It was her birthday and Lori woke up feeling apprehensive. Leave it to her husband to have to be out of town until the weekend. She would have to celebrate alone.

“Jack, can’t you get someone else to go to Rochester to fire those poor schmucks,” she’d asked.

Jack had slurped his coffee noisily.

“They’re not schmucks. And no, that’s my job.” Another slurp. “Jeeze, you’re forty five—it’s not like you’re a kid and I’m missing your birthday party. I’ll make it up to you when I get back.”

He downed the rest of the coffee. A peck on her cheek, and then he was gone.

Lori cleared the table. Grabbing her lunch, she checked the clock. Crap, I’m going to be late if I don’t get out of here.

The car seemed to be on auto pilot as she hurried to Healthy Smiles Dental Clinic where she spent the day picking tartar off other people’s teeth.

“It could be worse,” she’d tell her friends, after a few glasses of Merlot.  “My mother wanted me to be a teacher.”

Just dropping her children off at school when they were little was enough to give Lori a headache that lasted the whole day. She couldn’t imagine being locked in a room full of screaming kids.

After gliding into an employees’ only spot on the perimeter of the parking lot, she flipped the vanity mirror into the down position.  Tiny crow’s feet etched her eyes and mouth. Her smock stretched a little too tight across her chest and the elastic waist on the scrub-style pants pinched.

“Oh, well.” Lori sighed. At least Jack had stopped nagging her about the new rolls of fat that had settled on her midriff. She struggled out of the car and surveyed the distance to the office. Huffing and puffing, she finally reached the door of the building. The walk seemed more strenuous every day.  She promised herself again to get serious about losing a few pounds—or else get a job at a building with more convenient employee parking.

Three dreary days later, the weekend arrived and Jack reappeared.

“I’m beat,” he said, when Lori greeted him at the door.

She concocted a couple of martinis and clicked the remote to start the faux fire logs on the hearth.

Lori perched on the edge off her chair, waiting for her gift. She was dressed in her new one size larger black pants and a loose fitting tunic top.

“So, when do I get my birthday gift, Jack?”

Jack’s face was usually a mask. But this time, he looked alarmed.

“Oh, yeah. That…u-m-m. Hold on.”

He dug around in his overnight bag and fumbled with a package.

“Sorry, honey, I didn’t have time to get you a card.”

“Really? I would have thought that you might have passed about 200 Walgreen stores between here and Rochester. Isn’t there one just around the corner from the house?” Lori asked testily.

“I’ll get you a card later—when we go out to dinner. You did make a reservation somewhere, right? I hate waiting for a table on Friday night.”

He handed his wife a box with Lord and Taylor emblazoned on the top.

Eagerly, Lori opened the elegant box.

Nestled in crinkly, almost sheer tissue paper was a spaghetti–strapped silky wisp of a nightgown.

Lori drew it out of the box. The scent of an exotic perfume wafted from it. She thought she recognized Chanel #5, an indulgence she just dreamed about.

She examined the garment. It would be a perfect fit for a woman the size of a Barbie-doll.

Holding it up in front of her size sixteen body, she looked up at her husband. At that precise moment, a card slipped onto the floor. Lori and Jack bumped heads as they both bent to retrieve it.

“Sorry, honey, I guess I left the saleswoman’s card in the box,” Jack said nervously, as he slipped the tell-tale card into his pocket.

Lori stared at her husband. Seriously, she thought. Does he really want me to believe he bought this for me?

She watched him squirm.

Then in a voice hard with sarcasm, she said, “Jack, don’t you remember that red is not my favorite color?”

Picture courtesy of Microsoft Clip Art