Cougar by Lily Harlem

Author:Lily Harlem [Various]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2012-10-08T04:00:00+00:00

A Wonderful Time

Olivia London

Delta May Crane looked in the mirror that morning for a fraction longer than she usually did. She wasn’t being vain. She just wanted to know who she was supposed to be that day. She was a busy woman with friends and relatives who depended on her generosity and keen business sense. An employer, caregiver and doting auntie to a lovely niece who was her child substitute. Weeks could go by without Ms Crane giving a thought to herself and, as a woman who preferred giving to receiving, this seemed a normal state of affairs.

On this particular morning, the owner of Crane’s Crumpets and Tea in Seattle’s Lower Queen Anne neighbourhood was supposed to be a woman comfortable with her age. All around her, she witnessed middle-aged women experiencing midlife meltdowns. A science teacher in Delta’s Wednesday-night book group mused aloud that lottery winners aren’t the only people who go broke after a windfall. The instructor confessed to having inherited $100,000, only to blow the whole wad on analysis. She was broke in a year but thrice weekly she got to recline on a balding psychiatrist’s Naugahyde couch and calibrate the envy of friends as she imagined her life becoming iconic, like a New Yorker cartoon.

Delta nodded in sympathy but, really, she had little patience with those whose climacteric challenges took the form of profligate spending. She had no rich uncle or patron saint smoothing the way to success. When she started her shop she had to make her crumpets using tuna cans with the tops and bottoms removed; it would require two years of fiscal responsibility before she could afford the stainless-steel pans she’d lovingly purchase from gourmet culinary catalogues.

Satisfied with her work, Delta tried to sublimate her desires by doing for others, and of course renting the occasional sexy French film.

She was through with dating. Delta had a knack for attracting what she called ‘low-resolution’ men for, after the fact of these men had dissipated, the details of them were rarely clear. She once dated a man who, when neither of them felt like cooking, would dine only at Thai restaurants. He’d order the spiciest items on the menu but push them away for being too explicitly hot. Then he’d pick at her dinner. When, exasperated, she asked him why he didn’t order milder food he’d take offence, walk out and leave her with the bill.

No, dating was old news and Delta was more concerned with the fine print, the smalltype that read: Lady, you need to get laid.

Sometimes, Delta’s superstitions made her feel old. Drop a knife – or was it a fork? – and, lo and behold, a man will walk into your life. Of course, the utensil had to be dropped by accident and preferably on a hard surface such as concrete or, in a pinch, linoleum.

Just thinking the words ‘hard surface’ drew her breath up short.

The morning of the day she decided to treat herself to a casual encounter, she had dropped a knife in the kitchen.

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