Arm Candy (20 page)

“You can’t be ‘best friends’ with someone you’re paying,” Eden explained.

“Why the hell not, that’s so ridiculous!” Otto had fumed.

“Because then it’s what I call an Agenting Friendship—they are profiting ten percent from the friendship. Look at Jennifer Aniston and her hairdresser! Clearly he needs her more than she needs him, so there’s an imbalance. There’s no cold, hard truth.”

“Well, I sure know
you
never bit your tongue,” he scoffed. It was true. Despite all his controlling and manipulations, Otto had been Eden’s truest confidant apart from Allison. She wondered how long she could keep something like this from him. And she hoped that there would be a “something” to speak of.

As she sat perfectly still, eyes out the window, she dipped into that sweet vat of memory. A chill shivered her gut where Chase’s arms had once encircled her. There was something special about this guy, about Eden when she was with him. Something different. Something
nyoo
.

—John Andrew Holmes

 

 

 

O
ver plates of pasta with grilled eggplant and a plum tomato sauce, above the flickering glow of eight mercury glass votives, Chase watched Eden relish the food she’d labored over. They sat on two sides of an enormous antique Vuitton trunk Eden and Otto had happened to discover at Clignancourt flea market in Paris, hand-stenciled with the initials
EC
. They lounged on big pillows on the floor beside it as Eden’s impromptu table setting was covered with diagonal-swirled goblets, small bud vases filled with blush pink ranunculus, and plates of hot, delicious food.

“It’s so good,” Chase complimented. “I’m so impressed. My mother never cooked a thing, so I am always blown away when people can make meals like this at home. I’m a big reheater,” he confessed.

“My mom never cooked, either. But I’m guessing in your situation it’s because you had a four-star chef,” she said sarcastically. “My mother could sure boil a mean hot water, though!”

“I’ve never met anyone like you,” Chase said, his eyes on the angel hair spinning in his spoon. Eden felt a small rush, a warmth in her chest. She wanted to take care of him. She got up and walked around the trunk and plopped down next to him. She put her hand on his cheek and slid it down his neck, just looking at him. She leaned in to kiss him. His fork fell as he reached for her. He had been dreaming about this moment since he had left her side and as they tumbled on her Moroccan rug, he realized he had never been this taken with any girl. After they made love, they meandered to the bed, where they lay for hours, talking about their lives, their recent breakups, all while Chase held Eden’s hand and traced each finger over the top, as if outlining her dainty skeleton within.

“It’s funny, I traveled a lot of the world with Liesel, we stayed in every four-star hotel, dined in every Michelin restaurant, and I’m happier with you just lying here and doing nothing.” Chase laughed. His arms and legs were intertwined with Eden’s, her long shiny hair draped across the pillows as Chase stroked it away from her forehead.

Eden curled up closer to Chase. “Otto and I were the same. Always jetting around to this or that fabulous event, having a party full of people over. If we had even one night with no plans, he would say, ‘Who should we ring for dinner’! It was like he needed to have a crowd around him to make him feel as though he existed—he had to be the center. I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I guess you know you’re happy when you don’t need any outside stimulation.”

She got up to get a bottle of red wine off the trunk, walking stark naked through the bedroom without a care in the world. Chase realized that in three years with Liesel he never once saw her walk around like that. The closest she came was self-consciously darting to the bathroom, naked except for her pearls around her neck.

She plopped back in bed, poured the Bordeaux, and handed Chase a glass. He looked at her with wonder.

“What, you never drank red wine in bed, either?” she asked him, brow arched.

“No,” he smiled bashfully. “Not once.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. It could spill and stain the sheets.”

Eden looked at him with a cat-that-ate-the-canary look. She took a long sip, drinking most of her glass except for one little sip, which she then splashed on him.

“What are you doing?” he asked, astonished, with burgundy droplets covering his face and chest.

She threw her head back and laughed.

“Here, I’ll mop it up for you.” She climbed on top of him and kissed him.

His body collapsed in her embrace as she pinned him down, kissing him as she slid him inside her. She moved on top of him as their mounting breaths grew in hyperventilated sync. He looked up at her, wet with wine from his chest. With the sweet smell of the grapes emulsifying their tangled limbs as they rolled on her sheets, Chase felt his head pounding. “You know, I’ve got news for you,” she said, sitting up and crawling back onto him, getting right in his face, her lips a millimeter from his. “You are the oldest twenty-eight-year-old on the fucking planet.”

Chase looked down. It was true.

“Well, you’re the youngest . . . thirtysomething—,” he stammered.

“Thirty-nine. What do you think of that? That’s almost forty, you know.”

“Thanks. You know I learned all my numbers by my twenty-fifth birthday,” Chase teased.

She certainly seemed generations younger than Liesel, not just in her spirit but in the way she carried herself. But beneath the saucy exterior was a girl who was worried that her youth—and all the attention her looks brought her—was officially over.

“So you don’t care? That I’m old?”

Chase smiled and shook his bed head.

“You’re not old. Your age never crossed my mind.”

“How is that possible? I mean, they say age doesn’t matter but . . . it kind of does. I think about my age on a daily basis. No, hourly.”

“I don’t. I never think about it.” Chase shrugged. “Or yours.”

“That’s ’cause you’re a man. You keep getting riper while we wither on the vine.”

“Come here, you rotting fruit,” he jested, grabbing her.

She let out a ticklish laugh. “I’m serious! We’re practically
Harold and Maude
,” she semi-joked.

“Who are they?”

Holy shit, he hadn’t even heard of one of the great movies of all time. Damn, he was young.

“Never mind.”

As she lay down beside him again, holding his hand, she looked at a growing crack in the ceiling.

“I should get that repainted,” she mused casually. “This place seems so quaint and cute, but if you look closely, it’s kind of falling apart.”

“I don’t see that,” Chase said. “It’s perfect as it is.”

—Dan Bennett

 

 

 

T
he next day, at her recon lunch with Allison at Fred’s, Eden picked at her French fries, oscillating between two poles of exhilaration and nonchalance.

“So what are you going to do about this? This is such a reversal. I thought you said the cougar thing was gross. . . .”

“It is! But this doesn’t quite feel like that. I mean, I’m not in Callie and Sara’s league of ordering beefsteak sandwiches.”

“It’s so weird you’re with Chase Lydon. Talk about the
opposite
of Otto.”

“I’m not
with
anyone.”

“What’s he like?” Allison beamed.

“He is so anal, God love him. It’s like he’s been tied up in gold twine his whole life. He’s just so . . . burning to open up, you know? He has this pent-up energy. He’s practically ready to burst. Sure, he’s been to the requisite New York institutional galas, but he’s living in this little Limoges box. But God, is he sweet. Just the most doting, kind, amazing guy. And gorgeous. And entirely too young for me. Otto would die of shock if he saw that this was who I’m shacking up with. That’s why I want to keep it under wraps.”

“I love it. Clandestine romance. Hot.”

“Well, it would be even worse with regard to
his
family. Can you imagine if his fancy parents saw my apartment with that nude portrait of me hanging in the living room?”

“I heard his mother, Brooke, really puts the ‘cunt’ in ‘country club.’ ”

“Great, see what I mean?” Eden said, throwing her hands up.

“Yeah, but so what? What are you going to do, sneak around because his momma and Otto wouldn’t approve?”

“I’ve got news for you:
I
don’t approve! I could be his mother.”

“Eleven-year-olds don’t usually menstruate,” Allison assured her.

“They do now because of all the hormones in milk and stuff. I swear. They go bra shopping now at, like, age nine.”

“Oh God, I hope not. Please tell me my little Kate won’t have hooters in four years. Not possible. Anyway, we eat mostly organics,” Allison told herself.

“The point is, I can’t go gallivanting around with this young guy on my arm! It’s wrong.”

“Says who?”

“Says me. I must look ridiculous.”

“He’s not so young that you’re, like, tasting Similac on his breath, he’s twenty-fucking-eight! That’s old enough,” attested Allison. “And furthermore, since when do you give a shit about what people think? You’re the last person to worry about gossip. You’ve led a fantastic, unconventional life, raised a brilliant, fabulous son, so what the fuck do you care what people say?”

“You’re right. Plus, I have no clue where it’s going, if anywhere,” Eden said, thinking about her night with Chase. “I just know I love the way he makes me feel. I feel great. For the first time in a while, I’m . . . young again. He’s like a fucking time machine.”

“And like a fucking machine, clearly,” said Allison with a wink.

“You know, yes the sex is amazing, but it’s different. He’s not one of those guys who could unhook a bra with one hand in pitch-black. He’s not a player; he’s almost timid, a truly good person, gentle and kind. He’s got to loosen up a bit, but I see in there a spark locked inside.”

“Just wait,” said Allison knowingly. “Sooner or later, like everything else, it will have to come out.”

—Phyllis Diller

 

 

 

“I
can’t stop thinking about you, I mean, literally I can’t stop,” Chase whispered on the phone to Eden from work.

While he sat lit by the glow of his computer screen, Eden lay on her couch covered with cashmere throws from India, resting on pillows still smelling of the lavender sachets she had packed them with for her move.

“Is that so?” she asked seductively.

“It is.”

“I’m flattered. I miss you, too.” Eden giggled. She was not a giggler. Her schoolgirl chortle surprised even her. “But you have to do what you have to do! Whatever that is. Numbers stuff.”

“Eden, let me take you out to dinner tonight. You can choose the place.”

Eden didn’t think that would be such a good idea. “Let’s just stay in, no? I can cook something. I’ll head down to the farmer’s market—”

“Please. I don’t want you to lift a finger. Let’s just go out.”

“Great. Then everyone in the restaurant will remark what a nice mother-son dinner we are having. Until we start making out.”

“We both know you are not old enough to be my mother, Eden.”

“Okay, fine, but I am still most definitely a brown leaf next to your green one.”

“Golden brown,” he teased. “Come on, you’re being ridiculous.”

Eden paused. He was right. In this day and age, it shouldn’t matter. But Eden knew the world enough to know that it wasn’t as open-minded as she was. If she was spotted at a restaurant with him, news of their pairing would get out. Everyone would laugh that she, nearly four decades old, thought she could have Chase Lydon. It was setting herself up for humiliation. But then she thought of her old self. The stronger, more secure person who simply wouldn’t give a shit. Somehow, along the way, bouncing through the calendar year after year, Eden realized she had lost her shield. Had it been chipped away or did it vanish overnight? She didn’t quite know but she realized that it was time to get it the hell back. Allison was right: Fuck it. Since when did she feel like she wasn’t worthy of someone?

“Where should we meet?”

Eden wrote down the Second Avenue address and shook off her paranoia. It was all in her head; everyone else was too involved with their own lives to care about Eden’s, right? They have their own stuff to deal with, so why would they even notice her and Chase?

 

 

Elio’s was aghast.

Eden felt like a rotisserie chicken spinning before the heated gaze of the well-to-do onlookers.

“Isn’t that Chase Lydon?” one blond, shoulder-padded matron whispered to her husband, who drank his straight vodka and could barely divert his gaze from Eden’s endless legs in her hip, strapless minidress.

“Who’s that?” the hubby asked, watching as Eden moved her long hair to one side of her bare shoulder. Eden sat down at the bar and began reading a cocktail menu as Chase greeted the maître d’.

“That’s Eden Clyde, the former
lover
of Otto Clyde, the painter. Took his name but had their kid out of wedlock! Carriage without marriage,” the patrician matron whispered back, brow arched. She knew Brooke Lydon casually from around the Colony Club and surmised her acquaintance would be . . . unthrilled.

“Wait a second, hasn’t he been going with Bitsey van Delft’s daughter?” her friend asked, a polished finger tinkering with her pearls as she glanced at Chase and Eden, coral lips pursed in disapproval.