“A little all-purpose seasoning—you know I’ve recommended this one, called Spike”—she sprinkled some on the chopped red peppers—“and it’s ready to add.” She added it to the rest, not mentioning that earlier she’d wrestled that pack of Spike out of the dog’s mouth and gotten inspired to cook when his breath smelled like pot roast. It was a confusing feeling to get hungry from the dog’s breath.
The salad looked gorgeous, no doubt about it. And her addition of her own Marilyn Merlot vinaigrette was almost certain to be a hit with her subscribers, but she couldn’t wait to add a little ranch dressing to it for actual flavor. You can only do so much.
Her phone dinged and she wiped her hands on a dishcloth and picked it up. Calvin.
Going to be in a hurry tonight, heat up one of my dinners.
His “dinners.” She called them his Mean Cuisine. They came in a sad box, and a sadder microwavable tray with film.
It was good that he was trying to stay healthy. She appreciated that. She just wished he was a little more fun in the process.
The really bad part was that somehow she was beginning to get used to eating this blah prepackaged food herself. It wasn’t like she was going to rip the plastic off his dinner and plop it on his plate then set about making Florentine stuffed manicotti for one. In fact, she’d recently eaten a bite of something real, and found herself thinking, blasphemously, that it had too much . . . too much . . . what was it . . .
Flavor.
For ten years she’d been searching for the middle ground in almost every area of her life so she could settle into something that, if it wasn’t happiness per se, would at least resemble contentment.
Meanwhile, she was a well-oiled machine, producing everything on a timetable, as requested and predicted. Calvin would be home about six, eat his dinner, leave his dishes, and go do whatever it was he was so eager to do after dinner.
At 7:00 P.M., she’d get some appetizers out of the refrigerator that she’d prepped and wrapped in the morning, then heat them up for her book club meeting at seven-thirty.
Calvin might not be her dream man anymore, but he was her husband. They had a life. They had come up with a rhythm. Ever since she’d turned thirty, the years seemed to flow so quickly. Sometimes it was disconcerting, but most of the time it was just . . . life, which was what most of her friends seemed to have as well.
Life with Calvin.
Yes, maybe without him she might finally live in London. She never would or could with him, he couldn’t find good in the rain or the cold and he “couldn’t understand the damn accent.” She could live on some little street, have a local pub . . .
She could do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. Follow some ridiculous decorating trend in the house without his observation. But they had been together since they got married at twenty-three; life without him was unthinkable.
She so envied the girls a decade behind her who had Pinterest at their fingertips.
She couldn’t imagine what it must feel like to be twenty-two now. She imagined the optimism that must be felt by a girl that young who could imagine a bachelorette’s studio. Gilded mirrors. Etsy prints. No husband’s-great-aunt’s afghan—just a lush, warm, faux-fur blanket.
Her kitchen—she couldn’t even think about that. In a perfect world, she’d have special, collected pieces. Those beautiful wineglasses she wanted from Crate&Barrel. That French-looking ceramic rolling pin from Anthropologie. Special pinch bowls into which she could happily toss a handful of freshly chopped mirepoix.
She could have art up that she liked. She could have a big closet that didn’t make a man ask why she had so many clothes she never wore—and she wouldn’t have to answer that the problem wasn’t how many clothes she had but how few outings and events.
She would be happy with less money, less space, less everything. It gave her such a thrill to imagine the stack of Condé Nast magazines she could artfully arrange beside rose-gold coasters. Drinking rosé alone in a living room, binge-watching whatever show she wanted . . .
Margo snapped out of it, realizing the twenty-three-year-old full of hope had just morphed into a more hopeful and independent version of herself.
But the moment Margo’s mind ever started to drift there, she started to think again about paying the bills by finding something she was qualified for. She thought of being alone. She thought of how fleeting the freedom might truly feel. She was just starting to assemble the book club appetizers when Calvin came in, looking unusually buoyant. She smiled at him, a pang of guilt ringing through her. He had to come in looking so happy, right after she’d been having naive fantasies about leaving him and—what, traveling in time to be twenty-two again?
She felt like an idiot.
“Hey there,” she said, gathering her camera and tripod and putting them aside. No question of whether or not she was in the middle of using them.
“Is it ready?”
“In a couple minutes.”
He came to the counter, but not to her. “Something smells good.”
“Maybe it’s the Caesar dressing.” She pointed with her elbow at the bottle marked ZERO CALORIE ROMAINE EMPIRE.
He bent over it and sniffed. “Mmm.”
And there’s your serving, she thought, since, according to the label there was no nutritional difference between smelling it and eating it.
“How was work?” she asked him, putting the little frozen black plastic dish on the counter. It clattered like she’d set a slab of marble on the granite.
“Really good,” he said, dipping his finger into the bottle and tasting the dressing. “Really, really good.”
He didn’t elaborate immediately, so she had to nudge him. “What? What happened?”
“Well.” He smiled the smile of a person who just couldn’t help it. “They’re promoting me to VP of the San Francisco office.”
Margo actually gasped. “Congratulations!” She felt like she’d tripped over an uneven sidewalk. A promotion? San Francisco? How was this the first she was hearing of it?
“Thanks.”
Something about that set her into an old mind-set she had chosen long ago to grow out of. She always assumed she was about to be left, and could hear a simple word like “thanks” and take it to mean, “Thank you, because this is my thing, and has no effect on you, and now I’m leaving you for a twenty-two-year-old with an interesting Pinterest presence.”
She needed to remember that wasn’t how people engaged with each other. Especially married people.
“I had no idea this was even in the works!” She studied his expression, curious as to what was making his jaw muscle twitch behind his smile. “Did you?”
He leveled his hand and tipped it side to side. “I didn’t want to say anything in case it didn’t work out, but . . .” Then he beamed and shrugged. “It happened. It’s a huge change, but meant to be. A brand-new start.”
“I’ll say.”
He wasn’t bothering to try to sell her on it.
Did he just expect her to drop everything and go across the country?
She went to the sink and washed her hands, buying a couple of extra moments so she wouldn’t sound too sharp. “When were you thinking we’d leave? There’s a lot involved in closing up shop here, so to speak.”