Local Hero

angry.”
    He lifted her hand and kissed her fingers. “Yes, very sweet.” His hand remained on hers as he continued. “Anyway, she left and gave me the opportunity to take stock of myself. For three years I’d been living day to day, telling myself I was a great artist whose time was coming. The truth was I wasn’t a great artist. I was a clever one, but I’d never be a great one. So I left New Orleans for New York and commercial art. I was good. I worked fast tucked in my little cubicle and generally made the client happy—and I was miserable. But my credentials there got me a spot at Universal, originally as an inker, then as an artist. And then”—he lifted his glass in salute—“there was Zark. The rest is history.”
    “You’re happy.” She turned her hand under his so their palms met. “It shows. Not everyone is as content with themselves as you are, as at ease with himself and what he does.”
    “It took me awhile.”
    “And your parents? Have you reconciled with them?”
    “We came to the mutual understanding that we’d never understand each other. But we’re family. I have my stock portfolio, so they can tell their friends the comic book business is something that amuses me. Which is true enough.”
    Mitch ordered another bottle of champagne with the main course. “Now it’s your turn.”
    She smiled and let the delicate soufflé melt on her tongue. “Oh, I don’t have anything so exotic as an artist’s garret in New Orleans. I had a very average childhood with a very average family. Board games on Saturday nights, pot roast on Sundays. Dad had a good job, Mom stayed home and kept the house. We loved each other very much but didn’t always get along. My sister was very outgoing, head cheerleader, that sort of thing. I was miserably shy.”
    “You’re still shy,” Mitch murmured as he wound his fingers around hers.
    “I didn’t think it showed.”
    “In a very appealing way. What about Rad’s father?” He felt her hand stiffen in his. “I’ve wanted to ask, Hester, but we don’t have to talk about it now if it upsets you.”
    She drew her hand from his to reach for her glass. The champagne was cold and crisp. “It was a long time ago. We met in high school. Radley looks a great deal like his father, so you can understand that he was very attractive. He was also just a little wild, and I found that magnetic.”
    She moved her shoulders a little, restlessly, but was determined to finish what she’d started. “I really was painfully shy and a bit withdrawn, so he seemed like something exciting to me, even a little larger than life. I fell desperately in love with him the first time he noticed me. It was as simple as that. In any case, we went together for two years and were married a few weeks after graduation. I wasn’t quite eighteen and was absolutely sure that marriage was going to be one adventure after another.”
    “And it wasn’t?” he asked when she paused.
    “For a while it was. We were young, so it never seemed terribly important that Allan moved from one job to another or quit altogether for weeks at a time. Once he sold the living room set that my parents had given us as a wedding present so that we could take a trip to Jamaica. It seemed impetuous and romantic, and at that time we didn’t have any responsibilities except to ourselves. Then I got pregnant.”
    She paused again and, looking back, remembered her own excitement and wonder and fear at the idea of carrying a child. “I was thrilled. Allan got a tremendous kick out of it and started buying strollers and high chairs on credit. Money was tight, but we were optimistic, even when I had to cut down to part-time work toward the end of my pregnancy and then take maternity leave after Radley was born. He was beautiful.” She laughed a little. “I know all mothers say that about their babies, but he was honestly the most beautiful, the most precious thing I’d ever seen. He changed my life. He didn’t change Allan’s.”
    She toyed with the stem of her glass and tried to work out in her mind what she hadn’t allowed herself to think about for a very long time. “I couldn’t understand it at the time, but Allan resented having the burden of responsibility. He hated it that we couldn’t just stroll out of the apartment and go to the movies or go dancing whenever we chose. He was still unbelievably reckless with money, and because of Rad I had to compensate.”
    “In other words,” Mitch said