The Hot Flash Club by Nancy Thayer

blinked.
    “Maybe you’d better elaborate,” Alice suggested.
    “I mean I’m a paleobiologist. I study trilobites, bugs that lived millions of years ago.”
    Alice grimaced.
“Uh-huh.”
    Faye shuddered.
    The waiter set desserts before them. Everyone dug in, murmuring ecstatically.
    “Now that I think about it,” Faye said, pressing her napkin to her chocolate-rimmed lips, “a younger woman’s playing havoc with
my
life! Or rather, with my daughter’s.”
    “Tell us,” Alice demanded.
    Faye licked chocolate from her lips and put down her fork. “My daughter, Laura, has been married for two years to a wonderful young man, Lars Schneider. He’s a lawyer, and absolutely adorable. Laura and Lars were meant for each other, you can tell by their names, for heaven’s sake, and they’ve been so happy together. But then Laura had her baby four months ago, and now it seems that Lars is having an affair with a secretary in his office. Although I can’t believe it of him.”
    “Maybe he’s not,” Shirley said hopefully.
    “Maybe he is,” Alice said cynically.
    “Oh, dear,” said Marilyn. “That’s very sad.” She took the last bite of her cake. “What else is on the dessert menu?”
    They called the waiter over and ordered a chocolate brownie sundae each.
    Faye turned to Shirley. “No younger women clouds on your horizon?”
    “Nope. Just got the same old hassles—looking for a decent man and trying to pay my bills. Actually,” she continued after another bite, “I do have a dream, and I suppose my predicament is, I’m afraid it will never come true.”
    “A dream!” Marilyn licked her lips. “How wonderful to have a dream at your age.”
    “Hey, come on!” Shirley said defensively, “I’m not dead yet. Listen, modern nutrition and medicine are prolonging our lives and improving the years we will have. If we keep active, we’ll be leading healthy, happy lives in our eighties and nineties.”
    “Use it or lose it,” Alice said.
    “Exactly,” Shirley agreed.
    “Use it or lose it,” Marilyn echoed dreamily. “I wonder if that’s true about sexual desire.”
    “Honey, you can get it back,” Shirley told her. “You just have to get in touch with yourself again.”
    “So to speak,” Alice quipped dryly.
    Marilyn blushed and quickly turned the attention back to Shirley. “What’s your dream?”
    Shirley sat up straight and adjusted the scarves around her shoulders. “I want to create my own little retreat. I’m a certified masseuse, but I’ve also studied and read about other kinds of alternative health possibilities, and I’m fascinated by the connection between body, mind, and soul. I want to create a place where people can come with all kinds of problems, from serious health issues to depression to the sort of thing you’re talking about, Marilyn, the loss of sexual appetite. We’d work up each person’s chart individually and create a program just for them, of massage, aromatherapy, hypnosis, yoga, dance, spiritual explorations, and so on.”
    “Sounds like a great idea,” Faye said.
    “It
is
a great idea.” Shirley smiled, then sighed. “But, unfortunately, it will never happen.”
    “Why not?” Marilyn demanded.
    “Because I don’t have the money. Furthermore, I can plan the retreat, but I’m hopeless at things like legal contracts and bank loans and malpractice insurance. My eyes just cross when I try to read financial documents.”
    “I think,” Alice announced slowly, thinking it out as she spoke, “there’s a way we can help one another.”
    “Really?” Marilyn took off her glasses and stared.
    “I need a piece of paper.” Alice dug in her purse, retrieving a small leather notebook and a Mont Blanc pen. “And another round of chocolate.”
    Only one other chocolate dessert was listed on the menu, a chocolate raspberry torte. “Let’s each get one,” Shirley suggested.
    “All right,” Alice announced, her pen flashing as she wrote, “we’ve got