This time, Lauren’s smile was genuine. “I did hate them.”
Charles had always argued that part of his career depended on pleasing the people he worked with. So Lauren had accepted the role of hostess, even when it hadn’t been what she wanted. She certainly didn’t miss that part of her former life!
“See what I mean?” Alice said. She tilted her head slightly. With her mousy curls framing her face, she suddenly looked cherubic, despite her fifty-something years.
“Maybe.” Lauren shrugged her shoulders. “But that’s just one thing. What about everything else?”
Clare opened her mouth, then closed it to smile at the waiter, returning to check on them. Alice asked for more bread.
“About Charles…” Clare began when the waiter left.
“No, forget about him.” Lauren waved her hands. “He wouldn’t matter so much if I could finish this book. What about not being able to write? That has never happened to me. Never. Not even when Chrissie was a baby, and Jeff was three, and between the two of them, I was up all night and all day. I was exhausted, but I wrote. Nothing memorable, of course, but I wrote. I can’t even do that now.”
The two women exchanged glances. Clare shrugged, and Alice spoke.
“Maybe you’re writing about the wrong thing. When the kids were small, what did you write about?”
“Them. Me. Parenting. Our lives. Stuff like that. Like I said, most of it was pretty bad, but it gave me a routine that I could stick to. Now, I can’t think of a paragraph, a sentence, a word to put down.”
Alice smiled sympathetically. “I understand. But the book you won the award for was about the house, your family, the people and things you love, right?”
“Autobiography of a House? Yes, you could say that.” Lauren narrowed her eyes, realizing where Alice was going. “But my current project, My Mother’s Garden, is about the same sort of thing. Only this time, I just can’t write. So there goes your theory.”
“Maybe you’ve said all you have to say about it,” Alice continued. “Start thinking about something else and maybe you’ll begin to write again.”
“That would be great if it weren’t for a little thing called a contract,” Lauren said.
Alice looked at Clare for help.
“Be inventive. Your editor has agreed to extend the deadline, hasn’t she?” Clare began, then paused as the waiter arrived with the bread and waited for him to leave. “Like I was saying, maybe you can persuade your editor that this other topic—the one you are going to come up with—is really great. Talk to your agent. Talk to Louise. That’s what she’s there for.”
“You make it sound so easy, Clare. It’s not.”
“I never said it was.” Clare’s hands thumped lightly against the tabletop. “I just said you have to think about things differently. It’s a start.”
“Maybe.” Lauren picked up her fork again and pushed it around her plate, shaping the untouched food into a mound. “But here’s the real test. What do I do about the house?”
Alice looked at Lauren’s plate. “Have some bread. It’s whole wheat, the kind you like. Go ahead. Dip it in the yogurt sauce.”
Alice did just that, but Lauren didn’t follow suit. Instead she watched, enjoying Alice’s obvious pleasure in the food, despite her own dark mood.
“Go on, Lauren. Have some.” Clare helped herself to some bread and dipped it in the sauce. “We don’t want you missing out on a good thing. That’s what you said to me the first time you brought me here. Remember?”
Lauren remembered. She and Alice had been rewarding themselves here regularly with good, healthy food after grueling sessions at the fitness class. When they had befriended Clare, a sister in sweat, they had invited her along. But the vegetarian menu didn’t thrill Clare. The first couple of times she’d ordered only salads. She even joked about it: the Green Factory became the Slim Factory and the name stuck for a while.
Then, one day, Clare became adventurous. She tried a tofu burger and liked it. The next time, she moved on to the lentil loaf. After that, it was the olive-roasted bread, millet pilaf and vegetable croustade. Now, she was a jolly green monster, insisting Lauren eat bread. Everyone else worried about carbs, but Clare pushed bread!
Lauren forced herself to eat some in a show of good will. For some reason, it took less effort to get it down than whatever had been on her plate.
“Happy?” She looked at Alice who was leaning back, her hands folded across her stomach. “Aren’t you going to have any more?”
Alice shook her head. “I’ve had too much already. Not that I can stop myself. I’m addicted. I’ve got the hips to show for it.”
She patted them, inviting Lauren to look at the parts of her figure visible behind the table. It was full and ample and curvaceous. Lauren wished she looked half as healthy and a quarter as feminine.
“You don’t have anything to worry about. Besides, I think it’s going to happen, addiction or not. It has something to do with meno… No, what did you call it? Oh, yes. The dawn of a new age. You don’t loose your figure, you just gain a middle.”
Alice wagged her finger. “Careful, Lauren. I’m going to think you agree with me.”
“Help me with my house and I just might.”
Clare became suddenly serious. “Look, as your lawyer, I really think your best option is to sell.”
“I told you—” Lauren began, but closed her mouth when Clare lifted up a dainty index finger.
“Alice and I have been talking about it, and we think, well, there is something you could try.”
“What?” Lauren reached for some water.
“Get a job.”
Lauren almost knocked her glass down. “A job? I have one. It’s called writing.”
“And apparently, it’s not going too well.”
Once again, Lauren opened her mouth to say something; once again, Clare persevered.
“I’m talking about another job, Lauren. One that would get you some cash. And it would have other advantages. It would get you out of the house. It could give you something to write about.” She held up three fingers. “It might even shake your depression.”
Clare dropped her hand, leaned her elbows on the table and moved closer to Lauren. “I’m serious, Lauren. Get a job, and you just might be set for that new life we were talking about.”
“Get a job?” Lauren looked at Alice for help and saw that the battle lines had been drawn earlier, probably before she had arrived at the table. “I wouldn’t know how to do that. The last time I tried was a lifetime ago. And who’s going to want a woman who’s over the hill, anyway?”
“Well, if that’s the way you think, no one!” Alice said, impatience straining her voice for the first time. “Shake out of it, honey. You may not be the only one who’s got problems around here, but you’re the only one who’s determined not to do something about them!”
Lauren was so startled by the uncharacteristic outburst, she stopped listening until Clare pounded her fist against the table.
“You really haven’t been hearing a word we’ve been saying, have you? Well listen to this. It’s all about attitude. Convince yourself and you’ll convince others.”
Chrissie hadn’t needed any convincing. She had been delighted with Clare’s and Alice’s idea and had urged her mother to explore the professional contacts she had developed over the years. Western University, where Lauren had taught