A Slight Change of Plan (12 page)

His mouth dropped open. He stared at me, then at Alisa. She shrugged and bit off another piece of cornbread.

“But, Mom…”

I looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “What?”

He turned and threw the paper cup in the garbage. Then he went into the hall, and I could hear him going up the steps. There was a flurry of activity.

Alisa smiled at me. “Great call, Kate.”

I smiled back knowingly. “Thanks. It was actually Regan’s idea. All my kids are pretty smart.”

She got up and ladled out some more chili.

Sam came downstairs, looking sheepish, and grabbed the bowl again.

“Wait a minute, Sam.”

He turned.

“This will be the one and only time you get a break,” I told him. “Next time, you will not be able to clean up after
the fact and get a do-over. Next time, you’ll have to go and get takeout. Okay?”

He made a face, nodded, then filled his bowl. He sat down beside Alisa.

“Sorry, Mom,” he mumbled.

I waved my spoon around graciously. “No problem, honey. I know it’s partly my fault you’re such a spoiled brat, which is why I’m taking it upon myself to try to change your ways. It may very well kill us both, but I figure it will be worth it in the end.”

He glowered. Alisa giggled. I got more chili.

Tom Smith and I had another date. We went to an antique car show out near Lambertville, then had dinner in a converted mill right on the Delaware. It was late when we got home, and I almost invited him in, but then I realized Alisa and Sam were probably still up, watching TV in the loft, and we’d have to introduce everybody, then wait for them to go to bed, and then there was the whole breakfast thing. Here I was, a grown-up woman, thinking about having sex with another grown-up, and I had to worry about what my kid would say. There was something wrong with that picture.

Tom seemed to get it, though. He smiled as I stepped out of the car, and suggested, quite casually, that maybe he could cook me dinner on Saturday night.

I smiled at him through the window. “Sounds good. Can I bring anything?”

He frowned, thinking. Then he brightened. “A toothbrush?”

I laughed out loud. “Yes. I have one of those. Anything else?”

He said no. I went inside and had a great night’s sleep. The next day I called my favorite spa and made an appointment to get my hair done. I was thinking about getting a full-body hot mud treatment. I also thought about a Brazilian wax and a boob job, but, let’s face it, at my age the expectations can only be so high.

Laura, of course, had something to say on the subject. “You’re going to have sex with a man you hardly know?”

We were sitting on my deck Friday afternoon. She was in between baseball games. I was thinking about whether to buy sexy underwear or stick with good old-fashioned nakedness.

I sighed. “Laura, I was in college during the seventies. I spent years having sex with men I hardly knew. Besides, Tom and I aren’t kids. We’re not losing our virginity to each other in a grand gesture of undying love. We’re two adults who are attracted to each other and want to act on that attraction. We’ve talked about it, but there’s no need to get deep and philosophical about it. We’re both lonely and a little horny. That’s pretty much it.”

She looked sorrowful. “But what about Jake?”

I made a noise that may have been a snort. “What about Jake?”

“Did you ever get in touch with him?”

“No.”

“Well, I think you should. At least have coffee with him or something. Aren’t you curious?”

Yes, I was very curious. I had not clicked on his page since I first saw his wave. But now that I knew some of the hard, cold facts of his life, it was as though the ice had broken a bit. It felt easier to go back there, just to have another
look. “Well, maybe I could wave back, just to see if he wants to, you know, meet and talk about old times.”

She jumped up and squealed, then raced off to the den.

I was right behind her, but she had already turned on the laptop and was going through my desktop apps.

“Where is it?” she muttered.

I wrestled the laptop away from her and found the site, clicked on my page, and sat for a moment looking.

Jake’s wave was still there. I had not been on for a few days, and I had gotten another wave, this time from a very nice-looking podiatrist I had waved at a few weeks ago, so technically he was a wave-back. I thought for a minute about Cheryl, with three suitors dancing around her in virtual courtship. I didn’t think I’d have the energy. But I did click on Jake’s wave.

We both sat there and watched as the cursor blinked. I’m not sure what we were waiting for, exactly. I did not really think I’d get an immediate response. After all, his wave was weeks old. If he had been waiting breathlessly for my response, I don’t imagine he would have been waiting this long.

“Now what?” Laura asked at last.

I shrugged. “Well, now he’ll have my e-mail address, so he can get in touch with me. I guess I just wait.” I tossed the words off lightly, but my heart was racing. Wait? How long was I going to be waiting? Would he be angry because I had taken so long to wave back at him, and not get back to me at all? What if he had abandoned the dating site entirely because I had ignored him?

Alisa had wandered in. “Wait for what?” she asked.

“I waved back at my old boyfriend,” I told her. “You know, the one I told you about.”

She leaned over my shoulder. “The one we Googled?”

Laura shot me a look. “Googled?”

I shrugged. “Alisa was curious, that’s all.”

Laura snorted. “Whatever. Is there a picture of him? He was so good-looking when he was young.”

“Sure,” I said as I clicked my way to his page.

Laura sighed. “He’s still handsome,” she said.

“Wow,” Alisa said. “He really is. Are there any more pictures?”

I sat, staring.

“What?” asked Laura.

“His status,” I said slowly. “It’s changed. He’s dating someone.”

“He’s dating someone?” Laura gasped. “Oh, Kate, how could he?”

I made a noise. “He could because he’s a single man on a dating site. That is kind of the whole point.”

Alisa reached over. “Do you think people post pictures of who they’re dating on these sites?”

I shrugged. “Probably not.” I had a very small but distinct pain in my gut.

“Well, he had a Facebook page,” Alisa muttered. Her fingers flew over the keyboard. “We found it last time—you didn’t bookmark it?” She was muttering some more. “Oh, God. Look at his status. In a relationship. Just scroll down,” she said, doing the actual scrolling herself. “Who’s that?”

Good question. There, at the bottom of his page, was a picture of a stunning woman, maybe thirty, with carefully tousled blond hair, a wide white smile, and an amazing set of boobs.

“ ‘A picture of Sandra the beautiful,’ ” I read slowly.

Laura made a very impolite noise. “Are you sure that’s his girlfriend? She’s young enough to be his daughter. Is he kidding?”

“Apparently not,” I said, reading on. “She works at a mall.”

Laura was getting huffy. “Of course she does. Sephora, probably. Where else?”

“Now, Laura,” Alisa said soothingly, “don’t make assumptions. She might be a very accomplished person.” Alisa, being a scientist, was occasionally annoying in her insistence on fact before rampant speculation.

“Well,” I said, “he doesn’t describe her as Sandra the brain surgeon, or Sandra the financial analyst, or even Sandra who feeds starving orphans. Looks like ‘beautiful’ is her best asset.”

“Maybe,” Alisa suggested, “she works in the Apple Store, you know, at the Genius Bar.”

“I bet she couldn’t get hired at RadioShack.” Laura was on a roll. “In fact, she probably wanders around holding perfume for you to sniff, because they don’t trust her with a cash register.”

“Well, if he answers me back, I’ll ask him what she does,” I told them.

Laura started to say something, probably something nasty, then caught herself. “Wow. I’m sorry, Kate. This must be a real bummer for you.”

It was. It’s not that I expected Jake to refuse to settle for anyone else after he found out that I was possibly available to him again. Well, maybe that was a momentary fantasy, but I didn’t think he’d want no one else but me. I had hoped that he’d want someone else
like
me. But instead, when
given the choice of all the women on the dating site he could have chosen, he chose someone like Sandra.

I shook my head. “Hey, at least her name isn’t ‘Autumn’ or ‘Fawn.’ I’m glad he’s seeing someone. Now, if he does happen to get back to me, there won’t be any question about why. We’ll just be two old friends checking in.”

I shut the laptop and looked at Alisa. “And by the way, if I don’t come home tomorrow night, don’t call the police, okay?”

She smiled. “Okay.”

In the end, I bought the underwear, because although I was pretty slim and relatively toned, the same genetics that kept the weight off made me completely flat chested, and I felt the need for a little pizzazz. Tom was very appreciative, but they didn’t stay on all that long. We ran into a few technical difficulties.

“Do you need help?” he asked. I was trying to unhook my bra. The wine I’d just had certainly relaxed me, but my powers of concentration were slipping. Besides, I still had my wineglass clenched in my fist. I wasn’t used to reaching around behind me and unsnapping the thing with one hand, all the while maintaining a come-hither expression on my face.

I spun around. “Please.”

He moved his hands down my back. The bra dropped to the ground. I hadn’t been naked in front of anyone since Adam. That had been a long time ago, and I found myself feeling just a little insecure. Which is why, when the bra fell to the floor, I didn’t turn around.

He came around to face me. “You’re nervous,” he said, taking the glass from my hand and putting it on the nightstand.

I nodded.

“But you want to keep going?”

“Yes.”

“Good. But here’s the deal. You’re taller than I am.”

I had to giggle. “Yes.”

“Yeah. About that. Can we lie down and continue this?”

“Can we turn the light off?”

He smiled. “But I really want to see you.”

I smiled back. “Okay.”

Once lying down face-to-face, I didn’t feel quite as exposed. He didn’t seem quite as short, and once skin started moving against skin, the remaining wisps of clothing came off very easily.

I didn’t mind the light on at all.

I had decided to spend the whole night, because I wasn’t as sharp at driving in the dark as I used to be. I had only two hot flashes during the night, which I cleverly disguised as trips to the bathroom. On my way back from the second trip, I put my sexy underwear back on, so neither of us would have to face my naked body in the harsh light of day. But he was up and out of bed before me, so I got to make an entrance with the benefit of full wardrobe and makeup. He was one of those chipper morning people, which normally would have irritated the hell out of me, but I was in a pretty good mood as well, so after hot coffee and bagels with cream cheese and terrific lox, I got into the car and headed home.

I had turned off my phone at the beginning of the previous night’s activities, but once I was on my way home, I turned it back on. There were six messages. All from Cheryl. All left between nine and midnight the previous night.

I pulled over. Yes, I know I could have just used that Bluetooth thing, but I never really figured out how to work it. She answered right away.

“Where were you last night?”

“At Tom’s. What happened?”

“Really? Already?” she said.

“Cheryl? You called me, remember? Like, a million times? What happened?”

“Can you come over? I had a little sexual adventure myself last night, and I may never recover.”

I turned around and headed toward Cheryl’s. She had left my name at the gate, so the little man let me through. She must have been watching from the window, because she had the front door open before I turned off the car engine.

She was silent as she closed the door behind me. Her face was tight. We stood for a moment in her hallway. I wasn’t sure what to do or say, so I just looked sympathetic. Then she threw her arms around me and started sobbing.

I hugged her, my mind racing. Had she been hit? Raped? I patted her back and made mother-hen noises until she pulled away from me, wiping her face with both hands.

“What, honey?” I asked gently.

She grabbed my hand and pulled me out to her patio, where we sat in the morning sunlight. She took a deep breath.

“I finally decided to sleep with Marco,” she said at last.

“Marco? Okay, Cheryl. That’s good. What made you choose him?”

She shrugged. “He’s a musician, and very romantic. I mean, he has a deep, loving soul. And I love all artists, you know that. He hadn’t been pressuring me, I mean, not really, but I could tell it would mean a lot to him, so last night I invited him over.” She sat still, staring off into space.

“And?” I finally prompted, when it looked like she could be meditating on that particular thought for quite a while.

“Well, I cooked for him, of course. My cassoulet. And I had some great wine, and a rustic apple tart.” She tilted her head, as though remembering a fond but far-off memory.

“And,” I prompted again, hoping she would not start describing what each of them was wearing.

“And he was very happy with everything, especially the part where I told him we could finish our wine in the bedroom.” She took a deep breath. “I was quite looking forward to, well, everything. He was a very good kisser. It looked as though he was going to be very good at everything else.”

She stopped again, but there was no wistful look in her eye. “I farted on him,” she blurted.

I think my mouth dropped open, but I recovered quickly and snapped it shut. “You what?”

“I farted on him!” she yelled.

I jumped back a bit. What in the world was I supposed to say? “Ah…”

“He was down there, you know, trying really hard, and the damn beans from the cassoulet, well, you know what can happen. I tried to move his head out of the way, but he was very intent, and I just couldn’t stop myself.” Her eyes filled with tears. “He was so nice about it, but it was ruined for me.
I was too embarrassed, so I put my clothes back on and sent him home. And now he’ll probably never call me again, and I liked him best of all.”