Arm Candy

by Jill Kargman

  “You’re so pretty, Eden, you could seriously get any guy,” said Hannah. “Allison confirmed that one-hit wonder by Desperate Measures was about you, after all!”

  “That was about YOU?” Sara beamed. “I loved that song!”

  “Yeah, if anyone can get him, you can,” echoed Maggie.

  “Thanks for the pep talk, people.” Eden ran a hand through her glossy brown hair. “I have to go to the Ladies.” She got up and walked downstairs, looking back at her table, who watched as she passed by the empty table Chase and Wills were being led to.

  Upon her return, there was no way to not cross their path. The jammed restaurant was like social bumper cars.

  “Hello,” said Eden as she looked at Chase. “Seems I’m running into you in all the chicest places.”

  “Hi! Yes, um, nice to see you again,” Chase stammered. “This is my friend Wills.”

  As Eden and Wills shook hands, the waiter brought their drinks.

  “Stoli tonic,” he said, placing the goblet in front of Wills. “And ginger ale for Mr. Lydon.”

  “Slow down there, Trouble,” deadpanned Eden.

  “I, uh, have to get up early for work,” offered Chase nervously.

  Eden lit up the table with her huge smile. “Okay, then. Enjoy.”

  As she turned back to her table she realized that not only her gang but also others in the restaurant were staring. She had only just moved uptown and was a new quasi-celeb in these parts, and it was almost surreal to see her interacting with one of their own when she hung on so many cavernous living room walls on Fifth Avenue. One private equity partner slash major art collector had lent his large-scale portrait of her to the Tate Modern for a solo show and missed the work so much that upon its return he and his wife threw a massive welcome-home party for it, complete with Glorious Food catering and coverage on New York Social Diary.

  But Eden had never cared about any of those boring 10021 dudes, whether they collected her image or not. Until now. There was a palpable chemistry with Chase that could no longer be denied. And when she looked over her shoulder before sitting back down, she knew he felt it, too.

  28

  The first sign of maturity is the discovery that the volume knob also turns to the left.

  —Jerry M. Wright

  After the checks had been paid, both tables got up to leave at the same time. Allison’s friends peeled off in their various directions, citing high school babysitter time bombs. After all the gals hugged good-bye, Allison kissed Eden good night and saw Chase and Wills through the glass door, heading up the two stairs to exit onto Lexington.

  “There’s your lover boy,” teased Allison with a whisper into Eden’s ear.

  “Shut up,” replied Eden. “What are we, back in sixth grade?”

  “Want me to pass him a note to meet you by the bleachers?”

  “Ha-ha.”

  The two waved and walked in separate directions, just as Wills bumped into an old college chum whom he bear-hugged.

  “Wills, I gotta get home,” said Chase, quickly greeting Wills’s friend before bolting to catch up with Eden, who was slowly striding toward Seventieth Street.

  “Hey again,” Chase said as he caught up beside her.

  “Hi there,” Eden said, staring into his eyes.

  “Where are you walking?” he asked. His whole body felt swollen. His cheeks reddened, his legs tingled, and his brow began to perspire. “It’s such a nice night.”

  “Home. Sixty-eighth Street between Madison and Park.”

  “Oh yeah? That’s a really nice block.” They walked side by side down Lexington.

  “It is. I’m right in the middle of those three wide fabulous old walk-ups. I’m on the second floor with these great high ceilings and century-old moldings. It feels very European.”

  “Sounds beautiful” was all he could muster.

  “Yeah, it really is. It was so hard for me to move up here, but I wanted a fresh start and distance from my ex. And the walk-up feels more, I don’t know, accessible somehow. More me.”

  “How do you like it so far?” Chase asked. “Must not be quite as exciting.”

  “I’m into it . . . ,” she trailed off.

  “You don’t sound so convinced.” Chase smiled.

  “No, no, I like it, I do, it’s very Old World graceful, and my best friend, Alli, lives up here, so it was a natural choice. It’s weird, though, how quiet it is. It’s practically suburbia compared with downtown.”

  “Yeah, it’s definitely sleepier here,” said Chase, who grew more nervous each time he looked at her. “But it has its merits.”

  “So I see,” she said, looking him over.

  Chase wasn’t used to women who were so outwardly flirtatious. Eden’s eyes flashed right at him, penetrating his gentlemanly façade.

  “So, I didn’t realize when we first met that your husband, or I guess, um, ex-boyfriend, uh, is Otto Clyde,” Chase stammered, recalling the artist’s sold-out lecture at MoMA that Ruthie attended.

  “Mm-hmm, that’s him. We’re still friends so it’s all fine, but I just needed some room.”

  “I’m a big fan of his.”

  “Really?” Eden mused. “Funny, I don’t take you for an art guy.”

  “Why not?” Chase asked, almost defensively. The fact was, he loved art and knew a lot about the contemporary and modern markets, thanks to Ruth.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. I just meant you seem like . . . Mr. Serious.”

  “People aren’t always what they seem to be,” Chase said, half-smiling. “I’m not so serious.”

  “Really? Do you ever break loose, Dow Jones?”

  Chase shifted and ran a hand through his hair as they waited at a stoplight. “Sure. I guess.”

  “You guess, huh?” Eden said, penetrating the space between them with a small step toward him and knocking on his head of caramel-colored hair. “I bet in there, there’s someone who is just itching to break out.” Her words teasingly tripped over his ears lightly. “Come on, Nasdaq,” she whispered in his ear. “Live a little.”

  “I try to; I mean, I’m so busy with work that I just kind of forgot how.” He shrugged innocently. “I always want to, but I just have . . . so much stuff I have to do.”

  “You know, Chase, we’re all going to be dead in eighty years. Life’s too short for too much stuff.”

  She stared straight into his eyes. As he gulped back the nervous energy coursing through his blue-blooded veins, Eden turned to him, right on that windy street corner. She lightly picked up the bottom of his elephant-covered navy blue Hermès tie, pulled him into her, and kissed him, infusing his body with a zap he’d never known before. He kissed back in a way that engulfed his whole being, enlivening his arms to encircle her waist and his breath to quicken. Their mouths made his brain short-circuit—but after a few seconds, his conscience caught up to his body and he pulled back abruptly.

  “Who says you don’t know how to have fun? That was fun, right?”

  “I’m sorry, Eden, I can’t,” Chase said, stepping back farther. “I-I’m seeing someone,” he stammered through blushed cheeks and sweaty brow.

  “I’m so sorry,” Eden said apologetically. “There’s just . . .” She made a motion with her hand from his chest to hers, like a swift spoon swatting the energy between them.

  “I know,” Chase said.

  “ . . . something here,” she finished.

  “I . . . can’t act on it. I . . . apologize,” Chase stuttered. “I really should be going.” Instantly he snapped back, like a preppy Gumby, into his original upright composure.

  “Good night, nice to see you again,” he said politely from his stoic stance two feet away.

  His body, lithe and liquid like boiled spaghetti only moments before in Eden’s arms, had returned to its mechanical, hard, uncooked state. He walked away at a brisk pace, part dutiful toy soldier, part Ken Doll, part moral Robocop, all impenetrable.

  29

  It’s
sad to grow old, but nice to ripen.

  —Brigitte Bardot

  “How was it at the studio today?” Allison asked as she talked to Eden on the phone. Allison was making grilled cheeses for her kids while Eden was lying down on her couch, legs up on the wall, like a fourteen-year-old. Loath to ever buy a cordless phone, Eden twisted the old-fashioned curly cord in her fingers.

  “Weird.”

  “How so?”

  “Otto told me I seemed distracted. And then I realized, I was.”

  “By what?”

  “Fuck. I’m too embarrassed to even tell you.”

  “I’m so insulted! It’s me, E.”

  “Okay, okay. I’ve been thinking about that guy Chase.”

  “Chase Lydon. Thinking about him, thinking about him?”

  “It’s stupid, anyway. Useless, in fact. He fully rebuffed me.”

  “Huh, that’s new for you, isn’t it?” Allison teased.

  She was right. Eden went through her life like a flip book and couldn’t think of a single man who had ever turned her down.

  “I barely know him. I mean, we’re strangers and couldn’t be more different. But there was definitely something intense there. Sparks.”

  “Interesting.”

  “We were walking and talking and I just had this sensation that I wanted to bring him home with me, but he pushed me off and said he had a girlfriend. Which I knew. I’m such a schmuck, I walked right into a land mine.”

  “God, you are ballsy,” Allison marveled. She didn’t know many women who could do that.

  “And delusional, obviously. I’ve lost it. That hold I used to have on guys.”

  “Not true.”

  “Yes, it is! I’m old.”

  “No, you’re not.

  “Two words: Crypt Keeper.”

  “E, it has nothing to do with that. Don’t think of it as rejection. He’s taken!”

  “I guess.”

  “I thought you said you wanted to be alone so you could figure out what you really wanted,” Allison reminded her. Deep down, though, she knew Eden never could fly solo for long.

  “I do, I really do,” Eden claimed. “I just liked him. I don’t even know why, I found him very sweet. He has this innocence; he’s so earnest, you know? You can just tell he’s a good person.”

  “Sounds like someone has a crush.”

  “Oh gosh, don’t make me sound like a tween.”

  “Maybe it’s good for you. Get the motor running. Also, E, in the real world, most people experience rejection, regret, all that fun stuff. It keeps things in perspective.”

  Eden felt engulfed by fear that her winning streak of power over men had come to an end. “I’m just so lonely,” Eden confessed. “I don’t know what’s worse, being so lonely with Otto that I sometimes used to cry myself to sleep, or actually being alone all the time.”

  “Being with Otto was worse,” Allison explained. “Because even though you’re lonely now, you have the promise of someone coming in to fill that void.”

  “Ugh, I feel so . . . desperate.”

  “You’re not desperate. The desperate ones are the ones looking to get those cobwebs out of their uteri. You have Cole. You don’t have to worry about your eggs passing their sell-by date. You have time to really look and find someone amazing.”

  “Okay, so maybe I’m not freaking out. There’s no race. There’s not even a finish line. I’m just thinking about knowing someone again. Having someone know me.”

  “Hey, breaking news: That’s what everyone wants! You were seeking all this other stuff, and you got it, and then you realized what was missing. I’m telling you, Eden, it will come. But not until you rebuild yourself first.”

  “I know. You’re right as always, Alli,” Eden said, thinking about her best friend’s knowing smile. “How did you get so smart?”

  “Thirty-nine years of practice.”

  30

  Middle age is when your age starts to show around your middle.

  —Bob Hope

  A full fifty-six hours elapsed in which Chase was positively besieged by guilt. Gut-crunching, headache-inducing, soul-stirring guilt. A strong-headed, fiercely principled do-gooder, Chase had never once cheated on a quiz, tax form, or girlfriend. His business dealings never ventured into shady territory, and his record was always sterling—scholastically, professionally, socially. And now he felt like a schizo.

  He was tormented by that kiss—in two ways: He was stung by the prickly thorn of his transgression but also still lured by the petals’ bewitching pleasures. He was sick he succumbed to an impulse behind Liesel’s back. And yet he was also sick it was over so quickly. He oscillated between wanting to press rewind so he could record over it with a more chaste departure. But then in his mind he was rewinding it only to replay it over and over. It was such a fleeting miracle of passion he didn’t know he could feel, his four ventricles finally pumping in overdrive. And he also knew it was proof that there was more to life than the safe love Liesel offered him, that his mother so prized, the perfect union that their platinum petri dish wanted to see in the New York Times Weddings section.

  But perhaps his mother and father were onto something. Maybe marital bliss isn’t about fiery passion. Maybe he owed it to Liesel, after all their time together, to pretend that moment with Eden, no matter how incredible, had never even happened.

  Refreshed after a shower that Chase vowed would wash away his lingering thoughts of Eden forever, he met Liesel for a romantic dinner at Amaranth. She was waiting for him at their normal table, looking radiant. Her hair was coiffed to perfection in a straight blowout with a thin headband, and she was the picture of elegance and poise, her gumball-sized pearls glowing in the candlelight as she sipped a glass of rosé by the window.

  “Hello, darling,” she said, rising to kiss him hello. She straightened her black shift dress beneath her as she sat back down while Chase ordered a drink of his own. After ordering appetizers and greeting streams of fellow diners, Liesel began to tell him about what she had been working on that day at the auction house.

  “Do you think you’ll get that promotion?” Chase asked. “You clearly deserve it at this point.”

  “Well, actually,” she said. “I’m trying to get a different job. At Doyle Galleries. It would be a huge career move for me.”

  Chase scratched his head. “I didn’t know you were even looking.”

  “I know, I wasn’t, but I heard about this position yesterday and I’ve always wanted to be there, so I’m interviewing next week.”

  “That’s great,” said Chase, surprised but happy for her. They sat in silence for a moment as he looked at her delicate, ringless left hand. He took a deep breath and felt his pulse quicken as he recalled his indiscretion. He knew they say it’s never good to tell of an infidelity. While it would rid him of the burden of remorse, it would also pass the burden of knowledge on to her small shoulders. But he felt so awful about it. The deed had thrust him into a prison of regret, and he needed to break free. It was as if Law & Order ’s constant cling-clang sound was playing on a loop in the tinny speakers of his brain. As the seconds passed, he couldn’t take it any longer. His courage mounted. He opened his mouth to speak.

  He drew a long guilty breath to let the words flow out. But just before his confession could spill from his lips, Chase noticed huge tears welling up in his girlfriend’s eyes. Oh no. Poor thing. She’d had it. She was at her wit’s end. She was through watching her friends get married after only a year of dating while she had been with Chase for three. She was done with dinners and trips and romance all by rote, each with the reverie of a ring at the other end, and no such luck. Shit, he couldn’t tell her now. Instead he took her hand, which was freezing.

  “Liesel—”

  She blinked a hot tear down her cheek, which she casually brushed away, as the spear of shame gutted Chase’s side. He had put her through all of this waiting, only to cheat on her with an illicit kiss with a complete stranger. And now, ev
er reserved and ladylike, she withheld her emotion as best she could, with all her strength summoned to let out only one solitary tear. The dam of her self-control held back emotional floods as he caressed her hand in his across the table.

  Chase knew for sure now, seeing her distressed face, that he couldn’t come clean. It would kill her. Instead he picked up her hand and kissed it.

  “I’m so sorry,” Liesel gushed, more tears seeping past their emotional levee.

  “Sorry?” Chase asked, confused. “What for?”

  Liesel looked down at the white table linens, straightened an askew fork.

  “I slept with Wills.”

  Her long lashes lifted from the silver cutlery up to meet his dumbfounded gaze.

  Chase’s universe was put on instant mute. One could have dropped a risotto grain and it would have sounded like a deafening boulder. The rest of the crowded café was suddenly a blur as he sat thunderstruck.

  “Chasie, say something. I’m so, so sorry!” Liesel said, dabbing at her eyes with her cloth napkin. “I have been so sick about this. I’m ill. I feel so awful. I’m so sorry.”

  “Wait . . . Wills? My best friend?”

  “We both feel just terrible.” She wept.

  “You and Wills. You had sex?”

  “Chase, I am so sorry. I’ve been wracked with guilt.”

  “When did this happen? How?” He couldn’t possibly imagine them together. It was too surreal, too bizarre: his girlfriend of three years and the guy who would have been best man in their wedding.

  “I bumped into him on the way out of work yesterday and we started walking home. We got to talking about how Shelly just got engaged and I kind of insinuated that I prayed I was next, and then he said he didn’t know what you were waiting for, that I was such a catch, and then I guess I was so flattered. I just . . . didn’t know if you would ever step up, and I can’t wait forever. I was feeling like I had a safe place to vent with Wills; I’ve been feeling like my life was on hold. And the next thing I knew, he invited me up to his apartment and I saw this montage of pictures of all of us, and I realized that he cared for me quite deeply.”