Margot Hunt - Best Friends Forever

But this was not a conversation one had with a stranger in an airport.

“What are you taking time off from?” Kat asked, looking at me intently over the rim of her martini glass.

“I was an associate professor at the University of Miami,” I said. “I taught in the math department there.”

“Wow,” Kat said, looking impressed. I could feel my cheeks growing hot. “What did you teach?”

“Logic.”

“You mean like Mr. Spock?” Kat asked.

I smiled. “Not exactly, although he always was my favorite Star Trek character. I taught systemic reasoning.” Kat’s eyebrows knit together, and I knew she wanted an example. “Problems like...all humans are mortal. Kat is a human.” I gestured toward her with a wave of the hand. “Therefore Kat is mortal.”

Kat wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think I like that problem.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“I’m just kidding,” Kat said. “I think it’s fascinating. So these days you’re, what—illogical?”

I laughed. “Pretty much. That’s what being a stay-at-home mother feels like a lot of the time. But, no, actually I’m writing a book of logic puzzles for kids.” I surprised myself by telling her this. Hardly anyone knew about my little project, as I thought of it. I looked at it much like not telling anyone you’re pregnant until you get past the risky first trimester. I didn’t want everyone asking me about it if I failed to finish or publish the book. So why had I told Kat? Was I trying to show off?

Kat looked impressed. “Good for you.”

“What do you do?” I asked. I had already clocked her Louis Vuitton carry-on, her navy cashmere sweater, the diamond studs sparkling in her ears that I suspected were not cubic zirconia, like the pair I was wearing. If she was a stay-at-home mom, it was on a different level than the one I lived on. “You said you have kids?”

“Kid. One daughter, but she’s all grown up now. She’s premed at Vanderbilt. She obviously didn’t take after me, since I faint at the sight of blood.” Kat smiled. “I have an art gallery, which is probably about as far away from medicine as you can get.”

“Wow,” I said, intrigued. “What kind of art do you sell?”

“Mostly modern and contemporary, although my real passion is sculpture,” Kat said. “That’s why I came up to New York after Christmas. To tour some galleries, follow a few leads. Nothing panned out, but what are you going to do? How about you? Were you staying in the city?”

“No, we were in Syracuse, visiting family,” I said.

“You’re smarter than me. I don’t know what I was thinking going to Manhattan on New Year’s.” Kat rolled her eyes. “The crowds were insane. I finally gave up and spent the last two days holed up in my hotel room, eating room service and watching reality TV, which I really don’t get at all. Why does anyone find watching grown women wearing far too much makeup, going to awkward social events and throwing temper tantrums entertaining? It’s so bizarre. And why would anyone want to have someone following her around, filming her? That would be my worst nightmare.”

Her trip sounded incredibly glamorous to me. The idea of having two days to myself to luxuriate in a posh hotel, ordering room service and watching mindless television shows sounded like sheer decadence. I couldn’t remember the last time I had traveled without my husband or children.

“Total nightmare,” I agreed.

“Anyway—” Kat sighed and took a large sip of her drink “—New Year’s Eve is my least favorite holiday. I much prefer the cozy ones like Thanksgiving and Christmas, when you can curl up and relax at home all day.”

“Me, too,” I said, although I wasn’t sure about the relaxing part. Every year, the weeks that stretched from mid-October to late December devolved into a marathon of shopping, cooking, baking, sewing costumes and wrapping endless piles of presents, all while having to attend a never-ending series of school performances and holiday parties for every extracurricular activity the children were involved in.

There was another pause in our conversation as my children’s food arrived. A hamburger and fries for Liam, fried chicken tenders and fries for Bridget. Not a vegetable in sight. But then, my view on airport food was much like my view on airport electronics: anything goes. I took a moment to open Liam’s ketchup packs and cut Bridget’s chicken up with the dull plastic knife provided. By the time they were settled in, munching happily, and I turned back to Kat, she was grinning at me.

“What?” I asked.

“I just ordered us another round,” she said, tapping a short manicured nail against her martini glass.

“You didn’t!”

She giggled, and her girlishness surprised me. I almost demurred. My head was already starting to swirl from the first drink. But then I felt an uncharacteristic rush of recklessness. Why shouldn’t I have another cocktail? My children were safe and accounted for. I wasn’t driving.

“If we’re going to have another round, let me get it,” I said, digging out my wallet.

Kat waved me away. “Too late. Besides, you’re doing me a favor. I was bored to tears sitting here by myself before you came along.”

Over our second round of drinks, which I was careful to sip much more slowly, Kat and I got to know one another. She grew up in Palm Beach, and her parents and brother still lived there. She had studied art history at Tulane, and after graduation, she had landed a plum job with the Hirshhorn Museum at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC. She had worked there for two years before returning home to Florida to open her small art gallery near Worth Avenue in Palm Beach. She’d met her husband, Howard—who, she said with a dismissive wave of her hand, did “something in finance”—when he came into the gallery looking for a painting.

“He didn’t have any interest in art. He just had blank walls in his condo and was looking for investment pieces to hang there,” Kat explained.

“Did he end up buying one from you?”

“Yes, but at that point, he was more interested in trying to impress me than he was in the art.” Kat smiled, again displaying her straight white teeth. “It didn’t work, of course. But he eventually wore me down.”

“How long have you been married?”

“Eighteen wonderful years,” Kat answered, holding up her martini glass. “Or more like two wonderful years and sixteen mediocre ones. Oh, well. How about you?”

I thought Kat was probably kidding, since her tone was light, and I could already tell she had a sardonic sense of humor. But I had the feeling there was some truth hidden inside the joke.

I told her that I’d grown up in Syracuse and gone to the university there and then Cornell for graduate school. After I graduated, I accepted a job as an assistant professor at the University of Miami. Unlike Kat, I didn’t have a cute story about how I’d met my husband. Todd certainly didn’t woo me by buying expensive artwork, or whatever the equivalent would be in my line of work. Instead I’d met him at a rather pedestrian birthday party for one of my work colleagues. We chatted over plastic cups of boxed red wine and paper plates of previously frozen lasagna. A week later, Todd called and asked me out. On our first date, we went to the movies.

“Sometimes I wonder if the concept of marriage to one person for the rest of your life is unrealistic,” Kat mused.

I glanced at my children. They were both immersed in their electronic handheld games and weren’t paying any attention to us.

“I know what you mean,” I said, making sure to keep my voice low. “Everyone always says that marriage is something you have to work at. But I don’t think it’s possible to grasp what that means until you’ve been married for a while. The constant grind of it.”