The Ex-Mrs. Hedgefund (21 page)

“Come have a drink with us,” he asked. “I have a bottle of Petrus, five thou a bottle,” he bragged.

“No, thanks,” I said, turning to the bathroom.

“Holly, you know I always kinda had a thing for you . . . ,” he said with a sideways smile topped off with a wink.

“I thought my ex-husband was your best friend,” I said, stepping back. “Anyway, you have
a thing
for a lot of people.”

“Ouch!” he said, in mock-wounded tone. Then “Rrrrear!” he purred, miming scratchy cat claws. Gross.

Kiki came out of the bathroom and took my hand.

“We're out of here.”

Nick came out of the kitchen with his coat and followed us to the front door.

We went to Marion's to hang out for a bit, and then, amid the din, Nick leaned in. “What do you say we get out of here?”

Ah, the your-place-or-mine moment. My place, alas, felt off limits. At least for now; it was the apartment I had shared with Tim, the building with neighbors who would whisper, doormen who'd judge.

I ended up in Chinatown hiking to a sixth-floor walk-up above a restaurant that had dead Peking ducks dangling upside down by their webbed feet. I think I spied a dead suckling pig as well, but I had turned my head away from the neon-lit row of bodies too quickly to confirm snout sighting. The stench was disgusting beyond measure.
I'm not a snob. I'm not a snob.

After I felt I'd merited a medal by my Everest-esque vertical hike behind Nick, with periodic breathless nods that I was, in fact, not going to drop dead (he asked if I was okay after every flight, as my panting clearly was that of a clinically obese person), we arrived at his door.

“My roommate's not here, so we have the joint to ourselves,” he said, opening the door. When he flicked on the lights, I spied a roach running across the floor that was not unlike the size of a Honda Civic.

“AHHHHH!” I screamed, grabbing Nick.

“Oh, don't worry, it can't hurt you.”

Ooooh. Not a good answer.

“I know it can't hurt me. But it can gross me out.”

“Don't worry! It's more afraid of you than you are of it.”

And with that, he stomped on it with his boot. I could hear the crunch of its exoskeleton under his sole. Vile. I scoured the living room for signs of others. With insects, if there was one, there were probably a million. But no sign. Just a Sex Pistols poster, Urban Outfitters-y chair and couch, TV set, empty wine bottle, and various scattered shoes.

“Come here,” he said, reaching for me.

I kissed him as we fell onto the couch. His hands went through my hair and over my chest. As he moved on top of me, I fully sensed the six years that separated us. It felt cougar-iffic to have this younger guy moving over my body and groping for an older bod like mine with an urgency I'd thought would be reserved for some sexpot on the pole. He clearly seemed into it, though, I must admit, he hadn't yet spied the white stretch marks of childbirth on my upper thighs. Unlike Kiki, who had the sickest body this side of the Playboy Mansion, I was more worn out, not just by pregnancy but also by life. But the next thing I knew, my alice+olivia sweater was coming off over my head, so I'd be exposed in the Crate and Barrel lamplight.

Nick kissed my neck and chest. It tickled. I liked it. I laughed as he kissed my clavicle, my skin still so unused to the new man's style of foreplay. I felt another tickle across my chest—wow, he had a light touch!—and giggled as he kept kissing me, until . . . I realized the feeling felt . . . not like fingers. I opened my eyes and lifted my head back upward and glanced down. It wasn't delicate fingers on my left breast but A COCKROACH.

With shrieks so loud, you'd think a) the building was on fire, or b) one of the Peking ducks had resurrected from its greasy grave and started flying around the restaurant downstairs, I ran from the couch, seized by utter hysteria. I felt like they were crawling all over me. I kept swatting at my body, convinced one had wriggled down my bra, but my flailing limbs had apparently gotten rid of the multilegged creature, which was currently at large on the shag carpeting or in the crevices of the wooly couch.

“Calm down, calm down, it's okay—” said Nick, in a fashion so utterly calm, I understood at once that this was a frequent occurrence he met with the casual swagger of, say, a dust bunny that materialized from under a chair.

“It's not okay, I—I,” I had to get out of there. “I really like you, I do, I just, have to go, I'm—sorry.”

And with that, with the speed of mercury's winged feet, I pulled the sweater over my head (not before shaking it vigorously) and bolted into the freezing night, in search of a cab amid the smell of steamy soy sauce filling the night air.

 

 

 

F
or the next few days, Kiki had been MIA with work, and when I finally got ahold of her, I gave her the roach-on-boob play-by-play.

“So what you're saying is you broke up because of an insect.”

“Multiple ones. And we weren't together, so we couldn't break up—”

“You know what I mean. So, when's Tim coming to get Miles?”

“An hour.”

I was a wreck. They always say the holidays have the highest suicide rates. And while I wasn't planning on roping up a noose, the knowledge that my child and ex-husband would be spending Thanksgiving break together had resulted in a profound stomach pit. Not that I really wanted to be at Sherry Von's Locust Valley nightmare, with food prepared entirely by her staff, no soul, no warmth except that created by Hubert's beautiful votives and flower arrangements—but I wanted to be with my son, and that wasn't going to happen. I honestly couldn't even recall a time when I was on my own for Thanksgiving. My dad was on a cruise, my friends were all with their in-laws or extended families, and Kiki and I were going to go somewhere fun and do our own thing, until she threw me for a loop.

“So, about Thanksgiving . . . ,” she said, in a funny tone I hadn't heard from her. “How about we do something different, spice up our plan of action?”

“Okay, like what?”

“Well . . . the other night I walk in from the office at, like, ten o'clock, and my phone's ringing. Lyle Spence.”

“NO! What is he, like, a total stalker?”

“Actually, no. At first I tried to shake him while I flipped through the channels. But there was nothing on TV, not even Skinemax, so I just started talking to him. For three hours.”

“What? Are you serious?”

“Holly: He's a riot. I couldn't believe it. He's really cool,” she remarked in a coy, almost shy tone. (Kiki? Shy? Never!) “So we met up the next night and we had the best time. . . . I slept with him. It was amazing. And I really like him.”

“No—”

“Yes! I'm as surprised as you are—I mean, he's a complete stranger and yet, I'm . . . into him. I asked him all about the crazy art world, his insane hedge fund clients, everything, it was . . . really fun.”

She never spoke with such tenderness. “AND?”

“And he lives on Central Park West, right on the parade route—he says Garfield's nose bumps on his window, for Chrissake—and he has people over every year. He says it's a really fun group—friends, clients, about fifty people, and he invited us to come!”

“Really?” That could be fun, I mused. I did love watching the parade on TV with Miles every year. It would be depressing to watch Matt Lauer alone when I could have full view of the action in person. “Okay, let's do it.”

I went into Miles's room and sat beside him to pack his bag. That morning we had made chocolate chip pancakes together and traced our hands on some construction paper to make turkeys. I hung his up on the fridge and, while he zoned out during his weekend dose of Nickelodeon, took mine and wrote on it:

 

I tucked it into his bag and zipped it up, and when I heard the buzzer from the lobby, we went downstairs so I could stay with Miles right up until he pulled away in Tim's car.

But when we got downstairs, I saw Tim looking surprised to see me. I wasn't quite sure why until I walked outside to load the duffel in the trunk. To my dismay, when said vehicle did approach our awning, there was someone in the passenger seat. Avery. Wrecker of homes. She quickly looked out the drizzle-covered windshield to avoid eye contact with the dreaded ex-wife, and I pretended not to notice her. While I knew she was very much in the picture, I guess I didn't realize she'd be there for such a family-oriented holiday. I was going to be off at some random party with strangers as Kiki's wingman, and poor Miles should at least be the focus of his father's attention, not her. Okay, breathe. I tried to stay calm.

“Hey, buddy!” Tim said, hugging Miles. “Ready for a great weekend?”

Miles turned to me. I knelt down beside him, fighting tears. “Be a good boy, sweets,” I said, holding his face.

“I love you, Mom. Happy Thanksgiving.” He bear-hugged me and I felt the tears begin to fry my retinas but blinked them back. As Miles turned to get in the car, Tim, who knew me so well, clearly saw my pink-hued eyes and leaned in.

“Holly, I am so sorry. I thought I would come up to get him.”

“It's fine, whatever, honestly,” I said, praying I could force back the cataracts with an emotional Hoover Dam.

“I know it must be hard. I feel . . . terrible seeing you hurt—”

Great. Of all the burdens I'd dealt with emotionally, his pity was like a backpack filled with shot-put balls, too heavy to bear.

“It's okay, Tim. What's done is done, right?” I could feel the waves mounting, pounding against the weakened resolve of my so-called dam. “Have a nice time,” I offered, genuinely, as Tim gave me a small smile. His eyes looked guilty, but as I walked away, he hopped in the car, hit the gas, and drove my son off into the evening. That feeling of loss, of Miles being transported away from me, would now be a rough horse pill I would simply have to get used to swallowing.

I went back in the slow-as-molasses elevator. When I got upstairs, I staggered home and flopped on the couch.

A couple hours after I'd dozed off, the phone rang. It was John, wondering if I was free the following night. A random Tuesday, and as I had nothing planned, I agreed to see him. And after my roll in the hay-slash-roaches with Chef Boy, a grown-up man might be just what I needed: a mature antidote to my youthful dalliance.

—Jim Backus

 

 

 

T
he next day was freakishly warm for the season, so Kiki coaxed me out to the park for one of our “psycho walks,” which we used to take all the time when she lived uptown. Thrice around the reservoir or bridle path, followed by a lunch big enough to reinstall all the calories we'd burned off and more.

“So I have an idea,” she said, face ablaze. “I think I found a job for you.”

“Really?” I was happily surprised. “What is it?”

“Back writing about music. But not for magazines: working with my friend Randy, who's head of PR at Celestial Records, writing publicity stuff. You could do this in your sleep. And it's fun!”

“Whoa, Celestial Records. It's those two brothers, Noah and Sean Greene?”

“Totally. They're the Weinsteins of the record industry. They built this all from nothing in the last five years and have won, like, a trillion Grammys and stuff.”

“Wait, didn't they have some, like, awful sexual harassment suit or something?”

“Yeah, they're gross, but they're geniuses. Anyway, Randy is awesome but can't write for shit. I told her about you and she needs someone part-time who can write the press releases, translate the sound into words.”

“I could do that!”

“Hello? I know! Plus, it's only three days a week, so you could still do your tours for Miles's school, leading those hedge fund drones around the hallowed halls. . . .”

“Wow. That could really be just what I need,” I said, imagining a career outside of mommyhood.

“So you have this hot date tonight?” Kiki asked, brow raised in mischievous sexpot glee.

When she reminded me, I got that nervous energy of an impending date with a guaranteed hookup. But I also had a queasy stomach, which made think that deep down, maybe I didn't want to go.

As we plopped at a small café on Seventy-third Street with our red cheeks and flyaway hair, I knew I needed some sexual advice from sexpert Kiki. I felt like
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
, a clueless Jennifer Jason Leigh learning how to fellate a carrot from Phoebe Cates.

“Kiki, do I . . . have to, like . . . bang John tonight?”

“No, of course not. Why?”

“It's getting weird to just kiss on street corners. I just feel this pressure like I haven't been ‘out there' since the days of bases. I just feel so juvenile—what am I going to do, give this grown man a hand job?”

“Yeah. I think pulling log would be pretty weird at his age. You can't be yanking chain on a fifty-year-old.”

“See? That's why I'm freaked out! He's forty-seven, by the way.”

“Same thing. But I don't think you have to sleep together.”