poured herself a shot and downed it as if she were trying to wash out the taste of Fred, then poured herself another and raised it in a toast to her success tonight—to her and Ryan—before downing that one, too.
Three more steps toward her living room, and she paused in front of a print of one of her favorite paintings, Lovers Over the City by Marc Chagall. The picture was cheerful, colorful. In the foreground a round table with a meal set on a red-checked tablecloth. In the background, a romantic hilltop city with distinctive tiled orange roofs. And in the upper left-hand corner the lovers, colored passionate red, facing each other improbably astride a huge bird.
The symbolism and the message were probably deeper than anything she could get. She just liked the picture. She liked to imagine the bird’s immense wings beating, carrying the lovers in effortless flight. She liked the woman’s hand on her lover’s chest, his suggestively touching her hips.
Was he flying her to the hilltop city, away from their meal? Or whisking her away from the city and to the private bliss of a lovers’ picnic? Or bringing her the world on some global journey, and this was just a snapshot of their travels? She didn’t know. She didn’t even know why the picture called to her so strongly.
She’d seen it the first time on a school trip to the library. Mrs. Chandler, who’d ended up as Christine’s mentor and had encouraged her in a way her parents wouldn’t have known how to do, had shown it to the class. The kids had laughed at the big bird and the red people. Christine had laughed, too, but that night she’d dreamed for the first time of flying away from the too-small, too-crowded house, out of Charsville and out of Georgia forever.
The print was the first thing she’d bought when she got her first paycheck in New York, even though she had no room for luxury purchases. But here she was, out of Charsville and out of Georgia, and if luck kept going her way and Ryan fell in love with her, the forever part would come true, too.
She touched the couple lovingly, imagining Ryan’s hands at her hips, hers at his magnificent chest. He was everything she’d ever wanted. If they worked out, she’d have security, respectability, a stable family life, children who’d have enough to eat every day of the year and double on holidays, who’d own whatever kind of sneakers and dresses and toys they wanted—within reasonable limits, of course. More than that, she’d have Ryan.
Christine had overcome a lot of challenges in her life. Been the first in her family to attend college and graduate, the first to leave Georgia, the first to tackle a big city. But now at twenty-seven, she’d be the last in the family to get married, the last to have those children her brothers and sisters had been popping out for years.
Ryan was among the toughest challenges she’d ever faced. But that was fine; she still had time to win him over. Anyone as amazing as Ryan Masterson was plenty worth waiting for.
And, unless Christine was letting her fantasy run too far away with her, if the look in Ryan’s eyes this evening had been anything to go by, she wouldn’t have to wait much longer.
2
“THE SINS OF WOMEN are many.” Jenny Hartmann raised her voice. “Repeat after me, ‘Jenny, I have sinned.’”
The ninety-nine percent female crowd at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Milwaukee boomed out a delighted response. “Jenny, I have sinned.”
“I have sinned the sin of making myself too available to men. I have kept weekend evenings open in case they want to see me, I have stayed off the phone in case it rings—” she waited a beat “—even if I have call-waiting.”
Laughter from the crowd.
“Yes, Jenny, I have!” shouted a voice.
“Confession. One of our sisters has made a confession here.” She raised her hand in the general direction of the voice. “Forgiveness is yours! Next time go out and have your own fun, girlfriend. Live your life as if it’s your only chance, because ‘men’ is not the answer to the question, ‘Who are we?’ ‘Men’ is not the answer to the question, ‘What do we need?’ and ‘men’ is not the answer to the question, ‘Who can we become?’”
The crowd cheered. Pumped to the max, Jenny strutted stage left in sky-high-heeled pink sandals, clutching the mike she’d yanked from its stand ten seconds after she started speaking.
It was glorious when her lectures went like this, when the crowd was with her, when her adrenaline was at its helpful best instead of its crippling worst.
‘“Jenny, I have sinned.’ Say it.” She waited until they were done, wiping sweat off her forehead with a pink and black sequin-bordered handkerchief that matched her cami lace top. “I have sinned the sin of changing my plans, changing my hair, changing my body, changing my life to suit my man or the man I want or the man I imagine I’ll meet someday. Say it with me, ladies, one more time, ‘I have sinned.’”
The crowd chanted enthusiastically, “I. Have. Sinned.”
“I have sinned the sin of putting up with questionable sexual technique and I have not said what I wanted instead. I have faked orgasms to avoid teaching my man about what my body needs.”
Nervous laughter and a shout, “You go, Jenny.”
“I have sinned that most vile and evil of all sins—basing my self-worth on whether I have a man to call boyfriend or lover or husband. I have sinned by feeling attractive only when a man finds me attractive, feeling witty and charming and sexual and worthwhile as a member of the female race only when a man finds me so.”
Roars from the crowd and applause. Jenny laughed, breathless, striking a strong-legged raised-arm pose, while tears came to her eyes. It was so good to reach out to women like this and have them reach right back. “Well, I’ll tell you, ladies. I will tell you…”
She waited. The crowd went quiet except for occasional shouts of encouragement.
“It’s time to ask yourself…. What…? What…?” She held the microphone up high and gestured to the crowd to continue.
“What have I done for me lately?” The words were a blast that rocked the huge auditorium.
“Oh yeah!” She applauded for them. “I hear you, you know it! What have you done for yourselves lately? When was the last time you arranged to learn about something new that interested you? When was the last time you traveled somewhere you’d always wanted to go even if he didn’t? Or stopped somewhere for dinner on the spur of the moment because you deserved not to cook that night? Bought something you didn’t need but always wanted? Told your man you were going to take a spa day every other weekend just because you felt like it? Add up those golf days and football days and see if you didn’t earn at least that much. More importantly, when was the last time you stood up for yourself when it was easier and more convenient to sacrifice your rights or needs or desires to someone else’s?
“It’s time to assign our self-worth back to ourselves, where it belongs. It’s time to get angry. Not at men. At ourselves. At the way we’ve allowed them to run our relationships and our lives. We have the strength. We have plenty of power. It’s time to use it.”
The end of her sentence was barely audible over the wave of exalted sound.
“Now, ladies, answer me this. Do we love men?”
“Yes,” the crowd boomed.
“Hell, yes. Do we need men?”
“No.”
“Hell, no—do we want men?”
“Yes!”
“Mmm, you bet we do.” She did a brief bump and grind that made hoots fill the theater. “God made those glorious naughty male parts for us and only us, and we are proud and happy to make use of them, aren’t we, girls?”
If she thought the roars had been overwhelming before, they were extraordinary now, revved up with laughter and fresh applause. “We do so for our own