The Ex-Mrs. Hedgefund (3 page)

Here's the rule for the seating: The bigger the fund, the closer their table to the stage where the action was. There was the auctioneer calling out the astronomic bids, speeches by heavy hitters, and a Rolling Stones performance (lot fifteen, singing “Jumpin' Jack Flash” with Mick, Keith, and the gang, went for $1.2 million). Other lots included Fifteen Minutes with Warren Buffett ($700,000) and A Bowl of Matzoh Ball Soup cooked by Rachael Ray ($675,000). Lunch with Charlize had just garnered three-quarter mill.

Kiki thought it was all terribly “yawnsville,” but I found it to be fun, definitely much better than most events. It was exciting, like Wimbledon for the hedgie crew, with heads turning as the auction bids volleyed higher and higher in order to impress colleagues and rivals.

“Lot twenty-three: Vive La France: a private jet to Paris, a stay at the Ritz Hotel, couture show tickets furnished by the houses of Chanel, Valentino, Lacroix, Nina Ricci, Gaultier, and Lanvin.”

Paddles went up as nervous wives rubbed their hands together in gleeful fits, envisioning potential Parisian shopping marathons. Beside Mary and Trish, Posey waved at me across the room, beaming as her husband made the opening bid.

“I have one hundred thousand. Do I hear one-fifty?”

New paddles entered the fray.

“One-fifty. Do I hear one seventy-five?”

Kincaid and Peach Saunders plunged into the bidding war; he of Lightning Capital, Kincaid rolled up his sleeves: “Two hundred!”

“Please, that woman wouldn't know style if it bit her on her WASPy flat ass,” moaned Kiki to me in a whisper. “It's like Chico's exploded on her. What a fucking waste.”

“Kiki, shut up!” Hal commanded angrily.

I was holding Tim's hand, which I squeezed when his brother snapped at Kiki, but he just stared straight ahead. Yikes. I looked at Kiki, who sat with her arms crossed, clearly wounded from being reprimanded so publicly.

Then, Mac MacMonigle, from RockyPeaks Capital, raised his paddle as his wife, Jessica (and her new boobs, courtesy of Dr. Hidalgo), beamed proudly. Paddles also flew at tables taken by megafunds like Cerberus, Centaurus, and Firebird.

The honcho of Lava Capital jumped in around three hundred grand, and then Gianni Fasciatelli from WinStar took the bidding up another notch.

 

 

 

One aside: To add to my abbreviated explanation of hedge funds, let me also say that an element of the scene is also the funds' names. Because I'd seen all these paddle-happy people a million times at various industry events such as this one, I knew almost everyone—and their companies' monikers. At the very same event a few years back, Kiki and I plopped at a votive-lit cabaret table during cocktail hour and developed a chart on little napkins of how one could create his own hedge fund name.

It's quite simple: To create an impression of maximum grandeur, one takes a
Lofty Locale
, often celestial or geographic (COLUMN A). Or appropriates an element from
Greek Mythology
(COLUMN B) or the name of an
Elite Town
or
Resort Destination
(COLUMN C). That word can be used alone or combined with a
geological
or
topographical
element
(COLUMN D) before adding the group's final name (COLUMN E).

Results: StarPoint Capital or Cos Cob Ventures or Apollo-Crest Management. You get the picture.

Whatever the custom formula, A, B, or C + D + E = ego +
penis extension
. Unless someone just wimps out and uses his last name or initials, this is a surefire way to peg how every fund got its name.

“Lot twenty-four: SOLD for six hundred thousand to the gentleman in front.”

Gag. It was Petri McNaughton's snooze of a husband, Roy, from EverestPeak Management. Everyone at their table was patting him on the back like he'd accomplished something. All he did was shell it out—very publicly, I might add—for a frigging trip. Petri beamed. Posey and Trish rolled their eyes. While my friends sometimes had the odd excessive expenditure, they were pretty much down-to-earth by New York standards. Some people we knew socially would occasionally go a tad too over-the-top, but they weren't even in the stratosphere of Dish McNaughton, who, rumor had it, once sent Roy's plane to Maine for live lobsters for her daughter's preschool class. For show-and-tell.

After three more lots (including a victory for Mary, whose hubby bought her a day of shopping with Cate Blanchett and a trip to her facialist), Kiki grabbed my hand and led me off to the bathroom, aching to get a break.

“And can you believe that schmuck who blew a million bucks for yoga with Rebecca fucking Romijn?!” She put on her bright red lipstick and adjusted her tan cleavage. “I guess that's, like, twenty bucks for these guys.”

“Please. Tim wants to bid on that week racing McLarens upstate,” I complained. “I told him it's one thing to leave us if he has to go away on business, but how do I tell Miles that Daddy's gone again because he has to race cars?”

“Hal wants that, too. I guess they'll go together and you and I will have some fun. Screw them. We can go see all those geeky Broadway shows you wanted to catch up on.”

We lingered gossiping in the bathroom until Emilia d'Angelo, the ultimate hedge fund wife, entered. Emilia was the most put-together, perma-blond clotheshorse around, and her son Prescott was in Miles's kindergarten class at St. Sebastian's. Posey, Trish, and Mary were close friends with her, and so, by proxy, I was as well. I was always friendly, but she was a bit high profile in her spending, incessantly flaunting her wealth. Within one breath, she'd “casually” mention the ski house in Gstaad, the Gin Lane Southampton estate, the G5, and
My Honey's Money
, their yacht based in the Caymans. Posey once joked that the d'Angelos' boat made her mere 150-foot vessel look like a dinghy. Posey and I had become fast friends when our sons were in nursery school together at Carnegie, so when she quickly embraced Emilia, I came along. Since their husbands worked together and played golf all the time in Southport, and Emilia, Mary, and Trish's sons knew one another from their nursery school, we all kind of became a clique, reinforced by always seeing one another at events like these. We'd also shared many fun hens' dinners during all the hedge fund conferences when our husbands were away, trunk shows in one another's homes for a friend's new fine jewelry or handbag line or kids' clothes, even the occasional couples' weekend at the Mayflower in Connecticut.

But Kiki never understood my friendships with them and considered them lockjaw preppies. Maybe because she was hipper and a bit younger, but also, I suppose, because she didn't have kids, so she didn't quite grasp how much we had in common, whether it was teachers, school gossip, fund-raisers, or sports games. Plus, Posey and I often snuck off from the mommy posse and went to get a glass of wine; we even had our own secret miniplaygroup, which we called Tots'n'Tonic. During those winter months, when our guys were two and three, with ants in their pants, I thought I'd have to check into Payne Whitney.

“Hi, ladies. Marco just bought me the Hermès Alligator Trench!” Emilia beamed. “It's all handmade from one gator hide! Can you believe it?”

Kiki always said Emilia probably weighed in at 102 pounds and got down to double digits when she took her massive diamond ring off, which was all I could think of as the refracted light off her rock blinded me while she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.

“Congrats,” I said. She always seemed to be going on and on about all her stuff. Luckily the rest of my friends didn't seem to do that and were a bit more discreet.

“See you tomorrow at school,” Emilia replied, smiling, and exited.

“I wish I could throw her in the Everglades and have all those gators chomp her ass,” Kiki said, fishing for a cigarette in her clutch.

“They'd still be hungry,” I countered as I applied lip gloss.

“Touché.” Kiki laughed. “She's no more filling than a fucking cracker. She's like a human Triscuit.”

“I feel bad. She's nice, though,” I offered, guiltily. “She just, you know, tries too hard to impress.”

“Barf. Your whole mommy world is like these clones. They look fifty in their thirties; I mean, what's up with that? The silk scarves, the cashmere cape thingies with the ruffle or fur piping, hellooo, AARP!”

Kiki's hemlines were more like early twenties in my friends' opinions, I'm sure. But while my sister-in-law was the polar opposite of some of my friends, I was somewhere in the middle, seeing both sides of the coin. While I wasn't as edgy as I used to be (not that I was ever as daringly cool or as much of a risky fashionista as Kiki), I still had more pizzazz than most of my circle. Yes, I had long dirty blond hair and the requisite Tory Burch getups, but where the other ladies sometimes veered off in Republican wife territory, I sometimes went back to my semihipper stylings from my magazine days when I'd buy fun cheap dresses from hole-in-the-wall shops or well-worn rock tour T-shirts. But those days were behind me; not that I was a conformist or anything, but I was a mother and definitely had to dress up more often than not given the functions I had to attend by Tim's side. And when I was socially off the hook, I just wanted to be comfortable and not stress about getting decked out, hence my boring uniform of jeans and a blouse, a plain shift dress, or a skirt and cashmere T-shirt. But I must confess, sometimes I missed that feeling of being young and daring. And while I wasn't going to sport Paris Hilton-length minis on one end of the spectrum or my friends' matronly floor-length fur coats on the other, I knew I could be somewhere in the middle of both extremes. Emilia was the type who simply made too much of an effort. Every hair in place, every accessory of the moment, always fancy, fancy, fancy. Even her son was fancy. I swear, I once heard Prescott, as he was being picked up the last day before Christmas vacation, saying, “Mummy, are we taking the Cessna or the G4 to Lyford?” When Emilia replied that,
alas
, it was the Cessna this time as their Gulfstream was in California getting reupholstered in chocolate suede since he had gotten stains from his Milano cookies on the tan couches, he grouchily snapped “Aw, man!
Shucks!
”

But a lot of these women felt that this was the role they were cast to play: preened, polished, perfect—many of them dressing not for their husbands but for one another, glossed and glamorous and without human flaws. Foreheads were tight, thanks to 'TOX from Dr. Pat; asses were cellulite-free, thanks to Dr. Dan. Breasts were perma-pert, legs vein-free and hairless, skin smooth. There were lasers, lipos, and lips plumped, nails polished, feet massaged. Many retained makeup artists for black-tie engagements such as this one. Picture the larger-than-life cheerleading squad who ruled main hall by way of Madison Avenue and Avenue Montaigne.

The bathroom door opened and I could hear the auctioneer's booming voice echo through the marble stalls.

“Lot thirty-three: Get to Play a Dead Body on
Law & Order
. Value: priceless.”

A jolt surged through my body. I had previously told Tim I didn't need a thing and not to bid as he'd already given a generous donation. But then I looked at Kiki instantly grinning—bingo, that was my all-time favorite show. Tim knew that during his extensive travels, I often just settled in for the night, hanging in the courtroom with Jack McCoy and the gang. No one—not the dork bloggers, or people with crushes on Chris Noth—
no one
, loved
L&O
more than I. I knew every plot. Memorized so much about the law that actual lawyers thought I was a judge. Was in tears when Jerry Orbach died. I bit my lower lip and smiled at Tim, and he knew immediately that I would love to be that corpse.

We walked back to our table, and there was Tim, paddle raised.

“Fifty thousand! Do I hear fifty-five?”

The bids rocketed skyward, and finally, at one twenty-five, I leaned in. “Tim, honey, it's okay. I don't need it.”

“No, I'm getting this, Holly. It's the perfect gift for you, hon!” He raised his paddle. I knew it was for charity and probably tax deductible in some way, but it was all so outrageous.

Milton Summers from MajesticMount, a rival hedge fund to Comet Capital, shot Tim a look and raised his paddle. Sheesh. Now it really was a penis-measuring contest.

“Honey, seriously—I don't even need to be—”

“Holly, hon, quiet,” he said, while staring down Milton. I hated it when Tim got competitive. The entire ballroom, in their decked-out luxe lace gowns and custom-Tom Ford penguin suits, were now watching the paddles with anticipation. But I knew, as did everyone, that poor Milton had had a year from hell. Not financially, of course, as his company's continued windfall landed him in the
Times
Business Section almost weekly.