Happily Ever After: A Novel Read Free

Where was I?
    “Sadie, are you listening to me?”
    “Of course, Roger.”
    “Did you mail my check?”
    “Of course, Roger.”
    “Good,” he says. “Things are a little tight this month. The studio doesn’t do so well in the spring. People want to be outside. I have no idea what that is about.”
    According to Roger, people don’t like to do yoga in the winter because it’s too cold or in the summer because it’s too hot or in the autumn because they can go outside and look at the pretty fall foliage in Central Park. So every month is a little tight for Roger. I was hoping Fred might stick. Fred is rich. But apparently, Roger meditated himself right out of that idea.
    “I don’t know either,” I say. I add a sentence to my manuscript. Reread it. Delete it. I take another swig of my wine.
    “How’s my baby girl?” Roger asks.
    “Sleeping. It’s night, remember?”
    “Right.”
    “Hey, what’s the coolest bar in New York right now?” I ask.
    “Buddha, on Twenty-Third,” Roger answers without pause.
    “Straight?”
    “Not even a little.”
    “I need to put my hero in a trendy New York bar,” I say. “But I think it has to be a straight bar for this book.”
    “What about the hot dog and popcorn counter in Target?” Roger says with a laugh.
    “Not funny.”
    “Sorry.”
    “Is there anything else, Roger? I’m at forty-two hundred words and I’d really like to hit fifty-five hundred and go to bed.”
    “Sorry, Sadie,” he says. “It’s just I’m so lonely now that I’ve decided to end this thing with Fred. What if I never find another man?”
    “You’ve never even had lunch alone,” I remind him, which is almost true. If Roger dumps Fred tomorrow, he will be madly in love again by Sunday brunch. Roger does not waste time mulling over why a relationship failed. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead! I grudgingly respect him for it because I know a lot about never finding another man.
    “I miss you, Sadie,” he says.
    “No, you don’t,” I say.
    “You know what I mean.”
    “I do. Good night, Roger.”
    I hang up on him before he can trap me into a full dissection of his romantic troubles.
    I married Roger for one reason: he was the father of the child neither of us meant to conceive. As I had given up on kids and romance and had accepted my spinsterhood, this came as a bit of a surprise. We were not an ideal couple. Roger had no ambition. He was needy. And I was the scarred veteran of a spectacularly failed romance, suspicious of all things male. I liked Roger well enough, but I did not love him in the heart-pounding, pulse-racing way I had always associated with marriage. Plus, the sex wasn’t great, but I dismissed that as being unimportant. Obviously the idea of a baby had overwhelmed all reason, and we quickly convinced ourselves we were a perfect fit.
    “Let’s get married!”
    “Let’s be a family!”
    It wasn’t a hard sell really. Roger was nice. He held doors and pulled out chairs. He loved romantic comedies, no matter how poorly miscast. He loved to cook and entertain. And most important, he was over the moon about being a dad.
    “I never saw this happening for me,” he said, his head resting on my swelling belly. In retrospect, I should have asked him to explain the “why” behind that statement in detail, but I was blissed out with pregnancy hormones and not thinking clearly.
    I divorced Roger because he fell in love with a man named James. Roger said all the yoga had helped him evolve to his authentic self, and his authentic self turned out to be gay. Over an expensive dinner, paid for by me, he walked me through the steps of this evolution. I did not want to go on this particular walk. I kept reminding him we had a child together, as if that were somehow going to change his sexual orientation. At the end of the meal, Roger gave me a sad smile and asked for a divorce. His heart needed to chase James. And then Tim, followed by Andre and Seymour and Jacob and