Page 68 of Happy Wife

I turned to look at him, doing my best to mask my surprise. Marcus was the only person who had ever asked me a follow-up question on the subject.

I took a sip of wine. “Art is the only thing that’s ever held my interest for long. But I don’t know if it’s worth going back to school for that. It’s not a real career, you know?”

I expected Marcus to laugh. But instead, he studied me. There was a sense of disappointment in his expression, like he was sorry someone had lied to me. His features softened in that way of his. “Not a real career? Said the artist to the chef.”

I took another bite of rib, feeling vulnerable. I had never talked about my artistic goals like this before. Something about saying them aloud to Marcus walloped me with a harsh reality. I’d been longing to make art for so long that I forgot aboutactuallymaking it. When had I given up on the idea of being an artist? Maybe around the time I realized I’d have to fend for myself, and that most artists don’t earn a living wage. But now, there was nothing stopping me, and yet I spent my days working out and getting Botox rather than picking up a paintbrush.

“If you want to be an artist, Nora, you should do that.” Marcus fixed his eyes on me, his expression so serious it caused a lump to form in my throat. He was right, and I knew it. But something told me truly copping to it would turn this conversation into a long, emotional upheaval, and I didn’t want to get into all of that right now.

Marcus must have sensed my hesitation, because he dropped the subject. “You said you’re from all over?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s not a place, Nora.”

I laughed. “It’s about five different places if you want to get precise about it.”

He leaned back on the counter behind him, waiting for more.

“My parents lived in Charlotte, North Carolina, when I was born. After my dad split when I was thirteen, we followed my mom’s love interests around like some kind of a fucked-up road show. There was Jim from Connecticut, Don in Providence. Right before my junior year of high school, we spent a summer in Camden, Maine, and she married a shipping heir from Boston, but thatquickly ended in disaster. Sometime in my senior year of college, she ditched New England for current husband Paolo in Winter Park.”

“Paolo?”

“He’s Italian and only sort of nice,” I said, remembering the cigarette smell that followed Paolo through every room. “She has a place near Park Avenue that she treats like a pied-à-terre while she and Paolo hotel-surf their way around Europe.”

Marcus gave me a look that was somewhere between amused and skeptical. “Who pays for all of that?”

“Husband number three financed the pied-à-terre as part of their divorce settlement. But Paolo pays for the travel. He’s like a viscount or something.”

“She really knows how to pick them.”

“Just their bank accounts, I’m afraid. They weren’t all brimming with personality.”

“That’s a lot for a kid.”

I waved a hand to breeze past the more tender wounds. I had gotten an education out of it. I understood early on in life that I was on my own. Lust fades. People change their minds. Relationships fall apart. Even mothers can be flighty. Very flighty.

Marcus didn’t need to hear how hard friends had been to come by, since I changed schools with every one of my mother’s new romances, or how I spent my teenage years hiding in my bedroom, drawing or painting—a master escapist. No matter how good things seemed, there would always come a time when we would have to give back the zip codes and the cars we’d borrowed—the lives we were trying on. Ramona always left with more than she had started with—alimony or just some kind of cash payment. But it was chaos. By a certain point—maybe after the third fiancé kicked us out of his palatial estate—I just put my head down, and vowed to keep my needs to myself, never wanting to be the straw that broke the camel’s back in Ramona’s relationships.

Of course, there was always a final straw. Her charm wore thin, or their money ran out. And then it was time to restart our lives elsewhere.

No wonder I took one look at grown-up, stable Will and swooned.

Instead of saying any of this, I shrugged. “White picket fences are overrated.”

“Is that right?” There was humor in his eyes. “You’re just slumming it in the mansions on the Isle of Sicily then?”

He was trying to be funny, but the joke cut too close to the quick.

Had I run to the closest thing resembling a picket fence that I could find? Worse yet, was I destined to live my life in other people’s mansions?

I took a breath and tried to fake a laugh. “Oh, I didn’t realize we were the kind of friends that can make jokes about each other’s life choices. You want to talk about the tattoo on your arm? Is that Sanskrit?”

“All right.” He waved me off with a playful hand. “You win this round.”

“Good, because I want to hear more about this amateur surfing career of yours.”

I took another sip of my Pinot. It was jarring how easily Marcus saw me.

---