All You Could Ask For A Novel

KATHERINE

I WOULDN’T SAY I’M looking for a man.

I wouldn’t let you say I am, either. It aggravates me to no end to answer questions about the lack of men—or a man—in my life. It isn’t as though my world is incomplete because I do not share it with a man, nor do I feel a husband would validate anything about me. I am a smart, successful, single woman and I am wholly unapologetic about that. I don’t need to explain myself to the men I compete with professionally, nor to the happy wives I encounter regularly—those bejeweled and be-Birkined grown-up sorority girls who compete with each other over matters like which summer camps their children attend. And I certainly don’t need to explain myself to my mother, who is in no position to lecture anyone on the subject of marriage. The truth is, I have everything I need in life and what I do not have I am more than capable of supplying myself.

Which is not to suggest it wouldn’t be nice to have someone to share it with. Of course it would. It would be lovely to be checking my watch late in the business day, smiling wickedly because tonight is my birthday and I know he has something devilish cooked up for me. It would be heavenly to come home to a dimly lit room, an open bottle and two glasses sparkling on the table, Billie Holiday singing in the background. Those would be delightful. Frankly, it would just be nice to have someone ask me how my day was and actually care about the answer. The only people who ever ask me about my day work for me.

But that’s it.

What I do not accept is the antiquated notion that somehow I am less of a woman—or less of a person—because I do not have a man in my life. It is not as though I have never been with a man. I have been with more than my share, both before and after Phillip, and aside from the time I Maced one who wanted to marry me there have been very few catastrophes.

That came during the era I refer to as BP (Before Phillip). I was quite a different girl then, not only because I was so young but because I had the common girlish belief that men came in an endless supply. I may not have been the prettiest girl but I did all right—I always have; I’ve always known just the ways to hide the worst and accentuate the best, just where to wrap a sweater, or drape a scarf, or toss a ponytail. I knew how to be coy, how to be flirtatious without betraying the air of standoffishness any girl worth her salt can carry. I could carry that air with the very best of them, even the very prettiest, and I was always very bright, which in the time of BP was generally received by boys as an attractive quality. (I have found that the older men get the less interested they are in your intellect, which years ago I assumed would be the reverse. It seems to me the more confident a man becomes in himself the more he should welcome the challenge of an intelligent woman. Some part of that assumption is obviously flawed. Maybe it’s the part about men becoming more confident as they grow older. I’m not sure. )

Anyway, I had my share of boys tell me they liked me in high school, and then in college I had one tell me he loved me. That was Christian, the boy I Maced. I do regret that; not that I wish I’d married him, but the poor guy didn’t deserve to be temporarily blinded. All he ever did was love and deflower me and I was a willing participant in both of those, even if I didn’t ever really consider marrying him. I told him I did, though, perhaps because I was eighteen, and when you’re eighteen and someone is talking about forever, you naturally assume they don’t really mean it, because next Thursday feels like an eternity from now.

I met Christian at a fraternity party, wearing a baseball cap backward and holding a plastic cup spilling over with stale beer. (I should be clear: he was wearing the ball cap and holding the beer. I was wearing a pale blue sweater set and holding a Coach bag.) He was handsome and huge, a lovable lug in a football player’s body, only he didn’t play football; he didn’t play much of anything when he didn’t have to. He was raised by an alpha-male father, who only wanted his boy to be a jock and never appreciated his genius. Christian hid his intelligence the way you might cover a scar on your face; he caked makeup over it in the form of drunken tomfoolery, varsity wrestling, and overall goofiness. But every now and again, the makeup would smudge and the scar would show beneath it. Truthfully, he had a head for numbers unlike any I have encountered even to this day on Wall Street. He was also the top wrestler of his year in the Ivy League despite the fact he never trained and rarely practiced. He had such natural ability he coasted on it; I will always believe he could have been an Olympian had he set his mind to it.

He was attracted to me immediately, I think because I was precisely the sort of girl of whom his father and meathead friends would disapprove. I didn’t drink to excess, I didn’t use the word “party” as a verb, and I didn’t wear jeans so tight I had to lie down to zip them up. We dated casually for a time, beginning in my freshman year (he was two years ahead of me), and then became more serious. He was my first lover and he knew that, and he was very tender and kind the first time, grinning clumsily through the whole thing and constantly asking if I was all right. I cared deeply for him but was certainly not in love with him, though I told him I was when he professed his love to me, mostly because he took to saying it all the time and it would have been rude and uncomfortable not to respond in kind. I never imagined I would break his heart. I always envisioned us parting tearfully after his graduation and then remembering each other fondly, perhaps meeting by chance ten years later and shacking up for a weekend if neither of us was married.

The day before he graduated, I had final exams to finish and was thinking of him already in the past tense. I lived in an apartment off-campus by myself, and unbeknown to me, Christian befriended my superintendent and persuaded him to unlock my apartment while I was out taking my last exam (Twentieth-century American Literature; we read The Great Gatsby). I came home relieved and ready to spend one final night with my boyfriend. The last thing I was expecting was to find anyone in the apartment, even if that someone was kneeling just inside the door, holding a ring in one hand and a bouquet of roses in the other. All I recognized when I pushed open the door was a person where a person ought not to be, and instinctively I reached for my bottle of Mace. I think Christian was either professing his eternal love or he was on the verge of doing so; either way, he wasn’t focused enough on what I was doing to avoid the spray aimed directly into his eyes. It was around the moment he hit the ground, his howl of pain still echoing, that I realized who he was and what he was trying to do. Needless to say, it wasn’t the neatest of breakups. His eyes were bright red from the Mace before I turned down his proposal of marriage, but to this day I’ve never been quite certain where in his eyes the crying ended and the Mace began.

So that was the boy who wanted to marry me. There have been any number of others who came later, after Phillip, when I was no longer quite so certain of my footing, and I suppose I’d have to admit I’ve occasionally allowed myself to occupy a place in relationships that I’m not so proud of. Let me give you a few examples and you tell me if these sound like a woman whose self-esteem is in the right place.

There was Alan, who dumped me in couples therapy. Somehow, it hadn’t occurred to me that being in couples therapy before we were even engaged should have been a sign.

Henry was adorable. I once cooked dinner for him and he arrived, broke up with me, and then asked if he could still stay for dinner and perhaps watch a bit of television until the traffic died away, and I let him.

Jack was even worse. I tried to end it with him one evening while we were out for dinner. Tearfully, he talked me out of it. Then we went home and had sex, and then he told me I was probably right and we should break up.

But none of them hurt the way Phillip hurt. Hell, all of them put together didn’t hurt the way he did. And to have to see him now, as I do every day, is sometimes more than I think I can bear. I suppose that’s why I start every morning with the words “f*ck him.” I assume healthy, well-adjusted people have a more optimistic way of greeting the new day.

Perhaps tonight will be different. Perhaps this will be better. Perhaps this fellow Marie has arranged for me to meet will be unlike the others. Perhaps we’ll have great chemistry and he’ll be funny and smart and handsome, though that’s the least of it for me so long as he’s not repugnant. If I can tolerate the sight and scent of him (if he smells, it’s over) he doesn’t have to look like Pierce Brosnan. In fact, I think I’d prefer he did not. If he looked like Pierce Brosnan, I would spend every moment we were in public acutely aware of everyone wondering why this guy who looks like Pierce Brosnan isn’t with a woman who looks like Sandra Bullock. I would be wondering myself. There is such a thing as being too good-looking, as far as I’m concerned. You can’t be too rich but you can be too handsome.

Maybe this one will look more like Matthew Broderick (so funny) or Denis Leary (so manly) or Stephen Colbert (I know I am not the only one who is attracted to him). And he’ll be sweet and smart, and appreciate how hard I work, and maybe he’ll love old movies and Italian food, and he’ll drink dry vodka martinis and wear elegant suits and just a hint of facial hair, not a beard or anything, maybe just long sideburns or a neatly trimmed goatee. Maybe he’ll be hugely successful and we’ll be a power couple, and he’ll send me naughty texts during a break between meetings in Hong Kong, telling me all the fun things he’s going to do with me when he comes home.

Maybe the start of a new decade will really be a new beginning for me. Maybe forty will be my new thirty, or better yet the thirty I missed out on because I was moping over Phillip. Maybe this night will be one I always remember, a night that changes my life. Those were the thoughts going through my mind, and really those are the worst possible thoughts to have, headed into a blind date. How much more pressure could you possibly place on someone you have never met than to expect him to change your entire life? Unrealistic, unproductive, unreasonable, and yet that’s where my head was all the while that José was blowing out my hair, and then while Anastasia was making me up, and then still as I selected from my wardrobe (Chanel lambskin blouse and fantasy fur pants, Christian Louboutin Madame Butterfly booties, Christian Dior Chantilly Lace coat). There was a tremble in my stomach when Maurice shut the door to the car, and as we began downtown, I poured myself a short glass of Chardonnay from a bottle I’d grabbed from the fridge upstairs. I caught a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror and raised the glass in a toast.

“Get a hold of yourself,” I said to my reflection. “He’s only a man and it’s only your birthday. There’ll be plenty more of both to come.”

I was finishing my second glass when we pulled up to the restaurant. My watch said it was four minutes past eight, which meant I had two minutes to kill. I have always believed in arriving six minutes early for a business meeting and six minutes late for a date. In both cases, I like the message it sends.

“You ready to go?” Maurice asked.

“Of course,” I said. “Why wouldn’t I be ready?”

“I dunno,” he said. “I just haven’t seen you like this in a while.”

“You mean this glamorous?” I asked grandly.

“I mean this nervous.”

I had hoped it wasn’t that obvious. “Don’t be ridiculous, I am not nervous.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Maurice,” I whined, “I’m serious. I am not.”

“Whatever you say, boss,” he said with a disapproving sniff. “You ready to get out?”

“Yes, I am,” I said, and downed the rest of the wine.

He came around quickly and opened my door. The air rushed in. It was a windy night, and I instinctively raised my hand to protect my hair. There was something exciting about the briskness of the air, the darkness of the evening falling across Manhattan.

“I’ll be here,” Maurice said as I stepped past.

I tapped him on the cheek. “Take the rest of the night off,” I said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“What are you talking about? How will you get home?”

“There are taxis, you know,” I said. “Perhaps you haven’t heard, Maurice, but not every person in New York has a driver.”

“Don’t do it, Katherine,” he said. “Don’t get cute on me.”

“What are you talking about?” I glanced at my watch. It was six minutes past eight o’clock, time to go in. “How am I getting cute?”

“You know what I’m talking about,” he said. “When I pick you up tomorrow morning you better not still be wearing this same outfit, if you know what I mean.”

I laughed. “Maurice, as of today I am officially an old lady. If I want to have tawdry, meaningless sex with a stranger, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.” I winked and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “Keep your fingers crossed. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Go get him,” Maurice said, and then he was back in the car, out of the wind.

I paused in front of the restaurant and took a deep, cleansing breath.

May I be filled with loving-kindness

May I be well

May I be peaceful and at ease

May I be happy

Then I pushed through the revolving door and before my eyes had even adjusted to the light I saw the blue suit making a beeline for me. My date smiled warmly as he approached, striding confidently through the crowd, extending his hand to shake mine.

“Oh my god,” I said softly. “You have got to be kidding me.”

BROOKE

“YOU HAVE GOT TO be kidding me!” I said, when Pamela said the telephone was for me.

I had left very specific instructions only to call in case of an emergency. Apparently, whatever I was about to be told rose to that level, at least in Pamela’s mind, and in that of Lourdes, my babysitter. I was so not ready to take that phone call. Not because I was afraid of what she might say. I was just so into what Pamela and I were doing.

All my life, I have associated sex with romance, with art, with gentleness and quiet. The musical accompaniment, in my mind, has always been classical: Mozart is sexy, Tchaikovsky is sexy. Beethoven is not. Beethoven wrote music to march to. Mozart wrote music to make love to. I even use those words all the time; Scott and I could sneak downstairs while the kids are watching television and do it with me bent over the washing machine and I would still describe it as making love. And that is all well and good, making love always has and always will have its place. But as of today, I realize it is not the only option. There is a rock-’n’-roll way of going about this as well. There is a Rolling Stones, AC/DC, Quiet Riot way of going about it. I didn’t actually have sex with anyone today, but while I was rocking out—fully naked—with Pamela snapping photos and shouting encouragement and offering the occasional shot of tequila, there is no doubt in my mind I had an orgasm. It was in my mind and in my spirit, but let me tell you, it was every bit as good as having one anywhere else.

Pamela felt it too. “I feel like we’re f*cking!” she shouted to me, over the whir of a blowing fan and Janis Joplin’s scratchy vocals.

The truth is, I never use that word. Not in that context, anyway. I use the F-word, occasionally, as an expletive. What the f*ck happened to my car keys? What a f*cking mess Megan’s room is. I really don’t give a f*ck how big her earrings are. Those are all perfectly acceptable usages. But just to say We’re f*cking? I would never, not in a million years. How graphic, vulgar. How ugly that sounds to me.

Or it did until today. Today was different. Today, when Pamela said it, and as I let it rattle around in my mind, it didn’t sound dirty anymore. It sounded sexy.

So that’s what I learned today, about sex and about myself. I learned that sex doesn’t have to be sweet and romantic. It doesn’t have to be about love, at least not all the time. Sex can be about power, and rock ’n’ roll. It can be about f*cking. Sometimes that’s okay.

Then my phone rang.

Again, I had given strict instructions to Lourdes not to call unless there was an emergency. Had the phone rung and her number appeared after three o’clock, I would have been concerned, but it was only noon when she called. The kids were still in school. Had anything happened to them, the school would be calling, not Lourdes.

“Answer this, please,” I said to Pamela, tossing her the phone. “Unless it’s a true emergency I don’t even want to know why she’s calling.”

Pamela answered the phone and I started to dance. I did not want to let the moment get away. I liked it here, in this sexy, boozy, rockin’ reality.

“Sweetie, I think you need to take this,” Pamela said, a funny look on her face.

I flopped down on the couch and crossed my arms over my chest. “You have got to be kidding me,” I said, pouting. Pamela tossed the phone over and it landed on my bare thigh. I picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Mrs. Brooke!” It was Lourdes and she was shouting. “I am in the emergency room!”

I sat up, suddenly sober despite a bellyful of Patrón.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I was cleaning and a Wiggles bobblehead fell off a shelf and I think it broke my toe!”

“Oh my gosh, which one?”

“I think it was Jeff!”

“No, I mean which toe?”

She was distracted then. I heard voices. Someone else was speaking to her.

“What’s that, Mrs. Brooke?” she asked.

“I said I want to know which toe is broken, not which Wiggle fell on it.”

Lourdes didn’t answer. She was distracted again. I heard the voices in the background.

“Lourdes,” I said, more loudly. “Are you all right?”

“Mrs. Brooke, they are calling me in to see the doctor,” she said. “I’m sorry but I won’t be able to pick the kids up at school!”

And then the line went dead. I could feel tears welling in my eyes as I looked up and found, to my surprise, that Pamela was crying too.

“You have to go, don’t you,” she said. She pulled a woolen blanket off an armchair and spread it over me, then plopped down beside me on the couch. “Damn, that was fun.”

I laughed a little. “Thank you,” I said, and kissed her on the cheek.

“Thank you,” she replied.

I sat up and shook my head. I needed to drive, to get my kids, to be myself again.

“Let me get your clothes,” Pamela said, and ran her fingers through my hair.

“Hey,” I said, “I just need one other thing.”

“What’s that, darling?”

I looked directly into her smiling eyes. “Do you have a cigarette for me?” I asked. “I quit years ago, but after this I definitely think I need one.”

SAMANTHA

“NO, THANK YOU,” I said, as Eduardo Marquez offered me a cigarette. “I don’t smoke.” We had just ordered dinner, and I couldn’t figure out if I was on a date here. Or if I wanted to be.

“Will it disturb you if I do?” he asked.

“Not at all,” I said, though it wasn’t really true. I never could stand the smell of smoke, not even from a fireplace. Some people find a roaring fire cozy in the wintertime, not me. I can’t stand the smell of the smoke in my clothes, in my hair. And as for cigarettes or cigars—nothing could be more repulsive. (Robert insisted I take a puff of his victory cigar the night of the election and it almost ruined my evening.) However, there was something debonair in the way Eduardo drew a cigarette from the case in his jacket pocket, and something of a flourish in the way he brandished his lighter. It was a cool lighter, stainless steel or perhaps silver, thick and solid-looking with a Spanish word I didn’t recognize engraved in the handle, perhaps a name. Whose name would he have engraved in his lighter? A wife? A girlfriend? Did he have either of those? Was I on a date?

“It is a habit I solemnly regret,” he said, “but one I will never leave behind.”

“How old were you when you started?”

“Nine years old,” he said, and laughed gently at the look of horror I’m sure was on my face. “Yes, it is horrible. But there wasn’t a boy who didn’t smoke when I was in school.”

“I grew up in Connecticut,” I said. “I remember some kids started smoking when we were about twelve or thirteen. Nine years old, that’s just crazy.”

“I never thought a thing of it until I came to live in the States. Last year I was in Madrid and I lit a cigarette for a pregnant woman in a restaurant. She was quite far along. After living in America for so long, I hesitated to do it.”

“I would hope so.”

“But I thought to myself that if I did not, surely she would find someone else who would. The cigarette was dangling from her lips. It would have been rude of me to pull it out, so I decided to light it for her instead.”

He dragged gently on the cigarette. His fingers were long and slender.

“It seems to me a shame that you have spent four weeks on the island now and seen nothing of it,” he said. “It is admirable to see how dedicated you have been in your training, and I have no doubt this has been fine therapy for the personal difficulties of which you informed me on the day you arrived, but I cannot imagine you don’t have some time to experience the sights and culture of the island.”

“Have I really been here four weeks?” It felt as though I had arrived yesterday, and perhaps dreamt the rest of it.

“As of tomorrow, yes.”

“It has flown by, really flown,” I said. “Our breakfasts have been a lovely part of that.”

Every morning since that first one, without fail, I have begun my day with a swim in the ocean. I am in the water by six o’clock and usually for more than an hour. Then I trudge up the beach and fall into a comfortable chair by the pool, where I inform a waiter (most days the same one with the pleasant smile from my first day) that I am ready for my tea and granola and ask him to please alert Señor Marquez that I am safe. This began my second morning on the property, when Eduardo told me it was strictly prohibited for me to be in the ocean so early, because there was no lifeguard on duty.

“Let me ask you this,” I said to him that day. “If you catch me doing it, what is the punishment?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I mean, I’m sure I can’t go to jail for swimming alone when no lifeguard is on duty. I couldn’t be arrested or anything. Could I be thrown out of the hotel?”

“That would be at the discretion of the general manager,” he said.

“Aren’t you the general manager?”

“Sí, señora.”

“So, Mr. Marquez, are you going to throw me out of the hotel if I go swimming by myself every morning?”

He hesitated. “Certainly not,” he said. “I do not condone it but I will allow it, on one strict condition.”

“What is that?”

“Every morning when you are finished, your first obligation is to see that I am informed immediately of your safe return.”

I stuck out my hand, and he shook it gently. “We have a deal,” I said.

And so, every morning I order my breakfast and I make sure Eduardo Marquez is aware of my return. And every morning, without fail, he has appeared a few minutes later and joined me, uninvited, for breakfast.

“It has been my pleasure every morning,” he said tonight, puffing contentedly on his cigarette, politely holding it as far from me as he could. “I look forward to it every day.”

“I do too,” I said.

And I realized, to my surprise, that I was thinking about what it would be like to be in bed with him. I wondered if he was thinking about it too. I couldn’t tell, which was strange. Was I just out of practice? It’s not as though I was married for thirty years, I was barely married for thirty hours. And I was only with Robert for a few months before that. It seems hard to believe, but a year ago at this time I was completely single, wholly unattached, being actively pursued by two or three men of varying significance. Surely a year ago I had no trouble detecting any man’s intentions, or his level of interest, or determining whether or not I was on a date.

“On second thought, I think I will have a glass of wine,” I said, having declined at the start of the evening. I’ve not had a sip of alcohol this whole month. My every second has been consumed with preparation, training, but all of a sudden a glass of wine sounded really good. “Something dry and crisp.”

“I know just the glass,” he said, raising his hand for the waiter.

Of course he did. He is one of those men. If you think about it, you can pretty much divide men into categories based upon what they drink and how much they know about it. There are beer guys, and we all know who they are: fun, fraternity guys with baseball caps on backward, meeting you for dinner after a softball game. There are whiskey guys, who take themselves very seriously and—whether they acknowledge it or not—are the most misogynistic of all the drinkers. Men who drink gin are very straitlaced, men who drink vodka are very deep, and men who drink champagne are usually very gay. And then there are men like Eduardo Marquez, who drink wine and know a great deal about it. I’ve never been with one of those before. I was raised by a scotch-drinker, married a beer-drinker, dated all of the others, including the champagne-drinker (yes, he was gay), but I’ve never spent any real time with a wine man.

Until tonight.

“Marco,” Eduardo said, “bring a bottle of the ’88 from the cellar beneath my office.”

“Oh,” I said, holding out my hand to stop him, “just a glass for me, please.”

“If that is all you want that is no problem,” he said, and sent the waiter off with a wave, “but if you are only going to try one bottle from our list, this is the choice.”

“I assume you don’t usually sell it by the glass,” I said.

“You assume correctly.”

I batted my eyes at him and smiled. My goodness, look at me, making eyes at a man ten years older than the man I married, who himself was too old for me. Strange, too, because there isn’t anything about Eduardo that would normally appeal to me. He isn’t athletic or headstrong, or arrogant. Maybe this was just about the moment, the island and the breeze and the sound of the ocean, or maybe my hormones were in overdrive from all the training, or maybe I was just a mess from all that has happened. Or maybe, just maybe, I was finally getting smarter. I have to believe that’s a possibility, too.

KATHERINE

I GUESS IT ISN’T true that we get smarter as we get older.

At least, it isn’t in my case.

After all, here I am, forty years old, and I am still stupid enough to imagine I can be fixed up by a little hottie in my office and have it turn out as anything other than horrific. And embarrassing. And insulting. And just plain sad.

I felt all of those emotions as I entered the restaurant and greeted, with my firmest handshake, the man I had been arranged to meet. His name was Ken Walker. He was tall, which was nice, and his suit was exquisite, power blue with a faint verdant pinstripe, and a silver tie and unmatched pocket square. His hair was silver, too, full and thick and neatly parted, as though he had just run a comb through it while waiting for me to arrive. His hands were strong and his palms callused but his nails clean—regular manicures probably—but the rough hands signaled golf or weightlifting. He seemed terrific, actually, in so many ways, there was really only one obvious problem, but it was a big one, especially on this of all nights.

Ken Walker had to be sixty years old.

At minimum.

With a little Botox, self-tanner, and the right trainer, he might actually be closer to seventy.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

The small-talk portion of the evening was a total blur. I couldn’t tell you now where he works, though I know he’s a lawyer, or where he grew up, though I know he moved to New York after college, or, for that matter, which college he attended. He told me he was divorced, which I already knew, and that he lived near the park, which I knew as well. He told me how fond he is of my assistant, Marie, and I noticed a paternal manner when he spoke of her, which infuriated me. For crying out loud, Marie is smoking hot with tits out-to-here, but this old bastard acts as though she is the daughter he never had.

I wasn’t really listening to Ken, in part because I was replaying in my mind the conversation I’d had with Marie that morning in my office. The one in which I allowed myself to be talked into this calamity, this date with Kirk Douglas. When she had described him to me, hadn’t she said: “He is about the right age”? I think she did. And that begs two questions. How old does she think this guy is? And, more disturbing, how old does she think I am?

What thoughts, I ask you, could possibly be more depressing than those?

BROOKE

WHAT, I ASK, COULD be more depressing than racing home from a nude rock ’n’ roll photo shoot to sober up in time for your kids to come home?

I have to admit I was feeling a little sorry for myself when I pulled my car out of Pamela’s driveway, with a raincoat draped over my shoulders and the seat belt strapped between my boobs. I don’t get too many chances to let loose, and when I do it’s usually so choreographed. For example, I might get invited to a particular event and think: “That’s a night when I’ll really party hard.” Or Scott might make arrangements for us to have a suite in a fancy hotel, and he’ll say: “That night, we’re going to act like we’re back in college.” And all that is well and good, and it’s fun, but the truth is that if we were in college we would do a lot less talking about it. I remember so many nights that began innocently at the library and ended with a cute boy I hardly knew feeling me up.

The point of it all is that I had no intention or expectation that this photo shoot would turn out to be such a tequila-drenched, rocking good time, and that contributed greatly to how much fun it was. And now, I thought, as I inched home slowly, because the idea of being pulled over drunk and practically nude scared me to death, it was over because of a Wiggles bobblehead doll.

The irony of that is, my husband and my kids make fun of me for keeping those around. We still have dozens of them, even though my children lost interest in the Wiggles years ago. But I keep toys from every stage of their lives. Every Christmas, the kids go through their old toys and pick out some to bring to the church, because it is important for them to understand how lucky they are, that not all kids have toys to play with at Christmas, much less too many toys. And then, whatever does not go to the church, I save.

I still have all the puzzles we used to sit on the floor and put together. I still have the stuffed animals Megan couldn’t dream of going to sleep without. I still have all the books I used to read to them in bed (Goodnight Moon, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Going to Bed Book). I would no sooner throw those away than I would old photos. They aren’t simple playthings, they are snapshots of moments in my life I will never have again, moments I never want to forget: my babies being babies, needing me for everything, wanting nothing more than to spend endless time with their mother.

So, just before I got underneath a long, hot shower to complete the task of sobering up so I could pick up the kids and take them to visit Lourdes and her toe in the hospital, I stopped to look at some of those books and toys. And, as I always do, I got a little teary. And then, as the shower spray brought me fully back to life, I started to laugh. And I stopped being sad about having to leave the photo shoot. Some things just matter more than others.

SAMANTHA

WHAT IN THE WORLD is wrong with me?

That’s what I was thinking as I allowed Eduardo to pour my third glass of wine.

Here I had been training nonstop, filling my body only with the purest fuel, the most natural and delicious and healthful foods in this tropical paradise: fresh fruits, vegetables, lean meats, gallons of water, steaming cups of organic green tea. But now this wine tasted so good, and felt so good going down, so warm in my chest and throat. And it mixed beautifully with the breeze and the saltwater smell of the ocean, and with the man who had known enough to select it and poured it for me so gracefully. There was something athletic in the deftness of Eduardo’s fingers, something very sensual in the care he took with the smallest of tasks. It reminded me of a cat, while Robert—and every other man I’ve been with—is so much more a dog, panting, eager, dopey, clumsy. I’ve always preferred dogs to cats, but now as I savored the wine on my tongue and felt the breeze in my hair, I found myself intrigued by the cat.

“It seems to me that women in this country apply so much pressure to themselves,” Eduardo was saying. He was sitting with his back straight and his tie perfectly knotted. “It is unfortunate. This country gives women freedoms they do not possess anywhere else in the world, at least nowhere that my travels have taken me, and yet instead of rejoicing in those freedoms it seems sometimes American women are strangling themselves with them.”

“In what way?” I asked, interested.

“In every way,” Eduardo said. “I see them here every single day. Beautiful American women on their honeymoons, on holidays, on family vacations. The women invariably seem to be enjoying themselves less than the men. The women are so concerned with their appearance, so concerned with their image, so competitive among themselves, at times I worry they are not enjoying themselves at all.”

“But you’re wrong,” I said. “I have been here for a month and all I have done is train, and I am having the most wonderful time.”

There was a mischievous twinkle in his eye. “Yes, but it seems to me your situation is a little bit different, is it not?”

“In what way?” I asked, even though I knew the answer. I was curious to hear how he would phrase it.

“Well, you are seeking to accomplish a very specific goal. In your triathlon, someone will be a winner, and all who finish will have achieved something special. The way I see these American women competing with each other and with themselves, there are no winners, there are only varying degrees of defeat. The expectations they place on themselves are unrealistic and, I believe, harmful. American women are more successful, accomplished, intelligent, and beautiful than the women of any other country, if only they themselves could figure that out.”

“Come on,” I said, “I’ve been to Spain, to Italy, to France, there is no way you can say that American women are more stylish and beautiful than European women.”

“I can say it, yes I can,” he replied, nodding slowly. “And I suppose I could also say that you just made my point for me.”

For the life of me I could not remember how we got onto the subject in the first place. What I found myself thinking was that underneath his suit Eduardo might not be so muscly, which might be a nice change of pace. Robert was so firm, his arms, his chest, his legs, and I have always thought I liked that; I’m an athletic woman, why wouldn’t I be attracted to athletic men? But something about this man seemed like it might be pleasing in a different way. Maybe he wouldn’t be quite so hard in all the places Robert was, maybe he wouldn’t be so hairy, either. Maybe he’d have smooth skin, like that of a woman, and it would be soft against mine. Maybe, too, he would make love the way he speaks, gently and elegantly, unlike Robert, whose lovemaking was volatile and loud. Robert made love like it was a competition, which for him I think it was. One time I thought I heard him counting, as though he was trying to kill two birds with one stone and combine our sex with a workout for his abs. Having sex with Robert was all about him; he initiated it, he dictated how we would do it, and when he finished, it was over. Maybe with Eduardo it would be, at least partly, about me.

To my surprise, I had butterflies as I watched him sign our bill with an elegant pen he took from his breast pocket. Then he sent the waiter away with a wave of his hand. Our dinner was finished, the bottle of wine empty in the center of the table.

“This was a pleasure,” he said, with a smile that seemed to glow in the light of the candle. “Thank you for spending such a lovely evening with me.”

“The pleasure was mine,” I said noncommittally. That was my plan, to be noncommittal. Whatever was going to happen was going to be instigated by him.

“May I assume you will be training in the early morning hours, as usual?” he asked.

“You may.”

He nodded and then glanced at his watch. “Then we should be getting you back to your room,” he said. “May I escort you?”

“You may,” I said.

And escort me he did, that was the perfect word. He stood and buttoned his sport coat, then extended his elbow and I took it, and he led me through the hotel like a bride down the aisle. Neither of us spoke as we waited for the elevator, or as the doors closed and then opened on my floor, nor on the entire walk down the long hallway to my room. Once there, he gently lowered his elbow and spun formally on his heel to face me.

“Once again, this evening has been my great pleasure,” he said. “I hope that we will have the chance to do it again before you leave the island.”

And he took my hand and squeezed it, firmly, between his two, and then he slowly raised it to his lips and kissed me ever-so-gently on the palm.

“Good night,” he said, with a shallow bow, and then he turned and made his way slowly back toward the elevator.

My breath caught in the back of my throat as I watched him the whole way. I did not move until I heard the bell ring, signifying the arrival of the elevator. And I listened as the doors opened and then shut again, and I stood in silence a long moment after that, waiting for footsteps that never came.

“My lord,” I said and sighed. “That was by far the best handshake I ever had.”

I fished my room key from my bag and pushed open the door. Once inside, I stopped in front of the full mirror. I looked terrific. My hair was windblown but it looked nice that way, especially with the dark tan I had developed. My arms looked especially good, thinner than at any time I could remember, and tight. I don’t think I ever looked better, or at least I don’t recall ever feeling better about the way I looked.

And then there was a gentle knock at the door and my heart jumped. There isn’t any question why he’d have returned. Nor was there any question that I wanted him to. It felt right. I turned very slowly and crossed the room, hesitated as I put my hand on the knob, but only for a moment, and then took a deep breath and pulled it open.

And just as quickly as it had settled, my breath froze in my chest. And my smile disappeared, and all of the warmth and softness and vibrancy and light drained from my body. I felt my eyes well up and I had to tighten my throat to keep the tears from overflowing, and I had no idea what I should do or what I should say or how I should feel. For the man I found in the hallway was the last man in the world I had expected. It wasn’t Eduardo Marquez at all.

It was Robert.

KATHERINE

“I MUST SAY, I have never been quite so surprised in my life.”

About half of my blind date with the senior citizen had passed before I began to pay any real attention to what he was saying. I was so taken aback by his age, and so devastated by what it implied, that appetizers and cocktails were merely a blur. Ken Walker was having a conversation with me, and at the same time I was having a conversation with me, and if at any time two people are talking to you and one of them is yourself, then that discussion is always going to win out. As a consequence, I couldn’t tell you nearly anything about the man or about what he had been telling me until around the time my second martini began to soak in.

I love martinis. I take vodka, always, extra dry, straight up with olives. I love olives. Hell, I love everything about a martini. I love the feel of the glass. I love when the icy coating on the stem begins to melt and leaves condensation on your fingers. A martini is like a naughty girl, all dressed up and clean but filled with secrets to tell when the moment is right.

For me, a martini can solve almost any problem, and whatever problem one cannot overcome can always be slain by a second one. The second martini of the night usually comes near the end for me, as I can hardly handle a third. But on this night, with Ken Walker blathering on about god knows what across the table, I was finishing my second drink before the entrées had been served.

“. . . And I’ve never been so surprised,” he was saying as I tuned back in, and I realized this was probably as interesting a moment to jump back in as I was going to get.

“I’m sorry, you’ve never been so surprised by what?” I asked.

“By his gayness, I suppose,” he said.

Well, that was quite a surprise. That’s also a tough one to dance around. I couldn’t think of any way to avoid asking whom he was talking about, so I did the next best thing.

“I’m sorry,” I said, folding my napkin, “would you excuse me a moment? I’m just going to run to the ladies’ room.”

He stood up as I did, which I must confess I liked. Those sorts of manners appeal to me, especially because I am usually so vigilant in guarding against them. Ninety percent of my interaction with men is professional, and like all professional women I am always protective of my equal footing. I don’t want a man to hold the door for me walking into a conference room, I don’t want him standing up if I do during a meeting, or greeting me with a kiss on the cheek if he’s going to shake hands with everybody else. I don’t want to be different when I’m working.

But out to dinner, I don’t mind if I am.

Anyway, I didn’t really have any need to be in the ladies’ room but I needed to kill a minute or two, so I checked my face, and as I did only one thought was in my head.

What the f*ck is it Marie sees that makes her think I’m so much older?

My skin looks fabulous, even around my eyes. I don’t see wrinkles, bags, crow’s-feet, dark circles, lines, frames, spots, or blemishes, and I haven’t even had anything done yet. I haven’t had my eyes done, lips done, nose done, ears pinned, or jowls pulled back. I haven’t used Restylane, Botox, Juvederm, Latisse, or even a chemical peel. I’m sure someday I’ll start getting all that help, and that will be fabulous. But for now I’m looking damn good, no matter what Marie seems to think.

So I was feeling better about myself when I returned to the table, and when Ken again rose from his seat I found myself in a much better mood.

“I’m sorry about that,” I said. “Now, let’s start that story over again. I don’t want to miss any of it.”

He smiled. “I hadn’t seen Chet in twenty years. We grew up together, went to law school together, lived across the street from each other in Scarsdale when I was first married. He moved to Colorado for a professional opportunity in the early nineties, I got divorced shortly after that, and we just sort of lost touch. So, about a month ago, he calls me at the office out of the blue, tells me he’s in town, wants to catch up, talk about old times, let’s get together for a drink. Sounds like a great idea to me, so we meet at a place down in the Village about two weeks ago. I could tell he looked a little different the moment he walked in. My first impression was that he was wearing makeup, but I put that aside and we started to chat, talking about law school and all that. So then I asked how Barbara was doing, and he gave me this funny look and said, ‘You know we haven’t been married for fifteen years, don’t you?’ So I said I didn’t know that, and then he got the strangest look in his eye, this glimmer, like a mischievous smile, and he said: ‘Also I finally came out of the closet and am currently living with a twenty-nine-year-old man named Evan.’”

Ken paused a moment, took a sip of his martini, and then went on.

“Well, I didn’t know what to say. I’ve never been quite so surprised in my life.”

“What part of it surprised you?” I asked.

“Well, first, just that he was gay, I never suspected that at all. Not that it makes any difference to me.”

“Yeah, not that there’s anything wrong with that,” I said, and laughed.

He didn’t seem to get it.

“You know,” I said, “from Seinfeld.”

“Oh,” he said. “I’ve never seen a single episode of that show.”

Wait a minute. Who the hell has never seen a single episode of Seinfeld? Was Ken Walker too old to have watched Seinfeld? Should I be making Dick Van Dyke references?

“At any rate,” he went on, “I couldn’t just sit there speechless so I asked him what his boyfriend was like. And he said: ‘Well, the sex is fantastic but the age difference can be quite challenging.’”

What I wanted to say was “I know exactly what he means.” But I did not. Instead, I said, “So, what did you say to that?”

“I said, ‘I understand. It must be difficult to spend time with someone who doesn’t remember when Kennedy was shot.’”

That was the last straw. Was Ken Walker now suggesting that I remember Kennedy being shot? I don’t remember either Kennedy being shot. To me JFK has always been just an airport and a set of initials.

“You know,” I said, containing myself, “I don’t remember when Kennedy was shot either.”

He laughed. “Of course you don’t,” he said.

Then the food came and we ate, and I ordered a third martini the moment my entrée arrived and finished it before I finished the filet mignon.

In the taxi headed home, after coffee and crème brûlée and his asking for my phone number and me offering a quick kiss on the cheek instead, I called Marie. She answered on the first ring.

“So,” she said, “how did it go?”

“Went great,” I said, “I may marry him.”

“Oh no.” She sighed. “What went wrong?”

“Nothing,” I said. “I just can’t imagine being with someone who has never seen an episode of Seinfeld.”

“What?”

“Forget it,” I said. I had to move past this. “Pack a suitcase, we’re going away. I’m taking a vacation and you’re coming with me.”

“Katherine,” Marie said, “you’ve never taken a vacation in all the time I’ve worked for you.”

“I haven’t taken a vacation in a lot longer than that. Pack a bag, sweetheart, we’re leaving tomorrow.”

“Where are we going?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “We’ll figure out the details later.”

BROOKE

I LOVE PHOTOGRAPHS.

I always have, from the time I was a little girl. I remember my father taking me one time to the Museum of Modern Art to a photography exhibit. I don’t recall the artist—I was only six years old—but I do remember the photos were black-and-white, shot in New Mexico or Arizona, of Native Americans in their daily lives working on farms, pumping water, tending to animals, driving tractors, and I still remember how vivid the faces were. That’s what I love about photography, as obvious as it sounds: it’s real. My mother loves surreal painting, impressionism, Salvador Dalí and René Magritte, all the “out there” artists. That stuff mostly just makes me nervous. A nose is meant to be on a face, not disconnected and hovering overhead, adjoined to a bird’s wings. I prefer photos because they tell a story.

That’s why I love to look at the pictures I have on the wall that separates my children’s bedrooms. They are all black-and-white, and when viewed in sequence they tell the story of my life. Of our lives, really, Scott’s and the kids’ and mine. They begin with Scott and me in college, him with his hair so long and wavy. He loved wearing his hair that way, and he tells me all the time that the day he leaves Wall Street will be the last time he visits a barber for the rest of his life. He’s kept his hair so neatly parted and short for so long almost no one we know remembers that flowing mane he used to have, but I do. And I can still see it, on my walls, any time I want. When I do, I can go back to those days when he was wooing me, and he was so sweet and uncertain, wearing thick glasses and denim jackets and black boots. That’s the way I remember him.

If you follow the wall, left to right, top to bottom, you follow our journey. Scott and me in Hawaii, when he was afraid to go scuba diving for fear of being eaten by a shark. He kept saying, over and over, before we went down, “All I can hear in my head is the theme from Jaws.” Then we went down and it wasn’t at all scary, at least I didn’t think so, even after a tiny fish the size of my thumb took a nibble out of my leg, but Scott saw the blood and was convinced every Great White in the Pacific Ocean was going to smell it and he panicked and almost went too fast back to the surface. The photo I have on the wall is of the two of us after that dive, our hair dripping, wearing wetsuits, Scott drinking his third beer, trying to relax. You can still see the fear in his face. I love that picture.

Then there is the picture of me and a very old man atop the Arc de Triomphe, with the Eiffel Tower in the background. That was our first trip together, Paris in the spring, the year we got married. And Scott asked this old fellow to take our picture but his elementary-school French was so rusty that the old man thought Scott wanted a picture of him with me, and it was so funny, the man was really serious about it as he posed with his arm around my waist and his hand directly on my butt. I’ve never seen a picture where I am laughing as hard as I am in that one.

Then there are the standard photos: the wedding, the baby shower, me holding the twins when they were an hour old, and Scott holding them both over his head, one in each hand, when they were two. There is Scott the day his team rang the opening bell on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, the four of us fishing on our boat, the two kids simultaneously falling off water skis, and every Halloween costume the kids have ever worn, including the one great year when I talked Scott into dressing up and we went as Batman and Cat Woman and Robin and Bat Girl. We all look awesome in that one.

And so, tonight, I have new photos to show my husband. But they are certainly not going to be displayed where anyone, least of all our children, will ever see them.

The pictures are spectacular. When Pamela brought the contact sheets to my house the day after we took them, I was more nervous than on the day of my wedding. She had the most mischievous look on her face when she came around the side of the house, as though she’d been hiding in the bushes, waiting for the school bus to pull away so she could sneak inside.

“You are going to loooooove these,” she said, and pulled a manila envelope out of her ridiculously large handbag. “Are you ready?”

I nodded, and she dropped them on the table. At first I was confused. Pamela has taken pictures for me on at least a half-dozen occasions, and usually she brings over a hundred images to choose from. Here there were only eight. I looked at her and frowned.

“Were the rest so awful you couldn’t bear to show me?”

Her smile was filled with reassurance. “Quite the opposite. These, my dear, are perfect. I don’t want you going through shot after shot comparing how your naked ass looks in this one versus that. You are so beautiful in these eight pictures it makes me cry.”

I picked up the one on top, handling it gingerly, as though it might tear into pieces if it grazed my fingernail. I was in front of a giant window, facing out, and the sun was streaming over me. My face was turned upward into the light. The arch of my back looked sexy and sleek and my breasts were like shadows. It was stunning. My eyes filled with tears as I gently placed the sheet back on the table and lifted the next, in which I was turned away from the camera, standing amid the overflowing collection of potted plants in Pamela’s den. My butt looked full and round but not soft. My right hand was reaching out, my fingers caressing the leaves of an orchid, something very sensual in the touching.

“That one is my favorite,” Pamela said.

I smiled. “I’ve always had a great ass,” I said.

The rest of the pictures were just as perfect as the first two. Pamela had chosen exactly right. She had known exactly what I wanted them to be and she had nailed it. The photos were sexy, sophisticated, daring, tasteful. They were beautiful.

When I was finished looking at them, I leaned back on the couch. “Pamela, these are precisely as I imagined them. How did you capture exactly what was in my mind?”

“That’s what art is, my dear,” she said. “It is your imagination come to life.”

“But this was my imagination,” I said. “It’s your work.”

“Is it, Brooke?” she asked. “Look at them again. Who do you see in these images?”

I picked one up, held it close to my face.

“This is your work,” she said to me. “It’s your art. I just pressed the buttons.”

KATHERINE

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER YEAR older, same greeting for the break of dawn.

F*ck him.

Today, the words have a particularly pungent taste in my mouth, because today I need to talk to Phil. I am always especially aggravated when my day begins in his office, which usually happens two or three times a month and never of my own choosing. In all the years I have been working beneath him, which is well more than ten, today is the first time I’ve ever called him for a meeting.

May I be filled with loving-kindness

May I be well

May I be peaceful and at ease

May I be happy

After the breathing and the protein shake and the heavy sweating on the treadmill, I am at my mirror, contemplating Buddhism and my blind hatred for Phillip. They do not really go together, and yet I believe in them both to the deepest place in my soul. Thich Nhat Hanh writes that one of our biggest faults is to fail to celebrate not having a toothache. The idea goes something like this: We all know how painful and irritating it can be to have a toothache, and we all suffer when we do, but why is it we never take time to think how nice it is not to have a toothache?

That’s brilliant, I think, and insightful, and it applies to absolutely everything, but it does not answer one fundamental question: What do you do when your toothache never goes away?

I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right. Phillip isn’t a toothache. He may have begun that way, but when we have a toothache we visit the dentist and alleviate the pain. For nearly twenty years now I have been putting off that visit. I could go any time I choose, I could forget about our time together, move past it, work anywhere else for anyone else and never see Phillip again, and yet I do not, and that is no one’s fault but my own. In that way, I guess it is less like having a toothache than it is like driving a sharp stick into your own mouth and leaving it there for twenty years, which is a pretty stupid thing to do and I know that, and still I hold on to my stick. And every time I feel the pain, I repeat the same words.

F*ck him.

In the car, Maurice is his usual jovial self. “Come on, boss, you have to tell me what happened last night.”

“Didn’t you see how I was limping on the way to the car? Shouldn’t that be some indication? I doubt I’ll walk normally again for a week.”

“Boss, I’m not buying that and I don’t like the way you joke about it.”

“Well, I’m not faking the limp,” I said. “My back is absolutely killing me.” It really is. Has been for two months, and it’s getting worse. Another reminder of my advancing age, as though being fixed up with somebody’s grandfather isn’t excruciating enough.

“Katherine, I know I have no right to demand anything, considering I work for you and not the other way around, but I have overstepped my bounds before and I’m going to do it again: I demand to know what happened last night.”

“Actually, Maurice, if you must know, it was very disappointing, and I went home feeling sad and alone.”

That stopped him cold.

“Boss, I’m sorry.”

“Forget it,” I said, “that’s over. I have big news.”

“Good news, I hope?”

“I think so. I’m going on vacation.”

I was still watching him in the rearview. A look of confusion replaced his embarrassment, which was a welcome change.

“Really?” he said. “I can’t recall you ever going on vacation.”

“Neither can I, and that seems like a bad thing,” I said. “I’m leaving this afternoon.”

“Where are you going, boss?”

“Out West, my friend,” I said. “Colorado.”