Please send your ADVICE to two single women, whose lives are suddenly crashing in chaos!  Zoe and Sophia, BFFs for thirty years, find themselves unexpectedly cast into the world of re-creation and redefinition after decades of being faithful wives to George and Marty.  They need advice from anyone willing to help them.   For instance, what advice would you and your BFF give if you asked each other “WHERE ARE WE GOING?  AND WHAT WILL WE FIND?”  Any advice you can give to Zoe and Sophia would be helpful, but this is what they said to each other.

The day started softly with the rising sun. Mist hung like chiffon over the water behind Sophia’s house. Swiftly, two great blue herons rose through the mist, fleeing a sudden invasion of mallards and Canada geese. An ancient snapping turtle swam the center lane of the lake as he journeyed toward the dam at the other end, sinking every few yards, foraging for prey. Ospreys hovered overhead then plunged feet first into the shimmering surface when they spotted a good catch old snappy had missed. Once the ospreys ascended, clutching fish in their claws, they broke toward the sky, their slow wing-beats changing to glides as they soared.

Zoe rolled over and watched Sophia wake up. She reached out and stroked Sophia’s soft, light hair. Poignant pictures pricked her, snap shots of moments that filled thirty years of their sustained love as best friends. Sophia’s eyes fluttered open, and a smile sprang out to greet Zoe.
“Don’t give away your power, Sophie.”
“I won’t. Never again will I give away my power.”
“Let’s take a walk.”
“First, I need coffee.”

Because the days were closing in on Zoe and Sophia before Sophia’s permanent exodus from New Hampshire to Florida, the friends spent many nights together. They framed each other, stored up each other’s warmth and energy, like birds gathering food in autumn, preparing for the long stretches to come during which they would know each other’s voices and words, but be too distant for touch, smell and sight.

Zoe and Sophia walked down to the water, holding hands like school girls in a playground. They dipped their toes in the lake, and as brave as Zoe was about icy water, even she gave up the idea of swimming. But they giggled as they splashed each other. Side by side they perched on the arms of a weathered Adirondack chair, watching their dogs Sparky and Voltaire chase a tennis ball up and down the shoreline. A chilly breeze finally drove them back inside.

Sophia built a small fire in the fireplace, while Zoe made another pot of coffee.
“What about you, Zoe. Are you going to hold on to your powers too?”
“Which ones? I mean, what do you see as my powers?”
“The same as mine, the same as everyone’s. If you can see my powers, you can see your own.”
“Do I have your power in the strength with which you love?”
“Of course you do.”
“I guess I knew that. How about the way your creativity gives you power,” asked Zoe.
“Ah huh, yours does too.”
“But Sophie, that’s your work. Writing is what you do. I have a wonderful job, but it’s not creative.”
“I suppose it’s a matter of semantics, but you spend much of your time at work thinking about creative solutions for people.  How we spend our time is a huge factor in what defines us—don’t you think?”
“I guess.”

“When Marty and I were together, I used to say work was what I did, but my marriage and home were who I was.”
“I remember,” said Zoe, lifting her eyebrows. “I never felt that way except toward motherhood, which was all about who I was. Otherwise, I was often happiest at work. But my marriage to George was pretty volatile from the beginning and always lacked mutuality.”
“Do you think my closeness with Marty was one of the ways I gave up my power, Zoe?”
“Maybe. You let Marty define certain aspects of you. You lived for and around him so totally. Actually, he was the same way with you. I’m not sure I’ve ever known a more symbiotic couple. It worked for you when it worked, making his betrayal all that more crushing. But that’s not the power I was worried about you giving away, Soph.”

“What did you mean?”
“I meant the power you’ve given to Marty to hurt you since the split.”
“Yes, I need to take back the power of finding my own value. Marty can never again be at its core. Long before the split though, I was trying to resurrect him. What a sad waste of time. The Marty I knew died when he began his affair with Fugly.”

“I don’t wanna talk about Marty right now or about that ugly, rich, predatory girlfriend of his. Even thinking about them robs you of your power. Right now, I wanna talk about us. What else gives us power, Sophie?”
“Our curiosity and intelligence.”
“That’s true. Neither of us questions those qualities in ourselves. But if we’re all that intelligent, why do we give away our power?
“Do you know what Pema says?” Sophia was referring to Pema Chodron, their favorite American Buddhist writer.
“What does Pema say?”
“She says fear drives most people and our instinct is to run away from our fears. But when we run from them, we give the power to our fears. She thinks we should run toward those things we fear then fear loses its power.”

“That sounds like Psychology 101,” said Zoe as she walked into the kitchen and grabbed a half-eaten bag of Chex Mix.
Sophia followed her to the kitchen. “That’s true, Zoe, but it’s one thing if you’re talking about fear of heights or dogs or the dark. It’s another thing to talk about the deep-seated emotional fears that can become the driving motivation for how we fashion our lives.”

“Okay, Sophie. Give me an example. What do I run away from?”
“You run from fear of being alone and have since you were a child. You can probably look back on your life and see how fleeing that fear was the cornerstone of some of the most important decisions you made.”
“Like what?”
“Maybe what attracted you to George was his unhealthy fixation on you. He wouldn’t let you out of his sight. You found someone whose insecurity matched your fear of being alone.”
“Interesting. I wonder if I can extricate myself from that fear.”
“Maybe. If you could view aloneness as a state of nature that won’t harm you, then you wouldn’t be so afraid of it. I wish you enjoyed you as much as I enjoy you.”
Zoe laughed. “I kinda see what you mean. No one can live inside of me except me. It’s just I and I in the end.”

“Okay, Rasta sistah, what do I run away from?”
“You run from the fear of loss.”
“Ya think?” laughed Sophia.
“If you could transform your ideas about loss it might help you.”
“Meaning?”
“Every second of every day, everything changes. If you could substitute the idea of loss with the concept of change, maybe your fear of loss would lose its power. Change is like time; it never stops. Time is the rhythm of life, change is the melodic sound—they are inextricable.”

“Deep. But you’re insinuating that all change is good, Zo.”
“Not really. It is what it is. Why fear what we can’t control?”
“Why fear anything?” asked Sophia quietly.
“There you go,” said Zoe as she took a bow. “It’s easy to say, and hard to do, of course. But let’s get back to the power thing. What do we feel when we feel powerless?”

Sophia tossed a handful of Chex Mix into her mouth and crunched for a few seconds before answering. “I’d say when we feel powerless, we feel our lives lack value, and that really, really scares us.”
“Okay, I’m done for now, Sophie. Hand over the Chex Mix. This discussion gave me a headache. What are we gonna do with this gorgeous day?”

“I dunno” said Sophia, ”work in our flower gardens?”
“No, no, no,” Zoe said, shaking her head emphatically. “I’m not watching you talk to twenty flower beds filled with “your babies” and cry hysterically because you’re not gonna be here when they blossom. Let’s go to New York.”
“That’s kinda far for a quick jaunt. Anyway, we’re going there next week.”
“Okay, let’s do Boston then.”
“Can we go to the Museum of Fine Arts?”
“Why not? We’ll do lunch. Hey, maybe we’ll meet some interesting men.”
“Or maybe we’ll just see some interesting art work.”
“Either way works for me, Sophie. Let’s shower.”

After they showered, the women stood in their panties and bras as steam billowed around them. They rubbed lotion over their slender torsos and long lean legs, but the mirror was too clouded for them to see their reflections. Sophia tugged on the bathroom window, which stuck like so many others in her 1770 home. When she finally pulled it free, she propped it open with an old hairbrush. Soon the steam floated outside into the warm spring air. Zoe and Sophia bent upside down, drying their blond hair before they applied moisturizer and subtle makeup to their faces. Because the day was warm enough, they dressed in tank tops and shorts, and slipped sandals onto their feet. But even in the sunshine, Boston’s wind off the harbor would have a chilling dampness, so they packed sweaters.

Meanwhile, Zoe’s stroke-impaired yellow lab Sparky was in a power pout, his face turned to the wall. He was upset because Voltaire, Sophia’s border collie, insisted on dividing his time fairly between Sparky and Tolstoy. Tolstoy was Sophia’s huge Maine Coon cat. Sparky was less than fond of Tolstoy, but Voltaire adored the cat. Voltaire lay by the fire on his side with one paw slung around Tolstoy, who was plastered to Voltaire’s chest, licking his face. Not only did Sparky not get how anyone could love Tolstoy, but his feelings were hurt because he felt left out. Sparky glanced over at the “love birds,” and Tolstoy shot Sparky a slit-eyed look, for no other reason than just to rub it in. Tolstoy’s a bastard, thought Sparky. Sparky’s a dweeb, thought Tolstoy. Voltaire rolled his eyes, shook his head, and wished everyone would just get along.

“What are we gonna do with the dogs, Zo?”
“I’ll call George and tell him I’m dropping them off at the house. He’ll let them out and feed them later.” Although Zoe and George’s divorce was just a few weeks away, they still lived on the same property. Zoe lived in the 1790 house, and George lived in the guest cottage.
“That’s probably best. It’s too warm to leave them in the car for long, and that way we won’t have to hurry home. We can just go where the wind blows us.”
“Whatever,” said Zoe, grimacing at Sophia’s metaphor.
“What’s wrong,” asked Sophia.
“Go where the wind blows us? Fuck sake, Sophie.”
“Fuck you, Zoe. Okay, we’ll ride the tail of a falling star and land where it drops us.”
“Skip it. Do you know what the special exhibit at the MFA is right now?”
“No, but we can Google it. Anyway, I’m in the mood for the ancient Egyptians. Maybe we can even walk over to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and look at the garden under the atrium. I bet the flowers are lovely.”
“Okay, but let’s get going and please bring something to eat for the ride.”

Sophia walked hurriedly to the kitchen cupboard and grabbed a new bag of Chex Mix, a jar of Nutella and two spoons and stuffed them in a cloth bag. Then she drew from the fridge four bottles of vitamin water and dashed out the door.

On the drive to Boston, the women first sang along with vintage Jill Scott. When their favorite song, Living My Life like its Golden, began to play, they looked at each other and smiled then threw back their heads and bellowed the words from the base of their stomachs. But by the time the song ended, Sophia’s voice wobbled.
“What’s wrong, Sophie?”
“This was the theme song for my life when Marty and I were together. I was so smug in my marriage. I adored him, you know.”
“Yeah, but you had to overlook a lot.”
“Meaning?”
“You had to overlook his hardcore narcissism.”
“In what ways?”
“Marty’s the kind of person who thinks primarily of his own needs, rarely apologizes, lacks true empathy, shows little compassion, is vain glorious, and feels others are always being thoughtless and lacking in care towards him.”
“Well, that’s quite a laundry list.”
“I’m not done, Sophie. Marty has a way of forcing others to explain their actions, rarely visa versa. And do you know how often in an hour you used to say “I’m sorry” to him? It made me wanna puke sometimes. You lived in constant fear of disappointing him because he was impossible to please. Nothing was ever his fault and everyone else was always “wrong,” never him.”
“What prompted this rant, Zoe?”
“It’s not a rant; it’s clarity I wish you would see. You were a perfect foil to him, the eternal optimist who trusted him irrationally to your detriment. Sophie, you’re the only adult I know who still believes in Tinkerbell.”

“I accepted him for who he was,” said Sophia.  “Growing up, he was modeled that people were either for you or against you. He’s all about black or white, no gray. Remember how judgmental he was about people who had affairs? Now, he has to make what he did be “right,” and he can’t stand the mirror I hold up to him. Since I no longer worship him because he cheated on me and left the marriage, I fell from grace.”
“Go figure, Sophie. He’s the troll fucker, but you’re the bad guy.”
“That’s an interesting nickname.”
“Well, Fugly looks and walks like a troll, she’s not that bright, and she has the depth of a flyswatter. All she really has going for her is a lot of money that other people earned.”
“Well, I’m moving past that now, Zoe. I think a better name for him is the ‘deconstructed half-man.’”
“Meaning?”
“Marty’s whole motif was vested in integrity and accountability and doing meaningful things with one’s life. He can’t argue that what he did to me reflected either integrity or accountability. And recently, I asked him what he and Fugly did all day. He said they sat around and watched TV, and when he was working, she invented stuff to do. He said she’s looking for meaning.”

“Well, you’ve written two books since this whole shit started. That’s not half bad, Sophie. Cream always rises to the top.”
“That’s what my mother used to say when I didn’t feel good about myself.”
“You have so much value, Sophie, but Marty’s too stupid to know it.”
“Not necessarily, Zo. If financial security was his objective, he certainly achieved it.”
“Good point.”
“Zo, the mountain I struggle to climb is to release all expectations of Marty. Mercifully, the summit just might be in sight. And once I bury him atop of it, I will dance on his proverbial grave. There are no bridges back to Marty. Now, could you please turn up the music; I don’t wanna talk about him anymore.”

As they drove, the women listened to the South African musician, Hugh Masekela. His songs were political, uplifting, and lively. They sang along, snapped their fingers and danced as vigorously as they could, pinned in by their seatbelts. But pretty soon, Zoe could tell Sophia was growing restless.
“What do wanna talk about now, Sophie?”
“I wanna talk about The L Word.”
“What is your obsession with that show?”
“I love all the universal themes reflected from a purely female perspective.”
“Lesbian female perspective you mean.”
“Not entirely. One of the main characters, Kit, is straight and some of them are bi-sexual and transsexual. Some characters are even gay and straight men.”
“Who are your favorite characters?”
“The writer Alice and the museum art director Bette,” said Sophia.
“Why those two?”
“I identify with them. Can you believe Bette was reading Pema on the show? I nearly fell over.”
“Weren’t you watching in bed?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I like Alice and Bette too,” said Zoe, “but my favorite character is the sex magnet, Shane.”
“Does she remind you of yourself?”
“No, not really, but I do relate to her pain, especially when I was in my early twenties.”
“I’m beginning to panic, Zo. I only bought DVDs of the first four seasons, and I’m nearly done watching those. Maybe we can stop at Barnes & Noble so I can buy the last two seasons.”
“I wanna go to a lesbian bar tonight to dance,” said Zoe suddenly. “I haven’t been to one since we lived in Boston, before you met Marty. We used to have so much fun dancing, remember?”
“I do. But how did we go from watching The L Word to dancing at a lesbian bar?”
“How did we go from Shane the sex magnet to Barnes & Nobel?”

“I’m sorry,” said Sophia.  ”Did you want me to explore further why you like the Shane character so much?
Zoe nodded. “Do you think she’s a sex addict?”
“I’m not sure what that is, Zo.”
“I guess it’s a person who uses sex like alcohol or drugs, to mask insecurity and pain.”
“Well, I think the Shane character uses sex because it simulates love without her having to feel love, which she’s afraid to do because she was abandoned by her parents as a child.”
“Do you think I’m a sex addict, Sophie?”
“Do you think you are?  I think you have a highly tuned libido, but you never screwed around on George all those years until the end.  You might be drawn to wanting male attention, but perhaps that has more to do with wanting to be loved than with wanting to have sex.”
“Hum. Interesting.  Let’s talk about something else.”

A few minutes later the women walked into the Museum of Fine Arts. First, they visited the darkened, hushed room where the Egyptian mummies lay encased in glass. Next, they found the brighter room where the Impressionist paintings hung. By mid-afternoon, Zoe and Sophia were hungry. Because the day was warm and sunny, they decided to go to the cafeteria and take a tray of food outside to eat in the museum’s enclosed courtyard. In the courtyard young mothers sat talking, watching their children play on the grass amidst fearless birds that pecked at crumbs on tables and in the dirt. But no interesting-looking, single men were afoot.

After lunch, Zoe and Sophia walked the couple of blocks to the Isabella Stuart Gardiner Museum, a place they had visited many times, especially when their children were young. They knew the eclectic, extraordinary exhibits well, so instead of meandering from room to room, they perched on the low wall surrounding the amazing indoor garden. The museum itself was patterned after a Venetian palazzo, and the garden, its centerpiece, was crowned by an atrium five stories above.

“Would you have envisioned us living the lives we are now when we were in our twenties?” asked Zoe.
“No. But I’ve never really thought about it either.”
“Didn’t people in their fifties seem ancient to us?”
“Practically dead. But, you know what–I don’t feel old. Do you, Zo?”
“Nope. I still feel young inside.”
“Well, fortunately, you still look young too. Not a day over forty.”
“Forty’s not young either when you’re twenty. But you too, Sophie, are well preserved.”
“Maybe that’s because we don’t feel old. Well, most of the time I don’t. On days when I’m utterly miserable about Marty, I feel pretty old. I don’t like what all the crying does to the lines around my eyes.”
“Those lines have a way of disappearing when you stop crying.”
“That alone is a good reason to stop. Thank God for Elizabeth Arden, Lancome, Clinique….”
“Fuck sake, Sophie, enough with the product lines. You’re broke, so maybe you shouldn’t spend so much on that stuff.”
“Like hell I shouldn’t, Zo. It’s worth every penny. As much as I cry, imagine what I’d look like without that shit to count on.”
“Why are we talking about facial moisturizers?”
“Would you rather talk about the orchids and the lilies? Hey, look over there. Those guys are checking us out. Work your magic, Zo. Send out that vibe. Maybe they’ll come over to meet us.”
“You’re a big talker,” said Zoe as she turned around to see the men Sophia spied.
“They look like brothers,” said Sophia.
“Yeah, they do. Not bad looking, well dressed—I like guys who wear oxford shirts under sports jackets over jeans,” said Zoe as she caught the men’s eyes and smiled gently.

Before long the men walked over and sat down on the garden wall next to Zoe and Sophia. One of the men struck up a conversation by asking Sophia the name of a nearby flower. Sophia could identify the names of everything growing in front of them. Had she only answered the man’s question about the single flower, she might have avoided toppling into the rabbit hole of her nerves. But no, she babbled on randomly about flower after flower until Zoe jabbed her in the ribs to shut it before she blew it. Sophia halted in mid-sentence, expelling air from her lips instead of words, and the two men looked askance for a second wondering where the rest of Sophia’s thought had wandered to. Zoe took up the conversational mission, wrapping the men around her words with her charm. Soon, they asked Zoe and Sophia if they knew of a place nearby where they could walk to have a glass of wine.

As the foursome strolled to a nearby wine café, Zoe and Sophia learned that they were fifty-something brothers, two years apart in age, lived in California, and were in Boston to attend a family wedding. Both men were divorced, had grown children and did something behind the scenes in the film industry. Since this was Zoe’s field too, of course she found immediate commonality. Unfortunately, Sophia did not. The older brother, Dave made no secret that he was gunning for Zoe, and with an almost imperceptible nod to Sophia, Zoe made known the feeling was mutual. The younger brother, Nick, was solicitous and sweet to Sophia, tried everything to draw her out on the walk, but her brain was so busy saying,“I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay,” that she missed the more subtle nuances of his gallantry. But each time she glanced into his eyes, she was aware of how attractive she found him.

They sat at a small table in the crowded café, and Zoe continued her animated conversation while the waiter brought them a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and a platter heaped with cheese and crackers. Sophia, still unable to contribute much to the conversation, nodded like a fool and laughed at the wrong times. Zoe threw her a bone, encouraging Sophia to talk about how she was turning one of her recent manuscripts into a screenplay, but Sophia dropped the bone with a monosyllabic response and stuffed her mouth full of crackers instead.

Unfortunately, the crackers in Sophia’s mouth were like dust bunnies clogging a vacuum cleaner, and when she took a swig of wine in an attempt to soften the mass, she choked, and a ball of half-masticated crumbs spewed from her mouth and shot across the table, hitting Zoe in the left side of her head as she gazed flirtatiously into the lovely eyes of  Dave.  The men turned slowly and stared at Sophia.
“Fuck sake, Sophie, eat much,” said Zoe, raking her fingers through the mushy mess clinging to her hair.
“Sorry,” said Sophia as she wiped from her chin the soggy crumbs that hadn’t made the journey across the table.

The men pretended nothing had happened and resumed their lively repartee despite that Zoe’s attention was distilled into a steady glare, which shrieked at Sophia to cut the shit. Feeling she needed to redeem herself, Sophia risked a conversational maneuver.
“My favorite TV show is The L Word. Do you like it,” she asked.
“I thought that show finished up,” said Nick.”
“It did, but I just bought the first four seasons on DVD. They were on the sale table at the bookstore.”
“That’s nice,” said Dave.  A glazed look crossed his eyes as he cocked his head to one side in bewilderment.

From this bit of encouragement, Sophia launched into the same discussion of her favorite characters, which she had with Zoe earlier in the day. Two sentences in, Sophia glanced at Zoe’s slitted eyes, which screamed “change the subject,” and once again, Sophia stopped in mid-stream, failing to complete a cogent thought.
“I never saw The L Word,” said Nick.
“Neither did I,” said his brother.
“Well, okay then,” said Sophia as she pushed several slices of cheese into her mouth as if to plug the portal through which stupid thoughts could not escape her brain.

Despite Sophia’s incompetence at coherent speech, Nick realized that she suffered from nerves, and he found her very attractive, so he tried once again to engage her by asking whether she liked to travel. Since Sophia’s mouth was too full of cheese to answer, Zoe jumped in and told the men about their recent trip to Naples, Florida, which spawned Sophia’s desire to move to Naples as soon as the house she planned to rent became vacant. Zoe also explained how a complication with the owner of the house and the departing tenants held up Sophia’s original timetable, and that Sophia was frustrated because she had packed everything in her New Hampshire home, and just awaited the final word that the Florida house was free. Zoe hoped that perhaps this explanation would help justify Sophia’s strange behavior.

Unfortunately, when Zoe mentioned Sophia’s imminent move, Zoe’s emotions suddenly rushed to the surface, and she decided to contain them by also stuffing her mouth with cheese. So, when Dave asked Zoe what her plans were for the evening, Zoe tried to explain that she and Sophia were going dancing at a lesbian bar. But it came out as “doeing dandding ah a desblian blah.”

Sophia’s palate was clear by this time, so she translated for Zoe. And just as Sophia was about to invite the men to come along, Zoe coughed and gagged on her cheese. Since snot ran from her nose, she was able to spit the blob of cheese into a napkin and blow her nose at the same time. The The brothers were very cordial in the way they placed fifty bucks on the table as they said their goodbyes and hurried out the door.

“That went well,” said Sophia.
“Not too bad,” said Zoe.
“You know, I’m too tired to go dancing tonight.”
“Me too. Let’s just go home. We can save our dancing energy for next week when we go to New York City.”

As Zoe and Sophia stepped outside into dusk, muted lights sought to twinkle. They walked in silence for a minute in the soothing, warm air then Sophia said, “I read a quote yesterday that I really liked.”
“What did it say?”
“Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.”

“Was that a Buddhist thing, Sophie?”
“Sounds like.”

Again, the two friends walked in silence for a few minutes. Then Sophia turned to Zoe and asked, “WHERE ARE WE GOING?”
Zoe turned and smiled at Sophia as she then asked,  “AND WHAT WILL WE FIND?”
As Sophia climbed into the passenger seat of Zoe’s car, she said, “I BELIEVE WE’VE HIT THE INHERENTLY UNKNOWABLE IMPASSE.”
“YES, I BELIEVE WE HAVE,” said Zoe as she pulled out into the city traffic.

As the two astonishingly confused, but shimmering fifty-something best friends wove along the back streets of Boston, they danced, straining against their seatbelts. Jill sang Living My Life like its Golden, while Zoe and Sophia belted out the tune, roaring like lionesses. And as darkness closed the curtain on the day, they raced over the Tobin Bridge heading toward home, off on another adventure as the Sublime Consumers of the Lightness of Being.

To be continued…but if you want to read the whole story, start at the bottom of the blog.  Easiest access is to click on the bolded dates in the calander to the right of the story.  And keep sending in your wonderful comments.  Thank you.

Please send your ADVICE to two single women, whose lives are suddenly crashing in chaos! Zoe and Sophia, BFFs for thirty years, find themselves unexpectedly cast into the world of re-creation and redefinition after decades of being faithful wives to George and Marty. They need advice from anyone willing to help them. For instance, what advice would you give your BFF if she asked, “WHY DOES MOVING TO FLORIDA FEEL SO RIGHT EVEN THOUGH I’M UPROOTING MYSELF FROM MY LOVED ONES AND EVERYTHING FAMILIAR THAT I CHERISH?” Any advice you can give to Sophia would be helpful, but this is what Zoe said.

As the sun began to rise, Sophia lay sleeping in her 1770 home in New Hampshire. Canada geese squawking overhead awakened her. Voltaire, her border collie, lay by Sophia’s side. She tried to reach over to pat him, but her huge Maine Coon cat, Tolstoy, was asleep on her stomach, pinning Sophia on her back like a beetle. She poked Tolstoy until he moved off, then she rolled over and wrapped her arms around Voltaire, smelling the scruff of his neck. Finally, she arose, walked to the french doors of her bedroom, and looked down at the lake behind her house. A few feet beyond the doors, mist hovered over two weathered rocking chairs, where several birds perched. When Sophia opened the French doors, her pets bounded outside, and the birds took flight.

Sophia stepped out of the room and stood on the dew drenched grass for a moment. She breathed deeply the spring air, which reminded her of a San Diego dawn in December, delicious and inviting. When she turned to go back indoors, her eyes scanned boxes of books, suitcases filled with clothes, paintings stacked against the wall, and electronic cords wrapped with tape. Contemplating another day of sorting, discarding, lifting, cleaning and packing heightened the stiffness in her limbs. Anticipating another day of culling through decades of joy, struggle, pleasure, pain, dreams, disappointments, love, and loss deepened the heaviness in her heart. But what she tried to avoid was starting the day feeling anger and pain about her husband Marty’s betrayal and departure from the marriage. Her move to Florida was an attempt to regain the spirit that seeped from her daily, an attempt to retake her power instead of handing it over to him, like a nameless servant delivering wine to a drunk king.

Zoe sat at the kitchen table of her 1790 house on the same lake, five miles up the road. She’d been awake since four o’clock, unable to shake off an anxiety dream that awakened her. In front of Zoe was a compartmentalized box containing hundreds of beads. Until recently, her laptop would have sat where the beads now were, and Zoe would have been studying the pictures and informational profiles of dozens of strangers on dating websites. But she had decided to stop obsessively connecting online with men, and instead, spent countless hours stringing beads onto wire, creating an exquisite line of necklaces and earrings. Her devotion to filling time this way stemmed from an intense need not to feel alone. That need was especially strong as she pushed from her mind Sophia’s eminent move to Florida.

Zoe looked at her watch, hoping Sophia was awake. Just then her phone rang.
“Hey, Zo. Whatcha doin?”
“Beading. You?”
“Getting ready to start more packing.”
“You need help?”
“I need boxes. Help is good too,” said Sophia. “Why are you beading at this hour?”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“Why not?”
“Stress. Do you have any food at your house?”
“Not much,” said Sophia.
“You wanna go out for breakfast?”
“Not really. Once I get my packing momentum going, I don’t like to stop.”
“You gotta eat,” said Zoe.
“Why?”
“Duh.”
“Shut up. Okay, I’ll go out to breakfast with you.”
“I’ll be over in bit. You need anything?”
“Some dog food. I’m almost out.”
“Hey, you must be so happy to have Voltaire back with you.”
“Zoe, I can’t even describe what a source of comfort and joy he’s been.”
“Has Marty tried to fight you about keeping the dog?”
“Marty who?”

When Marty left the marriage to go live with his girlfriend, Fugly, he took the dogs, Voltaire and Dickens with him. Fugly was married to a famous musician, who was the son of someone really famous, Famous Father. When Fugly moved out of the marital home, she left behind three small children whom she saw on a visitation schedule. Pressure was applied in such a way that Marty had not been allowed to stay at Fugly’s on the nights she had visitation. So, for months Marty stayed those nights at a dumpy motel near Fugly’s house. The dogs were not allowed to stay at the motel. But rather than letting the dogs stay with Sophia on those nights, Marty insisted they stay at Fugly’s, and Sophia suspected it was because Fugly wanted the dogs to be her dogs, the same way she wanted Sophia’s husband to be her boyfriend. From the day Sophia met Fugly, before Fugly and Marty started their affair, when the two were first involved in the project funded by Famous Father, Sophia’s impression of Fugly was that she was a predatory woman without boundaries, who took whatever she wanted out of a ruthless sense of entitlement.

Just a few weeks before, after months of absence, Marty re-entered Sophia’s life and said he wanted to reconcile with her. They spent two intense, (and at times brutal), weeks together before Marty returned to Fugly. Sophia figured out the main reason Marty decided to come home was to force Fugly’s hand about living with her full time, not just on the “off visitation” nights. Fugly had probably called Marty’s bluff when he threatened to return to Sophia if he couldn’t get what he wanted. But Marty never bluffed without being willing to carry out the threat behind it. Once Fugly took care of her end regarding the children, Marty left Sophia again, and moved in full-time with Fugly.

When Marty left the second time, again he took the dogs, despite Sophia’s repeated pleading that Voltaire and Dickens belonged to Sophia just as much as they did to Marty. Then, serendipity intervened. On their first weekend back together as a couple, Marty and Fugly wanted to go off for a romantic getaway. Rather than asking Sophia to tend the dogs, Marty asked their daughter Poppy and her husband Fonzi to care for the dogs. Poppy mentioned the arrangement to Sophia on the phone.

After Sophia’s call with Poppy ended, she tried to calm the rising torment and rage. But inside, something cracked and Sophia began to scream and scream. She screamed so long and so loudly that she thought her voice might travel the distance of an ocean. When the screaming finally stopped, Sophia sat limply in a chair in front of the fireplace, sobbing. And then, Sophia decided to stand up, to take back her power.
Sophia drove to Poppy’s home. During the drive she thought about what to tell Poppy and Fonzi to explain her actions. But when Sophia tried to talk, she couldn’t be heard. Her voice was too hoarse from the strain of screaming. Instead of speaking, when Sophia opened Poppy’s front door, she whistled to Voltaire, the ten-year-old border collie. He ran straight to her, wagging his tail. She gestured for Voltaire to follow her outside, and then she closed the door. It broke her heart to leave young Dickens behind, but Sophia wanted to be fair. She wouldn’t dream of depriving Marty of both dogs.

“Sophie, are you there,” hissed Zoe. “You zoned out on me.”
“Sorry. I was thinking.”
“Tell me what happened when you told Marty you were keeping Voltaire?”
“I didn’t tell him. I texted him. I said if he fought me on this, then I would have a ‘voice.’”
“I don’t know what you mean?”
“He knew what I meant. Marty has too much at stake and too much to hide from Fugly, particularly about what went on here and what was said while he was back with me. My “voice” will speak the truth, and he can’t risk that. He has to live in the shit he created for himself. But I don’t wanna hurt him. I just wanted my fucking dog back. Now, Voltaire is home, and that’s all I care about.”
“You sound empowered, Sophie. Good for you. Look, I gotta go. I’ll see you in a bit.”

As Zoe stood in the shower, a sense of excitement about spring began to stir in her. Hot water jettisoned her back, down her bottom and onto her thighs as she thought how novel it would be to buy food and actually cook a meal. A hot brunch would make a nice change from the Chex Mix and Nutella that Sophia practically lived on these days. Perhaps they could eat outside in the one of Sophia’s many gardens.

After Zoe slathered her body with lotion and blow-dried her hair, she selected clothes to wear and carried them into the kitchen to dress. But as she walked past the table, she glanced at the bead box and decided to create just one more pair of earrings before driving to Sophia’s. Zoe strung a fabulous dangly earring with tiny, pale jade beads mixed with even more delicate crystals and one pink onyx teardrop bead at the end. When she looked for a second teardrop bead to make the other earring, she realized she’d used the last one.

Why the lack of a bead became so bewildering was hard to say, but Zoe felt abandoned suddenly by her beads. Knowing her reaction was absurd, she pushed away from the table and walked outside to see whether any daffodils were open yet. As Sophia had earlier, Zoe breathed in the spring smells. And there was some quality about that amazing spring air that gripped her with yearning to be with a man again. It had been weeks. As if guided by a force beyond her control, Zoe walked back inside, turned on her laptop, and fell to the temptation of her dating sites.

For the next three hours, Sophia tried calling Zoe several times, but she didn’t answer. Concerned that Zoe might be living on Planet Nuts, Sophia decided to take Voltaire up the road to Zoe’s. The day felt like mid-June rather than early April, and Sophia lowered the car windows, letting the warm air stream in. When she drove into the yard, Sophia’s eyes widened at the glorious sight of hundreds of opened daffodils growing in flower beds and around trees that surrounded Zoe’s home.

Sparky, Zoe’s stroke-impaired yellow lab lay in the sunshine on the front porch. He struggled to his feet, dragged his hind end down the three porch steps then ran sideways out to the car to greet his guests. Normally, Sparky was less than keen on Sophia’s visits, and he was even less ardent about visiting at Sophia’s house. He thought Sophia was a bitch who monopolized his lovely Zoe. She also lived with that mean, bully-boy Tolstoy, the biggest, most intimidating, territorial cat Sparky had ever known. Except for the food Sparky stole from Tolstoy’s bowl and the cat crap he enjoyed as dessert, Sparky saw no point in gracing Tolstoy or Sophia with his presence. But today, his senses told him Sophia had brought someone so special, that he could overlook Sophia’s shortcomings. Voltaire was back!

Voltaire danced around in the back seat the minute he heard Sparky’s howl. Sparky and Voltaire had loved each other since they were puppies. Voltaire thought Sparky’s stroke was an unfortunate turn of events, but Sparky certainly had more vigor than the last time Voltaire saw him. The minute Sophia opened the back door of her car, Voltaire bounded out and the two old friends dashed across a field and into the woods to wrestle and catch up on old times.

Sophia hurried into the house in search of Zoe. She found her at the kitchen table sitting in her bra and panties, with the clothes she’d neglected to dress in still slung over a chair next to her.
“Fuck sake, Zoe, what happened to breakfast?”
“Hi,” said Zoe, looking up at her friend with a distant dreaminess in her eyes.
“You’re cruising the dating sites, aren’t you?”
“I was missing a bead.”
“Huh?”
“I’m just gathering pen pals, Sophie. No dating, I promise.”
“Why are you promising me that, Zo? You’re an adult, single woman. You can do anything you wanna do.”
“Yeah, but I’m afraid you’ll judge me.”
“Not my dealeo. You’re the one who thought the dating site business was becoming compulsive. I don’t judge anything you do. I love you just as you are.”
“Thank you, Sophie.  Are you hungry?”
“Not really. But are you gonna get dressed today?”
“I guess I should.”
“Let’s get the hell out of here. It’s gorgeous outside.”
“I don’t know, Sophie. I’m pretty happy sitting right here.”
“Suit yourself. But I’m going back home then. I’ve got shit to do.”
“Like what?”
“Well, apart from sorting and packing up the house and barn, I haven’t even cleaned out my flower beds.”
“Why are you gonna bother to clean out all those beds? You’re not going to be living there?”
“My gardens are a masterpiece I spent nearly two decades cultivating. I can’t just let them go—not while I can still see them. Zoe, I gotta tell  ya–you are acting really weird.”
“Am I?” asked Zoe as her eyes slowly drew away from Sophia’s and focused once again on the laptop screen filled with strangers’ faces
“I’ll see you later,” said Sophia. Zoe didn’t bother to respond. Outside, Sophia whistled to Voltaire who reluctantly parted from Sparky.

As she drove home, Sophia felt odd. Sensing a disconnect from Zoe was foreign to her. But once home, she shook off the feeling by putting on some Cuban jazz.  Then she changed into a bathing suit and rubbed olive oil onto her legs and arms. Her mood lightened instantly as she danced out to the barn to find a rake, with Voltaire prancing by her side, trying to herd Sophia’s every step. Before long, Sophia was enraptured as each rakeful pulled back layers of leaves, revealing the very tops of thousands of plants, which were just pushing through the soil of her twenty flower beds. To someone who didn’t know flowers, they just looked like masses of green things. But Sophia could see in her mind’s eye what they would look like when they bore the blossoms of lilies, oriental poppies, foxglove, phlox, peonies, roses, purple coneflower, coreopsis, campanula, Shasta daisies, bee balm and a myriad of other flowers. Soon, Sophia was talking to them, to her “babies.”

Several hours later, Zoe grew hungry. She still sat at her table and starred at her laptop as she sent off dozens of pithy emails to men she cared nothing about. It wasn’t until her stomach churned after one particularly interesting exchange, that she noticed Sophia’s absence. She felt something akin to panic when she realized the place to which she had let herself go. Zoe picked up her phone and called Sophia, but there was no answer. Hurriedly, Zoe dressed and dashed from the house, calling to Sparky. Excitedly, Sparky galloped sideways toward the car, involuntarily dropping turds in his wake, a common expression of Sparky’s delight. Together, they jumped in her car and barreled toward Sophia’s house.

When Zoe drove into Sophia’s, she heard loud music blasting from the windows and noticed that all six doors stood open. Tolstoy, dreading the sight of that bitch Zoe and her moronic, lame dog Sparky, sprinted into the woods.  But Voltaire barked with glee and ran to greet them. Sophia was nowhere in sight. Zoe walked inside, looked around mystified then called out for Sophia. As Zoe walked through each room, she was appalled by what she saw. Finally, she hurried back outside and walked down to the rose garden, which was surrounded by a white picket fence. Under the white arbor she saw a massive pile of leaves thrashing all by itself, and she heard the low tones of unmistakable keening. Next to the leaf pile lay a rake, which Zoe picked up and used gently to poke the gyrating, noisy heap. Before long, Zoe uncovered Sophia curled in a fetal position, rocking back and forth, tears streaming down her face.

“Fuck sake, Sophie. Why are you under the leaves?”
“I don’t know. I guess it feels safe here.”
“What’s going on?”
“I’m bonding with my earth before it’s not mine anymore.”
“That makes no sense. Stand up.”
“No.”
“You have avoided living on Planet Nuts for awhile now. What happened?”
“I started thinking,” said Sophia as she sat up. Leaves clung to her hair and face.
“Meaning?”
“I realized once I move, Marty will bring Fugly here, and they will claim this land as theirs. They will sit and walk and play amidst the beauty I labored to create for so many years. It will be as if I never existed.” With this, Sophia wound into a whole new round of sobs.
Zoe sat down next to Sophia in the leaves and rubbed her head.
“Sophie, here’s a visual that might ease your pain. Picture Fugly, who looks and walks like a troll, stomping around the grounds on her gross, misshapen thighs with the purple pimples on them. She’s apt to offend the flowers. And you know she is gonna scare away the birds with that weird, manly voice of hers.”

Sophia began to laugh and Zoe joined in, then they both lay down on the leaves and stared up at the blue sky.
“Sophie, you’ll create new, magical gardens, tropical ones. Won’t that be fun?”
“You’re right. It’s just hard to let go.”
“By the way, what the fuck is going on inside the house?”
“What do mean?”
“You’re not just packing up. You’ve re-designed the rooms.”
“I want to leave the house looking beautiful, different, but still beautiful.”
“Why?”
“I dunno.”
“If I were you, I’d just move my shit out and walk away.”
“I can’t do that, Zo.”
“Don’t get me wrong. The place looks incredible. I miss your antique blue and white china on the mantelpiece but I see why you replaced it with the muted pottery.  It’s more masculine.  But how come you’re leaving so many of your paintings behind? Never mind that.  Why are you leaving the house perfectly arranged?  Is it to please Marty–so he’ll remember you a certain way?”
“Hard to say,” said Sophia as she paused to think for a moment. “Not really, I guess. I just can’t leave it all ugly and empty looking. My spirit is in this house. It’s not fair to the house. Also my family will visit here, and I want it to look nice for them. Marty has no imagination when it comes to decorating. He hangs pictures too high and doesn’t really think about colors and spatial relationships that complement one another, things like that.”
“You need to stop caring, Sophie. You have to let go.”
“I know. But I’ve never been able just to drop anything and walk away leaving a mess.”
“Kinda like Marty did with your marriage and your so-called reconciliation?”
“That’s how Marty and I differ. I like tidy endings, Zo. You know that.”

Just then, Zoe remembered why she’d rushed over to find Sophia in the first place. She sat up quickly and thought for a moment how she would broach the subject. But she couldn’t come up with a graceful segue, so she just took a deep breath and dove in.
“We have dates tonight.”
“WHAT?” cried Sophia.
“And they’re coming here to pick us up?”
“HUH? When did you arrange these dates?”
“This afternoon. I’ve just been doing a little rekindling of on-line friendships, that’s all.”
“Okay,” said Sophia, shaking her head in resignation.
“Don’t worry,” said Zoe calmly. “We already know these guys. We had dinner with them in Portsmouth a few months ago. They’ve been friends with each other for years. You know, the ones from Boston. One of them is an accountant and the other teaches literature at Emerson College. Anyway, they’re up here on a fishing trip for the weekend. In fact, they’re staying on the lake, just down the road.”
“And they’re coming here because?”
“I thought it would be easier if they picked us up.”
“Jesus, Zoe. I’m not sure I can pull it together to be charming tonight.”
“How’s that different from the last time we had dinner with them?”
“Fuck you.”
“What would you be doing instead, Sophie? Crying? Watching old DVDs of Nash Bridges with your boyfriend Don Johnson?
“No, you bitch. I finished watching all those. I would be watching the second season of The L Word.”
“I thought you didn’t watch TV.”
“I don’t. I was in the bookstore the other day, and they were having a sale on DVDs. Early seasons of The L Word were the cheapest thing on the sale table. I got the whole first season for ten bucks. It was worth every penny to save my sanity in the middle of the night. According to my shrink, my psyche’s had a setback, which translates into intrusive thoughts and uncontrolled crying, especially at night. When I’m this bereft, I can’t concentrate enough to read. But I can’t watch crap either. With something well-made, I’m engaged enough to find a little peace.”

“I’ve seen a few episodes of The L Word,” said Zoe, smiling. “What do you like about it?”
“I love all of it,” said Sophia. “But it’s kinda funny how behind I am on everything. Entire shows air on cable, run a few years, have finales, and I don’t see them until they end up in boxed sets on the bargain table of bookstores.”
“Well, no one would accuse you of being in the loop, Sophie.”
“Just as well. Anyway, I love the lesbians and their friendships. And I think the writing and acting are amazing. You know, I might try writing some screenplays.”
“You should ask your agent what he thinks.”
“I will. So what time are these guys picking us up?”
“Eight.”
“That’s in two hours. We’d better shower.”

A little while later, the two old friends stood in bras and panties, in front of the bathroom mirror, rubbing moisturizers over their slender bodies and long, lean legs. After they dried their blond hair, their eyes met in the mirror as they artfully applied subtle make-up.
“Zoe, why am I having such a hard time letting go of my marriage?”
“As you pack and sort through all the stuff that reminds you of the wonderful years, your emotions get stirred up.”
“It’ horrible.  I can find no peace here.  I hate Marty. He’s a fucking bastard.”
“That’s the problem, Sophie. You don’t hate him. You’ve tried to feel indifferent toward him, but that doesn’t work because you still love him. Then he rejected you again, so all you’re left with is hate, but it’s not hate at all. If you could just understand that he’s not a very good man. He’s acutely narcissistic and is absolutely incapable of holding himself accountable for his actions. In his mind everyone else is the problem. With Marty, there’s no gray, no middle ground. He’s always the hero of every story, so if people don’t worship Marty, he dislikes them. Right now, he spurns you because you hold up a mirror of himself that he doesn’t want to see. Anyway, fuck Marty. Why are we talking about him?”

“Wow, Zo. You sound like my therapist.”
“Can we talk about a far more pressing matter, Sophie? Me? I’m having trouble thinking about your move. It’s really starting to depress me, even scare me a little.”
“Me too, Zo. I can’t bear the thought of us being so far apart. Yet….”
“Yet, what?”
“ZOE, WHY DOES MOVING TO FLORIDA FEEL SO RIGHT EVEN THOUGH I’M UPROOTING MYSELF FROM MY LOVED ONES AND EVERYTHING FAMILIAR THAT I CHERISH?”

Zoe rolled a hank of hair onto the curling iron.  She held the iron still for a couple of seconds.  Then, as she released her grip and a curl sprang free, she answered.  “IT’S ABOUT SAVING YOURSELF, SOPHIE. YOU’VE DECIDED THAT IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN GRASPING AND FIXATING ON THE PAST. YOU’RE NOT AFRAID TO STEP INTO THE GROUNDLESSNESS, THE OPEN SPACE. YOU ARE TAKING THE ULTIMATE, FEARLESS RISK. I’M PROUD OF YOU.”

Just then, they heard the doorbell ring.
“Fuck sake, the guys are early,” said Zoe as she dressed quickly and ran to the front door to let in their dates. Zoe greeted the dates warmly and offered them a beer and a seat on the couch. She then went back to the bathroom to check on Sophia. Sophia looked radiant and unusually confident. Zoe followed her to the living room, and they sat across from the men and engaged them in a lively conversation.

Once the four agreed it was time to leave for the restaurant, they stood up and walked through the dining room.  In the kitchen Tolstoy stood over Sparky glowering at him.  He was pissed because he wanted to take a nap next to Voltaire, but Sparky and Voltaire lay curled around each other, sound asleep.  Tolstoy was mortified at having to share Voltaire with Sparky.  As Sophia stepped into the kitchen, she was looking behind her, attempting to come across as demure and flirtatious with the literature professor, a tall, handsome, forty-something man with longish brown hair and beautiful blue eyes. He asked Sophia if she would be willing to look it over a manuscript of his. She said it would be her pleasure. Then just as she asked whether he would be one of her readers too, Sophia walked into the sleeping dogs and started to fall face first. Two strong hands grabbed her by the waist and caught her fall. She turned and blushed, smiling up into the man’s lovely eyes. She realized she really liked this man, and suddenly she felt that distant, almost forgotten tingling, of sexual longing.

“Wait a sec,” said Zoe, “We better let the dogs out before we take off.” Zoe opened the door and the dogs trotted outside. Zoe then closed the door and leaned her back against it, smiling up seductively at her date, a handsome, bald, fit, African American man.  Just then, they heard a terrible clatter, and the dogs bayed pitifully to be let back inside. The source of their desperation was no secret.

Sparky and Voltaire lurched through the doorway, frothed at the mouth, and then ran in circles as their stunned, miserable eyes sought Zoe’s and Sophia’s. The men jumped back at first and then bolted from the house, followed by Tolstoy. Zoe and Sophia just looked at each other frantically.
“FUCK,” they said in unison, “Skunk.”

After the dogs galloped through the downstairs and up to the second floor, the women finally cornered then and drove them back outside. Zoe and Sophia declined the meek offer of help from the men. Instead, they stood in the doorway waving goodbye to their dates, trying to look sexy while gagging on the dense, ghastly smell. Sophia’s date held his thumb and little finger to his ear and mouthed “I’ll call you.” But Sophia wondered vaguely whether he would.

Like reluctant soldiers going into battle, the women forged ahead with the necessary tasks. Sophia ran around the house and opened dozens of windows while Zoe made a bathing concoction for the dogs. It took both women to lift each dog into the bathtub for soaking, and even then, the dogs were so startled, so overwhelmed by the direct skunk hit, that they splashed much of the solution onto the bathroom floor.

Two hours later, Zoe and Sophia knew the smell was still too strong to sleep in the house, so they piled the dogs into the back of Zoe’s car. But just before driving away, Sophia opened her door and jumped out.
“I forgot something,” she called to Zoe as she ran back into the house.
When Sophia reappeared, she juggled in her hands boxed DVD sets of The L Word and the book When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron, Zoe’s and Sophia’s favorite American Buddhist writer.
“What are you doing?” asked Zoe.
“I thought maybe we could read a bit of Pema. After that, I want to watch these shows. I like my imaginary lesbian friends, plus the stories are full of important political ideas and poignant universal themes about love, loss and humanity.”
“God almighty, Sophie, you are so strange.”
“Don’t you want to watch my shows?”
“Maybe I’ll watch them or maybe I’ll bead. Right now, I can’t think about anything but fleeing this disgusting stench.”
“Your house is gonna stink too, you know, just from us.”
“Oh well. It’ll be better after we shower. I think getting skunked was a sign, Sophie.”
“Of what?”
“I fell off the straight and narrow today with the dating websites, and you are creating a footprint rather than detachment with all your work in the house, creating beauty for Marty that he’ll never appreciate.”
Sophia smiled. “Ironically, the embedded skunk odor might be a lingering parting gift for Marty.”
“That would be apt. But I still think the gods are punishing us.”
“That’s ridiculous, Zo. Now, listen to me. I’ve wanted to say this to you for awhile. Most artists are driven by compulsion. As I writer, I know I am. What you’ve done recently is to use your compulsion to create some magnificent jewelry. Most of the creative people I know are filling some black hole or another. It shouldn’t be a source of shame.  When you cruise the web for men, you are compelled to express through words. Now, you’ve transformed that energy into fantastic artistic expression. I’m really impressed.”
“Wow, Sophie, I never thought of it that way.”

“Zo, do you think those guys liked us?”
Zoe shrugged. “Hard to tell—there’s just nothing sexy about skunk musk. So, I wouldn’t call it the most romantic second date, but it wasn’t the worst one we’ve ever had together.”
“Do you think those guys would come over to your house after we shower, you know, for a nightcap?”

“I think they’d rather eat bat shit.”
“Bats shit?

“Everything shits.”

“Was that a Buddhist thing, Zo?”
“Sounds like.”

Once Zoe and Sophia were clean again, they tucked into Zoe’s warm bed. They could barely smell the skunk on themselves as they lay alternating handfuls of Chex Mix with spoonfuls of Nutella. For hours, The L Word drama unfolded, filling the heads of the two old friends with fascinating imagery–until they finally drifted to sleep–off on another adventure as the Sublime Consumers of the Lightness of Being.

To be continued…but remember, if you want the whole story, begin at the bottom of the blog. The easiest way to find earlier episodes is to go to the calendar in the right-hand column and click on the bolded dates. And please, keep those comments coming. Thanks.

Please send your ADVICE to two single women, whose lives are suddenly crashing in chaos! Zoe and Sophia, BFFs for thirty years, find themselves unexpectedly cast into the world of re-creation and redefinition after decades of being faithful wives to George and Marty. They need advice from anyone willing to help them. For instance, what advice would you give your BFF if she asked, “HOW DO I FORGE A RELATIONSHIP WITH GEORGE THAT ENCOMPASSES RESPECT, COMPASSION AND GOODWILL IN ORDER TO HONOR THE YEARS WE SPENT TOGETHER?” Any advice you can give to Zoe would be helpful, but this is what Sophia said.

At midnight Zoe and Sophia were wide awake. Both women sat at their laptops in their 1700s New Hampshire homes, five miles apart. Zoe was feeling acute stress about her divorce trial the following morning, but she also felt grateful that her sister Chloe had traveled from Boston to support her.

Sophia worried about Zoe’s divorce hearing too. She knew just how vulnerable her best friend was and that it would take very little for her to cave into her pain. But Sophia was also consumed with releasing her anger toward her husband Marty and the way he recently dipped selfishly back into her life for a couple of weeks, and then returned to his girlfriend Fugly.

Since Zoe could see that Sophia was online, she typed into her Facebook chat box, “Call Me.”

“Hey, Zo. You should try to sleep. You’ll need your wits about you tomorrow.”

“It’s a nice thought, but my mind won’t shut up.”

“My mind’s running too. Why won’t yours shut up?”

“Well, I just keep wondering how two people who were married for decades, who shared their innermost thoughts, their joys and struggles, could become so disengaged and need to spend so much money on lawyers. Why couldn’t George and I have talked more and sorted this out for ourselves. What happened to the love, Sophie?”

“Anger, bitterness, loss, rejection, humiliation, resentment….”

“Okay, okay. I get the point.”

“Maybe you and George could still talk,” said Sophia.

“It’s a little late for that. Anyway, what would I say to him?”

“If I were George, I know what might make me feel better.”

“What, Sophie?”

“Let George know you appreciate the positive aspects of the marriage. I wish Marty had the decency to let me know the good stuff instead of mostly demonizing me.”

“I haven’t done that to George—not the way Marty has with you.”

“I know, but have you actually talked to George about the good things he brought to the marriage?”

“Not so much. What would I say?”

“You have four amazing children. He had something to do with that.”

“True.”

“George also knew how to take care of your heart when you mourned losses in your life.”

“He did indeed.”

“He could make you laugh, Zo, and you always said the sex was good.”

“True again, but why would I say these things to George now?”

“It’s time to find some closure. I hate that word, but it fits. Zoe, your motivations for leaving only suggest that, in the end, the positive did not outweigh the negative, but you can’t deny there was good stuff there too.”

“So, you think by talking to him we might find some closure?”

“It can’t hurt. Part of why you two don’t speak often is that he probably still feels resentful and abandoned. You left him, and he is, no doubt, struggling to find self-worth.  If you let him know that he has value in your eyes, it might help him heal. I can relate, you know. Of course, it would be nice if George were receptive and realized just how much grace and selflessness you’ve shown over the past year. It’s obvious to me that you still care about him.”

“Of course, I do. I love George. I wish him only the best and have gone out of my way not to cause him harm–not like Marty. He’s been a bastard to you.”

“No kidding, but I have to let it go, Zo. And honestly, now I’m grateful because the most destructive aspect of the equation has stepped out of my turmoil.”

“Fuck sake, Sophie, speak English. I know it’s late, but could you try to be more literal and less metaphorical.”

“I never asked Marty to come back. He came to me. But before he did, I was gripped by my longing for him. I knew I could forgive the affair, the lies, even the cruel treatment and learn to trust him again. But it was not the Marty I knew who came back. That person is dead in a sense. Now, that place inside of me that longed for him has vanished. I don’t want to be anywhere near Marty. I don’t want his energy, his eyes, his body, his touch, his smell, his thoughts or his words. He is not someone I care to know any longer. That’s progress.”

“I’ll say it is.”

“Hey, Zoe, at least you have your trip to Florida to look forward to.”

“I cancelled the reservation today.”

“Why?”

“I realized I was just running away from what I need to feel,” said Zoe.

“What do you mean?”

“I was flying down to see Jackson as a temporary fix. I need to stay here and deal with my feelings about the divorce. I’ll go see Jackson after you move down there, and hopefully he’ll still want to be with me.”

“Why wouldn’t he?”

“I don’t know. I have a feeling he’s conflicted about me.”

Since Zoe’s separation from George, she had dated several men. But for the past few weeks she suspended cruising the internet dating sites, and she let go of all her relationships except the one with Jackson. He was the only man for whom she felt a true attachment that encompassed a deep friendship.

“I need to go to sleep, Sophie, at least try. Chloe went to bed earlier, and maybe if I climb in next to her, just the comfort of having her here will help me to drift off. My sister is very good to me.”

“Yes, she is. You’re lucky to have her.”

After Zoe hung up, Sophia walked slowly up the stairs to her bedroom. She felt a jab of aged sorrow, wishing her sister were still alive to climb in to bed with for comfort. But the only living thing in her bed was Tolstoy, her huge Maine Coon cat. He lay sleeping on what was Marty’s side of the bed, next to Sophia’s goodie bag. Sophia silently slid between the sheets, not wanting to wake Tolstoy. If he were awake, he’d leap on her stomach and pin her down until morning, and Sophia really wanted to sit up and watch an old DVD she found in the closet while she was packing for her move to Florida.

Zoe made fun of Sophia a few days before when she proudly brandished three seasons of the old TV show Nash Bridges. They were on a shelf next to DVDs of the entire series of Miami Vice. Something about Don Johnson’s sex appeal had always captured Sophia’s attention. She regarded him as a secret fantasy who had been hanging around in the wings of her mind for twenty-five years. Zoe shrugged at the sex appeal bit and nearly shouted that Sophia couldn’t seriously think Don Johnson was a good actor. But Sophia defended him even on that score. She thought Don Johnson was underrated. Finally, they agreed to disagree. Of course, Zoe had to admit she never watched even one episode of Nash Bridges—she said she would rather eat arsenic.

Once Don Johnson and his sidekick Cheech Marin actually sprung into action on the TV screen, Sophia was so tired that she forgot to eat her usual Chex Mix and Nutella evening snack and fell fast asleep.

The next morning George was the only African American at the courthouse. Eyebrows arched when he first walked into the courtroom for the divorce trial. He was distinguished in a suit and tie, and each time Zoe glanced over at him, she thought how handsome he looked, but thinner than usual. From time to time, George leaned in to his attorney’s ear to whisper. Zoe didn’t try to guess what George was saying. She really didn’t care. She just wanted the whole thing to be over.

Zoe looked limp as she shuffled back into the courtroom after a recess during the trial. She hoped today would mark the resolution of her long marriage. But it was beginning to look as if too many issues remained unresolved, from a legal standpoint, a practical one, and to Zoe’s surprise, an emotional one. Zoe and George took the stand and testified as to their truths. Soon, the judge would hold in her hands the facts, and with them, the power to divide the aspects of their former lives, which the couple were unable to agree upon. But no judge could guide Zoe about how she should feel. She felt empty and shadowy and confused.

Occasionally, she glanced back at her sister, wishing she could walk over and fold herself in Chloe’s arms. Chloe bent forward, straining to hear every word the witnesses spoke. She had the luxury of detachment and distance, so she could track the judge’s demeanor and that of the two attorneys. She tried to keep her face free of expression, but a few times she wanted to gasp at what she deemed outrageous unfairness in the process she observed.

Chloe and Zoe were undeniably sisters in their pretty facial features, but their statures were quite different. Zoe was tall, lean and long legged. Chloe was petite, with the small, lithe limbs of a ballerina. They both had blond hair and their mother’s smile, which radiated across any room. Chloe’s cornflower blue eyes compassionately sought Zoe’s hazel ones during Zoe’s examination on the witness stand. Chloe was relieved that Zoe’s testimony was clear, articulate and came straight from her heart, without rancor, without spite. But Chloe still felt helpless to protect her younger sister from the pain that emanated from Zoe’s eyes. Protection of Zoe was something Chloe had felt responsible for since they were children, especially after the death of their father, which left a mother and her three young daughters in emotional shambles.

Zoe also wished Sophia were in the courtroom, but Sophia purposely stayed away. She didn’t want to upset George, who was once one of her dearest friends. George cut Sophia loose as a friend on the day Zoe left him and temporarily moved into Sophia’s house, over a year before. Sophia knew her presence at the trial would just serve to remind George of the harshest period, the first few months following Zoe’s departure from the marriage.

Meanwhile, Sophia was too preoccupied to devote meaningful time to editing her current manuscript. She decided to work off nervous energy a couple miles away from the courthouse, until the trial was over. She planned to meet Zoe and Chloe for a meal and a debriefing. Shopping was the only way Sophia knew how to distract herself fully from worrying about Zoe. Shopping also helped obliterate every image of Marty that popped into her head. Her mind, though, was so vigilant in its scrutiny of these thoughts that she was mentally exhausted.

But physically, Sophia was fine as she streamed up and down the aisles of a TJ Maxx and filled the shopping cart to overflowing with clothes she would try on but could not afford to buy. A couple of times she grated the heels of other shoppers, when her shopping cart went straight ahead, but her eyes caught something in another direction. Before long, people saw Sophia coming, saw the glazed look in her eyes, and eased out of her path as diplomatically as they could. Sophia was unaware that she appeared like something between a crazed monkey and a rabid bat.

At one point three shoppers came into the store together, shared a cart and were having a lively discussion as they browsed the racks of clothes. They didn’t see Sophia, who was pushing her cart at full tilt, as her eyes focused downward on the cell phone, willing it to ring. Unfortunately, one of the three women stepped out into the aisle as Sophia rushed past her. Sophia’s foot caught the woman’s ankle. The woman tripped and fell into one of her friends. The friend was knocked off balance and grabbed hold of the third friend to try to break her fall. The third friend wasn’t paying attention, and as she took her next step, she keeled over on top of the other two women who lay on the floor, under an entire rack of fashionable spring jackets that had landed on top of them.

Sophia heard the cries of the three women and turned around to see what was wrong. They glowered up at Sophia. Within seconds, other shoppers rushed to help the fallen woman. Concerned, Sophia started to hurry back toward them too, but just then, her cell phone blinged an incoming text message from Zoe. Sophia stopped to read it, directly in the path of two salespeople who were also rushing to the scene of the accident. In their efforts not to mow down Sophia, they bumped into each other, tripped and knocked down the three fallen shoppers, just as they were getting back on their feet. Zoe’s message told Sophia to meet her right away, and to everyone’s relief, Sophia’s dashed from the store, leaving a cart full of clothes by the door.

Two tall, slender blonds flanking a third, smaller one, strode confidently down the busy street in Dover. Chloe’s elfin, graceful walk was accentuated by Zoe’s and Sophia’s long strides. On any other day, the sheer delight of the warm spring air would have been enough for them to throw back their heads and laugh at nothing much, since easy laughter was a quality all three shared. But today, their expressions were somber, helpless.

The trial had not yielded an end result, and after three hours of testimony, the case was continued for another month. Although Zoe and the other two were headed to an Italian restaurant, when they walked past an Asian one, they saw through the window an empty table. Sunshine steamed down on the table. Their collective need for light, to dispel their internal darkness, was so compelling, that they walked into the Asian restaurant, sat at the illuminated table, and soaked up the light, waiting to order food for which they had little appetite.

While they waited, Zoe and Chloe filled Sophia in on some of the stickier issues during the trial, which required further evidence and resulted in the month’s delay. Both women talked through tears. By the time the charming, young Chinese woman arrived at their table, they realized that a cup of soup and a glass of wine was all their stomachs could abide. When the wine arrived, they raised their glasses to toast, but their minds went blank.

“To new beginnings?” asked Chloe finally.

“To family, newly configured?” asked Zoe.

“Shit,” said Sophia. “Let’s just toast to the passage of time, and that we won’t always feel this bleak. Life is what we make it, right? Here’s to joy.”

“Never mind,” said Zoe. “Skip the toast. What are we gonna do with the rest of the afternoon and evening. Sophie’s right. We need to find our joy. Can you stay another night, Chloe?”

Chloe’s bright blue eyes lit up and an impish smile spread across her face.

“I’ll call Thomas and let him know I won’t be home,” said Chloe. Thomas was Chloe’s husband.

“We could read out loud from When Things Fall Apart,” said Sophia. She was referring to a book by the American Buddhists writer Pema Chodron, whom Zoe and Sophia adored.

“NO,” said Zoe and Chloe in unison. “Maybe later,” added Zoe.

“Then what should we do?” asked Sophia.

“Well, shopping is a pretty good curative when I feel like shit,” said Zoe.

“Okay, but we have to go some place other than TJ Maxx. I can’t go back there today,” said Sophia.

The other two looked at her quizzically.

“It’s a long story,” said Sophia.

“Fuck sake, Sophie, does it involve broken bones or blood?”

“No, Zo, it does not. Never mind, okay?”

“I’ll just use my imagination,” said Zoe.

Chloe, uncertain of why the conversation had become so cryptic said, “Later, can we go hear some music, maybe go dancing? My night life is pretty staid these days. I like getting together with the same couples for drinks and dinner and talking about familiar stuff, but I’d like to do something different.”

Zoe and Sophia looked at each other, smiled, then nodded at Chloe. The memory, now fading, of being married for decades snagged them. And it occurred to both women, that although sometimes they looked back with melancholy at the loss of a spousal devotion and comfort, they didn’t miss certain aspects of long-married life, like the tedium of predictability.

Zoe and Sophia took Chloe to spend the rest of the afternoon in the Fox Run Mall in Newington. They weren’t in the mood to buy much, but walking from store to store, and chatting as they perused books, jewelry and the new spring lines released some of their stress.

By late afternoon they pulled up to Zoe’s house to shower and change their clothes for the evening. Sparky, Zoe’s stroke-impaired, incontinent yellow lab barked loudly as they approached the front door. Zoe went in first, but the force field of smell reached the women behind her. Normally, Sparky would have been in the car with Zoe all day, but she wanted to spare him the intensity of what she anticipated feeling once the trial was over, so she had left him at home.

Apart from incontinence, Sparky’s stroke rendered him incapable of walking straight, so Sparky bounded out the door sideways and slammed right into Chloe who didn’t know she was supposed to jump out of Sparky’s way. In his excitement, he let out a stream of yellow stuff that barely missed poor Chloe, who lay stunned on the front porch.

“What…was THAT,” yelled Chloe.

“Sorry,” called Zoe as she raced around the downstairs cleaning up the piles Sparky had deposited throughout.

Sophia turned to shut the door, just as Sparky tried to run back inside to say hello. In the last inch before the door closed, Sparky caught Sophia’s eye. That bitch, he thought. I’ve been stuck here all day without my beautiful Zoe, and that awful Sophia will probably make me stay out here forever. Why does she have to come to my house, anyway? She should just stay home with her big bully cat Tolstoy and have a mean-person party with him. Sparky slunk off to sulk under a tree as the women took turns showering.

Although the downstairs bathroom mirror was a little crowded, Zoe, Sophia and Chloe all managed to wedge in front of it, as they stood in their panties and bras lathering moisturizers on their bodies, drying their blond hair and artfully applying make-up.

“Where are we going, Zo?” asked Sophia.

“I don’t know. What type of music do you wanna hear, Clo?”

“I’d love to hear some live R & B,” said Chloe.

“Tonight there’s an R & B band at the Dolphin Striker in Portsmouth, and the food’s pretty good.” As Zoe said this, she caught in the mirror the discomfort reflected in Sophia’s eyes. Sophia sighed hard. “What do you think, Sophie? Can you handle that place again?”

“I guess,” said Sophia.

Chloe looked in the mirror, back and forth, into the eyes of the other two. “Is there a problem?”

Sophia took a deep breath before answering. “Marty found me at the Dolphin Striker the night he told me he wanted to leave his girlfriend Fugly and come back home to me. Zoe and I haven’t been there since.”

“I don’t care where we go, Sophie,” said Chloe. “Let’s go somewhere else.”

“No,” said Sophia. “I’ve been traumatized, Chloe, and everywhere I turn has some association with Marty that triggers either despair or panic. That’s the main reason I don’t want to live here anymore. In Florida, I won’t have to be constantly reminded of the nightmare of Marty. I might even be able to accept the situation and find some compassion for him.”

Just then Zoe’s eyes began to brim with tears. “Sophie, please talk about something else. Until now, I’ve been able to stuff my feelings about your move, but it’s been a tough day, and I don’t have the emotional stamina.”

“Okay, Zo.”

“Wait,” said Chloe, “I wanna hear what happened when Marty came back. What were his reasons?”

“I’m gonna go get dressed,” said Zoe as she turned and walked from the bathroom. “I’ve heard the story and it makes me sick.”

Sophia shrugged and looked at Chloe in the mirror. “Marty said we belonged together. And he said a lot of other things like that he was an old curmudgeon and that I understood him.”

“Wow, that’s weird…and not that romantic,” said Chloe.

“But before long he started telling me everything he gave up to come back to me, kinda like guilting me for his choice.”

“What did he give up?”

“He said Fugly was willing to pay off all his debts and set him up with a new business.”

“I thought it was her famous husband and really famous father-in-law who had all the money.”

“I guess she must have plenty too if she was able to do all that for Marty. Well, now he doesn’t have to “give up” anything for me, does he?”

“Do you think that was some of his motivation for going back to her?”

“I dunno. Could be.”

“Does she have kids?”

“Three young ones, but they stayed with their father. She sees them on a visitation schedule. When Marty came back, he admitted that it really bothered him that he wasn’t allowed to stay with Fugly on the nights she had her kids. He had to stay in a dumpy little motel near her house. A couple of days after he went back to her, we were on the phone, and he told me that’s all been taken care of, and he’s allowed to live with Fugly full-time. I guess coming back to me was the leverage he needed to get Fugly to do what he wanted.”

“That’s diabolical, Sophie. Although I don’t know Marty well, I’ve known him a long time. He always struck me as arrogant, but I had no idea his selfishness was so extreme.”

“Hey, he’s probably not that different than anyone else, Chloe. He wants to get his needs met. He just had different needs when we were together. People change. From everything I’ve observed, Fugly is a predatory human being. She aggressively seeks whatever she wants even if she hurts other people in the process. I guess Marty’s espoused that way of thinking. It ignores a little thing called Karma, of course, which follows us wherever. But he’s not my problem anymore.”

Chloe looked at Sophia in the mirror for a moment before asking, “What is Zoe going to do without you?”

Sophia lifted her eyebrows and shook her head. “Dunno. And what am I going to do without Zoe?”

Just then, Zoe called from the living room for them to hurry up. Minutes later, the three women drove toward Portsmouth. Chloe sat in the passenger seat talking to Zoe about Zoe’s despair. Chloe said she was relieved that her sister chose to curtail her frantic connection with several men at once. When Zoe asked her why, her sister said that the emotional emptiness that motivated Zoe’s actions wasn’t going to be filled by other people. Zoe needed to work on loving herself more. Sophia, who sat in the backseat listening, pulled from her purse a book called The Secret by Rhonda Byrne.

“You know what?” said Sophia, “I just read something about that. It has to do with the laws of attraction and rearranging the way we think about ourselves. Do you mind if I read a passage from this book?”

“Go ahead,” said Zoe.

Sophia started to read:

“The reason you have to love You is because it is impossible to feel good if you don’t love You. When you feel bad about yourself, you are blocking all the love and all the good the Universe has for you.
When you feel bad about yourself it feels as though you are sucking the life out of you, because all of your good, on every subject—including health, wealth, and love—is on the frequency of joy and feeling good….When you don’t feel good about You, you are on a frequency that is attracting more people, situations, and circumstances that will continue to make you feel bad about You.

You must change your focus and begin to think about all the things that are wonderful about you. Look for the positives in You. As you focus on those things, the law of attraction will show you more great things about You. You attract what you think about. All you have to do is begin with one prolonged thought of something good about You, and the law of attraction will respond by giving You more like thoughts.”

“Hum, it’s sounds a little simplistic, but plausible,” said Chloe.

“Good point,” said Zoe, ” but I’ve learned that the wisest solutions in life are often the most simple ones,” said Zoe.

“Let’s play a game,” said Sophia. “Let’s take turns naming good things about ourselves.”

“Okay,” said Zoe. “I’m intelligent.”

“I good at nurturing,” said Sophia.

“I’m resourceful,” said Chloe.

“I’m a good lover,” said Zoe.

“I’m creative,” said Sophia.

“I’m ingenious,” said Chloe.

“I’m done with this game,” said Zoe. “We’re almost there, so let’s send out into the universe our desires to find a good parking spot, a good table, good music, and a cute waiter.”

“Was that a Buddhist thing, Zo?”
“Sounds like.”

Chloe looked confused.

After parking right in front of the Dolphin Striker, the three women shimmered as they stepped into the sultry atmosphere. The R & B band had already started their set, and the women found an empty table right in front. They each ordered crab cakes and salad, which were delicious. The young man who waited on them was handsome, amusing and flirtatious.  Zoe and Chloe danced with abandon as partners. Sophia decided to opt out since she’d already caused one train wreck that day in the store. Tonight, she preferred to watch.

After a couple of hours, Zoe and Sophia thought Chloe might enjoy a dance club, so they walked across the street to the Gaslight. Unfortunately, the place was nearly deserted, owing perhaps to the unrelenting Techno music that split their ear drums. They danced for a couple of songs then called it an early night.

But when they got back to Zoe’s house, all three of them were still jumpy, wanting to dance. Zoe put on an old Marvin Gay CD, and Chloe and Sophia whirled around the living room in their sheer nightgowns. Zoe sat down at her laptop, turned on her Webcam, and began cruising a dating site, for the first time in weeks. She flirted with a fireman from Chicago before asking if he wanted to watch some dancing. He nodded enthusiastically, at which point Zoe jumped up and joined the other two. Sophia looked over at the stranger’s face on the laptop screen.

“What are you doing, Zo?” asked Sophia.

“I thought I’d show Chloe one of the things we do for fun.”

“But I thought you swore off Webcam dating.”

“I’m not dating, Sophie, I’m just dancing.”

Chloe rolled her eyes. But just then, one of her favorite songs, Sexual Healing, started to play, and she couldn’t help throwing herself into a series of perfect pirouettes. Zoe, eyes closed, moved sensuously, gracefully to the music. And Sophia grooved out spastically, thinking she looked fabulous with her best moves. Before long, the song transported the women to a distant place inside of themselves, where the excruciating ache of pubescent excitement still lived. When the song ended, Zoe walked over to the Webcam and turned it off then she lowered the volume of the music.

“Let’s talk,” Zoe said as she lay down across an oriental rug on the living room floor.

“What’s wrong, Zo?” asked Sophia as she joined her on the floor.

“This is a nice distraction, but I’m still perplexed and a bit sad.”

“What about?” asked Chloe as she lay down on the other side of Zoe.

“I need to move on with my life, but I’m dragged down by such old shit. Somehow, I feel that I need to sort things out with George before I can move forward with emotional clarity.”

“We talked about that last night,” said Sophia as she studied the knotholes in one of the old ceiling beams.

“I know. But I can’t remember what we said.”

“What was the question?” asked Chloe, as she glanced out the window at the full moon.

Zoe sighed before answering. “HOW DO I FORGE A RELATIONSHIP WITH GEORGE THAT ENCOMPASSES RESPECT, COMPASSION AND GOODWILL IN ORDER TO HONOR THE YEARS WE SPENT TOGETHER?”

Sophia chimed in first. “TO REACH GEORGE, YOU NEED TO MAKE IT ABOUT GEORGE. LET HIM KNOW, THAT DESPITE THE DIVORCE, YOU WILL ALWAYS LOVE HIM AND VALUE HIS CONTRIBUTION TO YOUR LIFE.”

Then Chloe spoke. “YOU CAN’T CONTROL ANYONE BUT YOURSELF, ZO. ALL YOU CAN DO IS LIVE BY EXAMPLE. IF YOU WANT A FRIENDSHIP BASED ON RESPECT, COMPASSION AND GOODWILL, DEMONSTRATE THOSE QUALITIES. THEN GEORGE MUST CHOOSE WHETHER TO RECIPROCATE. IF HE CHOOSES NOT TO, IT’S OUT OF YOUR CONTROL.”

Zoe listened carefully and as she did so, ideas of how to move forward with George sprung into her mind. But after a couple of minutes, her mind wandered away.

“Hey, Sophie, let’s take Clo to an all-night tanning salon.”

“I don’t do tanning salons,” said Chloe.

“Bummer,” said Sophia.

“Actually, neither did we when we were married,” said Zoe. “But people change. A tanning bed is a pretty good place to meditate.”

“You guys meditate?” asked Chloe.

“Of course, we do,” said Sophia. “How else would we manage our lives?”

“You manage your lives?” asked Chloe.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” cried Zoe.

Chloe threw her sister a look then said, “Oh well, since I’m living the singles scene tonight, I guess a few minutes in a tanning bed won’t kill me.”

Without bothering to get dressed, the fifty-something BFFs, plus one sister, threw coats over their sheer nightgowns and pulled boots on over their bare feet. Then they dashed out the door, laughing at nothing much, and drove into the night, under a full moon, off on another adventure as the Sublime Consumers of the Lightness of Being.

To be continued…And remember to read the whole story, start at the bottom of the blog.  You can use the calendar in the right column and click on the bolded dates of publication.  And thanks for your wonderful comments.  Keep them coming!

One late afternoon Zoe rushed around her house, cleaning again each spotless room, deflecting thoughts that stalked her like little harpies. She was acrobatic in her ability to dodge these thoughts, but the one sure method she removed from her repertoire of agile moves was her dating websites. She was on lockdown with the laptop until she figured out why she needed connections with the faces and words of so many strangers.

Five miles down the road, Sophia sat with her elbow leaning on the dining room table, her hand cradling her head. She tried to write, but all her mind did was listen to the rain and think what a perfect metaphor it was for her life. Rain, like tears, echoed her pain, but rain was restorative, infusing life into withering plants. She knew she wasn’t a drought-blighted plant, but sometimes she felt like one.

Zoe knew she needed to talk about her thoughts when their whispers escalated to screams. So, she called Sophia.
“Hey, Sophie, what’s up?”
“Nothin. How are you?”
“Not good.”
“Why not?”
“I’m restless. Three days ago I banned myself from the dating sites and resolved not to talk to or see any of the men who keep pursuing me. It just feels so empty.”
“What made you decide to do those things?”
“I realized that whenever I feel lonely, I panic.”
“So, being by yourself scares you?”
“My skin crawls, Sophie. My stomach churns. I feel like an animal, cornered by prey, trapped in my aloneness.”
“Does staying busy help, Zo?”
“Yes.”
“What do you do with your time?”
“When I’m not at work, I drive and stare mostly, and if I’m not driving and staring, I’m trying to figure out how to sleep.”
“Oh, baby. That’s depression at its worst. Has there been anything bright in your day?”
“Jackson in Florida called. He was very kind to me, in a friendship way. He recognizes that what motivates me to fill time seeking male attention is a need to plug holes of loss and abandonment from my past, going all the way back to my father’s death when I was eight. He gets it.”
“Doesn’t Jackson count as one of the men pursuing you?”
“He’s different. I have strong feelings for him. And he’s in Florida. All we can do is talk and write since I disabled the Webcam on my laptop.”
“Is he helpful? I mean, does he offer you good advice?”
“He says I need to change my thinking. Maybe that’s the secret to solving most things we perceive as problems. Just change the way we think about them,” said Zoe.
“Did you say the secret? I haven’t finished reading The Secret, but I think the message is pretty simple, really. Change the ways we think because our thoughts have a powerful influence on what we bring to ourselves.”
“Yes, simplicity itself,” said Zoe, “but it’s not so easy to do, especially when we can’t see the trees for the forest. What’s going on with you?”
“I can’t talk about it on the phone. You wanna come over?”

An hour later Zoe and Sparky, her stroke-impaired yellow lab, dashed into Sophia’s. Rain dripped from them into a puddle that Tolstoy sauntered over to lick. Tolstoy was Sophia’s huge Maine Coon cat, the man of the house. He loved Sophia dearly, but he was frustrated with her that morning. She was so preoccupied with troubles that she forgot to put water in his cat bowl. Even worse, she’d put some blue shit in the toilet water, which made Tolstoy want to puke, so he was not only irritated, he was parched. Sparky, who couldn’t walk straight on a good day, and who was incontinent and dumber than dirt (at least Tolstoy thought so), started to lap Tolstoy as an act of friendship and an invitation to play.

Sparky realized he must be pretty bored to want anything to do with Tolstoy, but his beautiful Zoe was so sad that morning that she had ignored him altogether. Sparky shook more raindrops off his coat, which sprayed over Sophia and her laptop. Sparky put his paw over his ears when he saw Sophia lift her head for a second. Those slitted eyes told her story every time. Okay, okay, he thought. I fucked up, but why does she need to be such a bitch to me?

Tolstoy saw Sparky’s nervous reaction. Mounting tension always made Tolstoy hungry. Well, everything made Tolstoy hungry since Sophia’s husband Marty walked out and took Tolstoy’s big brothers with him, the border collies Dickens and Voltaire. Plain and simple, Tolstoy had a serious eating disorder, which is why he scurried out of the dining room, through the kitchen and out the swinging door to the summer kitchen. Perhaps Sophia remembered to leave some kibble in his bowl. Sparky sensed that the tears were about to fly with the two women, and frankly, he was getting a little tired of the morose shit, so he slunk off to follow Tolstoy out to the summer kitchen.

Zoe walked over to Sophia, who hadn’t stirred since she arrived except to glare at Sparky. Sophia’s forehead rested on a book. Gently, Zoe tried to lift Sophia’s head, but Sophia wouldn’t budge. Finally, Zoe gave her hair a tug, not too hard, just enough to pull Sophia out of her weird, depressed trance.
“OUCH,” cried Sophia. “Why did you do that?”

“I wasn’t sure you were alive, just testing. What were you doing anyway?”
“I was visualizing.”
“Huh?”
“Putting pictures in my mind of what I want and believing those things had already come to me.”
“Huh?”
Sophia picked up the book next to her and handed it to Zoe. It was The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. Then she said, “Read the book. It’s about changing our thoughts to make the things we want come to us.”
“Fuck sake,” said Zoe. “Can we discuss the book later? Tell me what you wouldn’t talk about on the phone.”
“Something happened this morning. I had my weekly meeting with Marty over division of assets. He seemed really lost and sad and told me he was feeling ambivalent about us.”
“What’s that mean?”
“He said he had drawn away from Fugly lately, and that he was thinking about me all the time.”

Marty was Sophia’s husband who left her after he disclosed his affair with Fugly.  Fugly, who looked like a man-troll, pursued Marty during the course of his relationship with her on a business project. Fugly’s husband was a famous musician, and his father was really, really famous, Famous Father.  It was Famous Father who financed the project proposed by Fugly to Marty, one that would fulfill a dream Marty sought for years. Once Famous Father found out about the affair, he pulled his money out of the project and it collapsed. But Fugly left her husband to be with Marty. That’s not all she left. She walked out on three young children whom she now saw on a visitation schedule.

“What does Marty want from you?”
“I’m not sure, probably just a dialogue. But he did own up to some things that he hasn’t before.”
“Like what?”
“He’s maintained all along that because I was a mean, bitter wife, I drove him away. But this morning he acknowledged those things weren’t true.  He admitted that Fugly gunned for him from the first day they met, and that she put that desire into actions and words that drew him away. I knew all this from the beginning, I sensed it in the way she broke every boundary, openly pursued him, and I railed against all of it. I pleaded, I screamed, I fought to make him see. But, as he said, he finally just ‘fell.’ Who wouldn’t? He had a wife at home intuiting the situation he denied in himself and acting like a harridan. He had the other woman who wanted him, being wonderful and adoring toward him.”

“Okay, Sophie, I know your theory, but let’s face it, it takes two tango.”

“I know, Zo.”

“So, where do things stand?”

“I told him about Jack.”  Jack was Sophia’s new lover.

“What did he say?”
“Not much. But I could see pain spring into his eyes. What I didn’t tell him was that I don’t see a future with Jack. Jack’s good on paper, a writer like me, and we share the same taste in music, food, art, blah, blah, blah. But Jack is so much like Marty. And the fact that he left his wife for another woman and destroyed a marriage, I just don’t think I could love someone who would do that to another person, no matter how cleansed he feels.”
“Why not?” asked Zoe.
“Because it was cowardly, disrespectful, and selfish, and people who do that are forever haunted by their guilt. And if they are not, well, who would want a person without a conscience?”
“You have a point. If you want out of a marriage, just have the balls to leave. Don’t jump into another relationship, before you’ve left the last one,” said Zoe.
“It’s a matter of degrees. It’s one thing to have a slip, screw around a couple of times, and then face up to what you’ve done. It’s another thing to “fall in love” with someone over many months while you’re still married and still telling your wife everyday how much you love her and worse, telling her she’s imagining the affair. That’s what both Marty and Jack did. That takes a lot of deception, self and otherwise.”

“So, have you told Jack what you’re thinking?”
“Not yet. I have a date with him tomorrow night. I thought I’d tell him then. My only reluctance, honestly, is that I like having someone to make love with, someone to sleep next to at night. It’s been so long for me. The problem is that I still fantasize about Marty.”
“Yuck.”
“Hey, you make love with someone for decades, and they learn what you want and need. I have a sense Marty misses the sex with me too.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, for the last few weeks, every time I see him, he has that sort of hungry look in his eyes.”
“What does that mean, Sophie?”
“He can’t help his eyes from looking me up and down.”
“Sophie, would you ever take Marty back if he asked?”
“NO,” cried Sophia. Zoe gave her a look shaped like a vast question mark but said nothing. Tears formed in Sophia’s eyes. “I don’t know,” she whispered.
“Never mind,” said Zoe.
“It’s okay. I’ve never really thought about whether I would go back with him. But I do know I wish I could make love with him one more time. I’ve never admitted that to anyone.”
“Okay, Sophie. Change is constant; growth is optional. That would not be growth. Anyway, let’s quit talking about sex, okay? I’ve sworn off of it for the time being.”

“Wow, Zo, that’s huge. But what are you gonna do for sex?”
“Well, I haven’t yet tried out the sex toys you bought at the Naughty Party while I was out in L.A. No time like the present, I guess.”
“Humm,” said Sophia, “Come to think of it, neither have I. I finally took the toys off Marty’s side of the bed and put them in his bedside table. In fact, I forgot all about them.”
“Why do you need them now that you have Jack?”
“Have you not been listening to me? I’m breaking it off tomorrow night, Zo.”
“Oh, I thought that was a maybe–not a for sure.”
“It’s over. I can’t lead him on. I just have too much residual shit to be able to accept who he is, and I get him all confused with Marty and blah, blah, blah. I don’t wanna talk about it. But I will miss the sex.”
“Well, once again we’re talking about sex.”

“Hey, does your new regime mean we can’t go out on anymore dinner dates?” asked Sophia.
“Not necessarily. We could go out with guys I wouldn’t want to sleep with if they were the last men on earth.”
“Where would you find them?”
“Just turn on Match.Com. You’ll find millions of them.”
“I say we do it, Zo. I miss our double dates. We haven’t been on one since I met Jack.”
“Okay, but you have to set them up. I’m not even dipping my toe into that stream right now. I don’t want to get washed downriver, if you know what I mean.”

Sophia turned to her laptop, clicked out of her manuscript and into Match.Com. Just then, they heard terrible squealing followed by crashing yowling and moaning. Zoe and Sophia rushed through the kitchen to the swinging door of the summer kitchen. Zoe tried to push it open, but it wouldn’t budge. Sophia pushed too, and finally they were able to shove Sparky’s girth forward enough to step inside. Since Sparky’s stroke, he had trouble rolling over. Sparky was stuck on his back like a bug, baying like a hound dog. Blood dripped from the tip of his ear.

Tolstoy looked up, saw Zoe, and glared. Why the hell was she interfering, he wondered? Then he turned his head and saw Sophia’s concerned glance, which quelled his distress. Tolstoy, tail erect, marched back and forth in front of his upended cat bowl, which lay amidst kibble strewn on the floor. He guarded the area like a sentry, but he kept losing his concentration when he remembered the dead mouse hanging from his teeth. Tolstoy was pretty certain that if he dropped the mouse on the floor to devour, Sparky would once again try to invade his food. The bit of Sparky’s ear that was caught in Tolstoy’s claw was also annoying the hell out of him.

Sophia looked down at Sparky whose nose was covered in kitty litter. Cat crap dribbled from his mouth. Sparky didn’t know he wore flecks of kitty litter on his face, so when he looked up at Sophia, he flashed innocent eyes at her that said, “What? What?” Sophia just shook her head, and Sparky wondered why that bitch always ruined his desert with her dirty looks. She was the one with the antisocial cat; she was the one whom his beautiful Zoe paid attention to instead of him. Why couldn’t she just take her bastard cat into the next room and let Zoe help him roll over and stand up?

Sophia strode to the outside door, jerked it open and ordered the animals outside that instant, including the dead mouse. Then Zoe bent down and locked the animal door, so they couldn’t sneak back inside. Tolstoy sprinted out of sight. He was pissed. He hated rain, but he hated Sparky even more for getting them in trouble. But at least he had some comfort food to make him feel better. Sparky was pissed too. Tolstoy was a prick, he thought, as he staggered sideways to the covered porch and stretched out.  He admitted that he was quite full and a little sleepy from the cat crap.

Zoe and Sophia returned to the dining room and to Match.Com. Zoe refused to show Sophia how to cruise local guys, nor would she dictate what to write in the emails that would entice two men to be game for a date on short notice. As a result Sophia couldn’t line up two live ones for the evening. Finally, she clicked out of Match and Goggled live music playing in the area that evening. The Dolphin Striker in Portsmouth had a Latino band. Sophia adored Latino music.
“Let’s go take showers,” said Sophia.
“Why?”
“We’re going to Portsmouth for dinner and to hear a Latino band.”
“We are? Did you find dates?”
“We don’t need dates to go out and have fun, Zo.”
“We don’t?”
“God almighty. Just go take a shower.”
“ What are we gonna wear?”
“Pick anything you want from my closet.”

After the women showered, they stood in Sophia’s downstairs bathroom applying lotions to their slender torsos and long, lean legs. Zoe loved showering at Sophia’s house because she had an endless array of body creams to choose from, creams of every scent, except fruity ones which Sophia found putrid. Zoe’s favorites were the ones made with Shea butter or olive oil. Other moisturizers sat in rows, waiting to address any and all zones and conditions of the face, neck and chest. Once the women dried their blond hair and applied artful make-up, they dressed in different colored pencil skirts and cute tops from The Loft.

Soon, they were on the road to Portsmouth.
“Now, Sophie, there’s a chance we might meet some guys at the Dolphin Striker.”
“That would be cool–meeting guys the old fashioned way.”
“Well, if we do, you know the drill. No accidently filling your mouth too full, going into hysterics then spitting food all over the guys. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“And no dragging out Pema and reading out loud or meditating while we’re there, okay?” Zoe was referring to Pema Chodron the American Buddhist writer both women loved.
“Yes. I mean, no, I won’t do that. I’m so much better now. I won’t have a meltdown. At least I don’t think so.”
“Good.”
“But, Zo, can I read from Pema right now? Wouldn’t you like to embrace groundlessness and find some open space before we get to Portsmouth?”
“No and no. Give me the book,” said Zoe, holding out her hand. “I know it’s in your purse.”
Sophia drew Pema’s book When Things Fall Apart from her purse and reluctantly handed it over as a child might a coveted toy which she wasn’t allowed to take into school. Sophia remained silent for awhile, holding her purse tightly in case Zoe wanted her to hand over anything else.

Even though she was with Sophia and on her way to spend a festive evening among other people, Zoe was suddenly gripped with a panic that surged in and out like the tide. A grim feeling squeezed her stomach and stuck in her throat. She felt as though a force were lowering her onto shards of erect glass, and internally she sobbed from pain that she could not yet feel. The fear of it caused her suddenly to reach over and grab Sophia’s arm. Sophia turned to face her. Then Zoe said, “I’VE BEEN IN A PATTERN THAT DOESN’T FEEL GOOD. DO YOU THINK I CAN CHANGE THE PATTERN?”
Sophia looked out the window. A full moon was rising. She thought about her answer for a moment. Then she turned to her old friend and said, “YOU HAVE ALREADY BEGUN TO GROW BY YOUR RECENT CHANGES, ZO.  OWN THOSE CHOICES, AND RELAX ENOUGH TO FEEL GOOD ABOUT THEM.”
“Thank you, Sophie. I GUESS I’VE EMBRACED THAT CHANGE IS CONTANT. NOW, I ALSO SEE THAT GROWTH IS OPTIONAL, MINE TO CHOOSE, MINE TO RECOGNIZE.”

“Was that a Buddhist thing, Zo?”
“I dunno.”

As Zoe and Sophia walked from their car toward the restaurant, they saw Poppy, Fonzi and Jasmine walking toward them. Poppy was Sophia’s daughter and Fonzi, as they called him, was her husband. Jasmine and Poppy had been best friends since childhood. All five faces lit up.
Poppy called out to her mother and “aunt.” Zoe and Sophia rushed up to the three, showering them with kisses and hugs.

“What are you two lovely ladies doing here?” asked Fonzi.
“We came for dinner and to hear the Latino band. And you?” said Sophia.
“We were trying to decide where to eat.” said Poppy.
“There’s a band here tonight?” asked Jasmine, her face beaming. Jasmine was between men at the moment and loved musicians.

“Where are the kids?” asked Zoe. Zoe was referring to Lily, Sophia’s granddaughter and her best friend Jamile, Jasmine’s daughter.
“Jasmine planned something really fun for Jamile and Lily,” said Poppy. “She rented a suite for the night in a hotel with a swimming pool. The kids are there with the nanny swimming. Fonzi and I are staying in the suite too.”
Jasmine just smiled, revealing delightful dimples and pretty brown eyes. Then she humbly nodded a head of wavy, honey-blond hair, but said nothing.
“That’s very generous of you, Jasmine,” said Sophia then wrapped her arms around her.

Jasmine was the top executive of a computer company. She was one of a rare breed of young woman whose math and science skills were so highly developed that she was plucked right out of college and installed as a software engineer, on a rung higher than any man hired at the same time. It took her very few years to rise to the top, but she didn’t forget her humble upbringing, having been raised by a struggling single mother. Jasmine shared her hard work and good fortune with everyone, except a husband. She wanted to be a mother, but not a wife. So, she eschewed marriage offers from various boyfriends, including Jamile’s father.
“Well, I say we eat here. Let’s go in,” said Fonzi, somewhat baffled to be the man with four lovely dates on his arm.

Inside, the band was just setting up. The group found a table right in front of the band’s platform and ordered food. Sophia sat admiring how attractive Poppy looked with her dark brown, soft curly hair and olive skin, her beautiful eyes set above high cheekbones, and her zaftig figure. Both Poppy and Jasmine turned heads of the young men in the place. The men also eyed Fonzi with envy as he sat between these two curvaceous young women. Zoe and Sophia turned heads too even though they were older than the other three. A great deal of diligence by Zoe and Sophia, aided by dim lighting, disguised just how much older they were.

Poppy’s and Jasmine’s eyes lit up the minute the loud, bright music started. They leapt from the table to dance in the small patch of floor in front of the band. Their grace was mesmerizing and watching them brought back memories to Sophia of when the two were preteens, dancing in front of a mirror in Poppy’s bedroom.

Fonzi leaned into Sophia’s face when she asked him whether he practiced how to dance in his pre-teens. He said he was more interested in sliding down the banisters at his Catholic school, but only when the nuns weren’t looking. He still had the splinter scars to prove that passion. Of course, poor Fonzi had to spend evenings at the mercy of his dear mother’s tweezers as she dug relentlessly around the flesh of his butt, to free the blades of wood. He explained that the smell of rubbing alcohol still made him gag, since this is what his mother used to cleanse the wounds of his naughtiness. Who could not adore Fonzi, Sophia thought to herself?

Finally, Zoe and Sophia gave into the spirit of the music, and they too jumped up to dance. Zoe’s moves were smooth and sensuous, contained and workable in the small space. Sophia was incapable of economy of motion, and she swung out in an aggressive interpretation of the Latin sound. Unfortunately, she tripped over a cord from the electric bass and began to fall, face first, into the handsome bass player. Poppy and Jasmine caught her on the way down and propelled her back into motion. Zoe turned her back and danced with an imaginary partner, pretending she didn’t know Sophia. Within seconds a middle-aged African American man materialized to fill the role.

Sophia’s arms lashed out in spastic motion, barely missing Zoe’s new partner. Her arms instead landed squarely across Poppy’s head, which knocked Poppy off balance and sent her banging into Jasmine. Jasmine tripped and bumped into a man dancing next to Sophia, and his foot caught Sophia’s ankle. Sophia stumbled and started to fall. What could have been a domino moment of dancers losing their balance, toppling the musicians in their wake, was averted when two hands grabbed Sophia from behind and held her fast. Slowly, Sophia turned her head to see the face of her rescuer. Her eyes widened; her heart stopped. Marty held her tightly in his arms.

“What are you doing?” Sophia asked.
“I had a feeling you might be here tonight,” said Marty.
“Why was that important?”
“I want to come home. We belong together.”

The music stopped. Zoe looked over at Sophia’s blank eyes. Sophia saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing. At that moment Poppy glanced toward her mother and caught sight of her father. She hurried to Marty, smiling her welcome. She and Jasmine swept Marty away to their table where he shook hands with Fonzi and sat down. Zoe left Sophia standing alone on the dance floor, stark still, staring at nothing. Without a word Zoe went to the table and collected their belongings. She handed Fonzi fifty dollars and walked back to the dance floor. Then she gently guided Sophia out of the room and into the quiet night.

The glow of the full moon lit the faces of the two old friends, who remained silent on the ride home. But each of them knew in the pits of their stomachs that they were off on another adventure as the Sublime Consumers of the Lightness of Being.

To be continued, but remember, if you want to read the whole story, start at the bottom of the blog. And PLEASE, keep sending in your wonderful advice! Thanks.

February 10th 2010

PLEASE send you advice to two single women, whose lives are suddenly crashing in chaos! Zoe and Sophia, BFFs for thirty years, find themselves unexpectedly cast into the world of re-creation and redefinition after decades of being faithful wives to George and Marty. They need advice from anyone willing to offer it. For instance, what advice would you give your BFF if she asked, “HOW DO I LET GO OF THE PAIN AND BEGIN TO HEAL?” Any advice you can give to Sophia would be helpful, but this is what Zoe said.

Zoe was dog tired when she awoke the first morning back from her business trip to L.A. Sparky lay on the floor next to her snoring, so Zoe didn’t move a muscle for fear of waking her stroke-impaired Lab. She knew the minute Sparky was conscious, she’d have to race to get him outside before he jettisoned a yellow stream from his bladder. As Zoe lay there, she thought about the night before.

Her flight was delayed and she didn’t reach her home in New Hampshire until after midnight. By that time she felt edgy and unable to sleep. For several days Zoe hadn’t cruised her on-line dating sites because her lap top was being repaired. But when she arrived home, with her newly fixed old friend, the first thing she did was log on and start sorting through dozens of backed up messages. Men sought Zoe from the mountains, to the prairies, and from sea to shining sea. God bless the internet, she had thought, and then stayed up until three a.m., talking to the select dozen men who made the cut.

Zoe smiled as she recalled some of her conversations, but then something tickled her nose and she sneezed. Sparky leapt from his pad and licked Zoe’s face, truly grateful his mistress was home. Zoe hopped up, threw open her bedroom door, and started to run through the kitchen to let Sparky out. It was still dark, so she didn’t see Sophia in the middle of the kitchen floor, seeking the open space, sitting in the correct meditation posture recommended by her Buddhist writer idol, Pema Chodron (legs crossed and hands on thighs). Zoe and Sparky both tripped and went flying over Sophia, landing several feet away. Zoe crawled to the porch door and opened it. Sparky ran out, but the damage was done. A yellow stream of urine lay in his wake.

“Fuck sake, Sophie. You scared me. What are you doing here at this hour?”
Sophia didn’t answer. She just kept breathing in and breathing out, dismissing thoughts from her mind that intruded on her peace.
“Sophie, get the fuck up and go take a shower. You’re a mess.” Just then the egg timer next to Sophia blinged, and Sophia looked up at her friend.
“Jeeze, Zo, you’re really clumsy—you just about killed me.” Then Sophia’s face brightened into a wide smile. “Ohhh, but I missed you so much.” Sophia jumped up to give Zoe a hug, and Zoe stepped quickly out of her way. Sophia wrapped her arms around her beloved open space and stumbled, falling face first, until she grabbed the countertop with her hands to break the fall. As she righted herself, she threw Zoe a smug look and dove at her again, determined to get that much needed hug.
“DON’T TOUCH ME, WOMAN!”
“Why, Zo?” cried Sophia.
“You’re covered in dog piss. Go take a shower while I make coffee.”
“Well, at least I’m not a klutz like you,” said Sophia as she stripped off her wet nightgown and walked naked to the bathroom. Zoe shook her head and sighed, wondering if she had as many blind spots about herself as Sophia did.

When Sophia returned to the kitchen after her shower, she found Zoe hard at work, cruising the dating sites.
“I guess you’ve lost that peaceful feeling, Zo. What happened to your resolve to slow down with the online dating?”
“I don’t know. After a week’s absence, the pile-up of men waiting to “talk” fell like an avalanche from my inbox. Something about being home, I guess. That edginess just invaded me.”
“You mean the loneliness?”
“I guess. How are you doing, Sophie?”
“About the same. Hey, I have the sex toys you asked me to order. They’re at my house.”
“Did you try yours yet?”
“Course not. They just looked too complicated. Anyway, I have no sex drive these days. When I think about sex, I think about Marty, that cheating bastard. Then I just start to cry, and it wrecks my whole day.”

Marty was Sophia’s husband who was half-living with his girlfriend, Fugly, as Sophia called her. Fugly was married to a famous musician, who was the son of a truly famous guy, Famous Father. Famous Father offered to put up money to finance a business deal for Marty and his daughter-in-law, Fugly. But then Marty and Fugly had an affair, and when Famous Father found out about the affair, he pulled the money. But the affair kept going, and Fugly moved out, without her three young kids. Marty wasn’t allowed to stay at Fugly’s the nights she had visitation with her kids. So, he rented a place near Fugly’s, but refused to tell Sophia where that place was. It was an odd situation, after being married to Marty for decades, and one that tore Sophia to shreds.

To avert the inevitable sobs that would follow when Marty was mentioned, Zoe switched topics.
“I need to visit my mother in Boston today. You wanna come?”
“Sure.”
“First, let me see if I can line up a couple of dates for us down there. I’d like to have appies and drinks at the Parker House.”
“Zoe, could you please try to find someone good for me this time.”
“I’m not sure that’s possible, but I’ll try.”

It wasn’t that Sophia didn’t come across well on her dating site profile. She posted a great picture, and like Zoe, she was a respected professional, until Sophia’s layoff. Sophia still worked as a freelance writer, but she left blank the question about her income on her dating site profile. And recently Sophia added that she was “insane with pain” to her profile description, and frankly, no one voiced an interest in meeting her after that.

After Zoe took a shower, the women stood in their panties and push-up bras, sharing Zoe’s bathroom mirror. They smelled delicious from the moisturizer they applied from head to toe. The women took turns blowing out their blond hair then expertly applied subtle make-up to enhance their pretty eyes.
“Don’t be hurt if Mother doesn’t know you, Sophie.”
“Why wouldn’t she know me?” asked Sophia surprised. Sophia had known and loved Zoe’s mother, Noelle, for thirty years. In fact, when Sophia’s mother died, Noelle treated Sophia as one of her own and became a surrogate grandmother to Sophia’s children, Poppy and Colin, who called her Nana Noelle.
“For starters, she’s eighty-nine, but since she broke her hip, she’s declined rapidly.”
“I’m surprised she’s still able to live at home. Who takes care of her?”

“Women are hired to be there around the clock, but it’s not easy. She “escapes” from time to time to take one of her famous walks, and they have to send out a search party. But she’s amazingly fit for her age. Mother’s also convinced she’s living back in the 1930s and 40s and treats her caretakers high-handedly. That doesn’t include the thirty-year-old guy who mows her lawn. On my last visit, she whispered she had to be very careful not to let the “gardener’s” wife know that her husband was hot to trot. Apparently, in Mother’s mind, she and the “gardener” have been romantically involved for some time.”

“It would be funny if it weren’t sad.”
“I know. It’s tough to watch. But I’m not alone. So many people our age are going through this stuff with ailing parents. Old age sucks.”
“Well, it’s a good reason to live in the present. After all, we are never going to be younger than we are today.”
“Sophie, sometimes you say deep things.”
“Zo, can I borrow a pair of skinny jeans? I like the way my thighs look in them.”
“And then there’s everything else you say.  Never mind.  Help yourself in my bedroom and bring me a pair too please.”

Zoe and Sophia pulled on skinny jeans over their long, lean legs. Next, they slipped cute tops from The Gap over their slender torsos. Then they put on heeled boots and Ibex coats, before wrapping Pashmina scarves around their necks.
Sparky watched them dress with a suspicious eye. He was going to be pissed if that damn Sophia took Zoe off for the day, after he hadn’t seen her for a whole week. Sparky moaned and butted his head against Zoe’s leg.
“Don’t worry, Sparks. You’re going with us today, old boy,” said Zoe bending down to pat him.
“Zoe, do we have to take Sparky? He poops in the back of the Landrover, and it stinks to high heaven.” As Sophia said this, she glanced sideways at Sparky and narrowed her eyes. Sparky threw her a haughty look and sniffed, thinking Sophia could be such a bitch.
“Doggy diapers,” said Zoe. Sparky smiled.
Sophia frowned. “Okay, but I’m not changing ‘em.”

A couple of hours later Zoe and Sophia drove into Nana Noelle’s circular drive way. The large house and expansive grounds still appeared somewhat elegant from the outside, but inside, the place was reduced to a state of shabby gentility. Its occupant was the product of inherited wealth dried up. In earlier days, Zoe’s mother, grandmother and great grandmother lived and flourished in this grand home. But Zoe’s father died young, and Noelle married badly a second time, to a man who frittered away much of the wealth in an alcoholic haze and then died himself, leaving Noelle twice widowed by the age of fifty-four.

During the next thirty-five years, Noelle lived off trusts set up a century before, trusts that had failed to take inflation into account and ones which were managed conservatively by old, stingy trustees. The trustees didn’t give a hoot whether Noelle dined on lead paint chips, so long as the principal in the trusts remained untapped. When she was younger, Noelle was able to supplement her trust income somewhat with the publication of a couple of novels, but the property was a suck hole of taxes and maintenance, which ate up every dime she earned, leaving Noelle land rich but cash poor.

One of Noelle’s caregivers greeted Zoe and Sophia at the door and told them that Noelle was in the kitchen assembling tea. What they found in the kitchen was a shrunken, but sprightly, Noelle dressed in a flowing silk robe and slippers.
“Hello, my darlings,” Noelle said breathlessly when she saw them. “You simply must stay for tea. I told Cook, that for this occasion, I would prepare it myself.” Zoe kissed and hugged her mother and then walked toward the living room to set up her lap top. Thirty seconds was all she could bear before memories of her childhood, a childhood filled with loss and confusion, transformed into choking tears.

“Hello, Nana,” said Sophia, smiling sweetly into the eyes of the dear old woman. “Do you know who I am?”
“NO,” cried Noelle in delight. “I’ve no idea. Who are you?”
“I’m Sophia, Poppy and Colin’s mother.”
“Yes, well it’s enchanting to have you here. You simply must stay for tea. I told Cook, that for this occasion, I would prepare it myself.”
“Thank you, Nana. Tea sounds wonderful.”
“Yes, yes,” sang out Noelle, “You simply must stay for tea. I told Cook, that for this occasion, I would prepare it myself.”

Sophia gently guided Noelle from the kitchen, while “Cook,” the certified nurses’ aid, brought up the rear, carrying a heavy silver tea service in her hands. “Cook” also had been kind enough to build a fire in one of the two splendid fireplaces in the chilly living room. When Noelle saw the flames, she clapped her hands with glee, but afterwards she turned to “Cook” and shooed her from the room, telling her to wait in the “servants quarters” until she was summonsed.

Zoe helped her mother onto the couch in front of the fire. Instead of trying to carry on a cogent discussion, Zoe thought her mother would appreciate a slide show of the recent trip Zoe and Sophia took to Florida. Noelle identified with razor sharp accuracy every single flower and shrub that appeared in the background of the pictures, but she couldn’t give names to the two women in the foreground. With each flower Noelle spotted, she started to tell a story about seeing the flower in her youth, but her stories soon became disordered and ended in jumbled nonsense.

“Now where was this picture taken, dear?” Noelle asked.
“In Naples, Florida, Mum.”
“Ah, yes. Such a lovely place. Your father and I spent a month there once, after we were first married.”
“Yes, it is a beautiful place,” said Zoe. “Were you on vacation or was Daddy working there?”
“Now, where was this picture taken, dearest pet?”
“Naples, Florida,” said Zoe.
“Is this in Florida, lovey? I went there years ago with your father.”
“Yes, Mum. Naples, Florida.”
“Why this must be Florida? How delightful for you, my darling!”

Sophia could see that her friend was near tears, so Sophia asked Noelle to walk with her around the downstairs and tell her about the paintings that hung on the walls. Noelle had no trouble remembering the names of the artists and when and where the paintings were created.

Meanwhile, Zoe clicked out of the slideshow and into an on-line dating site.

Later that afternoon, Zoe and Sophia glided into the upstairs bar of the Parker House, an old Boston hotel bordering the Commons. They weren’t entirely certain the two men, whom Zoe arranged to meet last minute, would even show up. But the visit with Noelle had been so difficult and poignant, that neither woman much cared. They just wanted to hear some soothing music, to drink a glass of wine, and to nibble on some appetizers.

“Well, that was a good time,” said Zoe, her eyes brimming with tears.
“It certainly put things into perspective.”
“What do mean?”
“Our lives could be worse,” said Sophia.
“Yes, but Mother doesn’t even know what her life is about anymore. In a way it’s a blessing her mind is gone.”
“I suppose. It must be so hard for you, Zo.”
“It is. And that house is always difficult for me to go back to. The broken eight-year-old girl mourning her father’s death greets me at the door and follows me everywhere.”
“Maybe that’s why we found each other, Zoe.”
“What do mean?”
“Well, I was only eleven when my two brothers were killed, and it’s as though I’m still eleven inside, all the time.”
“That’s remarkable. I had this discussion in L.A. over dinner. I was talking about why I left George. But then I said I would always love him because he was the only man I’d ever been with who understood and knew how to comfort that suffering little girl inside of me.”
“I can relate to that, Zoe. I loved that about Marty too. He could always reach my most vulnerable place, that eleven-year- old girl in me, who has never stopped missing her brothers, never stopped waiting for them to come back. Marty alone could comfort me in ways no one else ever has. When he left, that hole just opened up, and I’m that grief-stricken girl again, waiting for my brothers and Marty to come home, knowing they never will.”
“Maybe it’s because we share that arrested development that you and I are so alike,” said Zoe.
“Well, I know it makes us both be tender hearted.”

At this point tears fell freely down both women’s cheeks, so they didn’t make the best first impression on the two guys who walked up to the table and introduced themselves as their dates for the evening. Sophia held up one hand to the tall, sandy-haired man dressed in jeans and a sports jacket. But she was so gripped by emotion, that she hid her face by resting her head on the table. Unfortunately, her head actually rested on the plate of hot wings, and when she came up for air, blue cheese dressing and Louisiana hot sauce dripped from the ends of her hair.

Zoe wasn’t much better. In her need to escape immediately to the ladies room to fix her face, she knocked against the table, spilling both glasses of red wine onto the lap of her handsome, African American date, who wore grey wool slacks and a white shirt.

After Zoe and Sophia fled to the ladies room to clean up, the waiter witnessing the whole train wreck rushed over to clean up the two men and took their their orders of double shots of Grey Goose on the rocks with a twist.

Zoe skillfully washed the food out of Sophia’s hair and then re-applied her own make-up, which a day of tears had washed away. Just then Sophia’s phone tinkled a tune alerting her of a text message.
“If that’s from Marty, don’t read it,” said Zoe.

Sophia ignored her and sat on the toilet to read. Then she replied and another text shot through. It was lucky she hadn’t started to put on new mascara, because within a minute Sophia was once again in tears.
“Fuck sake, Sophie. Stop crying. We have dates out there. Your hair is bad enough, but you look like a freak around your eyes. You’re scarier than a Stephen King movie.”
“Fucking Marty. Why did he have to steal my life from me and smash the only sense of well-being I’ve ever known? I fucking hate him.”
“What did Marty say?”
“He and I were supposed to meet in the morning to talk about our financial situation. But he said Fugly was having a hard time over something to do with her kids, the ones she chose to leave, mind you. And he can’t meet me because he has to hang out with her for support and comfort.”
“That’s a hard pill to swallow, Soph. I’m sorry.”
“What about me, Zoe? He hasn’t devoted one minute to comforting me for all the pain he’s caused. How could anybody be so cold? I was married to him for years, gave him everything I had to give as a person, and now, he is just one big black hole when it comes to me.”
“Honey, you just have to accept that he doesn’t care about you anymore. You can’t depend on him for comfort because he doesn’t want to comfort you.”

“ZO, HOW CAN I LET GO OF THE PAIN AND BEGIN TO HEAL?”
Zoe handed Sophia the mascara wand before she spoke. Then she said, “FIRST, YOU CAN REMIND YOURSELF EVERYDAY TO LET GO OF THE PAST AND THE PAIN WILL FADE. THEN YOU CAN FIX YOUR MAKE-UP, WALK OUT TO THE TABLE WITH YOUR CHIN UP, AND TRY NOT ACT TOO WEIRD IN FRONT OF OUR CUTE DATES.”
“Okay, Zo.”

“Hey, do have any gum?”
“No, why?”
“There was a lot of garlic on those hot wings.”
“Who cares?”
“Sophie, when are you gonna learn that garlic breath and good sex don’t pair well?”

“Was that a Buddhist thing, Zo?”
“Sounds like.”

And with the grace of butterflies, the two awakened, fabulous fifty-something friends fluttered out to their table and to the dates who awaited them, off on another adventure as the Sublime Consumers of the Lightness of Being.

To be continued…Remember, if you want to read the stories from the beginning, go to the bottom of the Blog and read up.  Keep your great advice coming!

Thank you for the WONDERFUL ADVICE you’ve offered the two single women, whose lives are suddenly crashing in chaos! Zoe and Sophia, BFFs for thirty years, find themselves unexpectedly cast into the world of re-creation and redefinition after decades of being faithful wives to George and Marty. They need advice from anyone willing to help them. For instance, what advice would you give your BFF as she said, “HEY, SOPHIE, ARE WE “WORKERS” WHO TAKE THE BUS OR THE OTHER TYPE OF PEOPLE?” Any advice you can give to Zoe would be helpful, but this is what Sophia said.

As Zoe floated just beneath the surface of awake, she sensed things were not quite right. Where was the smell of Sparky’s nightly accidents, involuntarily purged from his rear end? Sparky was Zoe’s stoke-victim yellow Lab. Yes, he was incontinent and walked sideways, but he was the sweetest dog known to woman. Where was the cold, heavy air, sitting like a pall over her head? Where was the cough of the struggling furnace in her 1790s N. H. home? Wait a minute–who was that long, lean, gorgeous man lying next to her? Zoe’s smile awoke her. Not bothering to cover her naked body, she slipped quietly from the bed, aching to smell ocean air. She tiptoed past Sophia’s room, not wanting to wake her friend. In the soft darkness of pre-dawn, Zoe threw open the french doors leading to the deck, closed her eyes and stepped outside as the warm Florida breeze bathed her face.

Sophia was not asleep. No, she was sitting in good Buddhist meditation posture, legs crossed, hands on thighs, right outside the french doors. The serenity of the moment splintered once Zoe walked over Sophia, lost her balance and plunged, face first, on the deck. Sophia was knocked on her back when Zoe’s knees raked across her face. But Sophia, the bastion of focus, remained legs akimbo, hands still on thighs, breathing in and breathing out.
“Fuck sake, Sophie. Why there? Why right in front of the door? Not two feet to the left or right, but dead center in my path?
“Sorry, Zo,” said Sophia, swimming out of the open space of her spiritual journey, into the mired waters of Zoe’s scorn. “At least Sparky wasn’t here to pee on me. Hey, you wanna go to the Botanical Gardens today?”
“No. I want to lie by the ocean and get a tan.”
“You wanna go to the Collier County Museum?”
“No.”
“You wanna go to the Naples Information Center?”
“Fuck sake, Sophie. I want to lie on the beach all day roasting like a chicken on a spit. Anyway, go brush your teeth. Your breath is drowning out the sea air.”
“Well, you should consider doing something about your hair, Zo. Your bed head might be mistaken for a rat’s nest.”

Into this genteel discussion walked their host, Jackson, who was awakened by the commotion. Like a broken light switch, Zoe’s attempt to reveal her demure, charming side fell short. Jackson coughed politely, trying like hell to pull his gaze away from whatever might be growing out of Zoe’s head then asked if the two friends would like some breakfast. Since Zoe and Sophia rarely ate, really only on odd-numbered days, his words failed to convey meaning. Instead of responding, Zoe jumped up and ran past him in search of a hair brush, while Sophia pressed her meditation pillow to her face to mask her breath. Of course, it was difficult to see anything with the pillow also masking her eyes, so even though she meant to walk around Jackson, she slammed into him, tripped over his foot and landed across the threshold of his tasteful french doors. Pulling her nightgown down from up around her head, she crawled into the room. Only then did she stand and dash away in search of a toothbrush.

Zoe and Sophia met in the bathroom.
“Hey, do you think we impressed him, Zo?”
“We didn’t do a bad job.”
“What do you want to do today?”
“Let’s not start that again, Sophie.”

After coffee, Jackson, who was gracious, kind, and generous despite his growing curiosity, gave Zoe a passionate kiss. She looked up into his compassionate eyes and smiled. Next, he enfolded Sophia in a friendly hug then handed her a map of Naples. Sophia looked at it in horror, maps being something she understood not at all. Finally, he slipped Zoe the keys to his red Audi sports car and fondly wished them both a wonderful day. Standing on the front balcony, they watched Jackson’s backside walk to his Landrover. The lanky gait of the tall, fifty-something African American business owner was a sight neither woman wanted to miss. As he pulled out of the driveway, they jumped up and down and waved crazily until he drove off.

After showering, Sophia nearly threw out her back, as she had the night before, pulling on her new, tight swim suit. Zoe, on the other hand, slid easily into her new bikini. They stood side-by-side in the master bathroom blow drying their blond hair, rubbing on layers of expensive facial moisturizers, and artistically applying eye make-up. Finally they very delicately massaged Extra Virgin Olive Oil onto their arms and legs, while promising each other to apply sunscreen the minute they felt a burn coming on. Over their swimming togs they wore shorts and skimpy tank tops.  They slipped their feet into high heeled sandals, grabbed their totes filled with bottled water, towels and books, and headed toward the Audi.

Zoe, who was good with maps, figured out how to drive them to the Naples Pier, the city centerpiece. Flanking the pier was a lovely expanse of beach with fine white sand, bordering sea-green water. Parking near the pier was a problem, so Zoe wended the car through the grid of streets filled with cute shops and beautiful homes. Finally, she found a spot, and the two eagerly walked toward the pier. Because it was only 9:00 a.m., a chill lingered at the water, but their enthusiasm was undiminished as they sat on the deserted beach in low chairs, wrapped securely in sarongs from head to toes. As they willed the day to warm itself, pelicans circled in the sky then clumsily fell into the water. Nearby, a flock of egrets strutted about poking long black beaks into the sand.

“This is the life,” said Zoe, shivering.
“Hey, Zo, have you checked your Blackberry today?”
“No, why?”
“When you and Jackson were having “breakfast” in the bedroom earlier, it jingled a few times.”
“Okay. I’ll check it later.”
Sophia turned her gaze from the vast expanse and poked her friend. “Zo, did you have a lobotomy?”
“What?”
“Two days ago I thought I’d have to call the paramedics.”
“Make sense here, Sophie.”
“I thought you would pass out from deprivation of your phone during the flight.”
“Well, something’s changed. I don’t know what, but I’m contented not to be constantly communicating with a bunch of men. I like the peace.”

Just then the sun burst from behind a cloud, washing them in warmth. Within a blink they de-saronged and stripped off their shorts and tops. Over the next hour other people dotted the beach and men cast fishing lines up and down the pier, while people of all ages strolled its length. Zoe and Sophia weren’t even trying to be seductive when they lay on their towels side by side, flipping positions in unison, so each could have an ear bud to the single I-pod. Their long, lean legs and tall, fit bodies moved to the rhythm of the hip hop they listened to. Countless men walked past them, gazing, wishing Zoe and Sophia would open their eyes long enough to engage. The eyes of several women narrowed to slits of envy, especially when they had to jab their men to quit gawking.

Lying in the sand, gyrating gently and flipping every few minutes, Zoe thought about her internal peace. She wondered why since landing in Florida her restlessness receded and about how she had no desire to be talking or texting or emailing the bevy of men who sought her attention. She was grateful that the edginess of her existence moved over, making room for her tender heart and self-love. At the same time Sophia thought about how she often meditated in the tanning bed at home, even though Pema Chodron, the Buddhist teacher (and a saving grace for Zoe and Sophia) instructed a more conventional meditation posture. It occurred to Sophia that meditating on the beach was far superior to her tanning salon. Then she felt grateful that since their plane left New Hampshire, her searing pain and bitterness seemed to melt away. Until then, for over a year, her whole life was consumed by her husband Marty’s betrayal with his girlfriend Fugly. Worse, Marty showed very little remorse and continued to be cruel to Sophia in his selfish oblivion and lack of sensitivity.

“I’m gonna take a swim,” said Zoe.
“Me too,” said Sophia, trying to liberate the I-pod wire which was tangled into her hair. But just then her phone rang and it was her daughter Poppy. She was crying, which panicked Sophia until Poppy assured her everyone was okay, especially Sophia’s beloved granddaughter Lily. But when Zoe returned from her swim, she saw the familiar dark misery in her friend’s eyes.
“What’s up?”
“Fucking Marty. Poppy went over to the house to confront him about taking Lily off for the whole day without asking. Marty was supposed to see Lily for an hour then drop her off at Mark’s house so he could have his weekly visitation.” Mark was Lily’s father whom Poppy divorced when Lily was two.
“Not much she can do about it now.”
“But what’s worse is Marty took Lily to spend the day with Fugly and her kids and didn’t ask Poppy or Fonzi if that were okay. Poppy was wild. Lily was the one who told her. The man has no boundaries.”
“So, what happened?”
“You know, Poppy’s tried to stay neutral, but she’s resentful for all the months Marty had everyone convinced I was crazy because I railed against his denials that he was having the affair and that he was too much of a coward to admit it.”
“Okay, but what happened today, Sophie?”

“I guess Poppy just cracked, especially when Marty said I’ve been lying about him hitting me several times lately. She threw all his clothes onto the closet floor. Then he screamed that she was as crazy as I was and kicked her out of the house.” As Sophia spoke, Zoe watched her face collapse, watched the hint of joy she had gained vanish, as her body sunk into itself.

Sophia then ran from the beach. Finding a spot where the trees would hide her, she sobbed for awhile before reaching for her phone, her rage and despair dueling for supremacy. Marty accused Sophia of rifling through his clothes. Sophia laughed at the absurdity of the accusation and reminded him that she was in Florida. But it was a typical Marty move to blame Sophia for everything. And then in true Marty form, he shouted her down, claiming he wasn’t responsible for Poppy’s anger. It was Sophia’s fault. After that, he hung up on her. Something about his delusional affect calmed Sophia, and she began walking back to the beach.

Zoe saw Sophia approach from a distance. She was struck by the fact that Sophia’s head and back were erect, not slumped. The turquoise swim suit against her browned skin accentuated the confidence in her lengthy strides. Watching Sophia’s long, straight blond hair whip in the wind, Zoe thought Sophia had never looked lovelier or stronger, and that perhaps she was beginning to escape the bondage of Marty’s toxic self-absorption.

At that very instant, Sophia let all thoughts of Marty melt away as she studied Zoe from afar. Sophia thought Zoe looked stunning, sitting with her flawless body in the bikini, her face raised to the sky, and her eyes framed by sunglasses. But more importantly, Sophia perceived a positive flow and peaceful mien, missing from Zoe for a long time, but especially since the end of her marriage the year before. Neither woman told the other what she was thinking.
“Doing okay?” asked Zoe.
“Wanna go to the Visitor’s Center, Zo?”
“Did you talk to Marty, Sophie?”
“We’ve been promising ourselves to split an order of French fries for a month now. Do you think they have French fries at the pier snack bar?”
“You need to put on some sunscreen, girl,” said Zoe, pressing the issue no further.
“I feel sun stroked. Let’s do a little shopping.” Zoe didn’t have to be asked twice.

The women spent the next two hours buying a little, browsing a lot, and chatting cheerfully with shopkeepers. Their feet started hurting, so they decided to drive back to the house. But when they went in search of the car, they couldn’t remember where it was parked. Zoe called Jackson, who was in a meeting, and she was told that he couldn’t be disturbed. After another hour they gave up the car search and headed to the Visitor’s Information Center to see if they could catch a bus home. Zoe asked the middle-aged man in charge if he knew where the bus stop was.

“I don’t know anything about the bus system in this city,” he said.
“Is there a schedule?” asked Zoe. Info Man begrudgingly handed her a pamphlet that said CAT Public Transportation.
“This is the only bus, and you don’t want to take it,” he inserted with a scoff.
“Why,” asked Zoe. Info Man looked at her as though he had gas then he arched an eyebrow and sneered.
“That bus is for bringing the ‘workers’ into the city to work.” In other words all the poor people of color or shady nationality.

Zoe sniffed at the sheer snobbery and odious connotation of his words. “Well, public transportation is good for the planet, you know, mister.
“Yeah, and being a “worker” isn’t something to be ashamed of. “Worker” isn’t a dirty word, you know,” added Sophia with a tone so sharp it could have cut off his ugly nose. After giving them incorrect directions to the nearest bus stop, Info Man snorted, then the women swung around, flipped their sleek hair back and sashayed to the door. Zoe threw one last contemptuous look at the old bigot and said, “We are riding that bus today because we like the workers better than your kind.”

Before they boarded a bus, Zoe and Sophia trudged for nearly another hour through the fancy, pristine section of Naples, Fl, a neighborhood filled with unsullied ‘non-workers.’  The driver was patient with them because their Spanish was not so good. They took seats amidst of sea of black and brown faces, mostly women who looked as if they’d been cleaning other peoples shit up all their lives. Zoe and Sophia smiled at anyone who would make eye contact—very few. Half way through the route, the bus driver pulled into a stop, drew a sandwich from his bag, and announced he was hungry and would be back in five. Twenty minutes later the bus resumed forward motion. One passenger, an aging African American hippie, boarded the bus during “lunch,” and took the women up on their offer to talk. Small world, they discovered, after squeezing every drop of the man’s bio from his brain. The hippie knew Vermont people the women knew, pot growers from wilder days, and the fellow also grew up in the same tiny hamlet in NC where one of Zoe’s “dates” grew up. When they reached the last stop, they still had to walk another two miles to Jackson’s house.

The women he greeted did not look the same as the women he’d left in the morning. They were red people with swollen feet who hobbled through the door. Sophia begged off the idea of cooking, so Jackson offered to take them to the best local fish joint for dinner, “Fish and Chips.” The invitation required intensive transformation efforts, which landed Zoe and Sophia working their magic for the second time that day, side by side in the master bathroom.
“Hey, Sophie, why do you think we prefer the “workers?”
“Well, I work out every day. And you’ve been working hard on your back since we arrived. Hey, don’t forget we’ve been working hard on our tans too.”

“What I mean is that I think I prefer “workers” because my children are multi-racial and I’ve raised them to be inclusive of all types of people.”
“I think that’s true.”
“BUT, SOPHIE, ARE WE ‘WORKERS WHO TAKE THE BUS OR THE OTHER TYPE OF PEOPLE?”
Sophie thought for a moment before answering. “ZO, NEITHER OF US SUFFER FOOLS GLADLY, AND THAT INCLUDES PEOPLE WHO DISCRIMINATE OR THINK THEY ARE BETTER THAN OTHERS. SO, I GUESS THAT MAKES THE ‘WORKERS’ OUR PEEPS, AND WE TAKE THE BUS. AS FOR THE OTHERS, THEY ARE NOT GOOD BUDDHISTS.”

“I’m hungry, Soph. Should I eat Bouillabaisse or blackened Snapper tonight?”
“I thought we were gonna split an order of French fries, Zo.”
“Honestly, Sophie, I’d rather eat my arm than French fries.”
“Fewer calories, for sure,” said Sophia, “but let’s order gum.”
With a woman on each arm, Jackson swept Zoe and Sophia, the elegant, single fifty-somethings off on another Adventure of the Sublime Consumers of the Lightness of Being.

To be continued, but if you want to read about Zoe & Sophia’s earlier adventures, please start at the bottom of the blog.  They need your advice!  Thanks in advance.

Could more of you PL-EASE offer advice to two single women whose lives are suddenly crashing in chaos?HELP. Zoe and Sophia, BFFs for thirty years, find themselves unexpectedly cast into the world of re-creation and redefinition after decades of being faithful wives to George and Marty. They need advice from anyone willing to offer it. For instance, what advice would you give your BFF who said to you, “I AND I DON’T NEED A THERAPIST.  WE HAVE GOOD TIMES. ” Any advice you can give to Sophia would be helpful, but this is the advice Zoe gave her.

Every few nights Zoe and Sophia slept at each other’s houses, just to help with the transition– from being goodly wives who rubbed their husband’s backs in bed, brought their husbands dinner on a silver tray, also in bed, and who wrapped their long, lithe limbs around their husband’s bodies at night–to the shimmering fifty-something women who slept alone (more or less). On one evening just before Thanksgiving, Sophia decided to sleep at Zoe’s house, and for the occasion, Sophia bought the first bottle of scotch she had in months. Scotch was the tithe that bound during the first six months after Zoe’s marital split, when she camped out at Sophia’s house while Marty and Sophia were still together. In early June Zoe moved back to her own house, just five miles up the road.  But there was little difference—both women owned marital homes built in the 1700s when Thomas Jefferson walked the earth—and both houses sat on large wooded lots on the same lake.

However–they had one other option. After Sophia put her hands around Marty’s neck one night in September, applying no pressure at all, she begged him for the truth about his affair with his “business partner,” Fugly. For an hour Sophia lay next to him then decided that she was either going to throw herself in front of oncoming traffic outside, or she was going to ask the question she knew the answer to–but dreaded hearing–with all her heart. Her choice of nights was a good one since Marty suffered from really bad diarrhea and lay to her left, rolled into a fetal position.

“Do you love her?” Sophia asked.
“Yes, I do,” said Marty.

And that was the end of that–as they say.

Within three days Sophia arranged other living quarters for herself in an unoccupied house in Exeter owned by a friend, a sweet, angelic woman named Grace. Apart from a desk, a couple of chairs, cooking stuff, clothes spilling out of suitcases, and Sophia’s de-luxe Coleman blow-up bed, the place was empty.  Zoe didn’t stay at the Exeter place too often because she had a dog she took everywhere, Sparky. Sparky was a stroke victim, which meant he was incontinent and couldn’t make it up the stairs (a bit like some of Zoe’s and Sophia’s Match.com dates). Because of Sparky’s condition, sharing Sophia’s temporary home in Exeter required the women deflate Sophia’s blow-up bed and drag it down a narrow staircase. The first time they tried this, the bed was not deflated enough, and both women were trapped against the wall. When Zoe finally liberated her end, Sophia nearly fell down the flight of steps. Apart from messing up their hair, they were fine until they contemplated what taking the blow-up bed back upstairs would cost them.

Anyway, the night in question took place at Zoe’s 1790 house on the lake. Sophia had opened the bottle of scotch by the time Zoe arrived home from work, and in fact, Sophia had made a healthy dent in the bottle. As usual, Zoe found Sophia sobbing at her kitchen table. Once in a while, whenever a text message came in, Sophia snuffled and answered the text with blistering clarity. She was texting with her ex, Marty, and their conversations were rarely kind. Next to Sophia sat Pema Chodron’s book, When Things Fall Apart, and although Sophia was trying to take Pema’s Buddhist advice about letting go, about embracing groundlessness, Sophia’s bitterness, agony and scotch haze were crowding out the open space.

Zoe was grateful that a dinner awaited her. One thing for which Sophia could always be counted on was to prepare an evening meal out of whatever meager stores she found. Sophia cooked the way George Benson played the guitar—with originality and depth—and her food was a pleasure to eat. Zoe would have tucked into dinner right away, but Sophia brandished that bottled of 12-year- old, single malt scotch, and Zoe tucked into that instead as she watched her friend cry and text.  Just as she joined Sophia in the hazy open space, they heard a noise outside.
“What’s that noise, Zo?”
“I don’t know,” said Zoe striding to the window. She pulled back the curtain and looked out. She saw a man’s back as he ran from the deck and into the darkness.

Zoe sighed.
“It’s just George, peeking in the window as usual,” said Zoe.
“What?”
“You heard me, Sophie.”
“What the fuck is he doing that for?”
“He’s spying on us,” said Zoe.
“Why, Zo?”
“Because we are more interesting than the TV he sits and watches all day long.”
“Fuck sake…what is wrong with him,” said Sophia.
Since Zoe was too hungry to discuss the litany of George’s flaws, she simply said,
“That’s the price I pay until this place is sold. At least the judge gave me the big house to live in and relegated him to the cottage. But until the divorce is final, I’m stuck with the little harpy living twenty yards from me.”

At that point Sophia’s phone blinged, signaling another text message from Marty. After she read it, she burst into a whole new round of sobbing.
“What’s wrong now, Sophie?”
Sophia wailed, “All I asked Marty was that he let me have the house for Thanksgiving. I wanted the kids and my granddaughter to be there. Since Marty refuses to celebrate with us, I invited my childhood friend, the painter from Vermont–you know–Nicholas Thorndyke. But Marty’s pissed now.”
“What did Marty text you?” said Zoe
“I’ll read it,” said Sophia. While Sophia fumbled with her phone, Zoe was torn between the duty to comfort Sophia and the need to eat, so she rubbed her friend’s head for a moment then eased her way to the stove and turned on the burner under the pan of angel hair pasta in white clam sauce.
As the snot dribbled from Sophia’s nose, she read Marty’s text: “I’m not losing EVERYTHING for the holiday. You get the family; you get an old friend.  I’ll keep the house.”
Zoe looked at her friend incredulously before saying, “Is he crazy? He’s the one who had the affair. He’s the one who’s living with his rich girlfriend half the time. He’s the one who dumped you. What the fuck is he thinking? On what planet is he the victim?”

Without responding, because there was no intelligent response to the absurd truth of Zoe’s question, Sophia stood up and walked to the stove then forked a tiny bit of pasta on a plate and sat down again.
“Blow your nose, Sophie.  It’s irritating me.”

Without blowing her nose, Sophia thought about recent conversations she had with her daughter and her son. Then she said, “Poppy and Colin think I should get a therapist, Zo. I think that’s silly.”
Reluctantly, Zoe dragged her head up from her plate. “Why is it silly, Sophie?”
Sophia laughed. “I and I don’t need a therapist. We have good times.”
Zoe nearly choked before saying: “WHEN YOU ARE A MIDDLE-AGED, MIDDLE-CLASS WHITE WOMAN FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE, AND YOU START TALKING LIKE A RASTA FROM JAMAICA, IT’S FUCKING TIME YOU CALLED A THERAPIST.”

Unruffled by Zoe’s outburst, Sophia said, “We’ve had too much scotch. Let’s stay in tonight and flirt with guys on your Webcam, Zo.”
“Okay, Sophie, but I need to lie down. It’s been a long day.”
“But, Zo, how can we flirt with guys on the Webcam?”
“No problem. We take the computer to my bed and put it between us. But, Sophie, don’t you go giving guys the impression that we’re a two-for-one.  Got it?”
“Of course—what kind of crazy shit is that? Hey, Zo, are we gonna talk to that guy in Rhode Island—you know the one.”
“You mean the guy who wanted to have kinky Camsex, but first he had to go check to see if the homemade bread he was baking had risen?”
“Yup.”
“Even though he’s hard to resist, Sophie, I want to be the bread he kneads, but you’re here, so I can’t do that tonight.”

“Was that a Buddhist thing, Zo?”
“Sounds like.”

Nestled warmly in Zoe’s bed, the fabulous best friends turned on the Webcam and began toying with the hearts and other parts of men from New Hampshire to California, as they set off on another adventure of the Sublime Consumers of the Lightness of Being.

To be continued.  But PLEASE, help these women with YOUR advice.