What Have I Done For Me Lately?

Was he flying her to the hilltop city, away from their meal? Or whisking her away from the city and to the private bliss of a lovers’ picnic? Or bringing her the world on some global journey, and this was just a snapshot of their travels? She didn’t know. She didn’t even know why the picture called to her so strongly.

She’d seen it the first time on a school trip to the library. Mrs. Chandler, who’d ended up as Christine’s mentor and had encouraged her in a way her parents wouldn’t have known how to do, had shown it to the class. The kids had laughed at the big bird and the red people. Christine had laughed, too, but that night she’d dreamed for the first time of flying away from the too-small, too-crowded house, out of Charsville and out of Georgia forever.

The print was the first thing she’d bought when she got her first paycheck in New York, even though she had no room for luxury purchases. But here she was, out of Charsville and out of Georgia, and if luck kept going her way and Ryan fell in love with her, the forever part would come true, too.

She touched the couple lovingly, imagining Ryan’s hands at her hips, hers at his magnificent chest. He was everything she’d ever wanted. If they worked out, she’d have security, respectability, a stable family life, children who’d have enough to eat every day of the year and double on holidays, who’d own whatever kind of sneakers and dresses and toys they wanted—within reasonable limits, of course. More than that, she’d have Ryan.

Christine had overcome a lot of challenges in her life. Been the first in her family to attend college and graduate, the first to leave Georgia, the first to tackle a big city. But now at twenty-seven, she’d be the last in the family to get married, the last to have those children her brothers and sisters had been popping out for years.

Ryan was among the toughest challenges she’d ever faced. But that was fine; she still had time to win him over. Anyone as amazing as Ryan Masterson was plenty worth waiting for.

And, unless Christine was letting her fantasy run too far away with her, if the look in Ryan’s eyes this evening had been anything to go by, she wouldn’t have to wait much longer.

2

“THE SINS OF WOMEN are many.” Jenny Hartmann raised her voice. “Repeat after me, ‘Jenny, I have sinned.’”

The ninety-nine percent female crowd at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Milwaukee boomed out a delighted response. “Jenny, I have sinned.”

“I have sinned the sin of making myself too available to men. I have kept weekend evenings open in case they want to see me, I have stayed off the phone in case it rings—” she waited a beat “—even if I have call-waiting.”

Laughter from the crowd.

“Yes, Jenny, I have!” shouted a voice.

“Confession. One of our sisters has made a confession here.” She raised her hand in the general direction of the voice. “Forgiveness is yours! Next time go out and have your own fun, girlfriend. Live your life as if it’s your only chance, because ‘men’ is not the answer to the question, ‘Who are we?’ ‘Men’ is not the answer to the question, ‘What do we need?’ and ‘men’ is not the answer to the question, ‘Who can we become?’”

The crowd cheered. Pumped to the max, Jenny strutted stage left in sky-high-heeled pink sandals, clutching the mike she’d yanked from its stand ten seconds after she started speaking.

It was glorious when her lectures went like this, when the crowd was with her, when her adrenaline was at its helpful best instead of its crippling worst.

‘“Jenny, I have sinned.’ Say it.” She waited until they were done, wiping sweat off her forehead with a pink and black sequin-bordered handkerchief that matched her cami lace top. “I have sinned the sin of changing my plans, changing my hair, changing my body, changing my life to suit my man or the man I want or the man I imagine I’ll meet someday. Say it with me, ladies, one more time, ‘I have sinned.’”

The crowd chanted enthusiastically, “I. Have. Sinned.”

“I have sinned the sin of putting up with questionable sexual technique and I have not said what I wanted instead. I have faked orgasms to avoid teaching my man about what my body needs.”

Nervous laughter and a shout, “You go, Jenny.”

“I have sinned that most vile and evil of all sins—basing my self-worth on whether I have a man to call boyfriend or lover or husband. I have sinned by feeling attractive only when a man finds me attractive, feeling witty and charming and sexual and worthwhile as a member of the female race only when a man finds me so.”

Roars from the crowd and applause. Jenny laughed, breathless, striking a strong-legged raised-arm pose, while tears came to her eyes. It was so good to reach out to women like this and have them reach right back. “Well, I’ll tell you, ladies. I will tell you…”

She waited. The crowd went quiet except for occasional shouts of encouragement.

“It’s time to ask yourself…. What…? What…?” She held the microphone up high and gestured to the crowd to continue.

“What have I done for me lately?” The words were a blast that rocked the huge auditorium.

“Oh yeah!” She applauded for them. “I hear you, you know it! What have you done for yourselves lately? When was the last time you arranged to learn about something new that interested you? When was the last time you traveled somewhere you’d always wanted to go even if he didn’t? Or stopped somewhere for dinner on the spur of the moment because you deserved not to cook that night? Bought something you didn’t need but always wanted? Told your man you were going to take a spa day every other weekend just because you felt like it? Add up those golf days and football days and see if you didn’t earn at least that much. More importantly, when was the last time you stood up for yourself when it was easier and more convenient to sacrifice your rights or needs or desires to someone else’s?

“It’s time to assign our self-worth back to ourselves, where it belongs. It’s time to get angry. Not at men. At ourselves. At the way we’ve allowed them to run our relationships and our lives. We have the strength. We have plenty of power. It’s time to use it.”

The end of her sentence was barely audible over the wave of exalted sound.

“Now, ladies, answer me this. Do we love men?”

“Yes,” the crowd boomed.

“Hell, yes. Do we need men?”

“No.”

“Hell, no—do we want men?”

“Yes!”

“Mmm, you bet we do.” She did a brief bump and grind that made hoots fill the theater. “God made those glorious naughty male parts for us and only us, and we are proud and happy to make use of them, aren’t we, girls?”

If she thought the roars had been overwhelming before, they were extraordinary now, revved up with laughter and fresh applause. “We do so for our own pleasure as well as theirs. We do so because we love the men attached to those naughty male parts, yes, but also because we love ourselves first and have decided they are worthy of us.”

“Amen, sister Jenny,” a voice shouted. “You the woman!”

“We are all the woman,” Jenny called back. The atmosphere in the auditorium was warm, hearty estrogen soup for the soul. “We are all the woman.”

While the laughter and clapping died down, she wiped her forehead again and smoothed her tight black skirt, gathering her thoughts for the final section of the lecture. “Women of Wisconsin, let me give you my confession here tonight. Before I wrote this book, I, too, was a sinner.”

Gasps from the crowd, many of whom must have read What Have I Done for Me Lately? so they already knew what she was going to say, but she loved them for playing along so enthusiastically. “I dressed the way my man wanted, spoke the way my man wanted, ate the things he thought I should eat. And when one day I came home and his bare ass was doing the shimmy over another woman’s body, did I realize what a fool I’d been and what a fool he was and toss the baggage out?”

“Yes!” From someone who obviously hadn’t read the book.

“No.” She shook her head forlornly. “No, I didn’t. I collapsed. I crumbled. My world caved. My life was over. This was my fault—my failing and my general repulsiveness as a human being.”

“Nooo! Booo!” The crowd went nuts. Jenny grinned and let them have fun for a while.

“And then one day I lifted my blotchy face from the pillow of misery and I said, ‘Wait a second. Just wait one second here. This is not my fault. My only failing was in choosing a guy who was not, as it turned out, Prince Charming, but a tyrant emperor who slaughtered my self-esteem in the name of love.’ That I let him do that was my gravest sin of all, the Original Sin of womanhood.

“But I did not fail in the end. I succeeded. In getting him out of my life and getting over him and in knowing that never again…” She held up a finger and waited until the auditorium went quiet so she could lower her voice. “Never again will a man dictate anything about me or about my life. I’ll make my choices and my mistakes and live my life for myself. And if I can’t find a man strong enough and deep enough and smart enough to take me as I am, then I’ll live it by myself, too.”

More cheers, interminable cheers, cheers that brought more tears to her eyes and a huskiness to her voice she had to clear before she could speak again.

“‘Men’ is not the answer to the questions, ‘Who are we? What do we need? Who can we become?’ Nor does ‘men’ ever answer the question, ‘What have I done for me lately?’” She backed up a few steps and lifted her face to the white, hot lights. “I wrote my book, then I started to live my book. Because it had been so long since I’d done anything that wasn’t engineered someway, somehow, to please my man, who was never, ever pleased. The more he wasn’t pleased, the harder I tried. Girlfriends, if you find yourself in that cycle, you have got to get yourselves out. Out! Or you’ll get so dizzy and sick chasing the version of you that he wants, you will never have the chance to catch up to your real self. Only by becoming whole vibrant exciting women for ourselves will we finally get the love we’re meant to have, the love we truly deserve.”

She waited a few beats, skipped downstage and gave a big cheerful wave. “Thank you very much, and a special thanks to the Women of Note lecture series for inviting me here. Good night, Milwaukee! I love you!”

She gave a quick bow, and strode off the stage, overwhelmed by the booming cheers and chants of, “Jen-ny, Jen-ny, Jen-ny.”

Four more bows later, blowing kisses, opening her arms wide, then putting her hands to her heart, the crowd finally quieted, and the sound of seats flapping up, rustling programs and normal-voiced conversations replaced the applause. Backstage, Jenny gulped a glass of water proffered by the stage manager, who refilled it so she could gulp it again. “Whoo! Thank you. Man, it was hot out there.”