Another unexpected first in my mature middle age: Telling a suitor that I don’t want to see him again.
I’m such a coward. I told Chet over the phone. (You last read about him in How Not to Impress a Woman.)
I had the best intentions to do it in person. Truly I did. I set off to meet him for brunch Sunday morning fully intending to tell him that he was wasting his time with me.
When Alan loved me, his love wrapped around me like velvet; tender, caressing, sensual. I moved through the world as if I were always enfolded in the black velvet cape he gave me for my 50th birthday.
He remained infatuated with me at the time of this birthday. After knowing each other for 20 years, he still beamed like a boy as I pushed aside the white tissue paper and unfolded the long, hooded cape from its box. He knew me well, knew I’d be delighted with this gift. Still, I could see in his eyes that bit of doubt. “Maybe she won’t like it, maybe it’s all wrong,” he was thinking.
I threw it over my shoulders, pulled the hood over my head, admired myself in the mirror as I stroked the soft fabric, then twirled to enjoy the feel of it billowing out around me. I looked at him, at the happiness in his eyes now that he was sure of my pleasure at his gift.
Perfection. My 50th birthday was perfect.
Not only in the age of Jane Austen was it universally acknowledged that a single man possessed of a good position is in need of a wife. In this age and this city, the belief still holds strong.
Since our orchestra hired as its concertmaster a divorced man, serious note has been taken. Society matrons sit transfixed in their seats, watching the passion of his playing, the way he sways as his bow caresses and plucks the strings of his violin, the way his gray locks fall over his brow.
The unmarried among us fantasize about what those strong strokes and practiced technique would be like applied to us. The married women sublimate by plotting matchmaking strategies for their single friends.
The last Valentine’s Day I celebrated with my former husband, Alan, surpassed any dream I could ever have. None of the Hallmark writers or designers could have come up with this scenario.
Alan had been travelling excessively for business. He missed his birthday, my birthday, our wedding anniversary. But it’s Valentine’s Day, he’s home and
we’re going to make it special.
In the middle of a trendy, hip, upscale restaurant a woman of 55 came unhinged, setting shock waves blasting through the affluent clientele. I wasn’t there, but my friend, Marlys, was among the five women seated with the woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
With her flare for sharing dramatic details, Marlys painted the picture for me of what happened to her friend, Stephanie.
Stephanie, as envisioned by the artist Joan Miro
Alan, my former husband, and I concocted our fantasy business while idling in coffee shops and wine bars. The mission of this company was to help broken-hearted lovers bring closure, dramatic and final, to their relationships. We were inspired by Paul Simon to help people in pain with their struggle to be free. We, of course, were never going to be in pain, never struggling to be free.
I want to take you someplace with me. This journey is neither far, nor exotic. Depending on your mindset, you might call it banal. Or tacky.
I call it fun.
You and I, we’re driving down a back street in an industrial corner of my town on a Saturday night. Make that last Saturday night, to be precise.
We pass factories, warehouses and cross railroad tracks before we come to a parking lot loaded with Harleys, pickups and SUVs. We find one spot left for our little car. We cross the street toward a cinder-block, windowless building. Smokers crowd around the door. The temperature tonight is freezing, but the men wear t-shirts or cotton shirts with the sleeves rolled up high on their tattooed arms. The women’s arms are bare, as are their thighs, below their short skirts.
I lied to that man on the airplane to Zihauntenajo (see Birth of the Vixen Divorcee). I told a blatant lie when I pretended to be Blanche Dubois in Streetcar Named Desire. “Ah have always depended on the kindness of strangers,” I said.
What a disastrous way to live a life that would be. What a sad, frail, ineffectual creature Blanche was.
No, my truth is far different. I have always depended on the kindness of friends.
How about starting with my recent run-in with the nine-foot-tall Norfolk Island Pine sitting in my kitchen. The plant grew so big in the summer that no one could sit at my table except me. My upstairs sitting room would give it more space and light.
I carried it inside from the patio by myself at the end of the summer. Surely with all my weight lifting and yoga I could get it up 32 stairs. Of course I could.
This is my Norfolk Island Pine this summer, out on my patio. It’s a beauty, isn’t it?
I touched his knee, that’s all. It happened accidentally, quite innocently. I leaned forward toward the driver, Trevor, to make a suggestion, he spun the steering wheel, the tiny Fiat swerved and I reached out to get my balance.
My hand landed on the knee of the tall, blonde, handsome executive crammed in the back seat next to me. That’s how it started.
By Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
What did I write for Alan that wasn’t meant for anyone else’s eyes? What am I willing to share with you, now that he and I are divorced?
The other side of me, the side you don’t know. The erotic side.
Before the birth of The Diary (and of the Vixen Divorcee), I wrote stories intended for Alan’s eyes only. Stories of sexually explicit fantasies based on places he and I visited during our days of marital bliss. Stories the likes of which will never appear in the pages of The Diary. Stories I’m willing to share with you privately, now that he and I are divorced.
Yours could be the first eyes other than his to read one of these elegant fantasies.