The Secret Keeping by Francine Saint Marie Page B

back tomorrow. She opened her mouth to speak but the clock beside the bed informed her she was late for her date and saved her from it. The blond would therefore never know this.
    “No,” Sharon stated when she had finished. “Not tomorrow.” And then she left.
    All Helaine ever knew after that was that her arms were always empty.
    The beautiful waterfront flat, when it was her place, before Sharon moved in, when it was not yet haunted by anything. She wept recalling it and fell asleep.
    The next morning she cleaned the hellhole, from time to time stopping in her labors to wonder over a miscellaneous tie or a checked cotton button-down, a man’s sock, tie clip, the like. No accounting for the hosiery. She threw them all in the trash where they belonged and tried not to bother herself about it. It was quite a way to stay on top, Sharon Chambers!
    Now, alone in the newly clean space, Helaine weighed the possibility that she might be punishing herself.
    In the mirror she saw the puffy eyes, the creases which every year became more and more important to her features. They were unhappy lines. Picking up after a messy lover, accepting sloppy seconds, thirds, fourths.
    Who kept count? Feeling trashed all the time. Perhaps she was too old at last. Grays were hiding amongst the blond. She left them alone.
    She had only vaguely considered it before. The age difference. Over a decade. All their differences. She picked up the phone and called a cab. It was not a relationship. It had not become one. It was a series of episodes, but not a relationship. Mere episodes. Some breathtaking, others, many others, just too shabby to dwell on. A relationship to some, but not the one Helaine had hoped for, not the one that had been promised, not the one which she felt entitled to have by now. It had all gone into free fall. She heard the cab honking below and locked the door behind her.
    _____

    The “heart specialist.” The “Love Doc.” That’s what the public called Dr. Kristenson. She didn’t need her practice anymore. She could live off reprints and royalties and lecture fees if she wanted to. Or write another book. There were offers for that, as well.
    But everything she practiced and preached had gone into Keeping Mr. Right. So far nothing new could be added. Besides, there might come the day when the book would fall from the best-seller list. There would still be her private practice should that happen.
    Rainy days. She was always prepared for them. She had worked hard and enjoyed doing it, but maybe Kay was right. Maybe she had pushed herself too hard. Six days a week since, oh, forever. She was tired.
    And in a certain sense the book she authored made her feel like a hypocrite now. Now that she had reached the chasm of forty. Mid-life, the hormonal peak, and she hadn’t had sex in months. Who knew when Sharon might get around to it? A great abyss spread before her and it grew wider by the day. The great abyss, at the bottom of it the bracken pool of her love life. She had written the bible on this. Take your time. Work it out. Fidelity. Mutual Respect. What a hypocrite! And she was always eating her own words over it. That didn’t help to restore her either.
    How is it possible to be an expert and still end up with the same big nothing that drove others to seek her advice? Shouldn’t she be prefacing everything she said these days with an I-dunno-but?
    Or was it worse than that? After all, she did help her clients. At least fifty percent of them saved their relationships. Fifty percent wasn’t bad. Could it be that she didn’t practice what she preached? Was she in denial? Was she too laissez-faire about her own needs?
    The final chapter, putting your lover on notice. Hadn’t she done that the last time? Sharon had been gone then five months without a word and had slithered back to the waterfront without calling her. Helaine had discovered her there on one of her midnight searches.
    “Why didn’t you let me