Five Fortunes by Beth Gutcheon Page A

her she didn’t feel like it. She thought about telling her she didn’t feel like getting out of bed at all. She thought about the effort it would take to open her mouth and tell her cheery, happy mother anything she didn’t want to hear, and she thought that she knew exactly why Solange had asked her mother if she were in the army. Yes, sir, ma’am, General Burrows. Up and at ’em.
    Jill, without a word, dragged herself out of bed.
    78
    Five Fortunes / 79
    “I’m going to trot on down to Saguaro, I want my coffee. See you there,” Amy said, and she went out, exhilarated, into the lambent morning.
    Two marriages, Amy thought as she bounced along. God, what light, what delicious air, what a sweet smell of cut grass and eucalyptus. She felt like a child. She had slept like a baby. Her skin was glowing, she had the kind of energy you have when you’re eight, and the bell rings at recess, and you tear outside and run and run and run until they make you go back inside. She felt so good, she’d have liked to shout. Of course, she wouldn’t, there might be people sleeping.
    Two marriages. Oh well. Noah worked too hard, and he knew it, and she suspected he still smoked cigars at the club. She’d told him that if he keeled over from a heart attack she’d never forgive him.
    You couldn’t make men take care of themselves, especially doctors.
    At least if he insisted on stuffing himself full of red meat and dying young she wouldn’t have to live forever as a lonely old widow.
    Carter Bond, Carol Haines, and Laurie Lopez were sitting together in Saguaro with cups of steaming liquid in their hands. They watched Amy striding in.
    “Hello, ladies! Are we ready?” Amy greeted them.
    “We are ready, mon général ,” said Carter.
    “Shouldn’t it be ma? Ma générale? ” Amy asked as she got herself a mug of coffee.
    “I don’t think there’s any provision in the language for that.”
    “Never mind. I’ve got it…it’s a pants role,” said Amy, and she and Carol laughed. “Opera jargon,” she explained to Carter. “There are men’s roles written for women to sing. The character is a man, but it’s always sung by a woman in a man’s costume.” Carter was looking at her with nostrils flared.
    In bounced Fitness Professional Diane, in neon pink.
    “Okay, ladies! Where are my mountain five-milers? Wow, big group! All right!” she cried as fifteen ladies followed her outside into the dawn to stretch.
    Jill arrived at Saguaro as her mother and friends were striding off into the brush. There were more ladies stumbling into Saguaro.
    Bunny
    80 / Beth Gutcheon
    Gibson and Rusty Haines were drinking herb tea and talking about Nantucket. Wilma Smythe and Rae Strouse were sitting in silence, trying to wake up. Jill met no one’s eyes, and poured herself a coffee into which she put three sugars. There were packs of sugar substitute there, but she ignored them.
    She wandered outside with the others when Terri mustered them out to stretch. Halfheartedly she leaned or bent or pointed her toes while Terri, dressed in yellow, shouted and clapped. “Come on, ladies, let’s get those hamstrings warmed up! Let’s get that blood moving, get your heart started! It’s a great day!” With a shout of encouragement Terri strode off toward the foothills, hands pumping, and the group fell into line behind her. Jill joined in near the rear, behind two ladies she knew by sight but had never talked to. The ladies were talking about German cars.
    Jill dragged her feet along the trail, as if they were two badly behaved toddlers. It took enormous will to keep them in line, when one wanted to kick and the other wanted to stumble and her whole body felt as if it weighed a ton. What a shuck it all was. She had gotten nowhere. She was a big fat sack of dirt and she always would be, and her mother had paid enough for this week to settle the national debt, and what was it? A week. One week. One week could change your life? Come on. In