The Ex-Mrs. Hedgefund (31 page)

“Nah. Clearly he wants to confess his undying
amore
.”

The phone rang. Maybe it was him?

I went to screen but the caller ID was blocked.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Holland Talbott, please?” a man's voice asked.

“This is she,” I responded, wanting to shoot all telemarketers.

“Hi, this Dan Allen from
Law & Order
. You bid on a cameo a while ago from Lancelot?”

“Oh! Yes!” I looked at Kiki with a huge smile. I had totally forgotten.

“Is that Elliot?” she asked.

I shook my head as I fumbled for a pencil to scribble down the details of my call time. It was a night shoot right by the Staten Island Ferry, one of the ripped-from-the-headlines episodes based on the ferry crashing and killing all those people 'cause the captain guy was on crack and heroin. I would be one of the said victims. And, he added, while gushing blood and screaming in horror, I would even get a line: “Where is my husband! I can't find my husband!” Gee, how fitting.

I hung up the phone, floored. “Remember the lot Tim bid on for the Lancelot event ages ago? That was the
Law & Order
people! I'm shooting this the day after tomorrow! I can go after work, so can you hang here with Miles?”

“What do you say, kiddo? How bout a pizza party with Aunt Kiki? We can watch
Spider-Man
.”

“Yaaaaay!”

 

 

 

Flushing nervous thoughts about Elliot from my head, I plunged into work, which ended up being a great equalizer in terms of putting myself together about my blunder. If a gal's not working, she could be subsumed by second thoughts on every date comment or gesture, a slave to the mental rewind button, ending up a Monday morning quarterback replaying every move, wondering where she'd fumbled. But Celestial was so crazed all day, I didn't have the luxury of worrying about my love life.

I was jamming away at my computer with my headphones on, listening to Casey Sinclair, who may have had the bod of Britney, but she taught me something about first impressions, as her throaty wail was more Fiona Apple than bubble-gum pop. I positioned her more as a clever songwriter, playing down her looks, and put the finishing touches on her bio and press release while carefully studying the clock. It was well after 5:00 and I was the last breathing soul in the building. Or so I thought.

“Hey you, Dartmouth,” I faintly heard over the track I suggested to be the single. I took off my earphones and looked up to find Noah standing there. “What're you doing still working? Everyone else here is out the door at 4:59.”

“Oh, I just had some stuff I wanted to wrap up for Miss Casey. She's really good. I'm sending all this to her manager tonight.”

“Randy cc'd me on the new stuff on the Saints CD,” he said slyly. “Not bad. Not bad at all.” He winked. I gave him a tight smile and turned back to my keyboard. I felt a strong satsisfaction that I was getting positive feedback and knew deep down I was back in my groove with writing about music and that my absence hadn't made me even remotely out of the loop. For this professional go-round, motherhood offered me perspective; I never stressed like a crazy person the way I had in my early twenties. Miles centered me far more than anything else could, and now with work on top of that and possibly a boyfriend I was nuts about, finally the dots of my life seemed to start to fall back in a line that made sense again.

After finishing, I reported to my location farther downtown. It all seemed very glamorous—there were trailers lined up, huge floodlights, people with headsets everywhere, and a craft services catering tent with a smorgasbord of my kind of food.

I called Kiki to check in on her and Miles; they were in the kitchen waiting for the microwave to finish popping the popcorn.

“Have fun!” Kiki wished me. “Be a good dead body! I guess that means: don't move.”

“Okay, I won't. But I'm not dead; I have a line, remember? I'm in the big time.”

“Don't start scripting your Emmy speech just yet.”

“Ha. Can I talk to Miles?”

I wished him good night and he promised to go straight to bed after
Spider-Man
. I felt so happy that the two people I loved most were together; I just prayed Elliot could stay part of our little family.

 

 

 

I walked to the corner of Whitehall and Pearl, where I was instructed to knock on the trailer door marked “MAKEUP,” which I found instantly. Inside were two gorgeous gay guys, who had me step into their ministudio.

“We're gonna make you a beautiful wound, my dear,” said one laughing, who had spikey platinum hair and about ten leather bracelets. “Sit down.” He pounded the back of a chair, which I plopped into as instructed and sat quietly as he began to clean my face. Only to add blood to it. I would have thought someone could just spray me with that fake vampire red stuff or even ketchup, but it was a painstaking process that took more than an hour.

“You're all set, Holly!” He turned me around to the mirror and I started laughing—but it was nervous laughter.

“You're . . . oh my gosh, you're an artist. This is amazing!” I beheld the scarily realistic gash on my forehead, red liquid oozing down my face.

“We'll refresh that blood before the shoot.”

I hung out marveling at my battered visage for a few more minutes until a team of people came in, all with fake blood, for retouches before their close-ups. A sweet-faced production assistant led me to Wardrobe, where I was given a pre-splattered beige coat to throw over my outfit.

I was walked down to the set, which was blindingly bright despite the nighttime shoot, with high-wattage lights everywhere; it was surreal and exciting and everything I'd hoped it would be. I was introduced to the director, who placed me with a bunch of extras, who, like me, would be staggering in pain toward ambulances after our ferry crashed.

“Okay, people, let's do this!” he shouted through a speaker.

I would be panicked, shouting and sobbing, then wrapped up by the blanket of an EMT worker. Got it. We rehearsed only once and then were instructed to take our places.

“And . . . action!”

“Where is my husband!” I wailed in distress, turning my head in all directions in desperation. “I can't find my husband!”

The medic threw a blanket around me and helped me into the ambulance.

“And . . . cut!” yelled the director. “Great. Let's try it again.”

“Was that okay?”

“Sure. We just want to get a few takes. Love the panic.”

“Okay.” Yay. This was the most exciting thing ever.

“Action!”

We did it two more times with various technical pauses between each, and somehow being part of my favorite show was so exciting to me. I tapped into my emotional well and got more and more worked up for each take. I was amazed at the irony that here I was, bruised and blood splattered, a physical echo of my year from hell, all because Tim had gotten me this gift. It was incredible, really, especially considering my line. Finally, on the fifth and final one, I seriously delivered.

“Where is my husband! I can't find my husband!”

I even produced real tears! Where's that Emmy?

“Cut! Terrific.”

“Thank you so much, this was so much fun!”

I was “wrapped,” as they say, bid adieu to the nice people I'd spent the last few hours with, and started to walk north in hopes of finding a cab. Forgetting that I looked like I'd been bludgeoned by several blunt objects, I was at first alarmed when the rare pedestrian looked at me aghast with terror. The streets were empty since the financial district is abuzz only during the day, but almost every window in the looming buildings was lit. Worker bees inside were still toiling away for their various investment banks.

As I paused for a moment, looking skyward at the glass tops of the vertical structures that seemed to puncture the clouds, I heard something. A voice. A very familiar voice.

“So, Tracy, let me know, okay—”

“Okay, Elliot . . .”

I thought I had just been struck by lightning. Or was in cardiac arrest. Or got in a Staten Island Ferry crash. I ducked behind a humongous work of public art, a gargantuan sculpture to shield me.

No.

No! Not again. My breathing mounted and surged into a full-on hyperventilation. I stood there motionless, like a squirrel in the road knowing a Hummer would run it over in seconds. But I would not be some mowed rodent. Maybe I didn't save 10 percent for myself. Maybe I threw in everything, every fiber of my being, prematurely professing love and physically expressing my unedited adoration in every doting squeeze and dewy-eyed glance. That's what I do. But unlike my Brooklyn beholding of Tim and Avery's encircled limbs, I was stronger this time. I wasn't going to cower behind the sculpture and sneak home this time. Instead I stormed out from behind the behemoth.

“Geneva, huh?” I stood, eyes ablaze, choking back tears.

“Tracy” looked at me like I was insane and walked away, as I stood quivering. Elliot took a step closer to me.

“Holly? Oh my God, are you okay?”

“I thought you were on a business trip—”

“I was. I got back early. I was just going to call you—are you hurt?”

“What are you doing here, Elliot?” I yelled, volume rising.

For a moment, he said nothing. Great. Busted.

He took a deep breath. He looked crushed and reached out to me, but I backed away. “Holly, I tried to tell you but we kept getting interrupted and then there was never a good time. Do we need to get you to a doctor?”

“No. It's fake blood. I was just on
Law & Order
. It's a long story.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Let me ask the questions,” I said, trying to force back tears. “As you know, after everything I've been through, I really, really can't abide lies. Now, what is going on?”

Elliot exhaled and looked at his feet. “Holly, I have been in agony over this—”

I started to cry. Just drop the bomb, Elliot. Was he not really divorced? Did he have a kid with a supermodel? What?

“I'm not an art consultant,” he said, soberly. “I work for a hedge fund.”

You could have knocked me over with a
BusinessWeek
.

“What?”

“I wanted to tell you. I swear. I was only at the gallery that night because Lyle is my brother. Everything I know about art is from him.”

“LYLE IS YOUR BROTHER?” Now I was in surreal overdrive. “Are you kidding me?”

“No, I—we have different fathers but grew up together in the same home. We have the same mom, he's my brother. And in this crazy coincidence, when I met you in the park that time, I never thought I'd see you again but I'd noticed you and how you were with your son and it made an impression on me. I had been on my phone but was put on hold, and I couldn't help but overhear your conversation about how you would never ever date anyone in finance ever again and I thought to myself, wow, that might be the only woman in this city who thinks that,” he said, breathlessly. “Then, astonishingly, you guys turned up at my brother's gallery, and once I started talking to you, I liked you. A lot. I remembered you'd said that and so without even thinking I just blurted out that I was in the art world.”

“I can't even believe this. You're not an art consultant? You're a goddamn hedgie?”

“Listen, Holly, I really don't want to lose you. I—”

“Forget it. How could I ever trust you again?” I spied a taxi driving by. “You're way too good a liar. You deserve an Emmy for that performance, Elliot. You should be on
Law & Order
!”

And with that, I hailed the cab and screeched uptown.

 

 

 

O
f course my strong front dissolved like aspirin the moment we turned the corner. I began to sob so convulsively, I seriously thought the driver was going to take me straight to the ER.

“Miss, you hurt? You want to go hospital?”

“Oh, no, no, it's just makeup,” I said, bawling.

“But, miss, why you cry? You hurt?”

“I'm fine, really, thank you—”

I looked out the window on the FDR Drive, watching the boats along the East River against the night sky, then the creepy former insane asylum on its own island, abandoned and crumbling. The pain of yet another heartbreak, raw and crushing, pushed its way up my chest into my throat, where what felt like a Wilson tennis ball was lodged in my esophageal passage. I had truly thought Elliot was everything I'd ever wanted: