For the first six weeks, no one noticed. But then I went to my dermatologist and he exclaimed that my rosacea had improved. After three months, my housekeeper insisted that I looked much younger and happier. After four months, I ran into old friends and they said they didn’t recognize me I looked so youthful.
I knew the effects wouldn’t last forever. The question was, what would I do when the cream ran out?
It happened sooner than expected. Just when my skin was at the peak of dewiness, three of the products ran out at once. And so I did what any sensible person would do and looked up the ingredients online and found other products that claimed to do the same thing and were much cheaper.
And then I didn’t think about it, until finally, after the longest winter, the days began to warm up and the residents of Madison World came out, once again, into the sun.
And once again, the jewels glinted behind their plate glass windows while the mannequins sported outfits you could only wear in your imagination.
But not everything was the same. There were more dark places. Empty stores boarded up behind brown construction paper.
And so it was with a strange sort of relief that I discovered the Russians were still there on the stoop, harassing passersby.
I wondered if they would recognize me.
“Hey!” called out the Greek girl. “I really like your style.”
I paused. Was this groundhog day?
Then I was annoyed. “Are you kidding me? Don’t you remember? I came in here six months ago and got suckered into buying that face cream.”
“You’re one of our customers?” The girl looked at me as if she couldn’t believe it. Was I not good enough for this store or just too wrinkled to be one of their clients? And then I got it. Maybe she couldn’t believe I would be that stupid.
Here, she said, and pressed a sample packet of face cream into my hands.
I took it.
chapter six
Middle-Aged Madness
“You won’t believe what’s happened,” Tilda Tia said.
“Try me.”
“You know how Ess and Jennifer went to that wellness retreat?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, apparently they got into a big fight and Ess threw a drink in Jennifer’s face.”
I should have been surprised, but I wasn’t.
Ess, fifty-three, and Jennifer, fifty-seven, are generally what are known as “nice” people. They rarely disagree with anyone and will happily sacrifice their feelings in order to prevent anyone else from feeling bad. In fact, they often go further, eager to take on blame for things that are clearly not their fault. These are the kind of women who watch Real Housewives and are sure it’s completely made up.
But then something happens.
I call it middle-aged madness, or MAM.
MAM Strikes A Village
The weather might have partly been to blame. At eighty degrees, low humidity, and bright sunshine, it was the kind of weather that demanded gatherings and, of course, libations.
Indeed, it wasn’t long before friends of friends began hearing about this fun time in the Village and began inviting themselves to stay. And that’s when the trouble began.
First Sassy’s friend Margo who had just decided to separate from her husband in Atlanta and was “trying out” single life went on a boating trip with a cub. Like most cub events, it lasted a lot longer than Margo expected, meaning she had a few too many drinks in the hot sun and got arrested in the parking lot of the marina when she tried to drive.
Then it spread to Marilyn.