mine, you start to think about it, if you want kids.”
“Coco is younger than I am,” Sam said directly, and she looked mildly embarrassed. Sam was definitely acting like her big brother, even though he was only a year older. But she had no one else to look out for her interests, and she knew he meant well. “At twenty-two, she’s too young to have children.”
“I think when you meet the right person, it’s the right time,” Nigel said quietly. “The right one doesn’t come along ten times in a lifetime. It never has for me until now.”
“That might be true. But good things don’t happen in a hurry,” Sam said firmly. Nigel nodded and didn’t comment. “I think if it’s right, it can wait, for a while anyway.” There was a moment of silence after that, and then the conversation moved on to other things. On the whole, the two men in her life liked each other. Nigel insisted on brandy after dinner. By the time they all went to bed that night, Sam and Nigel had had a lot to drink.
Nigel had already left for work the next morning when Sam got up. Coco had taken that Friday off too, so she was waiting for him when Sam appeared in the kitchen squinting in the sunlight and she laughed.
“Oh God, I’m so hungover,” he said with a pained expression. “I forgot the way the Brits can drink. There was an English kid in my econ class at NYU who could drink anyone under the table. I think Nigel must be related to him. Coffee, quick, this is an emergency.” He looked better after he’d drunk it, had a piece of toast, and taken an aspirin. He still had a headache, but it was tolerable.
“So what do you think?” she asked him nervously. She wanted Sam to love Nigel too.
“I like him. He’s a good guy, and he’s obviously nuts about you. But you still don’t know him after so little time. Don’t go off half-cocked and do anything crazy.”
“I’m not going to,” she said firmly.
“I think he would, and he may try to talk you into it. I think you need to run a check on him. I’m worried about his finances. He talks about how poor he is. He may be exaggerating, but if he isn’t, his expectations of you may be excessive or unrealistic. Your father would have worried about that too.” That was always the key with her, what her father would have done, or thought, or disapproved of.
“He’s not marrying me for my money, Sam. He doesn’t know how much I have. And he hasn’t asked me to marry him. You’re jumping the gun here.” But he had hinted at it, and his intentions were obvious, although they seemed honorable. He kept hinting at marriage. And he said he wanted kids. Soon. So Sam was worried.
“Don’t be so innocent. People guess or talk, or know things. He may have run a check on you. People do that. And they marry people for a lot less than you have. I don’t want that to happen to you. If you marry him at some point, you’ll need an airtight prenup. And you should get married in the States so it’s legally binding. You should do that with anyone. Don’t even think about it without a solid contract.” He really did sound like her father.
“He hasn’t asked me to marry him, so you have nothing to worry about.”
“I think he will. And so do you. The other thing that worries me is that he doesn’t have a career. He has a job, and one he hates. If he decides to stop working if you marry him, there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it. You need to think about this stuff, Coco, and get a sense of what his plans are, and his goals, and his values. How would he feel living off a rich wife? Would that be fine with him? You don’t want a dead weight around your neck, with a guy who doesn’t want to work. It happens, more often than you think. For him it may seem stupid to bother working with everything you have, once he realizes it. It sounds like he has no real interest in his career or any career. At his age, he should. You and I are just starting out. He’s ten or twelve years into his work life, at what should be the