The Hot Flash Club Chills Out Read Free

president in charge of administration, she’d received a handsome financial packet, so money would never be a source of stress, certainly not the way it was years ago, when she was a young single mother struggling to raise her two boys and fight her way up the corporate ladder. Over the past few years, in spite of her darling beau, Gideon, their bridge groups, her four Hot Flash Club friends, and her membership on the board of The Haven, Alice had felt just slightly bored. Edgy. Missing something.
    Then, last summer, she’d had a small, very minor, really almost insignificant heart attack. After that, she’d been instructed by her physician to cut down on stress. She dropped the competitive bridge clubs for more relaxed groups, paid attention to her diet and attended the damned yawn-inducing, brain-sogging yoga classes Shirley was always raving about, and did the best she could to relax.
    She’d felt even
more
bored. Boredom made her cranky, and that hadn’t been good for her blood pressure, and for a while she felt almost itchy with ennui.
    And then her granddaughter was born.
    Alice had never known such love, such pure unadulterated joy. When she was with her grandchild, the music of life transformed from irritating rap to a soaring symphony. She’d never had much interest in babies before, but then little Aly wasn’t any normal baby. Aly was the most beautiful, fascinating, precious infant ever born.
    Her son and his wife had paid her the ultimate compliment, naming their daughter after her. When she offered to take care of the infant while Alan and Jennifer ran their catering and bakery business, they eagerly accepted, which made Alice love them so much she had to restrain herself from becoming a babbling fool. The baby was born prematurely, and Jennifer had suffered from toxemia, so for the first couple of months worry clouded Alice’s joy. Gradually both mother and child flourished. Things went back to normal. Alice’s morning and evening drives became routine.
    Since both grandmother and grandchild were named Alice, the three adults deliberated on how to nickname them to avoid confusion. Little Alice and Big Alice didn’t work, because Alice—tall, broad-shouldered, big-boned, and well-padded—was just
slightly
sensitive about the word “big.” Young Alice and Old Alice wasn’t so great, either. Alice One and Alice Two? Nope. Numbers carried too many negative connotations. When Alan and Jennifer considered Granny, big, old Alice diplomatically refrained from telling them that while she loved being a grandmother, the word
Granny
made her feel even older and grayer than ever. Fortunately, they all three fell into the habit of calling the baby Aly, and the problem was solved.
    Today, Alice took care of Aly while Alan and Jennifer ran the bakery. While Aly slept, Alice did the piles of laundry a baby makes, and scrubbed the kitchen and bathroom because her son and his wife hadn’t the time or energy, and put a hen in the oven to roast for the dinner Alan and Jennifer would eat with the potatoes, vegetables, and salad she’d prepared. Alan and Jennifer were so grateful for all her help. They were working furiously, taking all the private orders and catering jobs they could get, because they wanted to save enough money for a down payment on a house. They loved living in the tidy stone gatehouse of The Haven, but it was small, and they hoped to have more children eventually, and naturally wanted their own home.
    At five o’clock, they closed the bakery at the back of the house and came through the industrial kitchen into the cottage kitchen, where they hugged Alice and showered her with gratitude. They told her she was an
angel.
They said they couldn’t imagine what they’d do without her.
    Now the universe’s crankiest
angel
was driving home. She adjusted the seat on her BMW, grateful for the technology that allowed her to relieve the stress on her back as she began the long slog east, toward home and the