Arm Candy (33 page)
Shit. She knew he worked late but she didn’t realize he had a whole crew of people there.
“Eden, hi—”
“Okay, I’m sorry to just show up here. You must think I’m a stalker, a total crazy person,” Eden gushed. She took a deep breath and looked at his face, which remained largely unchanged, still the same gorgeous blue eyes, a more weathered but much sexier countenance.
Breathe
, she told herself.
Breathe
, she told herself.
“No, don’t be silly, come in. I’m just wrapping up a meeting with—”
“Oh my God, you’re with a client? I’m so sorry.” Her face burned with embarrassment. “I’ll go. I’ll call you another time.”
“Don’t worry, it’s actually with Max. He’d love to have you join us; come on in.”
She followed him nervously across the spacious reception area to an all-glass conference room where Max sat. His fingers ran over the scale model of the buildings as Eden and Wes walked in.
“Max, Eden is here,” Wes explained.
“Max, I’m so sorry to barge in. I just . . . I was nearby, and, um—”
“Eden, sweetheart, so lovely to hear that voice,” he said as he held out his hand, which she took, sitting next to him.
“It’s really good to see you,” Eden said, wanting to cry. She looked back at Wes, who was clearly surprised by her sudden arrival.
A rising tide of emotion welled within her chest. She looked at both men, two of the most genuine people she had ever met. And in that moment, she felt safe.
“I . . . ,” Eden started but couldn’t speak.
“Eden, are you okay?” Wes asked, sitting down next to her.
“I lied,” she confessed, looking up at Wes. Her eyes were glassy with the thick veil of tears on deck. “I wasn’t nearby. Not at all.”
She blinked and all the levees of her eyes cracked. Then broke open.
“Wes, I am here because, oh God, I am so, so
sorry
. Ugh, that word is so weary with overuse, so weak. Okay, I am not sorry: I am gutted. I am sorrier than I have been about anything else in my entire life,” Eden spewed. “You must think that I am raging nuts to show up here, but just because I haven’t seen you in forever doesn’t mean that I ever stopped thinking about you or caring or lately, since our coffee, even obsessing! Okay, that sounded scary. I swear I’m not Glenn Close and I swear I won’t boil rabbits on your stovetop, but after I bumped into your mom and then saw you, I thought so much about how your mom fought for your dad and I was haunted by your mother’s boldness, her choice to go for what she wanted and I had to come here to tell you something,” she said.
sorry
. Ugh, that word is so weary with overuse, so weak. Okay, I am not sorry: I am gutted. I am sorrier than I have been about anything else in my entire life,” Eden spewed. “You must think that I am raging nuts to show up here, but just because I haven’t seen you in forever doesn’t mean that I ever stopped thinking about you or caring or lately, since our coffee, even obsessing! Okay, that sounded scary. I swear I’m not Glenn Close and I swear I won’t boil rabbits on your stovetop, but after I bumped into your mom and then saw you, I thought so much about how your mom fought for your dad and I was haunted by your mother’s boldness, her choice to go for what she wanted and I had to come here to tell you something,” she said.
“Okay,” Wes answered softly. He faced her, arms crossed. Eden noticed that his rich brown hair was flecked with gray.
“You know the guy I mentioned I had been seeing. Chase?”
“Yes,” Wes answered.
“After I saw you, I started thinking about you, about us. Nonstop. And soon afterward, Chase proposed. He gave me a red Cartier box. And do you know what popped into my head?”
“What?” asked Wes.
“I thought . . .
I wish it were a box of raisins
.”
I wish it were a box of raisins
.”
She burst into tears and knew she seemed utterly nutso. She knew he wouldn’t actually dial the police and have her whisked away in a straitjacket, but she was worried he definitely thought she was mildly insane.
Trying to digest this shocking soliloquy, Wes simply sat there, silent.
Eden was mortified. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come. I’m so embarrassed. I’m so sorry to have interrupted.” She turned and ran out.
“Eden, wait!” Wes called after her, but she was on her way to the door.
Wes turned to Max.
“Come here,” Max said to him. “I have to tell you something.”
Outside, Eden was furiously pushing the down button for the elevator, which could not come fast enough. Maybe the cable would snap and she’d be out of her misery. Eden, in total melt-down mode, burst into convulsive tears. Chase had helped her crack her hardened veneer. He had cracked the dam, but seeing Wes was the battering ram that unleashed a flood of tears. She had her chance and she threw it all away for nonsense, for fame, for security. And now she looked like a total fool.
Where the fuck was the fucking elevator?
Where the fuck was the fucking elevator?
Wes came through the double doors and walked up to her, and took her hand. “Come with me,” he instructed.
Sobbing, she followed him back inside, turning to the left as opposed to the conference room. She followed him down a long hallway, feeling like her life was slipping away, swirling out of control.
“Please don’t think I’m some psycho stalker.” She wept. “I’m so mortified.”
Wes led her into a huge, sleek office with views of the city and a book-covered desk. He closed the door behind them.
“Turn around,” he instructed.
Eden spun around in her thick, all-enveloping fog. Hanging on the wall was
Beside Eden,
Otto Clyde’s last masterpiece, which had sold even before the gallery doors opened. Eden’s jaw dropped. She turned to look at Wes.
Beside Eden,
Otto Clyde’s last masterpiece, which had sold even before the gallery doors opened. Eden’s jaw dropped. She turned to look at Wes.
“
You
own this painting?” she said in shock. “I thought it was some fancy Midtown lawyer that bought it!”
You
own this painting?” she said in shock. “I thought it was some fancy Midtown lawyer that bought it!”
“It was,” he said with a sly smile. “My lawyer.”
“Oh my God,” she marveled. “I can’t believe it.” She stared at the image of herself in repose, her languid eyes seducing the viewer. “Wes, I’m so sorry.”
“Eden, don’t be
sorry
. Don’t worry about the past. We were young. I’m totally content. I have a thriving business—”
sorry
. Don’t worry about the past. We were young. I’m totally content. I have a thriving business—”
“It’s not just that I’m sorry,” she interrupted. “It’s that I
love
you. After I saw you I knew it for sure. I love you, Wes. And now I know I never stopped.”
love
you. After I saw you I knew it for sure. I love you, Wes. And now I know I never stopped.”
Wes walked closer to her and moved the hair from her face.
“Do you know what Max just said to me?” Wes asked, grabbing Eden a tissue from his desk and handing it to her.
“No, what?” she asked, wiping her eyes.
“He said, ‘Son, I may be blind but I can see well enough that you two are the loves of each other’s lives’.”
Eden looked at him and threw herself into his arms, crying into his warm soft sweater.
“I know that you are for me,” she said. “When your mom told me you never married, I practically choked on my relief.”
“It’s hard to get married,” Wes said, looking at her, “when deep down you know you’ll always love someone else.”
He kissed her and she felt the charcoal clouds that had shadowed her for years suddenly open up. They kissed like twenty-year-olds on the street, as though no time had gone by. But they also kissed like tons of time had gone by, time that made this moment all the more like a fireworks finale, blazing, deafening, bright and bold. She put her hands up the back of his sweater, and he held her neck and shoulder.
“Can you believe this?” she asked him. “From twenty—”
“To double that,” he said.
“Actually,” she said, eyebrow raised. “I’m thirty-nine for seventy-two more hours.”
“That’s right,” he said, recalling the date. “Any plans?”
“I was hoping to have a party,” she said, looking around the charming office.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes. A very, very small party, with a very exclusive roster of invitees. There’s exactly one person on it, in fact.”
Wes smiled. “Do I make the list?” he said, stepping toward her and taking her hand.
“You are the list.”
The pair stood staring at each other for a moment. Eden was so overwhelmed by emotion that she could barely move, but she summoned everything she had just to lean into Wes. They hugged, and they fit right back together like an ancient, long-buried lock and key. They clicked. It was in that warm melding of her cheek on his chest that she suddenly knew the feeling people always talk about: coming home.
“I thought you never cry,” he remembered, wiping her tears and kissing her forehead.
“I’ve been crying a lot lately. I think these last few years I made up for all the time I never did,” she said. “I think that finally in my ripe old age, I am free to weep,” she sniffed. “Being a hag is quite liberating actually.”
“You’re not a hag. You know, you’re more gorgeous now than at twenty.”
“Okay, Pinocchio,” she said, giggling through her tears.
“I’m not lying. Experience is sexy.”
“Well, then I guess at eighty, I’ll be smoldering.”
“You will be,” he said with a smile.
“Will you really spend my birthday with me?”
“Of course,” he said, putting his arm around her and squeezing her. “What are you going to wish for?”
“I can’t tell you that!” she teased, her tearstained face coyly smiling.
“Okay, don’t.” He smiled, touching her neck as he studied her face. Her laugh lines by her eyes were defined, her cheeks a bit hollowed, but Wes believed she was even more beautiful than ever. The years had given her character. Her soul was richer, her heart bigger. She was a better, more centered person for their time apart. Perhaps his mother had suspected this day would come, but as for Wes, he had no idea. Their instantly uncorked affection and honesty transcended his wildest hope.
“All right, I’ll tell you my wish,” Eden said, putting her arms around his waist and looking through his little gold glasses into his eyes. “My wish, for my fortieth birthday, is that I am, somehow, after all that has happened, after all I did to fuck everything up,” she continued, glassy-eyed, “that I am lucky enough to be with you. That I can earn back a place in your life.”
“You never lost it,” he said, kissing her.
“Really?” she asked.
“Really.”
“I hope so. That was my wish. Oh, and also that I can spend my eightieth birthday with you as well.”
“Maple,” he laughed, kissing her. “It’s a date.”
Epilogue
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made.
—Robert Browning
VOWS
Eden Clyde and Wes Hutcheson Bennett
E
den Clyde, best known as the muse to world-renowned artist Otto Clyde, wed award-winning architect Wes Hutcheson Bennett last Saturday evening. The bride and groom dated and lived together for one year, two decades ago, and reunited after the bride’s relationship with the artist ended. “I was devoted to someone older, then I met a wonderful person who was much younger,” she said, touching on her much-written-about relationship with DuPree family scion Chase Lydon. “And then I returned to my first love, someone my exact same age,” she said and smiled. The groom, 40, was conceived at Woodstock, “the ultimate love child,” his beaming wife, Eden, also 40, explained, replicating history as she stood aglow, and six months pregnant, at the cherry-blossom-covered altar. It is the first marriage for both. They recited their vows at the Bowery Hotel ballroom, which now stands at the site of an old diner where the pair first met. “I always knew they were meant to be together,” the bride’s best friend, Allison Rubens, said. “It’s like this fairy tale that someone read only halfway through, and then picked up again years later.” Mrs. Bennett’s son with Mr. Clyde, Cole, concurred. “I’ve never seen my mom so incredibly happy,” he said, beaming. Mr. Bennett’s profession in architectural restoration is all about rebuilding, and the parallel to their relationship is not lost on the couple. “He takes something old and beautiful and breathes new life into it,” his wife said, looking at her husband. “And now, we had our own renovation. Our history remains, but we’re stronger and better than before.”
den Clyde, best known as the muse to world-renowned artist Otto Clyde, wed award-winning architect Wes Hutcheson Bennett last Saturday evening. The bride and groom dated and lived together for one year, two decades ago, and reunited after the bride’s relationship with the artist ended. “I was devoted to someone older, then I met a wonderful person who was much younger,” she said, touching on her much-written-about relationship with DuPree family scion Chase Lydon. “And then I returned to my first love, someone my exact same age,” she said and smiled. The groom, 40, was conceived at Woodstock, “the ultimate love child,” his beaming wife, Eden, also 40, explained, replicating history as she stood aglow, and six months pregnant, at the cherry-blossom-covered altar. It is the first marriage for both. They recited their vows at the Bowery Hotel ballroom, which now stands at the site of an old diner where the pair first met. “I always knew they were meant to be together,” the bride’s best friend, Allison Rubens, said. “It’s like this fairy tale that someone read only halfway through, and then picked up again years later.” Mrs. Bennett’s son with Mr. Clyde, Cole, concurred. “I’ve never seen my mom so incredibly happy,” he said, beaming. Mr. Bennett’s profession in architectural restoration is all about rebuilding, and the parallel to their relationship is not lost on the couple. “He takes something old and beautiful and breathes new life into it,” his wife said, looking at her husband. “And now, we had our own renovation. Our history remains, but we’re stronger and better than before.”
Artists, actors, friends, and family gathered to toast the couple, whose ringed fingers and first marital kiss were twenty years in the making. “I have no regrets about the lost time,” Wes said, his arm around his new wife’s shoulder. “Whatever she needed to do to get back to me, to get us here tonight”—he paused to kiss her hand—“it was worth it.”
Acknowledgments
This is my first book where I have *zero* in common with the protagonist: a stunning model from the tumbleweed sticks (her) versus an ordinary-looking city rat (
moi
). Not to be cheese, but this “journey” would not have been possible without editrix extraordinaire Erika Imranyi and my agent, Jennifer Joel. Thank you both for your notes and guidance throughout. Ditto to Dr. Lisa Turvey, devoted pal slash longtime first reader: Your help is essential to this process, and I’m truly grateful for your time, especially when you were knocked up and probably fighting zzz’s.
moi
). Not to be cheese, but this “journey” would not have been possible without editrix extraordinaire Erika Imranyi and my agent, Jennifer Joel. Thank you both for your notes and guidance throughout. Ditto to Dr. Lisa Turvey, devoted pal slash longtime first reader: Your help is essential to this process, and I’m truly grateful for your time, especially when you were knocked up and probably fighting zzz’s.
I also wanted to thank the
Ex-Mrs. Hedgefund
cheerleading squad of amazing supporters. Your emotional pom-poms meant the world to me: Jeannie Stern, Vanessa Eastman, Dana and Michael Jones, Trip Cullman, Dan Allen, Laura Tanny, Lauren Duff, Tara Lipton, Alexis Mintz, the Heinzes, the Bevilacquas, Jenn Linardos, Nikki Castle, Lynn Biase, Lisa Fallon, Michael Kovner and Jean Doyen de Montaillou, Carrie Karasyov, Julia Van Nice, Kelley Ford Owen, Robyn Brown, Jacky Davy Blake, Vern Lochan, the amaaaazing Beth Klein (who planned a party mid- stork flight), Fréderic Fékkai, Tory Burch, Nanette Lepore, Mark Badgley, and James Mishka. And of course: the fabulous Amanda Walker, and finally, Carol Bell and Barbara Martin, who actually make touring fun.
Ex-Mrs. Hedgefund
cheerleading squad of amazing supporters. Your emotional pom-poms meant the world to me: Jeannie Stern, Vanessa Eastman, Dana and Michael Jones, Trip Cullman, Dan Allen, Laura Tanny, Lauren Duff, Tara Lipton, Alexis Mintz, the Heinzes, the Bevilacquas, Jenn Linardos, Nikki Castle, Lynn Biase, Lisa Fallon, Michael Kovner and Jean Doyen de Montaillou, Carrie Karasyov, Julia Van Nice, Kelley Ford Owen, Robyn Brown, Jacky Davy Blake, Vern Lochan, the amaaaazing Beth Klein (who planned a party mid- stork flight), Fréderic Fékkai, Tory Burch, Nanette Lepore, Mark Badgley, and James Mishka. And of course: the fabulous Amanda Walker, and finally, Carol Bell and Barbara Martin, who actually make touring fun.
To LC and the nuggets, you make my return so happy every time. Love you so.
And
To Mom, Dad, and Will: you made the heinous zitty teen years actually fun and formative versus awky and miserable! I’m so glad you cultivated in me the realization early on that the real Beautiful People are the ones who make each other laugh.
About the Author
JILL KARGMAN is the author of
The Ex-Mrs. Hedgefund
and
Momzillas
and the coauthor of
Wolves in Chic Clothing
and
The Right Address
, which were both
New York Times
bestsellers. She has written for
Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Interview, Town & Country
, British
GQ, Elle, Teen Vogue
,
Travel + Leisure,
and style.com. She grew up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and now lives there with her family.
The Ex-Mrs. Hedgefund
and
Momzillas
and the coauthor of
Wolves in Chic Clothing
and
The Right Address
, which were both
New York Times
bestsellers. She has written for
Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Interview, Town & Country
, British
GQ, Elle, Teen Vogue
,
Travel + Leisure,
and style.com. She grew up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and now lives there with her family.
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