Happy Birthday: A Novel

“Happy, peaceful, no big drama in my life,” she answered his question, looking thoughtful. “Sharing my life with someone, if it’s the right person, not if it isn’t. I don’t want to do that anymore. Good health obviously, but that’s kind of an old fart answer. Mostly just being happy and peaceful, loving someone and being loved by him, and feeling good in your own skin.”

“That sounds about right to me too,” he said, and then he chuckled. “And don’t forget good ratings for our shows, please God.” She laughed in answer.

“Yes, but I have to admit I don’t think about that when I’m making a wish list for my personal life.”

“Do you do that often?” He looked surprised. “Make a wish list for your personal life?”

“Not really. I do it in my head sometimes, when I think about what I want. Most of the time, I just roll along, doing what I have to. I think I do it on my birthday, or on New Year’s, those milestones always get me. I think about what I should have and be doing, but it never matches up, so I try not to anymore. Life never happens on the schedule you want, and I think I’m kind of past all that now anyway.” She looked sad when she said it, but she had felt that way for months now. This last birthday had hit her hard.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He looked puzzled, as though he didn’t understand what she meant. And she took a breath before she answered. They were friends now, and she felt like she could be honest with him. She wasn’t a candidate for romance with him anyway, and she knew he had no interest in that with her, or any woman her age. They were friends, and that was enough.

“Let’s face it, women my age are not a high commodity on the market. Men my age want to go out with women like the ones you go out with. No one’s looking for sixty-year-old women, except maybe ninety-year-old guys. The eighty-year-olds are taking Viagra and looking for twenty-five-year-olds. Most men would rather go out with my daughter than with me. That’s simple fact. Add success and fame to that mix, and what you get is a guy screaming out the door, or who never shows up in the first place. I don’t have a lot of illusions left about it. I used to, but I don’t anymore.”

She didn’t tell him that she hadn’t had a real date in three years and couldn’t remember the last time she’d had sex. It had begun to occur to her that maybe she never would again, which seemed sad to her. But you couldn’t invent a man out of thin air, and no even remotely possible dates had crossed her path in a long time. She had given up on the terrible blind dates people used to fix her up with, with men who were severely damaged, very angry, or had a chip on their shoulder about who she was and what she had accomplished and were sometimes even nasty about it. Meeting them was always depressing and disappointing, so she didn’t bother anymore.

And there was nothing else and hadn’t been in a long time, despite the Botox shots, good haircuts, well-toned body thanks to her trainer, and expensive wardrobe. Old was old, and she was, or so she thought. “I have this psychic I talk to a couple of times a year. He’s been telling me for years now that I’m going to meet a terrific man. I think he says it to give me hope. It never happens, or hasn’t in a hell of a while. I’d been to see him that morning I saw you in the elevator, doubled over with your back.”

“He must have fangs,” Jack teased her, remembering it perfectly, despite the pain he’d been in. She was very striking, and had made an impression on him. “Your face was bleeding.”

She hesitated and then laughed again, not worried about what she said to him. “I had just had Botox shots after I saw him. My dermatologist has fangs, not the psychic.” He was touched that she was so open with him. She was a surprisingly honest woman, given who she was.

“I get them too,” he admitted, equally honest. “So what, if it makes us look good? I don’t usually advertise that, but shit, we both make a living on screen, and with high-definition video now, you need all the help you can get.”

“Isn’t that the truth? You can’t lie to the camera anymore, although God knows I try.” They both laughed at their reciprocal confessions, which didn’t seem so shocking. Even schoolteachers and younger women were getting Botox shots now. It was not just for the very rich or movie stars. “The vanity of it is a little embarrassing, and I think my daughter thinks I’m pretty silly. She doesn’t even wear makeup, probably in reaction to me, but I also make my living, or part of it, based on how I look, and so do you. And it makes me feel better if I look a little younger. It’s not fun or easy getting old.” They both knew that was the truth, and had been wrestling with it for the past two months, each in their own way, since their birthdays.