Fifty Is Not a Four-Letter Word (27 page)

My evening is being ruined before it has even begun. “Dan, this is Mark, a former colleague of mine.”

“Pleased to meet you, Dan. You sound like a Bostonian to me.”

“Sharp guy. You’ve got a good ear.”

Do something, Hope, and do it quickly,
I tell myself,
before the two of them disappear into the pub next door for a pint.

“Sorry to rush you, Dan, but I’d kill for a drink, and the bar’s upstairs. Enjoy the show, Mark.”

I grab Dan by the wrist and haul him inside and up the stairs.

“Is everything okay?” asks Dan. “You seem a little harassed.”

“It’s that man. I hate him.”

“Hate. That’s a strong word. I thought he seemed rather charming.”

“Oh, yes, indeed, in the way that Brutus was charming right up until the very moment he betrayed Caesar. In the way that Hitler
could be really sweet and gentle with Eva Braun even after slaughtering six million Jews. In the way that Cruella De Vil wanted
to cozy up with those cute little Dalmatians at the same time she was planning to flay them for a new coat.”

“I’m beginning to get the picture. You don’t like the guy.”

“It’s because of him I got fired.”

“You didn’t tell me you got fired.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

“That’s good. It means there’s a lot for me to find out.”

• • •

Unlike teenagers, grown-ups can’t get away with groping each other the moment the lights go down in the auditorium. Which
is very fortunate. Otherwise, despite my promise, I might be straddling Dan’s lap right now. I’ve gone into a kind of static
overdrive. Every time Dan adjusts his large frame in his seat, and his trousered thigh barely brushes against the flimsy material
of my dress, sparks fizz and crackle through my body like an unchoreographed amateur fireworks display. When he leans over
to whisper a comment about the show and his lips no more than graze my ear, a shiver shoots from my neck down my spine. There’s
a congested feeling in my pelvis, an ache inside my vagina.

The show is the perfect backdrop to my unaccustomed feelings. In its stage incarnation, the film that made Greta Garbo famous
for wanting to be alone is a stunning evocation of prewar Berlin, at once hedonistic, glamorous, and sleazy. “Time is running
out,” the characters keep repeating—and we know that time is running out not just for these individuals, living decadently
at Grand Hotel, but for Germany, as the economic crisis deepens and the slow descent to World War II begins. Time is running
out . . . It feels a bit like that for me, too. I’m fifty, for heaven’s sake. My husband has left me. I’m sitting next to
a man I fancy so much I am about to spontaneously combust. Shouldn’t I be grabbing my chances while I can? Why be good when
being bad, from where I’m sitting, looks so much more fun? Cross my heart and hope to die.

• • •

“Exhilarating,” I say as we slowly file out with the crowd.

“Exhilarating, sexy, and sardonic,” says Dan.

“Exhilarating, sexy, sardonic, louche, lush. I’m running out of adjectives.”

“This is beginning to feel like
Supermarket Sweep
. Do you have that show here?”

“Sadly, yes, but I’ve never watched it.”

“So where’s dinner?”

“The Ivy. Otherwise known as the Celebrity Caf.”

“Do you have influence? In Boston and New York, you sometimes have to wait months for a reservation at one of those places.”

“I wouldn’t call it influence, exactly. I just have a few semi-famous acquaintances. First time I tried to book, they said
they were full. I rang five minutes later, giving my shoe-designer friend’s name, and they gave me a table right away.”

“But won’t they realize that neither of us is her?”

“Maybe, maybe not. But they won’t make a scene.”

“Hope, did you feel horny in the theater?”

“As a matter of fact, I did.”

“Me, too. Horny as hell.”

This is not going at all as planned.

• • •

The guy with the reservations book looks slightly askance when I say my name, or rather the name of the well-known designer
who shoes A-list feet in her impossible-to-stand-upright-in S&M-fetish footwear. “She couldn’t make it at the last minute,
so I came with someone else,” I mumble. He waves us through.

Gosh, that really is Gwyneth Paltrow with Chris Martin, skulking in the corner. I give Dan a little prod and nod. “Over there.”

“I’m impressed.”

We’re seated side by side at a kind of central banquette laid with a traditional white tablecloth. “Great camouflage,” says
Dan, slipping his hand under the tablecloth and making for the slit in my skirt with radar accuracy.

“Daaan! You can’t do that here. Jesus, it’s fucking Mark and his posse. If he gets wind of what you’re up to, it will be all
over town before breakfast.”

Mark and three immaculately dressed male companions are led to the table to our right.

“Hi there, Hope. Dan. Very stylish, I thought. Now, don’t let me and the guys spoil your cozy chat. Just pretend we’re not
here.”

If only.

“Behave yourself,” I hiss in Dan’s ear. “I can’t tell you how bad this could get. Jack sorted out some sports injury of Mark’s
a couple of years back. Now he rings Jack whenever he has a problem, and with his nerve, he’s probably still doing so, despite
having done me out of my job.”

“This place is pretty cool. But maybe we should have gone somewhere less conspicuous.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

“How about we have one quick course and then go back to my hotel for dessert?”

“You’re a genius,” I say.

When the waiter arrives, Dan says loudly, so Mark can hear: “We’ve only time for one course, I’m afraid. I’m flying out first
thing, and I have to pick my wife up in an hour from her aunt’s house in Kensington.”

Too much information,
I’m thinking. But Mark’s heard every word, and so long as he’s fathoming whether to read anything into it or not, he has no
evidence whatsoever of anything illicit.

Over fish cake and spinach (me), bangers and mash (Dan), we dissect
Grand Hotel
, chat about the run-down but magnificent manor house in Dorset where Dan’s been staying, and discuss Dan’s work. All noncontroversial
subjects that even if Mark were to be noting every word, he’d have nothing to go on. I’m working hard to pretend that Dan
is my bank manager—deeply boring and deeply unattractive. It seems to be doing the trick of curbing my tongue, if not my internal
organs.

• • •

The air has cooled, and as we leave the restaurant, I start to shake out my neatly folded pashmina.

“Here, let me do that,” says Dan. He shakes out the sheet of creamy cashmere and arcs it over my head like a skipping rope.
Drawing the two ends of the scarf around and over my chest, he pulls me closer, burying his face in my neck and breathing
in deeply. “You smell so good, Hope.”

I might dissolve right here on the pavement, but I can’t keep myself from glancing anxiously about. “Not here,” I say, not
wanting him to stop, desire distilled to even greater potency by the danger of discovery. He moves away, his eyes narrowing
in a knowing smile.

We walk toward his hotel, an invisible barrier keeping us apart, a no-go zone beyond which there’s no going back. Once through
the lobby doors of Dan’s hotel, I feel relatively safe from prying eyes. We head for the wood-paneled drawing room and find
ourselves a plumply upholstered sofa in a quiet corner.

“I think I’ll just have coffee,” I say. It’s eleven-thirty p.m., and I need to keep sober if I’m going to come to a rational
decision.
Cross my heart and hope to die
.

“Dan,” I say. “I don’t think I should sleep with you.”

“Yeuwre makin’ a big mistake, honey.”

Dan’s mock-macho southern drawl makes me giggle. I say, “It’s just that my life’s so complicated at the moment. I don’t want
to screw things up more than I’ve done already.”

“Screw things up, no. Screw me, most definitely.”

“Oh, Dan, you’re not taking me seriously.”

“Look, Hope, it’s just a bit of fun. We’re both married, and we both have commitments, and we live in different countries.
I’m not going to try to steal you away from Jack. I enjoy your company, and I enjoy having sex with you. End of story.”

For some reason, I don’t like Dan saying Jack’s name as if he knows him.

“The thing is, Jack’s left me, and I’m not sure sex with you is any kind of answer.”

“Fired from your job. Left by your husband. Yeah, I can see things are a little complicated. A night with me is just what
you need—to take your mind off things. Answers, I can’t promise.”

“How many affairs have you had since you’ve been married?”

“Look, this isn’t how it operates.”

“Go on, how many?”

“Not very many.”

“Because the thing is, in twenty years you’re the only guy apart from Jack I’ve ever slept with.”

“I’m flattered. But it’s no worse a sin to sleep with a man twice than it is once.”

“The first time was spontaneous. This is premeditated. It’s calculated.”

“Oh, so spontaneity’s a lapse; premeditation’s a deadly sin.”

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” I say aloud.

“What’s that you said?”

“Oh, just some silly, childish superstition to do with promises kept and broken.”

“Are you superstitious? A believer in omens and portents?”

“Not at all.”

“Me, neither. In which case, shall we hold the coffee and get a bottle of champagne sent to my room instead?”

“Yes, Dan, I’d like that very much indeed.”

In the lift on the way up, Dan stands behind me and clasps my body to his. “Ever had sex in an elevator?” he asks as his hands
head south between my legs. I can feel his hard cock pressing between my buttocks.

“I thought it only happened in the movies,” I reply, wishing we could empty the hotel of guests and staff and do it right
here.

Then we are in his room.

“I want to undress you,” he says. He sits on the bed, and I stand in front of him. He pulls on the ties at the side of my
waist, and my dress unwraps itself. I have on the second set of underwear I bought in Paris, and I’m wearing hold-up stockings.

“I like this look,” he says, slipping my dress from my shoulders so I’m left standing in my underwear and my high heels. He
begins to trace my body with his hands.

Something’s buzzing in my handbag. My mobile hardly ever rings. I glance at my watch. And certainly not at this hour.

“Ignore it,” he says.

“I can’t. Only a few people have my number; it must be important.”

I was feeling so sexy. Now, as I have to walk in my underwear to the table to collect my handbag, I feel exposed and uncomfortable
with his eyes scrutinizing every inch of me. I open my bag and take out my phone. “You have one new message,” it says. It’s
from Olly.

Emergency! Had 2 double shift at the bar, 1 of the guys ill. No time 2 take Su 4 a walk. U need 2 take her out as soon as
u get home.

“Fuck!” I spit the word out.

“That was the idea,” says Dan. “Is everything okay?”

“Dan, give me a moment to think.”

I look at my watch again. It’s five to midnight. Susanna hasn’t been out since six. If I don’t get back soon, she will become
distressed and start pissing and shitting all over the floor. Olly might not be back until four or five in the morning. The
thought of hurrying sex with Dan, then dashing home to clear up Susanna’s mess, is the perfect antidote to arousal.

“Dan, there’s an emergency, I have to go straight home.”

“What kind of an emergency?”

“A canine one.”

“Are you kidding me, Hope? Is this some kind of a joke?”

“No, Dan, I promise. There is nothing in the world I’d rather do right now than go to bed with you and a bottle of champagne.
But I’ve got this text from my son, and I have to go home.”

Dan is shaking his head slowly, the bare hint of a smile turning up the corners of his mouth. “It’s what makes you special,
I guess.”

“What’s that?” I ask, desperate to get back into my dress. I feel like a prostitute, parading in my underwear before a fully
dressed stranger.

“Your dedication to your dog.”

We both laugh, and it breaks the tension. He stands and pulls me to him, kissing me full on the mouth, prising my lips apart
with his tongue.

“We’d have been so good together,” he says as I finally release myself.

“Yes, we would. I’m so sorry, Dan. Look, I’ll call you. Maybe we’ll meet before you go back down to Dorset.”

“Let me help you on with that.” Dan holds out my dress for me to put my arms through, like a coat, and then wraps me back
into it. It’s a gentlemanly gesture and helps me to feel less self-conscious.

“Thanks, Dan, for a lovely evening, and what would have been a lovely night.”

I know then that we won’t meet before he goes back down to Dorset, because I won’t make that call. He accompanies me downstairs,
and this time the lift is just a lift, stripped of its erotic appeal. The doorman hails me a cab, and Dan waves me off.

I’d made a solemn promise to myself and to Maddy that I wouldn’t sleep with Dan. And I’d been saved from breaking it only
by the ardor-dampening vision of Susanna’s mess on the carpet. To all intents and purposes, I broke my promise the second
I saw Dan coming toward me as I stood outside the theater. I have all the willpower of a Labrador faced with a bag of discarded
chips on the pavement.

When I open the front door, Susanna bounds toward me, jumping up at my legs and snagging my stockings.

“Get off me, you monster,” I yell before patting and stroking her fondly. There’s no smell or evidence of any mess. “Give
me two minutes,” I say, and take the stairs two at a time. I kick off my new shoes, throw my clothes on the bed, peel off
my new, now-snagged stockings, and grab an old pair of jeans, T-shirt, and Birkenstocks from the closet.

The night is still full of stars. I nod at other dog walkers as our respective dogs sniff each other’s bottoms before moving
on. I watch a young couple returning from a night out, probably drunk, trying to kiss each other and keep walking at the same
time. They stumble into a lamppost, provoking a fit of giggles. I see a woman walking rapidly, in the way that women alone
do, pretending to look relaxed but on the alert for unnamed threats.