At a party last night there was a triangle of three divorced women. Too much makeup and cheap perfume, plunging, screaming,  cleavage and raw, slurred  emotion fueled by too many  pomtinis. They volley ex husband tales as though they want to win the brownie badge for ‘survival of the worst’ and hope to outdo one another. They are cursing like sailors and damning the men they once made their babies with, took oaths with and presumably loved deeply. They turn to me for an ugly contribution but my hand is already on the door to the outside world.  I won’t join this club, can’t make public and cheap that which is mine. Although my stories are not pretty,  even  badge winning in their dazzling splendor- I can’t do this. I see the faces of my children and the sweet  face of my marriage when it  was good.

This tribe is the same tribe that descends on the single male in the room like vultures. They  lick their sharp  beaks as they spot, with aerial precision, fresh meat to prey on. I step back and run for cover.

In the pit of my stomach is  that sick  feeling because   no one is remembering what it is to be good and discreet and hopeful. Somehow I am a member in this club- but I don’t belong.