Read Online The Widow Waltz by Sally Koslow - Free Book Online Page B

teaching?”
    My résumé is one paragraph long and twenty-four years stale, rendering me underqualified yet shopworn. Until we adopted Nicola, I taught English at a small girls’ high school. I loved my work, but felt that if another woman had sacrificed her child so I could have one, I needed to give up my job. As the years passed and the girls were in school all day, I considered returning to teaching, but by that time Ben’s law firm had prospered and I’d gotten the kind of rich-lady lazy that passes for busy, earnestly volunteering, often chairing committees. I wasn’t just a museum docent but one of the Central Park Conservancy’s star flowerbed weeders, and I have the T-shirt to prove it. But I never again worked for a salary, even when I was chloroformed by boredom.
    “I’ve sent out letters—nobody’s jumping,” I say. Stephan seems to expect more, so I go on, my hackles up and ego bruised. “I keep cycling through all the obvious choices for women my age who haven’t had a job since the Clinton administration. Does the city require another residential real estate broker or personal shopper? I don’t cook well enough to cater. I’d rather eat nuclear waste than be a wedding planner, choking on other people’s stress, and opening a store or going back to school to get another degree costs a fortune. I’ve put out feelers to tutor in English and”—heaven help me—“help kids write their college application essays.” I feel out of breath and pathetic from my speech.
    “So I guess you’ll have to be a high-priced escort.”
    “If only I hadn’t aged out of that one. Maybe a madam. I’m not creative enough for phone sex.”
    Stephan sits back in his chair and looks as if he were seeing me for the first time in a decade, maybe more. “You may truly be in a pickle, yes?”
    Unwanted pity is embedded in that statement. “Don’t cry for me, Argentina,” I say. “Not yet. I have a little money, and in this town you shouldn’t underestimate the pressure of getting in to college. Plus, if you’ll turn my baubles into cash when I ask, I’d buy me time.”
    “I assume that includes your own treasure chest?”
    Over the years, Ben gave me gifts that I’d always imagined he had chosen with exquisite care. Each carried history, and when I put them on, I wore more than bracelets, rings, pins, necklaces, earrings, and watches. I wore the day when Nicola arrived, the morning when after thirty-eight hours of labor I gave birth to Luey, the time when Ben won his first big case. I wore every anniversary and exotic vacation, each year together, which I viewed as twelve more months of good fortune. Well-deserved good fortune, if I’m being honest, because who considers an accidental advantage undeserved? Find me a rich person and I’ll show you someone who in her heart feels she’s been exempted from pain and poverty because God has noticed and rewarded her unique goodness, vaccinating her against bad luck. Gratitude is often a forgotten postscript.
    Not only has the statute of limitations on my utopia expired, I feel itchy with guilt for having taken it for granted all these years. With a shadow cast on Ben, I also feel robbed of my past. I wish my glowing memories had come with warranties. This is why I say, “I’m not going to be sentimental. If I have to get rid of things, I will.”
    “I’ve never seen you wear much, anyway.” It is true that for the daughter and sister of jewelers, I am a heretic, a walking white cotton shirt.
    “Most of it doesn’t work with yoga pants.”
    “Your watch?”
    I love that watch, circled by diamonds, but I say, “I can give that up. My phone tells time just fine.” I shovel the last squiggle of fusilli into my mouth.
    “And that epic Art Deco ring with the emerald and diamonds I got a glimpse of? I thought I’d see it on your hand tonight.”
    The server approaches our table with a tray of desserts. Lemon tart is the centerpiece of the selection. I am