Smart Women (10 page)

“I’ll be back in three weeks.”

“Three weeks is a long time.”

“I keep telling you . . . you should come with me.”

“I will, one of these days.”

“Keep in touch with B.B.,” Clare said. “I’m worried about her . . . about how she’s handling having her ex in town.”

“She’ll adjust,” Margo said. “She’ll have to.”

Clare sighed. “That’s what life is, isn’t it . . . a series of adjustments.”

“Did I tell you, I met him?”

“No . . . what’s he like?”

“Friendly . . . seems nice enough . . .”

“Who knows, maybe he and B.B. will get back together.”

“I doubt it,” Margo said.

“Why? Didn’t you ever think of getting back together with Freddy?”

“In the beginning, sure . . . during the hard times. I thought about how easy life could be if I didn’t fight it. But I wasn’t ready to give up. And I wasn’t sure he’d want me back . . .”

“They all do . . . eventually.”

“I don’t think so. Anyway, I’m glad I held out. I would never have forgiven myself for running back just because it was safe. And I haven’t been tempted in years. Besides, he’s married, so I don’t have to think about it.” She balled up her sandwich bag and tossed it across the room into Clare’s trash basket.

“I think about it sometimes,” Clare said.

“About what?”

“About going back to Robin. We’ve been separated for four years and we’re no closer to a divorce now than we were when he ran off with the Doughnut. It’s hard for the wealthy to divorce,” Clare said, laughing into her iced coffee. “There’s all that money to divvy up, all that property . . . it could take years . . . maybe it’s not worth it.” She lowered her voice. “He’s back.”

“Robin?”

“Yes . . . he’s in Dallas.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t know until yesterday. He called. He wants to see me.”

“What about the Doughnut?”

“That’s over. It only lasted six months. He’s been living in Cuernavaca, alone. A mid-life crisis, he says.”

“God,” Margo said, “I am so sick of men and their mid-life crises. What about us? When do we get ours?”

“I suspect we’ve already had them.”

“Are you going to see him?”

“I don’t know. I’ll think about it while I’m in Paris.”

“Don’t do anything you’re going to regret,” Margo said.

Clare laughed. “If I didn’t do anything I was going to regret I’d never do anything . . . and you know it.”

“I want you to be happy,” Margo said. “I don’t want to see you hurt.”

“You sound like a mother.”

“I am a mother.”

“I know,” Clare said, “but not mine.”

Margo left the gallery at one-fifteen and was rushing back to the office when someone called her name. She stopped. It was Andrew Broder, standing in front of the Boulder Bookstore, loaded down with packages. “Hello,” he said. “How are you?”

“Okay . . . how about you?”

“I’ve become a shopper . . . as you can see. Do you have time for a cup of coffee?”

“I’m on my way back to the office,” she told him. “But I’d love to, some other time.”

“It’s a deal,” he said, shifting the packages in his arms.

Fantasy into reality,
she thought, walking away.
Too bad it’s too warm for my heathery pink poncho.
She started to laugh. She was still laughing when she got back to her office.

10

B
.
B
. DID NOT GET OUT
OF BED
on the following Sunday morning. She lay under the covers in her rumpled nightgown, sleeping fitfully, floating in and out of dreams. She had told herself that she needed to catch up on her sleep, but she knew that she wasn’t getting out of bed because there was no reason to, since Sara had gone off with Andrew for the day. She had watched from her bedroom window as Sara had raced out of the house at nine, carrying her Monopoly game. She had watched as they had driven off together in Andrew’s ugly truck. It was a warm, sunny, early September day and as she dozed B.B. heard children’s voices laughing. But they were not the voices of her children.

At five, jolted awake by some inner alarm, B.B. jumped up and out of bed, took a shower, and dressed carefully so that when Sara came home she would be ready to take her out to dinner. She was sitting at the kitchen table, sipping tomato juice and reading the Sunday
Camera,
when Andrew pulled into the driveway. He and Sara got out of the truck and walked to the back door together.

B.B. hugged Sara and said, “Hi, Sweetie . . . I missed you. All set for dinner at Rudi’s?” She ignored Andrew.

“I already ate,” Sara said. “Daddy made hamburgers and french fries.”

“You already had dinner?” B.B. asked.

“Yes, so I’m not hungry . . . maybe just some ice cream later.” Sara stood on tiptoe and kissed Andrew. “Bye, Dad . . . see you next week.”

“The reason I wanted her back at six,” B.B. said to Andrew, speaking slowly and softly, trying not to show the anger she was feeling, “was so I could take her out to dinner.”

“I didn’t know,” Andrew said.

“Sara should have told you,” B.B. said.

“But Mom . . .” Sara said, “you didn’t say we were going out tonight.”

“You should have known,” B.B. said. “We always go to Rudi’s on Sunday nights, don’t we?”

“But Mom . . .”

“I don’t want to hear another word about it,” she said, her voice becoming harsh. “Just go to your room.”

Sara’s eyes filled with tears and she turned and ran down the hallway.

“Aren’t you being tough on her?” Andrew asked.

“Don’t tell me how to handle my daughter,” B.B. said, slamming the door in his face.

B.B. went to her room, took off her clothes, got back into bed, and didn’t get up until the next morning, not realizing until she began to run that she hadn’t eaten anything yesterday—and now she was so weak she could only go a mile.

This was no good. None of it was any good. She could feel herself losing control. Her hair was shedding in the shower. The bottoms of her feet alternately itched, then burned. She continued to lose weight.

The weight loss had started over the summer. She had assumed it was the worry of Andrew coming to town. She had always had trouble eating during times of stress. For weeks she had lived on only farina and dried apricots. To clear her mind she had started to run four, five, sometimes six miles a day. With Sara away at camp she had thrown herself completely into business matters and community projects. But instead of her usually innovative ideas, she drew blanks at meeting after meeting. People asked her if she was feeling all right.

In mid-July she had taken a week off to go out to San Diego to visit Sara at camp. She stayed at La Costa, sure that a week of pampering would relax her. On her first day there she took a tennis lesson from a craggy-faced but still handsome pro who told her she was the most gorgeous thing he’d seen all summer. He was impressed by her sure, firm strokes as well. They spent the night together, but he was a disappointing lover, fast and hard, with no interest in foreplay. Afterwards he said, “Nice, babe . . .” the same way he’d said it on the court. Then he rolled over and was out cold, snoring and farting in his sleep. She was relieved when at five a.m., he left.

The next night, her fortieth birthday, she dressed in white chiffon and had dinner by herself in the main dining room. When she was a child birthday parties meant black patent leather shoes, ribbons in her hair, and Dixie Cups and then, when she opened her Dixie and licked the ice cream off the inside of the lid, she would find a movie star’s picture. One time she had found Lassie’s picture and all the other children at the party begged her to trade with them, but she wouldn’t, So they’d teased her, calling her Skinny and Red and Freckle-face, and she had cried, but she hadn’t given up Lassie’s picture.

After dinner she went back to her room and sat on the edge of her bed for a long time, feeling lonely and depressed, wanting to talk to someone, but not knowing who. She picked up the phone and thought about calling her mother, but she knew that as soon as she heard her mother’s voice she would start to cry and then there would be questions. So she did not call her mother. She knew a million people, but she had so few friends. Clare was one of the few people she felt close to. With Clare she didn’t have to say what was on her mind because Clare sensed it. She wished there were more people like Clare. She would have called Clare tonight but Clare was away too, visiting her mother on Padre Island. Should she call Margo? No, Margo wasn’t really a friend. Margo was just someone she sometimes saw for lunch. She reached for the plaque Sara had made for her at camp.
Superwoman,
it said. Was that really how Sara saw her, as a superwoman? And if she was, then how come she felt so small, so insignificant now?

She supposed she could call Mitch, just for old times’ sake. Maybe she would even invite him down for the weekend. After all, this was her birthday. She owed herself one. She picked up the phone and dialed his old number.

He answered on the third ring. “B.B.,” he said, “wonderful to hear your voice again.”

“I’m in San Diego . . . at La Costa . . .”

“Wonderful place, San Diego . . .”

“I thought you might drive down for dinner over the weekend . . . we could catch up on what’s been happening . . .”

“Love to,” he said, “but I’m all tied up. I’m doing a series, you know.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Yes, one of the top twelve.”

“That’s great.”

There was a long pause.

“And I’m living with someone . . . but surely you knew that.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes. She’s a producer too. We have a lot in common. It’s working out.”

“I’m glad for you,” she told him. And suddenly she remembered that the last time they’d been together she’d wound up with a black eye and a strained ligament in her left leg.

She hung up the phone, feeling humiliated, rolled over onto her stomach, held the bed pillow tightly, and wept.

After, she went to the bathroom and washed her face. It was puffy and splotched.
Look at you,
she said to her reflection.
Forty years old . . . half your life, maybe more than half, gone. Look at those lines around your eyes, around your mouth. You’re aging, Francine. Oh sure, from a distance you could still pass for twenty-five, but up close, forget it. You’re not fooling anyone.
Aging, she thought, was the least fair fact of life.

She took off her white chiffon dress. It was a mess now, wrinkled and without shape. She’d kept it tucked away for too many years. She’d bought it for a cruise she and Andrew had taken to celebrate their tenth anniversary. But Andrew had acted sullen and bored on the cruise, so she had flirted with the ship’s captain, letting him breathe into her ear on the dance floor, which had infuriated Andrew.

When they’d returned to their cabin, Andrew had practically torn the dress off her, pushing her down on the lower berth, standing over her showing off his erection and telling her exactly what he was going to do with it. But as soon as he entered her he’d lost it, and blaming her, calling her the ultimate C.T., he had run out of the cabin, still zipping up his pants. He’d returned at dawn to apologize, telling her that he’d been drunk and had been sick all night.
Forgive me, Francie,
he’d said.
It’s just this goddamned cruise . . . I can’t take being cooped up this way.
She had told him that it didn’t matter, that she’d already mended her dress. But when he’d tried to crawl into the berth with her, when he’d tried to hold her, to kiss her, she had turned away and pretended to be asleep.

She should have gotten rid of the dress a long time ago, she thought, tossing it into the wastebasket.

How was it possible, she wondered, as she got into bed, that it was working between Mitch and the producer when she had tried so hard to make it work with him and couldn’t? She had thought they would marry and move to Beverly Hills where she would find them a big, wonderful house with possibilities. She would open a branch of Brady Broder—Elegant Homes. Sara would go to school with all the right kids. She and Mitch would be part of a tight little social group of producers, directors, writers, and actors. They would all tell her that with her looks she should have been on the screen. She would just pooh-pooh them, take Mitch’s arm, smile up at him and he would feel unbelievably lucky to have her for his wife.

But Mitch never asked her to marry him. And she never asked him. Instead, his moodiness turned ugly. She could never figure out his hostile behavior. He was hostile even when they were making love. He would accuse her of either coming on too strong or not strong enough. She had tried so hard to get it right. To do all the things he said he liked in bed. She had studied sex manuals in order to please him. But nothing was enough. He became increasingly critical. Yet she was sure, if she was sweet enough, understanding enough, it would be all right.

He said she drove him to it, to his hostile, abusive behavior. To their battles. He said she was too controlling, too demanding. But what had she ever demanded? She couldn’t think of a thing. Okay, so she liked making plans. And she had a lot of plans for them. But that had nothing to do with control or demands.