She took down her hair, played with her elastic. Now she was lovely, and excited by him. And she fell in love with him, or loved him a little bit just at that moment. It had never occurred to her that she might actually meet a rich man who could take care of her. She could suddenly see the future with him so clearly.
There were trips to be taken (India! She hadn’t even considered India. It was enough that she had made it to Seattle), and she wouldn’t have to work those weekend shifts for extra cash; he could help with little things probably.
She found his plain looks problematic, though (He was to become handsome only as an older man: his soft jaw would harden significantly with determination, and the wisdom he was already striving to achieve would eventually imbue his eyes with an irresistibility), and envisioned how a decent haircut and a little bit of stubble could change everything about him. They could move in together, and she could get out of that basement and into his apartment, which she was certain was spacious and lovely. (In fact, she was wrong. He was a simple man who hated to be wasteful. He lived in a small studio with big windows and a lofted bed, downtown near the water. There wasn’t really room for another person. It was a deliberate move.) Sarah Lee was smitten.
Melanie and Doug were slow-dancing on the grass. He was humming to her. He dipped her.
Sarah thought: And she and Danny could dance, too. Did he like to go dancing? Did she like to dance? That’s what people in love do.
DANNY SAW HER love, but he’d seen it all before, even though he hadn’t been a millionaire that long. At first he was coy about his success when meeting new people (“I’m taking time off from work right now,” he would say when they would ask him what he was doing. Or, wryly, “I’m unemployed.”), but the truth would eventually tumble out of his mouth as if he were a kid excitedly reporting an A on a spelling test over dinner—“I sold my company and now I’m free.” Sometimes it would spill out because he wanted to share his excitement, and other times he knew it was the only way a girl would pay him any attention.
Either way he hated himself when he did it for attention, but he couldn’t help it. He had earned those bragging rights. He had given up most of his senior year of college (There was a girl, then, a nice one who was as smart as he was, but she didn’t have a killer idea like he did, so she couldn’t understand when he began to prioritize in a way she found unempowering to her and her needs. I’m never dating a psych major again, he had yelled at her, and then found out he had effectively terminated his one opportunity to get laid for the year) to start his company and had turned to speed the last six months before he sold the company, burning himself out, staying up late, all to finish one perfect software application. At the end he was cold, his emotions were like aluminum foil, jagged and shielding him from change, and on the night he met Sarah Lee, he was only starting to return to his former self. Only that self was gone; he would never be the same, now that he was a millionaire.
So when he looked at Sarah Lee, all he saw was a girl with pretty hair and a nice rack, but she had those freakish ears and a sudden greed in her eyes, and that in turn made her seem very, very dull to Danny West. He kept scanning, categorizing, identifying. This is not the woman who is going to help me figure my shit out, he thought. She probably doesn’t even know who she is. And then: Maybe she’d be a good lay. His eyes dropped to her breasts again. Maybe. That kind of thinking never went anywhere for Danny, but it was part of the assessment. Everyone needed to be assessed.
SARAH WAS TRYING to think of ways to make the millionaire love her. She could offer him comfort, stroke his arm, or let him put his head in her lap. Maybe she should ask him to dance. Maybe she should make him laugh.
She should say the most ridiculous thing in the world that she could think of at that moment, like: “I want to make you pie.” Or: “I like cows better than any other animal because they always seem so happy to be exactly where they are.” Or: “I love you, my millionaire.”
Oh my god, Mom, I married a millionaire. We went to Las Vegas this weekend and he bought me a big ring and we got married in one of those little chapels and then we slept in the fanciest room I’ve ever seen because he is a millionaire and can afford whatever he wants. He says I can be an illustrator if I want or not. I don’t need to do anything but be his wife. And guess where we’re going on our honeymoon? India!