Scott C. Holstad has authored, edited & contributed to 75+ books & 800+ unique magazines/publications. His work has appeared in the Minnesota Review, Exquisite Corpse, Caffeine, Long Shot, Wisconsin Review, Pacific Review, Santa Clara Review, Palo Alto Review, Wormwood Review, Chiron Review, Southern Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Gangan Verlag, Sivullinen, Bouillabaisse, Kerouac Connection, The Beatnik Cowboy, Misfit, Synchronized Chaos, Horror Sleaze Trash, dadakuku, miniMAG, Bristol Noir & Blood+Honey. He holds degrees from the University of Tennessee, California State University Long Beach, UCLA, Queens University of Charlotte & the University of Michigan. He’s moved 40+ times & lives near Gettysburg PA.
Kelli’s Game
By Scott C. Holstad
Kelli received her first marriage proposal when she was 17 years old. Her response? “Ridiculous! I’m going to college.”
During college she received two more proposals – one from a too-young hot-blooded boyfriend and the other from a math tutor 10 years older than her.
One night, after many tequila shots with some friends, it occurred to her that this was becoming a pattern and that she could make a game out of it. A challenge. She loved challenges. How many proposals would she receive – and reject – before accepting any – if she did? She briefly wondered if she should tell her friends this idea but felt that was the tequila talking. If she dared utter something so “unusual,” she be met with the usual cries about OCD, abnormal psych and the dreaded “You just haven’t met the right person. I know this guy who’d be perfect for you. Let me give you his number.”
Shudder.
So, with this challenge decided on her own and unannounced, eventually she received a fourth proposal at the end of college from a longtime friend that kind of blindsided her, which was then followed by two more proposals in Vegas (irony) where she’d moved seeking a new life and career after finishing her degree at Georgetown.
Over the next few years and spanning moves to more states, three more proposals in cities like Phoenix, San Diego and Seattle as well as two MORE proposals while pursuing a couple of graduate degrees at Stanford and UCLA. That made nine proposals. One of those three people was even married! Persian. Wife and kids. Traditionalist. He offered to leave them if she’d agree. No thank you. Kelli wasn’t big on home wrecking and momentarily considered telling his wife before deciding to take off for the next destination.
After completing two graduate degrees and while working for a new, rapidly growing tech company, she received more proposals – one from her boss, another from a therapist Kelli was seeing for sessions after work, and a new type in one from her landlady. (Three more, so now 12.). Kelli secretly thought Anne was hot but didn’t think she was seriously into other women in terms of a relationship, though like many she’d experimented in college and remained intrigued. So though she found this a bit flattering, she was again caught unawares and quickly moved out to avoid any awkwardness between her and Anne.
There had always been reasons to refuse. Too young, too invested in school, very career-focused with soaring career ambitions, as well as major social climbing. All legit but also part of the game. She felt that honestly, she otherwise might have said yes to one or two otherwise. Sometimes she wondered if she’d made a mistake but then took stock of her accomplishments to that point and felt both satisfied and reassured.
She remembered each proposal, or at least informal question, and was tempted to compare them curiously as they were all somehow so unique from each other, but doing so would probably require the equivalent of a huge book’s worth of her brain being taken up with all of it but why, since those where all in the past and she was focused on the future…
Predictably, there’d always been pressure from family and friends, but she was an independent woman with a stubborn streak. Still, when not yet “settled” and approaching her 40s, the pressure amped up and she started pondering the game. Who was she trying to impress? No one even knew about it! Her family sure wouldn’t approve. They’d probably try to have her locked up! What was she accomplishing by continuing this? What was the point? Perhaps it was as simple as an addiction to challenges no matter what? OCD issues? Her therapist never seemed to help her with that one.
At 42, never the romantic type, she was unimpressed by a proposal described as a business proposition. From a man she’d barely known for a couple of months. She declined over an ancient bottle of Grand Marnier he’d opened for the occasion. That probably felt wasted too, given the outcome.
Now 13 proposals. Bad luck number. How did that compare to others who might indulge in this game? What was the record? She’d likely never find out.
It wasn’t long before Kelli started thinking to herself that maybe she didn’t want to be alone forever; she actually might want to entertain the next offer to come along. It wasn’t that a few of the previous ones wouldn’t have been good. Some probably would have been very good, but she was too caught up in her whirlwind life and this secret challenge to realize it. And now? Most people she knew were married, had moved, or were dead or dying. She was approaching 50 and a few of those asking for her hand had been a decade older. Now prospective pickings seemed much slimmer and boasted a slightly grim flavor at times.
Kelli decided to move back across the country to Charlotte, America’s home of the banking industry, an industry that fell within Kelli’s experience, strengths and contacts. With her credentials, she accepted a great offer for a senior director position with a major national bank. Now that she was getting serious and living amidst a bigger pool of people qualified by being at her level in life, she felt it shouldn’t be much longer. She had been getting tired of the game, although that was hard to admit. She had her pride after all, and she’d never been a quitter. Some said she seemed obsessive about her hatred of quitting, let alone losing.
She’d never lacked companionship in life. She was outgoing, diverse, charismatic, very attractive, too intelligent for most and she’d also retained the libido of an 18-year-old boy. She could out-screw anyone. And wanted to. She was in high demand, in other words, even if nothing permanent emerged.
But the cross-country move to Charlotte didn’t seem to be working out. She’d heard it was actually easier to get lost, ignored and forgotten in the big cities and she was finding that true for the first time. At 53, while she still seemed to have virtually all of her desirable attributes, for the first time she was finding it hard to meet people socially. It’s fun to bar hop when you’re 25, less so when 50. She wasn’t getting invited to the high society events she always had when in San Francisco and mixing with strange crowds in a new city turned out not to be the experience she’d expected. Where does one even find people? There were no more brick and mortar book or record stores, she abhorred church, found it easier to work out in her condo than in gyms now, wasn’t yet mixing in high society waters and the people in her office were definitely out.
She decided to take a nice vacation, long overdue for a lifetime workaholic. Europe, Caribbean, Indo-Pacific? Where? Maybe one of those massive cruises where she could have a nice time in many places as well as maybe meet some interesting possibilities, er people. If nothing else, find a cute cabin boy to get her laid.
At age 57 she took her first cruise. Appraising herself, she still looked good for her age. Only 10 pounds heavier than at 30, sexy larger breasts though with a natural sag now. Nicely styled chestnut hair showing no gray, no real health problems, dressed impeccably. Money, good taste. Still a catch, which made her feel pretty awesome. A bikini at this point would still draw appreciative eyes, no doubt.
Her first couple of days on the ship, she did some reflecting. She once had lots of friends, but over time, they’d disappeared. Three friends were still on their first marriages with their families. She never heard from them anymore. Jill was on her fourth marriage, Dona had cracked and killed herself, Thomas came out as gay and now he had a husband and child. Teri got convicted of insider trading and was doing time, undoubtedly now someone’s wife on the inside. Others had moved away, joined cults or became utterly reclusive. Kelli was almost 58 and on her own. Time to end the game?
Yet Kelli found that on a cruise designed to allow hundreds of people to meet, intermingle and get something going on, something was wrong. Most passengers fit into one of few categories: young families with small, annoying children or gay couples or old couples celebrating their 40th anniversaries. What the hell? Realizing this and the implications, she felt like cheering up and thought she could use a good screw from an energetic cabin boy. When one entered her cabin following her call requesting “assistance,” she met him wearing little and pointedly propositioned him, looking forward to the hot coupling that would soon take place.
He responded, “Sorry Ma’am, no. You’re older than my mother, not my thing. Besides, I like women more my age and a little firmer, like ripped so I’ll be going now.” With that, he turned and stalked out.
Disbelief! Humiliation. People always wanted to shag her, and she was fantastic in bed. Kinky! She’d never been rejected before but it was his words that cut the most. His description. Of her. How he viewed her. What an ass! How dare he!
Now the vacation felt ruined and it already had been a disappointment. Kelli decided to get off the ship at the next port, fly home, climb back on her workhorse and challenge herself to keep building the best damn financial company in the country while she earned some well-deserved headlines, if not a few major bonuses along with it.
She returned to work and the success wrought by her unmatched fury bore fruit. On her 61st birthday, the company announced in all the major press outlets that she’d been promoted to Global Chief Financial Officer, given a million new stock options and she was even credited as the driving force behind the corporation’s share price tripling over the past year. She’d actually even made the Fortune 400.
She should have been thrilled. The sacrifices, hard work and dedication had paid off. Except 63 years was on the horizon and she’d sickened of the game and there was no one to share the excitement of her success and nothing going on in the horizon. A life completely alone? Both in a companion and career? It was starting to appear that way.
Over the next couple of years, the only men (and occasional women) she met were at funerals. Not the ideal place to form relationships. Besides, black wasn’t her best color.
By now she’d spent her entire life working like she was Wonder Woman and although envied and admired by many, she now largely felt tired, drained and ready for retirement. After all, she was 65. She’d earned it.
She arranged everything with the company and though the board tried to retain her at a vastly inflated salary, she went on to retire with much fanfare and great career satisfaction.
After taking a few weeks attempting to adjust to what seemed like her new life now of emptiness devoid of her career, Kelli finally reached a level of self-awareness she’d never before experienced and it wasn’t merely adjusting to no longer having to get up at 4 AM every day.
That game, that challenge. It seemed that her game had stopped at 13 marriage proposals long ago. That cursed number! And had she won? She realized that, no, she hadn’t won – she’d fucking lost! She’d never “needed” a man, woman or any type of long-term serious companion let alone kids, yet now she would have welcomed close companionship in nearly any form but nearing 67, it wasn’t happening and she realized it likely would never happen. She started feeling tortured by a lifetime of regrets and obsessively went back over each proposal and the person behind it in her mind. She realized a few truly loved her and she could have easily seen herself make a happy life as a couple with them. But she’d never felt that need and besides, that idiotic challenge game! She let it take precedence over everything else. How stupid, or at least it seemed so now. Why? Simply, maybe she obsessively loved challenges and did anything to always win, yet in this case she realized perhaps she’d actually won and lost? And it was the loss, for the first time, that made her realize so much of her life now just felt like crap, just fraud. She hated herself then as she sat reflecting while on her full-length, unused Bauhaus-design sofa. She hadn’t bothered getting it ready for actual use, though she now seemed to notice for the first time that it was surrounded by five or six empty wine glasses. Had been enjoying a few bottles of some burgundies, worth enough to pay down the debt of some states. She’d gotten the collection by some spirited bidding at Christie’s.
[Hey, was that a damn stain?]
Finally, after much contemplation, she decided on a new course of action, one shared by many, she’d heard. She still enjoyed much about life and had things to do but at the same time, she wasn’t eager to hit age 70 alone. And she didn’t. At the shelter, she found an adorable tabby kitten who just called out to her. She found herself pleasantly lost in his huge feline eyes. When they got home, she named him Twinkles and held him for an hour, listening to the tiny creature purr. She realized she’d finally ended up as one of those crazy cat ladies and at age 70, she couldn’t have been happier.
The Galway Review 