Bernice’s Woes
Bernice Franklin felt crushed under the weight of her disappointments. Women of today were so smart not to have children. Where did it get you? Only heartache. She supposed she could take out her very old photo albums, when they were babes in arms, and find a few good moments. Very few.
How happy she was to be a mother. The joy of giving birth would never leave her. But then—
Maybe she should have spent her life as a surrogate. Like have the babies for six months and then, when they started to crawl, just give them up to whomever wanted them. Should someone be so desperate for ingrates like hers.
First Eden and now Frank. Betrayal. Where was the asp Bernice could clasp to her bosom to remove her from the misery of this world?
Frank had confessed to her that he was in love with Lily Stanton, that they were living together and were going to get married. How the hell was Frank, a lawyer, going to marry a girl whose father would soon be a jailbird? Who the hell would come to the wedding? What would they tell their children, if they made the mistake of having any? Her life was in ruins. Only Riley was left to give her solace. Her older daughter was the only one she could call with her woes. Until once lately, when she called Riley, a man answered. The man was—according to Riley—just a friend. What was happening to this world! Her world! No one had a friend answer at nine at night.
No one understood Bernice’s pain. She couldn’t even gossip with her group, lay her sorrows bare for all to see, because every one of them knew of Will Stanton and his crimes, not so much against humanity as against Scarsdale. Practically the same thing. So many BMW’s not bought, so many college funds diminished, not to mention alimony and child support payments. Who would come to the wedding of his daughter? And would Bernice have to deal with Elinor Stanton in planning the wedding? The thought made her faint with despair.
Well, she’d have to put that aside for the moment as she was having dinner with Thad Dunkirk. She really wished she could cancel because she felt she needed to wallow a bit more in her misery. But she had to consider his feelings too because that’s the kind of person she was, always considering the other person first.
Their “dates” started with coffees together and now dinner. Bernice hoped Thad wouldn’t get the wrong idea. It’s not as if she was looking for anything permanent. Especially if it included sex. Her body, well, when she looked at it in the mirror, which she was loath to do, it wasn’t a thing of beauty. Toned, no. Belly fat, yes. Breasts? Let’s not go there, except to say they weren’t located in the chest area anymore.
She had to admit that Thad was interesting, perhaps not as a person, but as a font of esoteric knowledge. She always came away from their meetings with the desire to check out facts on Wikipedia. They never really got into the personal, not about his wife nor her ex-husband and Jerry’s S and M tendencies Bernice had never known anything about.
She appreciated the fact that Thad picked her up, as this gave her a chance to have a cocktail before dinner and wine during. Ever since their get-togethers began, she had always insisted on splitting the check, even though he had protested heartily, until she said that was her condition for seeing him. So, he relented.
Today they were trying out a new Persian restaurant, opened by former Afghan refugees. She supposed it made more sense politically to call it Persian rather than Iranian or Afghani. Sometimes Bernice wanted a steakhouse, just something plain and simple, but Thad liked to experiment. However, when he suggested taking the train into New York just to go to a restaurant where it took four months to get a reservation, she said food just wasn’t worth the inconvenience. A twenty-mile radius was as far as she was willing to go for a meal.
This Persian restaurant was romantically decorated, and they were led to a rounded booth with pillows to lean on. Already this put her in a somewhat better mood than she had been, after contemplating her children and their many annoyances. “Fun,” she said. “Now I suppose you’re going to start the evening by telling me all about the Khyber pass.”
“Not today,” he admitted. “I need to decompress a bit.”
“Trouble?” Proving how sensitive she was to other’s feelings, Bernice thought, despite what her children might have to say.
“You wouldn’t believe it, but I had a conference with a junior in my lecture class, who brought along her father to dispute her grade on an essay she turned in, which I know she didn’t write because it was so much better than her previous essay, and that one was absent of any thought process I could discover. These AI programs— I mean, if they’re only in college to get a grade, why bother with the expense? Just have the same AI program produce a diploma for her. And to bring her father! Was this supposed to intimidate me?”
“Obviously, they haven’t seen you in action before.”
“Actually, I had to call campus security. The father’s excuse was that everyone was doing it, so what did it matter. She needed the grades, as she was hoping to take the LSAT’s for law school.”
Bernice laughed. When Thad didn’t join in, she said, “You have to admit that’s a bit ridiculous. Why doesn’t she just enter politics. She’d fit right in.”
“Bernice, you and I are cynics. Let’s order, and I’ll hope I don’t have stress-induced indigestion.”
The meal was fun. They ordered the meza, so there was lots of dipping before their main courses arrived. Thad talked, as usual, and Bernice listened. Until he finally admitted, “I talk too much.”
“You need to talk for fifty minutes and then have a ten minute break before your next lecture,” Bernice surmised.
“Now your turn—for ten minutes.”
Laughing, Bernice said, “It would take a whole hour to unload my problems.”
“We’ve just started our main course, and there’s dessert and coffee to come.”
Bernice thought about it, and then she decided, why not. So she told Thad all about Eden and the wedding she wasn’t involved in and Frank going to be married to a jailbird’s daughter and how no one listened to her anymore.
“Well, they’re adults,” Thad made the mistake of saying.
“But I’m their mother. They’re not adults to me!” Bernice shot back.
“Look, I don’t have children. We just—my wife and I were totally devoted to our careers, so I suppose my opinion isn’t valid. However, you’ve raised them to be capable of love, to be able to stand on their own two feet, to make their own decisions based on what’s best for them. Even if you disagree. The birds have flown the nest, Bernice. Now it’s your time to fly. Let them go their way. You go yours.”
“Go my way where, Thad? What do I have left to me?”
“Oh, come on, Bernice. Self-pity doesn’t become you. You’re an attractive woman, who’s made a life for herself after some hard times. You’re capable of anything you set your mind to.”
“That’s what we used to tell our kids. Anyone can grow up to be president.”
“And anyone did, but let’s leave that aside. And leave your children aside, too. They have their lives now. The umbilical cord is no longer attached.” He saw her reaction. “Okay. Maybe I’m too plain-speaking. Not putting enough polish on what I’m saying.”
“Maybe that’s why you had to call security today.”
He laughed. “I’m just saying, why waste your life mulling over children who are happy? When they’re no longer happy, then you can worry.”
“But my children are my life. What else is there?”
“Meals with me?” he protested. “They’re fun."
“And then I go home to my condo and—“
“So let’s spice it up a bit,” he cut her off. “If you want. Over the break I’m flying to Heidelberg for some research. It’s a beautiful city. Come along with me. Get your mind off your kids. Everything is paid for by my grant, so I can ante up for your flight. And if you don’t want to share a room, you can pay for one in the same hotel. Just let me know so I can make reservations.”
Bernice was shocked. “Just take off?”
“That’s what planes do.”
Bernice was stunned. What an offer to make over chicken kabobs. “I don’t know, I—“
“Well, think about it and let me know; but the sooner the better. For the flights.”
And then he went back to eating, as if he hadn’t made the most startling proposal of Bernice’s life. Even when Jerry proposed marriage, she had been prepared for it. Would she—could she—just fly away. And yet, why not?