Just Call Me Susan

Recently I went out with three friends for shopping, drinks and more shopping. As we sat at around a table at a stylish Mexican restaurant sipping pomegranate margaritas one of my friends pointed out that we were having a Sex-And-The-City afternoon.

I had to think about that for a moment. I’ve had Sex-And-The-City afternoons (and evenings) before, frequently with my friend Mika, the fashionista who runs Fashionbliss.com. But while Mika’s life continues to be filled with fashion shows and hip parties my life has changed quite a bit. I can visit her in her Sex-And-The-City world but that’s not where I live anymore. I belong to the Desperate Housewives generation. Here in my metaphorical Wisteria Lane I watch my suburban friends and neighbors struggle with their overly strong attachments to alcohol and Paxil, difficult children, wayward husbands and turbulent romances with men who may or may not be what they seem. Every few days my neighborhood friends and I get together, gossip, snark or, as is often the case, pull a Bree which is to say we put on a brave face and pretend that everything is hunky-dory.

Of course there are as many successes to celebrate as there are crises worthy of panic and unlike the characters of Desperate Housewives, it’s fairly rare that any one of us gets embroiled in a murder mystery (that isn’t in one of my books). But still, the similarities are there. Among my friends there is a woman with a very low tolerance for bullshit. She walked away from a successful career in favor of rearing her wonderful but challenging children. Recently she successfully beat breast cancer. Her husband’s a good guy but it’s clear she’s the head of the family. Can we say Lynette? In this same social network is the high fashion woman who kicked her husband to the curb only to take him back in during his hour of need because, when push comes to shove, she really does love him. Then there’s my perfect homemaker friend; mother of three and very religious. Now she has managed to turn her domestic skills into a successful home-based career. By the time I met these women the “friend” who was after everybody’s husband had already been ostracized but I’ve certainly heard enough about her. And then there’s me. I don’t write children’s books like Susan but I do write books and I’m a huge klutz and I don’t cook (at least not well). Susan and I are also both divorced to occasionally unscrupulous men who are rarely around.

Odd that Sex And The City is billed as a somewhat realistic (albeit, highly glamorized) look at what it’s like to be a thirty-something, metropolitan woman dating in today’s confused social climate while Desperate Housewives doesn’t even try for realism. Each character is highly stylized and some of the scenarios seem absolutely preposterous. Yet the majority of the situations that play out in Lynette and Susan’s house are much more familiar to me than anything I’ve ever seen Carrie Bradshaw involved in. Remember when Bree discovered that her first husband was seeing a prostitute who catered to his unusual tastes? I have a friend who has been through that one. And do you recall the episode when Carlos was thrown in jail for some white collar crime that involved his business? Hard to see that and not think about my ex-husband. I don’t know anyone who has had an affair with their teenage gardener but my ex-boyfriend hooked up with me after his wife cheated on him with Juan the horse trainer and let’s face it, that’s just as good if not better.

So do I miss my Sex And The City life? Well, I get a little jealous when I see Mika’s closets filled with shoes (actually they don’t all fit in the small room she converted into a closet so her boyfriend has put shelves in the garage to hold the excess) but then again I am gratified to know that my life is still worthy of a TV series and that it continues to involve the occasional pomegranate margarita. Somethings really shouldn’t change.

Kyra Davis
Bestselling Author of:
SEX, MURDER AND A DOUBLE LATTE,
PASSION, BETRAYAL AND KILLER HIGHLIGHTS,
OBSESSION, DECEIT AND REALLY DARK CHOCOLATE
and
SO MUCH FOR MY HAPPY ENDING