His Big Idea

Getting married was David’s big idea. And Amanda always thought if he hadn’t overwhelmed her, making logical cases about her essential “incompleteness;” if she hadn’t worried that her daughters might suffer, going to school where both she and her lover worked—if it weren’t for that and her mother’s lifelong desperation for marriage, which she had just achieved, Amanda might never have agreed.

The oddity of David proposing caught her off-guard, even though they discussed it for weeks. He was fifty and had never married, so she had to ask, why her? Why now?

[Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]

He didn’t quote Rumi, as he continued to do quite often for Amanda’s enlightenment. Instead, after holding his chin and as if mulling it over, he had said, “It’ll make things easier.”

Amanda’s every-other-weekend schedule—she would only see him when the girls weren’t around—was taking a toll. And because he was fifty, seducing some young thing year after year, no longer interested him. Amanda suited him fine. “Besides, my love, I have so much to teach you!”

Why hadn’t that alarming observation struck her like lightning? He said it often enough, astounded that she was almost thirty years old, held a college degree and a well paying job, but knew nothing of art or music or, ahem—“all of history.”

They lived and worked in a Chicago suburb and yet she knew nothing—absolutely nothing—about the 1968 Democratic convention. David could scarcely believe it. The apartment he had grown up in had overlooked Lincoln Park. He was eleven and had sneaked out to wander among the smoking, grooving crowd of protesters. Not during any riots, but still; Abbie Hoffman had been right there!

David, like a million others, had written his dissertation about that summer and its continuing impact. “Which is why,” he opened his hand with a tossing motion, “I’m stuck teaching high school.”

He tutored her in everything, except sex. She could keep up with him there, or else she really would never have put up with him. But until they were formally married—which took a while because Mike kept sabotaging the mechanics of tying up their two-year old divorce—David’s wide scope of knowledge and appreciation of life opened up the world, and even the universe, to her. She walked around in wonder and amazement, oblivious to the man’s attitude.

Instead, she directed her worries toward Mike, who wasn’t so nice anymore. He objected to Amanda remarrying. If she remarried, he’d be paying regular child support, not unallocated support, which went not only to Evie and DeeDee, but to Amanda, too.

“Try to understand this,” Mike said, as anxious as David to teach her a few things. “That money is deductible. The twenty-five percent—net—I’ll be paying for the girls, in addition to trusts, don’t worry about those, will mean extra taxes.”

Recently, Mike had won a big promotion. Almost a year ago, he’d broken up with Nadia, and without her, he’d grown leaner and meaner. He’d become a buttoned-up Episcopalian and instead of watching TV with girls, he took them to church. He wanted them to attend religion classes. He wanted them baptized. And even though he was now earning a royal income, he was no longer carefree about money.

DeeDee, who was six, said they went to church early Sunday mornings with daddy and a lady named Gillian Stone. “Then there’s a social hour where we have to behave.”

Evie, who was almost nine, sighed. “And on Saturdays we go to Gillian’s studio and hang around while she makes jewelry.”

Amanda couldn’t make David understand why Mike having a girlfriend was different than her having a boyfriend in the house. “I know it’s not logical,” she had said. “But I care about the way they might see me. And, how they’ll see me when they’re older.”

“Because of your relationship with that old guy?”

“No.” Why on earth had she told David about Walter? Unwilling to talk about it, she threw a glass past his head. After that, they agreed not to see each other during the entire weekend she was free.

On Monday, David took her out to lunch. It was too cold to sit outside, so they went to a noisy pizza place, where he gave her a ring with four little rubies embedded in it.

(Click here to read the next episode.)