The Hot Flash Club Chills Out Read Free Page A

blissful quiet of her apartment. WGBH was playing a Vivaldi piece she’d heard a thousand times before. She turned from the country road onto Route 2, and then entered the eight thundering lanes of cars, trucks, and SUVs speeding along 128 in a hypnotic blur, like a pack of roaring metallic monsters. The bright spring sun bounced off the hoods and roofs, lasering into her eyes.
    Now Vivaldi’s perky little notes irritated her. She snapped the radio off. Usually classical music buoyed her, providing a psychological lift that helped her survive the drive in heavy traffic. Tonight it just wasn’t working. She craved chocolate, so she reached over, opened the glove compartment, and brought out a bag of chocolate-covered almonds. She knew she shouldn’t eat them, she knew she was gaining weight again, but almonds were good for one’s health, and the caffeine and sugar and sheer pleasure of the candy was a necessity tonight. She was tired.
    Behind her, an impatient driver honked his horn. Alice flicked her turn indicator and began to edge over into the slower middle lane just as an idiot on a motorcycle cut in front of her with suicidal recklessness. She missed hitting him by only inches. Her heart jumped into her throat.
    She hit the button that rolled down the window. “Watch what you’re doing, you moron!” she yelled, realizing, as the warm, gasoline-scented air flooded in, that of course the moron couldn’t hear her.
    Behind her, Mr. Impatience’s horn blared. She jerked her wheel right, lurching into the next lane, nearly kissing the bumper of a lumbering cement truck.
    Her heart quivered and kicked inside her chest. She hated this feeling. She tried to remember all the advice she’d received about calming down. She couldn’t visualize a cool pool of water because she had to keep visualizing the freaking traffic, so she forced herself to inhale deeply and exhale slowly. Gideon was always reminding her to relax.
Get in the right lane and just poke along,
he advised. Well, she would, except at the end of the day, in spite of the aspirin she took, arthritis threatened to cripple her with cramps in her legs, hands, and back. At any moment she’d find herself curling up like a pretzel, not the safest posture while driving seventy miles an hour. At home, she’d take a hot soaking bath, or collapse on her heating pad, or have a nice glass of wine. She wanted to
get home.
She didn’t want to dawdle.
    She was so tired, so stressed—tears rolled down her cheeks. Was it possible that she’d gone from being a woman who had it all to a woman who had too much?
    Finally she reached her exit and threaded her way through the narrow Boston streets to her condo. As she slid her car into its calm, waiting spot in the cool shade of the parking garage, her pulse slowed. She took a minute to redo her makeup—she didn’t want Gideon to see her with tear marks. Gideon kept telling her to step back and let Alan and Jennifer manage their lives without her, but she saw, every day, firsthand and close-up, how overwhelmed the younger people were. Gideon’s advice was well-meant, but it only increased the tension Alice felt. She didn’t want to argue—which was only another sign of her exhaustion. Alice usually loved a good argument. In her younger days, her talent for confrontation had sent her flying right up the corporate ladder. In her younger days, she’d always won her arguments. In her younger days, the drumroll of her excited heart and the flush of blood through her body had been an exhilarating experience, making her keen, articulate, triumphant.
    Now the same drumroll made her anxious. She couldn’t let Gideon know how often, how easily, her heart went trippy.
    It was so quiet in the garage. So soothing. Alice wanted to recline her seat and fall asleep right there. But of course that would only present her cranky old bones with brand new ways of aching. Besides, Gideon was waiting for her. Most evenings he fixed dinner,