The Men I Didn't Marry by Janice Kaplan

as when he was captain of the crew team. Last time I saw him, he wasn’t wearing a perfectly tailored pin-striped suit with French cuffs peeking out of the sleeves, but his gorgeously chiseled features are offset by the wry, amused smile that won me the first time.
    “You must be Eric,” I say, extending my hand with a little laugh.
    “And you haven’t changed one bit,” he says, pulling me toward him and kissing me lightly on the cheek.
    He opens the car door and we slide into the backseat of the limo. The driver offers a brief hello before closing the glass window that separates him from the passenger’s compartment and pulling away from the curb. Eric reaches for my hand. Have I really not changed, or is it just that I’ll always be the same in his eyes? How romantic. Or maybe he’s just too vain to put on his glasses.
    In the car, Eric tells me all about his various business deals, which seem to include commodities trades and international financing. In case he hasn’t made the point about how successful he is with his limousine, private plane, and penthouse apartment, Eric announces that he was recently in
Forbes
.
    “Did you happen to see it?” he asks.
    “Your friend Tom Shepard mentioned something, but I never got to read the story.”
    “Check this out,” he says, pulling out a laminated copy of the
Forbes
magazine article that he just happens to have in the backseat.
    I’d like to know what it says. I’d definitely like to know what it says. But I’m as vain as Eric. No way am I putting on my reading glasses in front of him to find out. In fact, I’ve already Googled the menus at Per Se and Masa and made my choices, just to avoid this very situation.
    “It’s so dark, why don’t you read it to me,” I coo.
    “The big headline is I’m 277.”
    I know it’s not his age. It’s certainly not his weight. And I’m hoping it’s not his cholesterol. Does every man I know have to take Lipitor?
    “You’re 277 what?” I ask.
    “On the list.”
    It doesn’t immediately come to me what list he’s talking about. “Don’t worry. You’re number one with me,” I say.
    He laughs. “Number one is Bill Gates. Or maybe some Saudi prince. I’ve done well, but I’m not competing with them yet.”
    Oh, a list of rich guys. I guess 277 is pretty impressive. Definitely better than I’d rank. I was proud when I opened the mail yesterday and found a preapproved Discover card.
    “Then I guess it’s a good thing you and I didn’t stay together,” I offer. “With me around, you never would have made the top three hundred.”
    I mean the joke to be self-deprecating, but Eric turns it around. “You’re right. We’d have been having too much fun for me to concentrate on work. All that sex. Hey, for that chance, I’d be willing to drop off the list completely.”
    “We did have a lot of sex back then.” I giggle.
    “I still have the blue ceramic piggy bank. Do you remember?” he asks, as if I could forget. “A nickel in the slot every time we made love. I can barely lift the thing it’s so heavy. I think our one-day record was fifty cents.”
    “A stellar twenty-four hours,” I say, grinning.
    “All that money sitting there. It’s the only investment I’ve ever made that didn’t keep growing. But I figure it’ll pay off eventually.”
    “You can use my half to buy a lottery ticket,” I tease, though I’m wondering if the investment he made is in me. And how he’s hoping it will pay off.
    “Ever have another fifty-cent day?” he asks, taking my hand and playfully stroking his finger across my palm.
    “I’ve had fifty-cent years,” I groan. “If you’ve ever been married, you’d know about those.”
    “I’ve been married three times, though I’m single at the moment,” Eric adds hastily.
    Three times? Obviously he’s not averse to making a commitment, just to keeping it.
    “What happened to your marriages? A few fifty-cent months and you quit?”
    “No, it’s just that