“It’s not interesting. Nothing exciting has happened.”
“You’ve studied and worked abroad. You’ve moved to the city from the countryside. You’ve known what it’s like to take care of your parents and experience loss. You run your own business. You know more languages than I’ve bothered to remember. And you’re only, what, twenty-eight? How is that not an interesting life?”
“I’ve also been through some pretty nasty shit not on that list.”
“It makes life interesting, right?”
“What a privileged thing to say.”
She had him there. Then again, Rachel made a lot of her own assumptions by thinking Zack hadn’t been through anything substantial in his life – yet he was somehow more interesting than her? She couldn’t have it both ways.
“That’s not what I meant.” Zack cleared his throat. “I meant that…”
“You ever been in an emotionally abusive relationship?”
Zack wasn’t going to get through to her, was he? Not with shit like that flung at him! There goes my idea of a pleasant evening by the lake. Sheesh.
“No. I haven’t.”
Rachel hanged her head. “It sucks.”
“Was that the guy who fucked up your views of sex?”
“Yeah.”
Zack didn’t say anything about that guy, although there was plenty he’d love to spit out. Stop thinking about him. He doesn’t mean anything. He doesn’t reflect how much worth you have. I swear to God, Rachel, if you base your self-worth off some huge asshole who had no manners and thinks women are disposable…
He may not have said any of that, but he said something that could have easily been seen as him not taking her seriously. “You remember that girlfriend from college I mentioned the other night?”
Rachel lifted her head again. “Yeah. The last woman you enjoyed being with?”
“Yup. She did some pretty fucked up shit too.”
“I’m sorry.”
Zack didn’t usually think of it as Sadie fucking up. He had always been so focused on the man who seduced her to think logically about the role Sadie played as well. I mean, if she really loved me, she wouldn’t have… “She cheated on me. With one of my frat brothers.”
“That’s messed up.”
“Yup. Could say it sort of spoiled me on that whole dating and love thing for a long time. What was the point of putting so much effort into a relationship with someone if it was that disposable to them?
“You really haven’t had a real girlfriend since then?”
“Have you had a boyfriend?”
Rachel blushed. “No”
“There you go. People suck.”
“When you put it that way, I can’t help but agree.”
Zack looped his arm around her shoulders, careful to not bring her too close – or to hold her too tightly. “Love sucks. Down with love.”
She snorted. “Why did you invite me all the way up here today?”
“Hm?” He lowered his arm again. “Because we’re friends, of course. I always bring my friends up here for some good old-fashioned fun. Er. Non sexual.”
Laughter rang out across the water. “You really think we’re friends like that? We barely know each other.”
“True, but let me tell you about my best friend Seth. Literally the only reason we’re friends is because we both happened to be working the same gallery exhibition a few years ago. It was right after he retired from gynecology…”
“Wow.”
“…and I had graduated art school. It’s a classic Romeo and Juliet tale of male friendship. There was me, the loud, boisterous, extroverted guy going through his Dali phase with melting metal bowls of fruit, and him, the quiet, reserved, introverted guy who had traveled through all fifty states and painted a five-by-five canvas with a scene from each. We bumped into each other in the men’s room and the rest is history. Er, I think. We got so smashed that night I barely remember it.”
“Again. Wow.”
“So I’m used to some of my best friends being people I got to know in as little as two weeks. As far as I’m concerned, you and I are on track to becoming the bestest of friends.”
“Meanwhile, it usually takes me weeks, even months to realize I’ve made a friend with somebody. Parvati didn’t actually become my friend until we both realized we love Bollywood movies. Next thing I know, she’s inviting me to one of those movies at the park and we’ve been inseparable since. Sort of. We don’t hang out as much as we should, honestly. But that’s because I like having time to myself. Plus I work so much that…”
Zack lay back and stretched his arms above his head. His fingers curled into one of the large knots in the wooden dock. “At some point you really gotta slow down and start enjoying life again. If you work your whole twenties away…”
“Thirties, at this point.”
“You’re not thirty yet.”
“Besides,” Rachel continued, ignoring what Zack was eager to point out, “it’s easy to say that I should take more breaks. I know that. If I’m overworked, it means health problems down the line. It means waking up at fifty and wondering where everything went and trying to figure out why I’m too tired and too stiff to do anything now.”
“At fifty?” Zack must’ve known some fairly spry fifty-year-olds.
“But I can’t stop working because I’m tired. Do you know what’s it like to actually depend on self-employment income? If you stop working, you stop making money. And you don’t know if the client you have to turn down now will still want to work with you when you have the time. So you take on anyone who offers to pay you for whatever skills you have. You want to build a rapport with them right now. You want their money right now. Clients are fickle as fuck. They know you’re not the only one who can do what you do. So not only do you take on more than you can realistically handle, but you undersell yourself so you have an edge over everyone else. You tell yourself that it will pay off in the end. You’ll have your client base and will be able to raise your rates. You’ll start paying off debt and take a breather. It may take ten or twenty years, but hard work and pulling yourself up by the bootstraps works like that. Right?”
Zack dipped the tip of his sandal into the water and kicked a light spray toward the center of the lake. “I’m an artist. You think I don’t know what it means to hustle and to worry about clients?” Zack didn’t take commissions for a lark. He did it to build his prestige and a name for himself in the critical art world. His friends and family liked to joke that he was playing around and could get away with anything because he was good looking and knew how to turn up the charm. But that was a part of his package. Zack knew how to use his natural good looks and the personality he had acquired over his life to grow his reputation.
“I’m not saying you don’t work hard.” Rachel flipped her hand as if she flicked a bug off her shoulder. “I’m saying you don’t have to rely on that income. You don’t have fear and financial insecurity making you overwork yourself. I know you take your art seriously and stressed out about completing things and having them be up to par. But it’s not the same if you’re counting on selling a piece to cover rent or even get some food for the next month.”
Zack was pushed into a corner without a thing to defend himself. What? She’s right. I’ve never relied on the money. It was only a bonus to shove in my father’s face. “Look, Dad, I made a hundred grand off this painting I did in two days.” That money went straight into his yacht, trips around the world, spoiling whatever woman he fancied at the moment, buying the rarest art supplies, investments… all it meant was that he didn’t have to touch his trust fund as often. He wasn’t much different from his older brothers in that way. They worked for most of the money they spent, too. But they didn’t have to. The Feldmans were collectively worth billions of dollars. Not a single child of the family had to work in any field if he or she didn’t care to.
“If you’re that worried about getting work done,” he said, careful to choose his words. “Then why did you blow it off to come up here with me?”
Rachel was quick to shrug. “Because I wanted to that badly.”
“Badly enough to stop making money for a few hours? Money you really need for rent and food?”
She turned her head away from him. “You offered me a quick escape with the promise we could go home later. I’ll stay up late tonight and finish my work then. I don’t have any plans in the morning. I can sleep in a little.”
Zack sighed. I feel like I keep fucking this up. Every time he tried to bring a little excitement to Rachel’s life, he ended up inconveniencing her or giving her some kind of crisis. His fault, he supposed. He kept making assumptions about her life. They hadn’t known each other that long. He was liable to make a fool of himself, treating her like he would one of his for-the-weekend girlfriends. How many of those women had fears and worries like Rachel, but they never shared them with me? Because he was a fling. A sugar daddy. A man that needed to be impressed or seduced. Women saw him as a reprieve and an answer to their temporary problems. Deep down, Zack had always known this. His father and brothers had warned him, and Uncle Roy had flat-out told him that women saw Feldman men like that.