On Second Thought

The other single men I knew...well, the truth was, I knew only a few. Most of them were ex-cons, as I volunteered at the Re-Enter Center of Brooklyn, a place where parolees could take classes to help them adapt to life on the outside. I taught small business management with a little photography thrown in for fun. And while I was all for forgiveness, chances were quite small that I’d marry a guy with a teardrop tattooed under his eye.

Paige and I would assure each other that being single was great. Our lives were full and fun and we loved our careers. Look at other women! Just because they were in relationships didn’t make their lives meaningful! Paige had two sisters and seven nieces and nephews, and both sisters were wretched and exhausted. One was contemplating a mommy makeover to lift her boobs and shed her fat and get her husband to sleep with her again; the other, Paige was pretty sure, was about to come out of the closet.

My own sister...well, okay, Ainsley was happy, but kind of...how to put this? Naive. Retro in her worship of all things Eric, always putting herself second, despite the fact that she’d had a very impressive job. She took care of Eric in a way he never took care of her; he was the star in the couple, and she had a supporting role. It bugged me.

I was different. Paige, too. We were self-fulfilled. And what about that fabulous trip we’d taken last year to London, huh? We should plan another! Vienna this time? Or Provence?

Then a couple would walk by, a baby strapped to one parent, an adorable toddler wearing an ironic T-shirt holding hands with the other, and we’d falter. “Screw it,” Paige would say. “If only there were mail-order husbands.”

If only I had a gay male friend who’d pony up and coparent with me! Not only would we have a wonderful child, we could write a great screenplay about it. Alas, no—my gay friends, Jake and Josh, already had Jamison, so that was out.

I told myself it was okay. After all, I didn’t need a baby. The world was overpopulated, there were teenagers I could adopt, etc.

But then I’d visit my brother and watch him and Kiara with their kids. The rush of love and gratitude I’d always felt over the years when my niece or nephew would run to see me, or more recently, at least come out of their rooms to see me. Sadie still snuggled, at least. Granted, I wasn’t like my sister, who had to sniff the head of every baby we saw and chat up the mother for details on the birth, but I loved kids.

Brooklyn was full of babies. I wanted someone to cuddle, someone I could carry and stare at during naptimes—not in a creepy way, but in a loving, maternal glow. Someone who would call me Mommy and reach for my hand without thinking, the way Esther still did with Kiara, the way Sadie reached out for my brother. I found myself eyeing pregnant teenagers, wondering what they’d say if I casually asked if they’d consider giving me their unborn child.

It was always there, the primal call to procreate and protect. The maternal instinct is the strongest force in nature, they say. But I wanted the whole package, too. I wanted there to be a daddy. Aside from the maternal thing, there was that secret desire to be...well...adored.

It was not something that was cool to admit. With each passing year, the idea of being smitten with someone, having someone smitten with me, became more and more distant, even a little absurd, as if I still expected Santa to come on Christmas Eve.

Birthdays became a bit of a shock. Thirty-five, thirty-six...they were fine. They were great, even. I knew who I was, my reputation was growing, I was making a nice income, teaching classes, traveling.

But thirty-seven...and then thirty-eight...the very digits had a tint of desperation to them. Late thirties sounded so much older than midthirties. Checking the box “never married” made me feel as isolated as an Ebola patient. I found myself getting more and more obsessed, looking at every passing male as my potential mate—the guy at the dry cleaners, the guy who delivered my pizza, the guy who bumped into me in front of Whole Foods.

And then came thirty-nine, and something great happened.

I just...stopped.

My friends and siblings took me out for a surprise dinner—Paige; Ainsley and Eric; Jake and Josh; my occasional assistant, Max, and his wife; Sean and Kiara. They toasted me and gave me insulting cards. Paige gave me a box of Depends diapers, which was a little mean, I thought. She was only two months younger than I was. Jake and Josh gave me a full cadre of crazy-expensive skin care products specifically designed for aging skin. From Sean and Kiara, a day at a spa for a rejuvenation package. From Ainsley and Eric, same spa, same treatment.

“No embalming fluid?” I asked, getting a laugh.

“This is from the gentleman at the bar,” our server said, setting a fresh martini in front of me. I turned; there was Daniel the Hot Firefighter, who winked at me and resumed fondling the ass of his latest False Alarm. Sure. He’d buy me a drink. He’d never sleep with me. I’d aged out fifteen years ago.

I waved my thanks, looked back at my friends and family, smiled and simply gave up.

No more dating. I took down my online profiles, stopped scanning Prospect Park’s softball teams and forbid myself to watch anything on the Hallmark Channel.

I was surprised by what a relief it was.

Suddenly, I was happier than I’d been in years. I’d lived in the same gorgeous apartment since college, bought with a hefty loan from my parents just before Brooklyn prices boomed. If I ever needed the money, I could sell it for nearly five times what I paid for it. My classes at the Re-Enter Center were always full. I had a small but tight circle of friends and a slightly dysfunctional but pretty good family.

I had a well-established career I loved, clients who were generally overjoyed with my work. There was nothing like showing a couple their wedding photos—proof of their love—or seeing a mom tear up over the photo of her laughing child, that one moment in time that tells her everything she hopes. I loved how my camera could capture a fleeting moment and all the emotions it held, how a good photo could stop time forever.

At night, I’d come home to the third floor of my brownstone, make myself some dinner or eat leftovers, sit on the steps in the nice weather, talking to the neighbors—the Kultarr family who lived on the first floor, Mrs. Wick from down the street and her poodle, Ishmael. In the winter, I’d plunk myself down in my gray velvet chair, open a book and drink a glass of not-bad wine. Movies, the occasional concert, walks in Prospect Park, drinks with friends.

For children, I had my nieces and nephew. Ainsley and Eric had been together for a thousand years, and I imagined they’d have kids pretty soon. I often babysat for Jake and Josh and got my baby fix from the adorable Jamison, who loved me because I never tired of giving him horsey rides, extra dessert, and would read story after story until he was sound asleep.

If this was all there was, it was plenty. Constantly scanning for more—the baby or the guy—had chipped away at my soul. Life was good. Single, Solitary Me was enough. Call me a Buddhist, but it worked.

Shortly after that birthday, I shot a wedding of a woman who reminded me of my earlier self. She was thirty-seven, quick to tell me she and her fiancé had been together for twelve years, lest I think she was alone until now. (I always wondered about those couples, my sister and Eric included. A decade is a long time to wonder if you should marry someone.)

The bride was grim in her victory. Huge fluffy dress, six bridesmaids, four flower girls, high Anglican mass at St. Thomas on Fifth Avenue. Her tiny, elderly parents walked her down the aisle to Wagner’s Bridal Chorus. The sense of I’ve earned this, goddamn it was as thick as fog in London.

As was often the case, I could see through the camera what wasn’t visible to my naked eye; the groom was itchy, his goofy antics masking his resentment. I guessed she’d given him an ultimatum about marriage; I imagined they’d fought bitterly about it until he caved.

The bride’s smile was tight at the corners, her eyes flat, her forehead Botoxed. Even the kiss at the altar had been quick and hard. Some of the guests rolled their eyes, and rather than the lightness that so often radiates from weddings, regardless of the age of the bride and groom, this one was dull and heavy.

Every wedding tradition was honored—the engraved program announcing the readings, the lifting of the veil, Handel’s Trumpet Voluntary blaring at the end. At the reception, which was held at the Peninsula Hotel, the bride and groom were introduced as Mr. and Mrs. Whitfield, the three hundred guests dutifully applauding, the bride snarling at her sister for not securing the train properly. There was the first dance, the father-daughter dance, mother-son dance, the cutting of the cake, the tossing of the bouquet.

As I held up the camera to photograph the bride getting ready to chuck her flowers, I could see through the viewer that, yep, she was rubbing it in, calling some of her reluctant friends by name to get on out there. I am no longer one of you, hags! And the world shall know that you are still single!

Those older (my age) friends muttered resentfully as they stood on the dance floor, third martinis in hand, not even pretending to try when the bouquet was tossed. The bride’s college-age niece caught it, still young enough to think it was fun.

Then the call went out for the single guys to catch the garter—another baffling tradition: Would you like to have my wife’s pointless underwear accessory as a memento? Maybe keep it under your pillow and sniff it from time to time? The men were the usual suspects—the teenage boys, the already drunken groomsmen, an elderly uncle, the guys whose dates were pretending not to watch but were shrewdly assessing how hard the men would try to make the catch.

Someone caught it; I didn’t see who, as he was in the middle of the pack. But then came the obligatory dance for him and the bouquet-catcher, so I dutifully took a few pictures, congratulating them both on their dexterity. The niece was quite beautiful, the guy good-looking without being too handsome, his reddish hair and blue eyes giving him the boy-next-door appeal. My money was on him taking the niece home.

Imagine my shock, then, when the garter-catcher left the niece at the end of the song and came right over to me. Asked about my camera. Listened as I described it, then admitted he took pictures only with his phone. Further admitted he was talking about cameras only to see if I was single and might want to have a drink with him.

“If that’s code for ‘I have a room here, want to hook up?’” I said, “then sadly, the answer is no.”

“There’s a code?” he asked, grinning.

“There is.”

“Well, what’s code for ‘Will you have a drink with me after the wedding? Or sometime this week?’”

It’s Hi, I’m an alien, I thought.

Because good-looking, age-appropriate men didn’t date thirty-nine-year-olds. (Daniel the Hot Firefighter, anyone?) Even if, unlike Daniel, a guy my age wanted to settle down, they focused their sights on women in their twenties or early thirties, still secure in their fertility. Not women who’d been single for the entire two decades of their adult lives.

Up until this moment, I had never been approached by a stranger and asked out. Not once. It just wasn’t how it happened anymore.

I gave him my business card and smiled, hopefully hiding my befuddlement, then went off to photograph the hissing bride and pissy groom twining arms to sip champagne. I would’ve bet my left ovary that I would never hear from the garter-catcher again.

He called me the next day and asked me out for a drink on the Lower East Side. Not knowing how to handle such a bizarre turn of events, I accepted.

The restaurant was agonizingly trendy; I’d Googled it earlier in the day and saw it marked as one of New York’s hippest bars with egotistical cocktails and flattering lighting.

“Nice place,” I said, though it wasn’t really my style.

“I picked it because it was a straight shot across the East River for you,” he said.

“That was very thoughtful,” I said, sliding into the booth. “I’m guessing you’re either gay, a serial killer, a gay serial killer or a bigamist, charming his way across America, occasionally calling his children by the wrong names, his wives thinking he’s just distracted because he works so very hard.”

He laughed, and I felt a purr of attraction low in my stomach. “No,” he said. “Just one ex-wife. Sorry to let you down.”

His name was Nathan Vance Coburn III, an architect and fourth-generation son of Cambry-on-Hudson. I told him my folks lived there, that my sister and her boyfriend had recently bought a house there, as well. We played Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, figuring out who we knew in common. He read my mother’s column and had met Eric at a fund-raiser.

I didn’t bother trying to impress him or monitor myself; those days were done, those long mental lists of what to say and ask, which topics to avoid. His average looks were appealing, and he wore a suit but no tie. Long blond eyelashes gave him a sweet, almost shy look, though he seemed relaxed and funny.

Men like this just weren’t single.

It seemed contradictory, because I personally knew at least five really great women in their late thirties and early forties who were looking for love. Statistics would say there’d be at least five similarly great single men in the same age group, but statistics would be wrong. I didn’t know one man my age I’d want to date, and believe me, my criteria had been low. Forget about living with his mother or having a job. We were talking “no recent murders” by the time I called it quits.

So Nathan Vance Coburn III... I was obviously suspicious.

I shook his hand at the end of the date and said it had been very nice talking with him. He called me two days after that. We met for dinner, and he insisted on paying. I let him kiss me good-night, and he did it just right; no tongue, long enough to convince me, short enough to avoid embarrassment.

I smiled all the way home, the only person on the subway to do so.

We started dating, and by dating I meant just meeting and talking and some kissing. We held hands sometimes. No sex, because I was having fun the way things were. My newly acquired Zen kept me chill about the whole thing—if it worked, yay. If not, no biggie.

Nathan seemed freakishly great. I quizzed him on the social issues that mattered to me, showing him pictures of my brother’s biracial kids. Nathan’s only comment: “Gorgeous,” with a sweet, almost wistful smile. I mentioned my gay friends. My voting history. My feeling that people who stole handicapped parking spaces should be hobbled. I told him about my fear of earthworms. He sympathized and admitted his fear of potato eyes.

Nathan didn’t mind the old-fashioned courtship. Sometimes, he’d bring me a bouquet of flowers. Once, a small cardboard box tied in twine, containing a perfect red velvet cupcake. I’d send him photos from our dates, since I was never without my camera—the old woman on the bench, the sun glinting off One World Trade Center. I took him to the best Polish restaurant in Brooklyn and introduced him to the wonders of homemade pierogi. We went for a walk in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the golden aspen leaves drifting down around us, and went to the top of the Empire State Building, something he’d never done, which I found incomprehensible. He was an architect, after all.

“We ever gonna sleep together?” he asked amiably as we surveyed the miracle of New York’s skyline.

“Someday, maybe,” I said, running a finger along his wrist, feeling the heavy thud of his pulse. “If you’re very lucky. Keep up with the cupcakes.”

The next day, two dozen cupcakes were delivered to my studio.

The truth was, I was almost afraid to sleep with him. What if I found out that he liked to use a riding crop on his lovers, or could get it up only if I called him Caesar?

Nope. When the day came, after seven and a half weeks and nineteen dates, he asked me to take the train up to his place in Cambry-on-Hudson. Asked me to pack an overnight bag. Gave me a tour of his massive, beautiful house and, when he showed me the master bedroom, said, “Please note the California king-size bed comfortably accommodates two.”

He made me dinner. We had a bottle of wine. And we did sleep together.

It was lovely. He was lovely.

Finally, I asked the question that had been bugging me from the first day we’d met. “Nathan, why did you ask me out?”

“It was an impulse,” he said, and I gave him points for not delivering a schmaltzy answer. “You just seemed...together. And happy.”

I liked that a lot.

One night, after a long kiss good-night that made my stomach gather in a giddy, delicious squeeze, he whispered, “I love you, you know,” and my whole chest ached with heat.

“I love you, too,” I breathed without thinking.

My next thought was Too early. Too easy. Too soon.

Six weeks later, he proposed.

It was fast. But we weren’t kids. He’d been married already. And children, which seemed like an elusive dream akin to spending the summer horseback riding through Montana with Derek Jeter, were now a possibility. One way or another, biological or adoptive, we both wanted to be parents. He loved his two nephews like crazy. Always wanted to be a father. Madeleine, his ex-wife, had changed her mind on that; it was the issue that ended their marriage.

And, I thought, life was uncertain. Look at Eric, hit with cancer at thirty-two years old (though thankfully, he caught it early, and it was a cancer with a high cure rate). My sister could’ve lost him. Live life to the fullest. Seize the day. Et cetera.

His parents weren’t thrilled; well, his father seemed fine, kissing me on the cheek and forgetting my name almost immediately in a benign, scotchy way. His mother looked elegantly perplexed but was classy enough to say, “I’m sure we’ll become quite close.” His sister, Brooke, was warm, and her husband was quite nice, as well. Their little boys were beautiful; cousins for my future children. The thought caused a palpable tremor of joy.

My own family was mixed. Dad, who was enduring the off-season by rewatching every game he hadn’t personally called, tore his eyes off the TV and said, “Good for you, Poodle! About time! You’ve been with him what, ten years?”

“No, that’s Ainsley,” I said. “This is kind of a whirlwind thing.”

“Those are the best. Like me and Michelle,” he reminisced fondly, naming Ainsley’s mother. My own mother’s lips disappeared. “Well, good for you!” Dad continued. “Will I have to pay for the wedding?”

I patted his arm. “I think we’re gonna keep it small. Elope, maybe. I’m forty, after all. Almost.”

“You are? Good Lord! Well, elopement is a good idea. Very romantic. Bring him by sometime. Does he like baseball?”

I winced. “He’s a Mets fan.” We were pin-striped, of course. Dad was an American League umpire.

“Pity. Well, I’m sure he’s nice.”

“Why would you want to be married, Kate?” my mother asked over lunch with Ainsley and me. “Just live together. It’s less messy when you break up.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I said. “And aren’t you pro-marriage? I’m sure you mention it in one of your books.”

“You’ve been on my case to get married for years,” Ainsley said.

“Well, you’re wasting your life with Eric, honey. If he liked it, as the song goes, he would’ve put a ring on it.”

“Should you be quoting Beyoncé when you have a PhD from Yale?” my sister asked. “Also, Eric’s recovering from cancer, if you remember. Weddings are kind of low on our priorities list.”

“How’s he doing? Still clear?” I asked, hoping she wouldn’t launch into too many medical details.

“Yeah,” she said, “but he’s waiting for the eighteen-month mark. That’s when he’s officially better.”

“Fingers crossed,” I said.

“Kate,” Mom said, turning to me, “you can hardly expect me to be wholehearted about this. You’ve known him what? Six months?”

“Five.”

“Five. Do you know the statistics for people who marry knowing each other less than two years?”

“Nope. But I’m almost forty. Old enough to make my own decisions, Mom.”

Ainsley chattered cheerfully about flowers and dresses, but she gave off an air of confusion. After all, as Mom pointed out via Beyoncé, Ainsley was the one with the decade-long relationship. She already lived with Eric in Cambry-on-Hudson. She clearly was supposed to be first down the aisle.

“Well, Eric thinks the world of Nathan,” she said gamely. “He’s a total catch!” The words made me wince. So 1950s, as if we women had to trick men into marriage.

But he did meet every criterion a single woman could have—kind, steady, interesting, intelligent, attractive, financially secure. Even his divorce spoke well of him; he hadn’t been hanging around, not committing (as I had been). He had no pit in his cellar, no devices for torturing women, no collection of Nazi uniforms. I looked, believe me, making him laugh and laugh as I poked around his enormous home.

There was absolutely no reason not to marry him.

Except...

There’s always that, isn’t there?

Marriage, as nice as it might be, would throw my life into upheaval—Nathan wanted me to move to Cambry-on-Hudson, relocate my studio, sell my apartment. Of course he did. COH was his hometown, and though I hadn’t grown up there, it was where I went on holidays. It made sense. He had a gorgeous house perfectly suited to children and entertaining, with plenty of space for us both.

But still. All the adjustments, all the moving, most of the changes would be mine. Ideally, I’d take more time to ease into this. I knew I wasn’t used to being part of a couple, of joint decision-making.

Not to mention that five months wasn’t enough time to truly know each other. This would be a leap of faith that everything I believed to be true about Nathan would hold fast. If I was wrong—or if he was—we’d look like idiots.

The changes would be worth it, I believed. But it would be upheaval nonetheless, and twenty years on my own...well, it was hard to walk away from. I couldn’t bring myself to sell my apartment. Instead, I rented it and put my things in storage. It was December. Who wanted to schlep furniture?

If I’d been even a few years younger, I would’ve waited. There was a small, annoying voice—my mother’s—telling me that a reason not to marry him didn’t mean a good reason to marry him. That you can’t really love someone you’ve known for five months.

I confessed my concern to Paige. We were at Porto’s, our favorite bar, one of the few places in Brooklyn that predated the influx of cool people and was therefore übercool, the not locally farmed, not organic, not microbrewed, not free-range food and drink deemed delightfully retro by the hipsters.

We were drinking vodka tonics at a table, idly watching Daniel the Hot Firefighter flirt with what seemed like identical blonde women who couldn’t be more than twenty-two. “Maybe I should wait,” I said. “Just see how things go.”

“I think you’re a fucking idiot,” Paige said, taking a slurp of her drink.

“No, no, tell me what you really mean,” I said. “Don’t mince words.”

“Seriously, Kate. He’s great. Marry him. Move to the ’burbs and have twins. I’m so jealous I could stab you in the throat.”

“Will you be a bridesmaid?” I asked, grinning.

“Piss off.”

She wasn’t smiling. My own smile died a quick death. “Paige,” I began.

“I don’t want to talk about it, okay? You were the last single friend I had. I’d kill for a guy like Nathan, and you sit there wondering if you should marry him. Who do you think you are?”

“Um...a person? With feelings and thoughts? Come on, Paige. I thought I could talk to you—”

“Yeah, well, don’t. Okay? You have a two-carat ring on your finger. Wear white. Register for new china and, hey, how about a destination wedding to make your single friends use vacation time and spend their own money to cheer you on?”