Lisa says, “Two weeks ago you told us you and Roy went to a hotel room and messed around like crazy and you loved it.”
“That was two weeks ago,” Sheila says. “And yes, we did fuck our brains out, and yes, I did love it, but it was shallow. It didn’t mean anything.”
“Does it always have to mean something?” Tasha asks.
“It can be meaningful to fuck your brains out. The sex was great. But it happened two weeks ago. I should dump Roy, but I don’t want to until there’s someone else in the picture to take his place. Jesus, listen to me. I’m getting too old for this. I need to marry someone.”
“That’s cruel,” Amelia says.
“Getting married?”
“What you said about Roy.”
“I know, but that’s me. That’s who I am. I don’t like being alone.”
None of us do, I think.
“The problem is,” Sheila continues, “finding a new man.”
“There are men everywhere,” Cara says.
“But the majority of them aren’t ones you want to jump in bed with,” Sheila counters. She nods toward the bar. “Like that man there. He has a nice profile. He has a nice build; I like the way he wears his suit. I like the tint of gray in his hair; it gives him style in a Richard Gere-sort of way. Look at the way he stands: He looks confident, and he looks like he’d be a good fuck.”
“How can you know that from one look?” Lisa asks.
“I don’t know, but I’m usually right. I’m not the type of person who finds men in bars, even a nice place like this, but I’ve had my eye on him for the last five minutes. If I had another drink in me, I might go over there and talk to him.”
A blonde in a dark, low-cut evening dress comes up to the man Sheila is talking about. We’re all watching. The blonde kisses him, they laugh at something.
“He’s taken,” Cara says.
“Yes,” Sheila says. “And don’t they seem comfortable with each other, as if they’ve been together for a long time?”
“They’re probably married,” Amelia says.
“I don’t think so. He has a wedding band, but she doesn’t.”
“Observant,” Tasha says.
“You think he’s cheating on his wife?” Amelia asks.
“He could be separated from his wife,” Cara says.
“Then why would he wear the ring?” Sheila says.
“Well, even if he is cheating on his wife,” Amelia says, “why would he be wearing the ring?”
“Maybe she knows,” Lisa says, “and doesn’t care. Some women like to be with married men. There’s a certain thrill attached to doing it with someone who’s taken. Also, it’s safe. No ties. Just sex.”
“That’s what worries me about getting married,” Sheila says. “I don’t think I could be faithful forever. Sooner or later, I’m going to meet someone. Maybe just a one-shot deal. But sooner or later I’m going to sleep with someone behind his back. What a dreadful thing to admit to yourself,” she adds.
“Or you could have a threesome maybe,” Amelia says. “Then there are no secrets, it’s out in the open.”
“The age of swingers is over,” Cara says. “I think it was over before we were even born.”
“It died in the early eighties, really,” says Sheila. “You can’t do that sort of thing anymore.”
I think of Veronica.
“Very few people are faithful anymore,” notes Lisa, dipping a finger into her wine glass, then sucking on it. “Take my father, for example. He was always having affairs.”
“And you knew?” Amelia says. “Did your mother know?”
“She knew. The family knew.”
“Did they get a divorce?” from Tasha.
“No. They’re still together.”
Cara says, “Your mother knew he was having affairs, but she stayed with him?”
“She loved him. Still loves him.”
“That’s love?”
“Yes — you don’t understand,” Lisa says, sounding frustrated. “Just because my father did that didn’t mean he’d fallen out of love with my mother. Things are better now. He’s not chasing women anymore; at least I don’t think he is. There was a time when I thought they would divorce. There was a lot of turmoil. My parents were fighting, and sometimes physically, not just with words. There was a time I thought I would go crazy. Maybe I was crazy.
“I was eighteen. We’ve all been through those confusing years, the mid- and late teens, where you don’t know what’s going on, you don’t know what the world is. You think the world is going to come down on you and sometimes it does. I was drinking a lot then. My father was — is — a drinker, and there was a well-stocked bar in the house. I guess I was drinking too much, too. Alcohol was such an easy and good way out. I called it The Warmth. I loved the way it first hit you, got into your blood stream, went to your head, numbed you all over. I don’t drink like that anymore — I keep to wine — but then I was into the hard stuff, gin and bourbon, anything strong that could get me bombed, and bring me The Warmth. I had that romantic notion about alcohol and writing. I was only writing poetry back then, and like most young women writing poetry, my idols were Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton.
“When I look back on that period, I try to find the point when I told myself things had to change, that I had to stop drinking so much. I think the pivotal moment — and as a writer I guess I’m always looking for pivotal moments — is the night my parents really started to fight and I ran away, not really ran away from home, but ran away from the fight, ran away from it all, because I knew that if I stayed there I would lose my mind completely. I was napping in my room, and I heard them yelling at each other, the same sort of stuff, but with an edge — it was worse this time. I’d been drinking. I jumped up from my nap, hearing my parents yelling at each other from the other room. ‘I know,’ I heard my mother say, ‘I know for a fact that this time, this time—’ and I heard my father say, ‘You don’t know anything.’ His voice was calm. ‘You’re letting your imagination get to you, your insecurities—’ he said, and then my mother screamed, ‘Goddamn you, I know!’ and I heard glass breaking, and then the sound of flesh on flesh — but who hit who? — and there it was again, my mother screaming, my father grunting, and again I heard the sound of glass breaking.
“I ran out of my room and saw my parents on the floor, as if they were wrestling, my mother’s lip bleeding, my father’s face scratched, and I saw my father raise his hand and hit my mother. He said, ‘You bitch, you bitch.’ I thought this was a nightmare. I couldn’t believe they were being violent with one another. I shrieked and slammed my fist against the wall. My parents stopped and looked at me, with my hand bloody and swollen. My father looked embarrassed and quickly moved away from my mother. I could tell he was drunk, and so was my mother. I was shaking. I thought I was going to combust, just blow up, get rid of the hellish thing I called my life.
“‘Go back to your room, honey,’ my mother said. My father wouldn’t look at me; he straightened his hair and said for me to do as my mother said. I screamed, ‘I can’t take this bullshit anymore!’ and walked out of the house. Well, I ran. My mother yelled ‘Wait, wait! Lisa!’ but I ran to my car. I had this little Honda Civic at the time; I got in, slammed the door. The keys were in it, I always kept the keys in it. I know that was a dumb thing to do, but I did a lot of dumb things back then. I started my car and drove away.”
Amelia says, “Sometimes you just have to do that, you have to get into your car and drive away. I’ve done that.”
“I didn’t know where I was going,” Lisa says. “I wound up driving to the beach. I parked the car. I went walking in the sand. It was windy — too much wind — my hair was tangled all over my face. A guy in a VW was yelling at me from the parking lot. ‘Hey!’ he was saying. ‘Hey!’ I ignored him. ‘Hey, sexy!’ he called to me. I went back to my car. I looked in the glove compartment and found part of a joint. I lit it. It wasn’t good pot, but I never liked pot that much anyway. Eva, my best friend at the time, had left it in there. I found some change in the glove compartment and knew I had to call Eva. I got out, went to a phone booth on the boardwalk, and called her. I heard loud music in the background, lots of guitars.