Free Perfection by Julie Metz Page B

the time.” She was pissed. And not fooled, I was sure. I knew I couldn’t do this again.
     
    Irena visited me from the city in early May. We’d planned a visit to a local museum. She wore her strand of ruby boa feathers in her dark Botticelli curls and jingly gold earrings. She rummaged in her gorgeously impractical handbag for her BlackBerry.
    Tomas arrived in his pickup truck. Irena studied him thoughtfully.
    “He’s very young, isn’t he?” There was no judgment in her voice. Her statement was merely an observation.
    “Yes,” I answered, “too young.”
    “You know, it’s not that he’s young that I have a problem with. I just don’t want to see you getting involved with another self-absorbed artist.”
    I admired her honesty. It was true that my married life with Henry had been organized to further his artistic ambitions, not mine. We had agreed that Henry would stop taking the commercial scriptwriting jobs that had been his bread and butter for many years so that he could write his first book, and then his umami book. Meanwhile, I took on as much work as I could manage and the big-ticket financial burdens. It had seemed like a good gamble at the time, and I knew many marriages like ours—wife as support staff.
    Spending time with a committed artist like Tomas had reawakened my own urges. He had been enthusiastic about my work, always encouraging me to pursue my painting. He was a man who truly lived for his art and made few compromises. But I knew from experience that, with two such persons in a relationship, the more accommodating partner was bound to make choices to support the other’s chances for success. Now, perhaps, was my opportunity to be the self-absorbed artist in the new family that was just Liza and me.

four
    Late May–July 2003
    Once my affair with Tomas was fully out in the open, the town started to feel even smaller. I longed for some kind of escape from my closed world.
    Of the many condolence letters I’d received following Henry’s death, one e-mail had inspired hope for just such a way out. It was from a Frenchman who organizes a “food happening” in Paris called The White Dinner. One night a year, several thousand people descend with tables, chairs, and loaded picnic baskets upon a location in Paris, kept secret by the organizers till the final hours before the event, when cell phones spring into action. The participants converge, folding tables are set up, food laid out, and a meal takes place, with all participants dressed in white. The gathering is illegal—no permits are secured—but the spirit of camaraderie and joie de vivre overwhelms the halfhearted complaints of les flics (the famously much-maligned Parisian policemen). The photos on the website showed glamorous Parisian women in floaty dresses and flamboyant hats, men in white linen trousers and jackets, everyone waving white napkins exuberantly, laughing and cheering. Henry had planned to attend The White Dinner in June and had mentioned it to me as something we could do together—an excuse to go to Europe, a deductible trip thatwould provide material for his book. The White Dinner seemed to have umami written all over it.
    As winter passed into spring, I was desperate to go somewhere away from my town. I hated watching myself rearrange my weekends to see Tomas, but without this companionship to anticipate during the week, my future life stretched out terrifyingly before me, the new monotony of my widowhood. I hated thinking about the future of Me. My mind traveled to frightening places as I paced in my house like a bored zoo animal.
    I arranged a meeting with Henry’s editor and agent to discuss trying to finish the book he had researched. I proposed completing the book myself, though I wasn’t sure how to write a book. I presented the idea of a trip to Paris to attend The White Dinner. I headed home on the train, giddy with the prospect of an adventure to plan.
    I booked plane tickets for Liza and myself. A