I Love My Husband's Girlfriends

Really, I do.  

TBG has been an avid cyclist for decades.  He had his custom measured titanium Hincapie frame in Marin, riding around Tiburon and Belvedere with colleagues who also happened to be on the US Postal Service's professional biking team, or neighbors who took him on unexpected 60 mile jaunts to Point Reyes and back, but mostly he rode by himself, feeling fast

Then an unreplaced sewer grate on a newly paved and very narrow and twisty road snagged his front tire, throwing him ass over tea kettle past the handlebars, cracking his helmet and his bending his bike in the process.  

37 stitches in the face and a warning from his superiors to go home and not come back anytime soon -  his Frankenstein look was scaring the new recruits - made it clear to him that his days of outdoor cycling were over.   

He had a gory tale to tell when asked why he was in spin class instead of out on the road.  He didn't have to worry about the weather.  He met Miss Nancy on the bikes and soon she and I were hiking every weekend.  He was happy, getting in the miles and not worrying about another fall.

We moved to Tucson and found a gym and changed our licenses and got library cards before our furniture arrived.  I found likeminded adults in the weight room and the yoga and Pilates classes.  He found The Girls.

He takes the same bike in the same corner near the door every time.  He arrives to class half an hour or more before it begins to warm up.  The same women sat around him, coming early to warm up and chat.  I figured this out when the same names kept coming up in our conversations.  

Lady One and Lady Two were telling me that.....  explaining that they shared a first name so he'd come to identify them by number..... and I didn't ask how he decided who came first.  

There have been joint replacements, not all of them going as well as they should have, but he and The Girls were there to cheer on the patients when they ventured back to the bikes.  The power of their friendship to inspire courageous performances made him happy.

Pictures of their grandbabies and travel adventures peppered his chatter when he came home.  When one was missing he was concerned, when there was joy to be found he came home elated.  When one died (suddenly, in her home, right after spin class) the sorrow hit him hard.

I began to wonder about these women.  

You know them from the gym... from yoga.... and it turns out he was right.  Our Yogi (also one of The Girls) began teaching classes outdoors at Tohono Chul and there they were.  Of course we knew one another, but, like so many gym friends, names were secondary to the connection.  Suddenly, I had a new group of acquaintances, but I still didn't know them all.

That changed when he came home befuddled.  There was a lot of whispering going on that did not include him.  The Girls were making lunch plans and not inviting him.  Was he somehow off putting?  He wasn't angry, he was confused.  

Finally, here was something I could fix.  I mentioned his quandary to My Yogi and she laughed out loud.  The whispering wasn't about him.  It was about another classmate whose company they wanted to avoid, despite the tenuous obligation they all felt toward her.  All of a sudden, my husband had lunch dates.

The Girls celebrate birthdays and holidays and they are always giving things to one another.  They recruited me to bring him to a surprise birthday party at one of those lunches.  While he did receive gifts, so did everyone at the table.  

When I asked if we should bring a dish to a dinner party, I don't speak that language... what did the text say? was his response.  It just had time or place, but these are his friendships and I decided that it was his responsibility to find out.  We went with a hostess gift; they laughed - a lot- when I explained why we were otherwise empty handed.

All of them were teachers - even at Prince.  They are witty and smart and interesting.  Other spouses were at that dinner party and they were pretty wonderful, too.  All of a sudden, my husband is providing a friend group.  That hasn't happened since we were in Chicago, and we left there in 1992.  

It's one of the more fabulous things that have happened since we moved to Tucson.  I love that TBG is in the middle of it.