All You Could Ask For A Novel - By Mike Greenberg Page 0,29

be at the discretion of the general manager,” he said.

“Aren’t you the general manager?”

“Sí, señora.”

“So, Mr. Marquez, are you going to throw me out of the hotel if I go swimming by myself every morning?”

He hesitated. “Certainly not,” he said. “I do not condone it but I will allow it, on one strict condition.”

“What is that?”

“Every morning when you are finished, your first obligation is to see that I am informed immediately of your safe return.”

I stuck out my hand, and he shook it gently. “We have a deal,” I said.

And so, every morning I order my breakfast and I make sure Eduardo Marquez is aware of my return. And every morning, without fail, he has appeared a few minutes later and joined me, uninvited, for breakfast.

“It has been my pleasure every morning,” he said tonight, puffing contentedly on his cigarette, politely holding it as far from me as he could. “I look forward to it every day.”

“I do too,” I said.

And I realized, to my surprise, that I was thinking about what it would be like to be in bed with him. I wondered if he was thinking about it too. I couldn’t tell, which was strange. Was I just out of practice? It’s not as though I was married for thirty years, I was barely married for thirty hours. And I was only with Robert for a few months before that. It seems hard to believe, but a year ago at this time I was completely single, wholly unattached, being actively pursued by two or three men of varying significance. Surely a year ago I had no trouble detecting any man’s intentions, or his level of interest, or determining whether or not I was on a date.

“On second thought, I think I will have a glass of wine,” I said, having declined at the start of the evening. I’ve not had a sip of alcohol this whole month. My every second has been consumed with preparation, training, but all of a sudden a glass of wine sounded really good. “Something dry and crisp.”

“I know just the glass,” he said, raising his hand for the waiter.

Of course he did. He is one of those men. If you think about it, you can pretty much divide men into categories based upon what they drink and how much they know about it. There are beer guys, and we all know who they are: fun, fraternity guys with baseball caps on backward, meeting you for dinner after a softball game. There are whiskey guys, who take themselves very seriously and—whether they acknowledge it or not—are the most misogynistic of all the drinkers. Men who drink gin are very straitlaced, men who drink vodka are very deep, and men who drink champagne are usually very gay. And then there are men like Eduardo Marquez, who drink wine and know a great deal about it. I’ve never been with one of those before. I was raised by a scotch-drinker, married a beer-drinker, dated all of the others, including the champagne-drinker (yes, he was gay), but I’ve never spent any real time with a wine man.

Until tonight.

“Marco,” Eduardo said, “bring a bottle of the ’88 from the cellar beneath my office.”

“Oh,” I said, holding out my hand to stop him, “just a glass for me, please.”

“If that is all you want that is no problem,” he said, and sent the waiter off with a wave, “but if you are only going to try one bottle from our list, this is the choice.”

“I assume you don’t usually sell it by the glass,” I said.

“You assume correctly.”

I batted my eyes at him and smiled. My goodness, look at me, making eyes at a man ten years older than the man I married, who himself was too old for me. Strange, too, because there isn’t anything about Eduardo that would normally appeal to me. He isn’t athletic or headstrong, or arrogant. Maybe this was just about the moment, the island and the breeze and the sound of the ocean, or maybe my hormones were in overdrive from all the training, or maybe I was just a mess from all that has happened. Or maybe, just maybe, I was finally getting smarter. I have to believe that’s a possibility, too.

KATHERINE

I GUESS IT ISN’T true that we get smarter as we get older.

At least, it isn’t in my case.

After all, here I am, forty years old, and I am still stupid enough to imagine I can be fixed up by