by Nancy Thayer
Her mail lay in the center of the coffee table. Nothing she couldn’t wait to check out—except—something heavy, addressed by hand.
She opened it. Oh, yeah, the going-away party for Eloise Linley. The other executive secretaries had organized it, and Alice was glad. Eloise deserved it. Even if Alice felt Eloise was bailing out just when she needed her most, she had to go. It would be churlish not to, plus it might signal a weakness to the new kids on the block. Sighing, Alice turned on her heating pad and lay back on the sofa, staring out into the night.
9
Saturday night as Faye prepared for the party, she put on a CD of Strauss waltzes and concocted a light drink of vodka with cranberry juice, loving the rosy color, which always put her in a festive mood. She showered, pulled on her turquoise kimono, and sat down on the quilted rosewood bench in front of her dressing table.
She looked in the mirror.
A stranger looked back.
She leaned closer, as fascinated with her face as she’d been as a teenager, scrutinizing each pore. Back then, of course, she’d been trying to maximize her sex appeal. Now she wanted only to remain recognizable. Every day it seemed some bit of her skin slipped another millimeter. Her eyes were no longer the same size or shape, and her lids drooped like a pair of ancient panties with stretched elastic waistbands.
Behind her, on a padded hanger, was her new, loose dress of fawn-colored silk, which, when she’d tried it on in the shop, had seemed dignified and subdued. Hanging from her closet door, it looked more like garment bag than garment.
Not so long ago, a new dress was a cause for excitement. Red dresses especially. She loved red dresses. With their flamboyant look at me! intensity, they aroused within her the kind of anticipation she might feel for a lover. A red dress invited the unexpected and promised excitement.
This dress promised comfort.
Not a bad thing. After all, Faye thought, a life, like the earth, has its seasons: the pastel blush of youthful spring, the green luxuriance of fertile summer, then the flames of autumn, in defiance of the approaching colorless winter. Faye was fading into the winter of her life. Her looks and powers were diminishing. She needed glasses, and she was beginning to consider the sense of hearing aids. Her mind, which had once flashed fast, efficient, and bright as a hummingbird, now flapped and squawked like a turkey.
Faye wasn’t afraid of the future. She hoped her death would reunite her with Jack. She had wonderful memories of her past: She’d been married to a man with whom she shared a profound love, she had a daughter and a granddaughter, and she had worked, for so many fulfilling years, at her art.
The present baffled her. She knew it was time for others to move into the spotlight. It was time for her daughter to wear red dresses. Faye wouldn’t change that for the world. But wasn’t there something more she could do with her life while she still had health and energy, sporadic as it was?
For starters, she counseled her reflection, she could attend this going-away party for Eloise Linley. Jack would want her to. And it would be a way of celebrating the retirement of a contemporary.
She began to make up her face. She’d never used foundation, but now she wondered whether she should, to even out her skin tones. Or would it emphasize her wrinkles? She made a mental note to buy some new eye-liner shades. The black she’d used for years stood out too harshly against her fading skin, giving her the horrified stare of an extra in a Stephen King movie. As she carefully painted her mouth, she remembered she used to assume old women’s lipstick was applied crookedly because they couldn’t see well. Now she realized it was the lips themselves that had become uneven, thinned with age and pleated with lines.
Never mind, she soothed herself, as she rose and slipped on the fawn silk dress. It looked elegant, and it felt blissful, sliding over her like water. She draped a long silk scarf swirling with roses around her neck, letting it hang loose almost to her waist—a trick she’d seen on television, this was supposed to elongate her appearance. She rubbed a tissue of fabric softener over her stockings and slip to prevent any static cling that would accentuate her bulges. She used to sprinkle her skirts with water for this purpose, until she realized any wet spots might hint at incontinence. She tucked an extra sheet of softener in her purse, clipped on a pair of gold earrings, stepped into her shoes, and blew her reflection a kiss.
After locking her kitchen door, she settled into the comfort of her BMW. She was just a little nervous as she drove toward downtown Boston and the spectacular new TransWorld building. She still wasn’t comfortable going out alone at night.
The traffic heading into Boston was light. She found the TransWorld parking garage, showed her invitation to the guard, and spiraled up to the fifth tier before she found a spot. She locked her car, patted its hood in appreciation of its friendly automotive beep, and headed toward the office complex.
Several others joined her as she entered the vast lobby. They all smiled, but the others were couples, and as they all crowded into the elevator, Faye felt shy. Odd, how when Jack was alive, she’d had no reluctance about entering a crowd by herself. She’d gone off to movies, theater, parties, lectures, without the slightest self-consciousness. She’d had no trouble approaching strangers at these affairs, and now she realized how Jack’s existence in her life had accompanied her like a tag on her chest saying chosen. She could be independent precisely because she was attached.
The door slid open on the twentieth floor. They stepped out into an enormous ballroom. Chandeliers shimmered. A live band played light rock. Waves of laughter rose and fell as men in tuxes and women in drop-dead dresses floated effortlessly toward one another, animated and glossy with success. As Faye passed through the crowd toward the drinks table, she saw how their glances dismissed her. In this sea of life, they were mermaids, sting-rays, and sharks, while she was only a large, homely manatee, the sea’s cow.
She took a flute of champagne and a handful of cocktail napkins, then retreated to a corner to look around the room. When she spotted Eloise, she did a double take. Always before, chubby Eloise had been dressed for success in appropriate executive secretarial garb: suits and pantsuits in taupe, navy, and gray. Tonight a dazzling amber-and-gold caftan draped her full figure and set off her hair, newly dyed a shocking saffron and cut short and stiff as a whisk broom.
Eloise was surrounded. She would be all evening, so Faye began to squeeze her way through the crowd.
“Faye!” Eloise bent forward to hug her. “How nice of you to come!”
“You look amazing tonight,” Faye told her.
Eloise threw her head back and laughed. “Well, Faye, I feel amazing! I’m so excited about my plans.” Linking one arm through Faye’s, she pulled her close. “I was just getting ready to tell Marilyn and Shirley what I’m going to do.” With her free hand, she gestured, “Faye Vandermeer, meet Marilyn Becker and Shirley Gold. Faye’s husband Jack worked in Frank’s law firm. Marilyn’s son Teddy was my Jason’s best friend in high school.”
Faye nodded at Marilyn, a thin, scholarly looking woman with gray hair and glasses, clad in red tartan skirt, gray turtleneck, and burgundy plaid blazer.
“And,” Eloise continued, “Shirley has quite simply saved my life—she’s a masseuse and good witch.”
Faye thought Shirley, with her turbulent red tresses, glittering violet eye shadow, voluminous batik trousers, and multicolored scarves, looked more like a belly dancer, but she admired her audacity.
Eloise was bubbling over. “Now! Let me tell you my plans! I was so damned sad and lonely in that huge old house after Frank died, I thought I’d go mad. So I sold it, bought myself a cute little Winnebago, worked out a route with the best campsites on Internet maps, and next week I set off to drive all over the United States.”
Marilyn’s jaw dropped. “By yourself?”
“By myself! Well, I am taking Roger.” She paused wickedly, then added, “He’s my Rottweiler. He’s four years old and the biggest baby on the planet. He wouldn’t b
ite someone stealing his dinner, but he looks ferocious.”
Faye asked, “Won’t you be lonely?”
Eloise adjusted her gold tortoiseshell glasses as she gave Faye a reprimanding look. “You mean as lonely as I’ve been in that big old house all by myself? As lonely as I’ve been working in this corporation that’s just merged and the new people assume I’m just a fat old lady?”
“Assume,” the academic interjected, “makes an ass of u and me.”
“Ha! Precisely!” Eloise chortled. “Look, I’ve been wanting to do this all my life. I’ve got stacks of books to read, and the addresses of a ton of old friends and acquaintances to visit, and I bet I’ll make a lot of new friends along the way. I’m going to lie on the grass looking up at the stars from every park I can find. I’m going to drive down every side road that catches my fancy and while I drive I’ll listen to opera—the entire opera, not just the arias—and country western music, and jazz, whatever I’m in the mood for. I’m going to eat whatever I want and in the evenings, if it’s raining, I’ll curl up and read scientific essays and adolescent porn. I’m going to explore this country and my own mind. I’ve spent my whole life paying attention to my outside. Now I’m going to pay attention to my inside.”
Faye was speechless. So, it seemed, were Marilyn and Shirley, who stood next to Faye with their mouths hanging open.
“Eloise!” A handsome older couple approached and Eloise turned the radiance of her personality on them.
“Widow’s wisdom or menopause madness?” A tall African-American woman in a chic black pantsuit stepped into the gap Eloise left. The three women stared at her with the guilty expressions of choir girls hearing a friend say Fuck in chapel—she had said the M word in public. A quick look around assured them no one was near enough to hear, and so they relaxed.
“I think Eloise finished with menopause long ago,” Shirley whispered.
“But has menopause finished with her?” the tall woman shot back. “I’m Alice Murray, by the way, Eloise’s former boss.”
Alice looked formidably classy, except—Faye squinted— she wore several bracelets of different hues ringing her arm. The bracelets looked plastic. Odd, but they made the regal woman seem approachable.
“Your point is that we’ve lost control of our destinies, right?” Faye asked.
Alice nodded brusquely. “Absolutely. We can’t decide when our bodies will cooperate as they always have— something beyond our control has taken over.”
“Our control has always been an illusion,” protested Shirley.
Alice’s nostrils flared. “No,” she insisted, “it hasn’t been. Until the past year or so, if I controlled what I ate, I lost weight. Now, even if I starve, I gain.”
Marilyn stepped closer, nodding so enthusiastically her tortoiseshell glasses slid down her nose. “It’s not just weight! When I sneeze or laugh or cough, I pee, no matter how much control I exert.”
“And I certainly have no control over the hot flashes that scorch every thought from my head,” Faye added.
“I haven’t had a hot flash yet,” Marilyn admitted.
“Lucky you,” Alice said dismissively.
Marilyn experienced the timeless terror of being cut from the popular group. She needed to offer them something. “But I can’t find my armpits!” she confided urgently.
The other three women looked startled.
Marilyn rushed to explain. “I mean, I don’t always shave because I can’t see up close like that without my reading glasses, and I can’t wear my glasses in the shower, they fog up, you know—”
Alice snorted. “Honey, count yourself lucky to be able to get near your armpits. Mine are lost in the crevices.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Shirley advised. “As you get older, you grow less hair.”
Marilyn looked stricken. “Everywhere?”
Shirley nodded. “Everywhere.”
“Oh, my.” Marilyn’s gaze fell downward.
“If that bothers you, you can get a wig for your pubic hair,” Shirley told them. “Something called a merkin.”
Alice nearly spilled her drink. “You’re kidding!”
Fascinated, Faye asked, “How does it work? I mean, wouldn’t it come off during, um, any kind of friction? And for heaven’s sake, how is it attached? You wouldn’t want to use glue down there!”
Marilyn was scribbling into a small leather notebook. “I’ll research it,” she announced.
A young waitress appeared before them, holding out a doily-covered tray of pleated gray mollusks on beds of curly endive. “Marinated mussels?”
“God, no!” Alice barked, recoiling.
The four women burst out laughing, instant rapport zapping among them like a kind of electric shock.
Looking puzzled, the waitress moved away, while a group of the young and the beautiful cast curious looks at the four older women.
“Want to get out of here?” Alice asked.
“Yes!” Faye said.
“There’s a bar just down the street—” Alice began.
“I don’t do bars,” Shirley interrupted. “I’m a recovering alcoholic.”
“Fine,” Faye told her. “Anyway, I’m starving.”
Alice took charge. “Let’s go to Legal Seafoods. Does everyone have her own car? Everyone know where the restaurant is?”
Everyone did. They made a dash for the elevator, giggling and knocking shoulders like schoolgirls sneaking out of class.
“Should we say good-bye to Eloise?” Marilyn whispered just before the doors slid shut.
“I don’t think we need to,” Faye said. “We’ve done our duty.”
“Hey, I think we’re past all that duty crap,” Alice said, and the other women looked at her wide-eyed.
At the restaurant Alice requested a booth in the back, and the maitre d’ led them to it. The ride in separate cars had cooled their initial affinity and at first, as they studied their menus and ordered, their conversation was stilted. They were, after all, nearly strangers.
Then Alice turned sideways, lifted the hem of her black silk jacket, took hold of the waistband of her trousers, and tugged with both hands. Fabric ripped.
“Are you crazy?” Shirley demanded. “That suit must have cost a thousand dollars!”
“More,” Alice retorted calmly. She took a huge, belly-deep breath. “It has an elastic waist and I still couldn’t breathe! One bite, and I’d pass out, hit my head on the table, and you’d be driving me to the ER.”
Faye laughed. “I know just how you feel! Why is it that no matter how little I eat during the day, the jeans I can zip in the morning are tight in the afternoon and impossible by evening? I mean, what’s the purpose of that?”
“I’m still having periods,” Marilyn began timidly. “What’s the purpose of that? I mean—”
She clamped her mouth shut as the waiter arrived to set their drinks before them: scotch and water for Alice, Perrier for Shirley, a margarita for Faye, and a daiquiri for Marilyn. Alice noticed Shirley chewing her lips as she studied the menu, and announced, “It’s my treat tonight.”
“That’s not necessary,” Faye protested.
“No, not necessary, but something I’d like to do, okay?”
“Well, thank you,” Faye replied, and Shirley and Marilyn echoed her.
After the waiter went away with their orders, Alice raised her eyebrows at Marilyn. “Periods, still, huh. How old are you?”
“Fifty-two,” Marilyn whispered.
“Honey, you’re a baby,” Alice told her. “I’m sixty-two.”
“Sixty,” said Shirley.
“Fifty-five,” said Faye.
“Okay.” Alice looked at Marilyn. “Go on.”
“All right. I mean, talk about having no control! Sometimes my periods come every three weeks, sometimes every week! Sometimes they’re light and last a few days, other times they’re heavy and last three weeks. One day I looked down at my pad and nearly fainted. I thought I’d just lost my liver! So I h
ave to wear Maxi Pads every day, but I have to anyway, because of the peeing thing.”
“Incontinence.” Alice nodded.
“I’m not incontinent!” Marilyn protested. “It’s more complicated than that. It doesn’t happen all the time, and if I really concentrate, sometimes I can control the leaking. But that requires a monumental effort of will, and that distracts me from my work. The other day I was straining so hard not to pee when I sneezed that I said Mercury, Mars, and Penis!”
Faye laughed. “I told someone my favorite Hitchcock film was Rearview Mirror.”
Alice grinned. “I asked someone if they’d seen the Vagina Monocles.”
Shirley played with her scarves. “That makes sense, in a way. You’d only need one eye to see inside a vagina.”
With a tap of her spoon, Alice got them back on track. “Okay, fine, we all are experiencing minor brain blips, but losing that kind of control doesn’t bother me as much as losing control of our lives.”
“I agree.” Faye sipped her drink, loving the instant hit. “I was thinking earlier tonight that I don’t miss being sexy as much as I miss being interesting.”
“Hey, we’re still sexy!” Shirley protested. “I love sex more now than I did when I was twenty! Then all I could think about was whether I looked beautiful lying there with my knees up to my ears. Now I just turn off the lights.”
“I agree that for women sex improves with age,” Alice said. “If you can find a man who wants to have sex with you.”
Marilyn sipped her drink, which seemed to give her courage. Chin high, she confessed, “I don’t care about sex anymore. I’m all dried up down there. I feel sort of like a purse that’s been zipped shut.”
“But aren’t you married?” Shirley nodded toward Marilyn’s wedding ring.
“For thirty years. Theodore’s a brilliant scientist, but too engrossed with his work to think much about sex.” Tugging at the ring, she pulled it off and held it in her hand, a small empty circle. “It doesn’t bother me, really, and it doesn’t distress me that men don’t flirt with me anymore.” Dismissively, she slid the ring back on. “What does hurt is that I’m invisible to younger women. I’ve spent so many years learning hard lessons I’d love to pass on.”