Trophy Husband (4 page)

“Obviously.”

“My mom doesn’t like this cat, but he’s
making me so happy and I’ll make sure he doesn’t pee in the house.
Please, please, please convince her.”

The trouble with Chaucer is he’s an equal
opportunity whizzer. Hayden has told me all the stories of pet
cleaning companies and furniture re-upholsterers she’s called in to
fix the damage this cat has done. But he’s her husband’s cat, and
Greg is strangely crazy about him, so Hayden is forced to put up
with Chaucer’s predilection for pinpoint precise peeing. She
manages by keeping the cat outside in their tiny backyard, which is
adjacent to my very own tiny backyard.

“Lena, isn’t he supposed to be in the
backyard. Doesn’t your mom want him outside?”

Lena buries her nose in his fur again.

“Lena,” I say gently. “Did you let Chaucer
in again?”

She doesn’t look at me. She keeps
Eskimo-kissing the cat. “I think he sneaked in. Um, it was when the
Fedex guy dropped off that package at your doorstep.”

“Ooh! That’s my new
tee-shirt for the show,” I say, distracted momentarily from the
cat’s mode of entry. I’ve become known for cool and unusual tees,
with interesting sayings, arty pictures, funky logos. I recently
tracked down a tee-shirt from the online gift shop for the
Metropolitan Opera – it’s a black vee-neck tee-shirt and across the
front in blood red it says "Macbeth," and toppling off the "h" is a
crown. I can’t wait to show it off in
The
Fashion Hound
.

But I also enjoy the Fedex
guy’s visits for another reason. He’s a certified babe. Yep, he’s
one of the many reasons I make sure to shower and apply make-up
each morning because you never known when the Fedex man might need
to make a delivery. Not
that
kind. Not yet, at least. He’s totally hot, but I
haven’t quite figured out how to ask him out. I guess being out of
the dating circuit for the last, oh, six years has handicapped me
in this department. Even so, he’s kind of become my sublimation,
and the prospect of a visit from him is often enough to get me
through the day.

“Do a fashion show for the girls, McKenna!”
Lena leaps up from the bed, no longer interested in pleading
Chaucer’s cause. Instead, she’s found a new one, all part of her
strategy to delay bedtime.

Hayden’s heels click down the hallway.
“Bedtime for you, missy. Fashion show another time.”

“No fashion show? That’s blasphemy,” I say
to Hayden.

She shakes her head at me. “It’s like having
two kids sometimes.”

Lena gives her mom a pout. “Can’t I stay up
and say hi to the ladies?”

“Nope.”

Lena glances at her mom, then gives me a
knowing smile. “You’re letting Chaucer stay inside again!”

“Just for tonight,” Hayden says, then she
kisses her daughter and tucks her into bed. I head to the living
room where I fiddle around with a new handheld camera I picked up
the other day. I use a videographer for my show, but I like having
my own small camera for little odds and ends that I need to shoot
on my own. Soon, Hayden finishes with Lena, leaving the cat in her
room. “I don’t have the heart to throw him back out. Not when Lena
worked so hard to sneak him in and devise a cover up. I know the
cat didn’t just slip inside. He was aided and abetted by my
daughter.”

“Resourceful kid.”

“If he pees on her bed, I am going to be so
pissed though.”

I laugh at her choice of verbs as I leave my
camera on her coffee table, and head into the kitchen to prepare
snacks.

“Thank you for helping me get her ready for
bed.”

“Well, you can just pay me back whenever I
need a patent attorney.”

“Babysitting bartering for legal advice
you’ll never need? Sounds completely fair,” Hayden says, loading up
her arms with a cheese platter and olive plate. I grab a small
candy dish, and we return to the living room.

The dish wobbles in my hands when I spot
Chaucer on the coffee table leaving his mark on my new camera.
“Your cat!”

“Chaucer!” Hayden shouts angrily and scoops
the cat from the table. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,”
she repeats over and over. She marches to the backdoor, and I march
to the kitchen where I find cleaner and some paper towels and try
to rid my beautiful new handheld of that awful scent. I breathe in
through my mouth as I clean, and once I’m done I try to turn on the
camera. No luck. I shake my head at the cat, even though he’s now
outside where he belongs. But yet, I have to tip my hat to him. As
much as Chaucer rankles me, in some perverse way I admire him. The
deliberateness, the in-your-face-ness of his strategy. He hit me
where it hurts and he didn’t care. There’s something about the
sheer recklessness of him that I wish I had more of. The cat does
what the cat wants, consequences be damned. I think I’m going to be
like that cat. Not pee on cameras, of course. But, be bold. Be
daring. Do what I want, no matter what.

Hayden apologizes twenty million more times.
“I promise if you ever, ever, ever need a business attorney for
anything, I will make Greg handle it for free.”

“Let’s just hope I never
need a good business attorney, but if I do, I will gladly accept
the blood money offer seeing as the dude who handled
The Fashion Hound
sale
charged me two arms and three legs. Wait. Is that blood money? Or
pee money?” I add with a wink.

But she doesn’t respond. Instead, she bites
her lip once, a sign that she wants to say something and is
figuring out how.

“What? What is it, Hayden?”

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Do what?”

“You know what I mean. Look for a Trophy
Husband.”

“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I?” I say, doing my best
to be the tough guy I haven’t been in a year.

“It just doesn’t seem like you.”

“Well, that’s because this is the first time
my ex-fiancé has told me he that he’s had a baby with the woman he
left me for, and took our baby name, to boot.”

“I know, sweetie. And I know that hurts an
insane amount,” she says softly. “But…”

“But what?”

“But is this really going to help you get
over him?”

Her question is a valid one, but try as I
might to pack a full dose of toughness around my heart, the wound
Todd inflicted is clearly still there. It hasn’t closed. And nobody
knows how much it still hurts as well as Hayden and my girls, who
have been here for me, taking my late-night phone calls and
rehashing every moment that led up to Todd’s treacherous voicemail.
They’ve tried to get me into yoga, they’ve sent me random hot guy
of the day pictures, and they’ve engaged in more retail therapy
than nearly anyone but a fashion blogger could handle. They’ve done
everything to buoy me up, and it’s very nearly worked.

But this morning sent me all the way back to
start. I didn’t pass go. I didn’t collect two hundred dollars. So I
need to find another way. This has to be the other way out of the
heartbreak.

I throw my hands up in the air. “I don’t
know! Yes. No. Maybe. I mean, Hayden. I thought I was over him but
seeing him today was a reminder that I’m not. So maybe this is what
I need for closure. To get back out there. To make it a game. To
make it fun. To even the score.”

“Right. I get that. And I’m not saying it’s
a bad idea. It sounds completely, totally one hundred and ten
million percent fun. But in the way that a reality show is fun.
Then you’re left at the end of the day with reality.”

“And reality is I’m the
loser, and they’re the winners, and the only way I can see getting
any sense of closure is to try to turn things around. Crying hasn’t
helped me feel better. Getting angry has helped me feel better.
Hell, even shopping hasn’t helped me feel better, and up until Todd
left me I was just about sure there was no ill shopping couldn’t
cure. But here I am. Poke me in the heart like he did –“ I say and
demonstrate by poking myself in the chest – “And I turn into
waterworks at a restaurant and camp out in the bathroom for an hour
to hide. I hid in a frigging bathroom today. That’s what I’ve been
reduced to. I
have
to do something different to move on.”

She nods, and even if she might not agree
with me, she’s my friend and she’ll be there. “All right, crazy
lady. You know I’m by your side, no matter what.” She drapes an arm
around me. “If this is what you need, then let’s make it
happen.”

* * *

My crew is at the kitchen table. The
reluctant Hayden, tall and leggy, chestnut brown wavy hair,
librarian glasses on her face, sits next to me. Erin is to my left,
her big red plastic hoop earrings waggling back and forth as she
bounces a bit in her chair, brimming with energy as always. Her
earrings frame her small, pert face, matched with her short, sandy
brown, spiky pixie do. My sister Julia, with her
reddish-brown-almost-auburn hair, long and lush, sits next to her.
Hayden’s married, Erin lives with her boyfriend, and Julia and I
are the fully single ones.

My straight hair falls into my face, as it
often does, so I push it behind my ears. I take a deep breath, then
begin. “So here’s why I called you all here tonight. To let you
know Todd now drinks coffee in the morning, dines at the Best
Doughnut Shop in the City, and gave up hard-boiled eggs. And, oh,
there’s one more thing. He and Amber had a baby and they named her
Charlotte.”

“Are you serious? They took your name?”
Julia asks, her jaw dropping. “My God, sweetie, when did this
happen?”

I don’t want to relive this story over and
over, don’t want to feel that knife again expertly slicing me into
pieces. So I recount the events of the morning as clinically as I
can, then move on to the topic of the Meter Man before my throat
hitches. There will be no more crying. Only marching forward, and
this pursuit is my new battle cry.

“And now, my friends, we have Exhibit A.” I
grab my pirate girl purse and fish out the parking ticket from the
inside pocket. I place the ticket on the table and smooth out any
leftover wrinkles. “A solicitation for a date.”

Erin claps. “Yay! I have been counting the
days on my calendar until McKenna was finally ready to start dating
again. This makes me happier than when my favorite men’s swimsuit
model books me for a massage.” Erin is a licensed massage therapist
and works at a day spa in Noe Valley.

“And we all know how happy that makes you,”
Julia says.

“What? He’s hot, and I don’t do anything but
rub him down,” Erin says, then takes another drink of the spiked
hot chocolate that Julia, with her bartending skills, has so
diligently provided for the crew.

“You know it’s impossible
to use the words
rub
and
down
in
the same sentence without it sounding naughty,” Julia
says.

“I know,” Erin admits with a grin. Then she
raises her mug. “Let’s toast to dating again. And maybe to a good
banging.”

Erin’s a little, how shall we say,
sex-obsessed? Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But it’s
just the way she is.

“May the next man in McKenna’s life be one
of those heroes in a romance novel – rich, good-looking and perfect
in every way,” Hayden adds.

Julia pipes up. “Call me crazy, but I’m
going to toast to you falling in love.”

A part of me wants to raise
a glass right along with her. To say wistfully, “wouldn’t that be
something?” Because, really, that would be everything I’ve ever
wanted. It would be everything I
still
want. I was born a romantic,
and bred a romantic, and I’m still one, even though I’ve been on a
most decided detour for the last twelve months. Then I remind
myself to stay focused on the prize because love smacked me hard on
the cheek, leaving a red mark that still stings. I can’t go looking
for it again. If love comes along for the ride, so be it. But that
feels a bit like winning the lottery right now, so I pull out a
sheet of paper printed from a Web page. “This a background check on
one Dave Dybdahl, the requester of said date. I ordered a criminal
check. He comes up clean.”

I hand the paper to Erin so she can pass it
around for inspection. Then I reach for a printed photo I found on
his Facebook page. “This is a photo of Mr. Dybdahl, otherwise known
as Meter Man. But hold on, my little chickadees,” I say, raising a
hand for dramatic effect. I am going to be tough tonight. This is
my moment, my moving on. “You see, my friends, this isn’t just
about one date, one guy, one parking ticket ask-out. Mr. Dybdahl is
my first candidate for my new project. Project Boy Toy. Operation
Kept Man.”

A smirk forms on Erin’s face. I have a
feeling she will be my Number One cheerleader.

“Or even, dare I say it, dare I name it,” I
say, giving a little Rhett Butler twist to my wording, “Shall we
call it the quest for the Trophy Husband?”

Erin cheers. “I love it.”

I speak louder this time, as if I were
delivering an impassioned speech, a call to action. “As long as men
have traded women in for younger models, trophy wives have
multiplied, grown their numbers. But what about the women left
behind? The first wives, or almost first wives in my case? Do we
scoop up younger guys? No. We don’t. We cuddle up with the dog, we
get to know the Chardonnay, we watch too much bad reality TV, and
that is not ever going to help us move on. So I say it’s time to
turn this around and show that two can play at this game.”

“Hear, hear,” Julia says.

“But there aren’t many Trophy Husbands out
there. So just what does one look for in a Trophy Husband? What
does one require?”

Erin raises a hand. “This is a relatively
new breed of man, right?”