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I am sitting in a mudbath at the spa, all by myself and wondering, how did I get here? More to the point, why am I here all alone? What happened to my 14 other friends, who were all going to come to the spa with me for a “girls only” weekend?
It all started at a friend’s wedding shower. There we were, sitting around a tableful of opened presents, drinking champagne and eating scones.
“This is so much fun!” said our hostess, Marcy. “Why haven’t we done this before?”
“What, a wedding shower? Maybe because all the rest of us got married ages ago — or decided not to?”
“No,” said Marcy. “I mean, why don’t we get together more often? In fact, why don’t we plan a spa date for all of us — say, a year from today?”
“I say, sooner than that,” said someone else. “Try six months from now.”
“Okay, let’s pick a date. Who’s got a calendar?”
There was a pause while we all rummaged through purses and shoulder bags.
“Rats, I’ve left my datebook at home.”
“This is last year’s!”
“Mine is falling apart.”
“I don’t have one,” I say.
“Yes you do — on your phone, right?”
I took out my phone. “But I don’t know how it works.”
“Oh, Judy, give me that,” says Marcy, who opens it up and starts calling out dates.
“We want a weekend, right? Six months from now? How’s mid-January?”
“No,” said someone, “my company has a trade show I have to get ready for.”
“Well then, February?”
“I’ll be recovering from the trade show, and doing follow-ups …”
“Plus there’s Valentine’s Day.” (That’s the bride-to-be.)
“For the whole month? Lucky lady!” (She blushes.)
“What about sooner than that, like December?”
“Oh, no.” We all agreed on that. “Forget December; too hectic. But what about April?”
“No,” said another friend, “that’s when we’re getting the house re-painted, so we can put it on the market.”
“You’re moving? You didn’t tell us!”
“Don’t worry, wild horses couldn’t keep me away! I just can’t do April. Why not March?”
“Oh, dear,” said a woman who’d been quiet till then. “I think that’s when the grandchildren are coming to visit, and I promised my daughter I’d take them for a weekend.”
“Well, which weekend?”
“I don’t know, she hasn’t told me yet — it depends on her husband’s schedule.”
Marcy was losing patience. “Ladies, why don’t we just pick an arbitrary weekend — say, the third one in June — and stick to it?”
“Oh,” wailed my friend Susan. “That’s the one time every year that my husband always goes away, with his fraternity brothers, to somebody’s cabin. And now that both our moms are in nursing homes, I promised I’d stay in town.”
“Can’t he skip it this year?” demanded Marcy.
“It’s like a religion with him. More than that, really — he’s more steadfast about this than he is about any services.”
“What are they all doing, anyway?”
“He says fishing, but from what goes into the car, I think they’re just drinking beer. Still, he’s never missed it, come rain, come hurricane, for 30 years.”
“You know, this really gripes me,” said Marcy. “Why is it that when the guys make an appointment, they just keep it? No ifs, ands, or ‘but the painter is coming,’ it’s off they go, and let the paint chips fall where they may. Whereas we can’t find a single darn weekend for ourselves?”
“Well, maybe” someone ventured, “since we’re the ones keeping the calendars — they just don’t know any better?”
“Or maybe they just don’t care!”
“Whatever the reason,” I say, “I’ve decided I’m going to be a little more like them. I’m going to that spa. Next weekend! All by myself, if I have to! And I’m warning you — anyone who doesn’t make it, I might have to write about.”
“Oh, I just remembered — I’m getting a dental implant that week, and I have to stay near the dentist.”
“I’m having the couch re-upholstered.”
“I’m getting my eyebrows waxed.”
I stared at Eyebrow Girl. “Surely that’s one thing you can do at a spa?”
“Well… I guess so.”
And as it turned out, Eyebrow Girl finally came to join me. As she settled into the mud next to me, she said, “Well, I cancelled the waxing. You’re not going to write about me, now, are you?”
“Of course not,” I reassured her. “I’ll just write about everyone else.”
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