All You Could Ask For: A Novel (11 page)

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.