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  “Just keep kissing me,” I whispered back to Zachary.

  And he did.

  It must have been ten minutes before he took my hands in his and looked into my eyes.

  “Is it too soon to ask you to marry me?” he asked with a grin.

  i don’t kiss and tell

  I’m not going to tell you what happened next.

  I mean, if a lady doesn’t have her dignity, what does she have?

  I can tell you, however, that he was a pure gentleman, a kind, considerate . . .

  Oh, I can’t keep it in!

  We made love! We made mad, passionate, unadulterated, pure love. It was a night of passion for the record books!

  You might not want to hear this from someone who could be your grandmother, but you have to understand. Whether we’re seventy-five or twenty-five (or seventy-five trapped in the body of a twenty-nine-year-old), women still need to feel that passion. No matter what age we are, we still want to feel the warm body of a man who is there only to unleash the deepest, darkest parts of our most secret sexual desires. Every woman should feel that at least once in her lifetime. If you’re married to a man who can give you that on a nightly basis, my hat’s off to you.

  I’ll tell you this: the things that he did to me, Howard never did to me, in all the years we were married. Who taught this boy these things? Seriously, where did he learn to do the things he did to me? Did other women teach him these things (and where did they learn it?) or did he learn it from that Internet? Does Playboy magazine still dole out that information?

  Well, it could be this: maybe we both felt so free that anything was okay. Maybe it was me. I’ll tell you something, I never felt that free with my body. Howard never once asked to see my body. Never once. He never took off my clothes like Zachary might have (or might not have—I mean, I’ll tell you as much as I can, but really, a lady doesn’t kiss and tell) just to look at my body and feel the parts of my body that I had felt earlier that morning. I’m not talking the private parts here. I’m talking about touching and feeling everything from my smooth elbows to the curve of my shoulders to the tips of my toes. Who knew that someone touching the small of my back could send me to a place of sheer exhilaration, the likes of which I never felt before?

  I don’t even know how many times we did it (I am blushing still, even as I’m telling you this). I don’t know how many times he kissed my lips (and every other part of my body). In those few hours, though, all those gushy things you hear, stuff like how your bodies become one and how you can feel each other’s thoughts, I felt all of them. I felt it every time he looked into my eyes and every time he kissed a part of my body. I felt it every time he even touched a part of my body, and I felt it with every word that came out of his mouth. It was a lifetime of love encapsulated into one night. If I summed up all my years with Howard, it would have equaled ten minutes, maybe less. Five.

  Afterward Zachary was cuddling me in his arms. We were both hot and sweaty, but I still needed the blanket to keep warm. I loved feeling his arms around me. I felt so safe, like everything was meant to be. I didn’t even know what time it was. I thought it must have been three or four in the morning, but I came to find out later that it was much earlier than that. I had fit a lifetime into just a few hours.

  My back was up against his body—spooning, I think they call it. My mind was racing, thinking about the day, about Lucy, about Barbara, about Howard.

  Isn’t that crazy? I tried to get him out of my head, but I just couldn’t. As much as I was feeling for Zachary at that point, my mind was on Howard. I was so damned angry at Howard. I was angry that I’d wasted my life with him. I thought about those times when Barbara was little and I knew he was out cheating on me. I should have left him. I could have found another life. I could have found love. Instead, I wasted everything I could have had for the sake of security.

  Back and forth I went, my mind was going a mile a minute about Howard. I was angry, I was sad, I wanted to tell him how I felt. I wanted to have it out with him. I wanted to tell him, Great, I got all the diamonds in the world, but once, just once, couldn’t you have just slipped me a note with a heart on it? Couldn’t you just once have told me I looked pretty when I didn’t spend hours dolling myself up? Couldn’t you have once, just once, come home with some flowers because you were thinking of me? Not because you cheated on me and you felt bad, but because you thought about what a great wife I was, or how well I was bringing up your daughter? Damn you, Howard! Didn’t you think I bought your daughter up well? Was I not a great wife to you? Did I ever make any huge demands on you? Did I shut my mouth and let you do what you wanted? How did you pay me back? How did you pay me back, Howard?

  “What are you thinking about?” Zachary asked as he pulled me in closer.

  I didn’t answer him, though. I just kept thinking of Howard. Am I right? Was I a terrible wife? Did I get lazy in the way I loved you? Did I not tend to all of your needs? Why couldn’t we have ever discussed it? Why, in all the years of our marriage, couldn’t we have sat down and discussed the state of the marriage? What were your problems with the marriage? What were my problems? How could we have made it better? Instead, we spent all those years tiptoeing around each other.

  But now I had the chance to change everything.

  “Hey,” Zachary whispered as he spooned me tighter. “Where are you?”

  He was right. My body was right up against him, but my mind had clearly gone someplace else.

  “Sorry,” I said, taking his hand. “I was thinking.”

  “Are you upset about something?” he asked as he turned me around to face him. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked him.

  “All of a sudden you’re different. Are you regretting something?”

  “About you?” I asked him. “I don’t regret anything about you,” I said, giving him a peck on the lips.

  “Do you regret we slept together the first night we met?” he asked, concerned.

  “Oh god, no. Trust me, I don’t regret this night for a second. I wanted this more than you could ever imagine.”

  “So . . .” He paused. “Is it Howard?”

  My heart jumped when he said that. Did he know? Did he know the truth? How did he know?

  “Why would you . . . How do you know about Howard?”

  “Because you mentioned him a bunch of times this evening. Was he a long-term thing?”

  “He was.” I started to tear up.

  “Were you engaged to him?” he asked me.

  “Yes, I was. I was very young, though,” I told him.

  “Is it over now?” he asked me.

  I didn’t know how to answer that at first. In one sense, there’s no way it couldn’t have been over. The man dropped dead in his coleslaw from a heart attack. Even if I didn’t love him and he didn’t love me, would he always have this hold over me?

  “Yes,” I said, stroking my hand through Zachary’s hair. “It’s over now.”

  “So what is it?” he asked.

  I turned around again and he resumed spooning me, pulling me in tight. Tears came out of my eyes. Thoughts of my husband and the life that we shared went through my head.

  “I . . .” I said, wiping my eyes. “I have a major regret in my life.”

  “That’s it?” he asked.

  “That’s a lot,” I said. “Believe me, it’s a lot.”

  “No,” he said, turning me toward him again. “It’s not a lot.”

  “No, you don’t understand,” I told him. “Believe me, you don’t know the half of it.”

  “What I know,” he said, “is that you’ve got a lot years ahead of you to make up for anything that you’ve ever regretted.”

  “No, I don’t. That’s the point,” I said.

  “Trust me,” he said. “You may not think you do, but you’ve got a lot of years to change what you think you might have done wrong.”

  At the time, I thought I knew what he meant.
Later, I would take his words and turn them into something very different. I wasn’t yet at that point, though. I was still twenty-nine, and I was still in the bed of this young handsome man who only wanted to share the world with me.

  What if I did have a lot of years ahead of me? Throughout the day, I had thought about the possibility of staying twenty-nine. For all I knew, I would be twenty-nine forever. Sure, I’d wished to be twenty-nine for a day, and I got my wish, but I didn’t get it in writing. Maybe I could have a choice. Maybe I could stay twenty-nine forever if I wished hard enough. Lucy would understand. Barbara would get on with her life. Frida already said she would learn to deal. This wasn’t about them anymore, though. This was about me. This was about righting the wrongs in my life.

  I had been given a gift. I had been given the greatest gift that could be bestowed on anyone. It was a gift better than diamonds or a closet full of clothes or an extravagant trip.

  I had been given the gift of starting all over again with someone else.

  And this time I was going to do it right.

  A smile came over my face. All the baggage I had with Howard, I was now able to drop. I was going to start all over again. Maybe Zachary and I would move far away and I wouldn’t have to speak to anyone from my former life. I would miss Lucy, but I’d still speak to her from time to time. I could move on with things. I wondered if I could even start another family. Men do it all the time. This time I would bring my children up right. I would teach them to think for themselves and to be independent, but at the same time insist when I thought something was right.

  “I have something that I think is going to make you feel better,” Zachary said, getting out of bed and heading toward the kitchen.

  “What is it?” I called to him.

  “It’s a surprise,” he said.

  I sat up in bed and propped the pillows and smoothed out the sheets as I waited for him.

  This was what it felt like to be taken care of. Whatever he was bringing back, the smallest of things would be more appreciated than anything I could ever want.

  He appeared in the doorway.

  In his hand was a plate. On the plate was one cupcake with a candle in it.

  “Happy birthday,” he said.

  “When did you get that?” I said, laughing and clapping my hands.

  “I actually got it this morning, when I met you,” he said, coming toward me as he shielded the candle from going out. “I meant to eat it today, but I never got the chance. It’s funny, because I only went in there for a muffin. I’ve never bought a cupcake in my life, but it just looked too good to pass up. Now I know why I bought it. It was meant for you.” He sat down beside me and placed the plate on my lap. “Make a wish,” he whispered.

  So I did. I closed my eyes tight and said my wish in my head over and over.

  I wished that I could start all over again.

  I wished that I wouldn’t turn back to seventy-five.

  I wished that I could be twenty-nine this year and thirty the next, and so on.

  I wished that I could be with Zachary and relive my life with him.

  And then I opened my eyes and blew out the candle.

  I smiled. This could work. This had to work.

  “Thank you so much for this,” I said as he unwrapped the foil from the cake.

  “Take a bite,” he told me as I opened my mouth. So I did, and then he did the same.

  “Did you make a good wish?” he asked when we were halfway through.

  “Yes,” I said as we kissed, getting icing on each other’s faces.

  We finished the cake, and Zachary got under the covers again.

  “Blue Eyes?” I asked him as he got on top of me and started kissing me.

  “What is it?” he asked. “Anything.”

  “Let’s go away,” I said. “Let’s go far away and be together.”

  “I was thinking the same thing.” He smiled. “I was thinking that I’d love to take you to my favorite bistro in Paris. I want to take you to Rome and sit at an outdoor café and drink espresso with you. I want to climb the steps to the Parthenon and walk on top of the Great Wall of China with you. How does that sound?” he asked me.

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking,” I told him.

  “Do you have to go back to Chicago tomorrow?” he asked me.

  “Do I what?” I asked, then I remembered. “No, there’s nothing that I have to go back to Chicago for. Nothing is keeping me from going anywhere!” I shouted with excitement. “How about you?”

  “I’m free to go, too!” he shouted. Then he said, “You know, I never asked you what you do. What’s your job?” he asked.

  I tried to think of something to tell him. I almost said “computers,” but I knew he’d never believe that in a million years. So I told him the truth.

  “I’m qutting my job,” I told him. “I was there for a lot of years, but lying here with you I realize that I don’t need it anymore. I want to do a lot of other things with my life.”

  “Good for you,” he said.

  “Thank you,” I said to him, and I meant it. I was proud of myself. I was thrilled. I was over the moon. “And now I get to do what I really want,” I told him.

  “And what’s that?” he asked me.

  “I get to be with you.” I smiled.

  We kissed passionately as he wrapped me in his arms.

  And then we made love again.

  But I don’t kiss and tell.

  cinderella at midnight

  My eyes shot open.

  I had no idea what time it was. Zachary’s apartment was pitch-dark.

  Memories of a life that hadn’t even occurred came pouring through my head.

  It was the life Zachary and I would live together.

  There would be pet names. He would come to know that I don’t like the sheets tucked in at the bottom of the bed. He would hate that I leave little gobs of toothpaste in the sink after I brush. He would like his newly washed socks to be placed starting on the left of the drawer, and he would joke, “This way none of the socks get jealous that I’m wearing one pair more than another.” He’d learn that I always like at least a half a tank of gas at all times in the car, because you never know. We would eat at seven-thirty, not eight. We would be in bed by midnight. Zachary would always put an extra blanket on my side of the bed in case I got cold. Sometimes in the middle of the night we would both wake up instinctively at the same time and hold each other until we both fell asleep again. Sometimes we would wake up, and neither of us could get back to sleep, so we’d just talk about the day we had or what was on tap for the next day. Or we would make love.

  I could see us making goo-goo eyes at an outdoor café in Paris, or skiing down slopes in Switzerland. All of the dreams we talked about in our one evening together would come to life. We would decorate our home with the treasures we picked up in these places. These trinkets would become stories from our life. We’d make new friends together. Some of the wives would become my closest friends. They would become the women I’d reach out to if I needed some estrogen time. They would call me to grab a cup of coffee, or to take a quick jaunt to a shop.

  I would become an integral part of Zachary’s business, picking out the clothing for his Web site and becoming familiar with the latest designers all around the world. Zachary would begin to rely on my opinions. He would take them very seriously. I would have a knack for knowing exactly what to buy. I would begin to understand the Web site, and make it even easier for people to shop. The business would go from being his to being ours. It would become even more successful because of my input.

  I would be introduced to his family in a way I had never known them before. His mother would be older than me, and I would respect her. I would ask her for advice even though I already knew the answers. We would spend holidays with his family. They would become my family. He would talk of his grandmother, and I would listen and tell him I wish I’d met her.

  We would get older. We’d be forty, f
ifty, sixty . . . seventy-five. Would we have children? I don’t know. Maybe we would. We’d have a daughter, and she’d be like Lucy. I would insist she figure out her own life instead of living mine. I’d make sure she had no insecurities about herself. She would be independent and freethinking. My advice would be just that, advice. My children could take it or leave it. There would be celebrations, and there would be times of grief. We would say good-bye to older relatives and welcome new ones.

  Then Zachary and I would live out the twilight of our lives. We would look back with joy on a life together. Maybe we made some mistakes, but we did it together. We stuck it out for each other. We always put each other first, before anyone else. The love between us was undeniable. In our last days, we’d ask ourselves as we did so many times before: How did we get so lucky?

  My eyes widened as fear shot through my body.

  I knew I had to go back.

  It’s not that I wanted to; I didn’t want to. The warmth of Zachary’s arms around me was more than enough to keep me there forever. The comfort of his bed, the way his legs lightly touched mine, his relaxed breathing, in and out.

  My mind was running a mile a minute. Would I get out of that bed? Everything depended on my staying or getting out of bed. If I stayed, my new life would begin. If I got out of bed, my old life would stay intact. I did not want to get out of bed. Everything in my body told me not to get out of bed. My mind, however, was telling me something very different.

  Barbara.

  Frida.

  Lucy.

  Howard.