The Girlfriend Curse

by Valerie Frankel

  “I wouldn’t know,” said Linus.

  “Are you smitten with me?” she asked.

  Linus said, “The kind of man who is worthy of you, Peg, won’t respond to rote flirtation.”

  “Are you worthy of me?” she asked, not able to stop herself.

  He sighed.

  “There I go again,” she said.

  “Wilma is out on the porch,” Linus said, pointing in that general direction with his pen. “She’s leading a morning meditation.”

  He was being cold, terse. She had to ask. “We’re still friends, right? I’ll just assume you’re in a bad mood because of last night. You can tell me what happened with you and Wilma. It might make you feel better.”

  Linus grinned. Just a little, and then it was gone. “Peg, I have to maintain a professional distance,” he said. “I can’t get personally involved with clients. I must stay detached.”

  “In other words, back off,” she said. “What if I can’t? I got a low score in agreeableness.”

  He said, “Astoundingly low. The lowest I’ve ever seen.”

  Somehow, this made her proud. She took her plate with her to the front yard, avoiding the navel contemplation on the back porch. The day was bright and hot, the usual ninetyish, clouds zipping across the blue sky, ducking behind the mountains and then emerging in streaks as if the trees had brushed them straight. Peg watched a frenetic chipmunk popping out of his hole in the garden, darting aimlessly, then returning to his underground sanctuary.

  Linus said she was magnificent. Irresistible. He also said a man worthy of her wouldn’t be swayed by flag-waving flirtation. Ray responded to it like a bull in a ring. By Linus’s logic, that meant Ray was unworthy.

  Standing there in the sun, Peg revisited her fantasy of Linus in the haunted house, gripping her tight while ghosts and ghouls moaned on the ride’s sound track.

  Chapter 23

  The Inward Bounders were lined up by the riverbank. Wilma was issuing orders.

  “Down Dog,” she barked.

  Tracy said, “I hate that one.”

  “Come on, hands on the ground, make a V with your body, feet shoulder-width apart.”

  Ben said, “I think my Achilles tendon just tore.”

  Luke sat on the porch, refusing to participate. Peg had wandered around back. She sat next to Luke and asked, “How’s your head?”

  He completely ignored her. She shrugged and watched.

  Wilma said, “Now, eyes closed, rocking slightly, I want you to contemplate the joys of solitude. The blessing of privacy. The uncompromised splendor of living alone.”

  Tracy said, “The joys of solitude? I came to Inward Bound because I’m sick and tired of rationalizing the upside of being single.”

  Wilma said, “Part of the process is to embrace who you are. To be happy in the now.”

  “In the now? My muscles are popping, and all the blood is rushing to my head.”

  Wilma snapped, “If you think you can guide the meditation better yourself, be my guest.” And then she stormed past the Down Doggers, up the porch steps, and slammed into the living room, leaving the programmees alone. Tracy, Gloria, Ben and Ray collapsed on the grass. Luke stared across the river. Peg finished her breakfast and brushed the crumbs on the porch.

  Linus came out suddenly, and said, “Wilma and I have some errands to run. We’ll be back in a few hours. Serve yourself lunch. We’ll have dinner at the fair.”

  And then he, too, was gone.

  Thirty minutes later, Peg floated, belly-up, on the Connecticut River, the sun darkening her face and limbs, burning her midsection. Tracy and Gloria joined her for the swim. Like dolphins, they glided along the bank, splashing, mindlessly relishing they relief of not having to explore their psyche, at least for a few hours.

  Ray, who’d gone to change into his suit, returned to the riverbank with several fat joints. He said, “Anyone fancy a smoke?”

  He needn’t have asked. Peg climbed out of the water, Tracy and Gloria close behind. Taking a joint, she sat at the river’s edge, lit up, inhaled and passed it along to Tracy.

  Gloria said, “My drug-testing doesn’t usually include non-prescription varieties.” And then she partoked.

  Ben and Ray shared one on the porch. They offered it to Luke, but he refused.

  Tracy whispered, “Luke hasn’t said a word all morning. He hasn’t moved from that spot.” Fully dressed, Luke sat on the porch, ignoring everyone.

  Peg said, “He’s hungover. Possibly embarrassed.” She imagined his horror, waking up shirtless and dusted with flour.

  “He won’t talk to me,” said Tracy, pouting. “He hates me.”

  “He doesn’t hate you,” said Peg. “I’m telling you, he’s hurting. I’m an expert on hangovers.”

  Gloria, who had commandeered the joint, said, “These rocks are so smooth.” She’d started collecting some of the river stones, making neat piles.

  Tracy said, “Perfect for skimming.”

  An hour later, Peg’s arm was stiff from skimming rocks. Her record was six.

  Ben got eight skips—the day’s record. “And that’s not all I can do,” he said suddenly, before plowing into the river. “Not too long ago, I was a member of a synchronized swimming society. The only man in the society’s twenty-year history.”

  He started to do some water ballet moves. When his head was above water, Peg yelled, “Did you date any of the other members?”

  He said, “Yeah, but at sixty-four, she was just a little too old for me,” which made them all howl, including Ben, who had a charming, ringing laugh.

  For the group’s entertainment, Ben performed a water ballet routine while Tracy hummed “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.” By the magic of luck (or pot), Ben’s routine matched Tracy’s accompaniment perfectly, even though he hadn’t heard a note of it.

  Ray sat down next to Peg. She said to him, “You told Tracy I had a sugar bush?”

  “Well, you do,” he defended.

  She laughed. He put his arm around her shoulder, and she didn’t shrug him off. The sun was hot, the water cooling. The morning slouched into the afternoon, and still no sign of Wilma or Linus.

  The Inward Bounders decided to walk into Manshire for lunch at Poule au Dent. Albert ran toward them as they entered. “Peg! My favorite flatlander! You’ve come back to me.”

  Albert might be a bigger flirt than Peg. She smiled. “I’ve brought friends.”

  Ben pushed through the group. He said, “Mr. DeWitt, I was an imbecile the other night. I hope you’ll accept my humble apology.”

  The two men shook hands, and Albert showed them a table on the patio. On the way out back, Tracy whispered to Peg, “What was that about?”

  Peg shrugged, and said, “Ben on drugs is a changed man.”

  “It’s a vast improvement,” said Tracy.

  “He should be on a continuous cannibus drip.”

  Gloria said, “I could eat a horse. Do they eat horse in Vermont?”

  Albert said, “We just sold out of horse tartar. But I can get you a lovely fennel salad.”

  And it was lovely. Especially with all the Chardonnay. Lunch finished, the Inward Bounders were ready for a nap. They walked back to the mansion, and, once home, up to their respective suites.

  Ray pinned Peg against the stairway wall and kissed her neck, breathing against her skin. He said, “Take a nap in my room.”

  The pot, sun, food and wine had lulled her misgivings about him to sleep. She said, “We won’t nap.”

  “We can talk,” he said. “We haven’t talked in days.”

  Had they ever? She said, “I’ve been focusing on my development.”

  “I’ve been focusing on your development, too,” he said, eyeing her chest. He rubbed himself against her. Like a frozen cucumber, he rubbed.

  She asked, “You wouldn’t relinquish the responsibility of our relationship to me, making me to do all the work of maintaining it and pushing to forward?”

  “I have no ide
a what you’re talking about,” said Ray. At least, that was what she thought he said. She couldn’t hear him very well with his face buried in her cleavage. Then he lifted his head, took her by the wrist and said, “We’re going to bed. Now.”

  “What about Linus?” she asked.

  “Linus?” said Ray. “This is the wrong time to be thinking about Linus.”

  “This is precisely the right time to be thinking about Linus,” said Linus, materializing at the bottom of the stairs.

  Peg said, “We’re napping. Before the big night out.”

  “Napping. Is that what you call it?”

  “I’m going to my room now,” she said.

  Linus said, “You do that. Ray, would you give me hand? I’ve got supplies in the truck.”

  Ray said, “Be right there.” It was a dismissal line. But Linus didn’t leave. Ray stared down at him. Linus squared his feet and folded his arms over his chest.

  If she didn’t know better, Peg might have thought these two men were staging a body language battle over her. But that wasn’t possible. Linus was a professional. With detachment. And distance. He wasn’t going to let Peg get personal with him. He was simply acting as a stopgap, preventing Peg and Ray from plunging into actions that would flatten their learning curve. Speaking for herself, Peg knew that if Ray got inside her body, she wouldn’t be able to get inside her head.

  Ray whispered in Peg’s ear: “Tonight I am getting you alone, if I have to clobber him with a pitchfork.”

  And then he left, loping down the steps, slapping Linus (too hard) on the back. The men walked off toward the driveway, and Peg went upstairs to the women’s suite, surprising herself by slipping easily into a dreamless sleep that lasted for over two hours.

  Linus called everyone downstairs to the kitchen around five. Gloria came into the room with sneaky eyes. If Peg didn’t know something was up, she would have known something was up. Subtlety hadn’t been on the curriculum at any of Gloria’s private schools. Peg glanced around, seeing if anyone else noticed Gloria’s tightly balled fists, her flopsweat, that her voice had gone up two octaves. Luke kept his eyes on her, even with Tracy sitting next to him. But if he noticed a change, he didn’t let on.

  Linus said, “We should go over the plans for tonight.”

  Tracy said, “I’m thirsty! Mind if I put out some drinks?”

  Wilma said amicably, “Let me help.”

  Gloria said, “NO! I will.”

  Peg sat next to Wilma. “And how was your day?” she asked casually.

  Wilma said, “Very productive. I went to the psych library at Dartmouth and did some research on personality development. New studies out of Berkeley have confirmed that the bedrock traits are, contrary to widely held theories, mutable after age thirty.”

  “People can change,” said Peg.

  “If they can’t, we have no business being in business,” said Wilma. “The new research has flaws, though. It could be wrong.”

  “That’s pessimistic.”

  “A dominant trait of mine,” said Wilma, her eyes shifting toward Linus. “Not an attractive one, apparently.”

  “The research will hold up. Of course people can change. Throughout their lives,” said Peg.

  Wilma looked squarely at Peg. “People strive to change throughout their lives. Self-improvement is the American religion. Research may or may not conclude that change is possible. Regardless, the question should be, are alterations always improvements? If I train my behavior and become optimistic, for example, does that make me a better person?”

  “It doesn’t make you better,” said Peg. “Just different.”

  “Different than my essential nature,” said Wilma. “That’s another thorny issue. If we can change who we are and become different—not qualitatively better—then does personality and identity even matter? And why strive to change? For yourself? Or for someone else? To please someone else?”

  “You’re talking as if change is a finger snap. That you could decide to be optimistic, and then”—snap. “Change may be possible, but it ain’t easy,” said Peg of the low neuroticism.

  “What are you two talking about so intensely?” asked Ray, sitting down next to Peg.

  Wilma took the intrusion as a way out, turning to her right, to talk to Ben. Ray saw his opening and said, “You look beautiful tonight.”

  Peg was wearing a tank dress—orange-and-pink-striped—flip-flops, her hair in a high ponytail. Standard summer wear. She said, “You never say anything except how beautiful I am and how much you want me.”

  He frowned. “We talked for hours on the train.”

  “We talked for forty-five minutes, tops,” she said. And even then, their conversation was ninety percent rote flirtation, as Linus would call it.

  “What else is there to say?” asked Ray, annoyed. “What else do you need to know?”

  He had a point. Did she want to discourse with Ray—or intercourse with him? His intentions were honest. She smiled at him apologetically and said, “You can say anything you want, or say nothing at all.”

  Ray leaned toward her and whispered what he wanted, explicitly.

  Meanwhile, Tracy and Gloria were placing glasses of apple cider around the table. Gloria nearly spilled Linus’s glass, which made her gasp way too loudly. Linus’s blue eyes sharpened. His instincts had perked up.

  Peg said quickly, “So what’s the agenda for tonight?”

  Linus continued to watch Gloria while he spoke. “Figured we’d go to the fair. Eat there. Hang out for a few hours. Come home.”

  Tracy pushed a glass in front of Wilma.

  “Pile into the pickup?” asked Ben.

  “Room for eight,” said Linus, nodding. He took a long drink of his cider—Gloria, Tracy and Peg registering every swallow.

  “I’m not going,” said Wilma, pushing her glass aside. “I’ve got some notes to compile.”

  “Your notes can wait, can’t they?” asked Linus.

  “I’m taking the night off,” she said.

  “This morning, you said you needed the afternoon off.”

  “And now I need the night off.”

  “Frankly, Wilma, I can’t remember the last time you had an ‘on’ night.” The hosts seemed oblivious to the other people in the room.

  Peg said, “Where’s professional detachment when you need it?”

  Linus said, “We’re demonstrating a healthy argument style. Conflicts are inevitable in every relationship. Learning to deal with—”

  “Drink up, Linus,” said Tracy. “The fair won’t wait all night.”

  Tracy looked at Peg, then at the full glass in front of Wilma, then back at Peg. “I sure am parched,” said Peg. “Wilma, aren’t you parched? Your throat must be dry as a martini.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You look thirsty.”

  “For blood,” said Ray in Peg’s ear.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” said Wilma, getting up and disappearing into the living room. They could hear the porch door opening and slamming closed.

  Linus said, “Pardon me,” and followed Wilma outside.

  Tracy caught Peg and Gloria’s eyes. She cocked her head toward the living room. The ladies made their excuses and adjourned to the other room.

  When they were out of earshot of the men, Tracy whispered, “Linus should be out cold in about half an hour. We’ll have to wait. We can’t let him behind the wheel now.”

  “Does anyone know how to get to the fair?” asked Peg. “We can’t very well ask for directions if Linus thinks he’s driving.”

  “I know the general direction,” said Gloria. “It’s close to where we went to the church potluck. We also need the keys to the truck.”

  “We can take our own cars,” said Peg, seeing an opportunity to log a few more miles on her Subaru.

  “Good idea,” said Tracy. “We should take separate cars.”

  “Why?” said Gloria.

  “You could not be more clueless,” said Tracy. “Here com
es Linus.”

  Their blue-eyed guide approached. Peg asked, “Are you okay?” He looked dejected but resolved.

  Linus said, “Change of plans. I’m going to stay home tonight, too. I’ve written out directions to the fair. You can take the truck, or your own cars. It’s pretty easy. Drive down River Road into Chelsea. Make a left by the ol’ knotty oak, then a quick right at the alpaca farm, bear left by where the mill used to be—”

  Tracy snatched the directions from his hand. “We’ll find it.”

  She marched back into the kitchen, announced to the men that they were leaving now, and herded everyone out the front door.

  In the driveway, Peg pulled Tracy to the side. “Maybe I should stay, too. Linus doesn’t look good.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” asked Tracy. “Don’t you want to be with Ray?”

  “Of course I do,” said Peg. She glanced back at the Federal.

  “Who else would I want to be with?”

  Peg got into her Subaru, Ray in the passenger seat. The group caravaned in three cars to the fair, not getting lost once. Upon arrival, Ray pulled Peg away immediately.

  They bought tickets, and entered the fairgrounds. Peg had never been to a country fair before, but it was exactly as she’d expected. The rides, food trailers, dart games, tents selling T-shirts and macramé plant hangers, big barns with beribboned pigs and cows. She was taken aback by the crush of Vermonters. Peg started counting mullet haircuts, but had to stop at fifty. The crowd was a walking parade of “befores”—cropped jerseys, acid-washed jeans—as if the population of the state (Peg suspect that all 600,000 might be at the fair) had never seen a copy of Vogue or watched a three-minute clip of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. None of the women wore makeup, nail polish or jewelry. Peg wasn’t much of an accessories or makeup maven herself, but in New York, eschewing the finishing touches was a style choice in and of itself. And even if a New Yorker didn’t wear makeup, her skin had the healthy glow of five kinds of moisturizer and anti-wrinkle cream. Peg’s version of jewelry-free was to wear diamond studs, and a diamond solitaire on a gold strand around her neck. Next to these Vermonters, her minimalism was maximism.

  Botox and laser facials hadn’t come this far north either. Deep wrinkles and infected blemishes were the rage in Sunbridge. Many of the women were either scary skinny, or dumpy fat, carrying the excess weight in the middle, not bothering to slenderize with fitted clothing, just throwing a housecoat over the bulge and calling it a day. The men seemed, as a whole, slimmer, with cavemanlike bushy beards and mustaches. The men were bulking up with facial hair for a long cold winter. In July. They could house the state’s squirrel population in their faces.