The Hot Flash Club

by Nancy Thayer

  He vanished from sight. The vibrations of his cycle disappeared from the air. Everything was quiet.

  Shirley blinked. She couldn’t absorb it. She couldn’t believe he wouldn’t come roaring around the block, and back up into her driveway and her life.

  She just stood there, waiting, like a dope, until the furnace kicked on, its ancient rattle alerting her: She was freezing and letting cold air into the house. But she felt that if she shut the door, it would be final. Jimmy would really be gone.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted her mailbox. Fetching the mail was never fun. All she ever got was bills, and it occurred to her that Jimmy, who didn’t help with her mortgage, hadn’t paid for last month’s share of the groceries and utilities. Again.

  Reaching into the rusting metal box, she found three pieces crammed in. As she wrenched them out, the lid broke with a squeak, then just hung there, dangling pathetically by one hinge.

  She slammed the front door shut and leaned against it, drained of energy and hope. Jimmy was gone.

  But the familiar old longing returned, the old and powerful craving for that which would fill the emptiness, dull the sorrow, and bring back the sense of joy she’d felt in her dream this morning. Her old friend/demon/enemy: alcohol.

  But jeez Louise, no herbal teas or meditations would get her over this pain of Jimmy leaving.

  She flopped down on the sofa and tossed the mail on the coffee table. Sure enough, the mortgage bill was there, and the gas bill.

  Shirley Gold, welcome to your life. Tears burned her eyes. Dear sweet Jesus, she wanted a drink! Just one. One small scotch, and she’d feel so much better.

  Then she saw, through tear-blurred eyes, the third piece of mail. Something handwritten on quality stock. What on earth?

  Grabbing it up, she studied the address. It was her name, all right. She ripped open the envelope. It was an invitation to a party for Eloise Linley, one of her massage clients.

  Well, hot damn!

  Her dream had been prophetic.

  This was enough to make her believe in anything.

  Maybe she could even believe in herself.

  7

  MARILYN

  Under the buzzing lights of the university lab, Marilyn bent over a table, brushing with meticulous care at a slab of shale.

  It was after seven o’clock on Thursday night. Theodore was off at a conference for a week, so she didn’t need to worry about fixing dinner for him. She could stop by Martino’s, pick up some salads, brew a pot of coffee, spread the newest science journals out on the dining room table, and read.

  Faraday McAdam strolled into the room. Faraday was about Marilyn’s age, and handsome, if you liked red hair and a ruddy complexion. He wore a heathy tweed jacket and a cheerful tartan vest.

  “Marilyn! I’m surprised to see you here.”

  “Really? Why?” Faraday was a colleague of Marilyn’s, a paleobiologist. He was always extremely nice to Marilyn, which proved, her husband Theodore said, that he was jealous of Theodore and trying to weasel the secrets of Theodore’s work from her. Marilyn thought this didn’t quite make sense—Theodore was a molecular geneticist, his field different from Faraday’s—but as Theodore had pointed out, if Faraday didn’t want to pry into Theodore’s work, or at least try to hang on his coattails, why did he spend so much time around Marilyn?

  Faraday said, his brow furrowed in puzzlement, “I thought you’d be in Hawaii. With Theodore.”

  So there you are, Marilyn thought. Theodore. “It’s a scientific conference, Faraday, not a vacation.”

  “Oh, come on, you know we always mix pleasure with business at these things. Besides, you could have had a vacation. You could have gone along and enjoyed some sunshine.”

  They turned to look at the window, where sleet tapped with an almost musical rhythm.

  “I wanted to keep working,” she told him truthfully. Well, half-truthfully. It was Marilyn’s own intellectual ardor that kept her bent over her work. Faraday didn’t need to know that Theodore hadn’t invited her to join him on this trip.

  “Ah. Well, in that case. But, look. Why not let me take you out to dinner tonight? We’ll go to a Polynesian restaurant and indulge in drinks with flowers in them.”

  For just a moment she was tempted. Then she thought of Theodore; he’d think she was a traitor. “No, thanks, Faraday,” she responded. “I have other plans. In fact, I was just getting ready to leave.”

  “Too bad. Another night, perhaps?”

  “Perhaps.”

  He went off down the hall. The building was silent. Marilyn stretched to ease her aching neck and shoulders, and stood for a moment, looking out. Night had fallen, but the university lights backlit the sleet as it gyred in the wind. Nature liked spirals. The sleet sparkled in the night, each tiny bead alive and dancing.

  In contrast, Marilyn felt heavy and leaden as she pulled on her camel hair coat and her wool cap and gloves. Wrapping her wool muffler around her neck, she crossed it over her chest, buttoned her coat to the neck, hefted her bags, locked her office, and trudged down the hall and out the door to the parking lot.

  Marilyn had listened to the weather report that morning, and dressed with according caution. It was the end of March, so one could expect a day that started off in relative warmth to end that way, but winter was not through with them yet. She could see that not all of her colleagues had been prepared for the barometric plunge.

  At the far end of the lot, Cynthia Wang, the new biology assistant, was whooping with laughter as she slipped and slid across the slick pavement. Her gentleman friend reached out to help her, and they both went down in a flurry of legs. Marilyn waited to see whether someone was hurt. Should she help them up? But Cynthia and her friend rolled on the ice, hysterical with laughter. So, Marilyn thought, they’d be all right.

  She had been smart enough to wear her thick-soled, high-ankled, leather walking boots to work, and as she settled in her old Subaru, she tried to feel appropriately self-satisfied. Instead, she felt melancholy. She couldn’t remember when she’d last laughed as she slipped across the ice. Had she, ever?

  If you’re born a cockroach, you will not evolve into a butterfly. Marilyn had always found great comfort in the reliability of nature. Early on she’d found her niche, and her life had been tranquil because of it.

  But sometimes—

  Theodore had left today, to attend a weeklong conference on genetics and the sea. She wouldn’t miss him very much. She always rather enjoyed it when he was gone. She ate odd meals at odd hours: two hard-boiled eggs with lots of salt and four pieces of toast smothered with expensive Dutch raspberry jam, that sort of thing. At night she watched television for irresponsible hours, and not just the news and the Discovery Channel, but old, unabashedly romantic black-and-white movies that often reduced her to inexplicable tears.

  She’d been weeping more and more, ever since, a few days ago, she’d inadvertently overheard her son and her husband fighting. Teddy had stopped by, as he often did, to join them for drinks and a brief discussion of the latest scientific news or office politics. Marilyn had stepped into the kitchen to put together a tray of cheese and crackers. Did they want pickles? she wondered. Salami? She’d hurried down the hall to ask them, but froze at the sound of her son’s voice. It was low and angry.

  “I don’t understand why you don’t arrange to take Mom with you!”

  Silence. Marilyn knew that Theodore was lighting his pipe, an activity that enabled him to gather his thoughts.

  “Why should I take her with me?” Theodore asked in a reasonable voice.

  “Because it’s in Hawaii. Because Hawaii’s beautiful. Because you are being given free accommodations in a world-class hotel. Because you and Mom haven’t been on a vacation together for years.”

  “May I remind you, this is not a vacation for me.”

  “Oh, come on, Dad. Of course it is. You’ll have to give a paper and attend a few seminars and dinners, but you’ll have plenty of a
fternoons to explore and swim—it even says so in the invitation!”

  Theodore sighed. “Teddy, I understand your intentions are good. But please remember that I have been married to your mother for thirty years. I know what she likes and doesn’t like. More importantly, I know what and who will be helpful to me at a conference. I have a reputation to uphold, remember. Which reminds me. Did you have a chance to read Weingarten’s paper?”

  Marilyn had slunk back to the kitchen, bowed by the sadness of her son’s voice, which exposed clearly the sadness of her marriage.

  But she had to focus on the present. With a shake of her head, she saw she’d somehow driven herself to Martino’s and parked the car neatly between two others in the parking lot. Right, she told herself. Enough sniveling. She hurried into the restaurant.

  To the right lay the dining area; to the left, the little shop with its deli counter. Theodore was a plain meat-and-potatoes man, so Marilyn indulged now, buying pickled mushrooms and antipasto with fat wrinkled Greek olives and a pasta salad with pesto and roasted red peppers. And bread. And wine.

  As she fished in her purse for money, she heard a familiar laugh. Where? Who? She paid, gathered her purchases, and headed to the door, then stopped as she heard the laugh again.

  It had to be Lila, Teddy’s fiancée. Her laugh was so distinctive. Teddy was in Hawaii with his father. Perhaps Lila was here with her parents. Perhaps Marilyn should say hello—

  Peering into the dining room, she spotted Lila immediately. Such beauty. Lila stood out in any crowd. Tonight her hair was pinned up on her head in that careless way young women did it these days, so that the ends fanned out like a turkey’s tail. She wore a red dress with a plunging neckline.

  She was smiling. She was throwing her beautiful head back in laughter. She was accompanied by a man. A handsome man, with sleek black hair and gangster looks. He put his hand over Lila’s.

  The two obviously knew each other well, or were going to.

  Marilyn told herself she should go over and say hello. Undoubtedly, Lila would explain just who this man was, this man who wasn’t Teddy.

  “Excuse me.”

  Marilyn was blocking the door. Two people, arms full of pungent purchases, were trying to get out. Rattled, Marilyn pushed through the door and out into the cold night, and the only reasonable thing to do seemed to be to keep on going to her car.

  As she drove home, Sharon seemed to beam herself onto the passenger seat like a hologram, reminding Marilyn of her warning that Lila was interested in Teddy only for his money.

  The house loomed empty and dark. The mailbox next to the front door was crammed, as usual. She collected the correspondence and dumped it, with her book bags and food, onto the dining room table, then went up to her bedroom to change into the comfort of a robe. She turned lights on everywhere to make the house feel warm. She wished she had a dog or cat, but Theodore had too many allergies.

  Settling in at the table, she began to read, absentmindedly picking at her food, which had lost its savor. She was worried about Teddy, about the strange man with Lila.

  She wished she had someone to talk to. Really talk to. The truth was, she was lonely. Her life had been devoted to her family and her work. She’d worked hard, juggling the demands of both worlds, until now she’d arrived at a calm lagoon. Her son was a successful scientist about to be married. Marilyn was a tenured professor and a respected authority in her field. She had many acquaintances, but no real friends. True, she could always call her sister. But she didn’t think she wanted to hear what Sharon would say.

  At nine, she made a cup of instant hot chocolate and curled up on the sofa to watch The Thin Man, the perfect antidote for her mood, frivolous, glamorous, silly. When it was over, she felt much better.

  Back at the dining room table, she read until the grandfather clock in the front hall chimed midnight. Stretching, she looked down at the pile of mail she hadn’t read yet.

  Catalogues—toss those. Professional magazines, and The Smithsonian, she put aside for herself and Theodore. Bills. And a thick envelope for Dr. and Mrs. Becker. She ripped it open.

  An invitation to a party! For Eloise Linley. They used to be close, back when Teddy was in high school with Eloise’s son Jason, but Jason went off to college in California, married, and remained on the West Coast, and Marilyn hadn’t seen Eloise for years, until the funeral for her husband six months ago. Theodore wouldn’t want to go. He considered time spent on anyone but scientific colleagues a waste.

  But Marilyn would go, she decided. It was a long time since she’d been to a party. The thought had a kind of frightening allure that made lightning bugs flicker in her heart.

  8

  ALICE

  Arthritis was turning Alice into a stiff-limbed man-nequin. At home she sat around on a heating pad, but she didn’t dare use one of those at the office, especially now that little Alison was around. So Alice creaked and ached through her day, and after work she drove straight to CVS to buy a cartload of Bufferin.

  She was hungry, and cranky, and her feet hurt, so naturally the lines at the cash register were long, and everyone was sneezing or hacking with a late-winter cold. She sighed, letting her eyes rest on a display on a nearby counter. Out of the blue, a truly bizarre craving possessed her.

  There, among the chocolate Easter candy, was a rack of plastic beaded bracelets, in a symphonic sherbet of colors: turquoise, pink, pale green, lavender. Suddenly, for no reason, Alice desperately wanted to buy every color and slip them onto her wrist.

  It would be like wearing a rainbow.

  Still: plastic bracelets? For thirty years she’d worn only solid gold jewelry. She considered it a kind of signal: Whatever she touched was only the best. If anyone saw her wearing plastic bracelets—she shuddered, paid for her Bufferin, and hurried to the door, each step a burn of pain. She had to get different shoes.

  Sleet hit her face as she rushed to her car. Just as she reached it, she slipped on some thin ice coating the pavement. Reaching out to catch herself, she knocked her arm on the hood of her Audi. She had to stop a moment to get her breath. Now her feet hurt, her back hurt, and her arm hurt.

  “You okay, ma’am?” A punk kid with spiked hair and more spots on his face than a leopard approached her, sleet slapping against his jeans jacket.

  “Of course I’m okay!” she snapped.

  He held up his hands as if she’d pointed a gun at him. “Sor—ry.” Loping off, he looked over his shoulder at her. “Jeez.”

  “I am not an old woman!” Alice yelled at him, but only in her mind. She wasn’t so far gone that she’d taken to yelling at hoodlums in the street, even if she had spoken rudely to him. He’d only been trying to help, and she was appalled at her instinctive fear simply because he was young, tall, and resembled a space alien.

  What was happening to her? She watched the boy move off down the street, making a game of sliding on the ice. Come back, she wanted to call. Come back and tell me if I look like an old woman!

  Turning around, she entered the pharmacy, strode up to the counter, and selected seven plastic bracelets.

  “For my niece,” she informed the salesgirl, needlessly.

  “Oh, she’ll love these,” the girl cooed. “Everyone does. It’s the rage right now. They bring you good luck, too.”

  “They do? How do you know?”

  “It says so, right here.” The salesgirl pointed to the print on the card behind the rack of bracelets.

  ORIENTAL GOOD LUCK BRACELETS

  IN REAL FAUX STONES

  WILL BRING YOU GOOD LUCK!!

  One size fits all.

  Stretchable. Made in China.

  “Uh-huh.” She had respect for stretchable. “Thank you.” Accepting the paper bag holding the bracelets, she headed back out to her car.

  After turning on the engine to warm up the car, she reached into her purse, took the bracelets out, and slipped them onto her wrist. Now her arm looked different. In the dim neon light from the pharmacy
, who could tell the beads were plastic? They were cool on her skin and made a companionable rattle as she put the car into drive.

  Buying plastic bracelets, for God’s sake. Was she losing her mind? They glimmered when she stopped at a red light. If it were summer, they might be appropriate.

  But maybe this demented purchase signaled an authentic yearning. It occurred to her, as she drove, that it had been years since she’d bought anything with color in it. Needing to look businesslike and competent, a woman intruding into the old boy network, she’d bought only shades of beige, and gray, and black, and ivory, for years. It simplified her life. It sent the message that although she always looked presentable, even elegant, she didn’t waste much time on shopping. Even the clothes she wore at home were in neutral shades, in case someone dropped in unexpectedly.

  At the long brick building, a restored warehouse running along Boston Harbor, she pulled her mail from the box in the hall, pressed the elevator button, got off on the fifth floor, and let herself into her condo.

  When she’d moved here twenty-one years ago, she hadn’t wanted to waste time on decorating; there had been so much work to do at the office. Besides, for a woman from the Midwest, the ever-changing display of sailboats, steamers, and massive foreign container ships seemed a luxury she’d never tire of. So she’d had the place done up in cream, beige, and black. Then, she thought it looked sophisticated.

  Now she thought it looked dreary. Impersonal. Bland. Even the art she’d chosen for the walls was black-and-white—photographs of different cities at night.

  Suddenly, with the same inexplicable craving that had driven her to buy the bright bracelets, Alice wanted to look at flowers. She wanted to cuddle a teddy bear. She wanted to cuddle a real-life, hair-shedding, dander-strewing cat. She wanted to wear a crimson robe while she painted her toenails scarlet.

  She looked at the bracelets on her wrist, and smiled.

  After changing into the robe she had—caramel, with cream trim—she padded into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of red wine. Then she threw herself onto the sofa and lifted her tired feet, tucking a pillow beneath them. Ah. Bliss.