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takes his penis in her hand, and leans down really close, carefully inspecting his balls.
    “They look just fine,” she tells him.
    The man snatches the oxygen mask off his face. “Good to know, but could you please tell me,
are my test results back
?”
    Polly laughed. It would be such fun telling Hugh—
    The red light was blinking on her answering machine—while she’d been in the shower, someone had left a message.
    She collapsed on the side of the bed, just staring at the machine. She knew it would be Hugh, canceling. And she knew she’d be so frustrated, she’d go downstairs and eat both steaks plus the pint of ice cream in the freezer.

5
    S hirley knew she was a nitwit, as far as men were concerned. She didn’t need her Hot Flash friends to point it out to her. She’d been married and divorced three times. She’d had lots and lots of lovers.
    Which was not to say she’d had lots of
love.
    Although she
had
had lots of fun.
    Not to mention, she admitted to herself wryly, quite a bit of heartache.
    Part of her problem, she was well aware, was that she couldn’t help falling for handsome, younger men.
    Now she stepped from the shower, dried herself in a fluffy towel, and rubbed generous dollops of perfumed lotion into her skin. Feet, legs, torso, arms, neck, hands. Really, for a woman in her early sixties, she had a great body. Over the years she’d done zillions of stupid things, but one thing she’d done right was to practice yoga and keep her body supple and slender. Marilyn was slender, too, but she had terrible posture from slumping over textbooks and test tubes or whatever in her labs. Faye, Alice, and Polly, however, were just plain overweight, in spite of their diet and exercise programs. Not that Shirley ever mentioned it—they were all so touchy on that subject.
    But Faye, Alice, Polly, and Marilyn all had men in their lives. Men who loved them.
    Shirley was alone.
    Not that Shirley felt competitive. Well, okay, she
did
feel competitive. She loved her Hot Flash friends, she couldn’t live without them, they’d made all the difference in her life. Without them, she wouldn’t have The Haven, she wouldn’t have any kind of a future.
    But they were so
judgmental.
    They would tell her, she just knew they would, that the dress she slid over her head was too young for her. That it plunged too low in front, that the skirt was too short and her heels too high. As she made up her face, she could just
hear
them whispering affectionate,
subtle
suggestions:
Maybe not quite so much mascara, Shirley. Are you sure you want to wear such bright red lipstick?
    “Oh, shut up!” Shirley shouted at the empty room. “I’m going out with the bleeping accountant, aren’t I?”
    Last fall, when Shirley’s lover Justin—her twelve-years-younger, handsome, sexy, charming, knock-your-socks-off lover, Justin—had proved to be a user and a cad, Shirley had broken off with him. She’d been proud of herself, and her friends had rushed to comfort and encourage her. Which was all very nice, except Shirley really,
really
liked having a man in her life. At Christmas, after three months of agonizing celibacy, Shirley had whined to Alice, who was a great problem solver. She’d recommended Shirley try an online dating service.
    Shirley took Alice’s advice. At first, she was wildly optimistic. She tended to be optimistic, anyway, and she got so many hits, and spotted so many guys whose profiles looked wonderful, she’d thought the problem would be choosing from an embarrassment of riches.
    Not.
    First of all, very few men were interested in over-sixty females, especially, it seemed, the over-sixty males. The men who did make it past her three-step weed-out—e-mail conversation, phone conversation, Hot Flash Club approval—were all fine on paper but lacking in real life. Her first date, a divorced salesman, was in a contest with a friend to see how many women he could get into bed. Her second date, a garage mechanic, had