Saturday Night Widows (21 page)

Tighter abs and silkier flesh aside, it was everything I’d hoped for from our weekend at the spa, in fact, from any of our gatherings—a new experience, and a shared memory. Marcia had just sealed one of those moments for us. After the weekend at the spa, all we’d ever need to say was, “Remember Marcia and the hula hoop?” and we’d be back in the moment, together, relishing her triumph over gravity.

I
HEARD THEM
before I saw them. And that’s saying something, since the ladies clustered around a crater-shaped fire pit out by the lake, faces like carnival masks lit by leaping flames. But there was so much hilarity in the air that I knew as I approached it could only be our group. The day had been balmy, unseasonably warm for a first weekend in May, and the fire took just enough raw chill from the evening air. Marcia had brought wine from home, the primo
vintage stuff, so we could conduct a formal tasting after our low-fat, low-salt, low-expectations spa dinner.

Tara’s voice carried mellifluously through the tamarack trees and out across the glassy water. “What does LMAO mean?” she asked, peering at an iPhone buried in her fist.

“Laugh my ass off,” Lesley was quick to reply. “When Craig and I met, we did flirty texting all the time,” she said with a wicked spin. “Or sexting, as we called it.”

“What do I answer?” Tara looked panicked but thrilled, too. Dawn huddled with her to compose a response.

All of us were thoroughly marinated and tenderized by Lavender Garden Body Polishes and Delaware River Stone Massages, but no one could match Tara’s glow that night. I had never met anyone whose appearance changed so dramatically with her moods. She was thoroughly transformed since our first meeting, excitement giving her high-cheekbone features a radiant beauty as she flitted around the fire. She had switched out of her customary classic black cashmere for this occasion into white capri pants paired with a glittering orange, gold, and white tunic, accessorized with dangling beaded earrings and a big silver cuff bracelet. Everything shone.

She and Dawn had become bona fide buddies by now, sharing private glances and inside jokes. We pulled some wooden rocking chairs up to the fire, and the two of them filled us in on the guy at the other end of the texts.

“He asked me out on a date this weekend …” Tara said.

“But she said no, because she was committed to us,” Dawn cut in. “I figure that will make him more interested.”

“We met last week at a casual dinner with a few old classmates
of my husband’s,” Tara continued. She wasn’t speaking slowly this time. “They were in the same class, but I had never met him before. His name is Will.” Unlike Recycling-Bin Man, she gave this one a name.

“She likes this one.” Lesley rocked forward, giving us all an arch look.

“And before I left for here, I got a call to have dinner this Saturday night.”

“She fancies him,” Lesley sang.

“Yeah … a little.” The fire caught Tara’s flushed expression.

“Look at her eyes.” Lesley couldn’t have been more pleased if Tara had won the Mega Millions jackpot. “Did he smooch you good night the night you met?”

“God, no!” The thought seemed to terrify Tara.

“Do you see that look?” Lesley asked the rest of us. “You always know when you see that look.” We saw it.

“He texted Tara this morning,” Dawn told us. “He said he wanted to see a picture of her at the spa.” So in the afternoon, Dawn and Tara slinked into the spa’s Whisper Room, where clients zoned out after massages and such. Dawn scooped some cucumber slices out of a water pitcher, plonked them onto Tara’s eyes, smeared some cream on her face and snapped a photo of her recumbent on a chaise longue, then showed her how to transmit the image on her phone.
LMAO
had been his response. Tara was passing around the picture when the iPhone lit up again. She snatched it away to read his latest text, keeping it to herself.

“Now what do I write?”

“TTYL,” Lesley said. “Talk to you later.”

Tara’s thumbs went to work. She cackled. “I’m not sure I ever
want to go out on a date with him. I would just like to keep doing this.” She hit send. “Because then the bubble bursts.”

Dawn exhaled in frustration. “Have I taught you
nothing
! Take it back.”

“Honestly, I’m trying to be realistic.”

Everyone jumped in. “Don’t be negative!” Marcia ordered.

“Oh! Oh!” Dawn wailed. “You are causing me physical pain!”

“I’m sorry, sweetie, I’m sorry,” said Tara, embracing her friend. “You know what I’ll say to you? I’ll say: This is wonderful right now. This is fun right now. I haven’t had fun in a long time.”

“Fun! Fun!” Dawn fixed Tara with a look and thrust both arms at her as if she were casting a spell.

Six other women had settled into chairs across the fire and watched us with open curiosity. Tara, more chatty than I’d ever seen her, soon learned that they were five daughters and their seventy-year-old mother, celebrating her birthday.

“You seem so close,” the youngest daughter said. “How long have you all known each other?”

“Just since January,” I said.

She looked shocked. “
How
do you know each other?”

All six of us blurted out in unison, “
You don’t want to know
.” Our collective impulse set us off laughing.

We went quiet for a moment, and I could hear bullfrogs croaking by the lake. I knew why none of us answered. We knew what the reaction would be, that pitying look. It wasn’t so much that we minded them knowing, even minded the sympathy, but everyone was having such a good time around the fire, and we knew our story would bring them down. It’s not easy being a walking, talking buzzkill.

Tara owned up, but added, “We are not what you think. We are not like widows who go to depressing meetings.”

Besides, here in this largely female sanctuary, there were ample reminders that husbands weren’t the only source of fulfillment. As we returned to our own conversation, the moms among our group boasted about the accomplishments of their offspring, and others relayed the satisfaction they drew from full-tilt work. Denise talked about a novel she’d signed up and how absorbed she became in bringing order to a muddled manuscript. “Editing is like the card game Concentration,” she said. “I can remember where the two of hearts is when I see it in the pile.”

Dawn asked our advice on another business she might launch. “Another one?” I asked. “Don’t you have enough going on?”

“I live for the thrill of starting businesses,” she said, looking as tickled as Tara. “It’s a more reliable thrill than a man, let me tell you.”

Whether through parenting or work, we were finding happiness in the flow that psychologists had told me about, the immersion in tasks that both suited and challenged us, the gratification of goals set and met.

Still, Dawn said widowhood had brought a new perspective to bear on her career. “I want to keep building my business, but have fun and keep it light. I don’t think I’ll ever again be as serious as I was.”

It was Tara’s birthday that weekend, but there was plenty more going on with her. Since we last saw her, she had set a price on her house, the suburban family house, having decided that she wanted to sell it quickly and look for something smaller, maybe in the seaside town where Lesley had moved. If Tara didn’t find
someplace new in time, Dawn had offered a room at her place. We asked Tara if it was hard giving up the home where she had raised her daughters.

She thought for a moment. “I find it liberating,” she said. I could see the relief on her face at the prospect of being unburdened of too much space, too many things, unburdened of her past.

“It shows,” said Lesley. “You are looking so lovely. Since January, I see you getting stronger and stronger.”

“Hmm,” Tara said. “Dawn and I were talking about this today. Should you feel liberated? That you got a second chance? Or should you feel guilty for the sense of liberation you feel?”

Whatever her feelings, Tara was turning a corner, making some moves, forcing changes. Why now? Why, fourteen months after her husband died, four months after she’d looked so burdened at our first meeting, why now did she feel this elation, so visible in the firelight? Tara had been puzzling over the same thing on her drive to the spa. The easy answer was that she had met a man, from her description a funny, charming, viable man, both interesting
and
interested, but she dismissed that before she hit the first on-ramp. It was likely his regard was a mere flirtation, most probably leading nowhere.

Tara savored the monotony of a long trip. Two or three hours on the open road would give her time to reflect in the splendid isolation of her car. She thought about how she would turn fifty-five on Sunday. Fifty-five, no big deal. She had so much life ahead of her, and a responsibility to do something with it.

She eased onto the busy bridge over the Hudson River, reflecting on how she had weathered some miserable birthdays in the last few years, some birthdays mired in family turmoil, some tucked into
bed with Dude, her Pekingese. This birthday, she thought, could have been a repeat performance. Instead, she told herself,
I am going to be with friends, supportive friends, and we are going on a journey
.

Halfway across the bridge, she had an open view of the water rolling below and the vast sky arching above. As views go, this vista might seem puny in contrast, say, to the Great Continental Divide in Montana, but for those of us in the swarm around New York, it’s the best we’ve got, and crossing the Hudson heading west can feel supremely liberating. Tara felt the sensation of a curtain opening onto a wider world. In the last year or so, she realized, she was living behind that curtain. Closed off from a wider life, she had been forcing herself to go through the motions of recovery, looking within, taking care of family business. It was all thought out, structured, devoid of joy. She had never lived behind such a curtain before alcohol claimed her husband’s life. She had been an extroverted person, a person who acted with her heart and her gut. Driving west, alone in her car, she realized,
I am beginning to return to who I really am. I’m letting my personality and my instinct take over again
. She hadn’t achieved this state intentionally. It had arrived when she was occupied with everything else.

She steered her car beyond the suburbs and crossed into Pennsylvania, where the highway melted into shaded country roads. She wondered, as I did: Why now? What had changed? Time had passed, certainly, since the loss of David. She had made the hard decision to let go of her house and find someplace new, someplace uniquely hers. She was fielding more requests for voice-over work, a talent she had never suspected she possessed before. The understanding companionship of the other Blossoms, as she called us, made her feel safe, inspired her to do better. And she mulled over her growing
friendship with Dawn. The connection had been quick, impulsive, but Tara knew it would last. Dawn’s infectious optimism reminded Tara that her own nature was essentially optimistic. The hopeful, confident spirit had been there all along, waiting for her on the other side of the curtain, and Dawn reassured her that it always would be. They were beginning to share a vocabulary, and Tara found herself repeating some classic Dawnisms.

That weekend, Dawn was cheerleading Tara through her budding courtship as Dawn continued to debate the merits of her relationship with Adam and his children.

“We may go out when I get back Sunday,” she said with a shrug. “He may not be the forever guy. I make sure to tell the kids he’s just a friend. It’s touch and go. We’ll see.”

“Baby steps for baby feet,” Tara said, a Dawnism if I ever heard one.

The lodge, tucked into a forest, seemingly far from home, was turning into a refuge from everyday concerns, a chance to find perspective and get back in touch with happier selves.

“This is the first time I’ve been away since Steve died,” Denise said, breathing the smog-free air and leaning back into a rocker. It was also the first weekend in months when she didn’t have to read or edit for work. She still felt pressure to sell her apartment and find a cheaper one, but instead she had rented out the second bedroom to an acquaintance who wasn’t there much, fortunately. That would give her some financial relief, although she still needed to earn extra money helping out at a yoga studio to pay the mortgage. “I can’t tell you how good it feels to get some space, not to feel like everything is closing in on me.” She smiled a normal smile, almost a Duchenne smile. “What a gift.”

“Denise, what happened with that guy?” Lesley asked. “The one who brought you all the food.”

Denise winced. “Disaster.” She had been enjoying their platonic attachment, when, after he treated her to dinner at a fine restaurant, he announced, “I think I’m falling in love with you.”

“Well, hello?” Tara said.

“I was horrified,” Denise said. “It was less than two months since we’d known each other—way too fast for me.” She didn’t answer him, and the silence was thunderous. He repeated what he’d said as if she hadn’t heard.

“Oh, God,” Tara said. “Crawl under the table.”