Arm Candy (10 page)

Eden, who hadn’t cried in years, walked like a teary-eyed windup doll onto the uptown subway, exited and walked to Allison’s apartment, and collapsed into convulsive sobs Allison had never seen from her best friend. After decades of holding the water back from her eyes, Eden let loose, crying not just for Otto but for everything in her whole life.

“Let it out, sweetie,” she said as she handed Eden tissues and rubbed her bony back, which racked with sobs.

She could see the flashes of Eden’s whole life in those tears, all the disappointments. It pained Allison immensely to see her friend’s resolve disintegrate before her eyes. Allison prayed that her friend would have the strength to deal with the flood the way she had in her youth. She had to pull herself up and soldier on.

“We are going to get you sorted out,” Allison promised. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You will stay here this week in Kate’s room and she’ll stay with the twins. I am calling Schlepper’s Movers. They are hot Israelis. They will come in like a tornado and pack you all up. You’ll move up here near us. You’ll start over.”

Eden nodded blankly, happy to hand over the reigns for the first time in her life.

She was catatonic over the next week as Allison (and Gadi and Asa, the movers) helped pack her things and move her into a small rental apartment uptown. She nodded at the broker as a signal of “I’ll take it,” as Allison scurried about settling her in with a bed, furniture, and fresh-cut flowers by the window.

After Alison left with a long hug to go deal with the kiddies’ bath and dinnertime, Eden was left alone to face the four walls of her first solo apartment ever. Drowsy with a mixture of grief, dread, and that mental bungee jump, she sat down and sobbed. She bent her head to her hands to wipe the streams from her eyes with her palms as there were so many tears a mere finger wouldn’t cut it. After a few minutes of making sounds not unlike a cat being strangled, she knew her cries had to stop.
Okay . . . deep breaths.

Eden wearily surveyed the brown landscape of corrugated cardboard. She knew from her many moves that if you don’t power through and unpack every last box, then you’ll carry that pit of dread with you until you do. Enough blubbering, it was time to rip open that tape.
Power through
, she told herself. Every last box. Eden opened her first one in a blur. But then she opened the second and started to figure out where each thing would go and she began to get focused. By the fifth box, she was getting organized. By the next, she had located her speakers and iPod. She limped to find a wall socket. She plugged in her gear and put on some eighties music, starting to sway as she slashed the next box with her cutter. As Duran Duran swelled, so did her hope; despite her fragile state, she recognized in the distance the feeling that everything was not going to shit. Nick Rhodes’s synthesizer triggered an ever-so-slight memory of looking at herself in the mirror at seventeen and knowing that she was going places as she packed those first boxes in Shickshinny. If she had that strength and confidence in her then, surely she could tap into it now, even if it had laid dormant for a while. After she finished unpacking the seventh box, Eden’s despair was beginning to be eclipsed by a tiny glimmer of hope. Maybe, just maybe, she would be okay.

—Anne Morrow Lindbergh

 

 

 

A
s Eden exhaled, New York City gasped.

The onslaught of awe and gossip was atomic in scope, even mushrooming abroad among Clyde’s international collectors. His most recent work had just fetched $7 million. And of all his masterpieces, it was always the Eden series that kept him in ka-ching.

Afire with shocked revelations of his new flame, Mary, and the power duo’s split after almost twenty years together, the world’s film cognoscenti and art elite waited in breathless wonder to see where the paint chips would fall and whether Clyde would still paint Eden. But Eden was never one to give a rat’s ass what people thought; there were no cheeks rouged from scandalous embarrassment, simply tears shed for an empty bed. Wagging tongues from the press never hurt her, since she and Clyde were bound together forever not just by their deep friendship but also by Cole, who was now eighteen.

Otto called Eden in her uptown haunt, which was now settled into.

“I wanted to check on you, see how you’re doing,” he said with concern. His worried tone pissed her off even more, as if she were a child who couldn’t hack it out of the studio she virtually grew up in.

“I’m fine. I mean, people here spend five dollars on a tomato but it’s been okay.”

“When can I see you? I want to paint you. Lyle needs me to finish this show.”

She said she would oblige, only if it felt comfortable. She wanted to be mature and the fact was, she liked posing for him and wasn’t quite ready to abandon the world she had grown so accustomed to. Uptown she was a Martian transplanted, as if she’d parked her saucer by Central Park and tried to assimilate.

Allison introduced her to two of her single friends, Sara and Callie, both divorcées who were addicted to Core Fusion at Exhale, Botox and Dr. Reed, and with boobies that could act as flotation devices to get them across the Atlantic. They lunched at Via Quadronno, Eden in a flowing gray dress and black wool Mayle coat, the other three in fur coats over gym clothes. Eden guessed Sara and Callie were a bit older than she, around forty-four, though she couldn’t be sure since their foreheads were motionless and as smooth as their post-lipo’d ass cheeks.

“I can’t stay long; I have an appointment at the gyno,” lamented Allison, looking at her watch.

“Ugh, the worst,” said Callie, adjusting her leopard-print D&G cardi over her old-school implants, the kind that slope up before they go back down.

“I know,” said Allison, rolling her eyes over the dreaded exam.

“It’s like being raped by the Tin Man,” said Callie.

“So glad I only go yearly now,” said Sara. “During the pregnancies I was always in that fucking office! Ugh, so glad my eggs have passed their sell-by date.”

“Totally! See, Eden, that’s the beauty of dating at our age,” explained Callie. “The girls who are thirtyish, they’re in this big rush to hijack some sperm and get their asses knocked up. But us? We’re already mothers, we’ve been down that road. We’re not out on a DNA safari. So the guys know it’s just for fun.”

“There is something happening with women our age and these younger guys,” Sara seconded. “It’s like the whole Upper East Side’s doing it! It’s the ultimate symbiosis, really. Both groups want FWOF, fucks without fetus. It’s so liberating! And guys know that we deliver way better than those young girls who don’t know what they’re doing. They love us!”

“All those young girls want is a ring on their finger!” Callie added.

“They want bling, we want booty,” said Sara.

“They want diamonds, we want dick,” Callie roared mischievously, her long red nails newly tacky from polish.

“Ew, you guys please stop,” Allison said, prudishly cringing over her brassy pals’ sexploits. Of course her pink cheeks only goaded them on further.

“They want carats, we want cock!” Sara teased.

“They want weddings, we want ween,” Callie continued.

Allison looked at Eden, who looked like she had just sucked on a lime.

“Maybe I want someone who’s my own age,” Eden offered nervously.

“Sorry,” Sara snorted. “Doesn’t happen.”

“Wait—didn’t Shandra McCraw wind up with some guy her own age?” Allison asked, not wanting Eden to get freaked out.

“Urban myth,” Callie corrected, shaking her head. “You either marry a rich geezer or bang a young hottie.”

“Or both!” Sara shouted, raising her glass.

“I’ll drink to that!” laughed Callie.

“You guys kill me,” chortled Allison. Her friends totally amused her, but she thanked goodness she had Andrew at home.

“We’ll totally hit Bar & Books on Lex and troll for young bankers,” said Sara. “These guys work like dogs and just want to get laid. They don’t want drama. Callie’s right, they don’t want some young bitch looking for a rock. They want an older woman who’ll rock their world! They know we’re not out to get knocked up—we’re too old!”

Eden looked at Allison. These women were funny and all, but they creeped her out. And while they claimed to have all the power, something about them still seemed desperado. “I’m not so sure I’m ready.”

But her best friend knew better. “E, you’re always ready.”

“Come on, girl, come out with us!” pleaded Sara sweetly. “We may be cougars but we don’t bite.”

“At least not outside the boudoir!” Callie howled.

“I’m not so sure this time. It’s different now. I mean I’m . . . I’m turning thirty-nine next week. January first.”

As sexy as ever to outsiders, Eden still felt worn, physically and emotionally. It was a new year, the first time in many she wouldn’t be at a huge blowout bash—drunk or dancing on tables or both. With a birthday on New Year’s Day, the world toasted her each year. But this time, as the ball in Times Square plummeted as she did into the murky well of thirty-nine, Eden was a mess. Her little tea party with Allison’s friends had only made her feel worse.

 

 

It was arctic on the day of December 31. Eden woke up too lazy to even go out and get her coffee, so she just lounged in bed, trying not to cry or to acknowledge how incredibly lonely she was. She stared at the ceiling, trying to figure out what the different cracks resembled, like a child on the beach lying in the sand, examining the passing clouds. But without the innocence or the hope. She slumped on her couch and flipped on TBS, always there for her when she needed a laugh or a good John Hughes movie. Bingo:
Some Kind of Wonderful
. She watched it attentively, as if she were seeing it for the first time, though in fact she’d had countless screenings. But somehow, this time, rather than feeling like she was Amanda Jones—the gorgeous girl from the wrong side of the tracks—as she was entering the last year of her thirties and feeling more invisible than ever, she was like Mary Stuart Masterson: there to be a friend, undesired, taken for granted.

Halfway through, Allison stopped by to check on Eden.

“LOVE this movie! Move over.”

Allison flopped next to Eden. At the end, when cute Keith makes his dramatic run down the lamplit suburban road, into his BFF Watt’s arms, Eden’s eyes welled up. They were one of Eden’s favorite movie couples of all times. She exhaled as she watched their young, apple-cheeked embrace in the romantic finale.

“You know what freaks me out about being old?” Eden asked Allison over the credits.

“What?”

“We can only
hope
we have that feeling again,” she said, gesturing to the screen. “When you’re young you see this, you just
know
you will find love one day and you just have to be patient. Now I’m not sure I’ll ever have a love like this again.”

“Oh my God, speaking of first loves, I heard Jason Price’s wife is prego with her
sixth
. They’re like all platinum creepy Children of the Corn.”

“Great,” Eden said almost wistfully.

“Come on, you would never want her life! Anyway: new year, new start. I have a good feeling,” Allison said, kissing Eden good-bye as she left to meet Andrew. “You sure you don’t want to come out with us?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m sure. Thanks, Allison.”

At 9:00, Cole rang to wish her a happy birthday and happy new year. He had decided to stay in California and go to L.A., where his roommate was from, to celebrate.

“Thank you, honey,” she said, feeling tears burn their way to her retinas. She missed him so much it was agonizing, especially now. She had often felt lonely with Otto, but she had always had Cole. “Are you going out tonight? Any fun plans?”

“Yeah, a bunch of us are all going to this huge party in West Hollywood. It’s crazy here, Mom. We went to this house last night overlooking the whole city”—Eden heard his friends in the background calling his name—“Wait, you guys! Hold on!” Cole said.

“Sweetheart, you go and have fun with your friends. Drive safe, please.”

“Have a great night, Mom.”

“Okay, I will.”

“Mom, I love you. Next birthday will be better. I promise.”

“Thanks. I love you, too,” she said, trying to sound upbeat. Next year.
F-F-F-Forty.
Ugh.

As her son ran off with his friends, Eden put the phone back in its cradle. She wished she could put Cole back in his. She missed his fat feeties. His sweaty bangs she’d brush off his face as he slept soundly. He hadn’t had a traditional childhood with Little League and hockey sticks; he’d blown out birthday candles in the Court of St. James’s ambassador’s residence rather than Chuck E. Cheese. But because of their myriad journeys, they had always been together, meeting Otto or flying back home, seats A and B.