Living Single (21 page)

Authors: Holly Chamberlin

BOOK: Living Single

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Doug took the plastic cup of wine from my hand and began to unbutton my blouse. “What would your Grandpa Morelli have said to that bit of information?”

I considered as I lay back on the couch and the room began to spin.

“I think he would have laughed,” I said with a giggle.

Chapter Thirty-seven

S
aturday night. Date night. Abby was with my father. Doug was with his wife. JoAnne, Maggie, and I were with each other. We met for dinner at No. 9 Park.

“Look over by the bar,” JoAnne instructed. “The far end. Casually, casually, don’t look like you’re looking.”

“What am I looking at?” I said.

“Mr. December with Miss May.”

“Oh.” How had I missed them even for a second?

The man was probably in his late sixties or early seventies. It was hard to tell, exactly, because he’d taken pains to preserve what looks he’d had as a younger man. He was slim, bordering on skinny. His hair was silver and artfuly swept back with about two handfuls of gel. He wore a big gold watch and a big gold ring and a big gold bracelet. His navy blazer with big gold buttons was impeccable, probably from Brooks Brothers. His trousers were gray, knife-creased. His shoes, shiny and black.

Aside from the preponderance of gold, he looked respectable enough, a seventy-year-old single man out on the town. Respectable, but also—old.

Especially standing next to his companion. She was maybe my age, at least half his seventy. She wore a wrap-around dress that showed off an impressive cleavage and a lot of leg. High heels. Hair, blond—a very expensive color job. Something sparkly at her throat. A gift from Mr. December?

Neither was a caricature. Still ... Mr. December put his hand on Miss May’s shoulder. Even from a distance I could see the wrinkles and liver spots. Miss May tilted her head and smiled up at him, a practiced gesture.

I looked away.

“Typical older man/younger woman scenario,” JoAnne pronounced. “If he has money, it’ll last. If not, he’ll have his fling until he can’t keep up with her anymore. Until going to clubs every Saturday night until three
A.M.
puts him on blood pressure medication.”

“If he isn’t on it already,” I mumbled. Was my father on blood pressure medication? What else about my father didn’t I know?

“Or she’ll have her fun—or whatever it is she’s having—until she gets totally bored with his playing Perry Como records while napping in his favorite chair with his reading glasses halfway down his nose,” Maggie said. “Or his wearing cardigans or something.”

“Perry Como?” I repeated. “How old do you think that man at the bar is? Seventy, tops.” And, I thought, my father is fifty-eight years old, not ninety. “Besides, no real old men wear cardigans. Only fussy grandpas on TV commercials for hard candies. Butterscotch hard candies.”

“Point is,” JoAnne said loudly, “without a lot of money to keep a young woman around, she won’t stay with an old guy.”

“That is such an old-fashioned, sexist thing to say!” I cried. “On so many levels.”

Though Reason told me that JoAnne had a point. Look at Anna-Nicole Smith, Reason said. Like she married that skinny old man for his personality? Look at Miss May over there. You think she’s turned on by Mr. December’s age spots?

“Well, what else can an older guy give a younger woman?” JoAnne persisted. “If he’s not rich, I mean. Forget about kids. He’s got his family, he’s done. Forget about hanging with her friends, he’ll feel too awkward. And sex just gets more and more iffy.”

“Not to mention ear hair and wrinkles and empty cans of Ensure lying about the kitchen,” Maggie added knowingly.

“And the nasty glares of women his own age. A total assumption on their part he’s with you for sex and showing off in front of his buddies. A total assumption that you’re with him for money and are nothing better than a tramp.”

“And the fact that he can’t eat anything spicy and can’t eat dinner after nine o’clock or he’ll be up all night with cramps.”

“Or in the bathroom. With your
Martha Stewart Living
magazine.”

“How about love?” I argued, a little bit desperate now. Suddenly, I didn’t want Miss May to leave nice old Mr. December. I didn’t want Abby to leave my father. I didn’t want some young woman, especially a friend of mine, to break his heart. What did my father ever do to deserve two broken hearts in one lifetime!

“Companionship? Compatability?” I went on. “What if the man and woman really get along? What if they share passions, like art or ... or hiking or whatever. I don’t know. What if they fall in love?”

“Nah. Probably just a sick father fixation on her part and a pitiful desire to recapture his youth on the man’s.”

“That’s so unfair, JoAnne,” I snapped. “Okay, maybe it’s true about some older men and younger women, but it can’t be true about all of them. It can’t be. It’s not true about Abby and my father. I know it.”

Was it?

JoAnne shrugged.

I snuck another look at May-December. He was sipping bourbon or Scotch or whiskey, straight. She was sipping a bright purple martini. Okay, there was something slightly macabre about their being together—but maybe that was JoAnne’s opinion infecting my own observations.

I wondered if Mr. December had a daughter older than Miss May. I wondered what the daughter thought of her father going around with someone half his age.

“Ten years, tops,” JoAnne was saying now. “That’s my limit. Only exception, the guy’s super, filthy rich. Then, I’ll go to fifteen. Okay, maybe twenty. But only if he works out regularly. And has all his hair.”

“That’s so nasty, about the hair,” I said. So much for my determination to stay out of the conversation. “A guy can’t help it if his hair falls out. It’s not his fault.”

“Uh, Hair Club for Men? Plugs?”

“Do you know how much those things cost?” I argued. As if I cared. “Over twenty thousand dollars, something outrageous. Hank, from the office, checked into it.”

“If he’s really rich, he’ll be able to afford it,” Maggie pointed out.

“But what if he doesn’t want to get plugs?” I said. “What if he’s happy with the way he looks? What if he thinks any woman who loves him should accept him for who he is? Bald and all. That’s what we want, right? Someone to love us for who we are, not for what we look like.”

Strangely, no one had an answer to this question for a full minute. A full minute is a long thing.

Then JoAnne changed the subject.

“What do you do if a man asks you to change something about yourself?”

“What’s to change?” Maggie quipped. “I’m perfection!”

“Ha ha. Every man asks a women to change something about her appearance. Without fail. If it’s not hair color it’s hair length. Or clothes, that’s a big one. They want you to dress more sexy.”

“They want you to dress like a slut,” Maggie amended.

“A guy once asked me to cut my nails,” I told them. “Can you imagine! I’ve had long nails since I was twelve! It’s part of who I am. Oh, yeah, Erin. She’s the one with the perfectly manicured long nails. I mean, nobody would have recognized me with short nails! I wouldn’t have recognized me. I shudder to think.”

“Weight.” Maggie.

Communal groan.

“Why is it that men you hardly know at all feel perfectly free asking you to lose ten pounds?” she went on. “Or gain ten pounds. Even if you’re healthy and happy and think you look just fine. I mean, the nerve!”

“The balls!”

“What gives them the right!”

“And then ask them to lose ten pounds or beef up or change their hairstyle, whatever,” JoAnne said, with what sounded very much like a harrumph. “Forget it. He’s gone.”

“Women have to wait until they’re married before they can ask the guy to change his appearance. It’s a proven fact,” I told them. “My friend at work, Maureen, totally dresses her husband, head to toe. She won’t allow Mark to pick out a pair of shorts on his own anymore. She said before the wedding he was a slob. The week they got back from their honeymoon, she surprised him with a new wardrobe. It went on from there.”

“And he goes along with it?” JoAnne sneered. “That sounds kind of wimpy.”

Maggie answered for me. “That’s how it works. He’s got a wife. She’s agreed to have regular sex for ‘free’ till death do them part. He’s grateful. He’ll put up with almost anything for the sex.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maureen said Mark never liked shopping anyway, so she’s doing him a favor all around.”

“Hey, I just thought of something funny,” JoAnne said. “What if this guy looks so good now that his wife’s dressing him, other women start coming on to him and it goes to his head and he has an affair! He could argue it’s all his wife’s fault for dressing him too nicely.”

“Mmm,” I said. “That would be one way of looking at it.”

While JoAnne and Maggie chatted on, I wondered.

Did Carol choose Doug’s wardrobe? Did she buy him socks at BJ’s Discount Warehouse? Was it her choice that he wear boxers and not briefs?

Underwear, the great leveler. I’d been touched the first time I’d seen Doug put on his boxers. It’s a humbling thing, dressing in the presence of your loved one, watching your loved one dress.

Suddenly, the intimacy of marriage seemed so terribly unattainable.

Suddenly, I didn’t feel much like eating.

Chapter Thirty-eight

E—when am I going to be a grandma? girls here have babies by 16. how’s that job going? M.

Maureen and I went shopping at lunch one day for baby clothes.

“Infants need a certain type of T-shirt,” she explained.

“Their belly buttons are all sensitive at first, so the shirts have to tie at the side, not snap anywhere. Ties are less irritating than snaps.”

“There are so many things to think about,” I said. “How do you keep all the information straight?”

“I don’t,” Maureen admitted. “That’s why I have so many baby books at home. And why I spend so much time highlighting. Whenever I can’t remember something, like how often you’re supposed to bathe an infant, or when I realize I have no idea how to suction a baby’s nose when he has a cold, I just look it up.”

“It’s like being back in school,” I said, “except the stakes are so much higher.”

“I know. If you fail at being a good mommy, you just can’t take the class over. The kid’s a mess, end of story.”

“Are you scared?” I asked then, as we rode the elevator in Macy’s at Downtown Crossing.

Maureen laughed. “What do you think? I’m petrified. But I’m also so excited I can hardly stand it.”

“How’s Mark handling everything?” I asked.

“He’s been great. I mean, what’s his option? He loves me, he’s totally psyched to be a father, he’s already talking about another kid after this one.” Maureen patted her belly. “I told him, fine, we can have another baby, as long as you go through the morning sickness for me.”

“Wouldn’t that be wonderful,” I said.

Yes, I thought, as I flipped through a stack of baby undies, wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a man so happy about building a family with me. If Doug and I ever married ...

No, I couldn’t allow myself to think about that. We’d never discussed having children together because we’d never discussed our being married. And if Doug hadn’t wanted to have children with Carol, would he ever want to have them with me?

Point is, Reason said, he’s married. And if you continue to stay with a married man, it’s highly unlikely you’ll ever be buying T-shirts for your own baby.

I waited, but Romance seemed to have been taking a nap.

Maureen and I spent fifteen minutes combing the baby department and came up empty, though I did buy the baby a mint green onesie with an adorable little frog on the chest. I couldn’t help it.

“You still have some time,” I said as we rode the elevator back to the first floor. “I’ll keep an eye out for the T-shirts.”

“Would you? Thanks, Erin. I’m so tired some days, and others, I feel totally energized. It’s odd.”

It’s a miracle, I thought, tears suddenly pricking my eyes. New life is a miracle.

After work the following day I went to Lord & Taylor’s baby department to look for the T-shirts with a tie, found two packages, and bought them.

On the way home, I decided to stop at the bookstore in the mall. My bedside reading pile was getting dangerously low and if I didn’t have a good book to read at night, I was unhappy.

Once there, I began to browse through the tables piled with recent trade editions and the shelves stacked with hardcover bestsellers. I must have been engrossed in the selection because suddenly I realized I didn’t have the bag from Lord & Taylor.

I glanced around, hoping I’d put it down somewhere close by, but I could find no bag.

I was angry and also sad. Those two packages of T-shirts had been the last in stock. Sure, I could go back to the store in a few weeks but ...

“Excuse me.”

A tall, nicely built man, maybe about thirty-five, dressed in a blue suit with the tie loosened, was standing there in front of me. And he was holding my Lord & Taylor bag.

He had a very nice smile.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” he said, “but I found this over in the next aisle and I think I saw you with it earlier.”

He’d seen me with it earlier? So, he’d been looking at me, noticing.

I smiled back and said, “Whew, thanks! Yes, it’s mine. I’d just realized I’d lost it.”

“Something special?” he asked and I noticed his eyes were a lovely shade of green.

“Yes,” I said. “T-shirts for my friend. Well, actually, for her baby. Which isn’t born yet. But infants need a special kind of T-shirt and we couldn’t find them and ...”

Mr. Helpful did not look bored.

“I didn’t know infants needed special T-shirts,” he said.

“There’s a lot to learn, I guess, when you’re having a baby.”

“I bet.” Mr. Helpful handed me the bag and said, “By the way, my name is Brian.”

“Erin.”

“Hi, Erin. Um, I wonder ... Well, I was noticing you before and I kind of wanted to come up and talk to you but I hate just bothering someone, but then your shopping bag gave me an excuse to say hello.”

He was adorable. I smiled again.

“So,” he went on, “would you maybe like to get a cup of coffee or something? If you’re busy now, I understand, maybe some other time ...”

I felt rooted to the spot. Here was an attractive guy, a nice guy, asking me for a cup of coffee. But I couldn’t accept his invitation.

Of course, you can’t! Romance cried. You’re committed to Doug. You’re in love.

Maybe, Reason said. But that relationship is going nowhere, fast. This guy is single, as far as she knows, and seems nice. Why should she pass up an opportunity to talk?

Because Erin is faithful to her soul mate!

Is her so-called soul mate faithful to her? Correct me if I’m wrong, but he gets into bed every night with another woman.

Stop it, the both of you! I cried. I ...

The truth was I wanted to have coffee with Brian. And the truth was also that I couldn’t.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m seeing someone.”

“Oh.” Brian shrugged good-naturedly. “Okay. I guess I probably should have known someone as pretty as you would be taken.”

“Thanks,” I said, and I meant it, even if ‘taken’ wouldn’t have been my word of choice. “If I weren’t involved ...”

“That’s okay. Look, have a good night.”

Brian turned to go.

“Thank you,” I said. “For returning my package.”

He turned back and said, “Tell your friend good luck.”

I was in a bad mood. I seemed often to be in a bad mood in those days, testy, on edge, often ready to explode. It was unlike me. I wondered if something in my diet was contributing to high blood pressure or some other scary medical condition. But beyond that brief thought, I chose not to explore possible reasons for the change in my behavior.

I also chose not to explore why it was that I was able to keep my explosive anger in check at work and with my friends, but not with Doug. I wasn’t always attacking him. But it was beginning to happen with some frequency.

We were sitting on a bench in the Gardens. Doug was throwing the crumbs of his sandwich to the ducks and geese.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” I said.

“Why? Birds have to eat, too.”

“I don’t care. I don’t like birds.”

Doug looked at me and grinned.

“How can you not like birds?”

“I just don’t,” I snapped. “They frighten me. I’ve told you that. Don’t you ever listen?”

Doug threw the last crumb to the birds and turned to me.

“Hey, that’s not fair,” he said, not angrily. “I listen all the time. Even when you’ve had too much to drink.”

Hello?

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You talk a lot when you’ve had too much to drink. No big deal.”

What?

“Since when have you seen me drunk?”

Doug sighed. “Oh, come on, Erin, just forget it.”

“No, I want to know. When have you ever seen me drunk?”

“Just once, that night in my office. When you went on and on about your childhood and family and the nuns. It was cute.”

Cute? The condescending bastard ...

“I was not drunk!” I protested, though I knew I had been. A little.

Doug gave me one of those extremely annoying indulgent looks one gives a child who is lying outrageously.

“If you say so.”

“I was not drunk. Did you even really listen that night? Do you remember anything I said?”

“I listened. But frankly, Erin, I was mostly thinking about the sex we were going to have when you stopped talking.”

I felt sick to my stomach, betrayed. I felt like a fool.

“I don’t believe it.”

Doug laughed.

“Come on, Erin, I’m a guy. If you want to blab on ...”

“Blab on?”

“Sorry. If you want to ramble on about the past and have someone really listen, you should do it with a girlfriend.”

“But you talked to me. You gave me advice.”

“I know. Erin, what’s the big deal? I was there, I did what I could.”

Doug reached for my hand. I snatched it away.

“Assuming I was drunk. You were humoring me.”

“Why are you picking a fight? I don’t need this, Erin.”

And as quickly as the fury had come upon me, it receded, leaving in its wake shame and misery.

Doug was right. I’d been trying to pick a fight. Truth be told, I’d been fully aware of how boring I must have been that night on Doug’s office couch. He’d listened, responded, made love to me, and then drove me home, safe and sound. I’d had nothing to complain about then and didn’t have anything to complain about now.

“Oh, Doug,” I whispered, “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I don’t know what came over me. Please.” I touched his arm. “Please forgive me.”

Doug took my hand.

“You’re tired,” he said. “Go home and get some rest. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

I nodded, unable to speak, and God, hadn’t I already said enough?

Doug didn’t kiss me good-bye. He released my hand. His face looked drawn. He stood up and walked away.

You’re an ass, Erin, I told myself.

You’re rightfully angry, Reason said. You’re not getting what you need.

I waited. Romance said nothing.