The Hot Flash Club Chills Out (2 page)

2

A
lice loved the ever-changing view of boats, ships, storms, and sea displayed in the windows of her chic, stylish condo on Boston’s harbor front.

She loved—she
adored
—her son Alan, his wife Jennifer, and especially their six-month-old baby girl Aly.

She did
not
love the drive back and forth between her condo and her son’s home.

Alan, Jennifer, and baby Aly lived in the gatehouse of The Haven, the wellness spa Alice and the other Hot Flash friends had helped Shirley plan and create. Alan and Jennifer provided baked goods and catering for The Haven. In exchange, they had use of the cozy cottage for their home, and in its kitchen they’d begun their bakery and catering business. As their business grew, they often walked up the drive to use the professional equipment in The Haven’s kitchen. When they continued to expand, they asked permission from Shirley and the board of directors of The Haven to transform the sunporch at the back of the gatehouse into a small shop front, complete with glass cases and a few old-fashioned, sweetshop-style wrought iron chairs and tables. A swinging door led from the shop to the efficiently designed commercial kitchen, complete with one of the industrial-size refrigerators and one of the enormous stainless-steel gas ovens from The Haven. From the kitchen, another swinging door led into the smaller kitchen of their private quarters, where Alice spent her days tending the baby and helping with the housework.

The Haven was located on a winding rural road thirty miles west of Boston, not such a very long distance. It only
seemed
endless, because of the constantly congested traffic along 128 and the other east-west roads. In her secret grumbling soul, Alice admitted that she was growing just a little weary of all this driving.

She was growing just a little weary
period,
and she didn’t know what to do about it.

She’d always been powerful, energetic, really kind of invincible, or at least she’d felt that way until the hot-flash years exploded through her system, vaporizing much of her energy. When she retired from the national insurance company where she’d been vice president in charge of administration, she’d received a handsome financial packet, so money would never be a source of stress, certainly not the way it was years ago, when she was a young single mother struggling to raise her two boys and fight her way up the corporate ladder. Over the past few years, in spite of her darling beau, Gideon, their bridge groups, her four Hot Flash Club friends, and her membership on the board of The Haven, Alice had felt just slightly bored. Edgy. Missing something.

Then, last summer, she’d had a small, very minor, really almost insignificant heart attack. After that, she’d been instructed by her physician to cut down on stress. She dropped the competitive bridge clubs for more relaxed groups, paid attention to her diet and attended the damned yawn-inducing, brain-sogging yoga classes Shirley was always raving about, and did the best she could to relax.

She’d felt even
more
bored. Boredom made her cranky, and that hadn’t been good for her blood pressure, and for a while she felt almost itchy with ennui.

And then her granddaughter was born.

Alice had never known such love, such pure unadulterated joy. When she was with her grandchild, the music of life transformed from irritating rap to a soaring symphony. She’d never had much interest in babies before, but then little Aly wasn’t any normal baby. Aly was the most beautiful, fascinating, precious infant ever born.

Her son and his wife had paid her the ultimate compliment, naming their daughter after her. When she offered to take care of the infant while Alan and Jennifer ran their catering and bakery business, they eagerly accepted, which made Alice love them so much she had to restrain herself from becoming a babbling fool. The baby was born prematurely, and Jennifer had suffered from toxemia, so for the first couple of months worry clouded Alice’s joy. Gradually both mother and child flourished. Things went back to normal. Alice’s morning and evening drives became routine.

Since both grandmother and grandchild were named Alice, the three adults deliberated on how to nickname them to avoid confusion. Little Alice and Big Alice didn’t work, because Alice—tall, broad-shouldered, big-boned, and well-padded—was just
slightly
sensitive about the word “big.” Young Alice and Old Alice wasn’t so great, either. Alice One and Alice Two? Nope. Numbers carried too many negative connotations. When Alan and Jennifer considered Granny, big, old Alice diplomatically refrained from telling them that while she loved being a grandmother, the word
Granny
made her feel even older and grayer than ever. Fortunately, they all three fell into the habit of calling the baby Aly, and the problem was solved.

Today, Alice took care of Aly while Alan and Jennifer ran the bakery. While Aly slept, Alice did the piles of laundry a baby makes, and scrubbed the kitchen and bathroom because her son and his wife hadn’t the time or energy, and put a hen in the oven to roast for the dinner Alan and Jennifer would eat with the potatoes, vegetables, and salad she’d prepared. Alan and Jennifer were so grateful for all her help. They were working furiously, taking all the private orders and catering jobs they could get, because they wanted to save enough money for a down payment on a house. They loved living in the tidy stone gatehouse of The Haven, but it was small, and they hoped to have more children eventually, and naturally wanted their own home.

At five o’clock, they closed the bakery at the back of the house and came through the industrial kitchen into the cottage kitchen, where they hugged Alice and showered her with gratitude. They told her she was an
angel.
They said they couldn’t imagine what they’d do without her.

Now the universe’s crankiest
angel
was driving home. She adjusted the seat on her BMW, grateful for the technology that allowed her to relieve the stress on her back as she began the long slog east, toward home and the blissful quiet of her apartment. WGBH was playing a Vivaldi piece she’d heard a thousand times before. She turned from the country road onto Route 2, and then entered the eight thundering lanes of cars, trucks, and SUVs speeding along 128 in a hypnotic blur, like a pack of roaring metallic monsters. The bright spring sun bounced off the hoods and roofs, lasering into her eyes.

Now Vivaldi’s perky little notes irritated her. She snapped the radio off. Usually classical music buoyed her, providing a psychological lift that helped her survive the drive in heavy traffic. Tonight it just wasn’t working. She craved chocolate, so she reached over, opened the glove compartment, and brought out a bag of chocolate-covered almonds. She knew she shouldn’t eat them, she knew she was gaining weight again, but almonds were good for one’s health, and the caffeine and sugar and sheer pleasure of the candy was a necessity tonight. She was tired.

Behind her, an impatient driver honked his horn. Alice flicked her turn indicator and began to edge over into the slower middle lane just as an idiot on a motorcycle cut in front of her with suicidal recklessness. She missed hitting him by only inches. Her heart jumped into her throat.

She hit the button that rolled down the window. “Watch what you’re doing, you moron!” she yelled, realizing, as the warm, gasoline-scented air flooded in, that of course the moron couldn’t hear her.

Behind her, Mr. Impatience’s horn blared. She jerked her wheel right, lurching into the next lane, nearly kissing the bumper of a lumbering cement truck.

Her heart quivered and kicked inside her chest. She hated this feeling. She tried to remember all the advice she’d received about calming down. She couldn’t visualize a cool pool of water because she had to keep visualizing the freaking traffic, so she forced herself to inhale deeply and exhale slowly. Gideon was always reminding her to relax.
Get in the right lane and just poke along,
he advised. Well, she would, except at the end of the day, in spite of the aspirin she took, arthritis threatened to cripple her with cramps in her legs, hands, and back. At any moment she’d find herself curling up like a pretzel, not the safest posture while driving seventy miles an hour. At home, she’d take a hot soaking bath, or collapse on her heating pad, or have a nice glass of wine. She wanted to
get home.
She didn’t want to dawdle.

She was so tired, so stressed—tears rolled down her cheeks. Was it possible that she’d gone from being a woman who had it all to a woman who had too much?

Finally she reached her exit and threaded her way through the narrow Boston streets to her condo. As she slid her car into its calm, waiting spot in the cool shade of the parking garage, her pulse slowed. She took a minute to redo her makeup—she didn’t want Gideon to see her with tear marks. Gideon kept telling her to step back and let Alan and Jennifer manage their lives without her, but she saw, every day, firsthand and close-up, how overwhelmed the younger people were. Gideon’s advice was well-meant, but it only increased the tension Alice felt. She didn’t want to argue—which was only another sign of her exhaustion. Alice usually loved a good argument. In her younger days, her talent for confrontation had sent her flying right up the corporate ladder. In her younger days, she’d always won her arguments. In her younger days, the drumroll of her excited heart and the flush of blood through her body had been an exhilarating experience, making her keen, articulate, triumphant.

Now the same drumroll made her anxious. She couldn’t let Gideon know how often, how easily, her heart went trippy.

It was so quiet in the garage. So soothing. Alice wanted to recline her seat and fall asleep right there. But of course that would only present her cranky old bones with brand new ways of aching. Besides, Gideon was waiting for her. Most evenings he fixed dinner, which she truly appreciated. He was a retired schoolteacher with lots of hobbies and interests. Thank heavens
one
of them was cooking.

Alice left her car and entered the elevator. As it ascended, the sleek chrome box soothed her. She felt as if she were in one of
Star Trek
’s transporters, conveying herself from chaos to calm.

Gideon looked up at her from his recliner when she entered the living room. “Damn, Alice. You look beat.”

It was the wrong thing to say.

“I look
beat
?” Alice burst into tears. “What you mean is I look old, right? Just go ahead and spit it out, don’t pussyfoot around!” Slinging her purse onto a chair, she stomped into the kitchen and snatched out the ice-cube tray. She wanted a drink. A nice cool vodka tonic. She twisted the tray to release the ice, but she must have used more force than necessary, because ice cubes exploded from the tray, flying around the room like manic ping pong balls. “Damn!” she cursed.

“Alice.” Gideon was calm, in control. “Go sit down. Let me make you a drink.”

“I’ll do it myself! I’m not too
beat
to make my own damned drink!”

“Really.”

Alice glared. “Don’t you go all superior on me!”

Gideon stared at her. He looked sad. He said, “Alice.” The warmth in his voice made her cry even harder. He took the ice tray from her, set it in the sink, and wrapped his huge arms around her, pulling her against him. He was so big, so strong, so calm. He was infinitely comforting.

“Why don’t you go sit down and take your shoes off, and I’ll fix your drink,” he suggested.

She gave in. “All right.” She sniffed. “Thanks.”

Man, it felt good to sink down onto her sofa. She eased off her shoes, brought her legs up, and stretched out. Gideon brought her the drink, then sat at the other end of the sofa, taking her feet in his lap. He began to massage them gently.

“Heaven,” Alice sighed.

“I’ve had a thought,” Gideon said.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. I think Jennifer’s mother ought to come up for a while. I’m sure she’d love to spend some time with her grandchild.”

“Jennifer’s mother is a babbling hysteric.”

“Not really. She was pretty upset when Jennifer was having such a tough time when the baby came early. But that’s only natural. She did manage to raise Jennifer, after all, and Jennifer’s a gem.”

“She was younger when she raised Jennifer.”

“And you were younger when you raised Alan.”

Alice closed her eyes. She really was too tired to argue.

“I worry about you, Alice.” Gideon’s voice was soft. With his thumbs, he pressed the balls of her feet, then the arches. “You’re not taking care of yourself. When was the last time you went to yoga or rode your exercise bike? I’d bet all the money I have you’re having heart episodes you’re not telling me about.”

“This really isn’t fair.” Alice forced herself to pull her feet away, drawing her legs under her as she readjusted herself on the sofa. She was relaxed now and had regained her sense of humor. “Seduction by foot massage—if men only knew, they’d never have to buy flowers.”

“Have you been hearing a word I’ve said?” Gideon looked stern.

“I hear you.” Alice stared at her glass, rattling the ice cubes. “Gideon, I appreciate your concern. But first, I’m just fine. And second, the kids really need help. They want to buy a house. They need someone to take care of Aly. Otherwise, they’ll have to hire help in the bakery, and there goes part of their profits. Besides, I love taking care of little Aly. She’s the light of my life.”

“But why not let Jennifer’s mom take over now and then?”

“I don’t know if she’d do it.”

“You don’t know that she wouldn’t. Has Jennifer asked her?”

Alice shrugged. She thought of Jennifer’s mother, whom she’d met only a few times. The woman was like some kind of overwound mechanical toy, talking incessantly, throwing her arms out in manic gestures, unable to sit still for a minute.

“The baby won’t stop loving you if you’re not there every day,” Gideon said softly. “She won’t forget you if you’re not there all the time.”

“I know that!” Alice snapped. “I just don’t think Jennifer’s mother can run that house as well as I can.”

“Because you’re a control freak,” Gideon said bluntly.