My heart tightened. Douglas Watts was a true sweetheart—a hardworking single dad who’d raised Zoe and her sisters into three strong, self-assured women.
He leaned in and said quietly, “They found a spot on his liver. He’s having a biopsy tomorrow, but it doesn’t look good. That’s why we came home for a bit.”
Zoe looked at the wall behind me and blinked back tears.
And I’d thought they were pregnant. I knew there wasn’t much I could say to reassure her.
“I’m here if you need me.”
That was more than three months ago—when all this started, I suppose.
In a typical addition to the Bad-Things-That-Happen-To-Good-People file, Mr. Watts’s spot did turn out to be cancer. He had surgery, followed by a round of chemo, and he’s doing okay for the time being, but there’s really no way of knowing for sure. On the plus side, Zoe and Asher visited as often as they could throughout the summer, so at least I was able to see them a bit more than usual. And there’s nothing like the heady combination of hanging out with a great couple and a reminder that death can knock on your door at any moment to make you sit up and reassess your own life.
The more I saw of my two old friends—truly in love, free from money trouble, oozing career satisfaction, leaning on each other in a time of crisis—the more I wanted what they have for myself. If that makes me a pathetic throwback to the 1950s, unable to feel complete without a man on my arm, then so be it. I can live with that.
But I also began to see how Zoe’s substantial cash flow likely has a lot to do with their overall happiness, their success, both as a couple and professionally. It’s what has allowed each of them to be living exactly the lives they want to be living, which in turn frees them from ninety percent of the stresses the rest of us have to deal with every single day—the little things, like mortgage payments and business trips and mean bosses, which, in turn, all too often lead to the bigger things, like bankruptcy and divorce and broken dreams. Zoe and Asher are blessed with the freedom to put into their relationship the tremendous effort it requires to sustain a happy one, no matter how perfect or loving, while the rest of us are left bickering over bills, too exhausted by the end of the day to do anything but watch TV and not have sex.
Yes, the money really does seem to be a crucial part of the equation. And if actively looking for a partner who has some makes me materialistic, shallow, whatever…then I can live with that, too, provided he’s there by my side to lovingly fib to me and tell me it isn’t at all true, that I’m not like that, while we toast each other’s successes in the hot tub.
“Virginia Woolf said that a woman can’t write without a room of her own.”
“But Holly, you already have a room of your own,” George points out. We are well into our second drinks, huddled in a dark booth at the back of the bar. So far, she isn’t overly impressed with The Plan. Bringing her onside isn’t going to be easy.
“And I spend fifty hours a week at work so that I can have that room! How can I be expected to write if I work fifty hours a week?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “But you rarely work fifty hours a week, Holly, and if I’m correctly remembering the bedtime stories of my youth, Woolf was talking about the dearth of women writers throughout history and how the root cause wasn’t that women were inferior to men, obviously, but rather how having the physical space in which to write and the time to devote to it are necessary prerequisites to sustaining any kind of artistic endeavor. She was bemoaning the fact that most women didn’t have that luxury, as well as the fact that even the wealthier ones who did also had to contend with meddling husbands and demanding children and a spate of oppressive sociocultural expectations that stifled their creativity beneath the endless, mindless minutiae of everyday existence. I don’t think she was urging women to marry rich so they don’t have to work. Quite the opposite, actually. Woolf believed that—”
“George!” I interrupt. “Never mind all that right now. I was just trying to make a point.”
“And that point would be…”
“Well, basically, that if you want to turn your dreams into reality, you need more than a goal, G. You need a plan. And in order to execute that plan, you need a time line. And this…” I gesture expansively to include the entire bar, from the shiny black piano at one end to the velvet-draped windows at the other, “…this is the first step in the process.”
“Huh? What process?”
“It makes perfect sense.”
Still, a blank stare.
I sigh. “We’re here to find rich men.”
George practically chokes on the honey-roasted peanuts she’s been inhaling. “Oh… My… God… Did you really just say that? How completely disgusting. What a disgusting concept.” She shakes her head and stares at me in disbelief. “What happened? What’s going on with you? How did you get sucked into this whole Must-Find-A-Man syndrome all of a sudden? And a rich one? Even worse…”
“Don’t you see, George? It has nothing to do with that, it’s about the big picture, although I have been feeling a little down and out these days, as you know. First with the whole Jean-Jean thing…” I shake it off. Better not to think about that anymore. Those days are behind me. “Look. It’s not just about ‘finding a man.’ That’s just a secondary perk.”
“I suppose the money’s the primary reason, then?”
“No, no. Of course not. The writing is the reason. The motivation. The call to arms! G, you know I’ve been crazy lately, with work, with my love life, with Zoe. But something’s finally changed. It’s like I’ve been trying to read the writing on the wall for years and just now it’s coming into focus for the first time.”
George raises a skeptical eyebrow. “So what does it say?”
“It says, ‘You’ve got to do something, Holly Hastings, before it’s too late!’”
“I see. And tell me, how exactly do you plan to justify this scheme of yours?”
“Because ultimately, The Plan is to realize my own potential and make positive life changes—to write my book. The Plan is not just to hook up or get rich. Those are just parts of the process. Fringe benefits, if you will.”
“I don’t know, Holly. Those are pretty small distinctions.”
“Not to me! Nothing’s changed, except that I’ve finally figured out a way to do what I’ve always wanted to do. Besides, I’ve pretty much lost my faith when it comes to finding Mr. Right. And what sense does it make to wait around forever for someone I don’t really believe exists anymore? So I figure I might as well start looking for Mr. Financial Stability instead.” As I explained it to her, the whole thing was beginning to make even more sense than it had at the outset.
“Mr. Financial Stability? Sounds romantic…”
“For the first time, I feel empowered, George, actually empowered. Like something great is about to happen. I am no longer going to accept being a leaf blown about by the breeze. I will be the mistress of my own destiny! I will do what I want with my life, and what I want is to be a writer. A real writer. Not an obituarist at a small paper or a drill-press operator who writes on the weekends…a real writer. Full-time. And the only way I can think to make it all happen is to find a sweet but wealthy guy who believes in me just a little bit. Is that so wrong?”
“I don’t know. Is it?” She seems genuinely confused.
“And I’ll tell you something else…” I pause just long enough to prepare her for the enormity of what I am about to say.
“What?”
“I can now see that my existence makes very little difference to the vast majority of people on this planet. Whether I like it or not, I don’t matter much in the grand scheme of things. And quite frankly,