The Ex-Mrs. Hedgefund (27 page)

 

 

 

T
wo days later, I met Elliot for a day of walking around town. We wandered into nearly twenty galleries, and his knowledge of the artists was beyond extensive, although we did the quickie
Reader's Digest
version of gallery-hopping with quick whizzes through each. In a few he exchanged speedy greetings with a couple of gallerists, but for the most part it didn't seem like he either knew many of them or wanted to strike up conversation. I wasn't sure why he seemed so shy but I thought perhaps he didn't want any of these professional colleagues to think this could possibly be a date. Not that it was.

One show featured a young artist named Atlas Jones, whose vibrant canvases of giant eyes started to make me feel very paranoid.

“I mean, who could live with these?” I asked. “I couldn't walk naked in front of them; it's like being stared at.”

“I see your point. I do think he's very original, though,” he mused.

“His name just sounds like an artist,” I said.

“Really? I thought porn star,” said Elliot.

“Atlas Jones, yeah.” True. “Atlas is kind of a cool name. You don't hear it often.”

“No, it's way too much pressure,” he said, shaking his head. “That's like naming your kid Hercules or something. With my schnook name, I could only go uphill—”

“Oh, stop it. I love the name Elliot,” I countered.

“. . . but with Hercules it's all about disappointing people.”

He had a point. The kids at school might have a teasing field day.

“Yeah, you're right. Plus, it would be too weird if he was a toothpick.”

“Hey! Don't knock toothpicks,” he chided, gesturing to his own lanky frame.

“Trust me, I'm not. I love tall and thin.”

“You do?”

“Sure.”

It was true; Tim's robust build and six-pack abs were truly not my “type” pre-marriage—all my previous boyfriends had had that thin, nerdy build that I found sexier than some buff hunk. In fact, my high school best friend, Lisa, and I always made up phrases about our love for thinner, more approachable guys, like Toothpick or Take It Elsewhere, Nerd or Need Not Apply, Dork or Don't Bother.

I had to smile looking at Elliot in that way—he definitely fit the mold of my pre-Tim type. As I looked at his green eyes, I remembered that rare feature was on my laundry list of dream characteristics when I was a teenager, dreaming of Prince Charming.

The last gallery we entered contained not one, not two, but twenty paintings of clowns. As I drew breath to gasp in horror, Elliot said, “I hate clowns. Who could look at those every day?”

“I know!” I said, laughing. “Everyone makes fun of me because I'm freaked out by clowns, but I would be so paranoid it would jump down from the canvas and strangle me in my sleep!”

“Let's get out of here.”

After our legs got tired and we warmed up with hot chocolates, we headed uptown in a taxi, and as soon as he confidently said, “Hi, we're making two stops,” I felt foolish for even entertaining the thought that anything would go down. The problem was this: Now I liked him. A lot. As we were driving, he got a call on his cell and immediately said he'd call back when he got home. He was so polite and never talked on the phone in front of me; his charm and manners weren't canned ye olde chivalry-style, with dramatic coats thrown on puddles, just heartfelt and sincere like someone who could be a true friend. It was the tiniest gestures that made me feel somehow, not to sound so anti-feminist 1950s, but, taken care of. A light hand on the small of my back. Asking if I was too chilly or tired. A breezy comment about my outfit, how I looked “very Parisian.” All of them made me see the quiet magic of a male companion—platonic or nay; it was nice to get some positive attention and have that companionship where you can feel feminine and spend time at least imagining what it would be like to be in a couple again.

That night Miles and I decided we would go out for dinner, since he was leaving soon for Aspen with Tim and I would be putting my nose to the grindstone at my new job soon enough and wanted to celebrate. We settled on Swifty's, which was slightly too nice for a child, but he was an only child and accustomed to rising to the occasion and being a mini-adult. In his brown corduroy jacket and navy pants and coat, out we walked, arm in arm into the cold. It was a delightful but bittersweet time, as I knew very soon he would be gone for a whole ten days. Tim's jet would be flying him, along with Sherry Von and Hal, to Aspen, where he'd be in Powder Pandas ski school, along with countless other hedgie offspring, dropped off by moms who hit not the slopes, but the designer boutiques, clad in Dennis Basso sable coats and toting Chanel bags. In Colorado. It was like New York and L.A. but with snow. I could just see Sherry Von holding court in the Caribou Club, where we ate dinner several nights between party-hopping at various mansions of the financial elite, complete with troughs of caviar you could do a swan dive into, insane artwork, and high-tech security systems that rivaled Quantico. I had been going to the same annual Christmas parties for ten years strong, and every year the hosts would give everyone a tour of that year's additions—the new office complete with five flat-screen computers, à la
Swordfish,
that looked like a Dr. Evil-style lair from which they could launch a nuclear assault. There were military de-accessioned night-vision suits for paintball, state-of-the-art snowmobiles manufactured and custom ordered from the Ukraine, and custom skis with the latest in experimental design and laser-etched monograms.

Going to the same place for the holidays is a touchstone you measure your year by—a yardstick of where you've been in the last twelve months. How different my life had become since my last opening of presents under Sherry Von's majestic fifteen-foot tree, which was decorated not by herself and her family by a roaring fire, but by her staff, guided by Hubert and the floral artisans of The Aspen Branch. The house was bedecked with flowers, wreaths, and garlands, all adorned with hand-blown or silver ornaments from Cartier, Baccarat, and Tiffany. Hubert teetered annually on a vertiginous ladder to hand place each trinket with love all the way up to the ceiling. Our smaller spruce was always covered in popcorn I'd threaded together and Miles's papier-mâché and cut-out ornaments from nursery school like my mom did with mine. She'd literally saved my lovingly patched-up three-year-old creations for decades; those crayoned lines and googley eyes were what made our tree soulful and unique. Anyone with an AmEx Black could swipe their way into crystal globes and sterling snowflakes but ours had a colorful innocent twinkle way more magical. As always, Kiki stood by helping; she was thrilled to be part of a tree-trimming experience.

“Oh my God, this is so American, I love it!” she squealed, the first Christmas after she and Hal were married. She cut a star out of the snowflake-embossed foil I'd bought at Kate's Paperie. “Okay, here it is! Should I put it on top?”

I smiled as she proudly held her six-pointed Star of David. Miles and I still put it on our treetop to this day. I asked Miles if he was excited for the various parties in Aspen.

“The Mitchells' snowman contest is the best! I'm gonna win this year!”

Rob and Sugar Mitchell (he of Parallelogram Capital) were insane billionaires who were based in London but flew all over the planet, James Bond-style. Their son, August, was Miles's age and had a twin sister, Hazel. Last year their contest featured assistants to help the kids (defeating the creative purpose, in my opinion), with props to fashion snowman facial features: Chanel buttons that had fallen off Sugar's various coats for eyes, Hermès scarves for their snow necks, and Cohiba cigars for noses. I was mildly horrified by the excess of in-home cinemas and staffs of twelve, Dom Perignon at brunch, and hundreds of jets all lined up in a row at the airport. I wouldn't miss it, though I would miss my son so terribly, my entire body ached. Especially because I was sending him, via jet no less, to Sherry Von's nest of over-the-top spending and opaque values.

The next morning, we packed up his suitcase with snow-suits, hats, Turtle Fur gators, and mittens, and zipped it up to go downstairs. With a heavy heart, I sat beside him in the lobby until Hubert pulled up the car as Tim hopped out.

“I love you, honey,” I stammered, trying to force back tears.

“I love you, Mom. Merry Christmas.” He kissed me on the cheek. And then a cry of “DADDY!” and he ran into Tim's arms. Over Miles's shoulder, Tim looked at me and smiled.

“Merry Christmas, Holly.”

“You, too.”

 

 

 

So there I was: solo. I caught up on my TNT movies and even walked around the city by myself doing hokey stuff like scoping Christmas windows and visiting the Rockefeller Center tree along with all of Kansas.

The next night my dad came in to see me and we sat for a lovely dinner at La Goulue, which normally was buzzing with the beautiful ladies who lunch but this time had a warm, cozy aura since most regulars were off under a palm tree. In fact, with the mahogany walls, drinking red wine and going for the cheese platter, I felt so happy to see my dad.

“Hanging in there?” he asked me after we toasted his visit. “It's a tough time. Mom always made the house so beautiful. That's why I always travel this time of year with the guys. It's too hard to be home and know there would have been stockings and lights and her food.”

“I know. I always try to make our apartment like she did. Whenever I'm sad I always go back to missing her. Missing my whole young life.”

“I know what you mean, kiddo. I can't even believe I'm going to be seventy. It's surreal. I bumped into an old friend the other day—a guy I hadn't seen in fifty years. Half a century!”

“Well, I'm a girl half your age who has been put out to pasture!”

“Nonsense. You're young, you're bright, you'll find someone, Holland. I know it.”

I sat silently and smiled a sly smile.

“You met someone nice?” he probed.

“Maybe. I hope.”

He reached over and squeezed my hand. “He'd be a lucky guy, sweetheart.”

 

 

 

I came home and checked my machine. Nada. I wondered when I'd hear from Elliot. Was I supposed to call him? The man should really call. Not to be some anti-feminist type, but given my emotional vulnerability I didn't feel like I could boldly dial the digits, even though we were only friends. But I knew he was always busy at work . . . I should try him. There would be no games this time: a) we were just pals, and b) I'm not the kind of girl who sits by the phone.

A day of frequently checking voice mail later, I dialed his number.

“Holly Talbott, I was just going to call you!”

“Really?”

“Really. On the off chance you're free tonight . . .”

“Yes. Whatever it is, yes.”

“Terrific. So what have you been up to?”

“It's been hard, you know, my first holidays without my son, so it's been . . . a bit lonely. But I've been doing all the tacky New York tourist stuff.”

“Like what?”

“I've been to two Broadway shows, all the holiday windows, eating like a pig, the tree, museums.”

“You ate a tree and a museum?”

“Ha-ha. Almost,” I said, smiling at his weirdness. “Seriously, though, I've done more visitor stuff than regular New Yorker stuff. Everything but a horse and carriage and the Empire State Building.”

“So when can I come pick you up for tonight?”

We agreed he'd come by at 8:00, leaving me just enough time to take a bubble bath and get ready without being rushed. Something about hearing his voice put me totally at ease and I felt a little less alone in the wake of Miles's and Kiki's simultaneous departures.

When the doorman buzzed, I wondered if I should invite Elliot up, but my apartment still felt like a family apartment. I even still had a wedding photo up, and snapshots of family vacations I didn't have the heart to suddenly replace with Mommy & Me versions post divorce. So I opted to just go downstairs. Which ended up being a good call, because Elliot would have had to pay waiting time to . . . the horse and carriage that were sitting there when I arrived.

“What is this?” I asked, beaming and in shock.

“Your chariot,” Elliot said, climbing out to walk to me. “I know you had a theme going with the tourist stuff.”

“Oh, my gosh. I haven't done this since I visited with my parents as a kid!” I wasn't sure if I should hug him or play it cool. Luckily I didn't have to decide. He hugged me immediately and almost picked me up.

“Sheesh, don't lift me, I'll give you a herniated disk.”

“You are just right. Guys don't dig toothpicks.”

“Oh, yeah? Then why do all guys drool over models all the time? Your friend Lyle included, I might add,” I teased with a wink. “I've seen him with many a cover girl in the press over the years.”

“Yeah, and he wasn't into them. He's more attached to Kiki than I've ever seen him with one of those girls.”

We climbed into the carriage and Elliot put a blanket over our laps to shield us from the frigid but delicious air. We rode down Fifth Avenue along the park, then by the Plaza and then past all the twinkling lights of the boutiques, gussied up for the holidays. It was heaven. Every time I had to trek through midtown it felt like such a crush of bodies and I always had somewhere to go, rushing off this way or that, attempting to do errands against the force of thousands of people. When you're hurrying somewhere you can never pause to drink in the moment, but that carriage ride gave me the chance to savor all the sights and also to let me know that Elliot, through his bold and romantic gesture, definitely could be more than a friend. The suspicion was confirmed when we pulled up to the NBC building and climbed out.