Change

Rose slept in her clothes. It was a bad habit. She had plenty of nightgowns and pajamas, but she didn't always bother to change. Ben didn’t approve of this. It was better to huddle in pajamas or underwear under the blankets; it started your thermal engine or something. Rose sighed. She didn’t care. Some nights she slept in her clothes because she couldn’t face the cold house. There was nothing more comfortable than wearing jeans and an old blouse in bed. She didn't want to sleep with Ben anymore anyway. Last night she had stayed up reading a vampire book. The house was quiet because Ben was at the ER.

Saturday morning she rolled out of bed and decided to shower immediately. Ben was not in bed with her. He was not even in the house. He usually came home and slept in the spare room because he didn’t want to wake her. She felt tortured, because she didn’t know where he was when he came home late from the hospital.

I went to breakfast, he said.

Rose could not cry, though she was distressed by the demise of her marriage. Fewer and fewer educated women were getting divorced, according to the New York Times, and she understood why. Educated women knew that THERE WAS NOTHING BETTER OUT THERE. Women with less education hoped to meet someone because they were reading romance novels and chick lit. A man in a romance novel would save you every time. This was less likely to happen in real life.

Shivering, she threw pants and blouse, into the hamper. There was always housework. She wouldn’t hire a maid because she had worked as a maid and knew what it was like. Too many lethal chemicals were involved in order to clean up quickly and perfectly. She didn’t want anything made by Dow Chemicals used in her house.

In the shower the water warmed her but she felt strangely indecisive. She couldn’t decide what shampoo/body wash to use. Body Envy? Mint Tea? Herbal Essence? In the end she went with Body Envy.

She stood in front of the mirror afterwards, wondering if she could enhance her looks. She held her hair up. Something with her hair? She had to hone her appearance for the workplace so as to fit in. She sighed. She should dye it. She had looked much better when she had black hair. Now it was gray. Gray hair was stylish, if it looked like Meryl Streep’s in The Devil Wore Prada. That silver was the craft of a beauty salon. Rose had been offered that color once.

She dressed in yoga pants and a gray shirt and let Binkie out and then fed him. Afterward she went to the gym. She hadn’t been there for a while. She needed to work out, to do something to make her feel human. She showed her card to the guy behind the counter.

Go on in. Your friend Gil is here.

Rose’s face lit up. I haven’t seen him ages.

Well, he hasn't been here in a while. You’re both working all the time.

Rose was excited. She ran into the gym and saw him on one of the many treadmills

Gilbert!

Gilbert was a friend, an unpolitical person, someone who didn’t know Ben. He wrote poetry . One of his books had been published by a university press. She thought it was quite good. But officially he was a professor of art history at a state university.

Rose had met him at the gym. She hadn’t expected to meet anyone at the gym. She had worked out in silence for months before she noticed Gilbert. He didn’t look his age: his thick hair was a little longer than most men’s and his muscles were taut.

Rose, you're here. He got off the treadmill and took her hand.

She laughed. The holidays took it out of me and I never thought I’d want to work out.

The holidays. I’ve never seen anything like it. The relatives came because they think I’m rich. Half of them are hillbillies. They have no teeth and want money.

Hillbillies? I don’t believe it.

Yeah. From West Virginia and Kentucky. You wouldn’t want to claim them.

We had friends over. The relatives came for Thanksgiving.

I missed the gym. After your workout, do you want to go out for coffee?

Yes, I’d love that.

Going out for coffee meant nothing. But now Rose was blithe because she needed Gilbert’s regard, because things were not going well with Ben. You didn’t expect a lot of attention from men in your forties. At least the women in Rose’s family didn’t. You didn’t look the same as you had in your thirties with your black hair and a thin, slight body. Now Rose was a big woman, not actually heavy like Megan, but full-figured. Ben had suggested on more than one occasion that it would be well for her to lose weight. She loved to cook, so she couldn’t lose weight. Sometimes she pulled out smaller clothes from her wardrobe and put them on, but she looked poured into the size 8 jeans. She could still wear the old medium tops and sweaters but bought new ones in large.

After her workout, she didn’t shower. She hadn’t brought a change of clothes. Gil, of course, had showered.

I wasn’t expecting to go out, she confessed

He put his arm around her.

They went to a stunning coffeehouse in an old brick building on the main drag near a factory. They sat in front of the cold window looking out onto the street, eating homemade danishes and drinking hot coffee.

Let’s not go home, said Gil. Let’s stay out all day.

What will we do? Rose didn’t mention that Ben was sleeping. She didn’t think it was necessary to mention him.

A movie?

Let’s.

At the movie, some kind of thriller, they sat in the back and made out. What about Gilbert’s wife? She was worried about this, but it didn’t stop her. She was bitter about Ben. She no longer cared what he would say.