Elizabeth Berg - The Last Time I Saw You

ALSO BY ELIZABETH BERG

Home Safe

The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted

Dream When Youre Feeling Blue

The Handmaid and the Carpenter

We Are All Welcome Here

The Year of Pleasures

The Art of Mending

Say When

True to Form

Ordinary Life: Stories

Never Change

Open House

Escaping into the Open: The Art of Writing True

Until the Real Thing Comes Along

What We Keep

Joy School

The Pull of the Moon

Range of Motion

Talk Before Sleep

Durable Goods

Family Traditions

For Phyllis Florin
and
Marianne Quasha

ONE

D OROTHY S HAUMAN L EDBETTER S HAUMAN IS STANDING IN front of the bathroom mirror in her black half-slip and black push-up bra, auditioning a look. Her fortieth high school reunion, the last one, is one week away, and shes trying to decide whether or not to draw a beauty mark above her lip for the occasion. It wouldnt be entirely false; she does have a mole there, but its faint, hard to see. She just wants to enhance what already exists, nothing wrong with that; its de rigueur if youre a woman, and its becoming more common in men, too. Wrong as that is. Dorothy would never have anything to do with a man who wore makeup or dyed his hair or carried a purse or wore support hose or cried or did any of those womanly things men are appropriating as though its their god-given right. No. She prefers an all-American, red-blooded male who is not a jerk. Theyre hard to find, but she holds out hope that she will have some sort of meaningful relationship with one before shes six feet under.

She regards herself in the mirror, tilts her head this way and that. Yes, a beauty mark would be fun, kind of playful. She pencils in the mark gingerly, then steps back to regard herself. Not bad. Not bad at all. Sexy. Just like she wanted. Helloooo , Marilyn. She pictures Pete Decker looking up from his table full of jocks when she walks into the hotel ballroom and saying, Va va va voom! And then, Dorothy ? Dorothy Shauman ?

Uh-huh, she will say, lightly, musically, and walk right past him. Though she will walk close enough to him for him to smell her perfume. Also new. One hundred and ten smackeroos. She got perfume, not cologne, even though her personal belief is that there is no difference. Shed asked the counter woman about that. Shed leaned in confidentially and said, Now, come on. Tell me, really. If you were my best friend, would you tell me to get the perfume over the cologne? And the woman had looked her right in the eye and said, Yes. Dorothy was a little miffed, because the woman had acted as though Dorothy had affronted her dignity or questioned her ethics or something. Like the time Dr. Strickland was telling Dorothy to get a certain ($418!!!) blood test and shed said, Would you tell your wife to get it? And Dr. Strickland had drawn himself up and quietly said, I would. Dorothy had been all set to give him an affectionate little punch and say, Oh, come on, now; dont be so prissy , but then Dr. Strickland had added, If she were still alive, and that had just ruined everything. It wasnt her fault the woman had died! Dorothy had been going to refuse the test no matter what, but when he said his wife was dead, well, then she had to get it. Those dead people had more power than they thought.

Dorothy has never gone to a high school reunion. Shed been married when they had them before, and who wanted to bring that to a reunion. Now she is divorced, plus she saw that movie about saying yes to life. She steps closer to the mirror and raises her chin so her turkey neck disappears. Shell hold her head like this when she walks by Pete Decker. Later, when theyre making out in his car, it will be dark, and she wont have to be so vigilant. Oh, she hopes he drives to the reunion; she happens to know he lives a mere three and a half hours away. She knows his exact address, in fact; and she Google-Earthed him, which was very exciting.

In high school, Pete had a four-on-the-floor metallic green GTO, and Dorothy always wanted to make out with him in that car. But she never even got to sit in it. She bets he has something like a red Lexus coupe now. And she bets that at the reunion hell watch her for a while, then come up to her and say, Hey, Dots. Want to take a walk? And shell say, all innocent, Where? And hell get a little flustered and say something like You know, just a walk , get some air. Shell hesitate just for a second, just long enough to make him think she might refuse, and then shell shrug prettily before she agrees to accompany him outside. Theyll go right to his car and hell open the passenger-side door and raise an eyebrow and shell say, Pete! like shes offended at the very notion. But then shell get in, will she ever. She likes this part of the fantasy best: Shell get in, hell come around and get in on his side, and then, just before he lunges at her, hell look at her with smoke practically coming out of his eyes. And in her eyes, a soft Yes, I know. I, too, have wanted this for years.

Dorothy does plan on being a little mean to Pete at first; she has finally learned it can be a good thing to be mean to men. Apparently they like it; its supposed to appeal to their hunting instinct. Thats why shes going to walk right by him when he first sees her and notices how attractive she is. Considering.

Her daughter, Hilly, is the one who told her about being mean to men. She said you do it just at the beginning and then every so often, just to keep up a level of intrigue, like immunization shots. And it works, too, because when Hilly started doing it, wasnt she engaged in what seemed like ten minutes! Shes getting married in Costa Rica next month, and Dorothy thinks its a wonderful idea, the destination wedding. Thank God Dorothys ex will pay for everything. Poor he was not. She supposes hell bring his new wife to the wedding, and pander to her every single second. Holding her hand, as though they were teenagers. Bringing her drinks, as though the woman is incapable of doing anything for herself. Staring into her eyes like the secret of the universe is written there. Its nauseating, the way they behave, anyone would say so. Hilly calls them the Magnets, though she might only do that to offer some kind of support to her mother, who lives alone now and must take out the garbage and figure out whom to call for repairs and check the locks at night and kill centipedes in the basement and everything else. Dorothy suspects the truth is, Hilly actually likes her stepmother. She hasnt said so directly, but she did say that shes happy for her dad, and wasnt that just like nails on a chalkboard. But Dorothy did the noble thing and said yes, she was, too. Uh-huh, yes, he did seem happy now, Dorothy said, and she just wanted to throw up.

Hillys fianc is a doctor. A proctologist, specializing in the wonderful world of buttholes and rectums, but still. Dorothy is working up to asking the question thatcome on!must occur to everyone to ask him: What exactly made you choose this line of work? When Dorothy tried to ask her daughter about it, all Hilly did was get mad. It is true Dorothy could have used a more sensitive approachwhat shed asked Hilly was Why in the wide, wide world would you ever want to look up peoples heinies all day? Still, Dorothy doesnt see why Hilly had to take such offense. Her daughter had said something like perhaps Dorothy should consider the fact that preventing and treating cancer is a pretty noble goal. But that still didnt answer the question , did it?