The Queen Gene (32 page)

“Widowed,” Anjoli said.

Kimmy’s hairdresser Felix chimed in. “I wouldn’t go there, honey. Who wants to compete with a dead lady?”

Alfie disagreed. “I think widowers are the way to go. His wife didn’t divorce him. Plus there’s no chance of her coming back for a reconciliation.”

Thinking of Aunt Rita, I smiled.
I wouldn’t be too sure of that.

Renee signaled the waiter to refill our glasses. After we were all replenished, Renee offered a toast. “To new beginnings for all of us,” she said.

“To new beginnings,” we repeated.

“I want to Samba,” said Rafael to Scott when he heard the music begin again.

My eyes shot to Tom. It was all beginning to register with him now. “Don’t you want to ask one of the girls?” Tom suggested. Okay, maybe it wasn’t registering after all.

Rafael began moving his body to the Latin rhythms. “Ew, girls, yucky,” he said in a playful overdone Spanish accent.

“Honey,” Robin said to her husband, “Rafael is gay.” She sounded as if she were talking to a slow-witted child.

“Yeah, but —” Tom started. No one knows how that sentence would have ended because it was at that moment that Tom realized that this meant Scott was also gay. “Right on,” he said. “Right on.” After a second, he repeated the sentiment another three times, finally finishing with, “Right the fuck on.”

“Okay, stop saying that,” Robin whispered.

* * *

By nightfall, we were down to our last fifty guests, including unmarried Uncle Harvey and disturbingly chummy Renee and Randy. Jack and I went upstairs to tuck Adam into bed and finally had a chance to catch up. “It’s been so great, hasn’t it?” I asked Jack.

“Better than I ever thought,” he agreed.

“What about Faidra’s dog?!” I asked, giggling.

“Nothing compared to your mother chasing Dan away at knifepoint.”

“I know this is going to sound weird, but I wish Rita and Arnold were here to enjoy it,” I said.

“Honey, if they had stayed, none of this would have happened. Remember what problems they caused?”

“Only Rita,” I defended. “Arnold was quite handy around the house.”

“I know you miss them,” Jack said, kissing my forehead.

“Let’s get back to the party,” I suggested. “Randy’s going to blow some glass in a few minutes.”

When we returned, Anjoli came rushing to me. “I have fabulous news, darling. Sit down!” I sat. “As you know, Nick’s Uncle Harvey and I have been getting along quite well this afternoon.”
Good God, she’s going to marry him?
“Would you believe that not only is he handsome and charming, he’s a casting director?”

“Casting for what?” I asked, horrified at the thought of my mother starring in elder-porn.

“Commercials, darling! And guess who he wants to cast?”

“What kind of commercial does he want to cast you in?”

“Not me, darling. I would never do commercial work!” she said. “Guess again!”

“Um, Kimmy?” I asked.

“Two strikes, darling. One more!”

“Me?” I asked. I could be the new Weight Watchers girl.

“J.Lo!” Anjoli said.

“Your dog?”

“Don’t sound so surprised, darling. Don’t I always tell you J.Lo is gorgeous? Harvey was very impressed by how poised J.Lo remained in the face of that filthy schnauzer attack. Plus, it’s not every dog who can walk down the aisle so gracefully. J.Lo has star quality. Anyway, darling, apparently Taco Bell is bringing back their ‘Yo Quiero Taco Bell’ campaign, and they need a mini Chihuahua for the taquito commercials. Naturally, we’ll have to find her the right agent. There are so few good roles for Latinas.” Mother waved her arms as if to show how very weary she had grown of the business. “Isn’t it my luck to find a boyfriend and a career for J.Lo all in one guy?” It was. I was happier that she’d sworn off married men, but J.Lo’s new taquitos commercial was what excited my mother at the moment, so I joined her celebration.

“You have the most charmed life, Mother,” I said, resting my head on her shoulder as we watched flames shoot from Randy’s blowtorch.

“Don’t I, darling?”

* * *

I didn’t have it so bad either. Jack and stayed up until 2 am giddily going over every detail of our first open house. Jack had sold every one of his paintings and declined several offers for the VW bug. All of the artists had sold all of their work and ended the evening with orders for more. We were floating with joy.

“You know what, Luce?” Jack asked as we sat facing each other Indian style in bed.

“What?”

“You’re my dream wife,” he said.

My eyes welled with tears of joy and fatigue. “I love you so much, Jack. I’m so glad we did this.” I leaned in to kiss him. A decidedly different tone had overtaken us. We had gone from kids at a slumber party to newlyweds in the honeymoon suite. We slipped down beneath the cool sheets and made love until we fell asleep exhausted.

* * *

Early the next morning the phone rang. At first I thought it had to be Anjoli or J.Lo calling, but realized they were staying in the guest room. Who would call so early on a Sunday morning?

“Hello?” I said, purposefully groggy. I wanted to make sure this inconsiderate caller knew exactly how rude he was being.

“
Mamaleh
! Have I got news for you!” Aunt Bernice exclaimed.

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

“Okay? Bettah than okay. This may sound silly to you, but it’s got me so excited I had to cawl and share the news.”

“Tell me!” I encouraged.

Jack opened his eyes and turned to me quizzically. He knit his brow to ask what was going on.

“You know how you and Jack were such big shots about my needing to get my fawcet fixed?”

“I wouldn’t say we were big shots,” I returned. “We just thought it would be nice if —”

“You were big shots!” Bernice snapped. “Everyone carried on telling me I had to get the drippy fawcet fixed. ‘It won’t fix itself,’ everybody told me. Well, guess what?”

“What?”

“It’s awl bettah now,” Bernice said.

“What do you mean it’s all better?”

“You don’t understand what I said? Aren’t you supposed to be the big shot who makes a living using words? What’s so hard to understand about the words I’m using? It’s awl bettah. The sink. It’s fixed!”

“Oh, that’s terrific,” I said, coaxing Jack to go back to sleep.

“It’s bettah than terrific, Lucy. I can’t explain it. I woke up this morning with a pain in my leg, a migraine headache, and a case of PMS like I haven’t had since before menopause. But when I warked into the bathroom and saw that the fawcet had repaired itself, it made me so happy. And angry at the same time,” she said, laughing. “I know it sounds crazy,” she said, not realizing the day we had just had before. “I know yawr going to think I’m a kooky old lady, but something about that fawcet working properly again made me feel… how can I explain it? I don’t know why, but I don’t feel so alone anymore.”

Read a sample chapter from Jennifer Coburn’s

Tales from the Crib

Chapter One

I wasn’t entirely surprised when Jack said he wanted a divorce. Our marriage had been rocky for the last few years. On another day, it might have been me asking to end the relationship. But on this day, Jack’s timing couldn’t have been worse. I knew we had serious problems, but this wasn’t the ideal moment to call it quits.

We’d been to marriage counseling, taken several unsuccessful weekend getaways and even, embarrassed as I am to admit, enrolled in a Tantra class together. Each was more of a disaster than the other.

Our therapist actually dumped us after six months. I never knew they could do that, but one day we showed up at Dr. Lee’s office and he wasn’t there. There was no note, no apologetic phone call, no explanation whatsoever. I called three times to try to reschedule, but Dr. Lee never returned any of my calls. I knew he wasn’t dead because a few months later I saw him at the movie theatre with two young boys I assumed were his sons. I know he saw me because he self-consciously snapped his head in the opposite direction and sped away. Jack didn’t seem at all bothered by Dr. Lee’s disappearing act. He said he was probably just busy and would get to us when he had time. Why do men think this modus operandi is acceptable in every context? I needed a real patient-therapist break-up. Who was Dr. Lee so busy with anyway? Other couples with more interesting problems than ours? Couples he thought had a fighting chance at marital success? Loath as I am to admit this, I once drove by Dr. Lee’s office and tried to peek in the window to see the other couple he was counseling. My near miss of a parked car scared me away from future stalking of my unfaithful ex-therapist.

The weekend getaways were so full of promise, I still wonder how they went so wrong. Actually, that’s not true. I can plainly recall the points when our romantic weekends soured. Every trip has a few glitches, and depending on the state of the relationship, these snafus can either bring a couple together or drive them to each other’s throats. I know a couple who was kidnapped on their honeymoon in Mexico. Five years later, they still admiringly recount how cool the other was under pressure. “Carl is fluent in Spanish, so he was able to negotiate with the kidnappers,” Audrey sighs. “Oh no,” Carl always protests. “If it weren’t for your suggestion that they take your grandmother’s ring, we would have never gotten out of there alive.” They’ve recalled this nightmare a dozen times and still tell it as though it’s a great love story. I’m happy for them, really. It’s just a depressingly stark contrast to Jack and my lemon oil incident during our last romantic weekend together. I’ll get to that in a moment.

My friend Zoe recommended a Tantra class for Jack and me. She said that she and her boyfriend took the workshop and suddenly became amazingly in synch with each other. “Mind blowing doesn’t even begin to describe the sex I had with Paul this weekend,” Zoe said, as she rested her exhausted head blissfully into her hands. “Everyone I know who has taken this class says it has completely and totally transformed their relationship,” Zoe promised. Since Jack and my 14-year marriage had disintegrated to a veritable piece of shit, a complete transformation sounded like just what we needed.

During our first day of the Tantra Yoga workshop, we were told to gaze into the eyes of our partner and try to see their soul. I actually saw a Knicks game in Jack’s eyes. Instead of focusing on my husband, I started looking at the other couples and, I don’t know, maybe I was jealous, but they looked rather silly to me. When I say I started laughing, I don’t mean a dainty little giggle escape. I burst into hysterical, uncontrollable laughter where tears rolled from my eyes. “What’s so damn funny?” Jack asked.

“I’m sorry,” I tried to stop laughing. “Let me catch my breath.” But the more I tried to stop, the more I laughed. It took a full three minutes to stop laughing, and while the teacher seemed sympathetic if not amused, she suggested that Jack and I take a class together called Orgasmic Laughter. We declined on that offer, but picked up a brochure for a lovely looking resort in the Berkshires. We rented a cabin with a cozy hot tub, fireplace and king size bed with a comforter so thick a couple could get lost in it. The full wall of glass window overlooked an overgrown forest of lush trees and giant-leafed plants. It was like Jurassic Park without the dinosaurs. The landscape was carpeted with dark moss, rocks and a stream. In the cabin, a small CD player offered Jack and me classical and jazz music, as well as one selection called “Nature’s Soundtrack.” There was a luxurious calm and a rustic sensuality about the place which was accentuated by the scent of freshly burnt fire wood and clean, pure rain.

Jack and my cabin at the inn was probably the most romantic place on earth. Until we arrived, that is. On our first night, I suggested we run a warm bath and set a few dozen candles around the rim of the tub. That always seems to work in the movies. My girlfriends and I just about died during the bathtub scene in the
Bridges of Madison County
when Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep slid out of their real lives and into unforgettable, eternal love. I had twice as many candles as they did, and my secret weapon – lemon oil.

When I was in Longevity Natural Foods the week earlier, I stared at the hundreds of tiny black bottles of aromatherapy that lined the wall. A nice woman who worked there approached me and asked if I had any questions. I told her my husband and I were taking a trip together, and confided that our marriage had been rather stressful for some time. “Do you have anything that will help us, you know, slide out of our real lives and into unforgettable, eternal love?” I asked.

“Why don’t you try this?” the woman suggested, handing me a small bottle of lemon oil. “Put two drops of this in your tub and you’ll be so mellowed out, you won’t remember what the word stress means.”

I figured if two drops was good, 20 would be excellent. She had no idea how much more stressed we were than the average, overworked couple. It might have been 30 drops of lemon oil I put into the tub. I don’t know. It was dark and I just turned the small bottle upside down and shook most of the contents into the water.

At first, Jack and my bath together seemed idyllic. “This is nice,” he said, reaching for my shoulders, pulling my back against his chest. I settled into Jack’s body like an old comfortable chair. Enveloped by warm water, Jack’s embrace was heaven. His arms reached around to the front of my body and he began to sweep my hair behind my back. As Jack’s firm callous hands moved across my stomach and moved toward my hips, I took a deep breath and tried to release my feelings of physical inadequacy. I had gained twenty pounds since Jack and I met in grad school. My stomach and thighs now looked as if they’d been spackled with dough. But chunky women could still be beautiful these days. All the magazines were saying so, as they trotted out articles about how my size twelve was the same as Marilyn Monroe’s. Besides, I wanted to let go of my body angst because I knew Jack would sense it. Zoe says that, like animals can smell fear, men can smell confidence, and that there was nothing in the world sexier than a woman who felt gorgeous. Silently, I repeated the mantra I learned from a Goddess Body workshop I took with my mother and cousin Kimmy last month.
I am a Goddess and my body is to be worshipped.
Easy for those two to say, but it took several repetitions before I stopped repeating
Yeah, right
after my positive affirmation. My attention snapped back to the present as Jack abruptly stopped touching my hips.