All You Could Ask For: A Novel

This book was written in memory of Heidi Armitage

And it is dedicated to the best friends anyone could ever ask for:

Stacy Steponate Greenberg, Jane Green, and Wendy Gardiner

Now, and forevermore, Heidi’s Angels

The thing is, to have a life before we die.
It can be a real adventure having a life.

      John Irving,
The World According to Garp

Dedication

Epigraph

Part I

Part II

Heidi

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by Mike Greenberg

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

BROOKE

WHOSE ASS IS THIS?

It certainly isn’t mine.

That’s what I was thinking as I looked. I mean
really
looked.

I have a great ass. I’ve always had a great ass. I’ve known that since my freshman year at Colgate, when I pledged Tri-Delt and my first night I drank two plastic cupfuls of cherry punch with grain alcohol and allowed a cute Sigma Chi to kiss me while we danced. His name was Paul Didier and he had close-cropped auburn hair and blue eyes, and a general goofiness about him that didn’t seem quite as annoying drunk as it did sober the next day when he showed up at my dorm with a dozen roses. That was the end of him. Cute and goofy is fine for dancing and slightly sloppy kisses but no more, and certainly not for roses.

When he saw the lack of excitement on my face for the flowers, I actually felt sorry for him. He looked like a puppy who’d peed in the house and wanted—
really
wanted—to go back in time and undo it. But, you know, dogs can’t clean up pee, just like goofy boys can’t pretend not to have bought you roses after one night of drunken smooching.

“You know, I’m a freshman too,” he stumbled, looking more like the puppy every second, “and I don’t know anyone here. I’m from the Midwest, and you seemed like the coolest girl ever.”

“Thank you,” I said, in the same tone you might use to chasten the puppy. “It just seems a little soon.”

“I know,” he said, and started for the door, still holding the roses as he stepped outside. Then he turned back to me, squinting in the bright sunshine of a clear September morning. “You’ve got a great ass, Brooke. I really wanted to tell you that. I’m glad I did.”

That appealed to me, as corny as it was. I waited an appropriate amount of time before I chased him into the courtyard and ripped the flowers away from behind him.

“Where do you think you’re going with those?” I asked.

The goofy grin reappeared, and he moved toward me tentatively. “Can I call you later?” he asked.

“Yes, you may,” I said, and spun on my heel and marched away, knowing full well he was staring. I didn’t turn to see him though, no way. My mother raised me better than that.

Back in my room, with the flowers tossed thoughtlessly on the bed, I lifted my Benetton sweater and stared behind me into the full-length mirror my druggy roommate had glued to the back of our door.

He was right. I had a great ass.

That was twenty years ago, and I’m not sure how closely I’ve checked out my ass since. I think through the rest of college I always thought of that cute puppy dog of a boy (whom I let kiss me two more times before I sent him on his way) and just
knew
my ass looked great. And then I met Scott, and from the first night we were together he has made me feel beautiful. He still does, too, even after the twins and the C-section, and all the dog poop and cat litter and stomach viruses and coffee breath and eye gunk and accidental farts that threaten to drain the romance from a marriage. He still
always
manages to wink at me at just the right moments.

I love when he winks at me. When he winks, I’m his girlfriend again, the supercute debutante he fell so hard for that after our first date he, too, bought me a gift. Not a dozen roses but even cheesier: a calendar with photos of exotic locations on it, on which he had used a pale blue marker to write suggested plans for us on randomly selected dates.

“Well, I guess this boy is finished,” my friend Charlotte said when I showed her the calendar.

“I don’t know,” I said, and I guess I smiled more than I realized, because Charlotte smiled back and just like that, we both knew I was going to marry this one. And I did. And it was the best decision I ever made. And now he is turning forty years old and I’ve made another decision, only this one may be the worst of my life.

I got the idea from my girlfriend Ingrid, who is Swedish and beautiful and used to model. We were having coffee after tennis about a month ago when she slapped herself on the forehead.

“Oh shits!” she said, in the Swedish accent that takes her from simply beautiful to out-of-control, even-I-can’t-stand-it-and-I’m-a-woman gorgeous. (Hers is the
only
house at which every dad in Greenwich insists on picking up his children after playdates. But she’s also very sweet and real, and less judgmental than any of the city-girls-turned-wealthy-housewives who mostly populate this town.)

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“I told Stefan I would leave a check for him in the mailbox this morning,” she said. “I am completely forgot!” She started rustling through her bag. “I’m sorry, Brooke, I have to go right now.”

“I’ll go with you,” I said, and I did, in part because I had no choice—she had driven me and needed to take me home—and also because Stefan is
my
contractor, too, and I notice he spends a lot more time at Ingrid’s house than he does at mine. I have generally found that the best place to find a man who works with his hands is at the house of the prettiest blonde in the neighborhood.

So we raced back to Ingrid’s, and she was adorably frazzled as she rushed to her sunny office over the garage and ransacked two drawers in search of her checkbook. That’s one of the reasons I like Ingrid: that builder would have waited patiently in her driveway until a week from Thursday if it meant he’d get one more smile from her in that perfect little tennis dress, but she was rushing about because she’s the only one who doesn’t realize that.

“I’m be right back,” she said, and rushed past me out of the office and out the front door. I turned to follow, but something caught my eye before I did, a blur that raced past on the screen of Ingrid’s desktop. At first I wasn’t even sure what it was. Then I took a step closer and saw my dear friend fully naked. Just a flash, and then she was gone. And then she was back, and then gone again. It was a series of photos—nudes, tasteful and beautiful—running as a slideshow on the desktop. It was breathtaking, really, and only
she
could pull it off. No other woman I know could have a series of naked pictures of herself as her screen saver without coming off as pathetic, or at least narcissistic and sad. But with Ingrid, it just seemed beautiful, perhaps because she looked so beautiful. And, sitting there, I made the decision I am seriously questioning right now. For my beloved, romantic, successful husband’s fortieth birthday, I am giving him what every man wants. Naked pictures of his wife.

SAMANTHA

WHAT THE HELL IS this naked woman doing
there?

That was the first thought that went through my mind. But the strange part is how long it took any emotion to hit me. At first I was just puzzled, innocently so, as though finding nude photos in my husband’s e-mail was no different from finding a pair of socks in the refrigerator:
What on earth could THOSE be doing there?
It was several minutes before the significance struck me. This wasn’t like socks in the fridge. This was like lipstick on a collar, or an unrecognizable bra beneath the comforter. This was serious trouble.

Maybe it didn’t dawn on me quite so fast because I hadn’t had my coffee yet. Or because I was so surprised that I’d found my way into his mailbox at all. Or maybe it was simply because I was still very much in the warmth and glow that new brides feel; I had only been married for two days.

When the urgency of the matter began to sink in, it settled slowly, the way you feel a fever coming on: first as just a dizzy spell, then gradually spreading as a tiny tingle beginning in my stomach, and then my legs, and ultimately all the way to my fingers and toes. And then I was freezing, which really sucked because I didn’t have anything at all warm to put on.

I didn’t think I’d need it in Kauai.

I went to the gorgeous master bath in our suite, this luxurious paradise we had checked into just the night before. The carpet was soft beneath my toes. It had felt so good when I kicked off my shoes after dinner, after the champagne, after the swans that swam past our perfect, candlelit table, and after the perfect little toast Robert had made:
It’s finally just us.

Ours was the textbook disaster wedding, for two reasons. One was my father’s money. The other was the election. Taken in order: (1) My dad didn’t approve of Robert because he’s fourteen years older than me, and (2) Robert’s career required that, at the time of our whirlwind courtship and wedding, we spend every waking moment talking to people we have never met and feigning interest in every word they said. That seemed all right to me, even if it wasn’t so exciting, because at least it suggested Robert believed in something. My father didn’t believe in anything aside from money, and thus he wasn’t going to allow me to marry an older man, whom I’d met on an elevator three months before, without a prenuptial agreement. And the thing about that was Robert had no problem with it at all; he was understanding and mature. “If I were your father I would feel exactly the same way,” he told me.