She thought of texting a photo of her tomato-red face to her group of
school friends, some of whom she’d known since kindergarten. Now when
they went out to dinner they discussed menopause symptoms with the same
avid horror with which they’d once discussed their first periods. Nobody
else was getting these over-the-top hot flushes like Frances, so she was
taking it for the team. Like everything in life, their reactions to menopause
were driven by their personalities: Di said she was in a permanent state of
rage and if her gynecologist didn’t agree to a hysterectomy soon she was
going to grab the littler fucker by the collar and slam him up against the
wall, Monica was embracing the “beautiful intensity” of her emotions, and
Natalie was wondering anxiously if it was contributing to her anxiety. They
all agreed it was totally typical of their friend Gillian to die so she could get
out of menopause and then they cried into their Prosecco.
No, she wouldn’t text her school friends, because she suddenly
remembered how at that last dinner she’d looked up from her menu to
catch an exchange of glances that most definitely meant: “Poor Frances.”
She could not bear pity. That particular group of solidly married friends
was meant to envy her, or they’d pretended to envy her anyway, for all
these years, but it seemed that being childless and single in your thirties
was very different from being childless and single in your fifties. No longer
glamorous. Now kind of tragic.
I’m only temporarily tragic, she told herself as she pulled on a clean
blouse that showed a lot of cleavage. She tossed the sweaty shirt onto the
back seat, restarted the car, looked over her shoulder, and pulled out onto
the highway. Temporarily Tragic. It could be the name of a band.
There was a sign. She squinted. Tranquillum House, it said.
“Left turn ahead,” said her GPS.
“Yes, I know, I see it.”
She met her own eyes in the rearview mirror and tried to give herself a
wry “isn’t life interesting!” look.
Frances had always enjoyed the idea of parallel universes in which
multiple versions of herself tried out different lives—one where she was a
CEO instead of an author; one where she was a mother of two or four or six
kids instead of none; one where she hadn’t divorced Sol and one where she
hadn’t divorced Henry—but for the most part she’d always felt satisfied or
at least accepting of the universe in which she found herself … except for
right now, because right now it felt like there had been some sort of
cataclysmic quantum-physics administrative error. She’d slipped universes.
She was meant to be high on lust and love in America, not pain-ridden and
grief-stricken in Australia. It was just wrong. Unacceptable.
school friends, some of whom she’d known since kindergarten. Now when
they went out to dinner they discussed menopause symptoms with the same
avid horror with which they’d once discussed their first periods. Nobody
else was getting these over-the-top hot flushes like Frances, so she was
taking it for the team. Like everything in life, their reactions to menopause
were driven by their personalities: Di said she was in a permanent state of
rage and if her gynecologist didn’t agree to a hysterectomy soon she was
going to grab the littler fucker by the collar and slam him up against the
wall, Monica was embracing the “beautiful intensity” of her emotions, and
Natalie was wondering anxiously if it was contributing to her anxiety. They
all agreed it was totally typical of their friend Gillian to die so she could get
out of menopause and then they cried into their Prosecco.
No, she wouldn’t text her school friends, because she suddenly
remembered how at that last dinner she’d looked up from her menu to
catch an exchange of glances that most definitely meant: “Poor Frances.”
She could not bear pity. That particular group of solidly married friends
was meant to envy her, or they’d pretended to envy her anyway, for all
these years, but it seemed that being childless and single in your thirties
was very different from being childless and single in your fifties. No longer
glamorous. Now kind of tragic.
I’m only temporarily tragic, she told herself as she pulled on a clean
blouse that showed a lot of cleavage. She tossed the sweaty shirt onto the
back seat, restarted the car, looked over her shoulder, and pulled out onto
the highway. Temporarily Tragic. It could be the name of a band.
There was a sign. She squinted. Tranquillum House, it said.
“Left turn ahead,” said her GPS.
“Yes, I know, I see it.”
She met her own eyes in the rearview mirror and tried to give herself a
wry “isn’t life interesting!” look.
Frances had always enjoyed the idea of parallel universes in which
multiple versions of herself tried out different lives—one where she was a
CEO instead of an author; one where she was a mother of two or four or six
kids instead of none; one where she hadn’t divorced Sol and one where she
hadn’t divorced Henry—but for the most part she’d always felt satisfied or
at least accepting of the universe in which she found herself … except for
right now, because right now it felt like there had been some sort of
cataclysmic quantum-physics administrative error. She’d slipped universes.
She was meant to be high on lust and love in America, not pain-ridden and
grief-stricken in Australia. It was just wrong. Unacceptable.
