All You Could Ask For A Novel - By Mike Greenberg Page 0,23

it.

“I know that,” he said. “Call me tomorrow. And if Robert shows up looking for you, my advice is to kick him in the nuts as hard as you possibly can.”

“I love you, Dad,” I said.

“I love you, too.”

I’m twenty-eight years old, and I’ve never really felt close to my father. He is such a powerful man, and rather than admire that, as many little girls do, I resented it. My father never made me feel like I was the most important person in his life. He was always at a meeting or on the phone or coming home just before my bedtime, in time for me to put my arms around his enormous shoulders and give him a kiss and then scoot off to bed before I could bother him at the end of a long day. Maybe that’s what appealed to me about Robert. He’s another one who is always on the phone or at a meeting, and maybe he spent more time with me than my father did because I was of greater use to him than I was to my dad. Maybe I married him because he reminded me of my father.

None of that is too much fun to think about.

But here’s the good news. As of this moment, I am free. I am in paradise, and all I want to do is exercise and soak in the sun and the salt in the air. I don’t need a husband to do any of that, and I don’t need to be the little girl whose father didn’t want her either. Today, when I really needed him, my father was there. That counts. It doesn’t make up for everything, but it makes a difference.

And so, I waved to the manager to ask for a room and another plate of fruit. I felt wonderful. And I hadn’t stopped crying yet, but I was really sure that once I did everything was going to be all right.

KATHERINE

I WOULDN’T SAY I’M looking for a man.

I wouldn’t let you say I am, either. It aggravates me to no end to answer questions about the lack of men—or a man—in my life. It isn’t as though my world is incomplete because I do not share it with a man, nor do I feel a husband would validate anything about me. I am a smart, successful, single woman and I am wholly unapologetic about that. I don’t need to explain myself to the men I compete with professionally, nor to the happy wives I encounter regularly—those bejeweled and be-Birkined grown-up sorority girls who compete with each other over matters like which summer camps their children attend. And I certainly don’t need to explain myself to my mother, who is in no position to lecture anyone on the subject of marriage. The truth is, I have everything I need in life and what I do not have I am more than capable of supplying myself.

Which is not to suggest it wouldn’t be nice to have someone to share it with. Of course it would. It would be lovely to be checking my watch late in the business day, smiling wickedly because tonight is my birthday and I know he has something devilish cooked up for me. It would be heavenly to come home to a dimly lit room, an open bottle and two glasses sparkling on the table, Billie Holiday singing in the background. Those would be delightful. Frankly, it would just be nice to have someone ask me how my day was and actually care about the answer. The only people who ever ask me about my day work for me.

But that’s it.

What I do not accept is the antiquated notion that somehow I am less of a woman—or less of a person—because I do not have a man in my life. It is not as though I have never been with a man. I have been with more than my share, both before and after Phillip, and aside from the time I Maced one who wanted to marry me there have been very few catastrophes.

That came during the era I refer to as BP (Before Phillip). I was quite a different girl then, not only because I was so young but because I had the common girlish belief that men came in an endless supply. I may not have been the prettiest girl but I did all right—I always have; I’ve always known just the ways to hide the worst and accentuate