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The truth is that I was intimidated by him. He was—still is—a good-looking man. When I met him he was scary smart and extremely confident and completely different from anyone I’d ever met before. I remember feeling like I was so damn lucky he’d even looked at me, and by the time I realized that he didn’t love me, things had gone too far. I was already living with him in his glorious apartment overlooking Lake Champlain. He painted a picture for me of the life we would live together. I would never have to worry about money, or where I would live. I wouldn’t have to go back to the bar, with my horrible manager and the horrible customers. Rory would look after me, and I wanted that. Maybe I loved him, in the beginning. It’s all so long ago now that I can’t really be sure how I felt. Maybe I loved him, or maybe I just wanted everything he was offering. Security and comfort are very, very attractive when you’ve never had either. So he asked me to marry him, and I understood what he wanted—children, and a pretty wife who wouldn’t complain when he worked constantly. Someone who would look good on his arm and who would never, ever ask awkward questions. I thought that was a fair deal, and when he sent me to a lawyer who put an ironclad prenup in front of me, I didn’t hesitate to sign it. I never really grasped how precarious my position was until Rory’s friends started hitting fifty and started divesting themselves of their wives. That was when I realized I was living on borrowed time. I could come home from yoga some morning to find that my stuff had been packed, the locks had been changed, and a process server was waiting for me.
There was no point in crying about my situation, or in looking to Rory for reassurance. That’s a mistake a lot of women make. They feel like they’re losing their man and they get clingy and insecure, and that, of course, just makes the end come faster. I went the other way. I kept busy, busy, busy, and I made sure I was useful. At parties, I always knew who everyone was, who the important people were in the room. I kept my calorie intake under fifteen hundred a day, watched my macros, got my little tweaks from the best cosmetic surgeon in Boston, and worked out like a demon. And I sold my clothes. Five years into my little project, I had $1.9 million in an offshore account in my name. Not enough to retire on, but not nothing. I’d get something in the divorce. Not a house, because Rory was too smart for that, but something.
I took photographs of an absolutely gorgeous Oscar de la Renta embroidered tulle minidress, and then couldn’t decide whether I should list it or give it a second outing to the gala. I gave up in the end and packed it away, then put on my workout gear and went downstairs to the gym. Simon found me there half an hour later.
“Hey, baby.” I was running on the treadmill. He hadn’t come to work out. He was wearing jeans and a green long-sleeved T-shirt. He must have been just out of the shower because his hair was styled, in that casual messy look he likes that I know takes him twenty minutes minimum with a hair dryer and styling wax. He sat on the weight bench and leaned forward, resting his arms on his thighs. “Everything okay?”
“Yes. Sure. It’s just that something’s happened, and I figured I’d better tell you before you hear it through the grapevine.”
I was still running, but something about the set of his jaw told me I should pay attention. I pressed a button, slowed my pace to a walk, and waited.
“Nina and I broke up.”
“Oh, Simon!” I was genuinely surprised. Simon was crazy about Nina. They’d started going out when they were only sixteen, and if I secretly wished that he’d picked someone other than Leanne Fraser’s daughter to be his first love, I didn’t really have an issue with the relationship, at least at first. They were cute together, I thought. A year later, they were still together, and I was over it. Simon had so much going for him. I didn’t think it was healthy for him to be so fixated on one girl. By the time they finished high school, I was desperate for him to dump her, but Simon was still talking like they were forever. If anything, he seemed to think that Nina was too good for him, that he was lucky to have her, which drove me nuts. Admittedly the girl was very pretty, but there are any number of pretty girls out there. If anyone understands that, it’s me. And Nina was book smart, but I’d always found her insipid. Not that I’d ever been stupid enough to criticize the girl to Simon. No, I’d been nice as pie and crossed my fingers and waited for it to pass. Which, apparently, it just had. I suppressed a little thrill of happiness. “I’m sure you guys will work it out.”
“I don’t think so, Mom.”
“All couples argue.”
“She was sleeping around,” Simon said bluntly. “Other guys, when I was away at college.”
It’s surprising how quickly happiness can turn to fury.
“You can’t be serious.”
He gave me a wry smile. “I wish I wasn’t.” He was upset. He covered it very well, but I could see the tiredness in his eyes and the unhappiness in the set of his shoulders. “It’s okay. Really. I’d suspected for a while, but I kept telling myself that I was imagining things. Then I guess she met someone she liked better than me. She dumped me on Friday night. I asked her if she’d been seeing someone behind my back and she didn’t deny it. I asked her if he was the first and she basically admitted that he wasn’t.”
“That little bitch.” I was past pretending. If Nina Fraser had been standing in front of me, I would have slapped her.
Simon shrugged and stood up. He gave me that half smile again. He was trying hard to pretend that he was fine. It made me feel sorry for him, and proud of him at the same time.
“It happens, right? I mean, how many high school relationships survive college anyway?”
“Very few. And the ones that do probably shouldn’t.”
“Right.”
He turned to leave.
“Simon? I can make dinner. Something special for you and your dad.”
“Cody’s coming to pick me up.”
“You’re going out?”
“Uh-huh. The guys think I need to drown my sorrows or something. We’re going to a bar.” Legally, Simon wouldn’t be old enough to drink for another couple of months, but he and his friends had been going to one of the bars in town since they were nineteen.
“You won’t overdo it?”
“Cody thinks I need to get wrecked. He said it’s a necessary stage in the grieving process. Step two is to pick up girls.”
“Simon—”
He laughed at me. “I’m kidding. We’ll have a few beers and we’ll probably end up back at Cody’s playing Gears online or something.”
“When are you going back to school?” I asked. “Is it tomorrow?”
“Wednesday morning,” Simon said. “I don’t have classes until Thursday. I’ve already booked the flight.”
