Been There, Married That (ARC)

by Gigi Levangie

  “Sometimes I wonder how you manage to feed yourself,” Fin said before grabbing an apple and disappearing after the electrician.

  I stepped inside Giorgio’s, teetering on car-to-table gold heels that Fin insisted I wear and warmed by the familiar dim lighting and the smell of garlic sautéing in olive oil. The room felt like home, if you lived in a renovated, million-dollar home in Tuscany.

  “Right this way, Mrs. Nash,” the hostess said as she escorted me to a corner table. We took three steps before the owner, an older Italian man with an air of eternal weariness, took her aside. He glanced at me with sorrowful eyes, then whispered in her ear before heading back into the kitchen.

  She turned in the opposite direction, making a beeline for the outside tables. I followed.

  The screen door slammed behind us.

  “I don’t want to be seated outside,” I said with a shiver.

  “It’s nice out here.” I could see her breath hanging in the air.

  The tables shone wet from the afternoon showers.

  “Is it possible to get the table we usually have?” I gestured toward the restaurant. There was no one outside.

  “No, I’m sorry.”

  “No? It’s empty. And it’s so early.”

  “No,” she said with a warm smile. “Would you care for a wine list?”

  “Please.”

  I wiped the moisture off my chair and took a seat.

  * * *

  “I’m being deposed,” Liz said as she sat down, slapping a piece of paper on the table. “What are we doing sitting out here? It’s freezing.”

  “Wait, what? You’re being deposed?”

  “For your divorce,” Liz said. “I was just served. Right here at the valet. I thought I was being mugged!”

  My phone was ringing. My book agent. Calling from New York.

  “Hey, Jules,” I said.

  “I’m fucking being deposed,” he said.

  “For my divorce?”

  “Yes,” he said. “What the fuck?”

  My TV agent was ringing through. I hadn’t talked to him in six months.

  “I’ll call you back, Jules,” I said. “Hello?”

  “Your husband’s deposing me,” TV agent said.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Hey, did you ever get feedback on my pilot script?”

  “Gotta run,” he said. “Conference call.”

  * * *

  After my coming-out dinner was hijacked by Trevor depo bombs, I headed home and emailed Anne.

  To: Anne Barrows

  From: Agnes Murphy Nash

  Trevor is deposing everybody. Everyone. With the exception of Bernie Sanders and the Progressive Insurance lady.

  Cheers,

  Agnes

  I’d just finished devouring a three-course meal, including a tiramisu. No one except Giorgio’s does a good tiramisu in LA, but, valiantly, I keep sampling others. Despite my gluttonous efforts, my stomach grumbled. My new divorce metabolism was working overtime. I grabbed a questionable hunk of cheese out of the refrigerator, set it on the chopping block with water crackers, then padded downstairs to the wine cellar.

  Crackers and cheese could only be digested properly when escorted by a red. What would it be tonight?

  I grabbed a Beaujolais. Beau-jolais! Pretty and happy! Would I ever be pretty and happy again? If not, I could drink it!

  The phone rang, jangling my nerves. I focused on the screen. My dad was calling me on the house line. I sighed and answered.

  “Hey, kiddo,” he said. “I’m being deposed. What the hell?”

  “I know,” I said. “It’s all part of the ‘discovery phase.’ It’s like Discovery Channel without the wild hyenas, unless you count divorce attorneys.”

  “I’m not intimidated by fancy lawyers,” he said.

  “I know, Daddy,” I said. Of course he was intimidated. My dad owned one suit. One dress shirt. One pair of black patent loafers. He’d lived his entire life pretending not to be intimidated by exactly these people.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I said.

  “Get some sleep,” he said. “It’s late.”

  “You, too,” I said.

  “Be good,” he said, he always said.

  “What if I’m not?” I asked, but he’d already hung up. But I was wondering. What if . . . what if I’m not good, for once? Will it make a difference? Being “good” had brought me what, exactly? I decided to take the opposite of my father’s advice. I drank two glasses of Beaujolais because now I was into being “bad.”

  Then I did the exact thing you are never to do during a divorce proceeding.

  I emailed the petitioner directly. I emailed Trevor.

  To: Trevor Nash

  From: Agnes Murphy Nash

  Really?

  Signed,

  Agnes

  My phone pinged a moment later.

  To: Agnes Murphy Nash

  From: Trevor Nash

  Really what.

  I wrote back immediately.

  To: Trevor Nash

  From: Agnes Murphy Nash

  You’re deposing my dad?

  My agent.

  My manager.

  My book agent.

  My best friend.

  Sent.

  To: Agnes Murphy Nash

  From: Trevor Nash

  It’s called divorce. Why, is there someone I’m forgetting?

  (Okay, I had to smile.)

  To: Trevor Nash

  From: Agnes Murphy Nash

  Yes. That’s my point.

  It’s like a birthday party, Trev—you can’t just invite 90% of the people you know—you have to invite the other 10%.

  Aggie

  I was halfway drunk with the halfway bottle, and I was an idiot. Trevor’d thrown me a crumb, a reposte, and I ate it hungrily, trying to satiate my hunger for comfort emails. I’d reacted to the tiniest piece of evidence that my ex wasn’t, in fact, a monster. I’d signed off with my nickname(!). As though we were friends(!). And, no, you can’t hate me anymore right now than I hate myself.

  I took myself to bed.

  * * *

  After dropping Pep off at school, I spent the morning huddled in my office directly beneath Pep’s room, jotting notes on Trevor’s declaration and listening to the sisters’ calming voices weaving in and out.

  Trevor and his team of Energizer Battery attorneys had reached into their bag of tricks and had come up with ridiculous accusations based on the flimsiest of evidence. So today, I’d play Divorce Monopoly, respond to each and move my piece (life) forward. I needed to pass Go and collect what was left of my self-esteem.

  Trevor was the top hat; I was the Scottish terrier.

  August 7, 201-

  To: Trevor Nash

  From: Agnes Murphy Nash

  Oops. Forgot Pep’s snack in the car. Please notify the Bad Mom brigade.

  XoxoAg

  Apparently, years ago, when Pep was in first grade, I had forgotten—well, you can see, carrot sticks and a little bag of organic oatmeal cookies (that tasted like wood chips and sponge).

  And more recently: November 8, 201-: Agnes went out to dinner, leaving minor daughter alone at home with ex-convict sister.

  I’d gone out to a birthday dinner for Liz from 7:10 to 8:45. I’d made Pep’s dinner before I left and had returned to put her to bed.

  I cracked my knuckles, cracked my neck, lay on the floor to crack my back. I jogged in place for a couple of minutes. I sang notes do re mi do re mi do re mi.

  I was ready. The only thing I had going for me was the truth. I’m sure that was enough.

  (Hahahahahahahaha . . . ha.)

  I flipped open my laptop. Blank page, get ready! You and me, we’re against a five-headed monster—the hydra of Trevor and his legal team. I read a Native American proverb, typed on a small slip of paper I’d saved from a trip with Trevor—“He who writes the words runs the world.”

  We’d been vacationing at a five-star spa in Wyoming, and housekeeping
would leave behind these slips of papers with Native American sayings, along with the day’s temperature and what time hot yoga in the woods started.

  I started typing. My fingers landed with a series of thuds. I tried again. Something wrong with the keyboard. I checked the cord, the outlet (as though that would make a difference). Reboot computer, reboot my life. Seventy-nine percent. Plenty of power.

  Tap. Thud. Tap. Thud.

  My keyboard was jacked up.

  “Fin!” I yelled as I ran up the stairs. “Fin!”

  * * *

  Fin emerged from dodging the LAPD to check out my laptop. She poked the keyboard, then before I could stop her, snapped off the laptop assembly, exposing a yellowed, gooey substance.

  “Glue,” she said. “That phony electrician glued your keyboard. Trevor’s getting you where it hurts-your laptop”

  I screamed and banged my fists on the desk. I flung the pillows off my love seat. I kicked the antique wastebasket. (Then apologized, of course.) Fin stared at me, then her chewed nails, then back at me.

  “I can fix this,” she said. “You want to use mine?”

  “You have a laptop?”

  “I can get one,” she said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “You want a laptop or not?” she asked. Then, “New or refurbished?”

  I thought for a second. “New.”

  * * *

  Fin hooked me up, and by the end of lunch, I was five thousand words in. (Nope, didn’t ask where she got the laptop.) The intercom rang; I ignored it. A few seconds later, footsteps and a knock at my office door.

  “No one’s here!” I said. “Don’t bother me for another five thousand words!”

  “Missus,” Caster said, cracking open the door, her eyes nervous, “the Realtor mister is here.”

  I’d forgotten our house was for sale. Forgotten? Repressed. I followed Caster upstairs just as the “Westside’s Realtor to the Stars™” was pulling up the driveway in his black Range Rover. Peter Marks parked, followed by another black Range Rover with tinted windows and another black Range Rover with tinted windows. I observed the Rover parade from the kitchen. Peter, an affable guy with feathered hair, aviator shades, and boots—like an extra from a Hal Needham movie—conferred with his clients, who’d spilled out of the second Rover. America’s Sweetheart and That Weaselly Fuck. (No one emerged from the third Rover. To this day, its occupants are a mystery.)

  That Weaselly Fuck, a multi-hyphenate Brit of enormous and unfair talent (and appetites), was a well-known jerk. Sorry. Asshole. Sorry. Cunt of the highest order.

  “Muy guapo,” Caster said, fluttering her eyelashes.

  “Muy hamster-like,” I said, because he was petite, with a face like a hairless rodent and tiny hands. “She’s sweet and has hair like whipped butter, and why is she with him?”

  America’s Sweetheart was carrying That Weaselly Fuck’s progeny in her arms. She’d just given birth to a third girl, and I thought that might spell trouble. I’d met That Weaselly Fuck at a Vanity Fair party years ago, then multiple dinner parties, award shows, backyard political soirées—each time I was introduced, a constipated expression would descend on his pinched face and he’d slink away, in the direction of a “name.” Most movie stars at least pretend to be polite—it’s called acting.

  I’d heard through the Hollywood grapevine his latest issues ping-ponged from hookers to Jim Beam to heroin. I didn’t want to leave America’s Sweetheart alone with him behind these gates. I decided they couldn’t buy this house.

  “Aggie.” Peter greeted me with a big hug. “This is Rudy and Sal,” he said. “I’m sure you guys have met.”

  Rudy, his weak jaw slack and stubbled, gazed at me with hooded eyes. There it was, the familiar constipation.

  “Of course,” Sally said, blowing her famous blond bangs out of her eyes and reaching out with her free arm for a hug. Her skin glowed luminously, her 1,000-watt smile blinding yet sincere. I wanted her to go into Witness Protection. “Agnes, how are you?”

  She smelled like spring. I oohed and aahed over her baby girl, who brought back all the baby smells and baby sounds and baby feelings and baby regrets that at this rate, I’d never have another.

  “Richard Ellsworth designed this house for Henry Blake and his bride,” Peter was saying. Blake had been a director of many musicals and consumer of much bourbon; he’d died at forty-eight of cirrhosis. “It was their honeymoon home. There was an extensive remodel in 2005, adding over ten thousand square feet.”

  Rudy grimaced. “I loathe musicals,” he said, his nostrils flaring.

  “Every room in the house has a relationship to the outdoors,” Peter said. “It’s sort of a signature touch.”

  Sally nodded and flashed her dimples.

  “Get rid of the fireplace,” Rudy said. “It’s too old and smells funky.”

  The fireplace was original and integral to the design of the house.

  “It is old,” I said. “But it basically holds up the roof, so . . .”

  Rudy narrowed his puffy eyes, then sneered at the roof.

  “You don’t like fireplaces? There’re fireplaces all over this house,” I said. “Almost every room. Fireplace, fireplace, fireplace . . .”

  “Let’s take a look at the master,” Peter said before shooting me a withering look.

  “Have fun!” I said. “If you need help, I’m right here. Just don’t light a cigarette, the whole place could blow—”

  I turned and grinned at Caster, Gabriela, and Lola, who’d emerged from various hiding places.

  “Good job, jefita,” Gabriela said, and the girls clapped.

  15: The Spiral Slide

  Fun exercise: Mapping the downhill slide (not a fun slide, like an inflatable slide or a water slide or a playground slide) of our marriage through emails.

  September 10, 2000, 3:23 p.m.

  To: Agnes Murphy

  From: Trevor Nash

  loveyouloveyouloveyouloveyou

  Margaritas at 5?

  loveyou

  me (T)

  Trev and I were kinder to each other in the BlackBerry years. I blame the iPhone. If people can name Facebook as a cause of divorce, I can name Apple.

  September 10, 201-, 3:24 p.m.

  Margaritas, rocks salt and a bj?

  loveyoumore

  Me(A)

  How. How did we get from margaritas and blow jobs (great name for a Mexicali band, BTW) to this:

  April 4, 201-4:53 p.m.

  From: Trevor Nash

  To: Agnes Murphy Nash

  What the fuck do you think your doing I know you put something in my suitcase it smells like dead fucking goldfish

  Well.

  April 4, 201-5:38 p.m.

  From: Agnes Murphy Nash

  To: Trevor Nash

  You’re*

  Cheers,

  Agnes

  * * *

  It’s hard reading that your kid is fat. Especially when the person saying it is her father. In a legal document. That went public. Sigh. I thought back to when Trevor first thought Pep had a weight problem.

  Found it.

  “She’s fatter than Brad Pitt’s baby,” Trevor had said, hovering over us as I diapered baby Pep. “We’re feeding her too much. Tell the Triplets; they’re sneaking her bottles.”

  “Shush, she’s perfect,” I’d said. “You want her to be babyrexic?”

  “No,” he’d said. “Of course not. Do you think she should go on a diet?”

  I covered her little baby ears. She giggled and looked up at me, delighted. “Can we wait at least a year before we fat-shame our baby?” I’d asked.

  At 5:35, my response to Trevor’s declaration was ready. I’d written ten thousand words in one day. At this pace, I’d have a short novel in five days, a trilogy in a week and a half. I could’ve written the next Game of Thrones or Harry Potter (if I, you know, had the talent); instead, I’d created lunchtime entertainment for a bunch of misshapen legal turds (excepting
the perfectly shaped Ms. Barrows, of course).

  Anger was the best muse I’d ever had; sure, she was ruddy and squat and wore a perpetual scowl, but I could’ve used that bitch years ago.

  Before our crack-up, I’d awakened in the middle of the night in a stupor, sitting in the simple rocking chair my father had given me when Pep was born.

  A dream, a shiny gold nugget of truth, winked at my subconscious.

  “Agnes, if you stay, you will get cancer,” the shiny gold nugget of truth said. “And Trevor will make it all about him.”

  In my dream, I saw a pale, bony, bedridden me, tubes running through my hairless body, the Triplets scurrying in and out of my room, with tears and hushed voices and endless making the sign of the cross over their bosoms. Dizzying amounts of crossing. A portrait of Hispanic Jesus (appearing suspiciously like Luis Miguel) hanging above my bed.

  The dream rolled on, and I was hovering above Trevor at the Grill, lunching with a comely junior agent.

  “Why are you upset?” Miss Comely is asking.

  “My wife . . .” Trevor was shaking his head. “She has cancer.”

  “Oh my God,” Miss Comely said as she rubbed his muscular arm and cooed in agent-in-training style.

  “We haven’t been able to fuck in like a month,” he said, tears welling in his career-making eyes.

  “Poor baby,” she said as she grasped his hand (where was his wedding ring?) and slipped it under the table. “Poor, poor Trevor.”

  16: Deposing Made Simple

  I stared at the giant kitty-and-doggy ASPCA calendar, their sad doggy and kitty eyes cajoling me to send more money than last year. Every day, I penciled in another divorce reminder. Penciling stuff in is calendar-keeping at its most atavistic, but that’s my jam—atavism.

  Divorce wasn’t just a job; it was a lifestyle.

  I could monetize this divorce, like Waverly suggested. I’d brand my divorce! Write a blog: The Divorce Whisperer, The Divorce Fairy, The Divorce Coach. Set up divorce kiosks at school fairs. Give speeches on divorce and resiliency (the current buzzword, having lapped mindfulness in March of this year). Coin the Divorce Diet! Start off grassroots and end up worldwide, branding the Business of Divorce. The Skinny Divorce would cost as little a day as a soy latte (with a shot of tequila)!