Matt continued to stare blankly.
“Longer life spans,” I explained. “Second Adulthoods that begin after children leave the nest? You’ve never heard of this?”
Matt shook his head.
“Well, you’re older now, too,” I reminded him. His eyebrow rose, as if to say duh. “What I mean is: Haven’t you thought about the changes that come with reaching middle age?”
Matt dismissively waved his hand. “I never think about that stuff.”
Of course you don’t, I thought, because you’re another type that Sheehy writes about—the man who wakes up one morning on the Dark Side of Forty and realizes his bright future full of possibilities has dimmed and narrowed. That he’s too old to be a young…Well, a young anything.
Matt would never admit it, but I was pretty sure his sprint to Parasol Insurance earlier today was evidence he was reaching that Dark Side of Forty stage. The old Matt never thought ahead, never took responsibility, and never, ever took cash out of his own pocket to help clean up a mess.
The old Matt would have taken the first plane out of town—waved aloha to me and Madame and let us pull out the buckets and mops while he made a deal at a luau for five hundred bags of Kona.
Sure, I could chalk up the change to Madame’s ownership deal. Even experiments in public housing (according to one of my customers who worked for the City of New York) have suggested that if you give people a way to own a thing, they suddenly find the time, energy, and money to invest in protecting and improving it.
And yet…that ownership theory didn’t really hold water when it came to Matt. For one thing, I was sure Matt had already assumed he’d inherit the Blend anyway—yet his actions had always been aloof where the Blend’s business was concerned. All he ever seemed to care about was the freedom to come and go as he pleased.
And—in terms of ownership theories—what about me? I found myself thinking. When I was his exclusively, he took me for granted. Just like the Blend.
Whether it was the new part-ownership status or the Dark Side of Forty change-in-perspective thing, I didn’t know. All I knew was that Matteo Allegro was showing positive signs of change.
Change is (usually) good. And ten years ago, I would have rejoiced at it. But I couldn’t rejoice now. Now our child was grown—and I wanted my freedom. After all the years of pining away for the man, I had finally reached an emotional point in my life where I wanted to be free of Matteo Allegro and all of his heartbreaking patterns.
Madame wouldn’t understand or accept my decision, but that was just too bad. Even with her cancer scare, I’d find a way to gently tell her. A tricky scheme (even one as well meaning as Madame’s) wasn’t going to erase years of pain, frustration, and resentment. Not for me anyway.
“Heads up,” Matt said, tossing me a bundle of fresh garlic. I caught it.
“It goes in the hanging basket behind you,” he said with a wink.
God, this was infuriating. My ex-husband knew my kitchen better than I did—and wasn’t shy about making sure I knew it. Well, I reminded myself, he had lived here as a boy with his mother before Pierre had moved them up to Fifth Avenue. Resentment rose in me anyway. I checked my watch. For Joy’s sake, I reminded myself yet again, I wasn’t going to start any battles with her father. Not before dinner anyway.
“So what’s on the menu?” I said, changing the subject to one that was nice, safe, and neutraclass="underline" Food.
“I’m going with the fettuccini carbonara,” he said. “It’s rich—especially when I make it with fettuccini instead of thin spaghetti—but Joy always loved it when I cooked it for her. And it’s probably the only dish I can still cook better than my soon-to-be-chef daughter. She’s probably a real pro now that she’s been formally trained.”
“Matt, she just started culinary school. She’s years from graduation,” I said. “In fact, she confessed to me that she’s having a little trouble in one class. Apparently a hollandaise broke and the guest instructor humiliated her in front of the rest of the class.”
“Maybe she needs a few pointers from her dad.”
“You think you could help her?” I asked hopefully.
“Sure. And this should cheer her up, too.” Matt reached into his pocket and withdrew a small, square box. “Check this out,” he said.
I opened the box.
“I picked it up in Mexico,” said Matt.
I looked down and almost winced. Not again.
When Joy was nine, Matt brought a bracelet back from one of his endless trips and gave it to her. The bracelet was lovely, its delicate links made of pure, fourteen-karat rose gold. Since then, Matteo had presented her with various charms, distinctive little items he found over the years in foreign lands on his never-ending quests for the richest coffees, the bluest waves, the tallest mountains—and (I’m sure) other sorts of stimulation as well (cocaine and women).
For a lot of years, those seemingly thoughtful little baubles from Dad, transported from faraway lands, delighted Joy. In grade school she wore the bracelet constantly. In junior high less so, and by high school…Well, the truth was, Joy hadn’t worn that charm bracelet in public since the junior high school prom—not that Matt was ever around enough to notice.
“It’s a charm,” Matt explained. “For Joy’s bracelet. Think she’ll be wearing it tonight?”
“I don’t know…”
“Like it?”
“It’s…interesting,” I said diplomatically. What I was looking at was a little nugget of gold shaped like an incredibly stout woman wearing a bowler hat and holding an ear of corn over her prodigious breasts.
“It’s supposed to be Centeotl, the Aztec goddess of corn,” Matt explained, after noting my puzzled expression. I nodded, not quite up on my religions of Mesoamerica.
“And the significance is?” I asked.
“Corn was central to the Aztec diet. Their corn goddess was a harvest god. And since Joy is going to be a chef, I figured, you know…food, harvest…” Matt’s voice trailed off, and he shrugged his broad shoulders.
“How very Joseph Campbell of you,” I said, trying to be positive. I handed the box back to him and laughed as I added, “as long as it’s not some sort of fertility goddess.”
Matt stared down at it. His brow wrinkled. “Actually I think it is.”
We were interrupted by another rhythmic knock—the identical one Matt had used.
“Joy!” I said.
She’d finally arrived. The two of us ran a sort of short foot race (which looked about as embarrassing as it sounds) to see who would be the first to greet her.
I won—by virtue of being short enough to duck under Matt’s arms, just as he was pulling open the door.
“Hello!” I said, reaching up to hug my daughter, who either had grown another two inches since the last time I saw her or was wearing stacked heels.
“Mom,” she cried, hugging me back. “I saw Tucker downstairs and he told me about Anabelle. How terrible!”
“Hi, kiddo!” Matt said. Joy rushed into his arms.
“I missed you so much, Daddy,” she said, squeezing him tightly.
I was about to close the door when the shadow of another figure fell across the threshold.
“Mom. Dad,” Joy said, bursting with excitement. “Here’s my surprise! I want you to meet Mario Forte.”
A young man stepped into the room. He was tall for an Italian. That’s the first thing I noticed. Taller even than Matteo. (Now I knew why Joy was wearing stacked heels!) His hair was black and long and tied back in a loose ponytail. His lips were curled into a slight smirk which, to my mind, marred his otherwise good features. He wore black slacks and a long-sleeved black shirt, unbuttoned far enough from the neck to show a gold chain dangling between sculpted pecs. The sleeves of the shirt were rolled up and I glimpsed some sort of tattoo around his bicep—it looked like barbed wire.