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I was nineteen years old. Nineteen!

Howard was ten years older than I was. We met in September and married in June. That was what we did back then. It was time to get married, so we did. I moved from my parents’ house to my husband’s house, and I never knew what it was like to live on my own. Once—
once
—before Barbara was born, Howard went on a business trip for two days. That was the extent of my living on my own when I was younger. I smoked a half a pack of cigarettes—the last time I ever smoked—and went to a movie by myself. (And I hope you don’t smoke, by the way; it’s bad for you. I lost a lot of friends along the way because of it.) That was the craziest I ever got. How I would love to get really crazy, just once.

Barbara also followed my route. She married young—her husband, Larry, is a dentist—and had Lucy. I told her to get a job and wait. But did she listen to me? No. I should have insisted she get an occupation as stubbornly as my mother insisted I shouldn’t. I regret I didn’t show her that working was important, not just for money’s sake, but to do something for yourself. I loved having my daughter, don’t get me wrong, but I wish I had done other things first. By the time I was twenty-five, I had a child and a house in the Main Line suburbs of Philadelphia.

Two years ago, Howard dropped dead while eating a corned-beef sandwich at the Nate n’ Al deli in Los Angeles. It was completely out of the blue. He’d had some heart issues—a bypass here, a bypass there—but no one thought this would ever happen. Heart surgery is so common among my age group that you start to treat it like it’s just another thing you have to do. (“How
about dinner Saturday night?” I’d ask a friend. “Oh, Alan is having a bypass on Friday. How about the following Saturday?” she’d reply. Same thing with the prostate operations.)

Anyway, it was the most horrible thing that’s ever happened to me. We were in Los Angeles for my friend Thelma Punchick’s daughter’s second wedding, to an architect. One second we were sitting there having a conversation about whether to go to the Getty Museum or the LACMA, and the next he’s keeled over in his coleslaw. I said: “Howard?”

He didn’t answer, so I said it louder: “Howard?”

Again, he said nothing.

I knew he was dead, with his face on the table like that, but I was so shaken-up that I thought for a second that maybe he really liked the coleslaw. It was very good coleslaw. I don’t know where my mind was. The third time I screamed really loudly: “HOWARD!”

That’s when the whole restaurant went silent and I jumped up out of my seat. Two nice-looking men in their thirties were sitting at the next table. I had noticed them earlier, how handsome they were in their T-shirts and khaki pants, and I wondered if they were in the movies. It was lovely how quickly they reacted. One of the men propped Howard up and laid him down in the booth (thank goodness Howard insisted on a booth or he would have been on the filthy dirty floor at this point) and the other gentleman called the paramedics. The waitress held on to me like she was my sister, and I buried my face in her chest. I should have written her a thank-you note, or at least given her a good tip. Anyway, by the time the paramedics came, poor Howard was already gone, and I had to make plans to get him back to
Philadelphia. I don’t even want to tell you what goes into transferring a body. Howard was in a casket down in the cargo hold, and I had my purse on the seat where he should have been sitting. I sort of wondered if maybe I shouldn’t have put my purse there, you know, as kind of a memorial for Howard, but I kept crying and needed my bag handy for my tissues.

The reason I was crying, aside from the fact that my husband had just died and I did love him even though I probably never should have married him, was that Howard always handled everything. I allowed Howard to handle everything, like my mother taught me I should. I was a woman of leisure, while he worried about all the behind-the-scenes stuff. How was I going to get along without him? That was the first time I really started to regret the way I’d lived my life, and every time I thought about it the tears kept coming. Thank God for Barbara. Thank God Barbara knew to call a funeral home to get the body transferred back to Philadelphia. Even though I’d never tell her (Barbara is the type of person who would take a compliment like that and use it as a weapon later), thank God Barbara is there when I need her.

I do miss Howard a lot, more than I thought I would (again, mum’s the word). We were married for more than fifty years. I married a man whom I had nothing in common with, but in those days you had to find someone and start a life. And we
did
build a life. It wasn’t perfect, but what is? Was he the love of my life? No. Who was the love of my life? Sadly, it’s too late for me to ever find out. Barbara thinks I should date, but who am I going to date? Hershel Neal has had a thing for me since I moved into this building. He’s always asking me to come up to his place to
listen to his Chopin records, but I just shoo him away. I should find some other old man with health problems and let him drop dead in front of me again? No, thanks.

Howard worked hard. He played hard, too, though he didn’t think I knew it. Howard had affairs through the years. Did he think I was too stupid not to smell the perfume on his shirt? Did he really think I believed him when he told me he had to work late on Friday nights?

I thought about leaving him when Barbara was little. I thought about just packing up one night and taking Barbara someplace where no one would know us. I fantasized about that a lot when Barbara was young and Howard was having his affairs. It just wasn’t something you did back then—leave your husband.

You know what you did? You kept your mouth shut.

Believe it or not, it was almost accepted for a man to have an affair, but oh, no, never a woman. I remember saying to my mother: “He’s got a girl on the side.”

She shrugged her shoulders and said, “He works hard and he provides for you. Subject closed.” And it was. In those days, you listened to your mother and respected her opinion. Not like now—yes, I’m talking to you, Barbara.

After all, was my life so horrible? No, it was not. Howard never put me on a budget, never once. I had all the money I could ever hope to spend. My child was well provided for. We took trips, wonderful trips, all over the world. I’ve seen everything from the Eiffel Tower to the Great Wall of China. With all the jewelry Howard bought me over the years I could cover myself in diamonds from head to toe. Barbara never wanted
for anything. She went to the best schools, and in summer she went to camp and then to the Jersey Shore. In those respects, Howard was a wonderful husband and father. If I had left him, what would have been the alternative? That would have been the stupidest thing I ever did. It wasn’t the time to do that. Today, it’s different; a woman can make a lot of money and be on her own. In those days, do you know that you couldn’t even get a credit card unless your husband opened the account for you? It’s true! Your husband was the one who had to fill out the credit card application, and even then, when you got the card, it never said your first name. All of my credit cards read
mrs. howard jerome.

So I kept my mouth shut.

Even now, two years after Howard died, I never have to worry about money. I’ve got all that I need. Howard made sure I would always be taken care of, and I will always be grateful to him for that.

Still, what I wouldn’t have given for a little romance myself in those times.

If there’s any wisdom I’ve gained from reaching seventy-five, sadly, that’s it.

Sex with Howard was fine. At least I think it was fine; I never knew it with anyone else. Howard was the only man I ever had sex with in my entire life. We never had crazy sex—just plain old Howard-on-top or me-on-top sex, three times a week, sometimes four if Howard felt like it, never me. I was never much for sex. I wonder, if I had ever been with anyone else would I have liked it more? Believe me, I was a pretty woman back then, with a cute figure. I could have gotten a lot of men in my time if that
was my thing. How wonderful it would have been to have someone in my life who wrote me love letters. Howard never wrote anything. His secretary even signed his name on my birthday cards. How marvelous it would have been to just have that thrill of someone else finding me attractive.

You know, it did almost happen once. I’m not saying I would have actually gone and had the affair, but once at a benefit for the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Russell Minden took me aside and told me he thought I was one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen. He asked to take me to lunch. This was 1962, and I got scared out of my mind. I was sure that everyone at the benefit could hear my conversation with Russell. So I just laughed demurely, and then regretted not doing anything about it for the rest of my life. Russell died a few years back (the C-word, pancreas). I saw the obit in the
Philadelphia Inquirer
. I sent a donation to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in his memory, to thank him in my own way. I hadn’t seen him for about twenty years, but I never forgot how beautiful he made me feel that night.

That’s another thing I’m angry about. I never knew how attractive I was. When I look at pictures of myself back then, God I was beautiful. Everyone always said so, but I never believed it myself. I wish I had taken more advantage of my looks. In those days I looked good for Howard. I did my hair and ate right for fat-bald-run-around-with-other-women-behind-my-back Howard. If I bought a new dress or a new perfume, it was for Howard to compliment. I should have been doing it for me. I only wish I had taken the time to feel good about myself.

So in a nutshell, take all that—no education, sex with one man, not knowing that the sun was bad for me, and not realizing
how gorgeous I was—and that’s why I’m jealous of my granddaughter, Lucy. She’s got her whole life ahead of her, and she lives in the perfect time in history. That’s what I was thinking through my whole seventy-fifth birthday party:
I was born at the wrong time. I wish I was Lucy.

You should have seen my Lucy sitting there at the party. She’s got this mini e-mail contraption that she was using to talk to her friends the whole night about where they were going to go after she left my birthday celebration. “Texting,” was what Barbara kept saying, as in,
“Lucy, it’s Gram’s birthday. Can you stop texting for two seconds to toast your grandmother?”
I winked at Lucy. It was okay with me.

All I wanted to know was who she was talking to and where she was going.

And the way she was dressed! Barbara kept saying all night, “She looks like a streetwalker.” She had on a tiny minidress with platform heels and a jean jacket over it. I thought she looked like a movie star, and I wished I could wear something like that. Lucy has such a figure! She is so trim, not like her mother. Barbara takes after Howard’s side of the family, with their big hips and ample bosoms. Barbara is constantly on a diet. (Ha! I think she cheats more than she diets.) Lucy and I don’t diet. Sure, I watch my figure, but because of my metabolism I can afford to cheat, and so can Lucy. Sometimes Lucy and I have ice cream for dinner. Just last week we got a big tub of Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough and went hog wild. Lucy looks like I did when I was her age. I always had great legs, and a great tush like Lucy’s. Everyone said so. I don’t know what happened—my body just . . . 
sagged
. It looks like . . . oh, you know when you put
too much paint on a wall and it starts to drip down? That’s what my body looks like. I’m thin, but saggy. But, oh, did I have a great behind! God I miss my cute rear end. I lost my tush somewhere between my forties and my sixties and I’m still looking for it. (And by the way, if you’re reading this and you’re much younger than I am, I have one word for you:
moisturize
. You’ll still sag like a wet washcloth at seventy-five, but at least you’ll look better than your girlfriends at the same age. At least I do. Oy, if you could only see Frida.)

Anyway, Lucy and I are very close. She only lives about four blocks from me in the city. I’m so happy we live close to each other. After Howard passed on, I had no desire to stay in that big house in the suburbs anymore. A few months after he died, I noticed that the water heater was leaking—just a little puddle, nothing dramatic. The water heater was located in the basement, just a few feet away from the washing machine. I only noticed the leak when I went to grab a new box of detergent. I always bought extra boxes of detergent and kept them right beside the heater. That’s when I noticed the leak. I remember thinking to myself how funny it was that I never noticed that water leaked from the heater. I didn’t know it wasn’t supposed to leak. (Gladys, our dear housekeeper who died last year, was the one who always did the laundry.)

So when I went to take a bath a week later, there was no hot water. They had been doing some construction on Mrs. Lewis’s house next door and I figured that had something to do with it. What can I say? It all seemed logical at the time. Later that day I went downstairs to throw some towels in the washing machine and the whole basement was flooded. Because I had those extra
boxes of detergent by the water heater, there were soapsuds everywhere.
Everywhere!
It looked like a Turkish bath!

I was in such panic that I called Barbara, who came right over. When she saw the mess, she berated me for not having the sense to call a plumber. (Okay,
berated
is a harsh word, but she treated me like a child. So shoot me. I didn’t know it wasn’t supposed to leak.)

Anyway, that was it for me. I got a new hot water heater and put the house on the market the same day. I moved into a lovely apartment on Rittenhouse Square and I sold my car (word to the wise: when that “service” light that comes up on your dashboard, it is not there for decoration); and I’m so much happier as a result. My days are spent playing bridge or going to concerts at the Kimmel Center. At night I go out to restaurants with my friend Frida or other girlfriends who’ve lost their husbands. I bought in the same building where Frida lives and so we’re always in each other’s apartments. It’s fun actually, and it’s good that we can check on each other. My apartment faces Rittenhouse Square Park and nothing makes me happier than to go down there on a nice day and sit on a bench under a tree and read the newspaper.