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Britta didn’t want to study, and she didn’t want to work.
“I want to be happy, not be someone else’s slave,” she said.
“But what will you do for money?” I asked. Being financially independent had been programmed into me by my mom since I was a little girl.
“Find a man,” Britta said, as if it was the easiest thing in the world.
But Britta was tall and blonde, with big breasts and a good body that attracted the envy of women and the admiration of most of the men that passed her by.
“What about love,” I asked her, as Michel and Zoë moved on to playing with the cats, dressing them up in clothes and making little hats for them.
“Love?” Britta scowled at her as if she’d said something improper. “What is that? Do you mean lust or friendship?”
I didn’t know how to answer that.
I started singing the song, “All you need is Love” by the Beatles.
Britta became thoughtful. “Learning to play the game? But that is what I’m doing!”
She told me that her mother had divorced her father after having an affair with her boss. She eventually married him and had another child, Britta’s half-brother Sven. She stopped working full-time and ten years later, became a widow when the ex-boss had a heart attack. She met the French winemaker over the Internet, but the relationship had not worked out.
“Why do they call it falling in love?” She asked me.
“I think it’s the feeling of being off balance, being vulnerable; like falling.”
“It’s like an accident where you can get hurt if you are unlucky.”
I laughed. “I’ve never thought of it like that.”
Britta was funny and practical, and I enjoyed hanging out with her. When the children were finally settled in front of the TV with a movie, I told her about my dilemma with Will.
“We make a list, ja?”
What counted in Will’s favor, according to Britta, was his money and that he was good-looking. What counted against him, was the kid and the ex-girlfriend.
“I wouldn’t say Zoë is a drawback,” I said in a low voice, worried that she could hear me.
“Kids are always drawback,” Britta insisted. “Especially another woman’s!”
“And I don’t see the fact that Will is a great guy anywhere on the list.”
“Okay,” she said, adding “great guy” to the pros.
“How is the sex?”
“Wonderful, really good.”
“Well, that makes it four for Will and two against.”
“This is hardly scientific,” I laughed.
“You want science or love?”
I made us popcorn and we joined the kids in front of the television until it was time for them to go.
Our conversation, silly as it was, stayed in my mind.
Ever since I’d come back from the hiking weekend, I’d been looking for jobs online and had finally found a small inn in New Haven that was looking for a manager. They were looking for someone on short notice as the current owner was pregnant and needed to go on maternity leave faster than originally planned. It was a temporary position, she expected to be back at work in a couple of months’ time, which suited me too. When I’d found the place was called Mountain Dream, it felt right.
