Chapter 8 - The Simple Things
A year after the wedding.
The afternoon sun was warm and golden over Hawthorne Boulevard in East Portland.
Our dented 2014 Subaru was parked near the curb, its back bumper still bearing the famous small dent from four years ago. A small sticker on the rear window now read: Bridlemile Elementary Volunteer.
Nathan and I sat at a small wooden table outside our favorite food cart, sharing a paper plate loaded with hot street tacos, fresh cilantro, and grilled limes.
Nathan wore a simple grey t-shirt and jeans, his hair slightly windswept from our morning hike at Silver Falls. I wore a simple floral sun dress, my hair tied back in the same messy bun I had worn the day we met at the coffee shop.
"You know," Nathan said, squeezing a lime over his taco, "we could be eating at a five-star restaurant in Paris right now."
"We could," I smiled, taking a bite. "But Paris doesn't have taco trucks like Hawthorne."
"Fair point," he laughed, wiping his hands with a napkin. "Though I think Lawrence Bennett almost had a heart attack when he saw your monthly expense report yesterday."
"Why?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. "I spent under two thousand dollars."
"That's exactly why!" Nathan grinned. "He told me he manages thirty high-net-worth clients, and every single one of them buys private yachts, Italian sports cars, or vineyard estates. He said you’re the only billionaire on his roster whose biggest discretionary purchase last month was a twenty-four-pack of dry-erase markers for the third-grade classroom."
I laughed out loud—a bright, clear sound that made a couple walking past us smile.
"Dry-erase markers are expensive, Nathan!" I teased. "And the school budget didn't cover the purple ones."
Nathan looked at me, his smile softening into that deep, quiet warmth that had captured my heart four years ago at the coffee shop. He reached across the small wooden table, taking my hand in his.
"What?" I asked softly, feeling a pleasant warmth rise in my cheeks.
"Nothing," he whispered, stroking his thumb over my knuckles. "Just remembering the first day I saw you sitting at that corner table grading spelling tests."
"You thought I was cute?"
"I thought you were the most real person I had ever met in my life," Nathan said quietly. "I didn't know your last name. I didn't know your parents. I just knew that when you smiled, the whole room felt warmer."
He looked at my simple silver wedding band—the plain band we had chosen together at a local craftsman's shop in Portland, refusing the five-carat diamond rings his mother had tried to force on us.
"Do you ever miss the privacy?" Nathan asked gently. "Now that everyone knows who you are?"
May you like
I looked at the people walking down the sidewalk—families pushing strollers, college students carrying books, street performers playing guitars near the corner. None of them knew about the 1.6-billion-dollar trust. None of them knew about the port logistics conglomerate. To them, I was just Elaine, a woman enjoying Saturday afternoon tacos with her husband.
"I didn't lose my privacy, Nathan," I said softly, looking back into his eyes. "I just got rid of the people who didn't deserve to share it."
