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“You bet,” Pam said to the closing door. “You bet,” she said more quietly to the empty room.
She cleaned off her desk at a leisurely pace, giving that last client who might show up at the wrong place for the right meeting a few more minutes to appear. She cleared her computer screen, locked her desk drawer and placed her calendar open on top of her desk, scanning tomorrow’s schedule. Yes, yes, I love working here, she said to herself. I’d be lost without this place.
Lost.
Pam pulled her gym bag from the cupboard behind her desk and went into Charlene’s executive bathroom; she only used this private facility when Charlene was out of the office. There she affected a transformation—from sophisticated career woman in light wool suit, silk blouse and pumps, to weight trainer in spandex, sports bra and cross-trainers.
She pulled her shoulder-length auburn hair into a clip and couldn’t resist the urge to preen a little in front of Charlene’s mirror. She was cut; nicely muscled, her percentage of body fat low. Looking fine. Weight lifting was more than just a hobby, more than a means of staying in shape. It was something she did to keep her spirits from sinking.
It wasn’t as though she had a bad life. In fact, by almost anyone’s standards she had a great life. She loved her job, was in outstanding health and had a terrific home life with her Great Dane, Beau, and an elderly but extremely fit father who traveled quite a bit, leaving her to enjoy the luxury of free rent in three thousand square feet with hot tub. And she had friends, from work, from the neighborhood and from the club where she exercised.
But there was no man in her life and there hadn’t been in years. Years! And she was no longer too busy to notice.
She also remembered the ones that hadn’t worked out, the ones who did come around but were completely wrong for her and the ones who caught her eye and already had the stamp of another woman on them. She was luckless in this department. What was worse, she had absolutely no idea why. If her father asked her one more time, “Any new prospects, honey?” she might strangle him. As objectively as she could judge, she thought herself to be of at least average attractiveness. Oh hell, above average! She was intelligent, industrious and clean. She had a sense of humor, she read good books and, unless she was missing some vital signal, she was actually popular. She got along with everyone, on both personal and professional levels. In fact, she was one of those women who, after writing of her dilemma to Ann Landers, was likely to get the response, “If what you say about yourself is true, you’d have been snapped up years ago. There must be some little thing you’re overlooking.”
It wasn’t like Pam to sulk. In fact, it was rare for her to give in to this sense of disappointment, this feeling that she had somehow failed. She’d stopped trying to figure out what terrible flaw she had long ago. Was this because Charlene was getting married? But that was silly. Charlene and Dennis had been together for years and, as she’d said, this was really only a formality.
Pam had accepted that not everyone gets a partner and she knew a lot of single people who were not looking, were not trying to find a mate. She was thirty-nine and had stopped allowing herself to be set up at about thirty-five. She wasn’t interested in making man-hunting a life’s work.
The paperwork she would take home was already packed into her briefcase. As she pulled her raincoat out of the closet, there were two short taps at the outer office door before it swung open. “Locking up, Ms. London?” Ray Vogel asked her.
“As we speak,” she said, taking her coat off its hanger.
“Whoa, Ms. London,” he said, grinning. “Look at you! I always figured you for a gym rat.”
“A what?” she said, laughing in spite of herself.
“Wow, look at that six-pack,” he said, referring to her muscled abs. “Where do you work out?”
“Just a neighborhood tennis and fitness club.”
“You compete?” he asked.
“Me? Get serious!” But she had an unmistakable urge to flex.
She slipped into her coat, pulled the strap of her tote over one shoulder, gym bag over the other, followed that with her handbag strap, then grabbed up her briefcase and suit-on-a-hanger. Keys in hand, she joined him at the office door. He took the keys from her hand, eased her out the door, flicked off the lights and locked up for her. “You could compete,” he said, handing her back the keys. Then he took some of her burdens. “Come on, I’ll make sure you get to your car.”
“You don’t have to do that, Ray. I get myself there every night.”
“Tonight’s my treat,” he said. “You know, I could tell. That you work out. I thought about just asking, but I didn’t want to, you know, be…um…” He was clearly searching for a word.
“Nosy?” she supplied, humor in her voice.
“That’s not what I mean. I was working on a way to ask you if you were, you know, married. Or involved.”
She almost dropped her suit. She stopped walking and turned toward him with a look that verged on alarm. “What?”
He shrugged. “Married? Involved?”
“Why?” she said, confused—and very shocked.
“I thought we could grab a drink some night. Maybe something to eat.” He took her elbow in hand and led her the rest of the way to the elevator. He pressed the down button. “You know, a date.”
It was almost scary, the way he proposed this only minutes after she’d been flexing her thirty-nine-year-old muscles in front of the bathroom mirror, bemoaning her absolutely solitary life. She was going to be a long time in recovering from the sheer blow. “Are you serious? You have a thing for older women?”
“Why wouldn’t I be serious? How much older can you be?” he countered.
The elevator arrived and they stepped inside.
“I could be a lot older, Ray. I could be your mother!”
“Come on,” he said, brushing her off.
“How old are you?” she demanded, feeling a blush rise up her neck.
“Now, if I’d asked you that question, I bet you’d get all piss—All bent out of shape,” he said, correcting himself. “I’m almost twenty-eight.”
“I could be your much older sister,” she said. “I’m almost forty.”
“Oh yeah?” he said, looking pleased with himself. “How almost?”
“Thirty-nine and three quarters.”
“No shit. I mean, no kidding!”
“How ‘almost twenty-eight’ are you?”
“Twenty-five,” he said. He grinned devilishly. Handsomely. “I took you for about thirty.”
“Ray.” She laughed at him. “You’re a terrible liar.”
“Okay, thirty-one. No more than thirty-three, tops. So, about that drink—”
The elevator deposited them on the main floor and they stepped out onto the marble floor of the foyer. “You really have made my day,” she said with laughter in her voice. She couldn’t wait for her father to next ask about prospects. “But I’m afraid I couldn’t possibly have a drink with you.”
“You’re involved,” he said. It was not a question, and it reeked of disappointment.
“Ray, I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t be right for each other.” She stopped at the glass revolving door.
“I’m mature for my age.”
“Me too,” she said.
“I get done here at about ten. You should be finished working out by then.”
“Good night, Ray,” she said. She took her bag and briefcase from him and went through the revolving doors.
He followed her. “I’m going to change clothes, drive over to the Plum Tree—they have good Chinese and a nice, quiet little bar. Very cozy neighborhood place. Not too loud.”
“I’m going to work out, then I’m going home,” she said, heading for the parking lot. “To tuck in my dog and walk my father.”
“Oh man, you’re making it very tough, Ms. London,” he said from the glass doors. “I don’t know how to compete with a dog and a father. Play fair.”
She threw her head back and laughed again. “You are very flattering. Have a nice evening.”
“You’re breaking my heart!”
She shook her head. Nice joke, she thought. The kid doesn’t know from broken hearts. She unlocked her car, threw all her stuff in ahead of her and got in. She turned on the engine and the lights, then looked one more time toward the office building. He stood there, watching her go. Tall, handsome, young. Young. As she pulled out of the lot, the face in the rearview mirror grinned stupidly back at her. “Oh, for God’s sake!” she snapped at herself. “Don’t even think about it!”
Dennis could hear the commotion of happy family life as he stood at the front door of his sister Gwen’s house. He didn’t hurry to ring the bell, just listened for a moment. Gwen was forty now and had had her children in her thirties—Richie, when she was thirty-one and Jessica, when she was thirty-three. They were at a great age right now—lots of fun and not much work. They didn’t have to be bathed anymore, and they were too young to drive. But this was not a quiet or calm age. He could hear the choppy piano practice in which Jessica was engaged and a steady thumping coming from somewhere inside the house.
“Richie! That basketball is for outside!”
The steady thumping would be his nephew, bouncing the ball against a wall.
“I’m keeping time for Jessica,” he yelled.
A living-room wall.
He rang the bell. The door was opened by the kids, who immediately shrieked in happy surprise and threw themselves on him. He lifted them both, looping an arm around each skinny waist and balancing their wiry bodies against his hips, then carried them through the foyer, past the living room, to find his sister in the kitchen.
“Well, look at this. Your uncle Dennis is psychic. He knew I needed a break from you ungrateful monsters.”
“I eat monstrous children for breakfast,” he said in his growling voice and gave them a powerful shake that sent their limbs flailing.
“Take them away for a while and I’ll make it worth your efforts,” she said.
He growled again and carried them upstairs, knowing he wouldn’t get a single peaceful word of conversation with Gwen until he’d given them some quality time. An hour later, the kids clean and tucked in their beds, Dennis migrated back to Gwen’s kitchen, lured by the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. She brushed a strand of hair out of her tired eyes and slapped a box of Girl Scout cookies onto the kitchen table between two cups.
“Where’s Dick?” Dennis asked.
“In New York, on business,” she said. “The dick,” she whispered, making her brother laugh.
“Had enough mommying for one day?” he asked, sitting down behind one of the cups while she poured.
“You’re the guardian for those two, right? Because I might not live to see the end of this job. God, they should bottle that energy.” She filled the second cup. “Charlene working?”
He sipped. “Mmm, good. Yeah, she has a meeting.” Gwen yawned. “Am I keeping you up?” he asked.
“God, I’m sorry, Denny. I had to work at the school today, plus I took Dick’s turn at Jessica’s soccer practice, and then there was this Brownie meeting about the cookies. You know, THE cookies,” she said, smacking the box till it fell over. “The effing cookies,” she added, again whispering.
“Won’t you be glad when they get a little older and you can swear again?”
“Jesus, you don’t know the half. How’s your life?”
“I’m getting married.”
Her mouth fell open and she was momentarily speechless. “You’re getting what?” she asked when she recovered from the shock.
“Married,” he said again.
He sipped again from his cup while she studied his passive face.
She had wondered if this day would ever come again for her brother. She didn’t want him to be alone. Even though he had her, Dick and the kids, it was not the same as a spouse, a partner. When he’d started dating Charlene, she’d grown excited. Hopeful. But five years had passed in relative sameness, and while they were obviously very close, nothing like marriage—or even living together—ever materialized.
Gwen put her elbow on the table and held up her head with her hand, staring at him while he sipped his coffee. Is this what happened when you were almost fifty and getting married? Matter-of-fact? Is it just another chore? Like deciding to update the will or go see the tax attorney?
She lifted one skeptical eyebrow. “You look ecstatic,” she said doubtfully.
“It seems like the thing to do, don’t you think?” he asked.
“It’s not a colonoscopy, Denny. You’re getting married!”
“I really am happy about it. It’s just that…there’s something I hadn’t accounted for.”
“Lay it on me,” she said, slowly testing her own cup of hot coffee.
“I was completely unprepared for how this would bring back memories of Sarah.” Gwen stopped sipping and gave Dennis her full and, for once, unsarcastic attention. She slowly lowered her cup to the saucer. “Even though I asked Charlene if she wanted to get married two, probably three years ago, it never occurred to me that in saying yes she would unleash so many memories for me.”
“Good ones?” Gwen asked. “Bad ones?”
“All of them, from the time I met Sarah and first held her close, to the time three years later that I held her cancer-ravaged body as we said goodbye.”
“Oh, Denny…”
“I have no idea why this is happening now. Really.”
“Maybe it’s the idea of remarrying,” she offered.
“Sarah died eighteen years ago. And we were only together for three years. It doesn’t feel like remarrying. It feels like that was another life.”
“Well, then, what could it be? Are we close to any anniversaries? Of your engagement to Sarah? Your wedding, her illness, her death?”
“No, thank God.”
She reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “Maybe it’s just time for you to revisit this thing. You know, like post-traumatic stress. Maybe this is how you complete the cycle, bring closure. I mean, is it even possible to marry Charlene without your last marriage crossing your mind?”
“I never thought I’d love like that again,” he said, looking anywhere but at his sister.
A moment of silence passed between them…and stretched out. In a way, Denny and Charlene had been acting like an old married couple since the week they met, but was that a good thing? “And have you?” she asked very quietly, drawing his eyes back to her face.
“Of course!” he insisted. “My God, Charlene is extraordinary. I know you agree.”
“I do,” she said. In truth, Gwen was one of Charlene’s biggest fans, but that wasn’t really the issue here. The issue was her brother, who was morose on the day he announced his formal engagement. Despite his insistence to the contrary, the bold and passionate way he had loved when he loved Sarah had been buried with her. While Gwen was mostly concerned with her brother right now, it did cross her mind that Charlene might be getting shortchanged.
Gwen had been eighteen when her twenty-eight-year-old brother met and fell helplessly in love with Sarah Brown, a slender beauty with dark hair and vivid eyes. Dennis had described his first true love to his sister as kind, patient, good-natured and possessing a dry humor.
They met while Dennis was teaching high-school chemistry. Sarah was the photography and audiovisual teacher at the school and there was such chemistry between them—an intended pun they overused—that the principal asked them to stop looking at each other during school hours. They got married the second school was out—a sweet little ceremony in the park—and spent the summer in Europe.
