Solo fright

Alone for the weekend! Is it time to sow those wild oats -- or warm up some oatmeal?

Out There by Clea Simon

He's leaving. What will I do? How will I fill the lonely nights? Where will I find the companionship to compensate for his almost constant presence (well, at least after work and on weekends) since we became a couple?

He's leaving, and I am, in short, bereft. And it's only for two days.

You see, despite my panic, my significant other isn't abandoning me or taking off with another. He's going to a conference. A business trip that threatens to be as exciting as lint. But he is going without me, and that is all that matters. My great fear is not that he'll cheat on me or somehow run wild (in Binghamton, New York? Be real), but that for the first time since we've gotten seriously involved I have to face unstructured time alone. And I am not sure what to do with it.

Not that I haven't fantasized about this moment. About having my own little safe time to run amok, knowing full well that it's bordered by well-established-relationship time and thus cozily contained. I mean, I love him and all -- but there are limits to what I've been willing to share.

Food, for example. Or at least the kind of gummy-sweet, goopy junk food that no man over age eight can really understand. And so, yes, I have envisioned kissing my boyfriend (who is older than eight) good-bye at Logan and hitting the market on the way home to load up on every food I've ever denied myself in his presence. I could dine on Mallomars and Goobers -- let the Chips Ahoy fall where they may! I have fantasized about heating up one of those oh-so-comforting envelopes of ready-made cheese fondue and sharing an entire baguette with the cat, dripping the salty, gooey stuff down our chins and onto our chests. I think about drinking wine coolers like a lord. (A rather effete and sweet-toothed lord, that is.) Or, wait -- milk directly from the container! And then letting myself belch loudly before leaving said container, still opened and dripping, on the counter. In this dream scenario, my cat and I are lords of misrule. Sybarites. Shameless devourers of whatever gives us pleasure.

But who would clean up the mess, destroy the evidence, and vacuum the crumbs? Not to mention dispose of the five pounds that would undoubtedly follow, expanding my hips like the very stain of sin?

No, better to follow a different fantasy, one that I've also been promising myself ever since love and security -- and then cohabitation and meals with the opposite sex -- took my diet out for a very long ride. These two days, I promise myself, could give me a chance to get back on track, to purge (or at least slim down) the way I used to in my single days, when I was so very hungry in so many ways. I could style this break a mini-spa vacation, establishing my own Canyon Ranch in Central Square, with meals of steamed vegetables and herbal tea to dull the hunger pangs.

Dinner, I start planning furiously (how many calories per scribble?), will start with a quart of water and three pickles. Straight. To be followed by one cup French-cut string beans -- with two tablespoons of fat-free tomato sauce. It will taste just like pasta, I tell myself. Only greener.

How much weight can I lose in two days? And if I spend two hours each evening on the StairMaster? I take out my calculator and find the results, frankly, disappointing. I cross the butter flavoring off my shopping list and try again. The string beans will have no sauce, and I can probably work in another half-hour at the gym. No, I read in the glowing numbers. It is not enough. Nothing is enough.

That's it! I will eat nothing while my boyfriend is gone. I will fast and sweat and meditate to court the concavity of cheek and pelvis that makes an American woman beautiful. For two days, nothing will pass my lips except my own tongue -- extended chinward, in that neck exercise guaranteed (say the magazines) to prevent wattles. I will be a veritable lioness roaring, my tongue stretching downward, my eyes open and popping wide for maximum tension. I will be able to do this daily. Even hourly, and without the fear of scaring my mate silly, or worse. For two days, I will exercise and I will not eat.

But I will drink. Now that's what I've been missing. Evenings spent carousing with my girlfriends, listening to bands and making ourselves the talk of the after-parties. Late nights that fade as we find our way home after dancing on the bars of tiny dives where the owners would almost lose patience, were it not for the thrall we held them in. Long morning coffees that start in the p.m., reminiscing over the hearts -- and glassware -- we've broken.

Yes, this is how I want to spend my two days of freedom. It's time to break out the black mascara and kitten-heeled boots. Time to drop my workaday persona and become ravishing once more. Not that I want to pick anyone up, mind you: I'm too happy a girlfriend for that. But I sense an opportunity to reclaim my power as the queen of the night. A svelte, taut-necked queen of the night. Oh, how we used to laugh and drive men mad! Granted, the details were always a little fuzzy. But the basic aura of that era remains, and so I begin planning -- a two-night spree with my mates. We'll start at Bunratty's, and maybe hit Swifts and Jumpin' Jack Flash, but we'll definitely end up at the Rat . . .

Okay, that dream scenario needs some updating. But at least where we'll be going I'll be able to trade my remembered Rolling Rock in for a Cosmopolitan. I mentally lay out my wardrobe (where are those studded leather wristbands?) and wonder what I can do with my hair and a super-size Aqua Net. This girl is ready to rock: all she needs is her posse.

Ah, but there's a glitch. Leslie, hellraiser of bygone years, finally got through school and now seems to be an attorney. An always busy attorney. Juli lives in Manhattan now, where she has a real job, and even Kris has succumbed to the kind of domesticity that took me off the circuit. She did call me the last time her boyfriend was working late -- but all I could think of then was that it was a school night. I had two deadlines and a big, stupid meeting coming up, and the truth was, I was exhausted. So I told her no, even going out for Chinese should probably be shelved until the weekend. And that was three months ago.

So maybe it's time for that call, for dinner and gossip and, if not clubbing, then at least chow fun. Of course, that probably has more calories than my beloved Mallomars. And I should be using those hours to get started on that report. Not to mention my exercise plan.

But maybe this is my weekend not to worry about these things. I've got the boyfriend, got the security I craved throughout the long years alone. So maybe, for one weekend, I really should enjoy being single again, any way I like it.

Clea Simon is a freelance writer living in Cambridge.