When John woke up, he felt like he’d been beaten the night before. He knew he had been. He hadn’t even had that much to drink. He wasn’t sorry for breaking up with Caroline, he just hated that it had turned ugly in the end. He would rather have parted friends, as he usually did. They had had some good times. But in the end, it was all about what she wanted, and her schemes. She wanted to move in, get married, and have a baby, and he didn’t want any of those things, not now and not with her. She was the wrong woman for him. He knew that ultimately he wanted to find someone like his mother, someone gentle and kind, who wanted the same things he did, not a girl with ulterior motives, who knew exactly what she wanted right from the beginning, whether he wanted the same things or not.
He hated it when things ended badly. But it had been fairly predictable with Caroline. He just hadn’t wanted to see it. His father had warned him several times. And he was always right.
John had an odd thought when he got to the office, and didn’t know if it was the right thing to do. She seemed like someone he could talk to, as a friend. He hardly knew her, and he wasn’t trying to date her. He just wanted to talk. He called Kate Hobson, and then felt like a loser when he did. She picked up and sounded surprised.
“Did you get the ring yet?” he asked her. She laughed at the question.
“No.” She was startled to hear from him, and she thought he sounded sick, but she didn’t know him well enough to be sure.
“I’m feeling sorry for myself. Do you want to have lunch with me?”
“Sure. Okay. Something wrong?”
“Yes and no. I broke up with Caroline.”
“Oh dear. I take it she didn’t get the ring she wanted either.”
“That would be correct. I overstayed. It was predictable.”
“You’re probably right about that.” It had been obvious that Caroline had serious designs on John, and that she wasn’t going to give up. But Kate didn’t say that to him. “Are you sorry you broke up?”
“No. It was going to get worse. I think I got out on the last warning bell. Now she thinks I’m a shit.”
“Were you?” she asked him bluntly.
“No.”
“Did you lie to her?”
“No.”
“Then you’re clean.” He liked talking to Kate and felt better.
“What about you? How’s the fiancé?”
“We had a fight last night too. It must have been a full moon.” Or the wrong people, but he didn’t say that to her.
“Where do you want to have lunch? La Grenouille or the deli near my office?” he asked her.
“The deli. I love La Grenouille to celebrate, but we can talk better without six waiters serving us. What time?”
“One o’clock?” She agreed and he told her where to meet him. When he hung up, he felt better. She said he was clean and he knew he was. She was the perfect sister.
When John met Kate for lunch, she was wearing jeans and a striped T-shirt and ballerinas. Her hair was pulled back. He smiled when he saw her. She looked fresh and young, and sympathetic.
They ordered lunch, and he told her what had happened and what led up to it, that Caroline had tried to badger him into letting her move in, the ultimate goal being marriage. Kate looked serious when he said it, and John saw the expression on her face.
“What’s wrong? Did I do something wrong?” She had been supportive until then. They hardly knew each other, but they felt like old friends from another lifetime, and she was so easy to talk to.
“Maybe I did something wrong,” she said, answering his question. “Maybe that’s what I’m doing to Jack. Badgering him into marriage. I just wanted some kind of progress in the relationship. Everything feels stagnant, nothing changes with him.”
“Do you love him?” he asked her, and she thought about it.
“Yes. Sometimes. Not always. Most of the time. He’s a good writer.” John stared at her when she answered.
“Please don’t tell me that you’re marrying him because he’s a good writer.”
“No, of course not. But I respect his talent.”
“Great. Buy his book when he writes one, don’t marry him.”
“I want to marry him because we’ve invested four years and lived together for three of them. That’s a big investment of time. You don’t just throw that away.”
“You do, if it’s the wrong person.”
“He’s not, or I wouldn’t have stayed with him.”
“Maybe you would have. Do you usually admit it if you make a mistake?”
“Not if I can help it,” she said with a grin.
“If you invest in a company, and it fails and loses money, do you keep pouring money and time into it, or do you cut your losses and shut it down?”
“I’d probably stick with it for a while, but if it keeps failing, I’d probably close before it takes me down with it.”
“That’s a reasonable answer. And how long has it been? Four years, and the guy hasn’t coughed up a ring yet, doesn’t want to set a date, and you’re telling me you have to badger him to marry you. How much fun does that sound like?”
“It’s not,” she admitted to him more easily than she would have to her mother or sister. There was a confessional feeling to it. Two strangers confessing to each other. Except he didn’t feel like a stranger, he felt like a friend, and so did she to him, which was why he had called her. “It hasn’t been fun for a while. I thought getting married would change that,” Kate said.
“It would. It would make it worse. Marriage is a magnifier. And what do you get out of it?” John asked her.
“Companionship, someone to talk to. He’s supportive of my writing. I’m not lonely, or alone.”
“He’s not the only guy on the planet,” he said, and then John decided to take a risk and be fully honest with her. “You could do a lot better. He’s not exactly a ton of fun, and you look bored with him.”
“Isn’t that what marriage is? Boring most of the time, with occasional good moments?” she asked him.
“I sure hope not. My parents didn’t look bored. They were crazy about each other. I think they had fun. How much fun do you have with Jack?” She didn’t answer. She didn’t expect to have fun with Jack.
“We’re not here to talk about me. We’re here to talk about you and your breakup,” she said pointedly.
“Your relationship is more interesting. You still have one. I don’t. So there’s nothing to talk about on my side.”
“Do you think you’ll miss her?” Kate asked him, curious.
“Maybe. At first. But probably not for long. That sounds awful but it’s true. I never thought of her as long-term.” Kate was wondering how much she’d miss Jack if she broke up with him.
They didn’t solve any major problems over lunch, but it was comforting talking to each other.
She walked John back to his office, then took a cab to her apartment, and went to her office to work on her book. But John’s questions resonated in her head all afternoon. She wondered if he was right, and Jack was a mistake. But whether he was or not, Jack didn’t want to set a wedding date and she had to explain that to her mother. And herself. While Kate was having lunch with John Stewart, Kezia was having lunch with Paige Robbins. She had called her after they ran into her in the lobby. Paige was surprised and pleased, and they met at a restaurant close to Paige’s office. She rarely went out for lunch and usually ate at her desk. She got more work done that way.
Her office was close to Hudson Yards, and when Kezia got out of the cab, she looked up at the ravaged buildings in the once-beautiful new development. They were tearing down the buildings that had been the most damaged. It was too dangerous to leave them, and the mall had been closed since the attack, and would be for the next year. They were going to build a memorial to the thousands of people who had died. More had succumbed to their injuries in the weeks following. It was a tragedy of epic proportions. There had been countless meetings, in New York and in cities around the country, about how to increase security measures and ensure that nothing like it could ever happen again. They had sought to protect American soil from foreign enemies since 9/11, but no one had ever expected such a devastating betrayal from their own. That Americans would seek to destroy the fiber of their own country and injure fellow citizens was beyond belief or comprehension. It had disheartened the entire country and the wound ran deep, in addition to the loss of life.
It reminded Kezia, as it always did now, of the night she had met Sam and the work they had done together, laboring through the night with their hearts breaking. It had brought new people into her life too: Sam, Louise, Sam’s son, and now Paige. Kezia could see in her a deeply sad woman, tied to a selfish man who didn’t value her, and it saddened her to see it.
Paige looked chic and cheerful when they met at the restaurant. She was wearing a navy-blue linen Chanel suit. She was beautiful, but one could sense that Paige no longer knew it. She was ten minutes late and apologized profusely. Kezia was waiting patiently for her at the table when Paige sat down with her.
“I’m so sorry. I had a conference call that ran late, and I couldn’t get off. I couldn’t even text you. We were on video.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not working, you are. I’ve got time.” They ordered and Paige slowly relaxed and unwound, and by the time they were halfway through lunch, she felt at ease with Kezia. They’d been talking about Louise and how remarkable she was. Her photographs of the July Fourth bombing were in magazines all over the world by then. Despite the grisly circumstances, the photos were beautiful, and captured the raw emotions of that night. Paige looked at Kezia then.
“I suppose someone has told you by now that Greg is married. It’s not a secret, but it’s always awkward when we meet someone new. I figured Louise must have told you.”
“She didn’t. She’s very discreet. Sam did. That can’t be easy for you.”
“It isn’t. We’ve been together for five years. His kids were still young then, and I thought that if I waited long enough, he’d extricate himself. He said he would, but he didn’t. The youngest is starting college in September, and it’s clear that it’s never going to be any different. You kind of get used to it. He still spends all the holidays with them. They rent a house in the south of France in August every year. He’ll be there in a week or two. He’s coming back to New York for a few days and he’ll leave from here.” Paige’s eyes were bottomless pools of pain as she said it.
“And what will you do?” Kezia asked her.
Paige smiled a wintry smile. “Work. It’s depressing to travel alone. Greg and I go to the Caribbean every year before Christmas. His boat is there for the winter, and we spend a week on it, before his wife and the kids arrive,” which meant that the crew knew it too, which was humiliating for her. She lived in the shadows. “I’ve invested five years of my life with him. You don’t throw that kind of commitment away. It’s too late to do anything else. I feel too old to have kids now, and at forty-two, you’re not in high demand on the marriage market. Men want women half my age, and there are plenty of them. I kind of missed the boat on finding a husband and having kids. I have my work.” She looked brave as she said it, and it made Kezia’s heart ache for her.
“It’s never too late. You don’t know what could happen if you were open to it, Paige. I’ve been a widow for five years, and didn’t even consider dating again. I thought my husband was the only man on earth for me. I gave up the idea of finding any other partner when he died. I’m turning sixty in September, and now I’m rethinking it. You don’t have to be alone if you don’t want to be, and you don’t have to take the leftovers from Greg’s table. He’s got a sweet deal: his wife, his family, and you, on his terms.” She was a little nervous about being so honest with her, but Kezia thought someone had to be. Paige was letting life pass her by, and Greg thought he was king of the world, with two women at his beck and call. She assumed his wife was too.
“He’s really doing it for his kids,” Paige defended him.
“And himself. It works for him, I assume. They’re not kids anymore if the youngest is going to college. It’s not fair to you.” Paige had the saddest eyes she’d ever seen. She was paying a high price for Greg’s self-indulgence and cowardice, which was how Kezia viewed it. “And you probably work crazy hours because you’re alone.”
Paige smiled. “Guilty as charged. I work most weekends because I have nothing else to do. And it’s good for my job.”
“What about joining a tennis club, or golf? You’d meet other men there. Or even other women, who might introduce you to someone. People tried to fix me up when my husband died. I wasn’t ready, but the theory was good. I just didn’t think anyone would measure up to him.”
“And now you do?” Paige was intrigued by what she was saying, but not convinced.
“Now I realize that there are good people out there. Even if only as friends. I’ve really enjoyed meeting you, Louise, and Sam. I’d never have met you if I hadn’t moved to New York. And the time was right. We sold my husband’s business, so I seized the opportunity, and my kids are here.” Kezia was nearly twenty years older than Paige, but she was fully alive and excited about life. Something in Paige had died. “And even if I don’t find another partner, I’ve been married and have kids. You have a lot of life left to live, filled with things you haven’t done yet. Don’t let Greg rob you of that. Greg is my age, and he’s had his life too. You haven’t. Believe me, at forty-two, it’s not over. You’ve got wonderful years ahead of you. Don’t waste them.”
“Louise says that too,” Paige said softly.
“She’s more alive than I am, and she’s nearly eighty-nine,” Kezia reminded her. “I wish I had her energy and spirit.”
“You do. I felt it the minute I met you. I admire you. And you don’t look your age.”
“I do to me,” Kezia said with a grin. “Some days are better than others. It really made a difference moving here. I was dying and didn’t know it, after Andrew died. That whole part of my life that I loved so much was over. And now a whole new chapter is starting.”
“Sam?” Paige asked her with a small smile.
“Maybe. We’re friends. It’s too soon to know. And everything has been so upside down here and upsetting for everyone since the July Fourth attack. Sometimes good things happen even in a time of crisis. You get to know people faster. But I have to admit, an event like that shakes your faith in the human race and reminds you of your own mortality, and how everything can be cut short in a minute. Don’t waste a second of your life, Paige. You’ll regret it one day. I never thought I’d be a widow at fifty-five or move to New York at sixty. And now I’m thinking of going back to school, and nursing again. That night woke me up to how precious life is, and how brief. But it’s also too long for you to be waiting for a man who’s having his cake and eating it too. I’m sure you love him, or you wouldn’t be doing this, but you deserve better than you’re getting. I’m sorry to be so outspoken. That may be the only benefit of being the age I am. But you’re only five years older than my oldest daughter.”
“My mom died ten years ago. I think she would have said the same things. I wish I had your courage and energy.”
“You do. You just have to use them. You’re letting someone else control your life, to his advantage and not yours.”
“It’s not easy for him either,” Paige said, “being torn between two women.” Kezia wasn’t convinced that Greg was “torn.” He seemed very comfortable with the arrangement, from what she’d seen.
“Maybe we could do something some weekend when you’re alone, have dinner or go to a movie,” Kezia suggested.
“I’d love that,” Paige said gratefully, and looked at her watch. “I have to get back to the office. I have another conference call in twenty minutes.”
Kezia paid for lunch—although Paige tried to—they hugged on the sidewalk, and Paige rushed back to her office. Kezia wondered if their lunch would make a difference. Paige was obviously deeply in love with Greg, but it was easy for someone else to see that the relationship wasn’t going anywhere, except where Greg wanted it to. Kezia hated to see it. Paige was a lovely woman and deserved so much better. Kezia disliked him even more after spending time with Paige and hearing her story. It was no different than that of any other woman in love with a married man. So few of them ever got their man, and Kezia was sure that Paige wouldn’t, and that Paige knew it too. She clearly no longer had any hope that Greg would leave his wife, even now, with an empty nest.
Kezia had time and it was a beautiful, sunny day, with a slight breeze, so she walked the twenty blocks home from lunch. She sat down at her desk when she got back to answer some emails, several of them from her decorator, when Kate finally returned her calls.
“Where’ve you been? I was getting worried.” Kezia made an effort not to sound annoyed.
“I was writing. I don’t like to interrupt the flow when it’s going well.” It was a weak excuse.
“I know you hate my bugging you, but I’m calling again about the date. It seems like a long way off, but it isn’t. You know how booked up the inns get in Vermont in the winter, and even in the spring. What kind of time frame are you and Jack thinking?” Kate sighed and hoped her mother didn’t hear it. She did. This was the call Kate had been dreading and avoiding. Jack wasn’t making things easy for her, and Kezia liked to be organized. Kate didn’t have her mother’s precise view of time, or propensity for doing things well in advance. It was how Kezia’s life ran smoothly. Felicity was much more like their mother. And neither of them had Jack to deal with.
“I know you want to know, Mom, but Jack has been swamped. We’re going to a workshop in August, and he’s teaching a class there for a week. He’s trying to get ready for it. And he’s been working on an essay he wants to try to sell to The New Yorker, which is a big deal. It’s hard to get him to focus on something months away. He just doesn’t want to make plans yet. He has no idea what we’ll be doing this winter or next spring. I’ve asked him.” And pushed him, and shoved him, and begged him, to no avail, like the fight they’d had the night before. It always turned nasty when he was pushed, if it was something he didn’t want to do.
“Your wedding is a big deal, Kate. I hope he thinks so too. And it’s more important than a workshop or The New Yorker.”
“I know.” But he didn’t, Kate knew.
“Do you have any idea of time frame? Season?”
“No. And he won’t discuss it with me, so your pushing me won’t make any difference,” Kate said, sounding stressed.
“And that’s okay with you?” Kezia asked her, trying not to sound irritated. It was obvious that Kate was stressed about it.
“It has to be,” Kate responded. “That’s how he is. He doesn’t like to be pushed or pinned down.”
“He’s a lucky guy. So what do I do?”
“You wait until I tell you we have a date, whenever that is.”
“If it’s short notice, you may not get one of the venues you’d like.”
“Then we’ll go somewhere else.”
“We can’t even look for a dress if we don’t know what season.”
“I know, Mom.” Kate was getting depressed, listening to her. It was everything she had said to Jack the night before.
“Felicity and I are going to start looking for dresses next week when she comes into the city. December is just around the corner. We thought of Paris, but the fittings would be too complicated, so we’re going to look here.”
“Great. I won’t need a big wedding gown like hers, for a small wedding in Vermont.” Kezia felt sad for Kate. She was getting everything second-rate, starting with the groom. And Felicity was having all the fun, and she made it easy, and so did Blake. “I’ll call you if I know anything, Mom. In the meantime, have fun with Felicity.” At least it would keep her mother busy, Kate thought when she hung up. She thought about it all afternoon, and didn’t feel like writing anymore.
She called John to see how he was feeling. He sounded better.
“I’ve felt better ever since our lunch. I got a nasty email from Caroline, which actually made me feel less guilty. She blames me that all her schemes didn’t work, when I told her all along that she couldn’t move in and I’m not interested in marriage. How are you? You don’t sound so good.”
“My mother is pressing me about the wedding date. I wish we’d never said we were engaged. It’s just a big headache, and Jack doesn’t want to know. It was just a bone he threw me. So now I feel stupid and humiliated.”
“He sounds like the perfect guy to marry,” John said, and she laughed.
“Yeah. Exactly.”
“I have a better idea. Why don’t you let me take you to dinner next week and cheer you up? I promise, I won’t press you for a wedding date, just know that you can’t move in with me. You need to have some fun. We’ll go someplace loud and trendy so we can shout at each other, and there’s no risk of intimacy.” She laughed. He was a terrific new friend. She never had dinner with other men, and hadn’t since she’d been living with Jack, but John was harmless, and clearly friend material and nothing more. And it couldn’t hurt.
“Okay. Sounds good.”
“You can tell me all about your book, and help me pick out new candidates on dating sites.”
“That’s disgusting. You can do that yourself. Is that how you met Caroline?”
“Sort of. I saw her online, and then I met her at a party. I was drunk, so I have an excuse for my poor judgment.”
“She was pretty, and she dressed well, so you didn’t get it too wrong.”
“Yeah, except she comes equipped with a wedding dress, and she’s hearing challenged, since I told her I wasn’t interested in marriage, and now she’s calling me a liar. She’s a nasty piece of work.” His father had warned him of that too. It was written all over her. Kate thought so too when Caroline came to the Hamptons. They agreed on the following Monday night for dinner at a restaurant Kate liked. It was the best night for her because Jack had back-to-back tutoring students and probably wouldn’t even realize she’d gone out, or care. She felt dishonest, but John was right. She needed cheering up, which seemed to justify it. It wasn’t a date. John was a friend. Kate had liked talking to him ever since their walk on the beach in Southampton. He was playful but intelligent, had a good sense of humor, was serious about certain subjects, and was just a down-to-earth, unpretentious person, although he had a good job and his father was a big star. He didn’t trade on who his father was, and the advice he gave her was reasonable. He was a welcome addition to her life.
Kezia told Sam that night about her lunch with Paige. She was getting a rotten deal from Greg Avery, with his double life.
“A lot of guys do that in Hollywood. A lot of them don’t even bother to do it in another city, they have both women in L.A.”
“I feel sorry for her,” Kezia said. “It sounds like she’s isolated herself for him. She thinks she’s too old, at forty-two, to meet someone else, find a husband, or have kids, so she stays with him. It’s really depressing, and I think she is depressed. I wish I could do something to help her.”
“She has to help herself,” he said wisely, and he looked at Kezia seriously for a moment. He wasn’t sure if it was too soon, but he wanted to ask her something. He didn’t want to be premature, nor wait too long and settle into friendship. She could see he had something on his mind.
He finally got up the courage to ask her while they sat on the couch, with his arm around her, after dinner. He looked very serious, and she didn’t know what was on his mind.
“Kezia, would you consider going away with me for a few days, a weekend or whenever? I thought we could stay at some small hotel. We don’t have to go far.”
She looked at him in surprise. “Can you do that? What if someone calls the paparazzi?”
“Then we’ll deal with it. We’re both adults, unmarried, we have a right to do what we want.” She smiled at him and he kissed her. “I didn’t want to just spring it on you, or woo you into bed here. It would be good to get away for a few days.” The atmosphere in New York was still heavy after the attack. The city was recovering, but the many deaths had left their mark on everyone.
“I’d love to go away with you,” she said softly. And as soon as she said it, she thought of how long it had been since she’d been with a man, not since Andrew. The prospect was a little scary and exciting, and Sam had the same concern.
“I haven’t been with anyone since Audrey . . . except once, and it was a huge mistake, eight months after she died. It was too soon, and the whole thing was awful.”
Kezia felt like a kid again as she smiled at him. “Whatever happens happens,” she said philosophically, and she kissed him. “We’ll figure it out.”
“I have a pretty good memory,” he said, and she laughed, but for her there was the whole added element that she was about to go to bed with America’s biggest movie star. She couldn’t think of anything more daunting. Who could have thought that she would fall in love at sixty after the worst terrorist attack in history? Life was certainly unpredictable, and exciting. Sam held her in his arms and she could feel his heart beating. He was just as scared and excited as she was, but, as Kezia said, they would figure it out.