Leggy Blonde: A Memoir (20 page)

And then, in all of five seconds, this guy not only caught my eye, he got my number. I scribbled my name and contact info on my Bed Bath & Beyond receipt, and gave it to him. But he didn’t call me. I was surprised, but not disappointed. Like I said, I wasn’t all too eager to date. A few weeks later, I came home and found a note left for me in the lobby of my building.

“Hi, Aviva,” it read. “This is Reid Drescher. We met at Bed Bath & Beyond. I lost your number. Please call me.”

The guy had tracked me down, come to my home, left a message, and asked me to call him. I could take that one of two ways: (1) he was a stalker, or (2) he was smitten and aggressive. I thought,
How many Jewish stalkers are there?

Then again, if there was only one Jewish stalker in the world, I’d be the woman to attract him.

The note made me genuinely curious about this Reid Drescher. He’d gone to some lengths to find me. So I called him. We went to a Mexican restaurant called Maya on First Avenue and 63rd Street, just a few blocks from my building. He picked me up, and we walked over together.

The number-one rule for first dates: don’t talk about your ex.

We broke that rule before our drinks arrived.

“So . . . you’re a single dad?” I asked.

“And you’re a single mom,” he said.

That was it. We were off and running. For the entire evening, we hashed over our respective divorces-in-progress. From the sound of it, Reid and his wife just weren’t getting along. They seemed like a normal couple that had grown apart. His daughter, Veronica—whom I’d met—was one and a half. For her sake, he and his wife promised each other to have an amicable divorce. They were just getting started on working out a settlement.

I was six months into my settlement battle. What I’d noticed among my friends was that divorce brought out the worst, even in the finest people. Reid’s divorce seemed exceptionally tame. He spoke respectfully about his wife. Reid had discretion and great manners. He was careful in his descriptions. I wasn’t quite sure why he and his wife were splitting up. Reid went on to tell me about his own brokerage firm, which he started at age twenty-nine. He was obviously self-made, highly intelligent, and a workaholic.

I told him about my jewelry business, and the saga about Harry. Unlike my friends who all had Harry fatigue, Reid hadn’t heard the story before. I had a new person to bounce it off of, and see if it was as crazy as I thought. I put it all on the table, and half expected Reid to get up and leave me alone there. After all, Reid was very normal.

When I finally stopped talking, he said, “Wow, that is really complicated.” And then he took a big bite of his enchilada.

This was a man who didn’t scare easily.
Yeah, but how would he react if I showed him my leg?
I wondered. He’d had enough for one date. I’d spring the leg on him if we had another.

When the conversation lightened up and we spoke about entertainment, it came up that Reid’s first cousin was Fran Drescher. Interesting.
The Nanny
was hilarious, and was set right here, on the Upper East Side. I was sharing nachos with Fran Drescher’s cousin. Reid was low key about it and unimpressed. We shared a coolness regarding celebrities. I was happy he didn’t have the same nasal tone and accent. It suited sexy Fran, but for a guy . . . not so much.

He and Fran had plans to see a
Raisin in the Sun
revival starring Sean Combs on Broadway. He had an extra ticket and invited me to come. It was our second date. “I’ll send a car service to your place,” he said. “You go pick up Fran and then come get me.”

I’d met many celebrities in my life. But being alone in a town car with Fran Drescher for twenty blocks intimidated me. Not because she was a celeb. I hoped she’d like me for Reid’s sake. If she hated me, she could tell him, “Dump her. She’s a loser.”

The car pulled up to her building on Central Park West. Fran saw me and waved. (I told Reid to tell Fran to look out for a blonde in an orange dress. It was by Celine and I still own it.) She was wearing a tight V-neck dress in a bright color. She let herself into the car, sat down, and turned to me. “Hi, I’m Fran,” she said. She asked how I met Reid, and I told her the BB&B story. She put me at ease immediately. We kept laughing the whole ride. Her voice alone—a toned-down version of her character’s—cracked me up. We talked about the play, which I’d studied in drama class at Vassar. She was a Broadway connoisseur and we compared notes on
musicals and our favorite theaters. Fran was cerebral and a bit spiritual, too—a fascinating, insightful, funny woman. She was nothing like her character on television. Her sophistication, intelligence, and plans to make the world a better place were inspirational. Fran was a cancer survivor and was going to use her fame and experiences to eradicate cancer through early screening for women. We could have kept gabbing all night, but we had to shut up when the curtain rose.

The performance was brilliant. Afterward, Fran and her friend went off to a party. Reid and I had dinner at Mediterraneo, my old favorite restaurant. It was warm so we sat outside. Meeting Fran, great theater, a delicious meal, and a tall, kind handsome man across the table—it was truly a magical night, one for the books.

Our conversation on that night delved further into our personal histories. Reid grew up in Queens. His father was also an accountant with his own firm. After his parents’ divorce, Reid moved with his mother to Great Neck, Long Island, which is why he didn’t share Fran’s distinctive Queens accent. He went to the University of Miami, following his older sister and brother there. His first job out of college was at Prudential Securities. Within a few years, Reid was poached by Paine Webber as a top producer, and shortly thereafter, started his own stockbrokerage and investment banking firm called Spencer Clarke. He was successful, and took care of his mother. He hired his father to be the CFO of his company. Reid had been given nothing, and gave back to his parents everything he could.

We jumped in our chairs at all the things we had in common. Accountant fathers. Great Neck, which I knew well because of Ricky. My prosthetics office was near there, but I didn’t tell Reid that. He lived in Miami during college, within ten miles of my parents’ house.

He was wonderful, but too normal. I didn’t trust it. I had a skewed prejudice against a normal upbringing like Reid’s. The biggest drama he had known was his parents’ relatively friendly divorce. He had done classic suburban things, like get a fake ID, go to weekend keggers on someone’s deck, and sneak into the movies. Always ambitious, he made a lot of money in the summers selling ice cream on the beach. During college, he partied at frats and cheered for the football team. He had a steady job, and regular relatives who, for example, went to a doctor when they were sick. I had grown up in a nutty, New York City, Woody Allen–type family. At times, I felt like a damaged person myself. I’d attracted and been attracted to other damaged people and seen one relationship after the next blow up in my face.

Reid was admirable, sane, calm, self-made, and exactly the type of stable man I
should
be in a relationship with. This man could make me feel safe. Being with him would be the smartest thing I ever did for myself, and for Harrison.

So, naturally, I resisted it. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t think I could handle normal. But I didn’t think Reid could handle me. I decided to test his mettle.

“You should know that I have only one leg,” I said suddenly, interrupting him.

“What?”
he asked.

“I had an accident when I was little, and lost my leg. I wear a prosthesis from the knee down.” I studied his face. Would he grimace, gag, or say, “Check, please!”

“Really? Can I see it?”
He lit up with curiosity.

“I don’t usually lift up my skirt until the fourth date, but okay.” I raised my hem to just over the knee. Reid leaned forward and touched the prosthesis. While he felt up my leg, I studied his face.
Not a hint of revulsion or horror on it. The opposite. He seemed fascinated, but not in a creepy way. He was just a curious person. I’d never been so brazen about showing my leg to a man before. And, when I did get around to it, none of my previous boyfriends had reacted with open wonder. They’d been accepting, especially Jonathan. But Reid actually seemed impressed by me and viewed my leg as if it were nothing more than a double ear piercing.

That night, Reid walked me home. My true confession didn’t send him running for the hills. He was still interested. We didn’t kiss good-bye, but I really liked him. He was just such a good person. Not a great guy in the Harry mold. Reid seemed to have moral fiber and was the kind of man any woman would be thrilled to be with.

A few days later, we met for coffee. And I broke up with him.

I played the “bad timing” card. “Both of us are going through divorces,” I said. “I don’t think it’s a good time for us to start something.”

Reid looked at me with sad puppy dog eyes—the same ones our five-year-old son uses on me now. When I saw his crushed expression, I knew I’d made the right decision. He wore his heart on his sleeve. He was vulnerable, and I would only complicate his life.

“Let’s be friends,” I said.

I’d pushed him to prove himself by showing my leg. He had, and passed with flying colors. We’d been on two great dates, and seemed to be beginning a comfortable relationship. But I couldn’t relax into it. I bristled against it. Instead of staying in the city and letting things develop with Reid, I ran scared. Harrison and I moved to Florida for the summer.

It’s amazing he didn’t hate me.

•  •  •

It only took a second to meet Reid. But it took longer for us to become a couple. He would become my prince in good time. But I still had some frogs to go through that summer.

First there was the Italian playboy. He was the husband of the daughter of the ex-president of a Latin American country. Tony’s father-in-law had been a dictator who allegedly killed political rivals. Tony and his pregnant wife lived in Miami for years until they had a major fight, and she flew back to her country for the birth of their baby. Tony stayed in Miami alone. I met him on the beach. He lied and told me he was getting divorced. I only went out with him twice. The second date, I drove to Tony’s place and could have sworn a car was following me, but I wasn’t sure. Tony called me and told me to turn around, and that we should meet back at my place. We made out that night, but nothing serious. I was too spooked by the car tailing me.

The next day, someone called my parents’ home number. My father picked up. The voice said, “Do you know that your married daughter was with the president of ______’s married son-in-law last night?” The caller gave Dad some graphic details and threatened him to make me stay away from Tony.

Dad went from zero to sixty in five seconds and started screaming into the phone. “Don’t you fucking call this house again, you fucking piece of shit, or I’ll slice your head off!” He didn’t take kindly to threats or assaults on our family. We decided that the dictator had spies in Miami. They were tracking Tony’s movements and interactions on behalf of the pregnant wife. That one phone call was more than enough to make me back off.

Next was the French restaurateur, Pierre. He asked me out one night when I’d gone to one of his restaurants for dinner. He was a bit older than me, and seemed to know everyone in Miami. I was flattered
by the attention, and we went on a bunch of dates. It reminded me, only in a good way, of my relationship with Alexandre in Paris, not only because they were both French. Pierre was charming and funny and in the nightlife business. We kissed a few times. But I felt nothing. It just wasn’t going to happen. We’re still friends, and I always go to his restaurants when we’re in Miami.

I also dated this successful American real estate man (yes, another one). We went on three dates and he was smitten. He begged me to go away with him and we made out after each dinner on the street. On the fourth date at the end of dinner I said to him, “I think you should know that I had an accident when I was six and I lost part of my leg.” His face dropped. And he asked for the check. He took me home. No makeout session and he never called me again. I don’t have contempt for him at all. We all lose attraction to people for superficial reasons. But given the situation, I think he should have faked it for another date to spare my feelings. He has said to mutual friends, “I just couldn’t deal with the leg.”

In July, my friend Shoshana and I were on the beach playing with Harrison, and my phone started ringing. I saw the caller ID. It was Reid. I hadn’t spoken to him since that coffee breakup. Was he a glutton for punishment?

“Who’s that?” asked Shoshana.

“Just some guy in New York.”

“What guy?”

“His name is Reid. He’s an investment banker, super nice. Normal. Dark hair, dark eyes. Pretty cute, with a good body. He’s Jewish, separated. He’s got an adorable daughter. We went on a couple of dates, and he was incredibly cool about my leg.”

“He sounds great! Call him back.”

Shoshana kept nagging me until I called. Reid and I talked for a
minute. It was a good conversation, and I was glad to hear his voice. But it wasn’t an epiphanic moment.

In August, a hurricane bore down on Miami. The weather forecasters were going nuts, calling it the Storm of the Century, describing it in biblical proportions. Some friends with a plane offered to fly Harrison and me back to New York. I wanted to go. Government officials were encouraging residents to evacuate. Our place was in the heart of the red zone. I was ready to pack my bags and get my son out of there. But my father would not leave Miami. George was antiestablishment. He didn’t believe in mainstream medicine, the political system, or the Weather Channel.

“It’s corruption and bullshit,” he said. “They’re making it up to sell advertising. I’m not leaving my home over a made-up doomsday storm.”

The more the newscasters screamed, “Run for your lives!” the deeper Dad dug in his heels. What scared me even more than riding out a hurricane was abandoning Mom and Dad to fend for themselves when it hit. I had to stay. My brother was around then, too. He had been working in Miami for several years for Harry’s brother Louis. And even during and after my divorce, he kept that job for quite a while. We agreed to hunker down and get through it together. Dad was adamant that it’d be no big deal. Mom didn’t know if it was day or night, much less care about the oncoming hurricane.