Page 13 of Isn't She Lucky
I nod in agreement. That house is so elaborate, so well-maintained, why not keep it in the family? And then all the acres it sits on – what a treasure to pass down from one generation to the next.
“Do you ever get a weekend to yourself?” I inquired since he said he had plans to go home and work.
He shrugs. “Why would I need one? There’s no one there but me and sometimes the housekeeper. I don’t have a vibrant social life.”
“No?”
“No. The most social I’ve been was when I was with you, but then we know that didn’t last, did it?”
No, it didn’t last. I don’t think it was supposed to, especially with how he viewed me, but it is what it is.
He adds, “I do have to attend business functions every now and then, but other than that, I’m just chillin’ at home.”
“Working?”
“Not all the time. I exercise, play sports, swim, watch TV—normal stuff.”
“What about a personal life?”
“Thatismy personal life.”
“So, you’re not involved with anyone?”
“Of course not. You think a spouse would want me to be in a bachelor auction?”
“I guess not—but then again, it isfor the children.”
“I don’t care who it’s for. If I was with someone, I wouldn’t have done it.” He sips more wine and asks, “What about you? Are you seeing anyone?”
“Oh, no.”
He laughs low and warm, stirring something in me to remember those times we shared together all those years ago when things were good between us. He says, “You said ‘oh no’like it was out of the question.”
“Well, it is. My life is too complicated to be sharing it with someone.”
“What’s complicated about it, Giada?”
I glance up at him. Something about the way he said my name uncoils something deep within me. A memory. A buried feeling, perhaps. No, it’s more than that. It could be the wine, but it’s not that either. He says my name like he’s testing it. Tasting it. Getting accustomed to saying it again. Aloud. He’s discovering – searching for the girl in me he used to know, that’s hiding inside the body of the woman who sits before him.
I clear my throat and ask, “What’s complicated about life, you ask? What’snotcomplicated about it?”
“You’re deflecting.”
“And you’re being nosy.”
He smiles – slow, unhurried – his white teeth flashing beneath the warm lighting. “I’m sorry if I’m being meddlesome,” he says. “I’m just trying to familiarize myself with the adult version of you, so indulge me.”
I don’t have nothing to lose spilling my guts to a man who, I’m almost positive, I won’t see again after tonight, so I say, “I don’t particularly like my job. I always told myself I wasn’t going to be like my mother. I didn’t want to be at a job for the majority of my life just to have money to pay the bills. I wanted to have a job I enjoyed. One that brought me satisfaction. Not one that made me feel tired and worn out all the time. But that’s exactly what I ended up with, and I shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, we repeat what our parents do, right?”
“Not necessarily.”
I shake my head. “Really, because you’re running your parents’ company now, correct?”
“I am, but there are a lot of things you don’t know about—things I keep to myself about all of this. It’s not as satisfying as you might think it is. Money comes with problems, Giada.”
“Yeah…problems you can easily pay for.”
He narrows his eyes and asks, “What problems do you have that you can’t pay for?”
