Declan was distraught by the seating situation. As soon as he and Eliza arrived and noticed that Helen was doing one of her ethnic dinners, he already felt the soreness in his legs. How was six-four Declan supposed to eat dinner sitting on a smushy pillow with his legs crammed under a table that was only four inches from the ground? It was going to be agony! Eliza knew at once that Declan was perturbed, and she wrapped her arm around him and gave him a commiserating look.
“I already know what you’re thinking,” she said with a smile.
“Is she crazy?” he asked. “This setup should be for a kids’ party, not for grown-ups.”
“I’m sorry,” said Eliza.
“I’ll need a few drinks to be able to sit down. What can I get you?” he asked.
“White wine,” she said.
“Be right back.”
Eliza watched Declan as he walked over to the bar. She tried to look at him objectively, but it was impossible. They had been together so long—almost ten years—that she sometimes forgot that he was not an extension of herself. He was definitely handsome. She loved his height, and that he still had a thick head of dark hair. He was smart and witty and got along with almost everyone. It was nice to know she could just chuck him into any social setting and he would do well. And he was successful; he’d worked for the same bank for years and just kept moving up the ladder. No, she didn’t have any problem with Declan. That’s why the whole cheating thing was hard. It would be purely for selfish, hedonistic reasons, purely an effort to feed her vanity. She really did miss those moments when a look from someone special made her stomach leap. It was so unfair that once you signed on for marriage, you had to shut down that emotion. Sometimes she still had it with Declan, usually when they were at a party and she saw him talking to someone who was impressed by him. That was when he was his most gorgeous to her. That was sick, she realized. She most wanted her husband when someone else did. No, it wasn’t that. It was that sometimes it takes someone else appreciating what you have in order for you to appreciate it.
It was funny: Eliza remembered that she never liked the “getting to know you” phase of dating. Sure, there were the moments of her heart doing flip-flops, but she always craved nestling into the comfort zone, where she was totally relaxed with a person, so she didn’t mind if he saw her in baggy underwear or with a chipped manicure. But now, all she wanted was another shot at the “getting to know you” phase. Of course, the grass is always greener.
“You’re deep in thought,” said Victoria, who had come up beside Eliza without her even noticing.
“Yeah—hey. Sorry,” said Eliza.
Victoria, who was clad in a white tailored Stella McCartney suit, with her hair back in a sleek ponytail, gave Eliza a sly smile. “I can imagine what, or, let me say who, you are thinking about.”
Eliza laughed. Victoria looked good. She always dressed well. Eliza had thought her own silky black Jil Sander pants and tunic looked great, until she saw her friend. Victoria just had innate style.
“So, what’s up?” asked Eliza.
“Nothing much,” said Victoria. “Well, that’s not true. A little, but I’ll update you later. Here comes your hubby.”
Declan approached and the conversation shifted. Victoria had wanted to talk about Wayne, who had been texting her for weeks, but she didn’t want to get into anything when her husband was ten feet away. God, Justin. He repulsed her so much. How the hell could she have married that greaseball? In theory it would be so much easier to just pull the plug now on her marriage and avoid any further pain. But she couldn’t. First of all, there were her boys. They adored Justin. Even though they cringed when she and Justin bickered—which was now an hourly occurrence— they would be devastated if his presence in their lives were relegated to weekend visits. He was barely ever home, but when he was, they were thrilled. But on the other hand, she thought that if there was so much tension in the house, they might turn into serial killers when they grew up. Shit. What should she do?
There were other reasons she knew she wouldn’t leave Justin. She didn’t want to admit she had failed. It wasn’t that she wanted to impress everyone—at this point, she really didn’t care what people thought. There was only one person whose opinion she cared about. Well, she didn’t care about his opinion, but she didn’t want him to be right. And that was her “beloved” father. She had seen him once in fifteen years, and that was when she was walking down the street in New York with Justin. They were newly engaged and had just had lunch on Madison Avenue. When they got out of the restaurant, who did they bump right into but dear old Daddy. Daddy, pushing a stroller with his new wife, Tracy, a blond bimbo with a bad nose job and fake boobs, who was the same age as Victoria. She had cut him out of her life when she found out he was a serial philanderer who had cheated on her mother from the start. After years of throwing out her father’s letters and slamming the phone down on him when he called, she was now face-to-face with him. She was too shocked to flee, so after initial introductions, she watched with peculiar detachment as her father talked to the man who would be her husband. She thought Justin came across well, and she was proud, and in some ways she felt a little more at peace with her dad. That’s why she took his call the next day. And when he warned Victoria that she was making a huge mistake if she married Justin, that he was all wrong for her and “had shifty eyes,” she slammed the phone down on him again and wiped him out of her life forever. If she divorced Justin, her dad would be proven right. And she couldn’t have that. No way. Not after all the pain he had caused her.
“Dinner,” said Helen, ushering her guests into the dining room. She flicked off her shoes in the foyer and encouraged others to follow suit before strolling to the head of the table and plopping herself down.
“This is a feast,” said Harry appreciatively.
“You sit next to me,” Helen said, yanking Harry down. It was the first time since he and Tessa had arrived that they were not holding hands, making out, feeling each other up, or exhibiting any other forms of PDA, and Helen wanted to seize the moment. Helen had always been the trophy wife in her husband’s circle of friends, and had liked that role. But now here was Tessa, a younger, thinner, and prettier trophy wife, and Helen felt as if her role was usurped.
“Okay, and Tessa can sit on my other side when she gets back from the loo,” said Harry.
“Right,” said Helen. For a grown man, he was acting like a baby. Yes, Tessa was beautiful. She had no body fat, shiny blond hair, and legs as long as palm trees, but come on! She had never seen Harry so gaga. And he was an attractive man, in that tall, thin, shaggy-haired British way. He’d definitely had his share of the ladies. Gosh, new love. Helen couldn’t remember what that felt like. She glanced down the table to where Wesley had perched himself next to Eliza and Leelee. Sometimes she couldn’t believe this guy was her husband. She hated to admit it, but sometimes he felt like a perfect stranger.
Helen had seen pictures of Wesley as a child, and he was gorgeous, with an ethereal beauty that proper English children often have. But now that he had grown up, his serene features had washed out a bit, making him entirely forgettable. It was almost as if he were slipping away, which is how Helen felt about their marriage. There was no rancor, no drama, no tension. They both led separate lives. Wesley was obsessed with movies and went practically every day or night, and when he wasn’t doing that he was taking Lauren to school or classes and tweaking a script that he had been working on for several years. Helen was busy with her photo projects, going on yoga retreats and New Age seminars, and generally trying to heal the spiritual side of her that she felt was wounded. Their life was a little too sleepy when they were alone, so that’s why they liked having parties.
“Helen, this is amazing!” shouted Leelee from her end of the table. “I can’t believe you did all of this! Bravo!”
Everyone held up a glass and toasted the hostess. Leelee was genuinely impressed, and definitely a little jealous. See, this is how her life was
supposed to be. She was supposed to be throwing these amazing parties, living in a huge mansion with an around-the-clock staff to tend to her every need. That’s what she thought when she’d married Brad. She glanced over at her husband, who looked positively beefy squeezed between Victoria and Tessa. Tessa was laughing at something Brad was saying, and Leelee wondered what he could possibly say that was so funny. Tessa probably wouldn’t think it was so funny if she knew what a loser Brad was. It was so hard being around people who were more successful than Brad, and that was usually the case these days. She had married middle management. And now he was going gray, getting fatter, and had generally nothing to talk about because his job selling equities or whatever the hell he did in that bank was so boring. He was no Jack Porter, that was for sure.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you all for coming,” said Wesley, rising with his glass in hand. “I’d like to toast first my dearest friend in the world, Harry. And say that I still think he’s taking the piss out of me, because I can’t believe such a gorgeous creature would marry this old cad…”
“I bribed her!” shouted Harry.
“But seriously, welcome to our home. Tessa, you are so charming, and it’s lovely to meet you. I hope you will come more often and visit us—without Harry, if possible. And I want to thank my lovely wife for such a fantastic dinner. Thank you!” Wesley raised his glass while Helen nodded.
Eliza thought Wesley had given such a cute toast that she couldn’t understand why Helen thought he was so dull. Victoria thought Wesley was so physically unattractive that she couldn’t imagine sleeping with him. Leelee wondered who was richer, Wesley or Harry? And Helen didn’t even listen to what her husband said. She was thinking about that hot guy from YAS class.
“I have a surprise, everyone!” said Helen. She rang a bell, and seconds later three belly dancers as well as several men toting musical instruments entered the room.
“You didn’t!” screamed Leelee.
“Let’s boogie, people!” shouted Helen. She stood up and lowered the lights.
The musicians started playing and the belly dancers started shaking their tambourines and strutting their stuff. Throughout the evening the waiters had constantly refilled glasses and everyone was more or less inebriated, so with the entrance of the dancers the atmosphere positively ignited. Soon many of the guests had risen and were joining the dancers. As the drums thumped, the candles flickered and the people dancing cast dramatic shadows across the walls.
Leelee and Helen were mock–belly dancing with each other, laughing and throwing their hands in the air. Harry and Tessa were practically having sex on the dance floor, so immersed in their own little newlywed world that they couldn’t have cared less what people thought. Wesley, Eliza, and Declan were avowed nondancers—all had on many occasions claimed that they were rhythmically impaired and incapable—so they sat there and drank and watched their friends. They didn’t say a word; the music was too loud and they were immersed in their thoughts. Tonight Eliza secretly wished she had rhythm or grace so that she could get up there and just let loose. But more than that, she wished that Declan would grab her by the hand and stand her up and dance with her. She wanted him to do something different, display a spontaneous impulse and just go with it. She wanted to be wooed.
Most surprising of all were Justin and Victoria, who were passionately dancing in a provocative manner. It was a moment when the line between love and hate is blurred and emotion just takes control. The dancing got more and more frantic, and Victoria and Justin kept giving each other strange looks as they danced closer and closer, until Justin turned away and started dancing in the same manner with the belly dancer. Not missing a beat, Victoria danced over to Helen and Leelee and spun around furiously. Sweaty and excited, all three ripped off their jackets and danced in their bras or camisoles.
The alcohol, the music, the richness of the food, the darkness of the night, all culminated to give the room added intensity. Perhaps watching people newly in love when others felt at the end of love made everything more poignant. But whatever it was, that was the moment when all four women truly realized that they were going to change their lives. There would be no going back. They wanted every night to be like this. They wanted to hear the thumping of the drums, the ringing of the tambourines, the pulsing of their hearts.
•• 17 ••
Declan was so proud of Eliza for continuing to work after the birth of their children. He couldn’t stand the hypocrisy of American women who were so concerned with equal rights and feminism and then chucked their entire careers as soon as they had children and expected the men to bring home the paycheck and be equal partners with dealing with the kids and household problems. How does that mesh with the whole emancipation thing? he would ask, adding that then the whole responsibility of making a living is put on the husband, while the woman gets a full-time nanny and demands to be taken seriously. Eliza half agreed with him, but half disagreed, too, so it was always a debate. She said that a lot of these women who had intense careers like investment banking or the law didn’t anticipate how hard it would be to leave their children at home, and they had unfortunately chosen careers that didn’t accommodate part-time.
Eliza was also proud that she worked. Sure, she could mostly do it from home and it was on her terms, but it was still employment, she still made money. She would have liked it if Declan appreciated the fact that she worked a little more, and, you know, didn’t take it for granted just because his mother worked his entire childhood, but he never gave her extra kudos. Sometimes she just wished that he wouldn’t be so hard on her. It was always write more, exercise more, clean the house more, play with the kids more. She often craved softness, a husband who would say, Everything is amazing no matter how you do it. But that was a fairy tale. And he was right, she supposed, to kick her ass. She received her accolades from her friends, who were very impressed that she could juggle motherhood and writing. The truth was, writing came easily to Eliza, and so she couldn’t really congratulate herself. In fact, she knew that she should push herself a little bit harder and try to write a book. Doing articles is one thing, but anyone can do them. It was all about a book.
But for now, Eliza was a contributing editor of Chat magazine and wrote almost every celebrity interview, as well as a small column titled “What’s Happening in L.A.?” that covered openings of stores, restaurants, and art exhibitions. She had considerable leeway in choosing who or what to cover, so no one would think it odd that she had selected Tyler Trask for her next cover story. After all, he was a major movie star who had a major movie coming out in a few months, and as luck would have it, he was in L.A. filming another picture, so it would be easy to coordinate a photo shoot. And the initial phone calls with his publicist had gone extremely well; they were excited to get him on a cover— after his incident in the bar he was considered somewhat controversial and therefore not easy to place. A date and time for Eliza to meet him had been set up quickly, and when Eliza mentioned that she had covered him for Chat a few years earlier, the publicist had pretended to remember her fondly. It was set that Eliza would meet Tyler at two o’clock on Friday at his trailer on the Sony lot, and they would take it from there. When Eliza hung up the phone in her office, her hand was shaking. She was going to do it.
“That was great,” said Mark as he rolled off Helen. He reached over to the side of his bed and grabbed his bottle of Aquafina and guzzled it down. Helen distractedly watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down with each glug and wished she had a cigarette. Or, better yet, some pot.
“Do you have any pot?” she asked.
“I’m not into that,” said Mark, running a hand through his long greasy hair. “I like to keep my body healthy.”
It was a good body to keep healthy, thought Helen. Mark from YAS had tight muscles, not a glimmer of fat on him, and a perfect suntan. A real California surfer boy.
“Shall we try it again?” said Helen, flipping over on top of him.
“Lady, you’re crazy!”
“What? You don’t have the stamina?” asked Helen, disappointed. She’d had an orgasm, but the effects of it seemed to dissipate quickly, and now something seemed to be missing. Mark was cute, and their lunch had been very interesting; he told her of his acting ambitions and mentioned that he worked at a Montessori nursery school to support himself, and they even discussed his newfound Buddhism. Everything was promising, and Helen had been so excited that she suggested moving on to his small apartment in Venice.
This is it! thought Helen. I’m finally about to come alive!
Pretty much as soon as they walked in the door of his shabby rental, they pulled off their clothes and landed with a thump on his unmade bed (really just a mattress on the floor), entwined in each other’s arms. Probably because he was an actor, Mark took the act of fornication very seriously and dramatically; there were long, drawn-out passionate kisses, lots of nipple nuzzling and cunnilingus. It was all well and good, except that Helen sensed they had no bond. It just felt so empty. She thought of sex with Wesley, which was now a rare occurrence, and wondered if it was better than this. It was odd, but she couldn’t remember. Maybe because she wasn’t usually sober when they did it.
“I have the stamina…um, but you have to get me excited,” he said, pushing her head down between his legs.
It was the first time Helen got a close look at his penis, and she wasn’t impressed. She took it into her mouth disinterestedly and started to suck on it. But after a while, his flaccid little man meat remained limp, so she stopped.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“Sorry,” he said, rising. He seemed embarrassed, and quickly picked up his boxers off the floor and put them on. “I guess I need some wheatgrass juice or something. That wine at lunch did me in. Wanna go get a Jamba Juice and come back and try this again?”
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