Free About Face by Carole Howard

if it didn’t affect me?”
    David let go of her hand, moved his chair away from the table and crossed his legs. He thought for a minute, then said, “Time to be honest. Okay?”
    She nodded.
    â€œI’ve never understood why you stayed at Mimosa this long. At the beginning, you kept saying you were only doing the whole corporate gig so we could afford to send Josh to any school he wanted.”
    â€œBut I got into it.”
    â€œDon’t get me wrong, I don’t care that you stayed even after Josh’s tuition was saved up, I…”
    â€œI guess it was Dean, he was such a great boss. The freedom, the creativity. It was kind of heady.”
    â€œAnd now…?”
    She pouted, mashing her remaining potato pieces into oblivion, then moving the mush around her plate. Her eyebrows reached for each other, then raised in surprise. Her mouth moved to one side of her face, then returned to center. She bent her nose with the back of her hand.
    David asked, “Who just won that argument? And who was arguing with whom? About what, exactly?”
    â€œCan we really afford to retire?”
    They discussed their finances, thrust-and-parry. Ruth said they were inching toward the magic figure established by their financial planner. David insisted that was just a tool and they could overrule it. They could live on less and sell their wildly-appreciated home. He started to clear the table and said he was just plain tired of working and thought she wasn’t enjoying it much either.
    â€œNot true. I only tell you about the crummy parts because I need to vent. But that’s not all there is to it.” She was glad she hadn’t told him about Jeremy and the charity benefits.
    â€œIsn’t it okay to just have some freedom and some fun?”
    â€œFun? What would I do? I’ve always worked.”
    â€œYou don’t need to have it all planned out before you make this decision. We can just… ”
    Outside, an insistent car horn startled her. They both looked out the window but saw nothing. The horn stopped.
    â€œI do want to talk about this, Ruthie. But I want to talk about what it’s really about. You know it’s not about money … or playing golf with the ladies. What is it?”
    â€œI guess you’re sort of right. I don’t want to play golf and I do worry about money….”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œAnd I hate change.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œWell, there’s something else, too. Something happened at work yesterday.”
    â€œA good something or a bad something?”
    â€œNot so good. But maybe something good will come out of it. I don’t know.”
    â€œI knew there was something bothering you last night. What’s going on?”
    â€œYou have to promise not to use it as a reason I should retire.”
    â€œOkay. I won’t. Really.”
    Ruth told David about Jeremy canceling the benefit program. He, more than anyone, knew the extent of the blow and was appropriately horrified. After just the right amount of proxied self-righteous anger, David said, “I’m trapped. I can’t say what I want to say because I promised I wouldn’t.”
    â€œWait, I haven’t told you the part about ‘Maybe good will come out of it.’”
    â€œAh, right.” He put his elbows on the table, leaned his chin into his palms, and raised his eyebrows.
    She described her recent thoughts about a new product line for older women. It wasn’t just about looking back and accounting for herself, she said. It was also a good offense-is-the-best-defense regarding Jeremy. If it were successful.
    While it was true that she was never entirely comfortable in her corporate skin, she admitted he’d been right about how she liked being good at what she did. And with this, she could be very good at what she did. She talked about values and the demographics of middle-aged women, their increasing dominance in the