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Beautiful
She had been beautiful once. You could tell with a glance. Boys had gotten in fist-fights over her, tearing their letterman jackets at the shoulders. Men had wept in shadows when they thought no one was near. Now Diane is 48. Her husband comes home from work, readers the paper with his feet on the coffee table and pats her hand before falling to sleep beside her.
A few months back, she had thought maybe, possibly, the bag boy at Food Towne was giving her the eye, and for a few short minutes she was feeling almost decent. When she and her 16-year-old buckled themselves into the car, her daughter informed her that Allergy Al had just bagged their groceries.
"He's always winking and sneezing," she said, snorting in disgust. "Isn't that just so gross?"
Diane threw the car into gear and sped out of the parking lot without bothering to lecture her daughter on not calling people names.
"Face it, babe: We're old."
This from Diane's best friend of 20 years, Shirl, who is two years older than she, with many failed relationships and a black Labrador as her loyal companion. They are on Diane's porch on a relentlessly hot August evening.
"Gee, thanks," Diane says. How is it Shirl can spew such terrifying truths like cannonballs, while it is all Diane can manage not to curl up in a ball and cry herself to sleep every night. She figures maybe it's just Shirl's way of coping with aging. Or perhaps Shirl has lived through so much disappointment, what with men never committing to her and never having had a child of her own, that she is better equipped to face reality head on. Or maybe she is just a nut. Never can tell.
"Paul left Samantha," Shirl says, easily jumping from one catastrophe to another. Diane lowers herself onto her porch swing, careful to hold it still, as this is not news to be swaying to.
"Paul?" Diane repeats in disbelief. "And Samantha?"
"Not anymore," Shirl corrects her. "Now it's Paul, period. Samantha, period." She shakes her head in a way that suggests she knew it was coming all along. "Apparently he's been doing some manicurist from Dobsey. Word is she's like 24 or something."
"'Doing?' " Diane echoes. The last time she saw them, they were happy, so in love. Or she had thought. Diane pushs her eyelids together and tries to will the inevitable away, but it is too late. It has already started. Paul and Samantha are merely the first casualties.
"He hit on me once," Shirl says casually, snapping gum. Diane opens her eyes and looks at her.
"He did not."
"Sure did," she insists. "Christmas party '99. Cornered me in the kitchen and stuck his tongue right in my mouth."
Diane stares at her best friend. Shirl lives in this complete other world, where men have tongues and groins and brave hands that travel everywhere. Back in her day, Shirl had engaged in a fling with a married man or two, and Diane can't help but think of this now.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Shirl asks, annoyed. "I pushed him away, Diane, of course I did. Jeez." Shirl shakes her head.
"Well, how come you never told me?" Diane asks suspiciously. Shirl smirks and shakes her head again, yellow curls bouncing about her face.
"I think you know why," Shirl answers, looking Diane in the eyes.
Indeed, Diane knows. She would have judged her friend fiercely, probably assuming it was Shirl's fault somehow. Diane has always been somewhat of a disappointment to Shirl- too naïve and too quick to self-righteously judge everything Shirl ever does. Shirl lived in the fast lane for most of her life and even now at 50, Shirl is blonde, fit, still turning heads, encouraging wandering eyes. Maybe Diane had just been jealous all these years.
Shirl descends the porch steps and heads down the street for her house the next block over while Diane eases her weight forward and then back, allowing the swing to carry her back and forth, inches above the ground.
That night, as her husband lay snoring beside her, she stares at the naked ceiling and thinks of Samantha and Paul. Poor Samantha. Life as she knows it will cease to exist. No longer will there be a husband or a wedding band. No more ties to tie or shirts to iron or dinners to leave in the oven so they stay warm until he gets home late from work. No more answers to give or permission to ask.
Diane sits up.
The snoring beside her ceases, then revs up, a cacophony she barely hears anymore on normal nights. The room is dark with night. Only a sliver of light creeps under the door. Diane can only make out the faint outline of herself in the mirror across the room, but already she imagines her edges are softer.
She breathes for what may be the first time.
©2003 Shawn J. O'Gallagher
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