Once More with Feeling (16 page)

“I look awful in kelly green.”

“You could always go skiing again.”

“Going down the mountain was fine. It was standing around the bar, feeling like a seventh grader at her first school dance, I can do without.”

Claire sighed. “How about you, Julie? Do you have any suggestions?”

“Hmmm?” She blinked hard, dragging her gaze away from the fire. “Oh, I’m sorry. I guess I wasn’t listening. I was thinking about something else.”

“Clearly.” Claire eyed her carefully, a strange look on her face. “You have that unmistakable glow in your cheeks, that glint in your eyes. . . . Fantasizing about George?”

Instantly Julie turned a deep shade of crimson. “Uh, no. As a matter of fact, I was thinking about the new patient of mine. You know. Bob.”

“Ah, yes,” said Claire. “The man with the stiff pectineus. What about him?”

Julie hesitated, casting a furtive look to the right and then to the left as if someone might be eavesdropping. In a hoarse whisper she said, “You’re not going to believe this—in fact, I wasn’t even going to say anything—but he asked me to have coffee with him.”

“Coffee?” Claire repeated, her eyebrows rising. “Is that all?”

“Of course that’s all!” Julie’s tone was indignant, but the color of her cheeks had deepened into a nice shade of red. “We’re just ... friends, that’s all.”

“And what did you say?” asked Laura.

“Knowing Julie,” Claire said
,
waving her hand in the air, “she slapped his naughty little face.”

“Actually ...” Julie cleared her throat. “I said yes.”

“You said
what!”
Laura cried.

“Way to go, Julie!” Claire sounded impressed. “Good girl. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“Well, I didn’t
mean
to say yes, it’s just that it was so sudden. And I wasn’t sure what he meant, and I didn’t want to be rude....”

Laura and Claire stared at her expectantly.

“I was working out a knot in his adductor longus—

“Oh, it’s his adductor longus now,” Claire interrupted.

Julie didn’t even glance in her direction. “I was chattering away about the trip George and I took to Aruba last winter. Bobby had said—”

“Bobby?” Claire interrupted.

Julie bit her lip. “He said that’s what all his friends call him.”

“Ah,” said Laura. “So he’s progressed from a client to a friend.”

Squirming in her seat, Julie said, “When you’re working on somebody day after day, week after week, you develop a kind of ... intimacy.”

“Especially if that somebody has his shirt off,” said Claire. “Probably his pants, too, if you’ve got your fingers wrapped around his longus.”

“It’s not
like that at all,” Julie insisted. “Anyway, Bobby had been saying he was thinking about a trip to the Caribbean, and I was telling him how much I’d enjoyed Aruba. He asked me if I remembered the name of the travel agent who’d booked the tour, and I said yes. Then he asked me if I still had the brochure, and I said yes. Then he asked me—”

“I can’t wait to hear this one,” Claire interjected.

“He asked me if I had any photographs from the vacation, and I said yes.” Julie paused to take a deep breath. “And then he asked me if I’d
meet him for coffee so I could show him.”

“Show him what?” Laura demanded.

“The pictures! And the brochures.” With a shrug Julie said, “So of course, I said yes. It all seemed so innocent. Everything flowed so naturally. It wasn’t until I got home that I realized how the whole thing sounded.”

“You didn’t tell George, did you?” Claire was making a statement more than asking a question. “He with whom you ‘fit’ as well as a pair of Fruit of the Looms?”

“I would have,” Julie insisted, her voice strangely high-pitched, “but I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea.”

Claire leaned forward, folding her arms across her chest. “This is delicious. You
are
going to tell us every single sordid detail, aren’t you?”

“You know, Julie,” said Laura, “you could cancel. Just call up this Bob—”

“Bobby.”

“Call him and tell him you changed your mind. You could even mail him your old travel brochure.”

Julie stared at her, wide-eyed. “But I
want
to have coffee with him!”

“What about George?” asked Laura.

Julie hung her head. “I know. I’m a terrible person. I’m bad. I’m a floozy.”

“Hell, Julie,” Claire said, leaning back in her chair, “the last ‘floozy’ was Betty Boop. And she was a cartoon.”

“I can’t help it. I know George and I have a good relationship. It’s steady. It’s predictable.”

“But?” Claire prompted.

“But lately I’ve been feeling stifled. Hemmed in.” She glanced around nervously, then hung her head. “I haven’t said this to anyone. I’ve barely let myself think it, but ... to be perfectly honest, I’m no longer sure George is the man I want to spend the rest of my life with.”

Laura’s mouth dropped open. “You never said anything like that before.”

“I never felt this way before.”

Claire smiled wickedly. “Not until she got her hands on Bobby’s longus pectineus.”

“It’s not like that!” cried Julie. “Well . . . maybe just a little. I couldn’t help noticing he has a very nice body. But it’s mainly his mind that interests me,” she added hastily. “I like the way he makes me feel. We have so much to say to each other. When I’m massaging his rectus femoris and I can feel him relaxing, responding to the motion, it’s like ... like we’re doing a wonderful dance together.”

“Sounds like a tango,” Claire observed. “I say go for it, Julie. Check this Bobby out.”

“Poor George,” Laura said softly.

While she adored Julie and was willing to support her almost unquestioningly in whatever she did, she couldn’t help feeling for George. After all, he was doing his best to make the relationship work, never dreaming for a minute that there were factors at play that could destroy it.

* * * *

Wednesday night’s Divorce and Separation Support Group had become an integral part of Laura’s life, giving structure to her week and providing her with a sense of continuity she didn’t get anywhere else. She liked having someplace to go.

With the holidays getting closer, she was in need of a support fix. She headed into the meeting room at the Y a week and a half before Christmas, looking forward to being updated on the wild and zany lives of Amie, Tom, Estelle, and all the others. All in all, she concluded, their adventures were miles ahead of any sitcom characters’.

But the entertainment value was only part of it. Laura found it reassuring that she was not alone in what she was experiencing—or what she was feeling. Often as she lay in bed at night, she pictured Dawn in her bed in Great Neck and Arnie in his in Westbury and Carolyn in Syosset, all of them unwinding after a long day wrestling with the same highs and lows that had sent her diving into the sheets in a state of emotional exhaustion.

Her suspicions that she wasn’t the only one who had concerns about how to weather the holidays ahead proved correct. As coffee hour came to a close and the members of Group Two and Three wandered off, she saw that there was a full house tonight. All eleven of the regulars were present, and a few newcomers as well. Merry, in a corduroy jumper and the same thick stockings Laura’s grandmother used to wear, took her place at one end of their irregular circle.

“I’d like to start tonight.” Dawn had her hand up before Merry had even had a chance to choke out a tearful welcome. Tonight the large woman was decked out in a red sequined sweater and white stretch pants that hid nothing. While the effect was startling, it did scream “festive.” “All this holiday business is really giving me the blues. Oh, sure, I’m going through the motions, shopping and baking and going to parties. But I can’t get past the fact that I’m going to the parties
alone.
When I bake my famous peanut-butter fudge, there’s nobody to eat it but me and the kids. I’m experiencing a kind of loneliness I haven’t felt up until this point.”

“Yeah, I’m findin’ the same thing,” seconded Tom. Tonight his work clothes looked spanking clean. “Things at the shop are always kind of quiet this time of year. Nobody wants to have their tires rotated or their oil changed—not that you should ever neglect your auto maintenance, not even during the yuletide season.

“Still, it looks like my customers would rather be at the mall. So I always end up with a lot of extra time on my hands. This year, instead of running around, trying to find the perfect gift for my wife, I’m doing stuff like stackin’ up the cans of Valvoline neater.”

Merry was nodding sympathetically. “The holidays are an extremely difficult time. Everywhere we go, we’re hit with messages that say this is a loving time. A family time. A togetherness time. How do we feel when we see that so many of the people around us are part of a couple?”

Tom shot his hand up into the air. “We feel like crap.”

Go, Tom, thought Laura.

As usual, Merry finessed that one. “We experience bad feelings. Negative feelings. We don’t always feel very good about ourselves. We may feel alone. We may feel as if we’ve failed—”

Laura was relieved when Carolyn raised her hand. The tiny redhead was dressed for the holiday season as well. Her green sweater had reindeer on the pockets, and a gold Christmas tree was pinned to the blouse underneath. Even her earrings—a tiny green ornament on one side, a shiny red bell on the other—were seasonal. “This is my first Christmas alone, too. But instead of being miserable about it, I’m trying really hard to look inside myself to find the strength to get through the holidays. I’m reaching out to friends. I’m working at a soup kitchen. I decided I’m going to make this the best darned Christmas my kids ever had. I’ve been so busy stringing popcorn and going caroling and doing all the things I never managed to find the time for in the past that I haven’t had time to feel bad. As a matter of fact, I’ve been
feeling pretty good about myself.”

Carolyn’s enthusiasm prompted Laura to raise her hand. “I’m feeling pretty good, too,” she told the group. “I’ve barely noticed it’s Christmas. I’ve been too busy discovering that I actually enjoy being single. My husband just moved out of the house a few weeks ago, and since then, I’ve been exhilarated. I feel so free.

“I can stay up as late as I want and read in bed without anyone complaining about the light being on. I can watch whatever I want on TV ... and the remote is always in
my
possession.” Laura shrugged. “Sometimes I even have ice cream for dinner.”

Merry’s head was bobbing up and down. She looked as if she were about to burst. “I hope everyone is listening to what Laura is saying. Carolyn, too. We don’t
have
to have a mate in order to count. We don’t need someone else in our lives to feel whole. We’re all capable of enjoying life ... on our own. Each of us is capable of giving to ourselves.”

Arnie looked confused. “Wait a minute. You mean, like, instead of me giving a present to my wife, this year I can use the money to buy something I want?”

“She means we don’t need to look to others to make us happy,” explained Estelle. As usual, she had kept silent until she was so strongly motivated that nothing could keep her from speaking out. Of course, the members of the group held their breath whenever she took the floor. “We make ourselves happy. We fulfill ourselves. We decide what’s important to us, and we fill our lives with it.”

“I think I get it,” said Tom. “You mean like Carolyn workin’ at that soup kitchen.”

Merry’s eyes were shining. “That’s right.”

He turned to Carolyn. “You get paid for that?”

“I guess what we need to do,” Dawn said thoughtfully, “is think of finding happiness as a challenge. Kind of like a mission. A quest. We have to figure out what matters to
us,
without worrying about anybody else.”

“Like hockey,” Arnie muttered.

Merry jumped on that one immediately. “Hockey is a good example. When you were married, Arnie, was ice hockey something you and your wife enjoyed together?”

“Hah! You kidding?”

“Well,” she went on, growing more excited, “now that you’re on your own, you’re free to pursue your interest in sports. It’s something that matters to you. You don’t need another person in order to enjoy it.”

“Well, it helps to have somebody else to watch your coat while you’re on line for a hot dog.... But I understand what you’re saying. Really, I do.”

Laura did, too. Sitting in the meeting room, for a moment phasing out the voices of the others, she felt a surge of strength rising up inside her. She would get through the holidays. And she would enjoy herself. She’d look to the traditions that had always brought her joy; immerse herself in schmaltzy choral music and fancy cookies and too much tinsel and all the other things that made the holidays wonderful. She’d find the spirit that only came once a year, the real gift of the holiday season.

Besides, she reminded herself, she was anything but alone. She had Evan. If she couldn’t hold on to this feeling of power for her own sake, she’d do it for him.

Chapter Ten

“Okay,” Laura said
under her breath, rubbing her hands together. “I can do this.”

“Are you sure, Mom?” Evan sounded doubtful as he struggled to hold up a seven-foot fir tree. Next to it, he looked as tiny as one of Santa’s elves.

“Of course. What’s so hard about making a tree stand up in your living room? Mother Nature’s been doing it in
her
living room for eons.”

Glancing around the room, Laura had to admit she couldn’t help feeling as if she were posing for a Kodak moment. That afternoon, right after she’d picked Evan up from school, the two of them had gone Christmas-tree hunting. Instead of heading for the woods, they opted to trek over to the nearest farm stand, where freshly cut trees were being sold as fast as the men in the red-plaid coats could bind them in twine.

As usual, Evan had set his heart on one so tall owning it would have necessitated cutting a hole in the ceiling. Laura, with her level head and limited budget, patiently led him to the moderately priced trees, the ones that looked as if they needed a little love. Picking out a tree, they’d decided, was like choosing a puppy. You looked and looked ... and then suddenly you just
knew.