The Time of Her Life

There was a beat of silence on the other end before Karan said, “You’re working awfully hard to delineate boundaries between professional and personal. What’s up with that?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” Susanna only knew she’d better get a move on. She didn’t want to get caught gawking at Jay’s house like a tourist.

“I’m talking about how many times you’ve mentioned getting personal with this man. I hear it every time we talk. You’re curious about him, Suze.”

“Of course I’m curious. Why doesn’t he simply parcel off the land, sell The Arbors and keep his family home?”

“Why don’t you ask him? Oh, wait. That’s personal. Are you interested in Jay? I mean interested, interested.”

“Stop it. That isn’t funny.” Neither was the heat rushing into her cheeks at the mere mention of being interested in Jay. “I’ll have a hand in deciding the fate of the man’s house.” And wherever Jay was headed must be incredible considering what he’d be leaving behind. “That’s all, Karan.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“I can’t even believe you. Some best friend.”

“What can’t you believe—that I know you so well? What kind of best friend would I be if I let you lie to yourself?”

Susanna slowed the golf cart to a stop, pulled the phone away from her ear and scowled at it, a thrill of annoyance overshadowing the excitement of a moment ago. “That’s unfair.”

“Are you sure?”

Susanna didn’t answer because that simple question had a complicated answer. Karan wasn’t entirely wrong. Susanna couldn’t think about being interested in another man, not Jay or anyone. The very thought made her uncomfortable deep inside, not so much guilty as...unable.

She hadn’t realized until this very moment.

“I’m broken,” she admitted.

“No, my dear sweet friend,” Karan said in a thoughtful tone. “You’re just making peace with the hand life dealt you. You and Skip had big plans, and things didn’t turn out as you expected. You need a new plan.”

“Is that what’s happening?”

“I think so. You were with Skip for your entire adult life. Now he’s gone. It’s got to be easier to shut down a part of yourself than it is to open up and take chances on living a life you didn’t imagine.”

Susanna let the idea filter through her, stared down the path beneath the arbors in the paling dawn, vines winding through trellises and archways so twisted it would be difficult to follow any one to the root. Impossible to separate.

She and Skip had been like that. Their lives entwined into one, so now she couldn’t find her own roots, didn’t think she’d ever bloom again.

“I’m broken. If I wasn’t, I’d be able to figure out how to move on, because I know better than to waste a second when none of us have any idea what the future holds.”

“True, true,” Karan said. “But you’re not wrong to feel the way you do, Suze. You know, but you’re human.”

“I have everything in the world to be grateful for. I shouldn’t be stuck—”

“You are grateful. You’re the most grateful person I know. You don’t waste a second with your kids or me or anyone you love. I’m just saying that you need to branch out. Before you’re old and gray and no man would ever want you.”

“Karan.” But Susanna found herself smiling.

“There’s nothing wrong with being interested in Jay.”

“This isn’t about Jay. It’s about me.”

But Karan laughed a knowing laugh. And kept laughing until Susanna hit the gas and took off, obligated to drown out the laughter with some very rational arguments.

“He’s helping me learn the ropes around here. And even if that wasn’t the case, even if I was stupid enough to jeopardize the acquisition by mixing business with pleasure, Jay couldn’t possibly be in the running.”

“Why’s that?”

“The man is younger than I am. Seven years younger. That’s another lifetime. And, oh, did I mention he’s leaving? As in selling this place?”

“I hear what you’re saying. Now hear what I’m saying. I know you. Listing all the reasons you can’t be interested in a man isn’t going to change the fact if you are.”

“I’m not. I just met him, for heaven’s sake.”

“I’ll reserve opinion if you don’t mind. I’m the one you used to drag through Ashokan High so you could accidentally run into Skip, remember? ‘He has second lunch so let’s walk all the way around the freaking school to get to our lockers so we have to go through the cafeteria.’ This ringing a bell?”

Susanna crushed the phone against her ear as if that might block out the sound of Karan’s voice. Her heart suddenly pounded too hard. “You’re ridiculous, Karan. I’m not in ninth grade. I’m forty years old—”

“You’re not forty yet, thank you very much.”

Of course she wasn’t, because then Karan would be forty, as her birthday was nearly a full month before Susanna’s. “Whatever. I outgrew crushes a long time ago.”

“So long ago you might not remember what one was?”

“Puh-leeze.” She sounded alarmingly like Brooke. Daughters grew up to be like their mothers but Susanna had had no idea the reverse was true. “I’d remember a crush. Trust me.”

“You sure about that, Suze? The last time you had a crush on anyone you were a virgin. That makes the sum total of your experience, one man, a really long time ago.”

And he’d been the right man.

“I had a lot of sex in my fifteen years of marriage, thank you.” Likely even more than Karan, who’d had three marriages to two men plus one long-term relationship and a lot of time off in between. Susanna kept that observation to herself.

“It matters. You were comfortable with your husband. You both grew together. That’s different than dating.”

“My kids are dating.”

“Sounds like their mother might want to be, too.”

“I have not had enough caffeine for this yet.”

The path wound around the west side of the lake. Zipping past her own office window, too dark to see inside except for the tiny red glow of the emergency exit sign above the door, she headed toward the maintenance and engineering building, relieved to see empty space where she knew Jay normally parked.

She didn’t want to see him, not with all these thoughts Karan had planted in her head.

“I have to go.” She needed to recover from their topic of conversation.

“Susanna, seven years does not make you a cougar if he’s an adult and not a man-child. Biological age doesn’t make that distinction. Maturity does.”

Susanna mentally twitched. Cougar. Just the thought was enough to conjure visions of Jerry Springer and celebrities older than herself who dressed like Brooke.