To My Ex-Husband by Susan Dundon Read Free Book Online Page B

took as an opportunity to excuse herself in favor of watching “Kate and Allie,” who may have been having similar problems of their own.
    So I didn’t know where the studs were. I could pretend, and walk around hammering my fists on the wall. But I’m a trial-and-error person; so, drill in hand, I would proceed in a trial-and-error manner. The possible errors, as I considered them, were a) hitting an electrical wire and going up in flames; b) drilling eight perfectly gorgeous holes that, for some strange reason, didn’t line up; c) plunging too far into the plaster, and thus into the medicine cabinet on the other side of the wall, thereby puncturing a pressurized can of hairstyling mousse. Far worse than any of these, to my mind, was calling someone who knew what “he” was doing, some Tom, Nick, or Harry. Having been married to Tom, Nick, or Harry, I would frankly rather have died.
    No one went up in flames. But as June and I concurred, there is some latitude between a twelve-alarm fire and a reliably secure set of bookshelves, especially when one is trying to fall asleep beneath them. So the good news is that the shelves are up—technically. The less than good news is that they may not support more than the thinnest layer of dust. I hesitate to open the window at night lest they sway in the breeze. In which connection (and for future reference), the molly bolt may have worked its way into my mechanical consciousness. Annie remains skeptical. But, as I said to her, in an offhand if unoriginal fashion, Rome wasn’t built in a day. And—thank you, Woody Allen—eighty-five percent of life is showing up.

FEBRUARY 11
    A rare occurrence: A phone call, not for Annie, but for me. An unknown male voice. “Hello, Emily? My name is Sid Pomerantz. I’m a friend of Marilyn Beck. I’m single, and you’re single, and this is one of those conversations.”
    I laughed. Cute, I thought. But practiced, rehearsed. I wasn’t talking to an amateur tonight. Quickly, we got through the preliminaries. How long each of us had been single, number of children, their ages—the stats. I soon ran out of questions. There was nothing further to do, as far as I was concerned, but meet the man.
    Sid, however, was just getting started. Did I play tennis? No, I couldn’t say that I did. Did I ski? No. But, I added in a moment of playfulness, I had had a great deal of fun recently sliding down a steep, snowy hill on something that looked like the lid of a trash can.
    Sid was not amused. This was not just “one of those conversations” at all; it was an interview. I was being screened for acceptability. And, not incidentally, I was failing. It was quickly established that I did not take winter vacations in Utah, did not sail in the Bahamas, did not work at developing my true fun potential at all, while he was positively killing himself having a good time. I myself began to wonder what Sid had been wondering all along: What did I do?
    I was a woman who slid down a hill on the lid of a trash can. I did not even have a toboggan or a sled. But Sid was nothing if not patient. Perhaps, he must have decided, I could be educated. I could develop an adventurous, competitive edge. We made a date for the following Saturday night.
    So there I was, back in circulation. I was going to have a date. Just the word sent an unpleasant sensation up my spine. It carried with it a long, anguishing history of major disenchantment—alternating with minor disenchantment—from which, now that I thought about it, I’d never actually recovered. I’d expected by this time, you understand, to be living a rather peaceful and civilized life, anticipating the simple comforts of prunes and Polident. Now I was in the thick of it again.
    I suppose it wasn’t an atypical experience for a woman in my position, preparing for a blind date. Still, it had been twenty-two years since I’d last had a