Margot Hunt - Best Friends Forever

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Kat suggested we eat at Renato’s, an Italian bistro on Worth Avenue. It was a glorious day, cool and sunny, so we decided to walk to the restaurant.

Even though Palm Beach was only a short drive from Jupiter, I hadn’t spent much time on the tony island. As we strolled down the sidewalk, I was struck by how picturesque it was, from the neat rows of royal palms to the luxury stores housed in Mediterranean-style buildings to the Rolls-Royces and Aston Martins parked on the street. My earlier nerves dissipated, replaced by a frothy, bubbling sense of well-being. Here there were no dishes to wash, no homework assignments to check over, no piles of laundry to fold. Only a delicious lunch to look forward to and, possibly, a new friendship.

We decided to sit in the elegant outdoor courtyard, which was filled with round tables dressed in starched white linens and surrounded by flowering bougainvillea. Our waiter, who was young and handsome with a slight build, beamed at Kat as he handed her a menu.

“Welcome back, Mrs. Grant.” He spoke with a slight Italian accent. “It’s nice to see you again.”

“You know I can’t stay away,” Kat said, returning his smile. “I’m craving the risotto.”

The waiter rolled his eyes upward. “It is sublime, no? Shall I bring you the wine list?”

Kat looked at me and asked mischievously, “What do you think? Should we?”

I almost never drank wine at lunch, other than the occasional indulgence on vacation. But I was suddenly feeling festive.

“Why not?” I said.

Kat ordered a bottle of something white and imported, and the waiter swiftly returned with the bottle in hand. After he went through the presentation of uncorking it, offering Kat a taste and filling our glasses, he set the bottle in a silver bucket of ice. Kat raised her glass to me.

“Cheers,” she said. “To new friendships.”

We clinked our glasses together. The wine was cold and crisp and delicious.

“Your gallery is beautiful,” I said.

“Thank you,” Kat said. I would later learn that Kat always accepted compliments with a simple thank-you. She did not brush them off with the self-deprecating remarks many women, including myself, fell back on. Kat was not an especially vain woman, but she was perfectly willing to accept compliments on her appearance, her taste, her home, as nothing more than an obvious truth.

“How long has your gallery been open?” I asked.

“It’s hard to believe, but nearly twenty years. I opened it when I was pregnant with Amanda, and she turned nineteen in November,” Kat said.

“I thought you said you met your husband at your gallery.” I immediately regretted this intrusive remark. The details of when she’d met her husband and when she’d given birth to her daughter were none of my business.

But Kat didn’t seem put out. She just smiled and said, “You have a good memory. Yes, I met Howard after Amanda was born.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

“You didn’t. It’s not a secret. Well, it’s not a secret that Howard isn’t Amanda’s biological father. The truth is—” Kat leaned forward and dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper “—when I was living in DC, I had an affair with a married man. A politician, if you can believe it. I know, it was reckless. But I was young and selfish, and foolish enough to believe that my feelings were more important than his family.” She shook her head. “Looking back, I want to slap my younger self for being such a brat.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” I said. “Everyone makes bad choices when they’re young.”

“Yes,” Kat agreed. “But trust me, I deserve to be hard on myself. I did my best to convince him to leave his perfectly nice and blameless wife and their two young children. All because I was in love.”

“He was the one who was breaking his vows,” I said. “So he was more at fault than you were.”

I wasn’t sure why I was arguing the point. Of course, Kat was right. What she had done was selfish and destructive. But at the same time, twenty years of self-flagellation seemed a heavy price to pay. I’d also noticed that she hadn’t named her daughter’s father. I wondered if he was someone I would’ve known from the news.

“I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn he didn’t turn out to be a good guy in the end,” Kat said. “When I told him I was pregnant, he ended the relationship. Actually, first he tried to talk me into having an abortion, and then, after I refused, he said he never wanted to see me again.”

“Wasn’t he worried you’d bring a paternity suit against him?”

“No.” Kat shook her dark, glossy head. “He knew I’d never do that. Anyway, I decided it was time to leave DC and headed home to Florida. My mother was horrified, of course—she’s easily horrified—but my father was more pragmatic. He said if I was going to be a single mother, I needed to have a business to support us, so he encouraged me to open K-Gallery.”

“Had you always wanted to open an art gallery?” I asked.

“Not really. Before I got pregnant, I was working at the Smithsonian and thought that if things didn’t work out with the married man, I would probably move to London or Paris, where I’d work as a curator for one of the great museums.” Kat rolled her eyes. “I’m sure whatever I imagined that life to be like was something out of a movie and not in any way rooted in reality. Romantic dinners at a Paris café, cocktails at the glamorous hotel bars, love affairs with handsome foreigners. I certainly wasn’t calculating in the long hours, toiling away in an office to build the sort of career I imagined myself having. It’s not like they hire twentysomethings to buy Renoirs or organize Rodin exhibits. And the simple truth is that I wasn’t ambitious or driven to succeed in that sort of world. There are too many hungrier candidates for those positions out there. So in the end, having my own gallery has suited me very well. I can exhibit art that interests me and close early for the day when I feel like it. And, of course, I had Amanda. The affair was a bad choice, obviously, but having her was not.”

I listened to Kat’s story with interest. I was impressed that she was self-aware enough to recognize and accept her limitations. But it was also true that unlike most of those hungrier would-be art curators, Kat had enough money to open her own art gallery in Palm Beach.

Our conversation was interrupted by the return of the handsome waiter, eager to take our order. Kat ordered the lobster risotto. I chose a decadent-sounding dish of fettuccine with grilled chicken in a light cream sauce. The waiter effusively praised our choices and hurried away.

“Amanda was just a few months old when I met Howard. So he’s the only father she’s ever known,” Kat said. She paused to take a sip of her wine. “Actually, Amanda is probably what brought us together. Howard was definitely not my type. But between having a baby and getting the gallery up and running, I was so overwhelmed. Hormonal, too, I suppose, and still nursing a broken heart. And Howard was just so—”

She stopped abruptly, searching to find the right word. I expected her to say something like kind or supportive or nurturing.

But instead she said, “Forceful.”

“Forceful,” I repeated. It did not seem, to me at least, to be a foundation for romance. Sexual excitement, perhaps, but that usually wasn’t enough of a basis for eighteen years of marriage. At least, I didn’t think it was.

“Yes. Howard’s primary motivation in every aspect of his life is to get what he wants when he wants it. He’s unapologetic about it.” Kat lifted her wineglass to her lips again. “And at that time, I was just so tired. Tired of making the decisions, tired of being in charge of everything, tired of my mother’s endless badgering that I needed to get married for Amanda’s sake. Not that Howard was ever all that interested in being a father.” Kat laughed. “But he was more than happy to step in and straighten out my life. Suddenly I was hiring an assistant for the gallery and a full-time nanny for the baby and then, somehow, planning a wedding. I think if I had ever stopped to catch my breath and really thought about what I was doing, I would never have gone through with it.”