The Ex-Mrs. Hedgefund (20 page)

 

 

T
he next day after school, Miles's class had a gathering at the home of Teddy and Millicent Logan, he of Hexagon Capital. At the party, Millicent, Mary Grassweather, and Emilia d'Angelo came up as I was ladling some hot cider while Miles scampered around with some kind of Nerf sword.

“So, Holly. How're things?” Mary said, literally cornering me. “Any . . . dates?”

None of your business
, I felt like saying, but bit my tongue. “Oh, not quite there yet—” I lied.

“Really? Well, time to get back on the horse, so to speak,” Emilia teased in a singsongy voice.

“You want to act soon while you've still got it!” added Millicent with a wink. “The men today, they're going for the gals in their twenties!” Where was one of her stuffy husband's polo mallets when I needed it?

“I'm in no rush. Miles and I are doing great.”

“Okay, well, don't wait too long!” Mary advised solemnly. “And we know plenty of nice guys Teddy works with at the fund we could set you up with.” I loved how they assumed that the fund would be catnip to me when it was, in fact, potassium cyanide.

“Thanks—” No, thanks.

“You just say the word!” Never.

I extracted myself with complaints of my tiny bladder, heading for the bathroom. But before I got to the hand-stenciled hallway, Posey touched my arm.

“Holly, hi—” she said, looking a bit upset.

“Hi, Posey,” I said stoically. I still was a bit wounded that as soon as Tim and I had split up, there was zero word from Posey.

“Listen, um, I feel really bad,” she said, looking down. “I miss you and I've been unfair. . . .”

“What do you mean?” I asked casually.

“I just . . . I know we used to spend so much time together, and that this transition . . . you must be going through a hard time, and I kind of haven't been there.”

Finally, an acknowledgment. “Posey, we're all busy, it's okay.”

“It's not that. I just feel awful, but I told my husband I wanted to invite you to the theater with us and he said that, you know, he does a lot of business with Tim and your brother-in-law, or, uh, former, whatever—anyway, he said he felt uncomfortable with me kind of fraternizing with you when he is so . . . enmeshed financially with the Talbott brothers, and I just feel terrible.”

Wow. A forbidden friendship! Just like me with Kiki. But, unlike Posey, I did what I had wanted to do, what my heart dictated rather than my husband.

“You have to do what you have to do, Posey. Don't worry . . .”

“Sorry about all this . . . if you ever need to talk—”

“Thanks so much,” I said, forcing a smile. I loved how she didn't even finish her sentence. It was like
If you ever need to talk, don't call me 'cause my husband is so up your ex's ass and loves making dough off him that you are banished!
Nice.

She smiled back, squeezing my arm as I let her off the hook. I headed into the bathroom, closed the door, and exhaled. Just what I had suspected. I was an outcast! It's weird; you can know something in your gut but then just dismiss it as paranoia, but then when you're confronted with the cold hard fact that people see you as tainted goods, it stings all over again. It's like Sunny von Bülow knowing full well that Claus was banging that mistress but it was their love letters on her doorstep that sent her ballistic.

It suddenly, in that lavish powder room, became clear: Everyone in New York was either in business tangentially with Tim and Hal or wanted to be, so I would never be allowed to be back in that circle. Not that I wanted to be. But being a hedge fund wife did help me raise money, fill the ballroom at the St. Regis for my hospital benefit, and now I couldn't even do the charity work I used to! Well, so what. So I was booted out of the Wall Street elite. Truthfully, I was fine with it. These other women, on the other hand, would simply die. Without their money, fancy events, the life, they would wither on the vine! And that is why, whatever their husbands may or may not do “on the side,” as Sherry Von said, they would always look the other way for fear of disrupting the delicate dreamy diorama of their lives.

I studied the Brunschwig & Fils paper and Hinsen sconces on the wall in front of me. Millicent's Vie Luxe Palm Beach-scented candle lingered in the air. I looked at the elaborately woven interlocking letters of her custom-monogrammed hand towels all lined up like little sergeants in a perfect row, not a crease on 'em. She really had the hedge fund wife loot down pat.

As I dried my hands I thought a bit about what Emilia had said. I did need to get a move on it, when I thought about it strategically, but on the flip side, shouldn't love not be sought out but rather fall in your path? My mom always said that if you make your life interesting, someone will want to join it. If I stayed on my own path, rather than chase someone else's, I'd be happier, anyway. I knew what I needed to do: get a job. And also: get out of this party ASAP. And at that moment, with all the stuffy banker wives in my midst, the bricks of my path were leading me back to Chef Boy.

—Robin Williams

 

 

 

K
iki and I went for dinner at Il Buco on Bond Street the following night. I am certain I consumed a wheel of cheese. We had a cozy little table in the back and drank a delicious Bordeaux, laughing about one of Kiki's crazy clients, a lingerie store off Madison that sold $600 vibrators.

“You just see these hedgie wives walk in to survey the lace thongs and bras, and then their eyes fall on these megaschlongs and their baby blues just widen into saucers—it's fucking genius!” she squealed, banging the table. Just then, I felt my heart drop into my stomach. Oh, no, they were walking toward us.

“What's wrong?” Kiki asked, brow furrowed, looking up to find the unfortunate coincidence of the Logans and the Grassweathers heading for the table right next to us. Ugh. Our fun night and unedited conversations would now be shadowed by their presence.

“Oh, my goodness! Holly Talbott, what are you doing down here?” Little did they know I was downtown all the time. They were the ones who were fully trapped in 10021-land. This was clearly “steppin' out.”

Teddy Logan looked at Kiki while Millicent glared. After a round of introductions, it became clear that our little table for two had now morphed into a larger table for six, much to the women's collective chagrin. The husbands, however, seemed visibly pleased about the new blood present, especially that coursing through the very hot veins of Kiki in her fishnets, extremely short minidress, and thigh-high boots.

“We're celebrating tonight!” said Millicent, all aglow. “Our daughter Penny won her horse show today! We're just ecstatic!” she said, hand on chest. “We've been in Millbrook all day, watching her jumping—she was just incredible.”

“Congrats,” I said meekly. I looked at her husband, who was totally tuned out and could clearly not give a rat's ass about Penny's ponies.

“Well, this horse is just spectacular. One of Penny's classmates at Spence actually helped us find him. We're flying down to Argentina next week for another horse auction.”

“Wow, so how many horses do you guys have?” asked Kiki, kicking me under the table with the pointy winkle-picker toe of her black boot.

“Five, soon-to-be six. Diamond Horseshoe, Shining Starburst, Gideon's Rainbow, Flaming Rubies, and Mike.”

Kiki spat out her red wine. “MIKE?”

Millicent looked completely unfazed. “Yes. After Shining Starburst's late massage therapist.”

I squirmed in my seat as I truly thought Kiki would lose it.
Please don't say anything. Please don't say anything. Please don't say anything.

No such luck.

“I'm sorry, did you just say, your HORSE has a MASSAGE THERAPIST?” Kiki blurted. She was hysterical. “No fucking way! Your
horse
gets massages?”

“Well, yes . . . they work very hard.”

“Holy shit, Equus has a better life than me!” Kiki yelped, holding up her wine. “Go, Starburst Rainbow! Awesome.”

Teddy Logan smiled, “That's what I tell Millie all the time!” he scoffed. “The bills for Diamond Horseshoe's rehabilitation alone are astronomical!”

“Rehab?” Kiki asked, laughing out loud. “For horses? What, was he addicted to horse tranquilizers?”

Great. Now Mr. Hedgie was in cahoots with Kiki to mock Millicent's posh Mr. Ed.

“It was
physical
rehabilitation after he tripped,” corrected Millicent, aghast.

“Maybe we should order,” said Mary, clearly trying to separate the two tables.

“Yes, let's,” added Millicent. She opened the menu over her face.

“You should try the horse patties, they're sublime,” said Kiki, revealing that she had drunk too much vino.

The husbands laughed, but I remained poker-faced, knowing I'd pay for this all when school started again next week.

 

 

 

I have never been happier to see a rodent. One scurried across the cobblestones on Bond Street, but I was too elated to finally exit the restaurant and our awkward accidental dinner partners to care.

“Kiki, how could you do that to me? I have to see these people every day!”

“Oh, come on, chill out,” she said, laughing. “God, those pathetic women have such sticks up their butts! What lame-o's.

They act so old! They're what, like, late thirties? They look like they're collecting Social Security with all that St. John knitwear crap.”

“It doesn't matter. I have to see those people, and they clearly weren't amused by your commentary.”

“The husbands were,” she said with a wink.

“Yeah, well, that's part of the problem.”

“They totally couldn't hear what I was saying,” she offered defensively.

“Kiki, I have news for you. Martians on the red planet can hear your so-called whisper.”

“It's not like I even said anything bad!”

“Really? When you overheard Teddy Logan say he'd dropped out of University of Colorado at Boulder, I think his wife clearly heard you tell me how appropriate that was, considering he ‘had the personality of a boulder.' ”

“Well he does. Igneous rock is more interesting than he is.”

Kiki. A handful, but I loved her. Sometimes I wished I had a designer muzzle for her like those Burberry SARS masks, but I knew her candor was a gift that enhanced my life, even though sometimes I wanted to press the pause button on her vociferous rantings.

We walked several blocks north, up to Mermaid Inn, in silence, where Nick was the sous chef. The place was empty except for some loud raucous party in the back, so we just sat at the bar to wait until they closed up shop.

“Sorry,” said Kiki, putting her hand on my arm as we sat side by side on upholstered stools. “I guess I go off and you're the one who has to face the music later. The boring classical music, that is.”

I smiled, forgiving her.

A waiter came up to us and offered us dessert.

“We have a special tonight, called Jamaican Me Crazy,” he said earnestly. “It's a pineapple custard with candied orange rind and coconut parfait.”

“Uh, no, thank you,” said Kiki. “We're all set.” After the guy walked away, she said, “They should call that dessert Jamaican Me Sick.”

Nick emerged looking beyond adorable in his white chef's jacket. “It'll just be one more minute,” he said. “There's a table of drunk banker guys who are hassling our hostess and we just want to make sure she's okay to close up.”

“Yuck,” said Kiki, peeking around the corner to spy into the private room. She quickly darted back into the main dining room. Too late.

“No WAY! Kiki Talbott, was that you?” a voice bellowed out. Busted. Mark Webb staggered out of the room, shitfaced.

“And hey hey hey, it's Holly, too! Whoa, this is craaaazy.”

“You know these guys?” Nick whispered.

“Sort of,” I replied, wanting to bolt.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Kiki pronounced, heading away from Mark, who had been joined by two fellow Rolex-sporting revelers.

“Me, too—” I said, walking toward her.

But Mark grabbed my arm.

“What're you doing here, Holllllllllllly?”

I pulled my wrist out of his hand. “Just seeing some friends.”

“Ahh, you doin' okay now? I miss you.” He drunkenly leaned in, the smell of wine on his breath accosting my nose. But not just any wine, as he'd soon inform me.