by Jill Kargman
Wes walked closer to her and moved the hair from her face.
“Do you know what Max just said to me?” Wes asked, grabbing Eden a tissue from his desk and handing it to her.
“No, what?” she asked, wiping her eyes.
“He said, ‘Son, I may be blind but I can see well enough that you two are the loves of each other’s lives’.”
Eden looked at him and threw herself into his arms, crying into his warm soft sweater.
“I know that you are for me,” she said. “When your mom told me you never married, I practically choked on my relief.”
“It’s hard to get married,” Wes said, looking at her, “when deep down you know you’ll always love someone else.”
He kissed her and she felt the charcoal clouds that had shadowed her for years suddenly open up. They kissed like twenty-year-olds on the street, as though no time had gone by. But they also kissed like tons of time had gone by, time that made this moment all the more like a fireworks finale, blazing, deafening, bright and bold. She put her hands up the back of his sweater, and he held her neck and shoulder.
“Can you believe this?” she asked him. “From twenty—”
“To double that,” he said.
“Actually,” she said, eyebrow raised. “I’m thirty-nine for seventy-two more hours.”
“That’s right,” he said, recalling the date. “Any plans?”
“I was hoping to have a party,” she said, looking around the charming office.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes. A very, very small party, with a very exclusive roster of invitees. There’s exactly one person on it, in fact.”
Wes smiled. “Do I make the list?” he said, stepping toward her and taking her hand.
“You are the list.”
The pair stood staring at each other for a moment. Eden was so overwhelmed by emotion that she could barely move, but she summoned everything she had just to lean into Wes. They hugged, and they fit right back together like an ancient, long-buried lock and key. They clicked. It was in that warm melding of her cheek on his chest that she suddenly knew the feeling people always talk about: coming home.
“I thought you never cry,” he remembered, wiping her tears and kissing her forehead.
“I’ve been crying a lot lately. I think these last few years I made up for all the time I never did,” she said. “I think that finally in my ripe old age, I am free to weep,” she sniffed. “Being a hag is quite liberating actually.”
“You’re not a hag. You know, you’re more gorgeous now than at twenty.”
“Okay, Pinocchio,” she said, giggling through her tears.
“I’m not lying. Experience is sexy.”
“Well, then I guess at eighty, I’ll be smoldering.”
“You will be,” he said with a smile.
“Will you really spend my birthday with me?”
“Of course,” he said, putting his arm around her and squeezing her. “What are you going to wish for?”
“I can’t tell you that!” she teased, her tearstained face coyly smiling.
“Okay, don’t.” He smiled, touching her neck as he studied her face. Her laugh lines by her eyes were defined, her cheeks a bit hollowed, but Wes believed she was even more beautiful than ever. The years had given her character. Her soul was richer, her heart bigger. She was a better, more centered person for their time apart. Perhaps his mother had suspected this day would come, but as for Wes, he had no idea. Their instantly uncorked affection and honesty transcended his wildest hope.
“All right, I’ll tell you my wish,” Eden said, putting her arms around his waist and looking through his little gold glasses into his eyes. “My wish, for my fortieth birthday, is that I am, somehow, after all that has happened, after all I did to fuck everything up,” she continued, glassy-eyed, “that I am lucky enough to be with you. That I can earn back a place in your life.”
“You never lost it,” he said, kissing her.
“Really?” she asked.
“Really.”
“I hope so. That was my wish. Oh, and also that I can spend my eightieth birthday with you as well.”
“Maple,” he laughed, kissing her. “It’s a date.”
Epilogue
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made.
—Robert Browning
VOWS
Eden Clyde and Wes Hutcheson Bennett
Eden Clyde, best known as the muse to world-renowned artist Otto Clyde, wed award-winning architect Wes Hutcheson Bennett last Saturday evening. The bride and groom dated and lived together for one year, two decades ago, and reunited after the bride’s relationship with the artist ended. “I was devoted to someone older, then I met a wonderful person who was much younger,” she said, touching on her much-written-about relationship with DuPree family scion Chase Lydon. “And then I returned to my first love, someone my exact same age,” she said and smiled. The groom, 40, was conceived at Woodstock, “the ultimate love child,” his beaming wife, Eden, also 40, explained, replicating history as she stood aglow, and six months pregnant, at the cherry-blossom-covered altar. It is the first marriage for both. They recited their vows at the Bowery Hotel ballroom, which now stands at the site of an old diner where the pair first met. “I always knew they were meant to be together,” the bride’s best friend, Allison Rubens, said. “It’s like this fairy tale that someone read only halfway through, and then picked up again years later.” Mrs. Bennett’s son with Mr. Clyde, Cole, concurred. “I’ve never seen my mom so incredibly happy,” he said, beaming. Mr. Bennett’s profession in architectural restoration is all about rebuilding, and the parallel to their relationship is not lost on the couple. “He takes something old and beautiful and breathes new life into it,” his wife said, looking at her husband. “And now, we had our own renovation. Our history remains, but we’re stronger and better than before.”
Artists, actors, friends, and family gathered to toast the couple, whose ringed fingers and first marital kiss were twenty years in the making. “I have no regrets about the lost time,” Wes said, his arm around his new wife’s shoulder. “Whatever she needed to do to get back to me, to get us here tonight”—he paused to kiss her hand—“it was worth it.”
Acknowledgments
This is my first book where I have *zero* in common with the protagonist: a stunning model from the tumbleweed sticks (her) versus an ordinary-looking city rat (moi). Not to be cheese, but this “journey” would not have been possible without editrix extraordinaire Erika Imranyi and my agent, Jennifer Joel. Thank you both for your notes and guidance throughout. Ditto to Dr. Lisa Turvey, devoted pal slash longtime first reader: Your help is essential to this process, and I’m truly grateful for your time, especially when you were knocked up and probably fighting zzz’s.
I also wanted to thank the Ex-Mrs. Hedgefund cheerleading squad of amazing supporters. Your emotional pom-poms meant the world to me: Jeannie Stern, Vanessa Eastman, Dana and Michael Jones, Trip Cullman, Dan Allen, Laura Tanny, Lauren Duff, Tara Lipton, Alexis Mintz, the Heinzes, the Bevilacquas, Jenn Linardos, Nikki Castle, Lynn Biase, Lisa Fallon, Michael Kovner and Jean Doyen de Montaillou, Carrie Karasyov, Julia Van Nice, Kelley Ford Owen, Robyn Brown, Jacky Davy Blake, Vern Lochan, the amaaaazing Beth Klein (who planned a party mid- stork flight), Fréderic Fékkai, Tory Burch, Nanette Lepore, Mark Badgley, and James Mishka. And of course: the fabulous Amanda Walker, and finally, Carol Bell and Barbara Martin, who actually make touring fun.
To LC and the nuggets, you make my return so happy every time. Love you so.
And
To Mom, Dad, and Will: you made the heinous zitty teen years actually fun and formative versus awky and miserable! I’m so glad you cultivated in me the realization early on that the real Beautiful People are the ones who make each other laugh.
About the Author
JILL KARGMAN is the author of The Ex-Mrs. Hedgefund and Momzillas and th
e coauthor of Wolves in Chic Clothing and The Right Address, which were both New York Times bestsellers. She has written for Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Interview, Town & Country, British GQ, Elle, Teen Vogue, Travel + Leisure, and style.com. She grew up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and now lives there with her family.
