Four Blondes

“I’m sure they would,” I said.

“I’m not,” she said. “You know, it’s all a big fantasy. I wanted to be a painter. But I had the big white fantasy—that dream you have about your wedding day. And then it comes true. And then, almost immediately afterward, you have the black fantasy. No one ever tells you about that one.”

“The black fantasy?”

“I thought I was the only one who had it,” she said, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “But then I talked to a few other married women. And they had it too. You have this vision of yourself, all in black. Still young, wearing a big black hat, and a chic black dress. And you’re walking behind your husband’s casket.”

“Oh dear.”

“Oh yes,” she said. “You have a fantasy that your husband has died. You still have your children and you’re still young, but you’re . . . free.”

“I see,” I said.

Rory and Harold came into the kitchen. “Can we help?” they asked.

“It’s finished,” Mary said pleasantly.

Rory and I took the train back to London. The next morning, I had to leave.

It was time to go back to New York.

“Now listen, Minky,” he said. “Are we going to be adults about this, or are we going to have tears?”

“What do you think?” I said.

“Good-bye, Minky,” he said.

“Good-bye,” I said.

“I love you,” he said. “Go on. You’d better go now.”

The petals from the cherry blossoms had fallen off the trees and onto the sidewalks. I walked over them, crunching them into the cement.

Oh God, I thought. Now what am I going to do?

Grasshopper says: Be sensible.

What I did, of course, was get into a cab and go to the airport.

But what did I really want?

I got on the plane and sat down in my seat. I took my shoes off. I opened a magazine.

A man sat down next to me. He was tall and dark-haired and slim, and he was wearing Prada trousers. He had all his hair, and an intelligent, interesting face. He opened a magazine. Forbes.

Now that’s my type, I thought.

God, I was so fickle. I’d left Rory only two hours ago, and already I was thinking about another man.

What was it I wanted?

The story.

I wanted the story. I wanted the big, great, inspiring story about an unmarried career woman who goes to London on assignment and meets the man of her dreams and marries him. She gets the big ring and the big house and the adorable children, and she lives happily ever after. But stories are not reality, no matter how much we might wish them so.

And that’s not so bad.

Somewhere over Newfoundland, about two hours from JFK, the man next to me finally spoke.