All You Could Ask For A Novel - By Mike Greenberg Page 0,30
a little hottie in my office and have it turn out as anything other than horrific. And embarrassing. And insulting. And just plain sad.
I felt all of those emotions as I entered the restaurant and greeted, with my firmest handshake, the man I had been arranged to meet. His name was Ken Walker. He was tall, which was nice, and his suit was exquisite, power blue with a faint verdant pinstripe, and a silver tie and unmatched pocket square. His hair was silver, too, full and thick and neatly parted, as though he had just run a comb through it while waiting for me to arrive. His hands were strong and his palms callused but his nails clean—regular manicures probably—but the rough hands signaled golf or weightlifting. He seemed terrific, actually, in so many ways, there was really only one obvious problem, but it was a big one, especially on this of all nights.
Ken Walker had to be sixty years old.
At minimum.
With a little Botox, self-tanner, and the right trainer, he might actually be closer to seventy.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
The small-talk portion of the evening was a total blur. I couldn’t tell you now where he works, though I know he’s a lawyer, or where he grew up, though I know he moved to New York after college, or, for that matter, which college he attended. He told me he was divorced, which I already knew, and that he lived near the park, which I knew as well. He told me how fond he is of my assistant, Marie, and I noticed a paternal manner when he spoke of her, which infuriated me. For crying out loud, Marie is smoking hot with tits out-to-here, but this old bastard acts as though she is the daughter he never had.
I wasn’t really listening to Ken, in part because I was replaying in my mind the conversation I’d had with Marie that morning in my office. The one in which I allowed myself to be talked into this calamity, this date with Kirk Douglas. When she had described him to me, hadn’t she said: “He is about the right age”? I think she did. And that begs two questions. How old does she think this guy is? And, more disturbing, how old does she think I am?
What thoughts, I ask you, could possibly be more depressing than those?
BROOKE
WHAT, I ASK, COULD be more depressing than racing home from a nude rock ’n’ roll photo shoot to sober up in time for your kids to come home?
I have to admit I was feeling a little sorry for myself when I pulled my car out of Pamela’s driveway, with a raincoat draped over my shoulders and the seat belt strapped between my boobs. I don’t get too many chances to let loose, and when I do it’s usually so choreographed. For example, I might get invited to a particular event and think: “That’s a night when I’ll really party hard.” Or Scott might make arrangements for us to have a suite in a fancy hotel, and he’ll say: “That night, we’re going to act like we’re back in college.” And all that is well and good, and it’s fun, but the truth is that if we were in college we would do a lot less talking about it. I remember so many nights that began innocently at the library and ended with a cute boy I hardly knew feeling me up.
The point of it all is that I had no intention or expectation that this photo shoot would turn out to be such a tequila-drenched, rocking good time, and that contributed greatly to how much fun it was. And now, I thought, as I inched home slowly, because the idea of being pulled over drunk and practically nude scared me to death, it was over because of a Wiggles bobblehead doll.
The irony of that is, my husband and my kids make fun of me for keeping those around. We still have dozens of them, even though my children lost interest in the Wiggles years ago. But I keep toys from every stage of their lives. Every Christmas, the kids go through their old toys and pick out some to bring to the church, because it is important for them to understand how lucky they are, that not all kids have toys to play with at Christmas, much less too many toys. And then, whatever does not go to the church, I save.