All You Could Ask For: A Novel by Mike Greenberg Page A

would have switched on over her head.
    “I know what we need to do!” she said, with great enthusiasm.
    “What?” I replied, in the same excited tone, mocking her for absolutely no reason. (Here is this sweet girl getting excited about making birthday plans for me, not even knowing which birthday it is, and I’m giving her a hard time for it. I swear, sometimes I understand why my reputation is what it is.)
    “I have a terrific idea and I know you’re going to turn it down,” Marie said, undeterred by my bitchiness, “but I want you to think about it, okay? Really consider it, because I think it’s a great idea.”
    I waited.
    “There is a guy who lives in my building that I’m dying to fix you up with . . .”
    Now this was humiliating. “Stop.”
    “No, wait,” she protested. “He’s very handsome and very nice. I’ve talked with him in the elevator, he’s divorced with no kids, wears great-looking suits, looks to be about the right age—I think it’s a winner.”
    I know Marie’s building. She lives on Central Park West. Her fiancé is one of the more successful bankers in our real estate development business. But there was simply no way.
    “I can’t do that,” I said.
    “Why not?”
    “Because,” I said, “what could be more pathetic than going on a blind date on your birthday?”
    She smiled. “Sitting at home on your birthday watching American Idol, ” she said. “Which, I might add, has sucked for the last three years anyway.”
    I’ve never in my life mentioned American Idol to Marie. She’s more insightful than I give her credit for sometimes.
    “What makes you think he’s even available tonight?” I asked.
    “I can find out,” she said, bubbling. She could sense I was giving in. “I have his mobile.”
    I shrugged. Then I sighed. Then I rolled my eyes. And then, finally, I ran out of gestures that indicate exasperation.
    “All right, call him,” I said, as though I was agreeing to a highly skeptical business deal, which, in a sense, I was.
    “I will,” she said, all excited. “I’ll be right back.”
    Five minutes later she was back, and beaming.
    “Eight o’clock,” she said. “Gramercy Tavern, just the two of you. He says he’ll be the one in the blue suit. I think he was trying to be funny.”
    I tried to muster a laugh, but couldn’t.
    “The way you dress,” she continued, “I told him he’d know you the minute you walk in the door.”
    “Well, thanks for the added pressure.”
    “Boss, don’t be ridiculous, your clothes are too fabulous,” she said. “I may sneak by and peek in the window just to see what you’re wearing.”
BROOKE
    SO, WHAT ARE YOU wearing?
    It’s funny, but I could never count how many times my husband has asked me that. Sometimes jokingly, sometimes not. From wherever he is on the globe, Scott knows that he is not allowed to go to bed without calling me first to say good-night. I want mine to be the last voice he hears before he goes to sleep, and whatever he wants that voice to be I am willing to give him. He will invariably begin the conversation by asking what I’m wearing, and I can usually tell from his tone whether he wants to know that I am in flannel pajamas or if he wants the Jenna Jameson voice and the fantasy wardrobe. I will talk him through any outfit he wants—he’s fully aware I don’t own any of it, of course—and I will talk as long as it takes until he is ready for sleep. (The hilarious times come when he is in Europe or Asia; there have been occasions when I’ve had these conversations in hushed tones at soccer practice or in the parking lot at school.) As I’ve told you, I expect my husband to be completely faithful to me, and I accept that with that demand comes some obligation on my part. When he needs it I give it to him, and in return he never seeks it anywhere else. Seems fair to me.
    Anyway, the point is he always asks: “So, what are you wearing?”
    And I can’t count the number of times I