Free My Favorite Midlife Crisis by Toby Devens Page A

stunning, elegant. She’s a veritable Grace Kelly.”
    “Who has been dead for over twenty years,” I said.
    “Who’s Grace Kelly?” Tracy asked.
    Fleur and I shook our heads simultaneously and grimaced with the pain of it.
    Tracy said, “So you know that Mrs. Greenfield is upstairs being waxed, right?”
    Our Mrs. Greenfield? Kat? Who back in college had grown her underarm hair long enough to be braided? Who’d refused to shave her legs as a protest against the war in Vietnam and as a gesture of solidarity with oppressed peoples everywhere? That Kat?
    “Room four,” Tracy said. “Bikini wax with Grushinka.”
    Now, I have had a few bikini waxes in my time. A bikini wax rips stray pubic hair off the margins of the pubis and the upper thigh where bathing suit meets cellulite. It is a procedure Torquemada could be proud of, and personally I would rather go through an unmedicated root canal than submit myself to such medieval torture. But Kat laying her body on the altar of smoothness, a willing sacrifice for a bikini wax, now that was a phenomenon that demanded our attention.
    Like teenagers, we abandoned Tracy’s table—my right hand was unpolished, Fleur’s nails were still tacky—rushed the stairs, and broke into the massage room.
    We scared the hell out of Grushinka, preparing the waxing strips. Kat, stretched out on a massage table, just blinked at us and sighed. “I was expecting you.”
    “Look,” she said after we ragged her about the waxing, “I’m trying to open my mind to new experiences. And it’s not as if I’m going from hair to bare in one fell swoop. My legs haven’t been shaggy for years. I started shaving the day Nixon resigned over Watergate, remember? To celebrate Amerika’s emancipation from that lying bastard.”
    Dear Kat of days gone by, for whom every cosmetic renovation had been a political statement.
    “Besides, we’re going to the beach tomorrow and I didn’t want to frighten the fish. And Lee was talking about doing a piece called ‘Katrina All at Sea’.”
    “Well, he’s not working in marble,” Fleur said. “I mean, if you’re made out of forks, it’s okay if you’re a little bristly, right?”
    “You really like this guy,” I said. “Going away with him after knowing him only a few weeks.”
    “We’re staying at his sister’s. In separate rooms.”
    “You can have the house in Rehoboth,” I offered. “Drew’s using it next weekend, but this weekend it’s empty. It’s big enough so you could have separate wings.”
    “Thanks, but I want the sister around. Guaranteed celibacy. No hanky-panky. I won’t let myself get too involved so that when he takes off, I’ll be cool with it.”
    “Takes off. That’s ridiculous,” I said.
    “There’s an eleven-year difference between us. And his last girlfriend was twenty-nine.”
    “And that’s a fourteen-year difference. Which obviously didn’t bother any of the parties involved.”
    “It’s not logical, I know. It’s not fair. Double standard. Sexist. Old men play. Old ladies lose. But that’s the way it is. So, I’m determined to have my fling, but with no expectations except to enjoy it while it lasts.” Kat turned her face towards the wall.
    “Kat, for godssakes, you’re not in a nursing home.” I worked to swallow a lump in my throat. All this talk of age made me queasy. Until lately, I’d never in my life had a problem attracting men. Even after splitting with Stan, I’d managed five or six dates and not one of them mentioned my age. But last night, Jeff Feldmacher had been set to shtupp me figuring I would be grateful for this act of carnal charity and today Kat, who had always exhibited a radical’s disdain for the superficiality of physical appearance, was having the hair torn from her thighs to hold on to love. Maybe we were all in more trouble than I’d thought.
    The Russian lady bent toward Fleur. “You have little mustache on upper lip. I could take care of in five minutes,”