Emma breasts the room like an ocean liner. She’s plump and appears corseted, but the effect is owing to good posture and a tight bodice. I think dowager when I look at her.

I’m forty-six, the youngest of the five at this event. Our hostess terms it a bachelorette dinner, though none of us could be called one, and none but she might want to be one.

Candy reminds me of a blonde Betty Boop. Her voice is like a parody of the female range; it grates on my nerves and makes me think her stupider than she may be. She’s cosmetically altered in manifold ways: hair this season’s orangey blonde, face fully lifted at least once, added eye and tit enhancement. She’s joined at one hip to her new (third) husband, the uxorious Rick, and at the other to her plastic surgeon. She’s opted not to remove the quarter-inch wen on the port side of her upper lip; if she thinks it creates unique interest in her open-eyed face, she’s wrong.

Pam and I are the first guests to arrive, so we witness Emma’s stately entrance followed by our friend Anita, the honoree. We all move to the sitting room, or parlor, or whatever that place is that’s adjacent to the living room of an old San Francisco flat. We take over-upholstered seats that frame a square coffee table. About us are illuminated original bad oil paintings and illuminated floor-to-ceiling glass shelves that hold small objects made of more glass .

Rick gives us drinks and then retreats to the kitchen. Candy is quiet. It appears that she has not come up with games or activities to celebrate the passage of a fifty-six year old woman through the state of divorce from her second husband to marriage with her third. Thank heavens. It was enough hearing her reiterate on the phone when she invited me, how much she likes spending time with women. It was more than enough to come here with the unwilling Pam. It would have been too much to act like this is a bridal shower without gifts.

I’m on a plush ottoman facing north, glass of soda water in hand. I’m the one in casual dress. Everyone else drinks wine. At my left, facing east, is Emma. She has a large-featured calm face, straight chin-length light-brown hair, and big hands with ugly nails. She carries some extra weight and wears a dress with a belt that she repeatedly adjusts to ride lower on her torso.

To her left, across from me on a poofy sofa, is Candy. Anita and Pam complete the square on another deep couch. All three are bleached blondes, slim, wearing little black dresses with black hose and pumps. I know Pam and Anita pretty well.

I don’t think anyone wants to be here. Candy is Anita’s attendant, but she threw an engagement party months ago. I don’t understand the reason for this party. Anita may, as feted guest, but she’s so bleary from work and emotion that I’m not sure she’s all here anyway. Emma acts tepid, but it’s hard to imagine her impassioned. And I have listened to Pam complain about this from when we first heard of it, through the drive here. I have no doubt about how she feels.

In fact, Pam has been more ungracious than usual this time. Candy phoned her before me, and Pam then called me before Candy could.

“You’re not going to believe this. I just heard from Anita’s friend Candy. She wants to have some sort of ladies’ dinner before the wedding. What to you think of her? I don’t like her. I don’t want to go.”

“I’m not crazy about her either,” I said. “It’s bad enough we have to go to the wedding, and we already went to the engagement party. Now this? But we’ll probably have to go. Anita doesn’t have other friends. When does she want it?”

“She’s talking about the Friday after next, before the holiday.”

“Well I’d rather not, but I can do that day. How do we help?”

“I made a point of not offering. Don’t you dare. It’s her stupid idea, and she can work it out.”

Now we’re here, and I notice Pam’s not talking much, except to let Candy know when she wants more red wine. She’s not moving either. I go to the bathroom, converse with Rick on my way back, chat with Emma, but Pam’s sitting tight and only responding to what happens immediately before her.

There’s nothing to eat. The table is set in the dining room, but we’re offered no hors d’oeuvres. As it happens, we’re to pass an hour and a quarter sustained by nothing except cool liquids and pale conversation. But we’re mature women; we rise to the challenge.

“Emma’s been named to the management committee at Dobbins. She’s the only woman member,” says Anita, just after we’ve toasted her wedding to come. “Here’s to that accomplishment. How long has it been since the last woman served?”

“Over nine years,” responds Emma. Her smile appears smug, but she’s just swallowed Chardonnay, and her smooth calmness makes any after-swallow look satisfied. “We’ve had an interesting issue to consider,” she continues. “It seems we employ a secretary named David, who has concluded that he’s a woman trapped in a man’s body. He’s well on his way to becoming Karen, but they save the actual cutting for the last step of the process. Anyway, he or she (there are pronoun challenges with this) takes hormones, dresses in women’s slacks, and uses the new name. The question is: which restroom should Karen be using?”

The answer is simple for us; Karen will use the ladies’ room because it has stalls. It took the management committee much longer to come to that conclusion; in fact, they got stuck for a long time thinking Karen should use a seldom-visited ladies’ room on the other side of the building. The funny thing about the issue was the tizzy into which it sent the male members of the management committee. For all the tradition of women as gossip-lovers, men seem to find sexual oddity irresistible. Dobbins (short for Dobbins, Larkin, Hale and then some) is one of the big old San Francisco law firms, and most of its partners are conventional white men. Anita used to be a partner in that firm and, while she has the stamina and humor of a plain brilliant woman, she was raised in the Catholic church and slipped comfortably into the protocols of the bar.

We talk about Dave-Karen for a while and then share bits about our personal lives. I learn that Emma has been married fourteen years, has no kids, lives on the Peninsula, and is enduring a home remodel. I already know that Candy is on her third marriage, has two daughters and one son, and works as personal assistant to some entrepreneur who manages commercial real estate. As for Anita and Pam – we met through business and we lunch together once a month – I’m familiar with their stories. Anita is about to marry her third and Pam is suffering through an unwanted divorce from her second. Anita is an attorney now in a small firm; Pam is a partner in a boutique CPA practice. Anita has a grown son from her first marriage, on whom she dotes. Pam has two sons from her first and a young daughter from her second; she’s always feeling a little bad about not being there for them, but she’s never there for them when she’s not single. I’m twice divorced myself, mateless for the last seven years. I’ve been raising my two kids. I’m a self-employed benefits consultant.

Now Anita looks wistfully at me. She starts a little speech as if we were on the subject.

“I know you don’t approve of me marrying again, but…”

“Anita, really, it’s okay with me that you’re getting married again. I just want you to hear me when I say it would not be okay for me.” That may sound odd, but Anita is such a romantic that it isn’t enough for her to be mated; she keeps trying to pair up everyone she cares about: me, her thirty year old son, me…

“I’m not sure exactly why I’m doing this,” she continues, “but I know it’s the right thing for me. It’s a little silly, true – I’m not taking his name, we won’t have children or commingle assets…” She sips wine from the glass she’s been cradling, uncrosses her legs to lean forward, and sets the glass on the table. “It’s just so important to Nick.”

It occurs to me that if she really loves him, she’d get him some help for that attitude, but I don’t say that. I would if it were just the usual three of us, at our monthly financial district lunch, but it’s not worth the effort here. I might amuse, but I would never convince. Actually I never convince at lunch, either.

She isn’t finished. “Marriage is a way of making a public commitment, and making that commitment has a way of holding you there a bit longer when the road gets rough.”

“I have no objection to commitment. I think any couple can make an announcement of it, in any manner they select. And I’m not against an economic contract between two people. It’s that I’d like to see each couple create their own thoughtful contract. I’m objecting to the institution.”

To be honest, I don’t approve of this marriage. I’m not trying to decide what’s best for Anita, but I’m sad about her decision. She’s marrying for tactical reasons, and that’s not any more likely to work for her now than it has in the past. The truth is she’s terrified about aging. She’s convinced that if she doesn’t find a man soon, she’ll be too old to attract any but the elderly and infirm. She’s already had a face lift, and after a number of saline injections into the veins, chemical peels, and other treatments, she could find her way blindfolded to Dr. Long’s office. And here’s the hook, for me: the man that she’s marrying does not know about the face lift and other procedures. First she lied to him about her age, and it took months and a ridiculous amount of consideration before she came clean on that score (he was relieved to learn that age was yet another quality they shared). Even after that she’s refused to reveal herself. It’s not important that he know about a specific operation, but how can anyone embark on an intimate partnership, while suppressing such an important fact as profound fear of aging?

Rick appears at the double doorway between the living room and the hall. He looks tired. “Everything’s set in the kitchen,” he says quietly. “I’m heading upstairs now.”

“Wait, honey.” Candy looks up brightly. “What about the turkey?”

“Ready when you are.”

“Could you maybe freshen our drinks?”

“Sure,” he replies, his face disagreeing. He ducks into the butler’s pantry and returns with bottles of each color. It’s obvious that there’s tension between Candy and Rick, but I’ve only observed them on two previous occasions, and I’ve never understood them. The first time was a dinner party hosted by Anita, to honor their nuptials. Pam and I were invited because Candy wanted to meet us (or so Anita said, but we may just have been bodies to help fill the room). Throughout that evening, Candy sat in Rick’s lap or pressed against him, and they took every opportunity to nibble on each other’s face. It was creepy. Then there was the party around the Anita/Nick engagement. By that time Candy and Rick had been married about a year. They were still staying close to each other, but Rick was trying to touch Candy more than she was touching him. I saw her look annoyed a few times, to discover him close behind her.

As Rick finishes his job and leaves the room, Anita resumes her talk. “Anyway,” she says to me, “I think you’re protesting too much. Institution or not, you’re resisting even the idea of a relationship. I’m concerned about you. I know you’re not unhappy, but I want you to be as happy as I am. Why don’t you consider joining Sense&Sensibility? It was certainly the right move for Candy and me.”

“No way!” I respond, and Pam begins nodding her agreement. “I wouldn’t mind dating a bit, but you’ve got to be committed to finding a spouse if you pay thousands to join an organization to find someone. No one’s going to put out that kind of cash unless he or she is looking for a life partner. I don’t want to meet anyone who has that as a goal. Not now.”

Anita smiles with exasperated patience. “It doesn’t have to be thousands. It’s just that a three-year membership is the best deal, and that runs into four figures. But they seem to have a good caliber of candidates. Okay, the video taping was a bit unnerving, but once you get into the introduction process you can meet some serious good men. Right, Candy?”

Candy says “Mmmmmmm,” as she smiles and makes her eyes rounder. “Perhaps we could all move to the dining room now? I’m ready to serve.”

She feeds us bread and turkey. We have breadsticks with carrot soup to start, followed by a tossed salad with so many large croutons that it’s mostly oil-soaked bread and olives. Our main course is barbecued turkey breast, grilled peach half, and bread stuffing. Desert is a low-fat version of bread pudding. The food is brought to us by Candy and her twenty-two year old daughter Wren, who has just returned from some party. Candy’s seventeen year old John came in with Wren, but he headed upstairs. The conversation continues.

“It seems to me the only good men you met were the ones you’re now with,” Pam remarks while she chews bread. “Wasn’t there one who claimed to have dated two hundred fifty women in a year?”

I offer “and I seem to remember a slimy individual who schmoozed like a car salesman, and another who was openly looking for a trophy wife for business dinners?”

Anita’s laughing into her wine glass. “Enough already. I give up. Don’t join.”

So we talk about Anita’s honeymoon, which will be in Italy, and that takes us to romantic tales of Europe, which we quickly exhaust. We’re quieter and unable to ignore the commotion upstairs when it starts.

At first it’s a few thumps. It sounds like stomping. We hear the rumble of raised male voices. We can’t make out words, but the tones are angry. We’re embarrassed and trying not to show it. Then there’s a loud thud and the smash of breakage. We’re all looking alarmed when Candy excuses herself.

To make the resulting silence even more awkward, Candy leaves Wren with us. Wren is too young and too socialized not to speak.

She looks sardonic. She has an open face, thick short blonde hair, and a tall body, big-boned but not fat. She twists her lips together and cocks her head. “It’s weird how things can change with titles. Mom’s boyfriends seem to alter their personalities when they marry her. Rick and John got along pretty well until Rick became stepdad.” She’s sitting in her mother’s chair and folding a corner of Candy’s napkin up and back as she speaks. We’re showing sympathetic faces. “Some of it’s the fact that John’s at a tough age. But Rick really does act different now. His first goal is still to make Mom happy, but he’s definitely putting himself and his kids ahead of us.

“Wow,” she says as she looks up. “I guess I’ve said too much.”

“Don’t worry, honey.” Emma pats Wren’s arm. “We’ve all been around marriages and families enough to have heard much worse. This is S.O.P.”

Heavy footsteps sound from upstairs. A door slams. And another. A minute later Candy rejoins us. She’s visibly shaken and her eyes are brighter. She retakes her chair and tosses her head a bit. She asks us how we like the dessert.

We rave.

She tells us the recipe has half the fat of traditional bread pudding (and half the taste, and half the texture, we think, but no one will say it).

Rick enters the room. His face, always pink within his cap of white hair, is more ruddy than normal. His tone isn’t as light as he’d like when he asks Candy if he can get us anything. She looks at him coldly and refuses with thanks. The tension between them is heavier than the dessert.

Wren has been standing behind Candy since Candy sat down. She’s watched this exchange with an expression of patient sadness. My view includes Emma too, so I’m seeing a pair of serene pained faces as a frame around Candy’s still posture. I want to get away from this place.

Pam nods her head when I look at her. Emma sees and signals her agreement. The party is over.
Afterwords:

Anita went ahead and married that third husband, and languished with him for a few years, bored. Then she left him without a warning or a clue, recruited via Facebook by the love of her youth. Marriage did not seem to make it harder for her to leave Nick and the west coast to be with the man who became husband number four. Then she found out that husband number four was controlling and had anger issues. She left him a year later and returned to us, crestfallen, woebegone, almost whipped. It took her a year before she re-upped with dating services, this time free apps, and another year to find the nebbish with whom she now cohabitates. She’d marry this one too, except she finds five times too embarrassing.

Pam found her next husband at a singles group in a Moraga church. He is a nonobservant Jew and Pam is a proselytizing atheist. They married and she once again turned her back on her children. They had two good years before her dementia got so bad that she stopped showering or keeping appointments. Within six months her family had taken her through the one-way door of a memory care facility. They let her husband stay in the house for a few seasons after that.

Candy and Rick are still married but not exactly together. I haven’t seen them since Anita’s third wedding. Even Anita doesn’t see them often; that friendship has paled. She tells me Rick is still quiet and uxorious. Candy is not happy but couldn’t convince her old German boyfriend (from a college exchange visit, renewed by Facebook) to leave his wife, so she’s stuck with Rick. They have separate bedrooms.

I’m still single and Emma is still married. My children are grown and out and happy, and she survived her remodel and that law career. As far as I can tell, we’re no less content now than we were twenty years ago.