Withdrawal

      “Please press enter to confirm your selection.”  The cursor blinked.  I was trying to make sure I had done my calculations right.  I hadn’t switched to the quarterly pay plan so there was another check coming in a few weeks.  I had to make sure this would cover me.

     It should just be simple math.  Figure what your bills will be for the next month, add general spending, and work with that number.  It’s never just simple math.  Never have I looked at my calendar and seen Monday the 17th you blow out a tire or next Tuesday there’s going to be a strange clanking in the furnace and a little bit of smoke.

     Every week I check the schedule.  Never have I seen ‘Won’t Start Wednesday’, ‘$1000 Thursday’, or ‘$500 Friday’ before it actually happens.

     “Are you sure this is the amount you wish to withdraw?”

     Curse you cursor.

     I could hear my future self yelling back at me “You son-of-a-bitch! That’s my retirement money!” and “The only reason I live on a fixed income now is because you broke it then!”

     I was thanking my younger self.  Years earlier I jumped into an aggressive savings plan at the old job.  There had been a few runs at the lottery that surprisingly hadn’t worked out.  I decided to take the funds spent on the lottery every week and put them back into the savings plan.

     Instead of buying breakfast in the morning or drinks after work I took those funds and put them back into the savings plan.  That plan and some lucky investments allowed me to put the down payment on my dilapidated little house.

     I could hear my future self yelling at me for once again tapping into the well.  I reminded him that I might not be here and even if I was I always had social security.  There was a moment of silence before the laughter rippled through all three time zones.

     The math was simple.  Me + this withdrawal = bills being paid with no penalty and food on the table.

     I hit the enter button and watched the little animation spin.

     “Please allow 24 to 48 hours for the funds to appear in your bank account.”  

     Even though I had done my calculations right I remembered that it’s never just simple math.

228

     228.

     I just stared at my phone.  The mortgage was due.  The electric bill was due.  The gas bill was due.  The phone bill was due.  The gas tank was almost bone dry.

     228.

     My schedule was empty so I called out for the day.  This was a problem that required my immediate attention.  Home office was three hours behind so I had to wait until Noon to find out exactly what had gone wrong.

     The cell had been good that morning.  It must have known that the plan was to get paid, clear the major bills then FINALLY hit the local store.  There was a major announcement. The latest and greatest version was about to debut so of course there was a HUGE sale.

     228.

     There was a choice now.  Get the updated version of my current phone, get the latest and greatest phone, or get last year’s latest and greatest.  Unfortunately none of my old cases would fit any of the new phones.  They were all larger.  Even the updated version of my current phone looked different, felt different, and just was different.

     228.

     None of that really mattered.  The phone bill was due.  The gas bill was due.  The electric bill was due.  The mortgage was due. The gas tank was bone dry.  Over the last 19 years the great claim from every employer ended with the phrase “and if you do this you’ll be making $100k within the next 2 years, easy.”

     I was making somebody $100k just not me.  My reserves had dipped over the last few years.  There was a little bit here for the mortgage.  There was a little bit there for necessary office costs.  There was a little bit here for new brakes.  There were little pieces chipping away.  It was ok because I knew the windfall would fix it all.

     The last time things were this tight was when my father passed away.  The year after he died I drank my way through a multitude of local bars, disappeared to California for a short time, and totaled two cars in 8 weeks.

     Back then I was quietly giving Paris a run for her money but my self destruction was more psychological and less public.

     228.

     Since the last pay period there had been 1,100 miles logged in the car, 18 hours on the road, 100 hours in office, some where between 350 to 600 phone calls, many in person meetings, and two major deals postponed for 4 months.  After all that time and effort my direct deposit just stared back at me.

    $228. 

     There had to be a zero missing from the back of the number or a one missing from in front of it.  There had to be because if there wasn’t then nothing made sense.

     At 12:05 pm east coast time the home office payroll division explained to me that these were the quarterly fees.  The fees had just hit at an awkward time.  The stipend from the company ended just after the last quarter fees hit.  They were actually surprised someone hadn’t let me know I would be taking the hit this time.

     The phone rolled off my fingertips and slipped into the cradle.  This call required the home phone. Even though it had been good all morning, I wasn’t taking a chance that the cell would drop service.

     The sunlight danced gently across the living room floor.  The shadows from the panes in the glass slowly moved from the couch, to the coffee table, to the ottoman across the room.

     My current situation had been updated.  My immediate future looked different, felt different, and just was different.  I had been looking for a reason to make a change.  I had been looking for a sign to get off my ass and get things done.  I now had 228.

Tremors

     “Well I never thought you were chasing after Karen and she never thought you were a creep.  Does that make you feel any better?”

     “Yes, it...”

     “She was convinced that you slept with Paris.”

     “Jesus, man really?”

     Tony laughed a little to himself then stared out the window.

     “So are you a 2000 or are you a 20 guy?”

     “What do you mean?”  I asked.

     “I mean last night I’m listening to the news and I hear them say twenty twenty-one.  A few minutes later I hear them say two thousand twenty-one.  I wish there were something a bit more consistent.”

     Tony had been a bit more focused over the last few weeks.  Things in the world seemed to take on a larger importance.

     “I hadn’t really thought about it.”  I said cracking open a bottle of motor oil.  “Now that I do I’m a 20 guy.”

     “Really?”

     “Yeah, of course.  Think about it.  You didn’t say nineteen hundred ninety-nine, did you?  You said nineteen ninety-nine.  Two thousand made sense until 2009.  Since then it’s been twenty all the way.” 

     “I guess.”  He stared into the distance.

     “What’s up?” 

     “Amber is worried about me.  You see all this craziness going on in China?”

     “Yeah, but why the fuck would she be worried about you?”

     “She’s been doing some consulting with this firm that works out of China and she says the shit is much worst than everybody is letting on.”

     “Well damn.  Look I’m hoping,” I said, feeling the warmth of the motor oil, “that this shit is all done by February.  I’m just over a month away from hibernation right now.  Twenty nineteen has been a shit year.  By May 2020 the business at the firm should be moving smoothly and things will be as right as rain!  There is no way that 2020 can be as shitty as 2019 was,” I said emphasizing the twenties.

     “That still doesn’t answer why you give a shit about two thousand vs twenty.  What brought that about?”

     “She said a few of her colleagues have had to do virtual meetings.  While they were waiting for meetings to start, meetings that would eventually be cancelled, they started talking about Twenty twenty vs two thousand twenty and she wanted my opinion of it.”

     This wasn’t an earthquake. It wasn’t a landslide but it was a slight tremor.

     “What did you say?”  I asked preparing myself for the moment. 

     “I said two thousand twenty.  She laughed and said, without thinking about it ‘That’s what my Dad would have said.’”

     “Oh.”  The beer lost a bit of it’s flavor.  Her father had passed away a few years ago.  She didn’t have great memories of him but she had a few.

     “Man, you’re at least 5 years younger than...”

     “I’m only two years younger than when he died.”

     It had begun.

     “Tone, you’re overthinking this.  You’re turning a 20 problem into a 2000 problem and we don’t even know if it is a problem.”

     “I guess,” he repeated, “but apparently I’m a 2000 guy.”  He stared off into the distance again.  It was obvious the tremors were a bit more consistent than he was letting on.

Kare-Bear

     “I can sort of see their points but I agree with Marrianne and ‘Grocery Girl’s’ husbands.  I probably would have slept with you up until I had Teresa.”

     Karen, for the first time in a long time, caught me off guard.

     “I’m sorry.  I don’t even know how to process that last sentence.  Teresa’s what, 23?”

     “Yes, something like that.”

     “I’m just completely floored.”

     “I remember the first night I met you.  You were in a suit, mid tirade about something, and the bar was closing so we, meaning Tony, invited everybody back to the apartment for a few more drinks.  You drove because you weren’t drinking at the time.”

     “Ah yes the years of being the designated driver, I remember that.”

     “Anyway, somebody cut you off and a string of profanity came out of your mouth that would have embarrassed a sailor.  You then turned to me, calmly introduced yourself, and asked if it was ok to smoke in your own car.  You went from a grizzly bear to a pussy cat in the blink of an eye.

     “After listening to you yell through the window I was scared to say no but when I said I had asthma you put your cigarette away.”

     “Don’t remember it but that sounds about right.”

     “THEN after we ate you washed the dishes!  I think I made a joke about kicking Tony out and keeping you around.”

     “Now that’s funny shit.  I had no idea.  I always saw you as Karen and Tony.”

     “You called me Kare-Bear.  You told me I looked like that girl from that tv show that everyone thought was...”

     “Topanga.  I mean you’re all a bit younger than me.  I was kind of a Wonder Years Guy for a while but I remember the Topanga years.  Kare-Bear stuck.”

     “Every once in a while Teresa will still call me Kare-Bear.”

     “Oh YES!  Kare-Bear and Tare-Bear.”

     “When you met Connie everything changed.  You weren’t around that much.  After her there was the Paris thing and then that crazy girl with the little red car, and Anna.”

     I took a deep breath and looked at the ceiling.  

     “The Connie thing hurt.”  I ignored the rest of the names.  “That’s one of the reasons I won’t date Tessa.  That, her name sounds like Teresa, AND they’re about the same age.  Speaking of Teri, what would she do if I called her Tare-Bear?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

    “She’d lose her mind,” she laughed.  “Did you ever think about having kids of your own?”  She asked, pulling the focus right back.

     “It was the great goal.  I just never thought I had my shit together. Up until recently I always thought there would be more time.”

     I looked quietly from Karen’s eyes to the floor.

     “Look at me, I haven’t even made time to get to the store to get a new phone.”  I pulled the phone out of my pocket and pressed the home button to see if it was still charged.  Surprisingly it was.

     “Well now speaking of time, I have to kick you out,” she said standing and stretching.  “I have another day of meetings and you have to make an appointment to get a new phone.”

     She walked me to the door and gave me a big hug good night.

     “That’s why I called you Kare-Bear.  I could never figure out how someone with such little arms could give such big hugs!”

     “Go home,” she said closing the screen door.  “Text me when you get there to let me know you got home safe.”

     “Ok, Mom,” I yelled over my shoulder.

     “The friendship comes first.”  I said as I got to my car door.  “That’s why we can still hang out and watch a movie on a Tuesday.  I haven’t talked to Connie in almost 20 years.  I haven’t seen Paris in 5.  The crazy girl drives a different color car.  Anna doesn’t text me when she’s in town any more.  It’s like every time I really try to hold on to something it just slips through my fingers.

     “Tare-Bear still calls you Kare-Bear and I currently don’t smoke in my car.  The friendship comes first.”

     I could still see her standing in the doorway as I drove out of the parking lot. 

The Question of When

      “The question wasn’t so much if as it was when.”

     “What?  Come on Marrianne.  You can’t be serious.”  We had missed our bi-weekly dinner due to conflicting work schedules.  Essentially there had been a massive accident on 84 and the re-route took me 40 minutes south through the New Haven Area because there had also been another accident on 691, another barely paved, 3 lane dirt road.  I had been re-routed so far from my destination by the time I got there it would have been too late to enjoy the time we had.

     “Sadly I can see her husband’s point of view.”  It was lasagna tonight.  I loved lasagna.

     “Karl used to ask me all the time.  ‘Did you fuck him?’ ‘Did he try to fuck you?’”

     “Really?”

     “Do you remember my 30th birthday?”

     “Not rea...”

     “We all got hammered and stumbled around Boston?”

     “Marrianne, we did that for every birthday in Boston.”

     “This was the year you brought up the massage chair.”

     “Oh...”

     “Right ‘Oh’!”

     In the years after the Paris Incident I spent time honing my massage skills.  Of course I didn’t go to massage school.  I couldn’t afford it.  I would get a massage once or twice a month, note what was being done, what worked, and keep a mental rolodex of what they did.  I read books and watched videos.

     I never positioned myself as a massage therapist but I got to the point where I could relieve some pressure and remove the stress from a shitty day/week/month.

     The hugs also had a big following.  If you give a big bear hug you open up muscles to be massaged.  If I support you while you are getting the hug you don’t have so much pressure on your body.  If I give you a big bear hug after you have less stress, and less pressure, the comfort of a hug with no malicious intent just tends to make some people feel better.

     I was popular at parties and little gatherings, unless you happened to be someone’s husband or boyfriend.  The husbands and boyfriends were concerned it was just a ploy to feel up their wives and girlfriends.

     Some of them took me up on a hug for themselves and understood.  Most didn’t.

     There was one guy who was convinced that everyone was trying to sleep with his wife.  She was an attractive woman.  She probably could have had any man she wanted before him.  We all found him repulsive as a human being.  No one wanted anything physically to do with her after he had bragged about their sex life. 

     “I had no idea she was married,” I protested with a mouthful of tasty cheese and sauce.  

     She was convinced that the massage was a prelude to a deeper evening event, even if the event wasn’t that evening.  It wasn’t going to happen that evening or ever.  It turns out he had been lying about their sex life.  She was just happy that someone was touching her and not asking for something in return.

     “AND,” I shook my finger towards the ceiling, “I let her and everyone else know that from the get go.”  I thought more about it.

     “You know I remember arriving at a party and overhearing someone say ‘Oh shit he’s here.  Where’s my wife?’”

     “You see I’m not crazy.”

     “There was another time when someone’s life was falling apart.  I said ‘Let’s go get massages, eat some really expensive sushi, and stumble around the city.’  It wasn’t Boston,” I cut her off right before she spoke.  “It was Northampton.  She said no and told her friends I was just down to pound.”

     “Her brother called me a fucking creep and she didn’t talk to me for 3 years.”

     “You do give off that vibe.  I mean that’s a bit harsh,” she said catching some of the lasagna in her hand before it hit her sweats, “but you yourself have said it.

     “Most men who put in that much effort just want to get laid.”

     I just wanted to be invited back.  Hell, I even helped clean up and did dishes after parties.  I actually thanked people for letting me into their homes after the gatherings.  Now it was the work and home show.  

     “Well I don’t want to sleep with Grocery Girl.  I just need to get this phone situation under control and then the hibernation prep begins.”

     I could feel the hibernation pulling me in for a warm winter embrace.  I would be able to use the winter as an excuse to not go out.  The Hibernation would always lead to less stress, less pressure and a level of clarity.

     It wasn’t a question of if I was going to hibernate, it was a question of when.  How long would it take this year to ease the mind and cleanse the soul.  I didn’t want to get caught in another massive accident and get re-routed so far away from my destination I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the time I had.

Do Not Call List

     “Sadly, I can’t call her,” I said staring from the pizza to the sidewalk.

     “You can’t call her?  She can help you with this phone thing, right?”

     V was back in town for just a short time.  Her management orientation training had gone far better than expected.  Her scores and performance were off the charts.  She had grown her territory and increased the numbers across the board.  Her new job allowed her to work remotely.  She decided she was sick of the New England winters and was packing up to move south, possibly to one of the Carolinas.  

     “Yes,” I answered sheepishly.

     “You’ve known her for years, right?” She couldn’t believe it.

     “Yep.  I can’t call her.  I can’t text her. No email, nada.”

     “What the fuck?”

     “I’m not so much on her Do Not Call List as I am on his.”  There was a puzzled look I caught out of the corner of my eye.

     My phone was near the end of it’s factory lifespan.  This meant the updates were killing battery and randomly shutting the phone off.

     The only texts that came through consistently were the ‘Is it time for an upgrade?’ texts.  This was getting to be a pain in the ass.  Sadly the phone had become the go to for audiobooks, maps, news, email, light shopping, bill paying, the morning alarm, random hook ups, ordering food, and most recently frustration.  Grocery Girl ran the cell phone store near the grocery story that’s why we always bumped into each other there.

     “So let me get this straight, a person you’ve known for their entire adult life can no longer talk to you because of...?” 

     “Yep.”

     “Someone who you called every year to wish happy birthday?”

     “I’ve been texting the last few years, but yes.”

     “Did you sleep with this woman?”

     “No, but...”

     “Oh Jesus, what?” Her eye rolls verged on the epic lately.

     “The last time we were at a party we spent a lot of time laughing and reminiscing.  She got a big bear hug and an epic back crack.  It was one of the few times I didn’t just bump into her at the grocery store. We were supposed to meet for lunch to talk about my phone and then she texted me saying that she couldn’t.  Come to find out her husband is not a fan and hasn’t been for a while.  Apparently when I hugged her his ass puckered so hard you could hear the wind leaving the room.  Bumping into each other at the grocery store?  Not a problem.  It’s a random thing.  A structured meeting?  Food?  NO!

     “Apparently things had been tense even before the party. ‘He’s the father of my children.  We can make it work.  I want to see if we can last.’  That was the last time I really talked to her.”

     “Well damn.  That’s fucked up.” 

     “Why ruin what she thinks is a good thing.  It’s been a policy I’ve had since the beginning.  Step back.  Let things happen.”

     “No.  No that is not a good policy.  I mean letting relationships play out is good policy but that just feels...”

     “Trust me.  I am aware.  I can’t even text to ask for help.  I might just go to the store and get a new phone ... on a day she’s not working there.”  

     “Well what have you been doing lately?”

     “I still have a home phone and I use the iPad when I’m in the WiFi.  I have an office number for clients.  Some days if I catch it just right in the morning the phone will work until about 3 before I have to put it back on the charger.”

     “Dear god, you are 100 years old aren’t you?”

     “Maybe if were 100 years ago I could send telegrams.  It sucks too.  I was hoping she could help with this.”

     “The more I think about it you might have more than just a phone issue.”

Windfall

      Once I got to the office, the job was incredibly simple.  You listen to people.  You assess their situation.  You make the necessary suggestions that will improve the situation.

     Once the clients get your suggestions they take them to heart and move forward with their lives.  A whole new outlook has opened up for them.  Their worlds are perfect and everything is as right as rain.

     The problem is most people know what they have to do BUT they wait until the last absolute second to do it, if they do it at all.  This can be smart and it can be strategic if you have a plan for the multiple variables that life will throw at you.  Most people don’t.  If they had a contingency plan, they didn’t think it would lead here.

     Some people wait on the hopes that something magical will happen.  They wait for the lottery or a windfall that fixes everything.  401ks and credit cards were usually fair game because the windfall would fix it all.

     Even some of the smartest people would come in and continue to make costly mistakes.  There was the family presented with a solid direction out of the craziness.  After two months of weekly meetings a map of success was laid out then there was absolute silence.

     After a bit of follow up it was found that rather than cover all the necessary responsibilities mentioned in the plan the family decided to buy a new car and go on a vacation to Disneyland.

     When I asked why I was informed that a grandparent had been diagnosed with a terminal condition and only had a few months to live unless they opted for an experimental procedure.  The surgery was considered risky at best.  There was a 1 in 50 chance of survival.  I felt bad and wished them the best.  Two months later the inevitable happened.  The clients were back in the office trying desperately to set up a new plan.

     It turns out the grandparent had opted for the surgery and survived.  It also came to light that the grandparent wasn’t even on the trip to Disneyland.  The parents went on the trip knowing that when the grandparent died the money from the inheritance and liquidated properties would get them out of debt, cover of their most recent expenses, and give them that great windfall.

     I wanted to believe this was an isolated incident but this was the norm.

     I’m not talking about the single mom who makes 22k a year.  I’m talking about dual six figure income earners.  Some were earning mid six figure salaries and couldn’t rub two nickels together if their lives depended on it.

     There was a lot of sex (mostly extramarital), love (wanting to be loved mainly), bad choices (unnecessarily expensive cars, houses, vacations, colleges, credit cards, toys, etc.) & more sex (second, third, fourth marriages, secret children) distracting people from making better choices.

     The marketing machine was also in full effect telling people they weren’t enough and convincing them that they always needed more.

     I said all this knowing I needed to fix my phone or buy another one.  I had seen this coming for a while but I hadn’t saved for it.  I was kind of hoping for something magical to happen.  Strangely before the job transition, the drive, and the want to be elsewhere I had a contingency plan, I just didn’t think it would lead here.

Same Old Same Ole

     If you go into a new job that has all the things that you want and need you may still fail if you mind isn’t in the right spot.  

     The job wasn’t the problem.

     The phone was a problem but it wasn’t the problem.  

     The drive was a problem but it wasn’t the problem.  The problem was me.  I had worked commission jobs before but I hadn’t worked a commission ONLY job.  

     Initially there was a stipend to get you on your feet but that was gone.  We were moving into sink or swim territory.  I had just started treading water and my body was already tired.

     I used to love driving.  I learned to loathe it.  I had gotten used to filling my gas tank once a month.  Now I was filling it once every four days.  There was an accident every other day on the highway.

     It was like people intentionally tried to pass at the most inconvenient times.  People treated the passing lane as their personal 70 mph riding lane.  Entrances and exits were located in strange places.

     The other highway option, used mainly when there were multi car pile ups, was essentially a 2 lane dirt road.  Deer were on the side of the road just waiting for their moment to jump.

     There was no public transit that made it easy to get from one town to another.  The train, bus, walk situation took three hours if everything went according to plan and there were no incidents.  The cost was $20 per day.

     I also had offsite meetings with clients that would require travel so relying on unreliable transit wouldn’t have worked in my favor.

     As mentioned before the walk from the lot I parked in was 15 minutes from the office.  There were a few closer lots but as you got closer to the office the prices went up.  

     The lot I chose to park in was $60 per month.  The lot a block closer was $85.  The parking lot across the street from the office was $220.  None of them had guaranteed parking so it you showed up a bit later in the morning you could ride the lot for 30 minutes hoping for someone to leave.

     The phone was dying.  It’s time had come it I was in desperate need of a change.  I just didn’t want to change.  It fit all my needs perfectly, when it worked.  It fit my hand just right.  All the previous cases still fit this phone.  The chargers hadn’t changed yet.

     It’s predictability was at an all time low.  There was a quick fix.  Just get a new phone.  I was hoping to run into Grocery Girl.  The reason we always bumped into each other at the grocery store was because she ran the cell phone store next door.  I was hoping she could hook me up with some type of fix or help with pricing on a new phone.

     Of all of these the main problem was me.  I was in desperate need of stability.  I just didn’t want to change.  My predictability was at an all time high.  I had learned to loathe.  I was an accident waiting to happen and the exit to get off this crazy highway was in a strange place.  My mind wasn’t in the right spot and I was hurtling towards failure.  Exhaustion was settling in and I wasn’t even in the deep end, yet.

The New Routine

      Like everyone who had one, I was happy to have a job.  Even though I hadn’t spoken to Derich in a while I decided to give the new office gig a chance.  This required a new routine.

     The quick jump on and off the highway to the old job was replaced with a grueling, traffic fighting, drive halfway across the state.  Luckily it was one of the smaller New England states.

     If you left early enough you could avoid most of the traffic getting to work and if you left late enough you could also avoid it coming home.  Reminded me of The Grid.

     The new routine was as solid as a rock.  Wake up at 5:30.  Clean up, get dressed while listening to the overnight news.  Leave the house at 6.  Get to the parking lot at 7.  Walk to the office.  Arrive at 7:15.  Eat breakfast (instant oatmeal and coffee with hot chocolate) continue reading the news of the world markets.  Wash the dishes I used.  Start work at 8 am (paperwork, phone calls, fights with home office about compliance, meetings with clients - if the clients showed).  4:50 pm Walk to the parking lot.  5:05 pm Leave the parking lot.  6:30 pm Arrive home to make and eat dinner, watch YouTube/the News or listen to a podcast or an audiobook.  7:15 Wash dishes.  7:30 Play music/write/workout/meditate some how get rid of the stress.  8:30 Prepare clothes for the next day.  8:45 Shower.  9:15 Fall asleep listening to the latest world news update.  Rinse and repeat. 

    This wonderful schedule was held together by my phone.  Somehow this little piece of technology had everything I wanted when I was a kid except the fun and the adventure.

     There were alerts here and alarms there.  There were reminders of bills to be paid and money to be made.  There were directions and suggestions.  There were apps for dating and apps for hating.

     There was just one problem lately.  After a full night of recharging and getting ramped up for the day I would unplug the phone to check the news and it would immediately shut off.  When I turned it back on it would read 50% then 5% then nothing.

     The only remedy was to immediately hard reset it for 2 cycles.  Only then would it hold a charge.  Only then would it do what it was supposed to do the way it was supposed to do it.  This was one of the most popular phones in the world.  There were a lot of apps on the phone but this thing was supposed to be up for the challenge.  I looked forward to buying this thing.  The day I bought it I felt like it I had the world at my finger tips.

     It was like that with a lot of things in life at the time.  I had looked forward to this job.  Theoretically it was wonderful but practically it was just another job driving halfway across the state.  As a man of a certain age I wasn’t sure how many hard resets I had in me even with the rock solid new routine.

Update

     “I’m trying to figure out,” said Marrianne, “why you aren’t going to call this woman again.”

     “What?”  I asked, leaning against the counter, wine glass in hand.

     “Why would you not want to call her back to hang out again?  She sounds like a perfect candidate for your cell phone check mark thing.”  She dismissively waved the spatula in the air.

     “It’s not me.  I would love to hang out with her again.  She’s age appropriate. She’s in fact 3 years OLDER.  I think her profile said she’s 50 or 51.  She’s a doctor, or she was when she lived in France.  Her kids are grown and out of the house and she’s hot as hell.  Do you know who Helen Mirren is?  She looks like her 20 years ago but French.”

     Marrianne shrugged her shoulders.  She and Kyle had started the divorce process.  Financially she was much better off than he was. The question was, does she pay him alimony?  This was not a question she was happy with answering so she was ignoring it, for now.

     I would stop by every two weeks to make sure she was ok.  Her world had become work, kids, and this house.  No time for dating.  Sometimes I would bring food.  Sometimes she would cook.

     “Here I’ll show you.”

     As I pulled out my phone to show her the pictures of how much my French Connection looked like Helen Mirren the phone went from 50% to 5% then immediately shut off.

     “Motherf....”

     “You installed the new update, didn’t you?” she asked tasting the sauce for the chicken fettuccine.  “You installed the new update on that old ass phone and it isn’t working, is it?”

     I saw her charger on the side of the kitchen island.

     “Well at least they didn’t change the chargers yet.  Do you mind?” I asked plugging in my phone.  A moment later and it was back on but only up to 10%.  I showed her the photos.

     “So what do you think?”  I asked Marrianne.

     “She’s really pretty.  And yes she does look like a taller, younger Helen Mirren.  I just don’t understand why you won’t call her.”

     “It’s not me.  She has a checklist that she’s working through.  There’s shit she never did before she got married that she is 100% going to do before she settles down again.  If she’s still interested in the future she might call me.

     “Hook up with a younger, black guy?  Check.”  I clicked a check mark off in the air. 

     She raised an eyebrow.

     “At least the update you gave her actually worked!” she looked at my phone, then poured the pasta and chicken into the Alfredo sauce.