They drove around the city, which seemed smaller than New York but had the same electric buzz. It was very different from Atlanta, where she grew up. And the shops on Michigan Avenue all looked sophisticated and were the same big-brand names and luxury stores as in New York, which was true of most cities today. But there was still a distinct flavor to the city, the buildings were even taller than in New York, and he explained that they were designed to accommodate the weather, so one had to brave the elements as little as possible. An office building would occupy the first twenty floors, topped by four floors of a department store, with possibly a restaurant above it, and then thirty or forty floors of apartments, so one never had to go out in the freezing cold or snow.
“It’s one-stop living,” he said, smiling. “It’s very convenient, especially in the winter.” Sasha found herself thinking that she wouldn’t like living on the sixtieth floor in any city, but it did make sense.
They parked the car and got out and walked for a while. They wandered into a bookstore, and an art gallery, and it struck her immediately how friendly people were. Salespeople were pleasant, anxious to help them, and chatted with them.
They headed back to the house around five-thirty. Sasha started to fidget in the car, and Alex smiled at her and leaned over and kissed her. He understood why she was nervous, although he was certain that her fears were unfounded—he knew his parents and how kind and welcoming they were, and his mother had been pleased he was bringing someone home.
“They’re going to love you,” he repeated to Sasha for the thousandth time, and she looked worried and unconvinced.
“What if they hate me?” she said miserably. She had never been as anxious about meeting anyone. She loved him, and didn’t want to screw it up somehow.
“If they hate you, I’ll stop seeing you immediately, and you’ll have to go to a hotel,” he said with a straight face, and she looked panicked, and he laughed. “Will you stop it? First of all, they’re going to love you. Second of all, I’m thirty-two years old, not sixteen. I make my own decisions, and you’re the best thing that ever happened to me. And my parents are smart enough to know it. You’re the prize here, not me.”
“You’re their son. They want to protect you from bad people and conniving women,” she said, smiling at him.
“Are you conniving? How did I miss that? Listen, as long as you don’t dress and act like your sister, everything will be fine. And knowing them, if I said I loved her and she showed up in a bikini and high heels, they’d be fine too. They’re very open people, even if they look conservative. Don’t put so much pressure on yourself. You’ll see what I mean when you meet them. My mother is the nicest woman alive. She loves everyone. If you introduced her to a serial killer, she would explain to you about his terrible childhood, and say that he was probably having a bad day.”
“I wish I could say the same about mine,” Sasha said wistfully. “My mother hates everyone, and sees the dark side in every situation. She’s the toughest divorce lawyer in Atlanta, and assumes the worst about everyone, including her clients. There’s a good person in there somewhere, but she’s gotten very hard with time. And she has nothing but bad things to say about my father and his wife. Charlotte’s not a very interesting person, but she’s a sweet girl and she makes him happy, and they have cute kids. My mother nearly went over the edge when he had them, and never stops telling Valentina and me how little he cared about us when he was setting up his business.” He owned the most profitable department stores in Atlanta, and malls throughout the South. “I don’t know how my mother got so angry and bitter, but she is, and she’s getting worse with age. She gets along better with Valentina, because my sister doesn’t take any guff from her. Every time I see my mother, I feel like I’ve been run over by a train.”
“My mom’s not like that,” he said gently. “She’ll probably want to adopt you. She was really sad when Ben and Angela broke up. She always wants us to have the kind of relationship she has with my dad. They’re good together.” He said it warmly, and as he did, Sasha realized that she had never seen a marriage like that. Her father was nice to her stepmother and protective of her, but they were by no means intellectual equals, and sometimes he acted like she was stupid and couldn’t think for herself. She treated Sasha’s dad like her father, and relied on him for everything, and all decisions. She had no mind of her own, and participated in none of their important plans. And her mother had been too hard on their father, and verbally brutal with him at times. She had always considered him beneath her because he wasn’t as educated as she was, but he had been very successful in spite of it. He had a good head for business and was a bright guy. Her mother dismissed his business acumen as luck, and being in the right place at the right time, which Sasha knew wasn’t true, and was a mean thing to say about him, along with all the rest of what she still accused him of, including being a lousy father, which Valentina agreed with, and Sasha didn’t. Valentina thought their mother was a legal genius, while Sasha thought she was smart, but a bitch, which she certainly was to her. And their mother had more respect for Valentina’s modeling career and international stardom than for Sasha’s medical career, where she warned her she’d never make a dime thanks to the rigors of modern medicine and HMOs. Money mattered a lot to her, except Sasha’s father’s, which she dismissed, because it was his. And Valentina had the same profound worship of money as their mother.
“My parents were so mean to each other, and so unhappy,” she said honestly, “that I never wanted to get married, and I still don’t, if that’s how it ends up. It was kind of a relief when they got divorced. Until he remarried and my mother went nuts about it, and she still is. They refuse to be in the same room, and only one of them could be at my graduation.” She had never admitted that to anyone before.
“Which one came to your graduation?” Alex asked with interest.
“My father. My mother was trying a landmark case. She won, which justified not being there, to her. I think if I ever told her I was getting married, she’d kill me. Recidivists, as she calls them, are the mainstay of her business. She’s handled two or three divorces for some of her clients. They always come back to her because she does such a good job, and gets them a ton of money from the other side. She usually represents women. She doesn’t believe in marriage, and always told me and Valentina not to even think about it, just to have fun. Valentina took her seriously.” She smiled at him. “And she likes rich guys, no matter how they make their money.” As she said it, she thought of Jean-Pierre, who would have terrified her. There was something deeply unsavory about him, but Valentina didn’t care or even notice. “It’s hard to imagine people like your parents, who’ve done it all right. No one in my world ever has. All I ever heard about were the disasters, and all my friends’ parents were divorced, growing up.”
“A lot of my friends’ parents were too,” Alex said quietly. “My parents married very young. Maybe that helps. They just kind of grew up together, had us when they were young, and expected it to work.” His father had just turned sixty, and his mother was fifty-nine, she knew. Her parents were almost the same age, but had a very different life experience. It was hard for Sasha to imagine. Her mother was always telling her about marriages that fell apart in a year. And the high divorce rate nationally supported what she said, that marriage just didn’t work, and was an antiquated idea. According to her, women no longer needed to get married if they had careers, and to some extent Sasha believed her. And in her own way, Valentina did too. She had never gone to college and had started making big money at eighteen as a model, and she still made a fortune at what she did, more than Sasha ever would using her skill and brain. But her job had longevity, and Valentina’s didn’t. One day she’d be too old to model. But she’d made a few good investments, with their father’s advice, so maybe she’d be okay, and Sasha knew he would always help them.