The Expats Read Free

intractable problem. She would have to quit. It was not her decision; she had no choice.
    She had never admitted to her husband—had barely admitted to herself—that she wanted to quit. And now she would never have to admit it.
    “So what would I do?” she asked. “In Luxembourg? Which by the way I’m still not convinced is real.”
    He smiled.
    “You have to admit,” she said, “it sounds made-up.”
    “You’ll live the life of leisure.”
    “Be serious.”
    “I am serious. You’ll learn to play tennis. Plan our travels. Set up a new house. Study languages. Blog.”
    “And when I get bored?”
    “ If you get bored? You can get a job.”
    “Doing what?”
    “Washington isn’t the only place in the world where people write position papers.”
    Katherine returned her eyes to her mangled onion, and resumed chopping, trying to sublimate the elephant that had just wandered into the conversation. “Touché.”
    “In fact,” Dexter continued, “Luxembourg is one of the three capitals of the European Union, along with Brussels and Strasbourg.” He was now an infomercial for the goddamned place. “I imagine there are lots of NGOs that could use a savvy American on their well-funded payrolls.” Combined with a recruiting agent. One of those unfailingly cheery HR types with creases down the front of his khakis, shiny pennies in his loafers.
    “So when would this happen?” Katherine pushed the deliberations away from herself, her prospects, her future. Hiding herself.
    “Well.” He sighed, too heavily, a bad actor who overestimated his abilities. “There’s the catch.”
    He didn’t continue. This was one of Dexter’s few awful habits: making her ask him questions, instead of just providing the answers he knew she wanted. “Well?”
    “As soon as possible,” he admitted, as if under duress, cementing the bad reviews, the rotten-fruit throwing.
    “Meaning what?”
    “We’d be living there by the end of the month. And I’d probably need to go there once or twice by myself, sooner. Like Monday.”
    Katherine’s mouth fell open. Not only was this coming out of nowhere, it was coming at top speed. Her mind was racing, trying to gauge howshe could possibly quit on such a short timetable. It would be difficult. It would arouse suspicion.
    “I know,” Dexter said, “it’s awfully quick. But money like this? It comes with sacrifices. And this sacrifice? It’s not such a bad one: it’s that we need to move to Europe asap. And look.” He reached into his jacket pocket and unfolded a sheet of legal-sized paper, flattening it onto the counter. It appeared to be a spreadsheet, the title LUXEMBOURG BUDGET across the top.
    “And the timing is actually good ,” Dexter continued, defensively, still not explaining why there was such a big rush. Katherine wouldn’t understand the rush until much, much later. “Because it’ll still be summer break, and we can make it to Luxembourg in time for the kids to start a new school at the beginning of the term.”
    “And the school would be …?”
    “English-language private school.” Dexter had a quick, ready answer to everything. He’d made a spreadsheet, for crying out loud. What a romantic. “Paid for by the client.”
    “It’s a good school?”
    “I have to assume that the private-banking capital of the world, with the highest income on the planet, is going to have a decent school. Or two.”
    “You don’t have to be sarcastic about it. I’m just asking some marginal questions about the education of our children, and where we’d live. You know, small matters.”
    “Sorry.”
    Katherine let Dexter suffer her anger for a few seconds before picking up again. “We would live in Luxembourg for how long?”
    “The contract would be for one year. Renewable for another, at an increase.”
    She scanned the spreadsheet, found the bottom line, a net savings of nearly two hundred thousand a year—euros? Dollars? Whatever. “Then what?” she asked,