Back In the Game (16 page)

“What did the woman do?” I asked.

Grace shook her head. “It was awful. I was stunned so at first I didn't say anything. The woman kind of raised her hand a bit, like she was back in school, and opened her mouth to say something, but I guess she lost her nerve. So, I stepped in.”

“You didn't!” I squeezed her arm. “Good for you!”

“Well, I don't know how much good it did, but at least the woman was able to place her order. The girl just kind of looked bored and neither of the guys even apologized. You know what one said?”

“What?”

“He said, ‘Oh, I didn't see you there.'”

“Of course he didn't,” Nell snapped. “She was over thirty!”

“Ageism against women,” Grace said, “is something vastly different than ageism against men. Somehow it's more humiliating. At least men once had the upper hand. At least they have their memories of social prominence. What do women have? Memories of a life-and-death struggle to earn respect in a world clearly skewed toward the penis.”

I thought back to that horrible night with Barry, Happy Couples Match #1, and how his behavior at that bar had humiliated me. Ugh.

“I agree. For both men and women,” Jess was saying, “aging is about loss of power—physical, intellectual, social. But for women aging seems much more unfair, much more lonely. Then again, maybe men feel the same way when their hair starts to thin and their belly starts to droop, that getting old is deeply unfair.”

“I don't care about men,” Nell said. “Let them suffer. I care about women.”

“Our sexual appeal is a power we take for granted.” Jess almost seemed to be talking to herself. She does that a lot. “Even women who aren't physically attractive by common standards have the power. It's innate and it doesn't go away inside us except that the world fails to acknowledge that power once we hit forty and fifty and sixty. We just don't command the attention we used to command.”

“Some of that attention is unwanted or abusive,” Grace pointed out. “Catcalls, whistles, crude comments. What woman needs that sort of thing?”

“No woman,” Jess agreed. “But most women do want the appreciative glances and the romantically worded compliments.”

I sighed. “Really! I mean, Duncan used to say things like, ‘why do you care if guys don't look at you? I look at you, I love you, isn't that enough?' I'd tell him, no way!”

“Men,” Nell said, “really don't want to hear that their exclusive woman appreciates the attention of other men. That information is far too scary for them to process.”

“It's a macho thing,” Jess said. “Woman as possession. Still, flirting with one man when you're married to another can go too far. It can become inappropriate.”

Well, I thought, Jess should know!

“Simon used to flirt outrageously right in front of me,” Grace said. “It's amazing what you can get used to or what you can ignore if you choose to. I'm embarrassed for myself retrospectively. I can imagine what other people were thinking about me. I'm sure they thought I was an idiot for putting up with Simon. I'm sure they thought I had no self-respect.”

“Well,” I said, “I wouldn't have put up with Simon. I would have killed him!”

“And gone to jail for murder,” Nell pointed out. “I think Grace's solution was best, a nice legal divorce.”

“Divorce,” Jess said, “is never nice, but I know what you mean.”

It's especially not nice when your soon-to-be ex-husband tells you he's fallen madly in love with another woman before you can have one successful date!

“The bottom line,” Nell was saying, “is that we need to recognize our sexual power early and have fun with it. We need to use it to full advantage while we can. When we're young, we're ignorant. We assume we'll always be attractive and then we start to age and suddenly, we notice that we're being passed over, simply ignored, and we're shocked.”

“No one's ever prepared for the future,” Jess said, “no matter how carefully they plan.”

“You know what I hate?”

“No,” Nell said to me, “tell us.”

“I hate how when an old man flirts with a young woman, everyone chuckles and says, oh, how cute, he's still ‘got it.' But when an old woman says she's interested in a man, young or old, everyone shudders and says, ‘Ugh, how gross.'”

Jess sighed. “I'm depressed again.”

“Don't be,” Grace said. “We're still a long way from blue hair and rolled stockings.”

“True,” Nell said. “But it never hurts to think ahead. Be prepared. Seize the day while you still have the energy to seize it, before your arthritis cripples you entirely.”

“You've become pretty bitter,” I said to my sister.

“No, no,” Nell said, “not bitter, just pragmatic. Richard's leaving me opened my eyes to a world to which I was blissfully ignorant. Now it's either win or lose, no coming in second. I'm learning how to turn the dating game to my own advantage.”

“That's Trina talking!”

“It is Trina. But now,” Nell said, “it's also me.”

I reached for my purse. “I need to go home,” I said. “I feel kind of bloated.”

Chapter 36

“H
ello, Professor Marlowe.”

I turned from the graduate student serving wine in plastic cups.

“Hello, Professor Morgenstein,” I said. “I haven't seen you around.”

Seth smiled. “And I haven't seen you around.”

In fact, I hadn't seen Seth in almost five months. Our offices and the buildings in which we teach are on opposite sides of the campus.

We moved away from the drinks table. “I've been holed up in my office a lot lately,” I said. “And I guess I haven't been into the campus social scene much. I'm only here tonight because my department head guilted me into making an appearance.”

Seth laughed. “Mine, too. Had you ever met Dr. Maynard before tonight?”

“No.”

“Me, either. So why are we at his retirement party?”

“Professional courtesy?”

Seth is very tall, almost six feet five inches. No one would call him handsome, but he has an undeniable appeal. It has something to do with his mouth, which the poets would call sensitive, and something to do with his eyes, which the poets would call soulful.

“Are you okay?” he asked, and suddenly I remembered his mouth on mine. It was a nice memory but it called up no real desire. “About the divorce?”

I smiled. “I will be.”

“Good. You know, I still feel bad about—”

“Seth, please, it wasn't your fault, believe me.”

Seth looked around to ensure our privacy before saying: “Are you sure you aren't even a little bit angry with me?”

“I'm sure. All you ever did was make me happy. While it lasted.”

“Yes. While it lasted. And you made me happy, too.”

I suppose I had.

“So, what about you?” I asked. “How's life been treating you?”

“Better than I deserve. I just got a grant for some research, and with Dr. Brown taking a sabbatical, I'll be teaching his genetics and genomics class this fall.”

“That's great, Seth. Even though I have no idea what it is you'll be teaching.”

“Thanks,” he said. “It's a bit scary but I'm really grateful for the opportunity.”

Scary.

Suddenly, thoughts of Dr. Neal Smith, he of the bondage-as-therapy school, popped into my head. A quick check around the room told me he wasn't at the party. Good. I remembered he said he'd heard I'd been around. Someone had been talking about me, but who?

“Seth,” I said, “I'm curious. Did you tell anyone about us?”

“No,” he said promptly and I believed him. “But people find out. I don't know how, exactly. That's more your department, no?”

“Maybe. Human behavior. Sometimes I think I know nothing at all about it. I'm not even sure what I'll do ten minutes from now.”

“Leave this boring party with me?”

“Excuse me?”

Seth smiled. “I miss talking with you, Jess. Do you remember the passionate discussions we had, about everything?”

How could I forget? When I met Seth I was so eager to talk and to listen, so needing to be heard, to engage in a relationship of words. Life with Matt was so—silent.

“I do,” I said. “And I miss them, too. That was good stuff.”

“Other stuff was good, too.”

“Yes. But that's—”

“Over,” he said. “I know. Seriously, Jess, let's get out of this place and go somewhere we can sit and talk for a while. If I hear Dean Roberts's cackle one more time, I might be forced to do something desperate.”

I grinned. It really was a horrid cackle. “Like what?”

“Like stick this toothpick in my eye.”

I put my plastic cup on the appetizer table. “Let's go.”

 

Seth and I spent close to three hours over several cups of coffee and a shared monster cookie at a Starbucks. We discussed politics, both national and world. We admitted we'd both seen the latest Owen Wilson comedy and loved it. He ranted about the head of his department. I told him about a certain professor's penchant for S & M but didn't, of course, mention his name. Seth told me he was dating a woman from MIT, an associate professor, someone his own age and not married to another man. I congratulated him on his mature decision.

Seth was the same as he'd been back when I'd first met him—unassuming, attractive, intelligent, funny—but now I felt no sexual pull.

I was glad. We truly had exhausted the physical part of our relationship. There were no messy edges left to trim, nothing tricky to avoid.

It was a great night with someone who was becoming a real friend and it gave me some much-needed perspective.

When I got home at about eleven, I wasn't sleepy; blame it on the caffeine and sugar. So I decided to use my wakefulness to good purpose. In the bottom drawer of my desk I found a notebook, one with a brocade cover. Grace had given it to me for my last birthday but, never having kept a diary or journal, I hadn't known quite what to do with it.

Until that night. I picked up a pen and began to give form to some of the chaos that had been plaguing me since the divorce.

I hesitated, suddenly almost afraid. And then I wrote the words I'd been saying to myself for months. Difficult, painful putting them on paper, words I'd never seen in print, in my own handwriting, but necessary.

Suddenly, I felt exhausted. I closed the notebook and got straight into bed.

It had solved nothing, the writing. I'd discovered no great insights. But it had helped in a way I couldn't define and I promised myself to pick up the pen again.

Chapter 37

“I
've been invaded.”

Jess laughed. “The locusts have swarmed? The storm troopers have descended?”

“Yes, the kids are here.” I glanced into the living room from the kitchen. “At this very moment Colin is sprawled on the couch playing some video game or whatever it is on some new machine his father bought him.”

“And Clara?”

“Not in sight. Probably raiding my closet, though we don't wear the same size and our tastes couldn't be more different.”

“I look forward to seeing them again. I think.”

“Oh, they're okay,” I said. “They've been having a great summer. They did some traveling with the families of friends. Clara took two summer courses just for fun, nothing that will work toward her major. Colin played on a summer hockey team.”

“Still, they must be happy to be home, no?”

“I don't know,” I admitted. “They can't really want to be around Richard and me after all that's happened. I really can't blame them. Frankly, I think it's nice of them to come home at all. I didn't expect it of them.”

“It'll be fine,” Jess said. “I've got to go. I'm going to catch a movie in Coolidge Corner.”

“I've got to go, too. Trina and I are going out tonight to hear some music at Josephine's.”

“Have fun.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I intend to.”

I found Clara in the bathroom of the master suite I'd once shared with Richard. She had spread my makeup across the counter and was experimenting.

I'd redecorated that bathroom only two years earlier. I'd chosen what I thought was a more masculine color scheme, black and white, something that Richard might like more than the peaches and cream we'd had for so long. Ironic, isn't it?

“Those colors don't work with your complexion,” I said. Clara has her father's darker, almost olive skin tone, while Colin favors me in being very fair.

Clara made a face in the mirror. “I know. That's why I like them. I'm creating a sort of sickening look. Just for fun.”

“Oh,” I said. It's at moments like these, when a twenty-year-old tells you that looking sickening is fun, that you realize just how old you are.

I selected a few tubes and jars from the mess and set to work on my own face.

Since Colin and Clara had been home, we hadn't talked at all about the new family dynamic. I found myself oddly unable to bring up the subject in a natural way. Standing with my daughter at the marble counter in my brightly lit bathroom, I decided to just dive right in.

“So,” I said, “your friends don't care that Dad is gay?”

Clara looked at me in the mirror. “Are you kidding? They think it's great he came out.”

Twenty years too late, but who's keeping track?

“And it really doesn't bother you?” I asked.

Clara groaned. “Mom, stop asking already! So Dad is gay, big deal. Good for him. I'm glad he's finally living his own life.”

“After lying to me, to us, all those years,” I retorted. I hadn't meant to get into an argument with Clara; I really didn't want her to see my bitterness or the depth of my pain. Or did I?

Whatever the case, Clara seemed unable or unwilling to understand her father's betrayal.

“Oh, Mom,” she whined. “So Dad didn't tell you he was gay, so you had to find out for yourself. Can you blame him? You were always so uptight!”

I turned from the mirror and wagged the mascara wand at my daughter. “Don't tell me about uptight,” I scolded. “Your father is the most uptight person I've ever met.”

Clara shrugged the maddening shrug of the young. “Whatever. Anyway, I'm psyched you're dating again. You should just totally go for it. Totally embrace your sexuality. Take some chances. But use protection, okay?”

I cringed. How had our roles become reversed, my daughter counseling me on safe sex?

“Of course,” I squeaked. “Now, let me finish up here alone.”

Clara snatched a tube of lipstick and left. I put on a pair of leather pants, a fitted white shirt, and high strappy sandals.

I walked into the living room. Clara jumped up from the floor where she had been flipping through the current issue of
Vanity Fair.

“Mom,” she cried, “you look so hot!”

Colin was sitting on the couch, typing on his laptop. He looked up at me, and rapidly looked back to the screen.

I pulled at the hem of my fitted shirt to make sure it covered my stomach. “I won't be back too late,” I said.

Clara sighed. “It's okay, Mom. You should stay out as late as you want.”

“You have my cell phone number?”

“Yes, Mom. You posted it on the fridge, remember?”

Still Colin typed.

“I'll be at Café Montreal, then Josephine's. If you need me I can be home in fifteen minutes.”

Clara made a pretense of stumbling in frustration.

“Mom, go already! We're fine, we're adults, we're on our own all the time. You don't have to go all protective on us when we come home. Sheesh.”

“Sorry,” I said. “It's habit.” I took a step closer to the couch. “What are you up to tonight, Colin?”

He shrugged, his eyes still on the screen, his fingers flying. “Nothing.”

“You're not going out?”

“No.”

“Colin,” I asked, “are you okay? Do you feel sick?”

“I'm fine,” he mumbled, eyes down. “Look, if it's okay, I'm going to ask Dad if I can stay with him and Bob.”

Clara shot me a look. She knew as well as I did why Colin was acting so strangely.

Seeing his mother decked out for a night on the town bothered him; that was normal. It didn't mean he didn't love me anymore. It didn't mean he hated me.

It meant that Colin wasn't Clara.

I knew my son was angry with his father for destroying the status quo. But Richard and Bob had created a life that more closely resembled it than the life I was creating. Colin, always a bit of a homebody, never a rebel, needed at least a semblance of domestic tranquility.

I couldn't deny my son that very real need.

I swallowed hard. “Of course it's okay, Colin. I'm sure Dad would love to have you.”

Clara ushered me out the door. In the hallway she gave me a hug.

“Don't worry, Mom,” she whispered in my ear. “Everything will be okay.”