How to Be a Grown-up (26 page)

Here’s what I learned: even with the lights on, if you stay on your back your stomach looks great. If you keep your bra on, your boobs don’t fall into your armpits.
Sex and the City
sex suddenly made so much more sense.

James was unlike anyone I had ever been with before. He was what romance novelists were thinking of when they described masterful lovers. Just as in design, James had a vision. He was not a member of the
GIRLS
generation. He was not going to ask me how it felt or what I liked. He had been doing this for twenty-five years and he knew, goddammit. Or at least he thought he did.

Since having Maya, I didn’t like nipple play like I used to. The skin was still overly sensitive, and it got ouchy before it got erotic. I almost came when he was going down on me, but then he pulled away to penetrate me swiftly. And I didn’t.

I tried not to compare him to Blake, but it was inevitable. After ten years, of course, it was sexier. I was wetter. Like a teenager. But Blake also knew to avoid my nipples and that I liked him to slide into me slowly at the beginning.

I knew what I needed to do was speak up. But
I
also wasn’t part of the
GIRLS
generation. I knew how to talk to Blake about sex because I could talk to Blake about anything (except Blake).

So I was content to lie against James’s sweaty body, unorgasmic, but having crossed a significant milestone: I’d ripped the Band-Aid off my vagina.

In yet another important way, I was no longer married to Blake Turner.

Chapter Fifteen

“I have to go,” I whispered a few minutes later, attempting to make a sexy exit. I sat upright, trying, and failing, to get my breasts back into the tiny balconette bra cups. But before I could slip out of bed, he grabbed my wrist.

“Wait,” he said, “don’t go.” I wasn’t sure if he meant it, or it was just a safe thing to say to a woman who had kids to get home to. I turned back to give him an alluringly aloof protest—

“Aaaah!” He leaped up.

“What, what, what?” I screamed. “A mouse? A waterbug?”

The sheets. Were. Brown.

“I—I—” was horrified.

“What the fuck is that?” he asked. His Frette looked as if it’d been used to catch a pig.

“I got a spray tan,” I said meekly. I wanted to be swallowed by his cowhide rug.

“When?” he demanded.

“A few hours ago?”

“And you haven’t showered?”

“Was I supposed to?”

“Before you got into bed? Yes.” He looked as indignant as a man wearing a condom on his flaccid penis could.

“I didn’t know,” I said. “I’ve never done it before. Here, let me strip the bed.” I bent at the waist to pull the sheets off, not my best look. Now we were two adults, streaked brown and white like zebras, our genitals hanging out.

“No, no, don’t be silly. I’ll sleep in the guest room. My housekeeper will be here in the morning.”

“At least send me the cleaning bill.” It was like we were at the worst cocktail party ever.

“Of course not.”

“These sheets are a fortune,” I pressed.

“I’ll tie-dye them.”

I burst out laughing. “Something you learned at summer camp?”

“It’ll be a fun project with Suki.”

And suddenly we were comfortable naked. Nice naked.

“You might want to take that off before it leaks,” I said.

“Thanks. I’ve never used one before and wasn’t sure how long to leave it on.”

I blushed. “I’m going to find my clothes.”

“Don’t. You look great like that. I think they’re out there.” He gestured to the stairs.

“Thanks.”

“Will I see you again?” he asked. “Like this.”

“Oh, sure,” I said as I backed out of the room. “I’ve got my eye on that white chaise in your living room. Next time I’m bringing red wine.”

When I got home and the hilarity had worn off, I cried for half an hour. But that’s to be expected, right?

“If you marry him, are you going to get a facelift?” Jessica asked over the phone the following morning as I waited for the office elevator.

“I love how your journalistic brain gets right to the important question. Look, if he didn’t talk about his daughter in such an endearing way, I wouldn’t even take him seriously. But there seems to be a part of him that’s craving something real.”

“You are real, baby,” she said.

“So real.”

For the first time in months, I was actually feeling something approaching human when I stepped into JeuneBug. That god-awful Peaches song was playing in my head, and I wondered if she was right, if you could fuck the pain away.

Then I saw Asher Hummell and a severe woman I didn’t recognize sitting stone-faced in the conference room. Taylor and Kimmy crossed to join them from their offices, looking scared. Had Stellar come to shut us down?

I flashed to all those articles from 2008 about the bankers who had to yank their kids out of private school, sell their apartments. Only my kids already
were
in public school and I didn’t own shit.

Then I flashed to my friend, Tony, whom I met when I got to the city. We were regulars at the same East Village bar. She was putting herself through the MBA program at Stern selling her used panties. Now this was before the Internet, so we are talking about a serious trailblazer. She would mail each of her clients a pair of used underwear in one of those pretty Chinese food containers, wrapped in patterned tissue paper, with a handwritten note saying what she’d been doing when she wore them. It was fucking genius. No human contact. And she put herself through business school. I wondered where she was now. Probably running Google.

But these days, you could get worn panties out of a vending machine. And I was too old to be a high-paid hooker. I’d just have to head to the West Side Highway with the trannies and hope for the best—

“Rory!” Ginger snapped me back. “You’re in Capri.”

“I’m what?”

“Asher Hummell is here,” she said like a House Bunny informing me that Heff was in residence.

“To see
me
?” I asked.

“Yes.” Ginger, having shared the excitement, shifted back into her default mode: Moderately Annoyed.

What in God’s name did they want with me?

“Is this her?” Asher asked gruffly as I took a seat and pulled off my coat. I tried not to audibly gulp.

He was talking to a woman in a tight black suit with exaggerated puffs at the shoulder, like a 1930s cartoon villain. And he had a newly pierced ear. Oh, Asher.

“Rory,” Taylor said from where she sat at the other side of the table. I had never seen Taylor sit
at
this table. “This is my father, Asher Hummell, and this is Sage Porter, the head of Stellar’s PR.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Sage addressed me, glancing at the wall where, in lieu of the wallpaper that had yet to arrive, I had been putting up screen grabs of my work. “This is all from your vertical, right?”

“Yes, it’s great to meet you both—”

“Sorry, Sage,” Taylor cut me off. “I’m still unclear why our Be editor needs to be here for this.”

Sage crossed her fingers and shifted her fist left, while she leaned right as if she was trying to see over someone’s shoulder. Her Veronica Lake hair cascaded onto the table. “I’ve asked everyone here today because we’re still not getting any publicity traction. And I’ve gotten the feedback that it’s because of our story.”

“Our story?” Kimmy asked.

“I can’t sell a site about kids—”

“High-end
lifestyle,
” Taylor interjected. “Kids’ high-end lifestyle.”

“A site about kids created by people with no kids,” Sage pressed on. “There’s nothing to fill copy; there’s no connection with the consumer.”

Taylor’s tiny rib cage flared just as everyone’s eyes went behind me. I turned to see Kathryn walking in. “Hope I’m not too late.” She dropped her fawn-colored Birkin on the table.

“I don’t believe you were on the memo,” Asher said with obvious irritation. “I’m assuming your mole tipped you off?” I became acutely aware of sweating into my blouse.

“Asher, don’t be paranoid, you know how Sage relies on me,” she tsked, sitting in the chair next to mine. “Kathryn Stossel,” she said to me in her warmest icy tone, not to be confused with her icily warm tone. Her manners had more shades from red to blue than a Pantone wheel. “Rory McGovern, right? You’ve styled for
World of Decor
? I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“Yes,” I managed. “Now I’m the Be vertical director. It’s a pleasure.”

“Can we just please get to the point?” Taylor addressed Sage.

“Yes,” Sage continued. “It’s been decided that we’re going to recede you as the face of the company.”

Taylor blanched beneath her tan, her forehead turning a mustard yellow, then her cheeks, then her neck. We heard the thumps of her shoes falling off her feet.

Unable to face Kathryn, I looked to Kimmy, but she had slipped her hair out of its bun and was pulling it across her face as if trying to fashion an emergency mask.

“No one cares about J. Crew’s founders,” Sage continued. “They care about the color the creative director paints her son’s toenails. I’m told you have kids?” I realized she was asking me.

I swallowed, trying to wet my mouth. “A ten-year-old boy, a four-year-old girl.”

“Perfect. That hits all my boxes.” I wanted to call Blake and tell him the upside of our lack of family planning was two kids who hit all Sage’s boxes. “After this, you and I are going to debrief.”

“About what?” I asked, still not understanding.

“I’m putting together a new press kit for JeuneBug with you as the story.”

Taylor half-lifted out of her chair, spluttering, “You can’t just—I won’t let—it’s not fair—”

“Tay-lor,” Asher cut her off, admonishing like she was about to squeeze out too much ketchup.

Taylor just stared at her father, audibly panting, her expression readable to any parent. It was one I would do anything to avoid ever seeing on Wynn’s face—even, I realized as I sat there, put them on a bimonthly plane to Los Angeles.
I hate you,
it said.
Deeply hate you. In ways you will
never
be able to make up for.

“I have a conference call.” She pushed back and hastily exited, shoeless. Dropped six inches, she looked like a scrawny teenager, two angry blotches on her cheeks telegraphing that most likely the washroom was her actual destination. At Jessica’s office, there is a space everyone calls the crying kitchen. JeuneBug needed a crying kitchen.

Kimmy made apologetic squirrel noises and hustled out behind her. I had no idea what to do. I needed money. If I helped the company become more successful but Taylor hated me, I’d remain in a precarious position. If I begged off to please Taylor but we went belly-up, well, that was an even more precarious position.

“I’m going to return some calls,” Sage said. “I’ll be right back.”

Asher stood as Sage left and straightened his tie. Which was a funny expression of attention when his white hair was spraying out from the base of his bald head and his gut was straining the placket of his custom shirt. He looked over us as he spoke as if addressing a packed room: “The thing about building an empire is that the whole time someone’s ramming you in the balls.” And he left.

“That could be where his parenting philosophy went awry,” Kathryn said as she stood in her bouclé Chanel the color of a latte. “I’m sure Sage will understand that this proposal doesn’t suit you.”

“Asher isn’t going to replace you,” I said intently.

“If Mort picks him to run Stellar, Asher will have me out before lunch.” She slipped the bag over her elbow and crooked her arm. “And there is nowhere to go but down. Tina Brown is one start-up away from running a hot dog cart.”

“What would my reason even be?”

She looked at me, lifting her glasses. “That you’re a woman who values her privacy. And given your tenuous situation with your husband, the privacy of your family.” She crossed to the doorway.

“I mean, he has an earring, for God’s sake,” I said. “Mort would never put him in charge.”

She held the door for a second. “Mort thinks Asher is the future.”

“Of the eighties?”

She allowed herself a hint of a smile as the door swung shut.