Ellen luxuriated in the touch and smell of the freshly laundered sheets enveloping her body. She was warm and happy. She loved her alone mornings. After her jobs were done. After she had e-mailed her kids at school. And, after George, her husband of 20 years, had left to follow another job lead that, like the others, would undoubtedly only lead back home. As much as she cared for George, he really had become a house eunuch - faithful; eager to please; underfoot. So Ellen cherished the times when the house was empty and she had no one to organize or do for; when she could snuggle back under her covers and let her mind doze-dream. And this morning there was also the anticipation of the call she knew would come.
Her life was so full, and yet so different than what she'd assumed it would be. She'd married George because he was a good catch. That's what her mother had told her. And Ellen was always the dutiful daughter. She'd been in love at the time - not with George, but with a schoolteacher, a man of no prospects. He wanted to be an architect, but he was mired in a dead-end teaching job, and she'd laughed when he told her of his dream. Still, she was in love with him, and with the romance of being in love, and with being in California and the sunshine and beaches and starry nights.
Her family was solid, conservative, Nebraskan. They didn't believe in starry nights and romance. They believed in prospects. And George had plenty of those. As the heir apparent to the town's leading merchants, George was the perfect match, and he was utterly devoted to Ellen. So she made the rational decision and followed her roots, and her mother's advice. It was a good choice - a solid choice. She'd cried for four days before the wedding.
Ellen and George were launched in 1980 in one of those idyllic wedding ceremonies that you always see in Vogue, or at least The Ladies Home Journal, but which you've never really seen yourself. It was staged at the home of George's uncle, the merchant king, whose sweeping expanse of manicured lawn made the perfect setting for the floral archway under which they were married, and for the tent where the dance band played. The elite all came and strolled and nodded, and sipped champagne. The contract was made. Ellen would be a good wife, and mother. George would work hard, be successful and rich, and together they would enjoy all the best that the American century had to offer.
But it's never that simple, is it? The children followed, and with them the tennis and ballet lessons, the den mothering, and PTA-ing. George and Ellen traveled, cheered at soccer games, and swooshed the floor at country club dances. Their lives seemed perfect. The town swirled around them, but Ellen and George didn't talk. The center of their marriage was an untuned radio playing nothing but white noise. Their lives seemed so solid from the outside, but they were struggling.
George had never had initiative. He left things up to Ellen. When Rob was diagnosed with learning disabilities, it was up to Ellen to find the special tutors and schools Rob needed. George just abandoned the problem. When Elaine fell into a deep depression, Ellen found her medical care. George was ashamed that his daughter needed "a shrink." George didn't stand in the way, but it was Ellen who was there for the kids, who helped them make it through adolescence. With the children in college, Ellen's life had abandoned her. She'd been an honor student at Stanford once. She needed more.
Then, George was fired. Ellen was not surprised. The signs had been there for some time. George's jovial incompetence had caught up with him. His two cocktail lunches were leaving him vacant in the afternoon, and the family business, which had seemed such a sure thing, was shunting him aside for brighter and more aggressive men. What did surprise Ellen was George's response.
She had thought George had gumption, that he was a survivor, and that maybe the forced change would get him moving again. But in the days that followed his firing, George just became depressed. At night, he'd have a scotch, doze in front of the evening news, and go to bed early - not to their bed. They slept apart. And unless she pushed him out to another hopeless job interview, he slept late. George simply became dysfunctional.
Someone had to cope; to get the bills paid; to bring in some money; to cook and clean. Ellen took a part time clerk's job. Her society friends clucked and "Oh, deared." They quit the country club. She worked hard to stretch her income and their savings, but as the year-end holidays hit, the family's prospects and hers looked as barren as the snowy landscape that surrounded her. Ellen didn't want to be resentful, but George's endless winter of discontent left her with little joy.
The Christmas card on its face did not seem to be an epiphany, a catalyst that would send her world spinning into new orbits, but life's important events often begin quietly unnoticed. It was from Tim, her old California lover and friend. Ellen had not heard from him in more than 20 years, not since she'd dropped him and laughed at his ambition. It was a nice card. Nothing special. Just "How ya doin'?" Still she couldn't believe it, - after all this time.
Ellen was swallowed up by Christmas, and forgot about Tim's note. It reappeared as she was cleaning up in January and tossing out the last of the Christmas detritus. The cards were always the last to go. Tim's she kept. He'd left a phone number in Portland, Oregon, and she started to call him a couple of times, but always chickened out. Why was she so nervous? Did she feel unfaithful? It was just a phone call for God's sake. He was 2,000 miles away and had his own life. What did she expect? Romance? Be realistic. But the door to possibility, like Pandora's box, was open.
Ellen walked through that door a few days later when she made the call. "Hello?" The voice was pleasant, and familiar.
"This is Ellen." They had a lot of catching up to do. Tim was now a successful architect, and headed a large firm. He'd spent time in New York, but would always be a Westerner at heart. He had two boys. He and his ex-wife had a "good" divorce. They were friends and raised their boys together. He had traveled around the world and lived in one of those panoramic houses that look like movie sets.
Ellen talked about her world. How ironic that the school teacher her mother had rejected for her had gone on to success and a life far more interesting than her own hand-picked one. She was jealous and mad at herself for not following her own instincts. That was a decision made long ago, though. But, why had he written her?
She called again, late at night a couple of weeks later. She wasn't nervous. The preliminaries were over, and they could just talk as old friends. She asked about his divorce. The passion had left his marriage. He'd had an affair, then confessed. Counseling hadn't helped; his wife simply didn't want him any more. There was no one in particular in his life. She volunteered that her life wasn't all that great right now. She admitted aloud that her sex life seemed dead, and that her once successful husband was ineffectual.
The conversation was harmless, but intimate. They both really wanted to connect. For her, Tim was safe. He could be a sounding board, and he was far away. He listened, and his soft responses comforted her. She was not alone in feeling alienated from her spouse, and disappointed with her life. Her friend, successful as he was, was in the same boat.
When they talked again, he asked how she could call and talk so freely. She told him she was downstairs on the couch, and she would often be up late after her husband was long asleep. They talked about their kids, and their jobs, and it seemed so casual when Tim asked: "What are you wearing?" Ellen didn't hesitate to describe the shorty nighty that covered her breasts, but not much else as she sat on the couch. "I wish I was there." Ellen's body responded involuntarily. A little wave of excitement circled her neck and cascaded down between her breasts, and tingled her most intimately. "Why?" She tried to keep it light, but her body was already alert.
"Well, I'd like to give you a massage to get rid of some of the anxiety you're feeling. I'd start with your back, and I'd massage your shoulders, and work the tension out of them." Ellen hadn't had a man touch her in weeks. George had simply become a non-entity in her life. Now, she was powerless to stop the words in her ear. She didn't want to. Her body didn't want her to. Her body just wanted to drink in the soft sonorous sounds and let them flow around and through her. Let them do their magic.
