A Slight Change of Plan (2 page)

Seven, by the way, was much friendlier. She would always find my lap. Eight was more typical, seeking only food and a soft, sunny spot, rather than company.

I also had a dog. Adam had never wanted a dog, but after his death, I went to the local shelter and found Boone. She was a mix, part spaniel, part terrier. She also loved the cats. In fact, I was pretty sure she thought she was a cat, because she was a big fan of soft, sunny spots. She never complained about what I fed her, was always happy to see me, and never argued with me. She was a perfect companion. But whenever the phone rang, she raced over and barked, looking up with eager anticipation. Was she expecting a call?

I read for a while, napped a little more, and ate some leftover lasagna for dinner. I watched eight episodes in a row of
The West Wing
. Then I went to bed. Alone. Except for two cats and the dog.

Maybe Laura was right. Maybe I should start getting out more. So I spent the next morning in my yoga class, where I visualized myself in my new home, hosting a party of attractive and eligible men from my new complex, all of whom
were disgustingly physically fit. There was wine flowing and gentle laughter, and I had to make several calls to my adult children explaining that I was going to Cabo, and could one of them take the dog for a weekend?

There’s an old saying—man plans, God laughs.

And let me tell you, he has an interesting sense of humor.

When the holidays come around, my children and I don’t gather around a long, scrubbed pine table, laughing and sipping wine from fragile crystal while fondly remembering the past. I blame Adam for all that. Not that it was his fault that he died—I’m fairly certain that was unintentional—but he was an ob-gyn, devoted to his patients, always on call, and had managed, in the course of our twenty-two-year marriage, to miss every birthday party ever given for his children… and his wife. He also was never around for Halloween, most Thanksgivings, and every other Christmas. I know—women can’t help when they have babies, but I often thought that Adam took on new patients only if he thought they could go into labor at the exact moment he should have been helping his five-year-old daughter blow out her birthday candles.

The upside to his absence was the fact that he—I mean, we—were rolling in money. Adam earned the money, and I spent it. When I decided to go back to work, it had been on a part-time basis at first. The kids were all little—Sam had just started first grade. I told everyone it was just an excuse to get out of the house and use that fancy law degree I’d spent so much money to get, which was partially true. It was also because I was desperate to have an adult conversation, where PTA meetings, playdates, and the value of organized T-ball were never, ever discussed.

I had gone into law in the first place because I wanted to be a champion of the oppressed and downtrodden. But when I looked at my three kids, and realized that being a champion was very time-consuming, I got my master’s in accounting and went into tax law. Still big bucks, but no night court to deal with.

But a few years later I decided that Adam was probably having an affair, and I was thinking about divorcing him. I wanted to make sure I could support myself and the kids if he turned into a major jerk over money when papers were served. That’s when I went full-time. So in addition to Adam never being around, my kids were kind of on their own during the two years prior to his death. It’s not like they were latchkey kids—by then, Sam was in middle school, Regan was a high school sophomore, and Jeff was sending out college applications.

Sam and I had talked about it a little. He insisted his childhood was a happy one. Of course, Sam spent most of the aforementioned childhood in an imaginary world anyway, where bad things happened to you only if you ran into an orc or evil wizard.

Regan had always refused to discuss her father. She worshiped him, hated his being away all the time, probably blamed me for it, and still got teary when she talked about him. So I’m just guessing she does not look back fondly on her teenage years.

Anyway—the point is, I had no qualms about selling the great big house I had raised my kids in. It was not dripping in rich, fond memories. They didn’t even have any stuff left there. Their rooms were not shrines to their youth—no posters or pillows, no snapshots tucked around the mirrors.
I had three perfectly good guest rooms, in addition to the original guest room, and, frankly, that’s about three bedrooms too many. I wanted to sell.

So that weekend, when I called Laura, I mentioned my idea. She immediately drove over, clipboard in hand.

“How long have you had carpenter bees?” was the first thing she said.

I stared at her. “You’ve been here hundreds of times. You never noticed before?”

She shrugged. “I don’t wear my Realtor’s hat when I visit family. But you know they’re a problem, right?”

Yes, I did know. That’s why I had an exterminator come every month. Which is also why I wanted to sell the house. Five bedrooms, three and a half baths, a three-car garage, pool, and finished basement sounds like heaven on paper, but it requires several people to take care of it, and those several people are all highly trained professionals who want to get paid lots of money.

“Anything else?” I asked.

“No. The outside looks great. But these floors—you should get them all redone. Hardwood’s a plus, but not if it looks shabby. And that red wall in the kitchen—got to go.” She was making notes as she spoke. “You know I love your house, Kate, but in this market, you’ll need to do a lot of work. I was even thinking about a stager.”

“I don’t want to do a lot of work. I’d be happy to sell it for less than market value.”

She frowned. “Less? What the hell is wrong with you? And why are you selling in the first place? You love it here.”

“I know. But now I want to move to Castle Crossings.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Wait a minute. You quit your job. You didn’t fight the dating idea nearly as hard as I thought you would. And now, you’re selling the house. Are you having some sort of midlife thing?”

I shrugged. “Maybe. But I went to an open house at Castle Crossings last weekend, and I loved it. I remember when it was first being built, like twenty-whatever years ago. I fell in love with it then. The condos are still fabulous, there’s a pool and walking trails for Boone, and I’d never have to worry about carpenter bees again.”

She grinned. “I just listed a three-bedroom over there. Completely redone last year and it would be great for you. And if money is not an issue, I can get this place sold in a month. Are you sure? What do the kids think?”

“I don’t know what the kids think. Does it matter? They don’t live here anymore; you know that. And I don’t know if I want three bedrooms.”

“Of course you do. Better for resale. And besides, the two small bedrooms are upstairs. You never have to go in them if you don’t want. And it’s a corner unit, right next to the woods, with a finished walk-out basement.”

“Why would I need a basement?”

“To store all your stuff in, Kate. You’re a friggin’ pack rat and you know it. It’s perfect. Gorgeous. Let’s go.”

She was right. It was gorgeous. I’d have to get rid of half my furniture—or stash it in the basement—but that broad expanse of copper-colored granite whispered to me, the fireplace actually sang, and the walk-in shower in the master bath winked knowingly. I had never been so seduced in my life.

So I signed papers for the rest of the day: the contract for buying the new place, the contract for selling the old place, and the membership forms for the on-site health club.

Then I went home. I pulled up my online profile and hit the button. I was now officially Out in the World.

Cheryl Drake became my best friend when we were seven years old. When she moved into the house next door, she immediately found the tree fort that the previous neighbors had built for their three sons and called to me as I ate an apple on my back porch steps. I grabbed another apple from the kitchen, climbed the ladder to the top of the tree fort, and sat with her and watched as the movers hauled things from the truck to her new house. In that brief span of time, she told me that she was an only child (like me) and that her mother was a great cook (also like mine), and now that she was living in a house instead of an apartment, she was going to have six dogs, three cats, and a pony. I was instantly jealous, but quickly got over it when she assured me that I could have full access to all the members of her menagerie.

She then announced that the tree fort was going to be a penthouse apartment from now on, and would I care to be her roommate? I said yes, although I wasn’t sure what a roommate was. This was 1965, remember, and all I knew of life was married couples and their children. I didn’t know that two single girls could live together. Cheryl assigned us each a job. I was a teacher. She would be a nurse. I could set up a schoolroom on my back porch. She could have her hospital on her patio. We could meet for lunch, and visit each other at work. After work, we’d make dinner together, then take care of all the dogs and cats, and ride the pony.

In one short afternoon, my entire world changed. Because of Cheryl, when Mary Tyler Moore became a sensation on television for being a single woman with a job and her own apartment, it was all old hat to me.

Cheryl never got six dogs, three cats, or a pony. She did get a puppy for Christmas that year, as well as a baby brother, whom her parents would not trade for a pony no matter how much she begged. When I got my own baby sister, I thought that maybe we could trade them both in, but no luck.

When my father died, during my freshman year of high school, I had to come home every day after school and watch my baby sister, because my mother had to go to work. So I missed out on lots of things that I should have been enjoying in high school—football games after school, getting drunk in the parking lot of the old movie theater, and smoking pot in the park on sunny afternoons. Luckily, Cheryl sat with me out in the penthouse, and we got drunk and got high, and since I never really cared about football, it wasn’t nearly as awful as it could have been.

We went in two different directions after high school. Her parents divorced, and she moved to New Mexico with her mother, so when I came home from college during a break, she was no longer right next door. We wrote to each other for a while, and she flew out to spend a week one summer when we were both twenty-one. But after that, life happened. I went to law school, got married, and moved to Rhode Island. She also married and was rumored to be in California somewhere.

But fate is strange, and at our tenth high school reunion, there she was. She’d divorced her second husband
and moved back to New Jersey. Adam had just been offered a job at Morristown Memorial Hospital, so we were also looking to move back. Ta-da! Instant best friends again.

The best thing about Cheryl is that we don’t live in each other’s back pockets. I see her for lunch about every other week, usually for lunch, occasionally for a long afternoon of shopping. We tell each other pretty much everything. She was the first to hear me say out loud that I thought Adam was having an affair. I was the first to know she was remarrying—a much older gentleman, pretty much for his money and vast Far Hills acreage. I’m also one of the few people who knew how genuinely sad she was when he died.

We met for lunch that Monday. Cheryl was the exact opposite of me—blond, very curvy, and dressed for complete success. I had not put on a suit in almost a month, since I left my job, and had taken to wearing dressy sweatpants and J. Jill tunics. She was shiny and sleek, where I was fighting back frumpy with lots of silver jewelry and a variety of new haircuts. She was plucked, powdered, and polished. I’d started biting my nails again out of sheer boredom. But we both liked cold white wine for lunch, which was the important thing.

Cheryl fluttered. Her hands were always in motion, her head was always nodding, and she often tapped her foot for no apparent reason. Time spent with her I considered exercise, because I always came home exhausted from just watching her.

“And, what’s new?” she began, while reading the menu, sipping her drink, and keeping one eye firmly fixed on her cell phone.

“I put the house on the market,” I told her. “And I joined a dating site.”

Her mouth dropped open, and she actually paused for a fraction of a second in surprise. “Really? Which one?”

“Match Made in Heaven.”

I could feel the tip of her foot against the table leg. “I’m on Catch a Star. I’m having so much fun.”

I stared at her. “Really? That’s great, Cheryl. How long has this been going on?”

She shrugged. “About two months now.”

“And you never thought to mention it before now?”

She made a face. “I wasn’t exactly sure if I was doing the right thing. It felt a bit strange at first. But I’m pretty happy with how it’s worked out.”

“And have you met anybody?”

She shot me a look. One of those “Are you kidding?” looks. “I’ve met three anybodies.”

“Oh, that’s great,” I said, and I meant it. Robby had been gone for almost two years, and Cheryl had always been one of those women who needed a man in her life. “Do you think you’ll start to date any of them?”

“Oh, honey,” she said, waving over the waiter, “I’m dating all of them.”

I managed to keep my astonishment to myself until after we ordered. Then I zeroed in. “Are you really dating three men at once? Isn’t that a little much, even for you?”

“Well…” She waggled her head back and forth. “It’s not like I’m full-out dating.”

“Then what’s it like?”

“There’s not a lot of face-to-face. We meet for lunch, or drinks, about once a week. Mostly, we tweet and text.”

I took a gulp of my wine. “Tweet? And text? Is that all?”

“Well, we’re all very busy. Paul lives in Brooklyn, he’s in real estate, and so he’s always on the go. Marco is a professional musician, and right now he’s performing with a small opera company and in his free time he gives private lessons. Brad lives down the shore. So I just keep them all in my phone, like those little Tamagotchi pets the kids had back in the nineties. I smile and wave, and talk to them, and they talk back. Very sweet.”