All You Could Ask For A Novel - By Mike Greenberg Page 0,2
Taken in order: (1) My dad didn’t approve of Robert because he’s fourteen years older than me, and (2) Robert’s career required that, at the time of our whirlwind courtship and wedding, we spend every waking moment talking to people we have never met and feigning interest in every word they said. That seemed all right to me, even if it wasn’t so exciting, because at least it suggested Robert believed in something. My father didn’t believe in anything aside from money, and thus he wasn’t going to allow me to marry an older man, whom I’d met on an elevator three months before, without a prenuptial agreement. And the thing about that was Robert had no problem with it at all; he was understanding and mature. “If I were your father I would feel exactly the same way,” he told me.
That’s why I married him. Because he says things that grown men say.
It was me that got angry with my father, who has never approved of my lifestyle, my love of sports, of being outside, camping, hiking. He’s never understood why I don’t care about the only thing that matters to him in the world, which is his money.
“One time, when I was eleven years old,” he told me, “I lost my baseball glove. I left it in the park and when I went back to look for it, it was gone. I was afraid to go home, I was afraid to tell my father I lost my glove. Because I had an appreciation for the value of the glove, but my actions seemed to demonstrate that I did not, and I knew how disappointed my father would be in me.”
I couldn’t resist. “It’s hard going through life with your father disappointed in you, isn’t it?” I said.
“Don’t be fresh.”
“So what happened?” I asked.
“What happened with what?”
“With the baseball glove,” I said. “What happened when you eventually told your father?”
My dad waved his hand in the dismissive way that only he can. “Nothing, really.”
“Nothing happened?” I asked.
“Not really, no.”
I shook my head. “Then what is the point of the story?”
“Every story does not have to have a point, young lady,” my father said. “I only want for you to be happy. But as your father it’s my job to keep you from making the biggest mistake of your life.”
Just what every girl dreams of hearing on her wedding day.
The thing is, it wasn’t a mistake. Robert is different from any boy I’ve ever known, beginning with the fact that he isn’t a boy. He’s a man. He’s the district attorney of Los Angeles County, California. He puts bad guys in jail; how could you have more of a man’s job than that?
We met in Sacramento, when I was in town for a friend’s wedding. I was stepping toward the elevator in my hotel when I noticed an attractive older man staring at me. He was wearing a blue, pinstriped suit and a navy tie, something a leading man would have worn in a movie in the forties. But there was something soft about his eyes, no matter how hard his clothes were. I let the elevator go and just stood there, without pressing the button for another.
It didn’t take him long. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to stare.”
I waited. I think I smiled.
“Listen,” he said, moving slowly toward me, “I don’t mean to bother you, but I have had a great day. I mean a really great day. And I just can’t fathom going up to my room right now by myself and sitting there and watching television. I know you don’t know me, but I’m a nice person and you look like a nice person too. I would love to buy you a drink and just sit and talk. We can talk about anything you want, anything in the world you’re interested in. You have my word of honor as a gentleman, which I am, and a Boy Scout, which I never was but that’s only because I couldn’t rub two sticks together and make a fire, that I won’t try anything. We can go anywhere you want and talk about anything you want.”
He paused a moment to catch his breath, then finished: “I suppose this is a very long way of saying: Hello, my name is Robert, can I buy you a drink?”
Three months later I had left my job, given up my apartment in New York, moved into his house in the Valley, and