The Hot Flash Club Chills Out (3 page)

Alice opened her mouth to object, but she knew what he said was true. “I’ll think about it, Gideon, all right?” She frowned. “But if I suggest it to Jennifer and Alan, will it hurt their feelings?”

“Of course not. Jennifer might be thrilled to have her mother around.”

As Alice bit her lip, thinking, the phone rang. Gideon rose, picked it up, and brought the handset over to Alice.

“Hi, Mom.” It was Alan. “Listen, there’s a movie Jennifer and I really want to see. Is there any chance you’d want to do a little more babysitting for Aly this evening?”

Alice closed her eyes. She knew her son and his wife hadn’t seen a movie for at least six months. Probably more, because Jennifer had been confined to bed rest for the last few months of her pregnancy. If Gideon drove her out, she wouldn’t mind making the trip again. It was only forty minutes, more or less.

“I’d love to,” she told him. “We’ll leave right away.”

3

A
s sunlight filled the room, Marilyn floated out of her dreams into a dream come true. She lay on her side in the warm bed, her fiancé Ian next to her, his arm wrapped over her, holding her close. Never before in her life had she felt so secure with a man. Never before had she been so much in love.

Marilyn had lived her life like a tugboat: sturdy, homely, helpful, significant only in her usefulness to others.

Now, at fifty-three, she found herself transformed into a pleasure barge like the one Cleopatra rode gliding down the Nile: sensual, laden with rose petals, scented with exotic perfumes.

“Awake?” Ian whispered.

Marilyn turned over to face him. “Awake.” She nuzzled her face into his chest. It was a bit scrawny and bony…she thought of it as an
intellectual
chest.

“I wish we didn’t have to get up,” Ian murmured, caressing her back.

Marilyn sighed as the myriad complexities of real life claimed her thoughts, turning her romantic mood into a vanishing mist.

It was early May, and she had to give her final lecture at MIT in Analytic Techniques for Studying Geologic Samples at nine o’clock. Ian had to be at Boston University to teach his classes.

“We’ll talk about the wedding tonight?” she suggested.

“Tonight.” He kissed her forehead and threw back the covers.

Marilyn slid from bed, and the day began.

She rushed into the shower while Ian hurried downstairs to start the coffee. By the time she was zipping up her brown skirt, he arrived with a mug for her, just the way she liked it. She sipped it as she bumbled around the bedroom, searching for her comfortable gray pumps, strapping on her watch, wondering where she’d left her briefcase. She headed down to the kitchen for a quick bowl of All-Bran. As she gobbled her food, she moved around the kitchen, preparing a tray of coffee, juice, toast, and a banana. She set her bowl in the dishwasher. Ian hurried down, hair still wet from the shower, pecked her forehead, and left for the university. Marilyn picked up the tray and climbed the steps to the attic.

This past December, when her beloved Ian Foster appeared at Marilyn’s door with the amazing news he’d taken a job at Boston University and was moving from Scotland so he could be with her, Marilyn had been overwhelmed with joy. With Ian she had found, at last, true, abiding—and, oh, yeah, sexually fantastic!—love, something she’d assumed, now that she was fifty-three, she would never have.

Even the mundane complexities of existence seemed to melt into honey in the warmth of their love. The condo she was renting for herself and her vaguely senile mother Ruth proved to be much too small the moment Ian entered, carrying his briefcase and suitcase and baggage claims for the books and other possessions he’d brought. He was to start his professorship in January. He had to have a private study for his books, computer, drafting table, monographs, and professional journals. Besides, Ruth had been agitating for a little attached apartment of her own where she could be independent.

So Marilyn and Ian had phoned a Realtor, toured a series of houses, and rented a charming, narrow, triple-decker row house in Cambridge. After they were married, they’d find a
wonderful
house, one that satisfied all their needs and fantasies. But for now, this peculiar little house was sufficient.

Ruth had her apartment in the basement—the Realtor had called it the “garden floor”—with an intercom in every room, so she could alert Marilyn if she needed something.

The first floor had a living room, dining room, and kitchen, all tidy and modern. The second floor had three bedrooms and two baths. Just perfect. Ian and Marilyn shared the master bedroom, and they each had an office. It meant running up and down the stairs a lot, but they agreed this was a good thing. It would keep them in shape.

They settled in, treating themselves to a handsome new bed, ordering the newest, sleekest, most efficient furniture for their offices, and comfortable furniture in neutral colors for the main floor. Neither Marilyn nor Ian cared much about décor. They were so busy teaching, working on their scientific projects, and making love, they had no time to care whether the sofa coordinated with the carpet.

In her garden apartment, Ruth pottered about blissfully, knitting her endless scarves, laboring over her crossword puzzles, carefully clipping recipes from magazines, pasting them onto cards, and filing them neatly away in cheerful little boxes that often got lost beneath her knitting. She went to the Senior Citizen Center several days a week, and at least once a week she went to dinner or a movie with her eighty-seven-year-old beau, Ernest Eberhart, whom she’d met when he’d asked her to pull up his baggy pants, which he’d been unable to do without taking his hands off his walker. Each day Marilyn made many trips down to Ruth’s quarters, to share afternoon tea or a joke she’d just heard, and at night to kiss her mother good night, while surreptitiously checking to be sure the burners and oven were off.

Sometimes, rushing up or down the stairs, Marilyn thought about the wedding. It was the second marriage for both Marilyn and Ian. Still, they wanted an
occasion,
attended by family and friends. There was no rush—at their age, they both agreed they could take their time and enjoy the journey instead of hurrying to the destination. But when? Where? What kind of reception? They never had time to talk about it, busy as they were with teaching, and Ruth, and—

And Ian’s son, Angus, who had just moved in with them.

She tapped and softly called Angus’s name. There was no response and she didn’t hear the tap of his computer keys, so it was possible that for once he hadn’t fallen asleep at his desk but had actually slept in his bed. She left the tray outside his bedroom door and tiptoed down to her office on the second floor.

Angus was a genius. At twenty-nine, he’d finished his Ph.D. in computer science. Now he was engrossed in what he called “divide-and-conquer algorithms,” which involved “hyperthreading” and “speculative execution,” and other incomprehensible electronic acts. Marilyn and Ian had set him up with temporary quarters in the attic. He didn’t want much furniture, only a bed, a chair, and a desk for his computer. Now, never caring or even knowing whether it was day or night, Angus hid away in his lair, typing and muttering maniacally, like an oversized, chittering goggle-eyed bat.

Tall and lanky like his father, Angus was a peculiar man with a receding hairline, bad teeth, and thick glasses. He lived so intensely in his head that he’d all but forgotten he possessed a body. He completely forgot to eat unless Marilyn brought him something. He forgot to bathe, change his clothes, or brush his teeth, too, which wasn’t a problem of much consequence since he never left his computer. He wasn’t exactly homely, but he did look eccentric, with big ears and a head shaped like an ostrich egg protruding from a nest of unkempt brown hair. He’d always been shy, Ian had confessed to Marilyn. Ian and his now-deceased wife had worried terribly about their son, who was desperately shy around people. When, after graduating from college, he announced that he was moving to Sydney with his girlfriend, an equally brilliant nerdy woman named Ursula, Ian and his wife had been thrilled. Someone loved their son!

Unfortunately, she no longer did. That was all the information Marilyn and Ian could get out of Angus, who twitched and stuttered whenever the subject arose.

Poor boy! Marilyn thought. Poor, brilliant boy. She hoped he might take heart from meeting her own son, Teddy, who was also a brilliant science geek. Teddy was married to a gorgeous woman named Lila who adored Teddy; they had a daughter, little Irene. But when Marilyn had everyone to dinner in January, Angus had remained more or less mute at the dinner table, clearly miserable and so intimidated by Lila’s beauty that after his first jaw-dropping glance, he never looked at her again. Teddy made valiant attempts to converse with Angus, but Angus only managed abrupt monosyllabic replies.

Angus was sweet, Marilyn thought, from the little she could know of him. He needed to have his self-confidence built up. He needed to be drawn out of himself. But she couldn’t do much about that, at least not for a while. She’d taken a sabbatical from MIT, but in January the department head phoned to beg her to teach one of her favorite courses as well as two upper-level paleontology courses. She quickly agreed. For years she’d dutifully taught Introduction to Geology to freshmen. Here was a chance to teach more exciting courses.

The new year, which had seemed on its first day to spread before her like an open diary of days, suddenly pleated up like a folded accordion with appointments and duties. She hired a handsome Jamaican woman to come in five days a week to clean the house, do the laundry, and keep a diplomaticly watchful eye on Ruth. Ian helped her do errands and the major grocery shopping on Saturday. Still, it seemed she had more work to do than hours in which to do it. And planning a wedding? She could hardly find time to brush her teeth!

Her briefcase was on her desk! Hallelujah. She seemed to waste so much time looking for things these days. She grabbed up her briefcase, ran down to the kitchen, poured herself another cup of coffee, and carried it down to her mother’s quarters. It was important to her to spend a little time with her mother at the beginning of every day.

“Good morning, darling!” Ruth was snuggled into a rocking chair, watching a morning television show, still in her yellow terry cloth robe. With her white curls sticking out all over, she resembled a big baby chick.

“Morning, Mom.” Marilyn kissed the top of her head and settled into a wing chair opposite. “How did you sleep?”

“Oh, beautifully. I always do.”

Except for the times you wet the bed, Marilyn thought. Ruth’s occasional incontinence was a tricky issue. A rubber sheet or night diapers might be hygienically helpful, but psychologically devastating—for Ruth
and
Marilyn. They both wanted to believe that Ruth wasn’t failing.

“Did you hear the news?” Ruth asked, nodding toward the TV.

“No, what’s going on?”

“Two peanuts walked into a bar, and one was a salted.”

Marilyn laughed. She’d only heard that joke a million times since she was a child, but she appreciated her mother’s attempts to be jolly. Ruth didn’t dwell on her aching muscles and creaking bones, and Marilyn knew that Ruth’s genuine interest in other people was one of the things that kept her going.

“I’ve been studying the garden,” Ruth said now. “You’ve got lilies of the valley coming up all around the tulips. Whoever lived here before did a lot of landscaping. But all the beds could use a good weeding.”

Marilyn suppressed a sigh. One more responsibility for which she had no time. “I’ve got a full schedule today,” she told her mother, “but I’ll see about hiring a landscaper.”

“We’ll need the lawn mowed, too. Unless Ian wants to do it.”

“Ian’s pretty stressed out with work right now,” Marilyn reminded Ruth. “He’s the new kid on the block in his department.”

“Oh, I understand.” Ruth’s face grew melancholy. “I wish I could help.” Not so long ago, she’d been strong and active.

“You’ve got so much to do!” Marilyn reminded her. “Are you going to the Senior Citizens Center today?”

Ruth’s wrinkled face brightened. “I am. I’ll take a cab. Ernest is meeting me there, then he’s taking me out to lunch.”

“What fun. Tell him hello for me, will you?” Marilyn drank the rest of her coffee and rose. “I’ve got to go. I’ve got a nine o’clock class.”

“I wonder, darling, could you pick me up some bananas?”

Marilyn swallowed a sigh. With four people to feed, it seemed she was always at the grocery store, and in a busy city like Cambridge, even going through the express lane required a good chunk of time. She tried to make lists so she didn’t have to go every single day.

Ruth’s voice was apologetic. “I put bananas on yesterday’s list, honey, but you bought me grapes.”

No, Marilyn remembered, Ruth had not written
bananas
on her bluebird-bordered note paper. She had put
grapes,
because Marilyn recalled standing in the produce section, wondering whether Ruth wanted green or red grapes.

“I wouldn’t ask, darling, except without bananas, I tend to get a little constipated.” Ruth’s forehead crumpled slightly, with embarrassment. She looked like a very sweet, very old, little girl.

“Of course I’ll get you some bananas,” Marilyn said, forcing a smile. “Anything else?”

“No, that’s all, thank you.” Ruth brightened. Helpfully, she offered, “Would you like me to call a skyscraper?”

Marilyn ignored the little verbal slip. They were just part of Ruth’s speech these days. “No, Mom, I’ll ask around for some references today. You just enjoy yourself.”

“I will, sweetheart. I always try to remember that today is the first day of my restful life.”

4

P
olly often wished she were more like Alice. Alice was a lioness. Polly was a possum. Alice was a champion at assertiveness, which was why Alice had been an executive in an enormous insurance company and why Polly had made her living as a seamstress, working by herself and meeting her clients in the security of her own home.

Perhaps, Polly decided, as she returned from The Haven in the early afternoon, perhaps she’d ask Alice how to go about solving her problem. Alice had been head of personnel, and this was a personnel problem.

Or perhaps she wouldn’t ask Alice, because Alice was, after all, so close to Shirley and might see Polly’s overture as some kind of insult to Shirley.

Perhaps Polly should just get in bed and eat ice cream until she exploded.

When Polly had agreed to supervise the five Havenly Yours employees who made the clever outfits that sold from The Haven’s shop as fast as they could be made, she hadn’t really realized what an enormous task she was taking on. In the rush of excitement last summer, when she and Faye had designed and sewn the trial garments, Polly had been so exhilarated she’d felt she could do almost anything. As the months went by, the satisfaction of watching a dream come true had buoyed Polly up. They’d put together a business plan, got a loan from a bank, installed industrial sewing machines and fabric-cutting and ironing equipment, and set up a day care for the children of the women workers. Havenly Yours was
happening.
In fact, it was on the brink of expanding.

And the thought of expanding made Polly want to weep with exhaustion. She was tired of spending five days a week at Havenly Yours. She was crinkled like a potato chip from bending over tables, lifting heavy bolts of fabric, squinting to inspect seams, listening to personal problems and offering creative solutions. By the weekend, she had no energy left to sew for her own customers.

Plus, there was the money thing. She hadn’t asked to be paid, and she wouldn’t starve without a salary, but without money coming in from her own business, she had to live more frugally than she liked. Alice and Faye had both been in at the start of the business, Alice setting up the bookkeeping and Faye helping with the designs, but now a professional bookkeeper ran that part of the business and Faye had gone back to her first love and real talent, painting.

But Polly had stayed on. And
why
?

At the core of Polly’s dilemma was a problem as old as high school: she was the new girl. She was, in fact, the fifth wheel, and what was that cliché? As useless as a fifth wheel? She’d met the four other Hot Flash Club women a year after
they
’d all bonded, and while she felt loved and supported by them, while she never felt at all slighted by any of them, she still felt—well,
expendable.
But she
was
essential to Havenly Yours. She was afraid that if she stopped supervising the seamstresses, they’d have to find someone to take Polly’s place, and paying another salary would diminish the profits Havenly Yours was showing.

Really, it wasn’t such difficult work, Polly reminded herself. She enjoyed all the women, and she was learning Spanish without trying, and the colors and fabrics were all so luscious.

She parked her car in her drive, grabbed the mail from the box, and entered her house. Her dear basset hound Roy Orbison waddled up to her as fast as his stubby legs would carry him, tail wagging.

“Hello, old friend.” Polly bent to scratch him at his favorite spot just above his tail. “Want to go out?”

She led him out to the backyard, collapsing on the porch steps while the dog performed his duties and sniffed the grass for messages. The May evening was golden. Polly should really start weeding around her iris, but she was just too tired.

“Come on, Roy,” she said, curtailing his evening’s constitutional. “I’ve got to lie down.”

Roy studied her with his soulful eyes, then, with one of his enormous sighs, followed her back into the house. Polly fed him an extra chunk of food as reward for his good-natured acquiescence, and then dragged her exhausted blubber up the stairs, collapsed on top of the bed, and fell asleep at once.

When she woke, she could tell by the way the light spilled through her curtains that it was evening. For a while, she lay there, warm and drowsy, letting her thoughts flow and twine like reeds in a stream. She thought about Havenly Yours, and she wondered whether she ought to have a plasterer in to redo the bedroom ceiling. Over the years she’d become accustomed to the series of wandering cracks, even oddly fond of them, as if they were developing in sympathy with the wrinkles in her own face. She didn’t want to change the bedroom ceiling, really. But when did the cracks stop being a superficial problem and become a warning sign that the ceiling might collapse on her at any moment?

Were the cracks becoming deeper, longer? Or was she just so depressed these days that everything took on a more somber cast?

She’d always been an optimist. She still was. Her good-natured acceptance of the inexplicable ways of man had helped her survive the bizarre turn her life had taken when her son David, her only child, had married Amy Anderson, a slender, sweet-faced vegetarian whose will-o’-the-wisp looks concealed a tyrant’s might. Amy’s family owned a farm west of Boston, where they grew organic vegetables, knit shawls and blankets from the wool of their own sheep, and performed other earth-friendly actions, making them absolutely superior to everyone else on the planet. Especially to Polly, who sometimes had been known to eat steak or wear polyester. David and Amy had a son, Jehoshaphat, Polly’s only grandchild, whom they allowed germy, meat-breathing Polly to see about once a month, when she drove out to visit. The occasions were never terribly successful. Polly could not understand her son’s complete adoration of his wife, or why he, who had once been a banker, was so happy driving a tractor and pitching hay. But he was happy, and Polly was glad for him.

She tried not to feel rejected, even though she had, in fact, been rejected. She reminded herself, as did her Hot Flash friends, that not every grandmother got to see her grandchildren every day. Faye’s daughter and family had moved to California. And Marilyn’s son and his family lived nearby, but Marilyn was too busy to see her grandson more than once a month.

Polly turned over on her side, feeling the blubber in her belly and bum shift accordingly. Here was something else to be depressed about—her ever increasing weight. She battled to diet and exercise, and when she still gained weight, she battled to remain philosophical about it. Her Hot Flash friends and their good humor and support helped her here, too. She wouldn’t be quite so negative about her aging body if only her beau, Hugh, were just a tad more reliable.

Hugh Monroe, her lover of almost two years, was sixty-three. Hugh was an oncologist, a sympathetic, emotionally generous man whose patients adored him. Rotund and jovial, he lived large. He liked roller coaster rides and scuba diving, he liked adventure and celebration. He was always taking care of other people, never hesitating to interrupt a meal or a movie to rush to the bedside of a good friend, or to the aid of one of his children—
or
to help his perpetually dependent ex-wife, the irritatingly size-six Carol.

Five years before, when Carol left Hugh for another man, Hugh had been relieved. Their marriage had been empty for a long time, and the divorce was amicable. They’d stayed together until their children were through college, married, and with children of their own. Carol had kept their large Victorian house in Belmont, and Hugh moved into a handsome apartment on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, close to his hospital. The children were shocked but resigned. Hugh slowly entered the dating scene and had just met Polly when Carol’s lover collapsed of a heart attack on the tennis court.

A week after the funeral, Carol invited Hugh to dinner at the house where they’d raised their three children. She wanted to get back together, she said. When Hugh gently declined, she burst into tears, crying, “How can you do this to me!” For two years now, Carol had campaigned to get her husband back. It wasn’t enough for her that all the Monroes got together on every possible family occasion—birthdays, holidays, even a grandchild’s graduation from preschool triggered a family get-together. Carol wanted to get married again. She tried to enlist the services of their three children. The youngest sided with his mother, but the two oldest rebelled enough to tell their mother they thought Hugh had the right to do as he wished.

Last Christmas, when Hugh accompanied Polly and Faye and Aubrey on a Christmas Get-Away cruise to the Caribbean, had been the first time Hugh had not been around for a family event. Polly had had hopes that it was a trendsetting experience. But when they returned to Boston, Carol still phoned Hugh when she needed any little thing, and Hugh dutifully, if reluctantly, went.

Something was always going wrong with Carol. During the last year, she’d suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome. She wasn’t eating, she didn’t have the energy to go out, she was losing weight. (Losing weight! Without trying to! Polly gnashed her teeth at the thought.) Hugh refused to examine or treat her, but he did begin to visit her again, with his children, and when Hugh was around, Carol perked up, dressed up, and ate the delicacies her children brought. Hugh left Polly alone at the ballet or in her bedroom, rushing off to kill the mouse that turned out to be a beetle or to show Carol how to use the dehumidifier they’d bought years ago. If Polly protested, it only made Hugh miserable. It did not make him stay.

Now and then, Hugh did spend an nice big chunk of time with Polly. When he did, on the rare occasion, ignore his beeping cell phone, Polly envisioned her love life as a holiday feast, with Carol—a wilting, starving, dejected Gandhi-esque figure—staring at them longingly through a plate glass window, ready to smash it at any moment. She was certain Hugh hadn’t proposed marriage because no one, not even Polly, wanted to imagine what drastic, dramatic displays of wretchedness Carol would resort to
then.
That was all right. Polly didn’t need to be
married
to Hugh. Oh, it would be nice, but she felt fortunate simply to have him in her life. He was such a good, generous, openhearted man. He only wanted everyone to be happy.

But could
she
continue to be happy with this constantly interrupted love affair? She wanted to be able to count on Hugh. More than that, she wanted everyone to know that she was part of Hugh’s life. She wanted Hugh to introduce her to his children. She wanted his children to realize she wasn’t some sexpot gold digger but a nice, reliable, intelligent, middle-aged woman who gave Hugh the nurturing he’d been missing out on for so long. She wanted, if she were honest, to be married to Hugh, she wanted him to live with her, so they could lounge together in bed, and prepare dinner together the way they sometimes did. She wanted him with her all the time.

But that didn’t seem to be what Hugh wanted, or at least what Hugh was capable of giving her, and so her thoughts turned inward like the coils on a snail shell, circling back to her sense of self-esteem, provoking the questions of self-doubt that ran on a loop in her mind. Was she too fat? Was she simply not attractive enough, not sexy enough, for Hugh to want to be with her all the time? She reminded herself that Shirley—skinny, yoga-toned Shirley; sexpot, blubber-free Shirley—had no man in her life…though heaven knows, she was trying to change that. So it wasn’t just Polly’s being overweight that kept her alone in her house, never knowing when she’d be with Hugh.

It wasn’t just about her weight, but speaking of what was reliable and ever-present—heaven knew her weight was always with her! Faithful to a fault!

Polly groaned and sat up. It was time to shower and dress for dinner. Hugh had asked if he could spend the evening with her, and she’d bought a couple of nice thick steaks and lots of fresh salad ingredients. The thought cheered her. In the bathroom, she lathered herself with a luxurious perfumed soap. She felt cooler when she stepped out, fresher, rejuvenated. This was more like it! She had to stop lying around grumbling like a beached sea lion. She had to remember to enjoy the pleasures of the day and stop whining about what she couldn’t have. Wrapping a towel around her, she padded barefoot into her bedroom. Now what was that joke Shirley had told her? It was a hospital joke; Hugh would love it. Oh, yes! Now she remembered!

The one about a man in a hospital bed with an oxygen mask over his mouth. A young nurse comes in to give him a sponge bath.

“Nurse,” the patient asks, “are my testicles black?”

The nurse blushes. “I don’t know.” She gets busy washing his feet and legs.

“Nurse,” the patient repeats, impatiently, “are my testicles black?”

With a sigh of frustration, she lifts the sheet, pushes his gown up, takes his penis in her hand, and leans down really close, carefully inspecting his balls.

“They look just fine,” she tells him.

The man snatches the oxygen mask off his face. “Good to know, but could you please tell me,
are my test results back
?”