On My Knees (15 page)

Authors: Periel Aschenbrand

BOOK: On My Knees

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N
oam and I eventually became very good friends again. We reunited when we had to put Eli, the dog we found so many years ago while we were eating Passover dinner, to sleep. It was an emotional reunion and I feel very lucky to still have him in my life. He lives in Brooklyn with his girlfriend, who works in human rights and who is probably far less vapid than I am.

H
anna met someone on her spiritual retreat in India. After a year of dating, she left Manhattan and they got a place together in Montana. He is a social worker and the opposite of every guy she has ever tried to date, i.e., he’s not rich and he’s not an asshole. She recently called me and said, “I got a massage yesterday with Ben and it really made me miss those happy endings. But then I told him all about them and he said he would be cool with it if I wanted to do that again. I think this time I might try it with a girl.”

N
ico and I made amends and went back to being best friends. He even helped me plan my wedding.

G
uy and I got married in New York City on September 5, 2010. I refused to deal with anyone in the wedding industry, which is, by the way, the most insidious industry in the world. My dress was by Monique Lhuillier and I found it in the Gilda Radner Thrift Store on Seventeenth Street. It had been donated by a rich lady from the Upper East Side who bought it for her daughter who then decided she didn’t want it. It was unworn, with the tags still on. The original price was $6,000.00. I paid $350.00. My shoes were by the late great Alexander McQueen. They were bright-red spike heels with a heart-shaped peep toe. The original price was $895.00. I bought them on sale for 75 percent off.
Just saying.
Hanna, incidentally, was my maid of honor.

G
uy and I moved out of the rabbit cage to a loft. I took the couch that accompanied me on the journey described in this book with us until Guy finally convinced me to get rid of it, which I did begrudgingly. Literally one week after I donated it to a thrift store in the East Village, I got a phone call from my editor, Denise, to discuss the cover of my book. She said, “I know we had planned a different direction entirely, but one of my colleagues had an idea that everyone loves and I hope you’ll be open to it because I think it could be really great.”

I was like, “Go on.”

Denise said, “We think you should be photographed on your grandmother’s couch . . . if you still have it.”

I was like, “You have
got
to be kidding me.”

And then I told her the story.

We actually had to purchase the couch
back
from the thrift store so that we could use it for the cover shoot and then re-donate it. Since the plastic cover was long gone, I had to make about four thousand phone calls before I found a company in Queens, of all places, that would custom-make one for it.

I
never found my hygienist Leslie Myron.

U
ncle Bark is as crazy as ever. But he’s one of my favorite people on the planet and I couldn’t live without him.

R
oy and his wife still live in Tel Aviv. They just had their second baby. He was the best man at our wedding.

E
ven though we left Chinatown, Guy and my father meet every single week (usually on Saturday mornings) to have coffee and get a foot massage around the corner from where we used to live.

M
y mother continues to be the best person on earth. She also continues to have absolutely no idea how funny she is.

I
f I have learned anything, it’s that things don’t work out the way you expect them to.

But sometimes they work out better. And your most important relationship is with yourself. And that hope, my friends, is a
verb
.

Acknowledgments

For a multitude of reasons, this truly would not have been possible without the following people. I am forever indebted: Doug Stewart, Denise Oswald, Cal Morgan, Carrie Kania, Jeanette Perez, Paula Cooper, Ken Siman, Kat Mattis, Stephanie Bonadio, Beth Silfin, and last but most certainly not least, Mia Tramz.

It’s always nice to have a team of professionals at one’s disposal. Thank you for helping me look and sound my very best: Mark Seliger, James Victore, Michael Angelo, Eli Evans, Ruth Levy, Rita Nakouzi, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Jonathan Ames.

Were it not for all of you, I would have nothing to say: Kevin Greer, Ilana Arazie, Mark and Lisa Aschenbrand, Lori Barzvi, Adi and Ofer Miara, Roy and Merav Ron, Talma and Yochanan Ron, Sara and Dennis Belfor.

Behind the scenes, you guys really make it happen: Itay Koren, Ed Murphy, Jason Park, and James Gormley.

Honorable mention, thank you for your undying love and support: Vanessa Hamilton, Poppy King, Jenny Shimizu, Erica Medine, Mari Fujita, Eran Shakine, Stephanie Donahue, Jason Aschenbrand, Brette and Evan Aschenbrand, Camille Killian, Caroline Gates, and the one and only Herbert Lust.

My apologies and undying love: my parents, Eve and Michael Aschenbrand.

In Memory of

Guy Barzvi

(02/23/72 – 9/11/01)

My grandparents

Chana and Yerachmiel Wirnik

Lillian and Seymour Aschenbrand

About the Author

PERIEL ASCHENBRAND
is the author of the critically acclaimed book
The Only Bush I Trust Is My Own
. Heralded as a “provocateur” by the
New York Times
and “feisty, foxy, and smart” by
Paper
magazine, Aschenbrand has become a true modernday voice for her generation. She lives in New York City.

Visit
www.AuthorTracker.com
for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

Also by Periel Aschenbrand

The Only Bush I Trust Is My Own

Credits

Title art by James Victore

Cover photograph by Mark Seliger

ON MY KNEES
. Copyright © 2013 by Periel Aschenbrand. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

ISBN 978-0-06-202689-7

EPub Edition © JUNE 2013 ISBN: 9780062099396

13 14 15 16 17 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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