The computer hummed, and she quickly typed in “Valley Girls” as if someone was looking over her shoulder. A stupid name for a site for stupid girls, she thought, as it came right up. She had to answer a few questions to be approved by the moderator first.
Do you live in Hudson Valley? Yes.
How did you hear about us? At the Stop & Shop.
Do you agree to abide by the rules of Valley Girls?
Eliza read through the rules. The last one, What happens on Valley Girls stays on Valley Girls, made her laugh. The two women at the Stop & Shop must have missed that part, she thought, as she replied, Yes.
Luke texted, checking in on her:
Hey, sweets. Are you sure you don’t want to come to the airport? I can swing by and get you, no problem.
She wrote back:
I wish I could, but I still have things to prepare for the party tomorrow, and I’d rather have dinner waiting. I’m sure the kids will be starving by the time they get home.
You’re the best mom.
Luke’s text made her feel even worse. She knew that the best mom wouldn’t have had an excuse, more like a lie, prepared in advance for this exact situation.
As she put her phone down, a message appeared on her computer screen:
Welcome to Valley Girls.
She got down to business.
After just a few months, Valley Girls already had a thousand members, and there was definitely a younger, hipper vibe to it than she was used to. Keeping it current felt like the antidote to her own fleeting relevancy. She found the erectile dysfunction thread that the women were freaking out about at the market. Penises in general seemed to be a big topic of conversation, including opinions on the age-old question, does size really matter?
There was a lot of talk about sex: anal sex, oral sex, bad sex, good sex, too much sex, and not enough. The names of positions and sex toys were thrown around so knowingly that Eliza wished they had a glossary. She had to google the Rabbit Habit, the Hovering Butterfly, the Trick or Treat, and the Dirty Sanchez. She wished she hadn’t googled the last one, having just eaten.
It felt to Eliza like there was a lot of grandstanding going on—women posting things just to get attention. There were also plenty of basic posts—asking for advice on the best breast pump or summer vacation spot with the kids. It wasn’t all Hudson Valley Girls Gone Wild, like she had thought it would be, but it was clearly much more salacious than her site. Their cover photo showed a valley between two snowcapped mountains, or, if you looked at it differently, breasts. Hers was of an actual bulletin board.
Most of the more titillating posts were written anonymously. And those got tons of comments—epic threads, they routinely called them. There hadn’t been an “epic thread” on the Hudson Valley Ladies’ Bulletin Board since Hilary Winters accused Trudy Summers of bribing the high school tennis coach with her famous apple pie. At least that was what Eliza thought it was about; her daughter insisted it was a code word for sex.
She wasn’t about to change the tone completely, posting about foreplay or fellatio, but she needed to come up with something that wouldn’t be discussed openly at back-to-school night. How could she create an epic thread?
The phone rang, startling her, as many previously innocuous noises had been doing lately. She answered before looking at the caller ID. If she had done so, she would have let it go to voicemail. It was Nancy Block, one of the four players in her monthly bridge game and the only one that she considered to be more than an acquaintance. Eliza hadn’t played in a while and had taken to texting in her excuses and not answering calls regarding them. Nancy’s voice sounded strange and Eliza immediately addressed it. “Hey, Nan, are you OK? You don’t sound like yourself.”
“No, actually, Eliza, I am not OK.”
Eliza took a deep breath. She had heard so much awful news lately: cancer, kids in rehab, parents with dementia. Getting older seemed to be bringing a whole new set of issues. She really cared for Nancy; she braced herself for the worst.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
A heavy sigh on the other end confirmed that bad news was coming. “I guess there’s no other way to say it. You are what’s wrong, Eliza. You have no respect for our bridge game, or for me for that matter!”
Eliza began to shake. She was totally caught off guard and that was one of her worst triggers. Thank God for the Valium already in her system or she may have found herself right down on the floor again. Her bridge game was her last bastion of real-life social interaction. For the first Tuesday of the month she would bake pecan sandies (Nancy’s favorite), oatmeal raisins (Mara’s favorite), and gluten-free chocolate chips (for Dana). She would shower, do her hair, put on something other than sweatpants, and sometimes even a coat of mascara and lipstick. Even with all of that, for the past three games she couldn’t make it out the door. She knew it was so wrong to cancel at the last minute—obviously they couldn’t play without her. She was ready to apologize and say something resembling the truth, when Nancy threw salt on the gash that she had inflicted. “We are done with you and your excuses. You are no longer a part of our game.”
As if her harsh words weren’t enough, her tone was caustic. Eliza could not remember being spoken to that way before. And where was the empathy? Where was “Is everything OK with you?”
Eliza barely managed an “I’m sorry, Nancy, I really am . . .” when Nancy interrupted her apology with a final blow, “Whatever, Eliza. Maybe you should take up solitaire!”
The line went dead, for which Eliza was mostly grateful. She understood Nancy’s disappointment. No one was more disappointed with Eliza than Eliza. She was filled with anger but wasn’t even sure at whom to direct it. She was angry at her “friends” for not seeing her disappear before their eyes, and she was angry at herself for not having the strength to overcome this thing. And on a much simpler level, she was angry about losing something else that she really enjoyed. She had already given up her weekly tennis game with the excuse of plantar fasciitis. The tennis ladies had at least cared enough to send bath salts and a foot-shaped ice pack. She felt completely isolated from the outside world, raising the stakes even higher on the value of the bulletin board in her life. She asked herself again, What can I post to create an epic thread?
She stared out the window for an answer and, just like that, one appeared.
It wasn’t the first time that Eliza took notice of what was going on in the house next door. Albeit for different reasons, she was sometimes as bored as housebound Jimmy Stewart in the movie Rear Window. And while she didn’t use binoculars, the new neighbors had yet to install window treatments. Between that and the angle of their houses, hers being slightly uphill from theirs, Eliza could see a whole lot from her desk window—specifically the comings and goings of a certain gentleman who was most definitely not Mr. Smith.