“You’re not a child, Coco. You’re a woman. We’re both adults. You knew I was married, you always did. You decided to break the rules with me. You can’t blame me for that now.”
“You said you wanted to get divorced and marry me, right from the beginning.”
“Maybe I will someday, when I want to, not when you tell me to. That’s up to me. For now, this suits me the way it is.” He was suddenly cold and arrogant, and almost cruel.
“It doesn’t suit me,” she said in a trembling voice, realizing now who he was. Sam was right. He had played her like a harp. She had been the fool here, imagining that he loved her, and believing everything he said.
He turned in the bedroom doorway then and looked at her with contempt. “You need to grow up, Coco. Your innocence is charming, for a while. But if you want to play in the big leagues, this is how it is. It’s been fun. Goodbye.” He walked to the front door and out of the apartment, as Coco felt like someone had squeezed all the air out of her. He was a bad guy, and always had been, just great in bed. She lay there for a long time thinking about it, realizing what a fool she had been. She wanted to hate him, but she didn’t. She hated herself.
She got up and took a shower and dressed. She was quiet when Sam came to see her that night. By the time he came, she had taken off the Cartier bracelet with the little gold screwdriver, and the ring Ed had given her, and put them away. She wanted no reminders of him anywhere. It had gone on for almost a year and suddenly it was over.
“What’s up? Are you upset about something?” He always knew. She started to tell him, stopped herself, and then decided to tell him the truth. She told him a modified, slightly tamer, less X-rated version of the last nine months, and admitted to the affair with Ed, that he had played her and lied to her, and she had just been a diversion for a married man. Sam looked furious, not at her, but at Ed.
“I told you the guy’s a player. What a son of a bitch. He took total advantage of you and the state you were in, and the role your father entrusted him with. What a pig.”
She smiled at the intense look on his face. “I was the idiot,” she said, feeling ashamed. She’d had an affair with a married man for nine months, thinking he had an “arrangement” with his wife and he was going to marry her. He had won in the end, and she felt like a fool.
“You’re just young, Coco. The guy is thirty years older. He knows how to play the game.”
“I fell for it because he was exciting,” she said, remorseful.
“You need to play it safe next time. The exciting ones are usually dangerous, and he is. But at least you figured it out in the end. I still love you,” he said, and put an arm around her.
“You’re not mad at me for lying to you about him?”
“You had to experience it for yourself. You’ll know better next time.” She nodded, and they grabbed popcorn in the kitchen, and sat down to watch movies together. She was grateful he was her friend. Ed was everything Sam had said. He lived in the fast lane, and had run over her like a bus. She was surprised to find that her heart wasn’t broken but her pride was badly bruised.
Chapter 3
The anniversary of her parents’ death was a hard day for Coco. She and Sam drove out to the Hamptons, where she felt especially close to them. They had shared such happy times there. She remembered every moment of the year before vividly, and the last time she saw them. She and Sam walked on the beach together and she cried. She still missed them acutely and she knew that her experience with Ed would never have happened if her father were alive. He would have protected her. Sam tried to, but she wouldn’t listen. She hadn’t heard from Ed in a month, and it was awkward having him as her trustee, but she didn’t need any advice from him about the estate for now. She was thinking of trying to get a change of trustee, but she wasn’t sure how to do it. She doubted that he would fight it, for fear she would expose him and how he had taken advantage of her, which wouldn’t have sat well with a judge.
She had learned a lesson from it, and made a vow to herself. No married men no matter what they said about “an arrangement” with their wife. And no more exciting guys. She was going to keep her eyes open for a “normal” one if she fell in love again. Sam was right.
As they walked down the beach on the anniversary of her parents’ death, Coco said sadly, “Who will walk me down the aisle, if I ever get married?” Tears were rolling down her cheeks, and Sam smiled.
“I will. That’s an easy one. Just make sure you marry the right guy. We’re both too young to get married anyway. That’s a big responsibility. I’m not ready for it, and you’re a year younger than I am. We’re still babies.” He had recently met a girl he liked. His parents knew hers. He mentioned her to Coco a few times. Her name was Tamar Weiss, and miraculously, she was Jewish. He was usually attracted to girls who weren’t. He hadn’t told his mother about going out with her or she’d have been all over him, wanting him to get married. She wanted all her children to marry early, and have lots of babies. Sam’s sister Sabra was still insisting that she wanted to get engaged to her Catholic boyfriend, and convert for him. Sam’s mother was going crazy over it, which kept the heat off Sam for now, and he could date Tamar in peace, while no one paid attention. He told Coco that Tamar was a nice girl. She worked in a bank, came from an Orthodox family, and had a lot of siblings. She wasn’t exciting, but she seemed like a solid, reasonable, intelligent person. He enjoyed her company, and when Coco asked him if he was in love with her, he said he wasn’t.
“Your choice of words, ‘solid and reasonable,’ scares me. Can’t you notch that up a little? You don’t need to fall in love with a stripper, but how about someone a little jazzier than ‘reasonable and solid.’ She sounds like a Seeing Eye dog.”
“Jazzy is dangerous, Coco. You just learned that with Ed.”
“Yeah, but ‘solid’ is going to bore the shit out of you after a few years, if it takes that long.”
“Maybe not. My parents aren’t exciting and they’ve been together for twenty-five years. That’s solid.”
“Your mother is a little bit exciting,” Coco said, thinking about it. She had lots of personality and opinions.
“No, she’s not. She just screams a lot. My father ignores it. I hope my sister has the guts to defy them. I really like Liam. My mother will have a coronary if she marries him, but Sabra’s pretty stubborn. She might just do it. You need to go back to school in the fall, by the way. Your father would want you to. He’d be upset that you’ve been out of school for a year now.” She nodded. She’d been considering it too, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to go back, or needed to, although she knew her father would have wanted her to graduate. But school seemed boring to her now.
Instead, she called her boss at Time from the summer before, and asked if he had any internships available. She could at least do that for the rest of the summer. She was tired of sitting around the apartment, especially now that Ed was out of the picture. He had eaten up a lot of her time, which had kept her from doing anything else, including seeing her friends, except for Sam, who showed up faithfully almost every night, and had for a year.
“Funny you should ask,” John Campbell, her old boss, said when she called him at Time. “We do have an opening. I don’t know if it would appeal to you. It’s in the London office. We can take care of the visa from here. We don’t pay living expenses for interns, so no one from here has wanted it. I don’t know if that works for you or not.” He knew enough about her and her late father to suspect that money wouldn’t be a problem. “They want an American, and we haven’t been able to find one. Would that screw up your plans for school?”
“I don’t have plans for school right now. I’ve been debating it. This internship might be just what I need.” Her life in New York seemed flat at the moment. She had been mourning her parents for the last year, and hiding with Ed. She hadn’t seen anyone, and she didn’t want
to go back to school yet. “How long is it for?”
“As long as you want. It’s open-ended.”
“When does it start?”
“As soon as you can get there.”
“What would I do?”
“More or less the same as you were going to do here. It’s kind of a jack-of-all-trades/girl Friday position, pitching in where needed.”
“It sounds perfect,” she said, excited about it.
“The salary is ridiculous, which, as I said, is why we haven’t found anyone.” But she could afford it. She didn’t need the money. She needed to get busy and do something useful with her time. “Give it some thought and call me.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” she promised. She wanted to sleep on it, but it sounded like exactly what she needed. And London would be a nice change from living with the ghosts in her apartment.
She talked to Sam about it that night, and he reluctantly agreed with her. His preference was that she go back to school, but if she wasn’t going to, then getting out of town might be good for her, in case Ed showed up again. A year after her parents’ death, she was in better shape now and could take a job for a while until she went back to school.
“Just promise me one thing, that you’ll go back to college at some point. You’ve only got two semesters left to do. You should finish and get your diploma,” Sam said, in his older brother role.
“I will, at some point,” was all she would commit to.
She called John Campbell the next day, and told him she wanted the internship in London. He was delighted.
“Give us a few weeks to get your visa in order. Why don’t you plan on starting mid-August.” That gave her a month to get organized and pack. She’d have to find a place to live when she got to London. It sounded exciting, and she called Sam at work and told him she had accepted, and would be leaving in a month.
Much to her surprise, a week later, she got a call from Ed. She didn’t dare not take it, since he was still her trustee, and the call might be about the estate. She took the call cautiously, and sounded cool when she answered. It had been five weeks since their unpleasant scene when they ended their affair. He sounded surprisingly friendly in the circumstances, and as though nothing had happened.
“How are you, Coco?”
“Fine, thank you. What’s up?” She cut to the chase and didn’t want to chat with him or play games.
“Nothing, I just wanted to check in and see how you’re feeling. Things got a little out of hand the last time we saw each other. I’m sorry about that.” He made it sound like she’d been drunk or in a bad mood.
“It’s fine. We needed to clear things up.” She didn’t tell him that she still felt like an idiot and thought he was a bastard. She was just grateful that no one knew about them, except Sam.
“I hope you’re feeling better. I was wondering if we could get together. Marielle is in Greece, and I’m leaving for Italy in two weeks. I’d love to see you.” He was incredible. He wanted to start where they’d left off, with nothing different in his situation, except that his wife was on vacation so he was free.
“I’m sorry, I can’t. I’m leaving too. I’m going to London.”
“How about dinner tonight?” He sounded faintly desperate. He didn’t like rejection. And she didn’t like liars and cheaters. She remembered everything Sam had said while she hadn’t listened to him.
“Sorry, Ed. I can’t make it.” Then she couldn’t help adding, “You’re still married.” Even if he weren’t now, she wouldn’t have gone to dinner with him. He had used her to add spice to his life. He was a bad guy. Sam was right.
“Well, maybe when you get back,” he said hopefully.
“I don’t think so. And when I get back, let’s talk about a successor trustee. I think that would be a good idea.”
“If you think so,” he said, sounding vaguely annoyed. He wasn’t going to argue the point with her. He knew she was right to ask for a new trustee, given what had happened between them. She hung up after that, and didn’t hear from him again.
She spent the rest of her time in New York packing. She closed the house in Southampton, and left the apartment in the city as it was. She didn’t know when she’d be back, a few months, longer, maybe even a year. It all depended on what would happen in London. John Campbell was giving her a new lease on life. After a year of deep mourning, she needed it, and couldn’t wait to start the job. Sam needed to pursue his own life too, and not just babysit for her, although he never complained, and loved seeing her almost every night.
He drove her to the airport when she left. They clung to each other for a long time before she had to go through security.
“Take care of yourself,” he admonished her. “Don’t do anything crazy, and watch out for the exciting ones!” he teased her.
“You too. Watch out for the boring ones.” They smiled at each other with all the love they’d shared since they were children, and then she went through security, and waved at him. After she disappeared into the crowd, he felt sad to see her go. She was so much a part of his daily life. He walked to the garage to get his car, and drove back to the city. He hoped everything would go well for her in London, and that she would remember the lesson she had learned with Ed. He hoped she’d meet a good man now, and he was going to see where things went with Tamar. He was convinced she wasn’t as boring as Coco said.
Chapter 4
Coco had given herself a few days’ leeway to find a place to live before she started work. She was lucky because with the money she had inherited from her parents, she could afford to live in a good neighborhood, rent a cheerful, safe apartment, and have a place she truly liked. For others, it wasn’t as easy, which was one reason why no one had leapt at the internship in London. It was an expensive city. With the help of a realtor, she rented an adorable mews house that was nicely furnished and would be a lovely home for her in London. It wasn’t showy, but had everything she wanted. And it was available immediately.
She left the hotel, unpacked her bags, and was settled in when she started work at Time. Her boss was a woman in her late thirties, Leslie Thomas. She gave Coco a stack of filing to do, and a long list of calls to make on her first day of work. Coco was off and running and had a good first day. Everyone was pleasant and polite to her. They introduced themselves as soon as they saw her, and by the end of the week, she knew who they were and what they did. She was, as John Campbell had described the job to her, the office jack-of-all-trades. She did everything from changing the occasional light bulb to making dinner reservations for her superiors. Leslie gave her some small captions to edit on her second day there, to gauge her creativity and writing skills. Coco was above all willing, grateful for the job, and thrilled to be there. She was honest about the fact that the internship was her first real job, at twenty-two. She didn’t pretend to know things she didn’t, which Leslie liked about her. She was hardworking and sincere, and eager to learn.
“Where are you staying?” Leslie asked her. Coco had already figured out that her boss’s accent was upper class. There was a definite distinction between social levels in England, and someone had whispered to her that Leslie’s father was in the House of Lords, which meant that she came from a distinguished family, but not necessarily that she had money, and she had said that she lived in East London, which was comfortable and respectable, but not fancy.
Leslie was attractive, single, and had no children, and had mentioned to Coco that she was divorced. She was thirty-eight and had no boyfriend at the moment.
“I found something in Chelsea,” Coco answered, referring to where she lived, without saying it was a house, even though very small. It was more like a dollhouse, but had everything she needed, and was perfect for her. But the neighborhood made it clear that Coco wasn’t poor or struggling.
“I’m giving a party on Saturday night, if you’d like to come.
Most people leave town on the weekend, if they can, but the weather has been so beastly, I’m hoping enough people will be here.”
It had been raining nonstop since Coco arrived. She didn’t care. She had so much to discover about her job and the people she worked with that the weather hadn’t bothered her so far, although it might after a while. It had been blazing hot and sunny in New York, and was perfect August weather the last time she went to the Hamptons with Sam. It felt more like winter in London. She’d worn a light wool coat to work every day. She thanked Leslie for the invitation and jotted down the address. “Nothing fancy,” Leslie added, “jeans and a nice top are fine,” which was more or less the same dress code as with her friends in New York, although not at the restaurants where she’d gone with Ed, where she had to wear a nice dress and high heels. But he was older, and moved in a different crowd. His wife was known to be one of the best dressed women in New York, which set a standard Coco couldn’t match. But she had youth and her natural beauty on her side, which Ed preferred.
By the end of her first week at Time, Coco was starting to feel comfortable and confident in her job. She and Sam had FaceTimed several times, she showed him around her tiny house. He was impressed. The rooms were small, but it had a cozy atmosphere with a sense of history to it, and there was a fireplace in every room. Central heating had been added a century after it was built, and it had been modernized since. She told Sam she was going to a party on Saturday night. It sounded like fun to him, and he was happy for her. He had a date with Tamar Weiss that night himself. He’d been out with her a couple of times since Coco left.
When the day came for the party, it was still pouring. Coco wore a black sweater and jeans, and high heels. She had her long dark hair loose down her back, and she wore a heavy raincoat. She ran to find a cab on the street nearest her house.
All That Glitters Page 5
