Summer Roommates, page 17
“But he died young?” Mary said.
“Yes, he had an undetected heart problem,” Sandra explained. “The second husband was a strange duck. He wasn’t from around here; in fact, no one seemed to know where Sharon had met him. He used to go wandering in the middle of the night, frightening the life out of people by peering into windows. He was pleasant though, always had a smile on his face, poor man. Then, there was the accident which was determined not to be an accident after all when police found a suicide note.”
Amanda shook her head. “What a nightmare.”
“Dare we ask about husband number three?” Mary said.
Sandra literally shuddered. “By the time Sharon married him, she was worse for the wear with drink. Her judgment, if there was any left, was shabbier than it had ever been. The guy was slightly known around Yorktide, though he hadn’t grown up here. One of those ne’er-do-well types, with a vaguely threatening way about him. No one trusted him, but Sharon found something in him to love, I suppose. When he skipped town, he cleaned out her bank account. I doubt there was much in it, but whatever there had been was gone. And now, Sharon is on her own again.”
“Better off without the bum,” Mary said with a frown.
“Maybe,” Patty said quietly. “I suppose only Sharon can say for sure.”
“What a life. Did she ever have children?” Amanda asked.
Sandra shook her head. “No, and I know for a fact she really wanted a family. I don’t know why it never happened, but it’s too bad. She was really good with kids. I can’t help but think that if she had been able to have a family she might not be in such a, well, such a sorry state now. But that’s just conjecture.”
“Stories like that make you realize just how ridiculously lucky you’ve been.” Mary sighed. “Well, I’m off to bed. It’s been a long day. And parties totally take it out of me, even civilized ones like the party Sandra and I went to this afternoon.”
“I’m off, too,” Amanda said, rising.
“I could sleep for days.” Patty stretched her arms over her head and yawned. “I think standing out in the sun this morning at the parade got to me.”
Sandra followed the others inside, locked the front and back door, and amid a chorus of good nights punctuated by yawns, went up to her room.
As she undressed for bed, with Clovis attending, she thought back with a smile to the amusing story Hal Rolleri had told about John and the Yosemite Sam costume. She had thought her husband looked cute as the cartoon character. She had always thought he looked cute. John Pennington was the only man with whom she had ever gone to bed. She had been so very happy with John. If now she had only the memories, well, memories were better than nothing.
“Come on, Clovis,” Sandra said softly to her feline companion as she settled into her bed. “It’s time for sleep.”
Chapter 42
Amanda had grilled hamburgers for dinner, proving that she was proficient at that cooking skill, too. It was too early for local corn on the cob but they did manage a caprese salad with locally grown tomatoes and basil, and there was a homemade pickle relish that Sandra had bought at a farm stand.
It hadn’t passed Mary’s notice that the summer roommates were tending to have dinner together more than once a week, as if by silent agreement. And there had been the spontaneous gathering on the front porch the night of the Fourth. It seemed that they were growing more comfortable with one another as the summer went on.
“I can’t get that woman Sharon out of my head,” Patty admitted when they had all settled at the table. “The one Amanda and I saw at the Laughing Clam the other night.”
Amanda nodded. “Me too. I don’t know why.”
“Her story could put anyone in her right mind off men for good,” Mary said.
“Well,” Patty said, “I don’t know. Not all men are bad, and Sharon’s first husband died of natural causes and her second husband was a suicide.... But I see what you mean.”
“Other people,” Mary said. “Relationships. Entanglements. They’re what’s really the problem.”
“Any relationship is risky,” Sandra noted. “There’s no way around that. But who would want to live entirely without involvement with other human beings? Certainly, not me.”
“You can choose to keep other people at a distance, though,” Amanda pointed out. “Keep your involvement to a minimum or on a fairly superficial level. That way, you’ve protected yourself from hurt.”
“And from pleasure.” Sandra shook her head. “No, I’ll take relationships over aloneness any day.”
“I’m okay with the idea of being alone,” Mary said. “Then again, maybe I have no real choice about it. A man hasn’t looked at me with desire since I was forty. Well, maybe a bit later than that but not much later. Okay, there was a guy at the party the other day, Pete, a friend of Sandra’s, who spoke to me for a minute or two, but he was probably crazy.”
“Now, Mary,” Sandra admonished. “I know Pete quite well and he’s perfectly sane. You just weren’t interested.”
Mary didn’t reply.
“We’ve become generally invisible to men.” Amanda frowned. “It’s unfair, I suppose, but it happens.”
“I never really thought about the situation,” Sandra admitted. “I had John in my life for so long, and he gave me all the attention I needed, which had very little to do with telling me I looked pretty. Since he died, well, I guess I’ve just never noticed if a man is looking at me or not. Besides, I’m no spring chicken! The only men around Yorktide who would give me the time of day are in their eighties!”
“Don’t be so sure,” Mary argued. “Some men are perfectly happy to be with a woman five, ten, even fifteen years older than they are. They might be rare but they do exist.”
“Oh, I know. But I haven’t encountered any of those men in Yorktide.”
“Like what happened with you, Mary,” Amanda said, “I noticed when I was about forty-five that I’d become invisible to most men. Suddenly, I wasn’t getting harassed while walking down the street. I certainly don’t miss that! Honestly, I don’t miss any of it, all that exhausting push and pull when men are involved.”
“But you’re involved with a man, right?” Mary noted. “Unless after eight years the nonsense has worn itself out and things are nice and calm.”
Amanda didn’t reply.
“Young, so-called woke men wouldn’t dream of calling out to a woman on the street, would they?” Sandra said musingly. “I mean the sort of young men who support abortion rights and equal pay for women aren’t the sort who routinely objectify women, are they?”
Amanda shrugged. “Let’s hope not. But there will always be plenty of cretins who claim not to have gotten the memo that women aren’t in existence solely for their pleasure.”
Mary nodded. “Probably true. You know, it occurs to me that being a sexist pig has to be exhausting. Always on the make, always having to go it alone in some ways because you don’t trust women to be true partners. Of course, buddies do rely on each other—male bonding can be unbreakable—but how many buddies do you see growing old together under the same roof like women friends are more prone to do?”
“I remember when people first started to use the expression male chauvinist pig, back in the late sixties and early seventies,” Sandra said. “Before that a man was a cad or a lothario, or, simply a man. Predatory and superior. We’ve come a long way and yet, we’ve barely taken a step.”
“And let’s face it,” Mary said. “The likelihood of one of us finding a guy and getting married at this point isn’t good. The numbers are against us. Not that it matters to me. I mean that.”
“You’re such a pessimist!” Patty cried. Mary noted that until that moment, Patty had been mostly silent.
“It doesn’t matter to me, either,” Sandra admitted. “I can’t conceive of marrying again, I really can’t, not to a sixty-year-old or to an eighty-year-old. Why would I want to?”
“Love?” Patty suggested. “You might fall in love again.”
Sandra looked doubtful. “I’ve had my fair share of love. I don’t need to be greedy.”
“The capacity to love doesn’t end when you reach a certain age,” Mary pointed out.
“I don’t dispute that,” Sandra said. “It’s just . . . I highly doubt I’ll be walking down the aisle ever again.”
“Well, no one says you have to,” Amanda pointed out.
Sandra laughed. “No one says I have to do anything, not even get out of bed in the morning. At this point I’m the sole decider in my life. Well, except for the government. The government says I have to pay my taxes.”
“You choose to obey that rule of citizenship,” Amanda said. “So, you do decide for yourself.”
“You’re right, I do choose. Taxes are necessary. Anyone who doesn’t understand that needs a course in how government works.”
“Women have been defined and confined by the male gaze for way too long,” Mary said suddenly, aware that she had spoken the words almost as an announcement or a call to arms.
“What do you mean by the male gaze?” Patty asked.
“It’s a term used when talking about a sexualized way of looking that empowers men while objectifying women,” Mary explained. “For example, it’s always been the assumption in the art world—painting, movies, what have you—that the core, important audience is the heterosexual male. Therefore, women, who are meant by their nature to be attractive to that audience, are shown as weak, available for sex and for being rescued, and, even if a woman is portrayed as a heroine, her ‘weak’ point is sex, her pathetic need for a man’s approval. Her costume, her attitude, all are chosen to remind the audience that deep down, no matter how bravely she behaves, she is a woman, meant for sex with men and nothing more.”
Patty nodded. “Oh,” she said. “I never really thought about that sort of stuff. Not much, anyway.”
“Take a look at a fashion magazine or website,” Amanda said, “or scroll through the Instagram feeds of It-girls. Count how many blank stares and open mouths you see. To this day women are posed—and choose to pose, even for other women it seems—as innocent Bambi-like figures, too dumb to know they’re prey.”
Sandra frowned. “Surely not every heterosexual male automatically objectifies women, at least, not individual women, the ones in his life, his mother, sister, daughter? I simply can’t imagine my John doing such a thing. Or my son, for that matter.”
“I can’t answer that question,” Mary said. “I mean, personally, I’ve known some pretty wonderful guys. In terms of behavior, the way they lived their lives, these men genuinely liked women, were respectful, didn’t put women on a pedestal or crush them underfoot. They treated women like the equals we are.”
“Not that I don’t find this conversation interesting,” Sandra said suddenly, “but I did make brownies. And there’s vanilla ice cream, too.”
“Yes, please,” Patty said promptly, rising from her chair. “I’ll help you bring everything to the table.”
As the others cleared the table in preparation for coffee and dessert, Mary realized that she would miss this sort of light but interesting conversation over dinner when she was back home in New York. But if she did, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. She had always done just fine living on her own, and she would continue to do so for as long as she possibly could.
Yes, Mary thought. She believed she had what it took to always be just fine.
Chapter 43
Like she had told the others at dinner, try as she might, Patty could simply not get thoughts of Sharon Doyle, the woman she and Amanda had watched at the bar the night of the Fourth, out of her head. In so many ways Patty’s life had been different from Sharon’s, and yet, neither had come to a happy place due to poor choices in men, sheer bad luck, or maybe, a combination of both. Somehow, and maybe it was a failure of imagination on her part, Patty couldn’t envision Sharon finding real love and stability with someone, not after what she had been through. Maybe, though, Sharon could reach a place of contentment without the presence of a man who might die or disappear. People were unreliable even when they didn’t set out to be.
Better to be alone?
Patty knew that she would always choose to be in a relationship with someone rather than to be on her own. That is, assuming she had a choice in the matter. And that was the problem. The time of choice was gone, like Mary had said about her own situation. Patty was almost seventy years old. Nothing would really change, for the better or the worse, if she didn’t have the opportunity to choose that change. That was a fact.
Why had she never really thought through the role in which she had positioned herself all those years ago? Why, somewhere along the line, hadn’t it occurred to her that she was making a big mistake catering to men’s desires and ignoring her own emotional needs, the result of which was her being left on her own with nothing?
It was like what Mary had been saying about the male gaze, and what Amanda had said about women posing like prey or willing victims. She had allowed herself to be a victim.
Patty felt frustrated. She hated thinking so much. She wasn’t good at it. Thoughts and ideas got all muddled up and she was left feeling deflated, tired, sad. And worst of all, lonely.
Hurriedly, Patty left her room and went downstairs in search of the others. She found them in the living room, gathered around the coffee table, on which there was a pile of puzzle pieces.
Amanda had changed her mind about the Hubble telescope image when she saw this puzzle in a local shop. She said she thought it might be more popular with the others. As far as Patty was concerned, Amanda was right. Not that Patty had ever read a novel by Jane Austen, but she had seen a few of the movies made from her stories, and they were really good. And the clothes were so pretty.
The puzzle showed a man and a woman—maybe Elizabeth and what was the name of the guy she wound up with in the movie? Yes, Mr. Darcy—standing facing each other in a pretty garden. On the backside of the picture was printed a page from the chapter in which the scene supposedly occurred.
“What side do you think will be easier?” Patty asked.
“I don’t know,” Amanda admitted.
Patty frowned. “Do you think we can manage to turn it over once we’ve finished, without having the whole thing fall apart?”
“Not a chance,” Amanda said. “Not unless we had one of those mats that roll the puzzle safely, and I didn’t think to look for one.”
“Has everyone read Jane Austen?” Patty asked. “I haven’t, but I’ve seen some movies.”
Mary raised an eyebrow. “Really? You don’t know what you’re missing.”
“I hate when someone asks me this sort of question,” Amanda said, “but here goes. Sandra, do you have a favorite book?”
“Well,” Sandra said, “As it happens, Jane Austen is my favorite writer, so I’d have to say one of her novels. I’ll choose Pride and Prejudice as my all-time favorite, followed closely by Emma. Mary?”
“It’s impossible for me to choose one favorite book. I’d have to break it down into categories, and there would be several books in each category. As far as fiction, Bleak House. The Name of the Rose. Wuthering Heights. My Cousin Rachel. Anything by Iris Murdoch and Patrick McGrath. But the list goes on. As for nonfiction, I’d say that Landscape and Memory, by Simon Schama, and Peter Ackroyd’s biography of London are two of my all-time favorites.”
“A biography of a city?” Patty asked with a frown.
“Yes. Why not? He’s also written a biography of the river Thames. How about you? What are some of your favorite books?”
“Oh,” Patty said, “I guess I like some of Louise Penny’s books. But I actually don’t read that much, if you don’t count magazines. What about you, Amanda?”
“I’m addicted to so-called cozy mysteries,” Amanda said promptly, “though what’s cozy about murder I’ll never know. Agatha Christie, of course, is my hero, but I also enjoy not so cozy mysteries by P.D. James, and Ruth Rendell, and Ann Cleeves.”
Suddenly, Patty became aware of Clovis, watching the women from his post atop a highboy.
“He’s been so good about leaving us alone,” Patty noted. “So far, anyway.”
Sandra eyed him carefully. “I think he’s plotting something. Cats are subtle creatures. When they’re not being outright insane creatures.”
“Oh, I forgot to tell you guys this!” Patty suddenly exclaimed. “Yesterday I stopped into that other gift shop in town, you know, just to poke around, and there was a big display of stuff like notepads and mugs and visors all about The Golden Girls, that old television show. Everything was stamped with the words Stay Golden, and there were these cartoon-like pictures of the four women. I had no idea people were into the show all these years later.”
“There was a convention not too long ago,” Sandra said. “I saw something about it online. If I remember correctly, it was called Golden-Con: Thank You For Being a Fan. There were pictures with the article, a lot of guys in drag, dressed up like the characters, but the majority of the attendees looked to be women.”
“I’ve never seen the show,” Amanda admitted.
“I wasn’t a big television watcher when John was alive; neither of us was. When we did watch, it was mostly dramas and mysteries on PBS and, in later years, on BritBox. That and news programs. But I know about The Golden Girls, of course. Everyone does. It’s part of the pop culture now.”
“I got a kick out of the show,” Mary said, “especially out of Dorothy and her mother, Sophia. I can’t say I watched the show religiously, but when I did catch it I thought it was fun.”
