32aa by Michelle Cunnah

single and childless.
    “Hey.” Tom places an affectionate arm around Katy’s waist and kisses her on the cheek.
    “You girls having fun? Is Katy boring you with her MADD mothers, Emma?”
    “Er, no,” I say, not wanting to be the cause of marital disharmony. “It’s very interesting.”
    “It’s MASS mothers, and you know it. Don’t be so dismissive, Tom.” Katy smiles and waves a warning finger at him. “Not if you want to get laid tonight.”
    “My lips are sealed.” He smiles back at her. “Come on, woman, take me home. We told the babysitter we’d be home by midnight.”
    And I am envious. They are so obviously in love. They have been married forever, and yet he still looks at her as if the sun rises and shines in her face.
    And suddenly I feel so alone. And tired. I want to go home.
    Wherever that may be.
    Saturday morning, 6 A . M .
    Mick Jagger is jumping-jack-flashing around my poor, demented brain, and I realize that I forgot to switch off the radio alarm before I crashed out last night. I love Mick and the boys. But not when I have such a monumentally killer hangover.
    It is painful to move, but I finally manage to reach the radio and flip the switch, then I gulp some of the water I remembered to leave by the bed last night. I sink gratefully back into my pillow.
    7 A . M .
    Who the hell telephones anyone at this ungodly hour of the morning? I try to ignore its persistent ringing, and after four rings, it switches to voicemail. But then it rings again, and then again, and I know that I have to answer it to get any peace and quiet whatsoever, because whoever is calling me knows that I am here.
    “Hey, it’s me.”
    Tish. She is happy and perky. Why isn’t she in bed with a hangover, too?
    “Get yourself out of bed, sleepyhead. You promised to go to the gym with me this morning. And you’ll never guess what!”
    “No, I won’t,” I croak. “And I don’t want to go to the gym. I want to die.”
    “Rufus asked me on a date.”
    “That’s fabulous,” I tell her, with more enthusiasm than I feel, because it is fabulous and she’s wanted this for so long. “When is the happy occasion?”
    “Well, that’s the problem. We didn’t get as far as fixing a specific time or day…”
    Typical. At this rate they’ll be collecting their pensions before they make it to the bedroom, and by then they’ll have forgotten what sex is.
    “So we have to go to the deli for breakfast after the gym. I said I’d call in so we could, you know—”
    “Can’t you go by yourself?”
    Yes, I am callous and uncaring.
    “Pleeeese, Emma. Please come with me. It’ll take your mind off Adam.”
    Up until this moment I had forgotten all about him.
    11 A . M .
    I have spent a painful hour contorting my body into strange, apparently body-lengthening postures. I have been a Mermaid, a Dancer, and a Proud Warrior. But the hangover is no longer torturing me, having been frightened away by the flow of endorphins and several bottles of water.
    So by the time Tish, Rachel, and I arrive at Rufus’s deli, I feel moderately human and in need of sustenance.
    But disaster strikes. Rufus is not there. Rufus has taken the day off.
    “But why?” poor Tish asks Rufus’s assistant, who has no idea, because Rufus isn’t the most talkative of people. “He never mentioned a day off last night when he kissed me good-night.”
    “He kissed you?” This is amazing. This is a major breakthrough after three years of barely speaking to each other.
    “Did it involve tongues?”
    Trust Rachel to ask that particular question.
    “No. Only a peck on the cheek.” Tish looks down at her muffin. “That’s it. I give up. The man obviously doesn’t want to date me, and has taken the day off to avoid me. ”
    We munch disconsolately at our banana-granola muffins, and after much sighing on Tish’s part, and much head shaking on my part, Rachel creates a whole new category of Men Who Cannot Commit.
    “He’s your classic noble gas,”