Randi was inspecting her. Top to bottom, it felt like. Her neck, her breasts, her varicosed calves. Was she looking for something in particular?
Perhaps Frannie had misunderstood this date? Her breath caught in her throat. Maybe Randi wanted to … what was the expression? Hit on her? She took an uncomfortably large swallow of her just-arrived drink, coughed hard, and was just starting to calculate the distance to the stairs when she pulled herself up short. Oh, stupid. Stupid. If this, this … real, live Venus (“Primavera” spun past her mind’s eye and danced away) … if she actually preferred women, what in God’s name would a Randi want with her? What was she thinking?
Frannie composed herself and faced her friend. (Yes, indeed. Her new friend.) “I’m dying to hear your suggestions.”
If her companion had sensed her confusion, she was ignoring it.
“You know, I don’t mean to embarrass you, Frannie,” she began pleasantly enough, “but I want to reassure you about something. Which is … well, what we talked about this morning really wasn’t anything I haven’t heard before. Hairdressers are like psychiatrists, you know. Only our clients, I like to think, are a whole lot less guarded.”
She grinned at her quip and laid a ringless hand on Frannie’s knee.
But why all this touching? She edged her leg away. The place where she’d touched her felt warm.
“But what did I say? I hardly remember. That I wanted to be young again? Have a decent body again? I mean, sure.” She heard herself laugh – unconvincingly – and hurried on. “Well, what woman my age wouldn’t? Lord, as long as we’re at it, I guess there isn’t anyone who would mind being beautiful, either, if they had a choice.”
Randi seemed not to be paying attention again. Actually, she was eyeing the bar girl ferrying drinks and cigarettes. Frannie smoothed her jacket lapels nervously. She hadn’t misread this, after all.
Still, she was grateful not to be looked at. It allowed her to go on.
“But okay, if I had it to do over again, what I’d really like would be to find – what are they calling it now? – my soul mate.” But now, feeling shy, she spun on her stool until she was facing the indifferent room. She wasn’t even sure Randi could hear her, but didn’t care. “You know. That man I’ve always known was out there somewhere for me, even though I’m married, even though I’m sixty-six years old. I mean, you never know, right? Maybe he’s still out there. Waiting for me right now. Still.”
‘Though you know what else?” she went on, a little elated by her admission and swiveling happily back now to fully face this splendid, useful, new friend, this successful franchise-owner, who was finally paying attention, who was leaning in closer, smiling expectantly, “I think women like me blame themselves when they discover they haven’t married Mr. Right. I think they think they’ve done something wrong. But well, really, I’d like to know. Are there actually soul mates? I’d like to know that, wouldn’t you? Is there one perfect man for each of us, do you think? I don’t. Probably.” Frannie peered into her perplexingly empty glass. “And hey,” she chuckled, feeling clever suddenly, “I’m not even sure that men have souls!”
Randi didn’t smile.
Oops, Frannie thought. Not clever. Her own out-loud musings thrilled her nonetheless. Surprised her, actually.
“Except that after all these years,” she went on, “I know I’d make a better choice. So let’s not call him a soul mate. Okay? Let’s just say he’s the perfect man for the woman I’ve always been inside. That’s the man I’d like to meet. Wouldn’t you?”
She glanced at the ringless hands.
Randi barely blinked, her lashes dusted rosy cheeks. She didn’t move and didn’t reply.
Pleased with herself, with her summation, plus the buzz of that tall, spicy drink, she made up her mind that she just wouldn’t care. This was bar talk, anyway. And it had been so long since she’d sat at a bar.
“And I suppose it’ll sound naïve to you,” she was swiveling right and left on the seat now, “but in my heart, I believe he’s out there still. I married so young. I was barely twenty, and my husband was the first man I’d even considered marrying. So you might say I never ‘shopped’.”
She giggled, and Randi came to life, offering a high-pitched, rock- concert whoooo.
Unaccountably, Frannie felt elated, too. And a little scared. One drink?
Encouraged however, she burbled on.
“Maybe that was my problem, do you think? I ‘bought’ the first boy I thought I loved? And all right, I’ll admit I’m sorry about that sometimes now. I am. But more than all that, Randi,” – the alcohol appeared to be mixing with the unfamiliar warmth of being … understood – “more than some made-in-heaven match, I’ve missed having had a child. I told you that this morning, I know.”
And right then, right out of the blue, Frannie decided that she simply loved this perfect person sitting here, this beauty queen, who seemed to be listening so non-judgmentally, so compassionately. Was this what therapists did?
Leaning in, so that she almost touched the gingery hair, she dropped her confession into the well of noise.
“I couldn’t, you know. I wasn’t able to. And my husband. Stanley? He never forgave me.’
She sat up straight on the bar stool.
“So that’s it. That’s my story. I’m just going to get older and die without, you know, without ever having been loved.”
It had come out of her so off-handedly.
But then, without the slightest warning, this hollow ball of pain blew open in her chest and seemed to be swelling and swelling into a great balloon that was growing so large that it finally burst. And when it did, it scalded her eyes and her heart, so that in the blurry reflection behind the bar, Frannie could see the thing she dreaded most: a crying, self-pitying, useless, housewife.
Was she drunk?
But wait, wait, said some inner voice: a voice with a drink in its hand.
Wait!
A housewife with gorgeous hair!
Oh yes, she was drunk.
“You know, you’ve pretty much told me all that,” Randi said gently, sliding the tip of one pointy red shoe under the barstool’s bottom rung and, as Frannie had, swiveling back and forth, back and forth. “And you know, because we’re friends – and I’d like you to think of me as a friend –”
“Oh I do. I do!” Frannie dabbed away her tears.
“– I just have to ask. And I don’t want to offend you, because I am your friend, even though we only met today,” Randi said, “but listen. Why didn’t you just divorce your husband years ago, when you were younger and could look for someone else?”
In for a penny, Frannie thought.
She gulped her new drink (when had that arrived?), which made her cough once more. By the time the coughing ceased, she had just about gathered her thoughts.
”You know, it’s not that I didn’t think about it, Randi. Often, over the years. But I didn’t divorce Stanley for a lot of reasons, some of them kind of embarrassing, I suppose. And it’s going to sound funny, I know, but well … okay.
“I felt sorry for him, first of all. I mean, we’re not close anymore, and he hasn’t always been kind to me, or considerate. Or a friend, even. But I’ve always imagined he needed me in some way. And then, even more, I guess, well, I guess – to tell you the truth – I didn’t want to lose the security. That’s the embarrassing part. Because