quite good enough. He’d needed no convincing about Rachael – he’d been more sure and certain of her than of anything in his life up until that point. He felt like he’d had to win her, prove himself.
They’d been married in the St Regis in December, the year Rachael graduated. There’d seemed no point in waiting, and besides, Rachael’s family would have been furious if they’d suggested living together. Marrying Rachael had felt a little like winning the lead role in a new Broadway show. He was excluded totally from the planning process. Rachael’s mother had gone into overdrive – Rachael surrendering as twenty years of prior experience had shown her she should. Rachael had eight bridesmaids, and he was required to produce eight matching attendants. (Two brothers, four college friends, and two slightly bemused co‐workers from the law firm he’d joined in New York after they became engaged, qualified not so much by friendship as by their Jewishness, their photogenic qualities, and the fact that they were free that Sunday.) And show up. With a haircut. That was the extent of his involvement.
Snow had fallen to order (how would it dare not?) the night before, swirling around them appealingly as they left the smart rehearsal dinner at the 21 Club, obligingly stopping in time to allow a crystal‐blue sky and bright sunshine for the afternoon of the wedding. There had been a photograph – taken out at the Hamptons house by a photographer who shot for Elle and Vogue – and five paragraphs (including the story of the first kiss in the surf ) in the ‘Style’ section of the Sunday New York Times . A honeymoon on St Barts. He’d wanted them to go to South America, but St Barts was a gift from an aunt of Rachael’s. She’d seemed extraordinary to him on that holiday, in a tiny white bikini and an enormous broad‐brimmed straw hat. He couldn’t get enough of her, in bed and out of it, and he couldn’t believe how lucky he’d got. He watched her when she wasn’t watching him, and was amazed each time all over again that she was his wife. That she had chosen him . He was so very proud of her. She would take him into her gilded world, where everything was always wonderful, and he would live there forever.
He’d been living there now for ten years. And the strain of everything always being wonderful was beginning to be terrible.
Todd and Greg
They had their best talks in bed. The first time – the morning after the night before of their first, blind date in the East Village eight years earlier – they had begun, like an old married couple, and they were still talking now. They had their own shorthand, their own code, and they often finished each other’s sentences. They talked for hours on their 7ft pillow‐top mattress, read the Times cover to cover, watched CNN, ate bagels and drank Earl Grey tea. Some of their friends were having children now (Todd said that New York in the Naughties was like Harrods in the Eighties – there wasn’t anything you couldn’t buy there), but they were wise enough to know how much they would resent giving up their talks in bed for broken nights and early starts and chocolate milk stains on the 600‐thread‐count sheets. Most of the young parents they knew were lucky to finish a sentence, let alone a bagel with lox and the ‘Style’ section. They ‘loved’ their friends’ children (like they ‘loved’ their friends’ new upholstery, and their dogs, and their new exhibition at the gallery on Chambers) – from time to time, at a healthy distance.
Mostly Todd talked and Greg listened, but Todd said that Greg’s words were pearls of wisdom among the swine of his chatter. They lived great, fulfilling, independent lives, but they spent their evenings and weekends colouring them in for each other. Todd told funny stories about his clients, and their homes – their weird tastes and impossible demands. Greg’s stories were often more poignant – he was a
They’d been married in the St Regis in December, the year Rachael graduated. There’d seemed no point in waiting, and besides, Rachael’s family would have been furious if they’d suggested living together. Marrying Rachael had felt a little like winning the lead role in a new Broadway show. He was excluded totally from the planning process. Rachael’s mother had gone into overdrive – Rachael surrendering as twenty years of prior experience had shown her she should. Rachael had eight bridesmaids, and he was required to produce eight matching attendants. (Two brothers, four college friends, and two slightly bemused co‐workers from the law firm he’d joined in New York after they became engaged, qualified not so much by friendship as by their Jewishness, their photogenic qualities, and the fact that they were free that Sunday.) And show up. With a haircut. That was the extent of his involvement.
Snow had fallen to order (how would it dare not?) the night before, swirling around them appealingly as they left the smart rehearsal dinner at the 21 Club, obligingly stopping in time to allow a crystal‐blue sky and bright sunshine for the afternoon of the wedding. There had been a photograph – taken out at the Hamptons house by a photographer who shot for Elle and Vogue – and five paragraphs (including the story of the first kiss in the surf ) in the ‘Style’ section of the Sunday New York Times . A honeymoon on St Barts. He’d wanted them to go to South America, but St Barts was a gift from an aunt of Rachael’s. She’d seemed extraordinary to him on that holiday, in a tiny white bikini and an enormous broad‐brimmed straw hat. He couldn’t get enough of her, in bed and out of it, and he couldn’t believe how lucky he’d got. He watched her when she wasn’t watching him, and was amazed each time all over again that she was his wife. That she had chosen him . He was so very proud of her. She would take him into her gilded world, where everything was always wonderful, and he would live there forever.
He’d been living there now for ten years. And the strain of everything always being wonderful was beginning to be terrible.
Todd and Greg
They had their best talks in bed. The first time – the morning after the night before of their first, blind date in the East Village eight years earlier – they had begun, like an old married couple, and they were still talking now. They had their own shorthand, their own code, and they often finished each other’s sentences. They talked for hours on their 7ft pillow‐top mattress, read the Times cover to cover, watched CNN, ate bagels and drank Earl Grey tea. Some of their friends were having children now (Todd said that New York in the Naughties was like Harrods in the Eighties – there wasn’t anything you couldn’t buy there), but they were wise enough to know how much they would resent giving up their talks in bed for broken nights and early starts and chocolate milk stains on the 600‐thread‐count sheets. Most of the young parents they knew were lucky to finish a sentence, let alone a bagel with lox and the ‘Style’ section. They ‘loved’ their friends’ children (like they ‘loved’ their friends’ new upholstery, and their dogs, and their new exhibition at the gallery on Chambers) – from time to time, at a healthy distance.
Mostly Todd talked and Greg listened, but Todd said that Greg’s words were pearls of wisdom among the swine of his chatter. They lived great, fulfilling, independent lives, but they spent their evenings and weekends colouring them in for each other. Todd told funny stories about his clients, and their homes – their weird tastes and impossible demands. Greg’s stories were often more poignant – he was a
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