Although I’d planned to call Pete again, I fell asleep—until Ellen’s alarm went off at 3 AM, crowing like a rooster. Wide-awake, asking myself why I hadn’t at least imagined Matt as a possible boyfriend for Tina, I realized with a pang that she was too sophisticated for him. I thought about trying Pete again, but decided that there was a greater chance that I’d wake him and then he wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep, than that he was dead or with another woman.
Going to Barnes & Noble
Waking up later to the sounds of National Public Radio and the smell of hazelnut coffee, for a minute I thought I was home. Right away I called Pete, who’d been having a late dinner out when I’d tried him the night before. I was eager to hear all the details about what he’d eaten, not because I didn’t believe him but because I love him.
At breakfast Ellen kept apologizing for having mis-set her alarm clock. She’d showered and, despite her bright chartreuse pants suit, looked dewy & pretty. As I was stopping myself from saying something like, “I know that one day you’ll be with some terrific man,” Elvis grabbed my toast. I was annoyed at how long it took Ellen to banish him to the bathroom. I was also annoyed at myself because I was noticing that every time I felt particularly warmly towards Ellen, what I’d wish for her would be—a husband.
She kept offering to make me more toast, but I was either not hungry any more or too crabby to eat.
Asked, she said she had a paper due.
So I convinced her to let me drop her off at the library and then I’d drive to a new Barnes & Noble she’d mentioned several times.
“It’s supposed to be really nice.”
I was touched by her local pride in what is, after all, a chain store. But then she couldn’t find her car keys and kept apologizing about having misset her alarm clock, and by the time I dropped her off I was eager to be alone.
______
Although the store had a huge new café, the cappuccino machine wasn’t working. “No cappuccino?” I kept saying stupidly. Most of the tables were taken by people with large piles of books and magazines, but I finally found an empty place, brought over my own pile of magazines, and devoured my tired-looking sun-dried tomato and mozzarella sandwich. After a while I relaxed into a kind of vacation dreaminess. I thought about how now that I have menopause, it’s clear what a burden my PMS moodiness had been all those years when I’d both known & not known that it was hormones that were making me so irritable…I wished I could bring this up with Ellen, but PMS was doubtless not topmost in her mind at the moment!…the other thing I regret but decided not to bring up was how when I was young I’d slept with men I didn’t love, not many, but even so…I’ve gathered that young women now are savvier than we were, but if I’d had a daughter, these were some of the things I would have “shared”…. Two little boys were running around the store as if it were a playground…. I remembered being at the Louvre with Pete one morning that had started out rainy but then ended up hot and sunny: a large group of French schoolchildren were sitting in the lobby, still bundled up in their yellow rain slickers…for some reason I thought of something Colette had said about how her parents had recently bought a house near London—“At least they have some land,” she’d murmured…now I thought about how much money she must come from… a line from “He Bought Me Violets for My Furs,” kept going through my head, eventually annoying me until I remembered how Matt had once told me that the Japanese call this an “ear worm”; and then my having a name for it—plus the fact that it’s something my wonderful son taught me—brightened my mood…I remembered whom Tina reminded me of, a girl who’d slept with my college roommate’s boyfriend and months later had told me that actually, his penis had been too small for her…. The two little boys would periodically run up to their mother who’d say, “I want you guys to calm down,” and then go back to her book…after a while they all began to annoy me.
______
As soon as she got in the car, Ellen burst into tears: at the library she’d had a headache and without thinking had taken 2 Tylenols—“What if I hurt my baby?”
I swore—and it was true—that several pregnant women I’d known had had to take much stronger medication & everything had been just fine. She seemed reassured, but we decided to go to her apartment and check with her obstetrician. While we waited for him to call back I made tea and tried to teach her a card game my mother and I used to play, but she couldn’t really concentrate.
“You just got here, I didn’t want you to have to just hang around my apartment.”
“Ellen, I’ve come to see you.” And I really didn’t mind being indoors with her on a beautiful afternoon; there was a kind of sweetness I sometimes felt doing some menial chore for Matt.
But of course she wasn’t my child, and after her doctor finally called back and was completely reassuring, I wasn’t above worrying that she’d still worry, spoiling the rest of my vacation.
But We Had a Good Time
Every day was sunny or turned out to be sunny. In the morning we’d go to a nearby beach and Ellen would teach me various stretching exercises, & I’d think about joining a Yoga class as soon as I got back home.
It seemed like we went to a lot of cafes where the waiters/waitresses would call us “guys,” as in, “Do you guys need anything else?” We’d sit for hours talking about books and movies. Ellen would write down all my recommendations.
. Wherever we went we’d note all the women who’d tie their sweaters or jackets around their waists, whereas the men they were with never did this. (Every time it gets hot & I suggest Pete at least try it, he tells me “Over my dead body.”)
We couldn’t believe how every day we’d see at least one male standing patiently while the female he was with rummaged for something in the large backpack he wore. “There’s another couple doing it,” Ellen would say excitedly—she’d spot them sooner than I did.
Elvis almost ate a hole in my slipper, it was amazing the way he grabbed it in a second.
We shopped. I helped her choose a crib (but she wouldn’t let me pay for it). She convinced me to buy myself an expensive tee shirt. We went to several very nice used bookstores. “This really puts New York’s bookstores to shame,” I’d say, and Ellen would look so pleased, she’d break my heart.
______
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