Free Fate and Ms. Fortune by Saralee Rosenberg

he tells me they’re in love.”
    “Oh my God. It’s blowing my mind that I didn’t know any of this…”
    “You weren’t the only one. I never told your father either. It all happened before I met him. I figured what the hell business was it of his?”
    “Are you serious? Wouldn’t you have wanted to know if he was previously engaged?”
    “Get real, darling. Who else would have married him but me? He was plenty green in the bedroom, if you know what I mean. One Trick Harvey I called him…”
    “Oooh. Oooh. Oooh.” I covered my eyes as if avoiding seeing the scene of an accident. “May I remind you we’re talking about my father here?”
    “Sor-ree, darling. We’re just old married women talking, that’s all.”
    “But what was the big deal if Daddy knew? It’s not like broken engagements were a sin.”
    “You didn’t know my mother. She got herself all worked up that the rabbi wouldn’t marry us and I’d end up an old maid like my cousin Ruthie. Although ask anyone. I was a hell of a lot prettier than her. I don’t care how many hats my uncle Mort bought to cover her face.”
    “Okay, but other people had to know you were engaged. Aunt Marilyn, your friends…”
    “Sure they knew. They swore not to tell.”
    “You’re making this up. Aunt Marilyn couldn’t keep a secret if you paid her in shoes.”
    “It’s the God’s honest truth.”
    “So you want me to believe the subject of old boyfriends never came up?”
    “Oh, it came up. I just kept my mouth shut.”
    “Okay, now that I don’t believe.”
    “What can I say? Times were different…Sometimes I watch that Judge Judy and I think, What the hell is wrong with people, telling the whole world where they have tattoos, and how they made love in an airplane lavatory…Do I need to hear this? Anyway, by the time your father and I got engaged, I wasn’t exactly a spring chicken.”
    “How old was old?”
    “Twenty-six.”
    “Jeez.”
    “Your father thought I was twenty-two…”
    “You sound like a used car. Turn back the odometer or you won’t get a second look.”
    “Exactly. In those days, a man wanted right out of the showroom, if you catch my drift.”
    “So wait. That would make you…sixty-six, not sixty-four?”
    “Give or take.” She coughed. “But what does it matter? You’re as young as you feel, and people tell me all the time, Sheila, what’s your secret? You don’t look a day over sixty.”
    It was true. She didn’t look her age, but now she wasn’t acting it either, which was hard to fathom. This was Commander Inspector Drill Sergeant Holtz I was talking to. If she wasn’t barking orders, she was clobbering me with life lessons.
    This was not a woman who would abandon her parental post, let alone fit the description of a young woman in love, with all its requisite affection and giddiness. And for someone who couldn’t keep her opinion to herself, how could she have hidden a secret past?
    “I gotta tell you, Mom. I’m in shock. You know how many times I got grounded because I lied to you? And remember when you made me miss a whole month of Knots Landing because I forged your signature on my report card? Now I find out you’re this big hypocrite.”
    “Who’s a hypocrite? I didn’t lie. I married your father and put the past behind me!”
    “Are you saying you married him but you never loved him?”
    “He wasn’t the best-looking guy, but he was good to me, he was plenty smart, he worked hard, and oy, my folks were so happy…their daughter marrying a professional, which, believe me, was a big deal back then. Especially after my cousin Doris married a surgeon. We never thought we’d hear the end of that…”
    “Stick to the story. You married Daddy but the whole time you were thinking of…”
    “Marv…Marvin Teitlebaum.”
    “Marvin Teitlebaum? I’m sorry. That is not the name of someone who makes your heart beat faster. That’s the name of your electrician, or someone from temple who runs