moved on to Paul. Married, forties, three kids under the age of twelve. He was a managing partner at a downtown Boise law firm, and he kept an apartment near his office since the hours were so long. His family lived in the suburbs, and he mainly saw them on weekends—if he wasn’t with Kenzie.
Paul asked her once if his bank account was the reason she was attracted to him. “Would you still be into me if I was, say, a janitor?”
She turned the question back on him. “Would you still be into me if I was forty, and overweight, with three kids?”
Without meaning to, she had described his wife, and he drew back, stung. “Point taken,” he said.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“No problem. What should we do for dinner?”
She dated Paul for four months toward the end of her senior year, and spent most nights at the Boise apartment. Izzy was spending most of her time at Mike’s; he had a small house of his own with a cute little backyard. Neither of the girls wanted to admit that their close friendship was growing apart, now that Izzy had retired from the world of professional dating, whether she meant to or not. Which would have been perfectly fine—what did Kenzie care?—but Izzy was becoming judgmental about Kenzie’s lifestyle. Which used to be her lifestyle.
“How do you still do it?” Izzy asked her one night.
They were both squeezed into their tiny bathroom a few weeks before graduation, jostling for position in front of the mirror. Kenzie had borrowed one of Izzy’s skintight dresses and was getting ready for a night of dinner and dancing with Paul. Izzy was wearing jeans and a sweater. In the mirror, they looked like they had switched places from where they started.
“Paul’s married,” Izzy said, as if Kenzie didn’t damn well know. “He has kids. A wife. They’re a family. Don’t you feel bad about that at all?”
“Nope,” Kenzie said. How many more times could they have this discussion? “Not even a little bit.”
Izzy turned to her. “It’s wrong, Kenz.”
“Since when do you care?” she shot back. “You do you, remember?”
“Yeah, well, I was wrong,” Izzy said. “People can change. Don’t you want to fall in love?”
It was the first time Kenzie had ever heard her roommate say the word love, and she was taken aback. She didn’t think Izzy was built that way. Love always seemed to be at the bottom of her list of priorities, and Kenzie found herself getting pissed off. Not everybody gets to be in love.
She turned back to the mirror. “I’m not a homewrecker, Izzy. He is. The thing people forget is that it’s his home to wreck. If things were good at home, he wouldn’t have given me the time of day.”
“Do you know how Mike and I met?”
“The gym, you said.”
“We actually met before that. He came up to me at a bookstore, started chatting me up about the memoir I was holding. Apparently, we had a whole conversation about it, but I seriously didn’t remember it until he reminded me on our first coffee date. And then a couple of months later, on Valentine’s Day—we were still casual at that point—he gave me the book.” She smiled at the memory. “He tracked down a signed copy at a specialty bookstore. And all I could think was, this book costs less than twenty bucks and is probably the single most thoughtful gift anyone’s ever given me.”
Izzy squeezed out of the bathroom, and was back a moment later with a hardcover of Wild by Cheryl Strayed. She showed Kenzie the inscription, which read, When you’re finished sowing your wild oats, I’ll be here.—Mike
“You should read this book,” Izzy said. “It’s about a woman who does drugs, cheats on her husband, goes on this crazy long hike, all these things to get away from feeling the pain of her mother’s death. It really resonated with me. Made me think long and hard about why I do the things I do, and I realized I was sick of myself. I’m giving Mike a chance, Kenz.”
“I’ve read it.” Kenzie turned back to the mirror. “And I’m happy for you. But I like Paul. And I can date rich guys just as easily as poor guys.” She was aware that she sounded exactly like her grand-mère.
“Nobody’s saying you can’t date an older rich guy,” Izzy said. “I’d rather be rich than poor. But I’d rather be happy than rich. Find one