Best Friends Forever. Margot Hunt

laughed and leaned back in my seat. “He really was awful, wasn’t he? From what little Kat has told me about him, I certainly wasn’t expecting Howard to be genial. But I also wasn’t expecting him to be so hostile. I got the feeling he resented our being there, and his having to play host.”

      “He spent the entire night trying to one-up me,” Todd said. “When I told him I play tennis, he claimed he was good enough to play for his college team. When I told him what I do, he said he’d thought about being an architect but decided he’d make more money in finance.”

      Todd’s tone was unusually bitter. I imagined I was not the only one who had been impressed by the size and scope of the Grants’ house, particularly against the backdrop of our current financial crisis. But that wasn’t something either one of us wanted to get into. And even if we had no choice but to discuss our money woes periodically, we rarely addressed Todd’s lack of career success directly. If he was frustrated by the lack of traction he’d gained in his field over the years, he dealt with it by whacking tennis balls. As for me, I didn’t think I was in any position to comment on Todd’s or anyone else’s career failures, considering how I’d unceremoniously left my cushy academic job.

      “Howard played tennis in college?”

      “No.” Todd laughed. “He just said they tried to recruit him, but he decided he didn’t want to play, which is such bullshit. I think he really just wanted to tell me he went to Yale. Jesus. You know how I feel about people who name-drop their alma maters.”

      “I know, you’ve always hated that. I guess future double dates are out of the question.”

      “I liked Kat,” he said. “I can see why the two of you hit it off. You’re very much alike.”

      This surprised me. “We are? How so?”

      “You’re both smart. You have similar senses of humor,” Todd said. He glanced over at me, the streetlights casting an odd green glow on his face. “Why? You don’t think you’re alike?”

      “I never really thought about it,” I said. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love Kat. But she’s so much more—” I faltered, trying to think of the right word “—poised than I am.”

      Todd let out an incredulous bark of laughter. “You can’t be serious.”

      “What?”

      “Alice, you are, without exception, the most poised person I have ever met.”

      It is not often that your spouse of over a decade can shock you. I’d seen my husband out of his mind with grief after the loss of our daughter. I’d washed out the bowl he threw up into for three days when he had food poisoning. I knew he hated eggplant but loved foul-looking peanut-butter-and-bacon sandwiches. But I never knew he, or anyone else, thought of me as poised. After all, I experienced myself through the maelstrom of my own swirling thoughts and emotions, through joy and grief, worry and hope. I had moments of peace, but I certainly never felt poised.

      I was quite pleased to know that I put up such a convincing front.