The Fortieth Birthday Body Page 3

  “At least I have a new dress to wear to your party,” Kathleen stated, leaning forward to peer through the windshield of her Subaru sports coupe.

  “Three of them,” Susan corrected. “And new slacks, a new skirt and two new sweaters. I, on the other hand, have three pairs of beige stockings and a headache.”

  “I think I’ll get a lot of use out of that black skirt,” Kathleen stated, beginning to justify spending so much money.

  “Yes. And I love the length.”

  “Not too short? Damn.” She pulled hard on the steering wheel. “Did you see that? That car almost plowed right into us. I wish people who can’t drive in snow would stay off … Oh no. Hang on.”

  Susan felt the car swerve, heard the wrenching jangle of metal meeting metal, and closed her eyes. When she opened them, she could see through the snow enough to realize that Kathleen’s car had just become one with a Jeep. “I thought they were supposed to be able to maneuver so well on slick roads,” she commented, referring to the Jeep.

  “Not unless someone is steering them. That Jeep is parked.”

  “It’s going to be hard to say it was the other driver’s fault.”

  “I’ll tell you whose fault it was. It was the maniac driving that beige Cadillac that swerved out in front of me. If I hadn’t had to dodge that car, I wouldn’t have lost control and skidded into this one. If I ever meet that driver, I’ll kill him.” Kathleen slammed her hand into her steering wheel in frustration.

  “I think you’re going to get your chance right now. Look.” Susan pointed. The Cadillac was backing slowly, carefully toward them. Skidding slightly, it came to a stop and, flashers blinking, the door opened.

  “Are you all right? I saw what happened and I just had to stop. Why did you serve like that? Shall I find a phone and call an ambulance?” An elderly lady, wearing a down coat that resembled a large sleeping bag with an unlikely flowered hat perched crookedly over slightly blue hair, stepped out of the car and walked toward them.

  “No. We’re fine,” Kathleen said. “Thank you for stopping, though.”

  “Now you’re sure about that? I can just hop over to one of those houses there and have the owner call the police if you would like me to.”

  “We really are okay,” Susan insisted, craning her neck to peer out Kathleen’s window at their good Samaritan.

  “How did you ever get into a skid like that?”

  “We were dodging you,” Kathleen stated.

  “Now, now, dearie, blaming someone else won’t help.” And with that thought, she returned to her car and drove off.

  “Did you get her license plate?” Susan asked.

  “No need. I’ll just file a report that I skidded to my insurance company. They’ll be getting a whole slew of minor fender bender reports on a day like this. My worry is the owner of the Jeep. I guess I’ll have to leave a note on his windshield and give him my name and address and phone number and he’ll get in touch with me.”

  “So what’s the matter with that?”

  “How would you feel if you came back to your car assuming it was fine and discovered its side was smashed in?”

  “Yeah. I know what you mean, but I don’t think it’s going to be a problem.”

  “Do you know some way to find the owner?”

  “I think he’s found you.”

  VII

  “But he didn’t make a big stink, did he?”

  “Well, he was pretty unhappy at first,” Susan replied, pushing a small bubble up the faucet with her big toe. “Poor guy. You see, the Jeep was brand-new. And he had borrowed it from a friend or something. So while everyone else was going ‘not another storm,’ he was thrilled to death at the chance to try out its four-wheel drive traction. So here he comes ready to leap into this macho new black Jeep and head for the hills, or his home, or something, and the whole side is smashed in.”

  “How badly?”

  “Well, Kathleen’s right fender hit the left side of the Jeep: The whole driver’s side was dented in pretty badly. In fact, he couldn’t open the door. He had to crawl in over the passenger’s seat.”

  “Well, I can see how that would make him mad.”

  “I think he was madder when he thought I’d been driving than when he saw Kathleen. Once he got a look at her he calmed down a lot—a whole lot. I wonder what it would be like to be so attractive that all men fall in love with you a little?”

  “I think what you’re talking about is all men falling in lust with you, and I’m not sure it’s a situation that a man wants his wife to be in,” Jed said, reaching down into the bubble bath that surrounded her.

  “I told the kids you would make them some of your famous sloppy joes,” Susan told him.

  “That’s a hint.”

  “I guess so. It’s been a long day and I have some thinking to do.” She smiled up at him from her tubful of bubble bath.

  “Okay.” He stood up and, grabbing a bright green towel, dried off his hand. “How about you?”

  “About me?”

  “Dinner. I thought the kids and I were the only ones who savored my gourmet sloppy joes.”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’m not getting out of here until I turn into a prune, and then I’ll stick a Lean Cuisine into the microwave.”

  “Okay. Don’t fall asleep and drown. You look a little tired.”

  Her smile became a frown as the door closed behind him. Not only weren’t strange men falling in love with her, but her own husband’s only comment on her looks was that she’d been getting too little sleep. She sighed and reached for the faucet: The water was getting a little cold.

  Returning to her previous position under the scented bubbles, Susan relaxed. Getting Kathleen’s car separated from the Jeep hadn’t been all that easy. With the owner of the Jeep and herself pushing, it had taken a few minutes of working muscles ignored in her aerobics classes to accomplish the task. Then Susan had fallen on the ice and, for one horrible moment, had thought that one of the cars was going to roll across her. She picked up a thick terry washcloth, wet it, and placed it across her face. Maybe it would have been better if it had, she thought, remembering what she had been trying to forget all day. Of all the things she needed with her fortieth birthday coming, a visit from Dawn Elliot wasn’t one.

  When her husband came back into the room a few minutes later, a glass of chablis for her in his hand, he found that she was still in the tub. Crying.

  FORTY

  I

  “You stay right there and get some extra sleep. The kids’ll bring up your breakfast.” Jed crossed the bedroom to the door. “Now don’t get up. Chrissy and Chad have been planning this all week,” he ordered, leaving the room and slamming the door behind him. “Oh, by the way,” he called back into the room. “Happy birthday.”

  Oh shit: her party tonight. She’d been trying to forget. Susan rolled on her back, pulling the sheet and quilt up over her naked shoulders. But that wasn’t enough; if the kids were coming up she’d better put on her nightgown. She felt around under the covers with her toes. It must be here somewhere.…

  After searching through the sheets and pillows and even getting up to look under the bed, she gave up and pulled a different nightgown from the dresser. She had just yanked it over her head and gotten back into bed when the door opened and Chrissy entered, a very full tray shaking in her hands.

  “Happy birthday. You don’t look forty, you know,” the child stated, placing the tray, tilted, down on the bed.

  “Thank you,” Susan replied, knowing that her daughter was doing her best to console her. “That looks wonderful,” she continued, surveying the food. And it did: fresh strawberries in a bowl set next to a cup of sugar and a tiny pitcher of cream, crisp slices of bacon on a plate accompanying a mushroom omelet, coffee, and a tall red rose. A big breakfast eater when she wasn’t dieting, Susan enjoyed the prospect of this meal. But not on her, she thought, grabbing the tray before it dumped everything across her thighs.

  “Mommy,
Mommy. Look at this. I found the RC car Daddy is making me right here in this magazine and they painted it blue and yellow. Do you think we can paint mine like it?”

  “Chad, be careful,” Susan ordered, taking the magazine thrust at her with a sigh.

  “You didn’t even wish Mommy a happy birthday, Chad. Think how she must feel today—she’s forty, you know.”

  “I know. But I want to know about …” He would have gone on but his sister interrupted.

  “Chad!” she cried.

  “I wasn’t going to say anything about Mommy’s birthday, Chrissy. I just came in to show her this magazine. You’re the only one saying anything about her birthday!” he protested indignantly.

  “And I’m looking at it, Chad. Now show me again which car your father’s building you,” Susan suggested, scanning a page containing photographs of more than two dozen small spiderlike vehicles with oversized spiked wheels.

  “Can’t you remember anything? I keep telling you …”

  “I know, Chad, but they do all look alike to me.”

  “Why don’t you let your mom drink her coffee and eat breakfast, Chad? Then she’ll be able to concentrate on what you want to show her,” Jed suggested, coming back into the room.

  “Oh, okay. Hey, did I show you this?” he asked his father, leaping off the bed, magazine in hand.

  Susan smiled at her son and husband bent over the page of cars together.

  “How they can spend so much time on those things is beyond me,” Chrissy commented in a very grown-up voice.

  “Any plans for today?” her mother asked, ignoring the last remark. She knew Chrissy would have been prepped by her father about how they were going to fill the time before the party. The kids had been granted an extra holiday at school, by parental permission, but Susan didn’t know what plans they had made for the day. Kathleen had refused to reveal all and Susan didn’t even know how her family had planned to carry off the surprise party.

  “Well, first you have to finish your breakfast,” was the reply, as Chrissy reached out and took a strawberry off her mother’s tray. “Do you know how many calories there are in a strawberry?”

  “Not many, I’m sure,” Susan replied, her mouth full of omelet.

  “Well,” Chrissy returned to the question, “we’ve really got a great day planned. After you finish your breakfast, we’re all going to put on lots of warm clothes and then we’re going to …”

  “The beach!” Susan guessed.

  “How did you know?”

  Susan exchanged smiles with her husband over the heads of their children. Jed knew that, in all her life, his wife had never turned down an offer of a walk on the beach. Susan glanced out the window at the blue sky.

  “It’s going to be cold,” Jed reminded her.

  “So what? Let me hurry and finish this so we can leave. Any particular beach in mind?”

  “Wherever you want to go,” he answered magnanimously.

  “As long as we can get back in time for …”

  “In time for the special dinner I’ve planned,” Jed interrupted his son.

  “Oh. Yes.” Chad looked knowingly at his father.

  “Well, why doesn’t everyone get into their clothes and I’ll get up and we can get going?”

  “It’s impossible to keep her away from the shore,” Jed reminded his children. “You two hurry. We’ll leave in half an hour.”

  II

  “This is going to be great in the fireplace,” Susan enthused, pulling dozens of sandy branches of driftwood from the trunk of the Mercedes. “We should do this in the fall instead of March.”

  “We bought a cord of hardwood in the fall and we haven’t burned even half of that yet,” Jed reminded her, taking an armful of wood from her and handing it over to Chrissy. “Help your mother with that load,” he told his son.

  “Wow! It looks like we brought most of the beach back with us,” the child said, looking into the carpeted trunk.

  Susan grimaced at her husband. He really didn’t like a messy car. “Why don’t we drive into the garage and I’ll bring the shop vac up from the basement, just as soon as we pile this wood out on the patio?”

  “No need for that now. I’ll have plenty of time tomorrow. But does this have to go on the patio, Sue? Someone will be tripping over it every few minutes.”

  “Let’s just stick it out back with the rest of the firewood, if you think that’s a better idea,” Susan agreed.

  “The best idea is to worry about it tomorrow. Just pile it all up neatly by the stone wall there, kids. Then we can all go inside, take showers, and dress for dinner.”

  “We’re going out?” Susan was surprised, wondering just when her party was scheduled to begin.

  “Yes. And I’m not going to tell you where, so don’t ask. Just get ready and be sure to put on your best dress.”

  “Are the kids coming?”

  “They are not. They’ve already celebrated with you. Now it’s our turn.”

  “You mean falling into a freezing ocean is Chad’s way of celebrating?” his wife teased, reaching into the back of the trunk to clean out the last few small chinks of wood.

  “It’s better than talking about cars, isn’t it?”

  “Anything is better than that!”

  “Anything is better than what?” asked Chad, coming around the corner, brushing the sand from his still wet jeans.

  “Than dying of pneumonia. I’ve been having such a good time that I haven’t been paying any attention to you. Now go upstairs and get right into a hot—and I mean hot—bathtub.”

  “I’ll come inside with you, Chad,” his father offered.

  “I liked it better when you were having such a good time,” he muttered, following his father.

  III

  “So where are you taking me?” Susan asked, stretching her legs out before her and resting her head on the backrest.

  “It’s a surprise.” He reached out and put his hand over hers. “You smell good.”

  “It’s new. Mom sent a monster bottle of White Linen bubble bath, powder, and cologne for my birthday. I think maybe I overdid it, though. Is it too strong?”

  “Would I have told you how good you smell if you’d used too much? Besides, if you can’t be extravagant on your fortieth birthday, when can you?”

  “I think I’m supposed to start cutting down—less White Linen and more violet toilet water—as I get older.”

  “Don’t even consider it. You’re going to become a fascinating forty. I’m thinking about developing a passion for older women.”

  “Good thing,” his wife responded, trying to keep her voice as casual and bantering as his.

  “Sure. You’ll probably become sultry and sleek and seductive in your old age.”

  “Not with my thighs.” Keeping her response casual was getting to be an effort.

  “Damn!”

  “Did you forget something?” she asked.

  Jed was tugging at his suit jacket and running his free hand through the various pockets in his pants.

  “I sure did. Directions to this place. Did you see my leather appointment book around the house? I know I had it this morning.”

  “Yes. It was by the sink in the bathroom. I noticed it while I was putting on my makeup. I wondered what it was doing there.”

  “I must have taken it out of the other shirt when I was changing. Damn it.”

  “Do you need it right now?”

  “Yes. The directions to the inn we’re going to are in it. And I can’t get there without them. We’ll have to turn around and go back. Luckily, I left plenty of time to get there. We won’t be very late.”

  “Can’t we just call them on the phone—there must be a pay phone around here—and ask the way? Surely we don’t have to go all the way back home?” she asked, a feeling of dread beginning.

  “No. I had my new American Express card in there too. We really do have to go back. I’m sorry, honey.” He patted her hand.

  “No problem. It
’s a nice night for a drive,” Susan replied, thinking furiously. She had assumed that her party was going to be at this inn Jed had been taking her to, but he certainly wouldn’t plan a party in a place he couldn’t find. It looked like the party was going to be at her home. Oh no! Just how much of a mess had she left the house in? She was fairly sure that the living room, den, and dining room hadn’t been vacuumed in a week. And the kitchen—just what did her kitchen look like when she hadn’t entered it since her family had cooked breakfast for her this morning? To make matters worse, the family’s quick change after their day at the beach had left each of the three bathrooms a disaster area: shampoo dripping off counters, bathtubs unwashed, and, certainly, towels on the floors and draped across shower curtain rails. Great. For her fortieth birthday, she was going to be revealed to friends and neighbors as a slob. This decade was really starting out swell.

  IV

  “You knew, didn’t you?”

  “Just because I knew, doesn’t mean I don’t love it. Oh, Jed, it’s the best party I’ve ever gone to.”

  “Not a bad compliment. It’s only the second one I’ve given. The first was in my college dorm the day that I found out that I wasn’t going to be drafted. All I did for that was order a keg of beer and a few pepperoni pizzas.”

  “You did more than that this time,” Susan answered, looking around at vases of spring flowers, glowing candles, bright balloons hung in corners of all the rooms, and helium Mylar balloons climbing the stairway to the second floor. And the food! All her favorites laid out on the dining room table: piles of seafood and other goodies.

  “I just called in the caterers and paid the bill: same principle as the first time. Only this time Joe’s Bar and Grill isn’t doing the catering.”

  “More champagne, madam?” A waiter appeared at her elbow.

  “Yes,” Jed answered for her, “she would love more champagne.”

  “He’s right, I would,” she assured the young man.

  He smiled and fulfilled her request.

  “How do they find such good-looking kids to wait at these things?” she whispered to her husband.