Dance

I’m in their guestroom, my legs hanging off the edge of the bed. I don’t want to take my shoes off in case someone walks in. I’ll hop up and pretend I’m looking for my glasses in the dark. I can hear the nineties party music muffled from this part of the house. I just need a minute, I keep telling myself. No one will miss me.

Really, no one will miss me.

I’m at a friend’s birthday party, a close friend, and her husband is also a close friend, and the living room and backyard overlooking Los Angeles is filled with people I love. People I’ve known for decades, married people. How come I’m the only one who couldn’t stay married?

In our thirties, the women were usually in the kitchen, drinking cocktails, complaining about their husbands, humble bragging about their kids, or crying about their kids. The kids were small then, where will they go to school? What sports should they play? How many languages should they speak? And then talking about how we didn’t want to be controlling.

In our forties it was all about kids and college, and the husbands were like annoying pets that sometimes hopped up on the sofa and maybe you remembered why you loved them. Maybe. This wasn’t me. I was the single mom.

Now that we’re in our fifties, most of our kids have jobs. Sometimes we talk about them, a job change, a serious relationship, but the kids haven’t started to get married. Maybe that will be the theme of our sixties. Now the topic is ailing parents and health issues. And the couples that have stayed together are now very close. Sometimes I see much older people walking down the street holding hands and I think, who are they? High school sweethearts that couldn’t get enough of each other? Rare people that just love each other through thick and thin? On this night, I understand something: that these people, these people in the other room, are those people. They’re going through it together and now their empty nests are bringing then closer. A friend was describing the loss of his sister and right beside him was his wife, finishing his sentences. His sister was also her sister. Another friend’s father was in bad shape and her sweet husband helped her change her dad’s diapers. Life is getting real. And then there are the cancer-people who love to talk to me about cancer because I had it. One of the most beautiful women I know got a tumor in her face. She’s better now, but man did she get hit hard and she has the best sense of humor about it. Her husband is always a cat’s swing away. He's very proud of her. He can’t believe they made it through and he still gets to wake up next to this hilarious woman.

As she describes her treatment –the needles, the blood, the close calls – my head gets lighter and lighter, and I need to hold on to the kitchen counter. I can’t tell her to stop. She’s being funny, she’s my friend. When someone joins us and starts talking, I beeline for the sink. Would it be weird to splash water on my face at a party? Another woman I don’t know well was standing nearby.

“Wow,” I say to her, “We're at that age, where everyone’s going through it!” I’m running cold water on my wrists, trying to get steady on my feet.

“I know,” she answered, “I just had bladder cancer. It was such a crazy year.”

“Oh, no,” I say, mostly for myself. Please let it stop. But I can’t stop her. I must ask her all the right questions and give the satisfactory responses. And as she finishes, her husband comes over and puts his arm around her. I smile and tell them I need to go to the bathroom. I do. I think I’m going to throw up, but nothing comes out but tears. And then I’m on the bed.

People are dancing in the next room. I hear the pounding of shoes, the clapping of hands, the cheers of making it through another year. Feeling sorry for yourself is the worst.