My mid-life crisis had extended to a second day. Massage, as an alternative to writing, was out I decided after Jim and I had been boxed up in a small room with real-life human beans demanding to be prodded through their bathing suits for an afternoon. And so it was back to plan A, which I had hatched out aged 5. I was to become a dancer! At the crack of dawn, I jumped in my car to go to a “professional” class. I told the resident jazz guru upon arrival that I was going to become a pro. aged 37 ½. Very good, she said. That will be $200 per week. I handed over the money and walked happily into the studio.
Having a flat chest finally made perfect sense, I thought. My theory was proven right when the house wives gathered all stared at my boyish figure in admiration. I was onto something. And so I twirled happily in the wrong direction for an hour before heading back to my local pool to marvel at my newfound plan. When I got there, the pool area had been barricaded off. Gale force winds had come to shore.
I managed to pass as a walking lettuce leaf by wearing my silver swim cap and green goggles, as I walked outside through the kitchen door and swam happily amid the giant armchairs and a deck table, which had sunk to the bottom in the wind. I imagined that I was deep at sea, salvaging booty from the Titanic. My job completed, I went to the farmer’s market, the annual highlight of the week in this retirement resort come holiday haunt. At the cabbage stand, I ran into Little Red Riding Hood, the doyenne of Hollywood reporters who had spent her week painting her guest house. The assignments, she said, had dried up. It was Gloria Swanson Act Two, I thought sadly, my silent movie star of the newspaper biz. I tried to convince her to become a dancer like me. But she wasn’t having it. She liked her G & Ts too much after yoga at 10 a.m. on the terrace. And so I went back to the beach to practice twirls along the shoreline all alone, hoping that I wouldn’t be blown out to sea.
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