The Hot Flash Club Strikes Again (16 page)

Polly agreed. “Dinner, yes, brilliant idea.”

They all turned to look at Carolyn.

She hesitated. It wasn’t as if she were signing a legal contract. It might actually be pleasant, never mind helpful. “I’m starving,” Carolyn admitted. “Let’s go!”

18

On the third floor of the spa building, the Hot Flash Club gathered in Faye’s condo. Faye was making mimosas for them all—one without alcohol for Shirley.

Shirley lifted Saran Wrap off a plate of bluefish pâté and crackers and another from a bowl of sliced vegetables. “So you think it went okay? Tell me every single thing! Oh, I wish I’d been there!”

Alice and Marilyn leaned against the window, looking down into the parking lot. “You were right not to go,” she said. “Everyone knows you’re the director of the spa. They wouldn’t have talked as easily in your presence.”

Shirley panicked. “Did they criticize the spa?”

“No, not at all,” Faye assured her. “They love it. They just criticized mothers-in-law,” she added bitterly.

“Not
just
mothers-in-law,” Marilyn amended.

“Actually,” Marilyn told Shirley, “we had a stowaway. One of the yoga students, a woman named Polly, wandered into the Jacuzzi room, and we couldn’t really tell her to leave.”

“And I’m glad we didn’t!” Faye said. “She’s very nice, and everyone seemed comfortable with her.”

“But she’s old,” Alice said. “Our age, I mean.”

“Still,” Faye pointed out, “that didn’t seem to stop the younger women from talking.”

“Did they bond?” Shirley asked.

Faye turned to Alice. “You were the last to leave, what do you think?”

Alice reflected. “I think so.”

“Look!” Marilyn called. “There they go.”

Faye and Shirley hurried to join Marilyn and Alice at the window. Three floors below, four women got into four different cars and drove out of the parking area and down the drive.

“They’re all leaving at the same time,” Faye said. “That looks encouraging.”

“Well, they would, anyway, wouldn’t they?” Alice asked.

“Maybe not. Maybe one would leave while three stayed in the Jacuzzi.”

“They’ve all turned right,” Marilyn reported. “That’s a good sign.”

“Well, we’ve done what we can to get them together,” Alice said, stepping away from the window to grab a cracker spread with pâté. “Now it’s up to them.”

The others left the window and settled around Faye’s coffee table.

Alice looked cranky. “I just hope the older woman didn’t spoil it.”

“Why would you assume she would?” Faye asked.

“I certainly couldn’t have talked about a lot of intimate subjects with my mother around,” Alice answered.

“Me, either,” Marilyn agreed.

“Nor I.” Faye tucked her legs under her, curling up on the sofa. “But Laura has always been very open with me about everything. Actually, she’s told me more than I wanted to know about her sex life.”

“I think that’s probably true of women our age,” Shirley said. “We went through the sixties, we became more comfortable saying words like
penis
and
orgasm,
and we passed that along to our children.”

“That reminds me,” Alice volunteered. “MILDEW: Mother-in-Law: Dastardly Evil Witch.”

“Hey,” Shirley snapped. “No picking on witches.”

“And that would be because?” Alice prompted.

“What’s a witch look like?” Shirley asked them. “An old woman on a broomstick, right? A
crone,
right? Well, in ancient times, crones, old women, were worshiped for being wise. They were considered goddesses, with mystical powers, which I for one think women still have, except in our society we’ve been trained to fear and disparage them. Think of the woman riding a broomstick—it’s such a phallic image, right? It represents power, and men are still afraid to let women have power. Especially old women, wrinkled and warted from age. I think MILDEW should be Mothers-in-Law: Divine, Enchanting Women!”

“Shirley’s right,” Marilyn said. “We don’t give older women enough respect in our society. It’s tough on them, but we’re the ones who lose out. We could learn so much from older women, even at our age.”

Shirley said, “You all know Nora Salter, one of my first massage clients to invest in this spa. She’s in her late seventies, had to have open-heart surgery a few months ago and knew there was a good possibility she wouldn’t come out of it. I stayed with her the morning of the operation—her heart attack happened so suddenly, her children couldn’t get to Boston, they live all over the world—so I went in to be with her. Okay, so the nurses come to wheel her off to the OR. She’s getting IV Valium, but still it’s got to be frightening. Here she is, this little, frail, old partridge lying on a stretcher with tubes in her arms being wheeled off to have her chest cracked open. I thought she might clutch my hand, look terrified, so I was prepared to be encouraging. But she just waved good-bye at me and said, “I’ll see you soon!” And as they wheeled her into the elevator, I heard her say to the nurses, “Well, if there were a fourth in here, we could play bridge.”

“Good for her!” Faye said.

“That’s how I’d like to be when I’m elderly,” Marilyn said.

“I’ll drink to that!” Shirley said, and raised her glass of sparkling seltzer to the other three.

——————————

Red-and-white-checked tablecloths, candles in Chianti bottles, and Dean Martin singing “That’s Amore!” gave Leonardo’s Restaurant a cozy, slightly old-fashioned atmosphere perfect for a night and a group like this. Carolyn, Beth, Julia, and Polly slid into a padded red leather booth, accepted menus, and ordered drinks.

“How do you feel now?” Polly asked Carolyn. “Blood pressure feeling all right?”

Carolyn nodded. “I’m fine. In fact, I feel better than I have in a long time. I think that aroma-water-therapy thing might have done some good.”

The other women nodded.

“I feel better,” Beth said shyly, “because I finally got to whine about Sonny’s mother. Somehow it all seems more manageable now. I think I was spending way too much time obsessing about her.”

“I wonder whether it’s a universal law,” Polly mused, “that the one we love comes with at least one toxic relative.”

“It’s true in my case,” Julia said.

“What about you, Carolyn?” Polly asked, looking at her expectantly.

They’re all strangers,
Carolyn thought with a twinge of anxiety. She shouldn’t be gossiping about private family business. On the other hand, they seemed nice, straightforward, and practical. They might even have some advice to offer. It wasn’t as if she had her own clique of close female friends, or even one close friend. Her involvement with her work had kept her too busy for friendship.

“My mother-in-law lives in another state,” Carolyn began. “My father is the problem.”

“He’s Aubrey Sperry, right?” Polly asked. “I’ve seen his photo in the papers for years. Handsome man.”

Carolyn nodded. “My father and my husband and I live in the same house. It’s, um, kind of large, and we have separate wings, plus a few common rooms for company occasions.”

“How does your husband like that?” Julia asked.

“Oh, he’s fine with it. Hank’s wonderful about most things. Besides, he travels a lot. He’s a kind of environmental troubleshooter.”

“Is your house that fabulous Victorian at the crest of a hill in Sperry?” Polly asked.

Carolyn nodded, pleased by the compliment. “That’s the one. Anyway, my father just got married.” Carolyn absentmindedly stroked her swollen belly.
This
was what mattered, this new life she was carrying. Here in the restaurant with the waiters quietly padding around bringing them drinks and bread and little bowls of olive oil, Carolyn felt relaxed. She was even enjoying herself. What a concept! With a slightly paranoid expression, she looked around the room. No one was within hearing distance. “His new wife—this is all very private, of course.”

“Our lips are sealed.” Polly drew an imaginary zipper over her mouth.

“Little
Heather.
” Carolyn was astonished at how good it felt to say the name aloud. “A blue-eyed blonde, a good five years younger than I am.” She felt like a pot with the lid lifted, the pressure evaporating.

“I can see her now.” Julia grinned. “A gorgeous sexpot?”

“Strangely enough, no. Heather’s short, dumpy, and wears matronly clothes. Perhaps my father likes her because she makes him feel nurtured. But I don’t trust her.”

Julia made a “move along” sign with her hand. “And that would be because . . .”

“It’s complicated. We have a housekeeper, Mrs. B., salt of the earth, wonderful woman, who runs the house for us, mostly, because my father and I work pretty much full-time at the paper company. Mrs. B. has been with us forever, and I trust her completely, so when she came to me with her concerns, I took them seriously.” Carolyn paused suddenly, looking as if she’d just heard a message on a frequency the others weren’t tuned in to.

“Baby kicking?” Polly asked.

“Yes.” Carolyn shared a smile with Polly.

“Don’t stop now!” Beth urged.

“Anyway, Mrs. B. pays all the household bills, groceries, electricity, and so on out of a housekeeping account that she, my father, and I all have signatory powers for. My father, naturally, arranged for Heather to be able to withdraw money, too, and did she ever withdraw money! You know how you can have a line of credit at a bank, in case of some kind of emergency? We have that on our household account for things like broken pipes, tree limbs falling on the roof, whatever. Well, within a month, Heather had withdrawn fifty thousand dollars from that credit line. So Mrs. B. got concerned and checked my father’s private checking account—she has access to it, though no signatory power—and almost one hundred fifty thousand dollars had been drawn from
that
line of credit.”

“Wow!” Julia, Beth, and Polly spoke in sync, like an astonished Greek chorus.

Beth’s eyes were wide. “What did you do?”

Carolyn closed her eyes for a moment, as if shutting off the memory. “I confronted my father.”

“That’s brave,” Polly said.

“You’re right. It was hard. My father and I aren’t close, but we’ve always been friendly, never adversarial. It turned out that Heather had taken the money out without mentioning it to anyone.”

“What for?” Julia asked.

Carolyn touched her neck, feeling her pulsing artery. “Heather said she was buying new furniture for their bedroom.”

“That’s perfectly reasonable,” Julia said. “I think a new wife ought to be able to furnish the house the way she wants.”

“I know you’re right. But the way Heather went about it—”

The waiter set their meals before them, and for a few moments everyone focused on her food.

“Look,” Carolyn continued. “Maybe I sound nuts to you. Maybe I
am
nuts. But something about Heather just feels
off
to me. All my instincts warn me she’s up to no good. And I’ve always been able to trust my instincts, which, after all, I can’t control.” Awkwardly, Carolyn shifted her weight on the leather seat. “I’m thirty-seven years old, and I’ve tried to get pregnant for years, and now,
finally,
I
am
pregnant, with a daughter, who will carry on my great-grandmother’s heritage. I’m thrilled about this baby. I don’t
want
to feel suspicious and anxious and on edge! But what can I do about it?”

Polly reached over and put a friendly hand on Carolyn’s shoulder. “Why not let us help you?”

Carolyn cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

“Well, we could check Heather out, for one thing.”

Carolyn shrugged. “My secretary did that. Heather’s just a sweet young thing who worked as a bank teller and lived in her deceased parents’ home with her older brother.”

“Yeah, well, we might be able to come up with some things your secretary didn’t think of,” Julia said confidently.

Carolyn looked at her. “Like what?”

Julia narrowed her eyes, thinking. “Let’s start with the money.”

“Right,” Polly agreed, nodding as she thought. “Heather said she was buying new furniture?”

“Yes. For their bedroom.”

Julia whistled. “Two hundred thousand dollars seems just a tad excessive, even for people as wealthy as you are. Where did Heather get the furniture? Have you seen it? Is it hand-carved by giant Siberian woodworkers?”

Carolyn laughed and felt her blood pressure drop. “I see your point.”

“Did Heather sign a prenup?” asked Julia.

“She did.”

“Okay, then.” Polly was on a roll. “What does her brother do? How often does she see him? Is he dependent on her for money?”

“I haven’t met Harry yet. I think he’s a plumber.”

“Maybe
he
builds furniture, too,” Beth suggested shyly.

“Good idea!” Polly told Beth. She turned back to Carolyn. “What’s the furniture like?”

Carolyn shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t been into my father’s wing for months. Our housekeeper, Mrs. B., cleans it, and the common rooms are between his wing and mine, so I seldom go there.” She patted her belly. “I’m not sure I even want to go into his wing now that he’s married. Just the thought of being accused of snooping makes me nervous.”

“Well,
I
have nerves of steel,” Polly said. “I’ll check out the furniture. When does Mrs. B. have a day off? Maybe we can find a time when she’s gone and Heather and your father are out as well. I’ll stop by to ‘visit’ you and we can take it from there.”

Feeling a bit overwhelmed, Carolyn hesitated. “It’s nice of you to offer. But to be honest, I don’t understand why you’d want to spend your free time doing this sort of thing.”

“Oh,
drat
!” Polly slapped her forehead. “Am I being overpowering? I guess it’s just your problem sounds like fun to me. Not to make light of it, but it sounds like something I could do something about. I’m so shut out of my own life.”

“What do you mean?” Carolyn asked.

Polly grimaced as a familiar pain sliced into her chest. “Because while I’ve told you about my mother-in-law, I haven’t mentioned my son and his wife. They had a baby five months ago, and I’ve only been able to see him once.”

Beth asked, “Do they live far away?”

“Just outside Boston!” Tears sprang to Polly’s eyes. “Amy, David’s wife, is very controlling. She won’t allow me to see the baby as long as I’m spending any time at all with Claudia. Amy believes I’ll somehow transport Claudia’s germs to Jehoshaphat.”