Chapter 1

The divorce ripped my guts out. As with an earthquake or a funnel cloud that drops out of a clear blue sky, one moment everything was just fine; the next, total devastation. One ordinary Sunday afternoon in March, 1999, my wife of twenty years said, "I don't want to be married any more."

"Is there someone else?" I choked out, predictably and tritely, even though there had been no indication that there might be and our marriage seemed untroubled otherwise.

"No," she said. "I just don't want to be responsible for another adult any more."

I couldn't make sense of her answer--her reason for wanting a divorce. I couldn't understand how she felt responsible for me. We both had good jobs, we'd paid off the mortgage on the house, we had money set aside for our sons' college educations, we had an egalitarian sort of marriage, we were respectful of one another; I thought we loved each other in the ways that people who have been married for twenty years do. It seemed to me that we both were, if nothing else, responsible.

I thought about insisting on marriage counseling or psychotherapy, resisting, trying to "fix" whatever she thought was wrong, but, after some consideration, I decided that that would probably only create anger and resentment of top of everything else and make our life together worse rather than better. So I agreed to the divorce. She continued to live in the house rent-free so that our sons, then 13 and 15, wouldn't have to be uprooted from their school and circle of friends. In exchange for that consideration, I paid only a reasonable amount of child support, but no alimony. Everything else just got split down the middle.

The earthquake struck, the funnel cloud touched down. One day I had a wife and a home and a family; the next, I was standing on the curb with my suitcases in my hands. I hadn't just got a divorce; I'd lost my sense of place. I didn't know where I fit in the world any more.

I gave brief thought to donning a hair shirt, to renting a scummy little apartment to make her suffer. The thought was only brief because it was patently ridiculous, and, I was glad I was able to recognize so quickly, just a warped version of, "I'll show you."

I instead went to Vida Libre, a huge new apartment complex at North First and Rio Robles, virtually right across the street from work. Vida Libre was, according to its literature, not an apartment complex but an "apartment village." It offered six "extraordinary apartment communities plus village shops, including Starbucks," in addition to a gym, a game room, and a swimming pool. I took a two-bedroom unit, then scurried over to Levitz, where I got myself a queen bed, adequate living room furniture, and a modest dinette set. I also got a pair of bunk beds and two student desks for the second bedroom so that my sons wouldn't have to toss sleeping bags on the floor and argue about kitchen table space when they stayed with me.

I met my immediate neighbors during the first week in my new digs. On one side was Bob, a hale-fellow-well-met, probably ex-football player salesman. On the other were roommates Jacqui and Jeannine, neither of whom was French. Jacqui, who looked to be about twenty-five, was a full-figured, zaftig little thing, with breasts so big they swayed rather than jiggling when she walked. She had short, curly, dark hair, and eyes that seemed always to sparkle with a pure joy of living. Jeannine, who was probably in her mid-thirties, was, in contrast to Jacqui, tall, slender, and lithe, with dirty blond hair that she typically wore in a pony tail that fell between her shoulderblades. Jacqui was fun to look at, but I found Jeannine attractive. Very attractive, as a matter of fact, but she did not look like a happy lady.

After I got settled in, I spent some time checking out the community social scene, a lot of which took place around the swimming pool. It was obvious that the bodies soaking up sun on the deck were all lean and tan. An objective assessment in front of my bathroom mirror disclosed that I was considerably less than lean and fish-belly white, to boot. I would have stuck out like a sort thumb poolside.

As time went on, life settled into a humdrum routine. I got up, went to work, and came home again. The weekends the boys were with me, we went out to dinner, to movies, or to Great America; otherwise, my entertainment consisted mostly of reading or trips to Blockbuster. I'd formed a nodding acquaintance with a number of people with whom I crossed paths regularly, and, of course, greeted Jacqui and Jeannine when I saw them.

I didn't consciously go on a diet or anything, but I found myself shying away from fast food and taking the time to prepare meals that were long on protein and fresh vegetables and short on carbohydrates and fat. Having little else to do with my free time in the evening, I started talking long walks after dinner, and, a while later, began using the community gym for light workouts and calisthenic sets.

Jeannine started showing a wide smile when she greeted me, and I assumed that her life had improved. I'd recovered from the initial jolt of divorce and living on my own again and was starting to have occasional bouts of loneliness and thinking seriously about how I might improve my social life. Whatever Jeannine had found, I wanted me some, too.

It really was something of a surprise to see that, by September, I'd lost thirty pounds of marriage comfort and was, in fact, in better shape than I'd been in for fifteen years. At that point, I decided that I could start working on a tan without embarrassing myself completely.

As I looked more closely at the rest of the people around the pool, I became aware that not only were they ten to fifteen years younger than I was, they spoke a language I could hardly understand. They talked about films, movie stars, and musical groups I'd never heard of, and a lot of their night-time activity revolved around clubbing. On three occasions--count 'em, three--I was approached by young women who had an interested look on their face, but after we'd talked only briefly and they'd noticed the crow's feet around my eyes and the grey encroaching at my temples, their interest faded and they got on with their days and their lives. These kids, most of whom worked for Milpitas Systems, too, worked hard during the day, partied hearty at night, and spent money with no regard for tomorrow. Forty-three suddenly seemed very old.

At 10:30 one Friday night early in October, while I was entertaining myself with the latest Dean Koontz spooker, I heard a soft knock on my door. Nobody ever knocked on my door, except for the boys announcing their arrival. It was with utter astonishment that I found Jeannine at my doorstep, still dressed in her workaday business suit and towing her computer case behind her.

"Hi," she said, with a weary smile. "Can I come in?"

"Of course," I said, stepping back and opening the door wider. "Is something wrong?"

"Yes," she said. "No. Well. Sort of. I've had an absolute bitch of a day, I'm exhausted, and I come home and find the fucking red scunci hanging on the doorknob."

"What's a scunci?" I asked.

Jeannine looked at me blankly for a moment, then shook her head and laughed. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm so tired that I'm not thinking straight. Of course you don't know what I'm talking about. A scunci is a fancy rubber band for holding your hair, like this..." She turned and pointed at the light brown scunci keeping her pony tail together. "A red scunci over the doorknob is the convention Jacqui and I adopted to let one another know when we, um, wanted privacy."

The light dawned. "Well," I said, gesturing toward the living room, "would you like to sit down?"

Jeannine parked her computer case by the kitchen table, then took off her suit coat and hung it on the back of a chair. As she walked toward the sofa, she unbuttoned the top button of her blouse. She sat, kicked off her black pumps, slumped, then sprawled. "God, it feels good to get out of those shoes," she said, wiggling her toes.

You have a guest, I reminded myself. It had been so long...

"Are you hungry? Would you like something to drink? Wine, coffee, tea, soft drink?"

"I had some cafeteria food for dinner, thanks," she said, "but a cup of tea would be heavenly right now."

In ninety seconds, I had a mug of tea on the coffee table in front of Jeannine. Microwave ovens can be useful sometimes.

"I do apologize for just showing up at your door." Jeannine said. "I'm kind of embarrassed, really. My brain just isn't working right. This scunci business is starting to make me a little crazy."

I offered what I thought was an encouraging look.

"Jacqui and I work in the same department," Jeannine went on. "We watched these apartments being built, and when we saw what they were, you know, way up-scale and all, we thought it would be fun to rent one. Neither of us could afford it on her own, so we decided to pool our resources and share."

Jeannine picked up the mug, blew across the top of it, took a sip, and winced. "Still too hot," she said. "Could I have a bit of milk, please?"

I brought milk, spoon, and a saucer. Jeannine added milk to her satisfaction, sipped again, then gulped a mouthful. "Ahhhhhhh," she said.

"Anyway, we still couldn't make the rent on a one-bedroom apartment even if we went halfsies, so we split the cost in proportion to our salaries. I'm a product manager and she's an admin. I'm paying two-thirds, and she's paying one-third. I'm okay with the rent split, and Jacqui and I get along just fine, but it seems like she's using about eighty percent of the apartment to my twenty percent. I swear that every time she takes her bra off an old boyfriend falls out.

"Not that I make a whole lot of use of the red scunci," she added. "I can't even remember when the last time was. But it would be nice to be able just to kick back and relax in my own house sometimes."

With three more gulps, she finished the tea and flopped her head onto the back of the sofa. Before I could even draw breath to speak, her jaw went slack and she started snoring softly. Okay, I said to myself, what do you do now? Toss a blanket over her and let her be? Get her lying down on the sofa, and then toss a blanket over her? Wake her up and send her home? Having an attractive woman who was not my wife suddenly zonk out on my sofa was not a social situation for which I had a learned behavior.

Presently, the solution occurred to me: I'd let her sleep for a half hour or hour, during which time Jacqui would likely retrieve the red scunci, and then she could go home. Quite satisfied with myself, I returned to my book.

And, about an hour later, shook Jeannine's shoulder gently. She looked at me though barely open eyes. "Umph," she said.

"You must really be tired," I said. It's going on midnight now--maybe Jacqui will let you back into your apartment."

Jeannine blinked a couple of times, then said, "Umph." She levered herself upright and off the couch, went to the door, and looked out toward her apartment. Then she closed the door and turned to look at me.

"The fucking scunci's still there, " she said, "and I think I'm dying. I was a Good Company Girl today and stayed late to finish a report that my boss needs first thing Monday morning, and I just don't have the energy to deal with Jacqui right now. Would it be okay if I just spent the night here?"

"Not a problem," I said. "You can even have your choice of upper or lower."

Jeannine gave me a look of utter incomprehension.

"Sorry," I said. "Bad time to be a smart-ass." I showed her the bedroom with the bunk beds in it. "There are clean sheets on both of them," I said. "You can take your pick." Jeannine gave me a look I couldn't decode.

She plucked the front of her blouse away from her skin, then flapped it in and out a couple of times. "In for a dime, in for a dollar," she muttered. "Would you mind if I took a quick shower before I go to bed? I'm a little... stale."

"Not a problem," I said. I got her a towel and washcloth, and a toothbrush. "There you go."

She disappeared into the bathroom, and I returned to my book. After a bit, the water stopped, and a couple of minutes later I heard her call, "Mike, do you have a tee-shirt I could borrow?"

I pulled a tee-shirt out of my underwear drawer. Jeannine was peering sideways through a crack in the bathroom door. Her arm snaked out and took the shirt. Then she opened the door and stepped out in a waft of steam.

Her hair was loose about her shoulders, and her face was clean of make-up. Because Jeannine is almost as tall as I am, my tee-shirt just barely covered her essentials; her nipples made little points on the front of it. But what got to me even more than her appearance was the knowledge that all that separated me from a lovely, naked woman was an arm's length and a thin layer of cotton cloth. I had not so much as touched a woman since I kissed my wife a chaste farewell when I left our house for the last time. Six months' worth of loneliness hit me with a force that nearly left me reeling, and I came very close to losing my cool, detached demeanor entirely.