Read Online My Favorite Midlife Crisis by Toby Devens - Free Book Online
Authors: Toby Devens
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There’s a matchmaking site for everyone and anyone. Blacks, Jews, black Jews. People with every interest. Every twisted sexual practice. Every body type. I’m going on Fabulousfatties.com and Lusciousnlovely.com. You ought to go on Ivydate.com. It’s restricted to people from the top colleges. Connie deCrespi met a droolworthy Princeton lawyer on there.”
Constanza deCrespi, who was supposedly descended from Italian aristocracy, was Fleur’s attorney and the woman she held up as the epitome of upper-class cool. I’d met Connie and she had everything Fleur credited her with: charm, brains, a laid-back elegance. Just fifty. Divorced with a ball-breaking settlement. Looking around for husband number two. Online, yet.
“When she found out he had a shoe fetish, Connie dropped him. But still.”
“I’ll think about it,” I lied. “Did you finish filling out the Lovingmatch profile?”
“Almost.” She extracted the downloaded application from her handbag, snapped open her eyeglass case, and nudged a pair of magnifying half-glasses along the bridge of her nose. They gave her round, soft face a touching gravitas.
“My screen name is brighteyes. I’m cheerful and low maintenance. That’s what men want, right? Not to be bothered? I mean, this is the gender that invented the TV remote. Okay. I’m a Whig politically and the only thing left to decide is my body type. I get to choose from petite, athletic, slim, trim, anorexic/bulimic, and sunk way down at the bottom, like big fat rocks in an ocean of skinnies, three categories for the jumbos: buxom, voluptuous, and Rubenesque. Which do you think sounds the least porcine?”
“I like Rubenesque,” I said finally. “It conjures a picture of boobs bubbling over a laced-up bodice.”
“Rubenesque it is,” she wrote with a flourish. “So there I am in a hundred words or less. I’ll send it in tonight.”
“Good for you. I’m proud of you, kiddo. You started this project; you’re going to see it through.” I tried to make the question a statement. “I really admire your perseverance.”
“Yeah, well I think perseverance is sexy. As in ‘the woman can really give good perseverance.’”
Brash and bright, but for all the surface toughness and braggadocio, Fleur has a nougat center, soft and sweet. Jack leaving her for the waitress had almost killed her and now he was back, poking his formerly bald head where it didn’t belong. Damn it, I didn’t want to see her hurt again.
“Don’t get sidetracked, Fleur. Not by anything or anyone, okay? Remember your business plan. Your goal is marriage. You want to be married.”
“I do, I do.” She lifted a spoonful of green tea ice cream in a toast. “Well, here’s to getting what I want and you getting what you want which is...what the hell do you want?”
I could feel the rice wine smudging me into sentimentality. I took another sip, thinking. “I guess what I want is for the clock to be turned back to when everything was right with the world. Except it never was, was it? So that won’t work.” I was surprised by the sting of tears. “But you know what would be nice? To be able to trust someone again. It would even be nice just to trust myself again. Stan knocked that out of me and I guess that’s what I want, more than a head on the next pillow.” Where did all that come from? I blotted my eyes with the napkin.
Fleur reached over and patted my arm. Then, in typical Fleur fashion, she cracked the emotional moment. “And I thought all you wanted was a subscription to Twat: The Review of Gynecology. No more sake for you.” She moved the sake decanter, poured the last drops into her cup, and hoisted it. “As I was saying, here’s to you and me and getting what we want.”
“And Kat, don’t forget Kat,” I said.
“Oh, honey, she is probably at this very moment getting what she wants. Nevertheless, banzai one and all.”
***
The softshell crab roll must have disagreed with me, because I was
Constanza deCrespi, who was supposedly descended from Italian aristocracy, was Fleur’s attorney and the woman she held up as the epitome of upper-class cool. I’d met Connie and she had everything Fleur credited her with: charm, brains, a laid-back elegance. Just fifty. Divorced with a ball-breaking settlement. Looking around for husband number two. Online, yet.
“When she found out he had a shoe fetish, Connie dropped him. But still.”
“I’ll think about it,” I lied. “Did you finish filling out the Lovingmatch profile?”
“Almost.” She extracted the downloaded application from her handbag, snapped open her eyeglass case, and nudged a pair of magnifying half-glasses along the bridge of her nose. They gave her round, soft face a touching gravitas.
“My screen name is brighteyes. I’m cheerful and low maintenance. That’s what men want, right? Not to be bothered? I mean, this is the gender that invented the TV remote. Okay. I’m a Whig politically and the only thing left to decide is my body type. I get to choose from petite, athletic, slim, trim, anorexic/bulimic, and sunk way down at the bottom, like big fat rocks in an ocean of skinnies, three categories for the jumbos: buxom, voluptuous, and Rubenesque. Which do you think sounds the least porcine?”
“I like Rubenesque,” I said finally. “It conjures a picture of boobs bubbling over a laced-up bodice.”
“Rubenesque it is,” she wrote with a flourish. “So there I am in a hundred words or less. I’ll send it in tonight.”
“Good for you. I’m proud of you, kiddo. You started this project; you’re going to see it through.” I tried to make the question a statement. “I really admire your perseverance.”
“Yeah, well I think perseverance is sexy. As in ‘the woman can really give good perseverance.’”
Brash and bright, but for all the surface toughness and braggadocio, Fleur has a nougat center, soft and sweet. Jack leaving her for the waitress had almost killed her and now he was back, poking his formerly bald head where it didn’t belong. Damn it, I didn’t want to see her hurt again.
“Don’t get sidetracked, Fleur. Not by anything or anyone, okay? Remember your business plan. Your goal is marriage. You want to be married.”
“I do, I do.” She lifted a spoonful of green tea ice cream in a toast. “Well, here’s to getting what I want and you getting what you want which is...what the hell do you want?”
I could feel the rice wine smudging me into sentimentality. I took another sip, thinking. “I guess what I want is for the clock to be turned back to when everything was right with the world. Except it never was, was it? So that won’t work.” I was surprised by the sting of tears. “But you know what would be nice? To be able to trust someone again. It would even be nice just to trust myself again. Stan knocked that out of me and I guess that’s what I want, more than a head on the next pillow.” Where did all that come from? I blotted my eyes with the napkin.
Fleur reached over and patted my arm. Then, in typical Fleur fashion, she cracked the emotional moment. “And I thought all you wanted was a subscription to Twat: The Review of Gynecology. No more sake for you.” She moved the sake decanter, poured the last drops into her cup, and hoisted it. “As I was saying, here’s to you and me and getting what we want.”
“And Kat, don’t forget Kat,” I said.
“Oh, honey, she is probably at this very moment getting what she wants. Nevertheless, banzai one and all.”
***
The softshell crab roll must have disagreed with me, because I was
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