“Got a hot datetonight?”
She had a date with Walter, but as to the heat level, she wasn’t too sure. She forced herself to be optimistic. She’d surprised him with the magazine; maybe she should have updated her appearance first. “I don’t know. But I hopeso.”
“WHAT HAVEYOU DONE to your hair?” Walter’s eyes bugged out when she opened the door tohim.
Her smile faded slowly. “Don’t you likeit?”
“It’s red. It’s too young for you. It’s—it’s…” Although he couldn’t seem to find the words, the horrified expression on his face sent a clearmessage.
She turned away, stalked into the living room and began rearranging the Hummel figures, putting Fishing Boy beside Choir Girl instead of beside Hiking Boy where he belonged. Let anarchy reign, she decided. Better still, she should pack the little pottery figurines away in a box and redecorate—entirely in animal prints and edgy avant-gardesculptures.
But the Hummels had been her mother’s, and Cynthia was sentimental. With a sigh, she put Fishing Boy back beside Hiking Boy and snapped on alamp.
All her life, except when she’d been away at college, Cynthia had lived in this house—first as a child, then after her mother was widowed. Maybe she needed achange.
Walter stood warily at the edge of the British India rug that had been Cynthia’s grandparents’ obviously uncertain how to handle her. A worried frown played around hiseyes.
How well he fit into this room, she thought. An old-fashioned man in an old-fashioned room. He probably had no idea his tie was too wide, or that he’d been wearing that sweater so long it was almost back instyle.
She used to belong in this room, too. Now she no longer did. In fact, for a while she hadn’t felt like she fit into her own body. But in the last week, despite the ghastly disaster of the sex thing, she felt like she was starting to get itright.
She hadn’t seen Walter since Friday, when he’d left her naked, tied up and forgotten. Oh, he’d called later that night, sounding tired and harassed. The delivery had been difficult. He was sorry he’d had to leave. He was doing hospital rounds for the next few evenings, but why didn’t they have dinner at her houseTuesday?
Cynthia thought about the mother and baby; she was glad they’d survived and Walter had made it happen. She forgave him, of course, but still felt he should grovel a bit after what she’d beenthrough.
Now here he stood. No flowers, no apology, no wine. Not even an invitation to a restaurant. As usual, she was cooking dinner for Dr. Tightwad. If he’d come across the room, take her in his arms and whisk her off to bed, she’d forgive himcompletely.
She glanced toward him with what she hoped was a sultry, come-hitherlook.
He rubbed his hands together with enthusiasm. “Is that pot roast I smell? I’mstarved.”
Her mother, who’d been over forty when her only child was born, had a rule about controversy at the dinner table: it was bad for the digestion, bad manners, bad, bad, bad. So Cynthia, who had spent her entire life until last Friday being good, made polite conversation while inside she was more stewed than the potroast.
She did the dishes while Walter read the paper. After the dishes were finished, she made coffee and they drank it in the living room like a normal pair of seventy-year-olds.
She gazed down at the cup and saucer in her hand. Red cabbage roses covered the china, faded after thirty years to old-bathrobe pink. Cynthia made a discovery. She didn’t like thechina.
Not only was she drinking out of her mother’s china, she was living her mother’s life. Only she’d skipped the part about being young, and morphed right into advanced middleage.
The cup began rattling on the matching saucer, like frenetic castanets. The body-hugging little top felt a couple of sizes too small. She couldn’t seem to get herbreath.
Across the room newspaper rustled as Walter turned apage.
A scream built in her throat. It was a year since her mother had died. And Cynthia had this sudden science fiction vision of herself returning from the funeral service tobecomehermother.
She’d loved her mom. And her father. But somehow she’d lost herself, and she had to do something to get back on track. Maybe it wasn’t Walter and her sex life that was theproblem.
Maybe it was thishouse.
“I’m thinking about selling the house.” She said it aloud, rolling the idea in her head as the words rolled off hertongue.
“Hmm?” The paper rustled again as Walter neatly folded it in quarters and placed it on the table besidehim.
“I’m thinking about selling thehouse.”
After staring at her blankly for a moment, Walter smiled. She recognized that smile. It was the patronizing don’t-worry-everything-will-be-all-right-I’m-a-doctor smile that always made her want to smack him. “That’s perfectlynormal.”
“Pardon?” Maybe she hadn’t heard himcorrectly.
