The Debutante Divorcee

by Plum Sykes

  Hunter had been gone three days now, and having felt stoic for about three hours, I had quickly evolved to feeling utterly tragic. The trouble with being alone on your honeymoon is that there is oodles of time to wallow. Reading trashy magazines full of celebrity breakups doesn’t help.

  My self-pity was only exacerbated by the maid at our beach house bringing romantic breakfast trays for two each morning, covered in flowers and Mexican hearts wishing us good luck. I couldn’t face telling her that Hunter had left and might not get back. I was so ashamed about the whole thing, I hadn’t even called a friend to commiserate. What would people think? Hunter and I had known each other only six months and had gotten married on the spur of the moment, in Hawaii. I could imagine the gossip already: she didn’t have a clue what she was getting into; she hardly knew him; apparently he left some other girlfriend on vacation… My mind was bedeviled by hideous thoughts—and disappointment. Ah! Disappointment! It’s the worst affliction. It’s so dreary, and you can’t do anything to improve it; it just has to fade away…over years, I told Lauren gloomily, maybe decades…

  “Stop overreacting. It’s not that bad,” interjected Lauren. “At least you’ve got a husband. This is an exercise in ego-loss for you and you’re indulging yourself.”

  Ego-loss? What about husband-loss?

  “You’re the first person I’ve told,” I admitted as tears suddenly flooded my eyes. “It’s such a ghastly start to a marriage. I’m bloody furious, and so angry with Hunter. I know he has to make money, and work, but…oh, God.”

  “Here,” said Lauren, rummaging in her tote. She handed me a lace-trimmed, white silk handkerchief with her initials embroidered on it.

  “Thanks,” I said, taking it. It was criminal to wipe one’s nose on such an exquisite item, but I went ahead. “This is so pretty.”

  “You get them at Leron. Special order. They fly to Chicago to see my mother. It’s all by appointment only. You should see the linens. Blissful. Why don’t I order some for you next time? Would that cheer you up?”

  “I guess,” I said. That was sweet of Lauren, I thought. If I was destined to spend my marriage in tears, I supposed white lace would be much more pleasant to weep into than Charmin toilet paper.

  “Look at it this way: most marriages start with an incredible honeymoon and go downhill from there. At least this way the only place you can go is up. I mean, it can’t get any worse, right?”

  I dabbed at my eyes with Lauren’s handkerchief. Through my tears, I somehow managed a laugh.

  “Don’t obsess about this, or you’ll really ruin things. Honeymoons are seriously overrated. They’re just so pressured, like birthdays. You’re supposed to wake up excited every morning, and feel crazy in love and all floaty every minute of it, and guess what? You’ve got menstrual cramps that day, or you’ve been eaten alive by mosquitoes, and the last thing you feel like is fucking each other like mad, like you’re supposed to want to.”

  “Hey, Lauren,” came a girlish voice from behind us.

  Tinsley Bellangere, ex-wife of the mislaid Jamie, appeared at the archway to the sunken drawing room. She was outrageously pretty, like a milk-fed farm girl with class. She was twenty-eight years old, had flat blonde hair to her elbow, a few perfectly located post-laser freckles, and sky-blue eyes. Her skin was evenly tanned, and she was wearing a fitted yellow satin cocktail dress with a slashed skirt that streamed beautifully about her legs in the breeze. She wasn’t dressed for the beach; she was dressed for a benefit.

  Lauren made the introductions and then said, “Sylvie just got married.” She patted the seat beside her. “You always look so pretty, Tinsley.”

  “You look better,” said Tinsley as she flopped down, all legs and satin and hair. Then she looked at me and said, “You want to hear my secret of a happy marriage? Agree with your husband on everything. Then do whatever you like. It worked really well for Jamie and me. We separated very amicably.”

  With that Tinsley stood up and made her way over to the drinks tray in the corner. “I’ll be having a neat tequila. Anyone else?”

  “Love one,” I said. Maybe being drunk in the afternoon would improve my non-honeymoon.

  “Everyone thinks I’m crazy when I drink these in the tea area at The Carlyle at noon,” said Tinsley, handing one each to Lauren and me. Then she tossed her blonde mane back and downed her shot in one.

  “Let’s go for a swim,” said Lauren. “I’m baking.”

  “I can’t. I’m too tired,” said Tinsley with a wink. She stretched out on a huge white mattress piled with giant cushions on the floor. “I’m going to lie here and watch you exhaust yourselves while I eat cactus ice cream or something.”

  “I’ll come,” I said, following Lauren into the water.

  Maybe a swim would help dissipate my grim disappointment, I thought, as I splashed into the pool. The water was blood-heat hot, the kind of hotel-pool temperature that girls love and men abhor.

  “Twenty loops round the house!” commanded Lauren, splashing off.

  “Twenty?” I shouted after her, surprised.

  “Absolutely. You’ve got to have goals in life. Personally I am a very goal-oriented person,” said Lauren, between strokes.

  I caught up with her, and we swam leisurely side by side. Lauren barely drew breath as she paddled and continued chatting.

  “I mean even after my divorce and everything, which, by the way, is freely available for the entire world to read in great detail on Google, I said, me being me and goals being goals, I’ve got to set myself a post-divorce goal. You know, a serious purpose in life. Something to aim for.”

  As we swam around the moat, I peeked into the guest rooms that opened out onto it. They were whitewashed, and mosquito nets were draped over immaculately made-up beds. Some of the rooms had bright yellow flowers climbing around the windows, or antique Mexican icons on the walls. I started to feel a little cheerier—who wouldn’t?

  “So, Lauren,” I said, perking up, “what is your goal?”

  “To date like I’m in college again. No relationships, no falling in love. I just want to have fun, and not think beyond that.”

  Her reply had an unwavering certainty about it. Lauren stopped paddling and turned around to face me. Standing in the aqua water, she looked both amused and determined, as she said, “So, my specific goal, and I am very clear about this, because it’s insanely straightforward, is that I must make out with five men between Labor Day and Memorial Day. Five ultra-diverse, top-quality, commitment-free make outs. And I shall celebrate each one in an appropriate manner. With a jewel. Or a piece of art, or a fur coat. I’ve already put this heavenly Revillon sable on hold in Paris, as a matter of fact. One kiss and it’s mine.”

  With that Lauren dived under the water. When she resurfaced, the drops on her face twinkling in the sun, I asked, “God, do you think you can find five make outs?”

  The fact is, Lauren is beautiful and sexy but she was thirty-one years old—antique by New York standards. After the age of thirty-three or thirty-four, the Manhattan male abandons his peers altogether, seeking out girls in their early to mid-twenties at the absolutely most ancient. The really sad ones give up on the New York girl altogether and exclusively date nineteen-year-old models from South Beach. Anyway, my point is that literally no one I knew over the age of thirty was getting to make out with one man over the space of six months, let alone five.

  “I’m setting myself a realistic target. But I have heard,” replied Lauren, gliding her fingers rather aimlessly in a circle in the water, “from other divorcées, some of whom are my friends, that it may not be overly optimistic to expect in excess of five. Oh! Wait! My other big ambition is to connect my own surround sound. Louis used to do all of that. I’m absolutely convinced I can do it on my own, however long it takes. Now, what’s your goal?”

  That was one thing I was very clear about.

  “I want to be like the Eternity couple,” I laughed.

  Secretly, I’d always hoped
that matrimony would be like the Eternity ad: a very gorgeous you, a hot him, and oodles of vanilla-colored cashmere sweaters. If possible my whole marriage would take place on a beach in East Hampton, preferably in a flattering black-and-white palette.

  “If only I had had such noble aims, maybe my marriage would have lasted,” shrieked Lauren. She hooted with laughter. “I gave up the Eternity dream at age eight. You are so cute. But I’ve got a tip for you.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Your goal should be keeping your husband away from the Husband Huntresses.”

  I frowned at her, confused.

  “You know,” explained Lauren. “Those wicked girls who only pursue husbands. You only become aware of them once you’re married.”

  “Stop it.” I giggled.

  “Be warned.”

  Our swim had now come full circle, and we were back in front of the sunken drawing room. Tinsley beckoned to us to come in.

  “Mojitos await,” she yelled.

  “Well, that was only one lap, but let’s go hang with her or she’ll start hyperventilating,” said Lauren, climbing the shallow steps up to the drawing room. She grabbed a towel from a neat pile on a wicker table and handed one to me.

  “God, that swim was lovely,” I said, drying myself off. I took one of the mojitos and sipped it. It was so refreshing.

  “Isn’t the pool genius?” said Lauren.

  She curled up in her towel onto the couch opposite Tinsley, and I sat in a rocking chair painted a hot Latin blue. I noticed that the back of the chair was inlaid with exquisite mother-of-pearl.

  “What do you do, Tinsley?” I asked. Tinsley seemed like such a character, I wanted to get to know her.

  “Nothing,” she said brightly.

  “Don’t you want a job?” I asked.

  At this Tinsley shook with laughter. Then she said, dead serious, “I can’t work, because I can’t dress for day. I can only dress for evening. So obviously office life doesn’t work for me. I can only dress either for the gym or for a party.”

  She stood up and twirled around in her cocktail frock.

  “I mean, look at me. It’s two o’clock in the afternoon, and this is the most low-key I can go. The only career I could do is be an anchor on MTV, but I don’t really aspire to that. It’s so old. I mean, whereforart Serena Altschul now? The other thing that’s really in the way of my career is my mom. I have to be available for two-hour conversations every day to discuss family problems, then I have to be available to go to Palm Beach at a moment’s notice. I tried to have a job once working for Charlie Rose, but I was hardly ever there, and on the few unfortunate occasions that I was, I was making personal calls the whole time.”

  I laughed, and as I did, a pang of guilt hit me. Here I was, 100 percent amused on my non-honeymoon. Gosh, I thought as I sipped my mojito, shouldn’t I be feeling more wistful right now?

  “It’s terrible for her, isn’t it, Tinsley darling?” joked Lauren. Then she turned to me and said, “So. When do we get to meet Hunter? Is he ever coming back? Or is it reckless abandonment, honeymoon-style?”

  “You’ll meet him in New York. But he’s going to be traveling a lot to Paris for the TV show he just did this deal for,” I said. With a hint of humor I even managed to add, “the deal he wrecked our honeymoon over.”

  “We can keep each other company while Hunter’s gone. Whatever anyone thinks, I get lonesome sometimes,” said Lauren, looking suddenly vulnerable.

  Later on, when the sun had started to set, and, I must admit, we were all slightly tipsy from the cocktails and heat, the conversation got more intense.

  “Do you ever think about getting married again?” I asked Lauren. She was lazing in a hammock, being rocked gently by the wind.

  “Yes. I think I won’t,” said Lauren.

  “Quite right,” agreed Tinsley, who was mixing yet another cocktail. “Married couples are so dull.”

  “I know,” I agreed. “It’s terrible.”

  The fact is, a married girlfriend is never as fun as she was when she was single. One of my secret—and, I admit, terribly superficial—fears about getting married had been that I would become as dull as my dull married girlfriends.

  “So, Lauren, why did you break up with Louis?” I asked.

  Lauren sighed. Then she said, “We broke up…because, hmmm…” She paused, as though unsure of the answer. “I guess I thought I was getting married for the right reasons—because I was in love, and Louis had gotten me a darling Van Cleef ring, but the truth is, no one should get married just because they are in love.”

  “That’s not very romantic,” I said.

  “Marriage isn’t a very romantic proposition,” declared Lauren. “It’s a practical arrangement. Sorry, but it’s the truth. I figure if I avoid the marriage bit, I can still have the romance. But you look like you are so in love. Don’t listen to a word I say. It’s different for everyone. I don’t have a clue.”

  “I’m sure you do,” I said.

  “OK, well if you want to know what not to do,” continued Lauren, “I’d start with don’t have a wedding for four hundred. It completely clouds your judgment. I knew the whole thing was going be a downer the day of the wedding. Can you believe?”

  “How?”

  “There we all were up in Maine, at this nice sort of private hippie island my mom’s family has had forever. It’s got a couple of cute cottages. I remember looking out to the ocean the day before the wedding and seeing a crystal chandelier going by on a barge for the tent. It looked like they’d stolen it from the ballroom at the Waldorf. The thing is, I hate chandeliers of a certain type—I had to literally move out of my parents’ place on Park when I came to New York because there were chandeliers everywhere—and here I was getting married and trying to leave the chandeliers behind and the chandeliers were still coming after me,” Lauren recalled. “It was all wrong,” she shuddered. “The whole thing was just crazy.”

  Lauren slid languidly off the hammock and started rummaging around in her bag. A few seconds later she held up an exquisite pair of Victorian cameo earrings. She expertly pushed the posts through her ears, saying, “I do love wearing my baubles on the beach. Don’t you think these are very Talitha Getty, Tinsley?”

  “So Talitha. I worship her style. If you are going to die, make it an overdose and everyone will worship your fashion sense forever,” she declared.

  “That’s an awful thing to say,” insisted Lauren. Then, looking slightly nostalgic, she returned to the subject of her marriage, adding, “Finally, one day I went on vacation and…well, the truth is I just never came home. Everyone was frantic. When I think back,” she concluded, with a mischievous smile, “I’m really appalled at my own behavior. I’ve never met anyone as terrible as me.”

  2

  The Consolation of a Fabulous Husband

  “I wanna know everything, how you met, what he’s like, can he kiss…” said Tinsley a few days later. We were with Lauren on Tinsley’s father’s boat, an old sloop, taking a sail out to the little island off the beach. We were all lying out on the sundeck at the back of the boat. It was sunny and breezy, ideal for tanning. Lauren and Tinsley were both wearing white string bikinis which they reserved strictly for sunbathing. They’d also brought a huge bag of alternative boating outfits, including specific Hermès swimsuits for diving, water skiing, and back flips.

  I had met Hunter, I told them, only six months earlier, at a wedding (isn’t that always the way?). My old high school friend Jessica was getting married on the beach in Anguilla in March. Jessica’s wedding was beautiful: she had cool raj tents, long refectory tables covered in pink bougainvillea, and a small group of rather glamorous-looking guests.

  Hmmm, I remember thinking to myself as I saw a tall, dark-haired man approach my table, check the place cards, read his name—Hunter Mortimer—find his seat, and lay eyes on me. Gorgeous, I’d declared secretly to myself, noting that this man was a little tan and was wearing an agreeably casual, pale
summer suit. Not bald, I’d noted happily, noticing his generous mop of brown hair, a blessing many thirty-four-year-old men are sadly without. Devastating smile, I’d thought, blushing inwardly as he shook my hand. He had an easy, joyful expression, and his green eyes twinkled mischievously. At least six foot two, I’d calculated, looking up at his frame. I suppose, subconsciously, I was saying to myself, Nice gene pool.

  “Isn’t this a wonderful wedding?” he’d said when he sat down next to me. He looked at my left hand, smiled and added, “Although there’s nothing better than being single at a wedding, is there?”

  “So flirtatious,” said Lauren, sipping an orange blossom water, her new favorite drink. “It all sounds so perfect.”

  “It was,” I sighed. “He just…appealed to me, immediately. It was the most delicious moment, I knew it was going to happen. I’d like to say it took me ages to get to know him and fall in love, but actually, it was all over the minute I laid eyes on him.”

  It turned out he lived close to me in L.A., and we started dating a few weeks after the wedding. Five months later Hunter asked me to marry him. We’d never lived together, but I wasn’t worried. Hunter was a happy, uncomplicated, unselfish person to be around. There was no self-obsession, no self-doubt, which set him miles apart from other recent boyfriends of mine. He didn’t get hysterical. He didn’t freak out. He sorted out a problem with a minimum of fuss. He didn’t over-analyze, a trait not readily available among American men. I blame James Spader. I’ve always thought social acceptance of male self-torture can be traced directly back to Sex, Lies, and Videotape.

  Hunter did things quietly, even secretly, and didn’t particularly enjoy being singled out for congratulation. I suppose you could say that although he was a confident person, he was very private, which I admired. I also found it rather sexy that he was sometimes mysterious about things. He was incredibly romantic, but not in a silly way. When he said I love you, he meant it.