is forced to compromise on something important to her. What do these compromises entail? How do the three differ in the ways they handle setbacks or disappointment?

  13) In assessing her long marriage to Jim, Beth says, “Nothing in life really begins, or ends, when we think it does.” In what ways is this statement true for each of the three women? How is this idea likely to affect their “second acts?”