Every Other Wednesday Page 4

  Alice and Dave had met in Oregon, where they went to college. Both had wanted to move far away from their Connecticut childhood homes for different reasons. Alice was on the losing end of an academic, social, athletic, and emotional competition with her only sibling. Her older and perfect (in her parents’ opinion, Alice thought) sister, Carolyn, then a sophomore at Harvard bound for medical school, seemed to be always right about everything. And Alice was very motivated to put some serious mileage between them. Dave, instead of running from something, was running toward it—adventure! He had lived in a tiny hamlet his whole life, the town both his parents had grown up in and hardly ever left. And Dave, an only child, had loved spending his childhood there, where everyone knew everyone else and Dave always felt safe and well looked after. But at eighteen, he was looking for new faces. Dave and Alice met the very first week because they were runners and had both joined the running club. Dave had run cross country in high school, and Alice had run track. They both enjoyed the casual attitude of the club, whose members gathered at the student union every weekday afternoon at four o’clock for a five-mile run. On some days, just a handful participated. On the weekends, a dozen or so students usually showed up for an eight-mile run. Everyone was friendly, but they all ran hard.

  Alice’s and Dave’s feelings for each other were platonic at first. In the spring of their freshman year, however, those feelings had turned lustful and then romantic. By the end of their first year together, the passion had evened out, replaced by the desire to push their bodies to their physical limits outside the bedroom. They started competing in triathlons together, and they dreamed of earning a living through the promotion of good health and personal fitness. After graduation, they got jobs with Nike, which spawned the idea of opening their own footwear store, and they got married at the town hall, not telling either family until after the ceremony. Five years and a move back to Connecticut later, Dave and Alice opened Fast Pace, which catered to everyone from the casual Saturday jogger to the local and regional elite runners. They worked together six days a week until Alice had their first daughter, three years later. Their mutual decision for Alice to stay home for a while had turned into a twenty-five-year stretch. And now that Alice had the time to return to Fast Pace, she was not sure she wanted to.

  She felt the same way now about running as she had in college—loved it—even though she had not run regularly for years. She had run through all three pregnancies. But Linda’s birth was a complicated, unexpected Cesarean that had kept Alice off the trails for almost six months. When Dave had encouraged her to get back out there, the words he always used, she had explained to him that whenever she ran, it felt as if her insides were going to drop out of her. When Linda went off to kindergarten, Alice started running again. But she’d lost the competitiveness, the urge to push beyond mild discomfort, and she quit again, opting instead for step and spin classes and yoga, and lately Zumba and TRX. And this worked. But Alice was tired of classes. And with Linda’s departure from the house, she was out of excuses. The only way to slim down and to build muscle before it was gone forever was to start running again.

  After all these years, the women Alice had previously run with were no longer interested in running with her. They didn’t come out and say this. Instead, their disinterest was evident in the tone of their voices—and also by the fact that they were never available to run whenever she wanted to run. Alice understood this. After all, she had been just like them, sprinting past less dedicated athletes who were stopped, panting at the side of the road halfway through 10K races. So she resolved to get back out there on her own. The afternoon of Emmanuel Sanchez’s funeral, she changed into her high tech, moisture wicking athletic gear, laced up the lightweight running shoes Dave had given her the previous Christmas, and drove to the exercise trails over by the river.

  Several other cars were parked in the lot when Alice arrived. She walked along the path to the trails, which, intended for cyclists as well as runners, were paved. They wound through a deciduous forest, with designated loops ranging in distance from one to nine miles. Dave, who ran five or six days a week, knew the system and distances as Alice once had. But she had forgotten some of the loops, and since she had left the trail map in the kitchen drawer, she decided to run a few laps around the shortest loop. She was also leery of going into the woods alone. While Joan was right that Southwood was a very safe town, one could never be too careful. Wasn’t this the message, after all, that Alice continually preached to her three daughters?

  A mile into what was supposed to be a three-mile run, Alice was already winded, and her knees hurt. No matter what anyone said, running was different from other forms of recreation. She could get through a forty-five-minute dance or spin class, but ten minutes of running had tired her out. She slowed her pace to a walk, realizing that all the running she had done in the past would not come back to her in one day. She would have to be patient and come up with a plan for getting back in shape that made sense. Alice jogged back to the car. She would ask Dave for a running regimen. He would be thrilled to know she was running again and to set something up for her. Maybe she could even talk him into going with her.

  CHAPTER 8

  Because she liked to be punctual and had been late to lunch the last time, Ellie arrived at High Tide seven minutes before noon. She was seated at a table near the windows and left with three menus and the promise of ice water. She shed her coat, took a small pad of paper and a pen from her purse, and then sat down to document what she had been running through her head that morning. It was a plan for this new stage in her life, a plan for the future. And while she had no answers to most of the questions she had asked herself as she vacuumed the family room carpeting, she did have a few ideas. Number one, she needed more clients. She had just written new pet store when Joan approached the table. “Hey,” said Ellie, looking up from her task, pushing her thoughts aside. “Don’t you look nice.”

  Joan smiled at Ellie as she sat down, not removing the gray suede jacket that covered a pressed, white cotton shirt. The jeans Joan had chosen for her outfit were definitely not from the Gap, where Ellie bought hers. “I get that a lot,” said Joan, reaching for the water glasses that had just been filled.

  “What, that you look nice?” asked Ellie.

  “Exactly,” said Joan.

  “Is that a problem?”

  Joan laughed. “No,” she said. “It’s just not an accomplishment, a life goal, something to be proud of. Anyone with enough money and too much time on her hands can look good.”

  It was Ellie’s turn to laugh. “Sounds like you’ve been thinking about your life, just like I’ve been thinking about my life.”

  “Who’s thinking about life?” Alice walked stiff legged to the table and sat, with effort, slowly.

  “Are you okay?” asked Joan.

  “I think so,” said Alice, closing her eyes. “But I’m not sure.” She opened her eyes and looked at Joan and then Ellie. “I started running again.”

  Ellie tapped the fingers of her right hand against the palm of her left hand several times and grinned. “We’re all doing it. I’m so glad I’m not in this alone.”

  “Doing what?” asked Alice.

  “Figuring out what the hell comes next,” said Joan.

  “What have you figured out?” asked Alice.

  “Nothing,” said Joan. “Although whatever it is, I think I have the right clothes for it.”

  “You always look so nice,” said Alice.

  “See?” said Joan, looking at Ellie.

  Alice looked at Joan and then at Ellie. “What am I missing?”

  “Let’s order,” said Joan, “and then we can start the process.”

  True to her hankerings, Ellie ordered the quesadilla; Joan got the falafel sliders, and Alice requested butternut squash soup and a side salad. Once the server left the table, Alice said, “Okay, so what’s wrong with looking good all the time? I wish I had that problem.”

  “It’s not a probl
em,” said Joan, shaking her head. “It’s what I have been focused on, other than mothering my children, for the last thirty years, and I’m pretty good at it. But, as I was saying to Ellie, it has not been a lifelong dream of mine to dress well.”

  “All right,” said Alice. “I’ll bite. Why do you dress well?”

  “My husband wants me to dress this way.” Alice and Ellie said nothing. “Because he’s a banker. It’s an image thing. He dresses well. His family of bankers dresses well. All the spouses dress well. So I dress well. It started when we were first married. Now, it’s automatic.”

  “So what’s your lifelong dream then?”

  Joan looked at her watch. “We’ve been here, what, ten minutes, and you’re already asking me one of the huge questions of my life?”

  Ellie laughed and then leaned into the table. “Am I being too forward?”

  “No,” said Joan. She straightened her back. “But I’m going to talk about myself in a serious tone for another ten seconds, and then we are going to move on.”

  “You’re going to tell us your lifelong dream?” asked Alice.

  Joan took a bite from one of the sliders that had just been set down in front of her. She chewed and then wiped her mouth. “No. But only because I’m not sure I know what it is. You see, in addition to being told to dress well, I was also told not to pursue a career.”

  Ellie bit into her quesadilla, grateful for the melted cheese and barbequed chicken, grateful that she wasn’t eating a salad like Alice’s. “Really?” said Ellie. “Who would say something like that?”

  “My mother-in-law, Sandi. She told me when Stephen and I got engaged that all the Howard women continued their schooling or volunteered until they had children, and then they stayed home with the children while their husbands worked. At the time, it sounded like a good plan to me. I had just graduated from college on a merit scholarship, and Stephen was happy to pay for me to get a master’s degree, so that’s what I did. After that, I thought about teaching—Stephen and I were having trouble getting pregnant, and having no children would have exempted me from the Howards’ no-job-for-spouses rule. And then Cassie was born, and I have been home ever since.”

  “How many years?” asked Alice.

  “Twenty-four and counting,” said Joan. “I’ve been home and jobless for twenty-four years.” Joan finished her water and asked the server for a Diet Coke. “Not that raising a family shouldn’t be considered a job; I’d be doing a disservice to, and in hot water with, all stay-at-home mothers with that kind of talk. But full-time mothering is a different kind of job; it’s a job away from the constraints and timetables of the working world. At home, you get to be your own boss.”

  “When your kids aren’t bossing you around,” said Alice.

  Ellie picked up another quesadilla triangle from her plate. “Maybe you can explore getting a job now, since both your girls are gone.”

  “Maybe,” said Joan.

  Alice looked out the window. “This is the time,” she said. “This is the time to do something with our lives.”

  “Is that what this running is all about?” asked Joan.

  “Partly, yes. It’s about recapturing who I once was.”

  “Please don’t tell me you are trying to turn back the clock.”

  “No, Joan,” said Alice. “No one can do that. But how can we move forward if we’re unable to move?”

  “Kind of like you are today,” said Joan, smiling.

  Alice laughed. “Look,” she said, pointing a finger at Joan. “Six months from now I’ll be a new woman.”

  “I can hardly wait,” said Joan, looking at Alice over her glass of soda, “to see who you become.”

  “I’m doing it, too,” said Ellie, pushing the too-large bite of food in her mouth into her cheek so she could talk. “I’m changing my life, too. I don’t know what it will look like either, but this is the time to do it. This is the time to figure out who we are and who we want to be and how we’re going to get there.”

  “Well, at least that sounds good,” said Joan.

  CHAPTER 9

  In the fifteen years since the casino had been erected ten miles north of Southwood, Joan had been there twice: once for a birthday lunch with her sisters-in-law and the other time for a fundraiser for the Southwood Cancer Society, which Joan thought was ironic since the casino allowed smoking throughout its palatial buildings. The nonprofit apparently didn’t sense or care about the irony, however, since the casino had been, again, chosen as the destination for its annual fundraiser. Last year, it had been an elegant dinner and a silent auction held in a ballroom, separated by floor-to-ceiling doors padded in leather from the hoi polloi parked at the slot machines, guzzling free house-alcohol drinks. This year, it was someone’s idea to raise the price of the tickets, enabling the organization to rent the exclusive use of several roulette tables. Invitees were encouraged to wear tuxedos and long gowns, in an effort, Joan guessed, to class up the event and its surroundings. Joan had been surprised the previous year when she and Stephen walked through the casino to reach the fundraiser. Everyone she saw was dressed in very casual, sloppy even, clothing. No one looked like extras in a James Bond movie like Joan expected.

  Stephen parked his Mercedes in the Red Maple lot, a short walk from the Rumbling Falls section of the casino. He hesitated a moment before opening his car door. “Are you ready?”

  “As ready as I will ever be.”

  “You’re a good person, Joan, to be on this board, to do this work. I know this casino event is not your idea of the perfect evening out, but it will raise a lot of money for the cancer society.”

  “Let’s hope so,” said Joan, looking at her reflection in the visor mirror to recheck the eyebrow wax job she’d had done that afternoon.

  “Plus, all my banking buddies will be here,” he said with a smile. “I’ll bet you can hardly wait to see Jimbo.”

  “Believe me, I see enough of him at board meetings.”

  “Hey,” said Stephen, opening the door. “You look nice tonight.”

  Joan looked at him and smiled. “I know.”

  They walked briskly through the parking lot and into the elevator bank. Four floors up the doors opened into a well lit, high end retail area. Stephen took Joan’s hand as they passed by Coach, Godiva, and Tiffany before moving onto earth-toned patterned carpeting and into much dimmer lighting. Joan stopped for a moment and scanned the room. “Ah,” she said, pointing to the far end, “we’re over there.”

  Stephen’s eyes followed Joan’s finger. “Yes,” he said. “I see Harry and Jimbo.”

  As they made their way across the room, Joan again considered the name Jimbo, attached to a man who never failed to leave her with the same impression: He was an imbecile. In many ways, the nickname fit him. Jimbo was well over six feet, a head or so taller than Stephen, and he must have weighed two hundred fifty pounds. A former football player at a college for mediocre athletes and subpar students, Jimbo was now an investment banker, lending credit to the theory that moving money around didn’t take a lot of brain power. It wasn’t his intelligence, or lack of such, that poked at Joan’s thoughts that moment; rather, it was his reluctance to jettison his college handle. Jimbo seemed like a good name for a beer-drinking linebacker, but wouldn’t Jim or James be more suitable for a businessman in his late forties? A woman would never get away with that kind of playfulness by calling herself Bambi for Barbara or Gigi for Gretchen in the professional world if she expected to be taken seriously. The old boy network was as relevant and robust in the twenty-first century as it had been in the eighteenth.

  “Jimbo!” said Stephen, extending his hand toward his work colleague. “How’s it going, big guy?”

  Jimbo took Stephen’s hand and pulled him in for a bear hug. He slapped him several times on the back before releasing him and shouting, “Outstanding, my man! Isn’t this setup awesome? Joanie, how are you tonight, honey?” Jimbo leaned in to deliver a scotch scented kiss to Joan’s cheek. “Are
you ready for some fun?”

  “I’m just great, Jim,” said Joan. “It’s good to see you. Is your wife with you?”

  “She sure is,” said Jimbo, wrapping his massive arm around Joan’s shoulder and turning her body, while using his other arm to point a dozen yards away to a table covered by white linen and name tags. “She’s over at the welcome table with the other girls, checking in. Why don’t you head over there and say hello. I know she’d love to see you—and you can grab your badges so everyone will know your names!”

  Joan flashed a smile at Jimbo and then turned to her husband and raised her eyebrows. “I’ll just run along then,” she said. “I’m hoping one of the girls has a laundry tip for getting lipstick off my dinner napkins.” This attempt at humor was not lost on Stephen, who smiled and winked at his wife, but it didn’t register with Jimbo, who laughed anyway.