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turned back to the room to see Vincenzo sitting on my couch, arms spread across the back, smiling from ear to ear.
    That looked like an invitation if ever I’d seen one, and so I sat down next to him. Within moments we began making out. But where does “making out” end at this age when you’ve got your own pad and can no longer use your parents as an excuse to cut the evening short?
    On the other hand, what was I worried about? If I wanted to, I could have sex with him. I could do whatever I wanted. I was a grown woman. But I was really a freak. With little or no sexual experience other than with my husband, I was literally feeling my way through.
    I know it sounds weird, but my marriage to Peter had sheltered me from the mid-1970s through the mid-1990s. I was like Rip Van Winkle, sleeping right through the sexual revolution. I used to feel like a bore, always being part of an ol’ married couple when the whole “Me Generation” was sleeping around. A therapist once told us we were “too young to be in such an old relationship.” Well, it sounded good at the time, but actually nothing could have been farther from the truth. In reality, we were too old to be in such a young relationship. Both of us were emotionally immature, underdeveloped, and lacking insight.
    Well, as beautiful as Vincenzo was, I can’t say he was a very good kisser. I’m sorry, but for me the quality of the kiss means everything. Oy, it was all wrong. The mouth was too open, too much tongue, not enough lip. And then he started biting me! Can you believe that? Was this supposed to be sexy?
    “Vincenzo, quit biting me,” I said. “I wear very revealing clothes on The Nanny and I can’t be getting bite marks!” A few things began racing through my mind: His friends left him with-9377 Cancer Schmancer 2/28/02 4:18 PM Page 16
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    out a car. I really didn’t want to be doing this anymore, but what to do with him? Should I just sleep with him and get it over with?
    Or reject him, hurt his feelings, and then have to deal with him during that awkward waiting-for-the-taxi-to-arrive period?
    Is that crazy? I mean, what a baby, what a dope I was, actually considering sleeping with a man who promised to be a lousy lover just to avoid making him feel bad. There was my problem staring me right in the face: To what lengths would I go, how much was I willing to sacrifice, just to make others happy?
    Suddenly sanity took over and my inner voice said, You don’t want to go through with this? Don’t! And I heard myself saying,
    “This isn’t going to happen, you have to go.” Wow. I did it. And it took only forty years and a lotta therapy to get there. What was far more important to my growth than sleeping with Vincenzo was being able to tell him I wouldn’t.
    As the taxi arrived—thank God, in no time flat—I closed the door on Vincenzo, and felt like I’d turned a page in this chapter of my life.

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    the staining and cramping persisted, and it made me feel embarrassed and inadequate. If I truly was perimenopausal, as Doctor #1 suggested, that meant I was getting old. I hated that idea. Besides, didn’t most women start this stuff in their fifties? At what age did it start for my mom? I called her to find out.
    “Hello?”
    “Ma, tell me something, when did you begin to experience the first signs of menopause?” I asked, while inspecting my hands for liver spots.
    “Morty, turn off the teapot, the whistle’s blowing!” she screamed. “He don’t hear anymore, where was I?” she said as Oprah droned in the background.
    “Menopause, when did it start for you?” I repeated, wondering if my body was aging at some weirdly accelerated rate.
    “Why?” she asked.
    “I don’t know. The doctor’s thinking maybe that’s why I’m staining.”
    “A lot of women go through an early menopause. Do you get hot flashes?”

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