Before Everything by Victoria Redel

Author:Victoria Redel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2017-05-08T16:33:25+00:00

2003, Have Lovers

“Don’t marry again. Have lovers,” Ming commands in her instructional voice. She levers another log onto the fire. “Marrying is for having children. You did that. So onward.”

Ming, Caroline, Anna, and Helen lounge in front of the fireplace in Ming’s living room. A whole weekend visit of rain that won’t let up. The husbands have swept up the restless kids for bowling. All the husbands except for Helen’s, who after a year’s separation is now officially a not-husband. Even Ming, the traditionalist among them, believes that Helen’s marriage couldn’t have lasted through Helen’s ambition as an artist.

“Don’t all you creative people burn through marriages? Just don’t go for that again,” Ming says.

After a glass of wine, they have it all worked out for Helen. She’ll have a glamorous life, they insist. More shows, more galleries, more museums. Helen will become more and more famous. Have more and more lovers. Everything about Helen has a “more” in front of it.

“It will all be very discreet,” Caroline says, stretching out into her best languid sex-kitten pose. Caroline describes how, when Lucinda and Rusty are at the Ex’s, Helen will see her many lovers. How quickly they’ve all begun to call Paul the Ex instead of Paul.

“Clandestine is good, raunchy is much better.”

“And you’ll report in and tell us everything.”

“But we’re not interested in the downside. No singing any pity-me-I’m-lonely ballad. You should have thought of that when you were still married.” Ming sounds a little too excited by the whole prospect of Helen’s swinging-singles life.

“Someone needs to have lots of fun for all of us,” Anna says. “Let’s remember how late Helen was to any fun.”

“There’s a French lover. You met at a vernissage on the rue de Whatever.” Caroline rolls her r’s extravagantly.

“A Greek lover with a sailboat works for me.”

“Wait a second, Ming. You were the one with a Greek?” Helen asks. “Wasn’t that anthropologist Greek?”

“Ming was the romantic globe-trotter,” Anna says. “That was Alexi, her mad Greek. There was Belgian Maurice. And, of course, don’t forget she picked up Sebastian in a restaurant in Ecuador.”

Ming pours out another half glass. “And now, ladies, I’m a lawyer with a ranch house in the Berkshire boonies. Which is why I really need Helen to go crazy for all our sakes.”

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