Then Came You - Jennifer Weiner [42]
Marcus had finished his meat and was using a bit of bread to mop up the juices, turning it in circles around the plate until the porcelain was shiny. “So how about you?” he asked. “Are you a native?”
I kept my answers short, talking about how much I loved New York: my apartment, my friends, my freedom. After the waiter handed us dessert menus, I told him about the weekends I’d walk all the way to Brooklyn (never mind that I hadn’t done it in eight years, and when I’d done it last it was because I didn’t even have two bucks for the subway). I said that I loved the theater and the museums, and that thanks to my job I got invited to premieres and parties, special exhibits and opening nights.
“No children?” he asked.
I paused, knowing I had to be careful to sound like I didn’t care one way or the other, because what if he didn’t want more kids? But saying I didn’t want them would make me sound cold. “I guess . . .” I began. “Well, you know. It’s probably the same for lots of women. Maybe I was too busy, and I was definitely too picky.” That last part, the “picky” part, was important. No man wants to feel like he’s just the latest chump to buy a ticket for the merry-go-round, the last one aboard a horse that everyone else has already ridden.
“You think it’s too late?” he asked. Then, “Was that a rude question? Forgive me. I haven’t done this much—this dating.”
I looked down again, arranging my face in an expression that was just the right combination of rueful (over the kid thing) and amused (by him). “I don’t know if it’s too late. I’ve never really tried.” This was the truth—the one time I’d gotten pregnant, I had definitely not been trying. I let it out as a sigh, then raised my eyes to his. “All I know is, when I do it—if I do it—I want it to be right.” I hesitated, considering whether I was saying too much, but I’d had four glasses of wine by then, Riesling with the appetizers and a syrupy Shiraz with the chicken, and booze on top of a juice fast tends to loosen one’s tongue. “I want a nest egg,” I said. I’d started to say money before remembering that people who had lots of it rarely said the word. “More than I’ve got now. I’ve got some savings...” Again, true. I had a decent-size investment account, a nicely diversified portfolio that hadn’t taken too hard a hit in the latest downturn, but it wasn’t even close to being true fuck-you money, and true fuck-you money was one thing I was sure I wanted. Money, and what it could buy; what it could do, what it could keep you safe from.
Marcus sat back in his chair, his eyes unreadable. I imagined the feeling of a fishing line, formerly taut, going slack in my grip. Shit, I thought. I lost him. Then, unexpectedly, he leaned across the table and took my hands.
“I like you,” he announced. It had the tone of finality, like a manager saying you’re hired, or a groom saying I do. I felt my body uncoil. My head was humming with relief and the wine. His hands were big and warm and strong and dry—all the things you’d hope a billionaire’s hands would be. Even better, they felt no different than the hands of a man my own age, which was encouraging, because I suspected—correctly, it turned out—that his body, while well maintained, would reflect his age. Things drooped—his ass, his balls, the flabby little man-breasts that you couldn’t see underneath his made-to-measure shirts with his monogram in violet thread on the cuffs.
Marcus took me to dinners and on trips that made Kevin’s steakhouses and long weekends look like jokes. Together we went to the best restaurants and the fanciest hotels, spending long weekends in the George V in Paris and on islands you could only reach by private jet. We had tickets to the opera (I guzzled Red Bull in the ladies’ room to keep from dozing off during the arias) and invitations to museum openings and galas. I’d take him places, too, getting us tickets to events that I thought would amuse him and establish my hot-younger-woman-about-town