The Hot Flash Club Chills Out Read Online Free PDF Page B

looks concealed a tyrant’s might. Amy’s family owned a farm west of Boston, where they grew organic vegetables, knit shawls and blankets from the wool of their own sheep, and performed other earth-friendly actions, making them absolutely superior to everyone else on the planet. Especially to Polly, who sometimes had been known to eat steak or wear polyester. David and Amy had a son, Jehoshaphat, Polly’s only grandchild, whom they allowed germy, meat-breathing Polly to see about once a month, when she drove out to visit. The occasions were never terribly successful. Polly could not understand her son’s complete adoration of his wife, or why he, who had once been a banker, was so happy driving a tractor and pitching hay. But he was happy, and Polly was glad for him.
    She tried not to feel rejected, even though she had, in fact, been rejected. She reminded herself, as did her Hot Flash friends, that not every grandmother got to see her grandchildren every day. Faye’s daughter and family had moved to California. And Marilyn’s son and his family lived nearby, but Marilyn was too busy to see her grandson more than once a month.
    Polly turned over on her side, feeling the blubber in her belly and bum shift accordingly. Here was something else to be depressed about—her ever increasing weight. She battled to diet and exercise, and when she still gained weight, she battled to remain philosophical about it. Her Hot Flash friends and their good humor and support helped her here, too. She wouldn’t be quite so negative about her aging body if only her beau, Hugh, were just a tad more reliable.
    Hugh Monroe, her lover of almost two years, was sixty-three. Hugh was an oncologist, a sympathetic, emotionally generous man whose patients adored him. Rotund and jovial, he lived large. He liked roller coaster rides and scuba diving, he liked adventure and celebration. He was always taking care of other people, never hesitating to interrupt a meal or a movie to rush to the bedside of a good friend, or to the aid of one of his children—
or
to help his perpetually dependent ex-wife, the irritatingly size-six Carol.
    Five years before, when Carol left Hugh for another man, Hugh had been relieved. Their marriage had been empty for a long time, and the divorce was amicable. They’d stayed together until their children were through college, married, and with children of their own. Carol had kept their large Victorian house in Belmont, and Hugh moved into a handsome apartment on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, close to his hospital. The children were shocked but resigned. Hugh slowly entered the dating scene and had just met Polly when Carol’s lover collapsed of a heart attack on the tennis court.
    A week after the funeral, Carol invited Hugh to dinner at the house where they’d raised their three children. She wanted to get back together, she said. When Hugh gently declined, she burst into tears, crying, “How can you do this to me!” For two years now, Carol had campaigned to get her husband back. It wasn’t enough for her that all the Monroes got together on every possible family occasion—birthdays, holidays, even a grandchild’s graduation from preschool triggered a family get-together. Carol wanted to get married again. She tried to enlist the services of their three children. The youngest sided with his mother, but the two oldest rebelled enough to tell their mother they thought Hugh had the right to do as he wished.
    Last Christmas, when Hugh accompanied Polly and Faye and Aubrey on a Christmas Get-Away cruise to the Caribbean, had been the first time Hugh had not been around for a family event. Polly had had hopes that it was a trendsetting experience. But when they returned to Boston, Carol still phoned Hugh when she needed any little thing, and Hugh dutifully, if reluctantly, went.
    Something was always going wrong with Carol. During the last year, she’d suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome. She wasn’t eating, she