An Ex to Grind Read online

  “You think so, huh?” She rolled her eyes. “Yeah. Like maybe if they—I don’t know—grew up in the middle of a cornfield or something. I bet those farm boys have different values than guys from New York. All that corn probably stays with them.”

  Hopeful, yes. But still just that.

  Chapter

  5

  I spent Christmas Eve at my best friend Louise’s. She and her husband, Leonard, hosted a lovely, spirited, very traditional dinner at their 1810 colonial house in Westport every year—a house with hardwood floors and crown moldings and an actual white picket fence. Along with their two precocious children, an eight-year-old boy who played the bassoon, and a ten-year-old girl who spoke Japanese, which, she informed me, was essential in the global economy, they invited her parents and his parents and various strays. I, of course, was one of the strays—the only stray that year.

  It hadn’t snowed, and the front lawn was a sad, wintry brownish gray. But inside, standing in the foyer so you saw it the minute you walked in the door, was a shimmering Christmas tree decorated with green-and-gold lights and ornaments handed down from generations. When I was a kid, my father said we couldn’t afford a tree, so we never had one. Not that we would have had a place to put it, given our cramped quarters. After he died and I married Dan, I made a point of buying a huge tree every year. I would weigh it down with lights, ornaments, tinsel, popcorn, and anything else I could think of. It was a gaudy, nouveau riche Christmas tree that some might have sneered at, but I hated when it was time to take it out to the street for the garbage truck.

  As I entered my friend’s house that night, I realized that it was my first Christmas as an officially divorced person. Oh, joy. Oh, rapture. There’s nothing worse than being the only single woman at a party, eliciting everybody’s pity, but I would try to act festive. Besides, I was doing just fine. Okay, not so fine.

  “Mel! Come on in!” said Louise as she gave me a big hug. She was wearing a no-nonsense pair of slacks and a sweater, as was her custom, no matter what the occasion. In fact, I’d never seen her in a skirt, just as I’d never seen her with a stitch of makeup. She wasn’t unfeminine, just more interested in comfort than fashion. One of the reasons I adored her was that she didn’t spend hours critiquing herself in the mirror, like most women I knew.

  When I’d first met her, an athletic, freckle-faced, sandy-haired New Englander who’d attended the best schools and went by the name of Weezie, she was a colleague of mine at Pierce, Shelley and Steinberg. She came from money and I came from none, but despite our different backgrounds, we hit it off immediately. We were both scrappers, both on the career fast track, both get-it-done types who didn’t sit around crossing our fingers. We made things happen.

  One of the things Weezie was trying to make happen was marriage. I was happily married to Dan back then, but she was still single and determined to remedy the situation. After enduring numerous failed fix-ups arranged by Boppy, which is what everybody called her father Bob, and by Els, which is what everybody called her mother Eleanor, she began advertising herself in personal columns, offering herself up on Internet dating sites, signing herself up for singles weekends on cruise ships—with no groom to show for any of it. Undaunted, she hired Desiree Klein, a professional matchmaker who had appeared on 20/20, and finally hit the jackpot. Through Desiree, who catered to upscale lonelyhearts and charged a five-thousand-dollar fee, she met Leonard, an ear, nose, and throat specialist who was from a similarly WASPy background and, therefore, went by the name of Nards. They fell for each other, had a tasteful Park Avenue wedding, and settled in Westport, not far from Boppy and Els in Darien. Soon after, Weezie got pregnant and gave up investment banking for full-time motherhood. When she first quit her job, I wondered if she’d be bored up there in Connecticut, away from the action, but she loved it, loved her life with Nards and the kids, and applied her go-getter attitude to the PTA, the historical society, and her tennis game. Her marriage thrived while mine disintegrated. Luckily, I got custody of her and Nards after I split from Dan. While they’d always liked him, they were in the same boat as most friends of divorced couples: they felt obligated to choose. As I said, I was lucky they chose me.

  “Thanks for having me,” I said after admiring her tree.

  “I wouldn’t have this party without you,” she said. “Now, go mingle, and we’ll catch up later.”

  And off she went.

  The menu that Christmas Eve was roasted goose with all the trimmings. It was delicious, and I, newly voracious, not only cleaned my plate but helped myself to seconds. I forced myself to join in the conversation too. Wasn’t it oddly mild for this time of year? Wasn’t the housing market softening just a little? Didn’t the Giants need a good quarterback if they had hopes of making the playoffs?

  Naturally, I clammed up on that last subject, and Weezie shrugged apologetically at me when her father raised it.

  Dan, Dan, Dan. It was always about Dan. I’d spent the entire ride up to Connecticut obsessing about his latest stunt. Not only had he taken Buster to Puerto Rico for the holidays to attend some big-deal reunion of former Giants players. He had chartered a private plane to get them there! Really! Every time I calculated what that little adventure must have cost, I went crazy. It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair. That money should have been in the bank—my bank—earning interest, making my life more secure.

  After the meal, when the kids were in bed, and Boppy, Els, and the rest of the family had gone home, I sat in Weezie’s den, sipping tawny port with her and Nards. There was a fire in the fire-place and Diana Krall on the stereo, and I should have felt mellow but didn’t.

  “So,” said Weezie. “Tell us how you’re doing, Mel.”

  “I’m hanging in there.” I swallowed the port the wrong way and it came back through my nose. “Trying to ‘move on,’ as my lawyer says. Unfortunately, Dan chartered a private plane to Puerto Rico and took Buster with him, so I’m stuck in resentment mode.”

  “A private plane? That’s how he’s spending your money?” she said. “You need a grown-up man in your life.”

  “I’ve got this doctor friend. A gastroenterologist,” said Nards, who was extremely tall with a large, bobbing Adam’s apple. He was on the chatty side and tended to pontificate, so there were times when I tuned him out, but he meant well. “His wife committed suicide a few years ago. I think he’s ready to start dating again.”

  “I appreciate it,” I said, “but the truth is, I’m not ready to start dating again.”

  “And we don’t know why his wife offed herself,” said Weezie. “Maybe he drove her to it.”

  “Women.” He sighed. “Always assuming the worst about men.”

  “I’m sure he’s nice if he’s a friend of yours, Nards,” I said charitably. “I’m just not interested in being in a relationship. I may never be interested in it.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Weezie, who, like other married people, encouraged her single friends to be married too. “Give it time. You’ll meet someone wonderful like I did.” She winked at Nards.

  “I don’t want someone,” I reiterated. “I just want Dan to find someone.”

  “So he’ll remarry and let you out of the alimony?” she asked.

  “He doesn’t even have to marry her,” I said, thinking of the cohabitation provision. “He just has to live with her for ninety days.”

  “That could happen,” said Nards. “He’s a celebrity. Women love celebrities.”

  “Nah. They love the kind of celebrities that open movies, not supermarkets,” I said. “I think his most recent performance was at a Winn-Dixie in Florida.”

  “It’s hard to believe he’s fallen so far,” said Weezie.

  “He was a hell of a ballplayer,” Nards reminisced. “Not just great hands, but quick. And graceful. He could dart in and out of oncoming traffic like nobody else.”

  “He did earn the nickname,” I conceded. “That day they carried him off the field on the stretcher broke him.
And he broke again when they nullified his contract. He never had the patience to read the damn contract, so he was shocked that it was no-play, no-pay.”

  “Must have been rougher on him than we realized,” said Nards.

  “Yes, but I really thought he’d get back on his feet and do something else, something great. I mean, there are people who come back from a loss with even more motivation to succeed. Besides, we had my salary to live on during the transition. I figured, I love him and he loves me and we can get through anything. Was I ever naive.”

  “And now you have to support him even though you’re divorced,” said Weezie with a disapproving shake of her head.

  “You weren’t upset that your uncle Wally supported your aunt Bootsie after they got divorced,” Nards reminded her. “Or do you think alimony should only be for women?”

  “Of course I don’t,” said Weezie. “But Aunt Bootsie deserved every penny. She gave Uncle Wally the best years of her life.”

  “Maybe Dan gave Mel the best years of his life,” said Nards. “He certainly gave her his most productive years.”

  “He could still be productive if he tried,” I said.

  “Right,” said Weezie. “He’s still young, and he has his whole future ahead of him. But why should you have to subsidize him if he sits on his ass?”

  “Because the justice system can’t be gender biased,” said Nards. “There have to be laws that protect men, just as there are laws that protect women. No double standards.”

  “That’s very noble, Nards,” I said, “and I agree with you in principle. It’s just that—”

  “It’s just that it’s hard when you’re the one having to part with the money,” he said. “I get it. But we’re living in the twenty-first century, and if women want to be the hunter-gatherers, they have to accept the burdens that come with it. They also have to accept that men are feeling shaky these days.”

  Weezie and I looked at each other and groaned.

  “I’m serious,” he said. “The whole definition of what it means to be a man has changed, and it’s not easy for us to keep up. Look at Dan. Once he stopped being the provider, he didn’t know how to cope.”

  “Dan didn’t know how to cope because he never had to,” I said. “When the road is smooth for your entire life, you don’t develop any skills for when it gets bumpy.”

  “True, but the same can be said for a lot of guys,” Nards went on. “You should see some of my male patients, the ones who’ve lost their jobs. They’re the walking wounded. They don’t realize that they’re still human beings even without the fat wallet.”

  “And can my speech-making husband, who loves the sound of his own voice, tell us why?” Weezie teased.

  “Because men today have a terrible case of performance anxiety,” he said, “and I’m not just talking about the bedroom. Women are a force to be reckoned with. The more empowered you feel, the more inferior we feel. We don’t know who we are anymore.”

  “I know who you are, and I’m wild about you,” she said, then made kissing noises at him.

  I smiled at my friends. “I think it’s time for me to head back to the city.”

  She shook her head. “We haven’t solved your problem yet. I may have left Wall Street for Westport, but that doesn’t mean I still don’t strategize everything to death.”

  “What’s to strategize?” I said. “The divorce is final, and I’m writing checks to a jobless ex who charters planes. The scary part is that my resentment about it is creeping into my work. I was in the middle of an important client presentation last week when I started fixating on Dan’s new bathrobe, among his other purchases. I’m living in a one-room dump because of him, wearing the same clothes I’ve worn for years, and he’s living in the lap of luxury, buying himself bathrobes! It’s obscene!”

  “Calm down, calm down,” Weezie soothed. “Did you land the client?”

  “Yes, thank God. But Bernie noticed that I was a little distracted and asked me about it.”

  “Wow. Not good,” she said. “We’ve got to get you out of that alimony, no question about it.”

  “Get me out of it?” I said, still pure of heart at this point, merely indulging in the occasional orgy of wishful thinking.

  “You mentioned the cohabitation thing. Tell us the rest.”

  “There isn’t any ‘rest.’ The provision states that if Dan lives with a woman for ninety days, the support terminates.”

  “He must be having his share of dates,” said Nards, “but he’d really have to fall for someone to risk forfeiting the alimony.”

  “Or be sneaky about the arrangement,” said Weezie. “He could live with the woman and make sure you don’t find out about it, Mel.”

  “Far be it from me to defend Dan, but he’s not sneaky,” I said. “He’s a lot of things, but not that.”

  “Then you just have to find him the perfect woman,” she said. “A woman who’s turned on by the sports star he used to be and who’s pushy enough to start hanging her clothes in his closet. Oh, and she has to have more money than you do.”

  “You’re forgetting the crucial element, hon,” said Nards. “She has to be a knockout.”

  “Right,” said Weezie. “She has to be a total babe, so he’ll be powerless to resist her.”

  “Okay,” I said with a laugh. “Where do I find this goddess? On eBay?”

  Weezie and Nards said simultaneously and as if it were obvious: “Desiree.”

  “Your matchmaker?” I said.

  “Well? How else?” Weezie challenged. “You have specific requirements here. You can’t just go surfing on the Web, as you just pointed out. You can’t put an ad in the classifieds either. You’re dealing with a delicate situation, and it requires a professional.”

  “A professional who charges five grand,” I said. “To fix up a man who doesn’t know he’s being fixed up. You guys have had too much port.”

  Nards poured us all another glass, then sat on the arm of his wife’s chair and nuzzled her ear. “Don’t be hasty, Mel,” he said. “Desiree is a genius. Look what she did for us.”

  “Maybe so,” I said, “but if I had five grand to throw around, I’d lose the Heartbreak Hotel and install myself in a decent apartment.”

  “You get a lot for your money with Desiree,” said Weezie. “Dan will be guaranteed one date per month for a year.”

  “Sort of like the Book-of-the-Month Club,” I said.

  “A whole year of dates,” she said, ignoring my sarcasm. “Dan’s bound to find a woman to live with. And once he does, you won’t have to support him ever again. You’ll be saving money, Mel.”

  “It’s a brilliant plan,” said Nards, applauding. He turned to me. “And you’ll get a big kick out of Desiree. What a character.”

  Weezie nodded. “I feel better now that we’ve settled this.”

  “Settled this?” I said, my head spinning.

  “Before you leave, I’ll give you her number,” she said. “You should wait until after the holidays to call her, but don’t wait too long. It could take her a few months to find your Ms. Right-for-Ninety-Days, and you want to stop writing those alimony checks sooner rather than later, right?”

  “Thanks for trying to help, but there’s no way I’m calling her,” I said wearily. “Even if I approved of the idea, which I don’t, I already told you: I can’t afford to hire her.”

  “You can’t afford not to, from the sound of that client meeting,” she said ominously. “You’ve always been a take-charge person, Mel. You need to take charge of this or you’ll find yourself out of a job.”

  “Out of a job? I’m planning on making partner one of these days. So I flaked out for a second or two in the meeting. It was only—”

  “You don’t want Bernie thinking you’re not a hundred percent. He can be a mean little shit, remember? He canned Roberta Chapman when she started losing it after her divorce.”

  “I’m not losing it, Weezie. I’m just—”

  “Call Desiree,”
she said.

  “Yes. Call her,” said Nards.

  Before I could say another word, my hosts had turned their attention to another subject: whether the goose had been cooked properly.

  As I drove back to the city that night, I grew closer to cooking my own goose. No, I didn’t make the fateful decision to call Desiree Klein during the trip, but I did mull it over.

  What I wondered was this: did I actually have the nerve, not to mention the motivation, to hire her to solve my Dan problem? It was true that she was a matchmaker, not a hit woman, and I’d be committing no crime by engaging her services. Still, to set Dan up with someone—someone to whom he would be forming an attachment, sexual and/or emotional—without his knowledge or permission seemed, well, snarky. I had my issues with the guy, God knows, but he’d always been a straight shooter who hated deception in others. Not a sneak, as I said. Could I really go behind his back and meddle in his personal life simply because I was pissed off about having to scale back my lifestyle while he was scaling up his? Could I justify manipulating him into a three-month relationship so I’d be relieved of the financial burden he’d saddled me with? Did I have it in me to toy with his feelings—his and the woman’s—to avoid having to pick up his tab for seven more years? Was my poverty complex that severe? Was my sense of fair play that skewed?

  Apparently, the answer to all of the above questions would be yes. Condemn me if you must, but hear me out first. Please.

  Chapter

  6

  Dan was late bringing Buster back the Monday morning after New Year’s. I was expecting him at eight-thirty. It was eight-forty-five, and there was no sign of him. I called him at the apartment. No answer. I called him on his cell phone. No answer there. I even called him at the dreaded Ernie’s, figuring they’d been out together the night before and might be sleeping it off at his place, but no answer there either.

  Straining to keep the hysteria out of my voice, I called Steffi, asking her to make my apologies to Jed Ornbacher, whom I was supposed to meet in our conference room at nine-thirty so I could introduce him to our department heads, all of whom would be in attendance, as would Bernie. Even if Dan breezed in right that very second, I might not make it to the office with enough breathing space. I liked to prepare before meetings. That’s what top guns do.