The Cinderella Pact

by Sarah Strohmeyer

  “My God, you scared me,” she says, putting her hand to her chest. “You completely creeped me out standing in the doorway, staring. What are you doing?”

  “Uh, nothing.” I step in and close the door. The office is bizarrely quiet for five in the afternoon. The receptionist said everyone was in a meeting. “I think the question of the moment is what are you doing?”

  “Leaving.” She flips through another file and tosses it in the trash. “Probably.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “That I’d rather pack up my office and be good to go before I get fired than have everyone trotting back and forth, whispering as I pack up my desk.”

  “Oh.” I have no idea what’s going on.

  “I never could have done this without you, Nola. I hope you know that.”

  “Get fired?”

  “I don’t mean that. I mean, tell off Ted Kline in front of the firm.”

  Now I’m the one with my hand to my chest. Ted Kline is the most powerful lawyer in New Jersey. Taking him aside and delivering a few choice words is one thing, but the whole firm?

  “Listen, Nancy . . .”

  She pushes me back. “Don’t talk me out of it. For months, ever since I told you guys that the reason I let myself blow up was so Kline would lose interest in me, I’ve been thinking about what it means to stand up for yourself. It’s been my little project, shrinking my body while building my self-esteem.”

  Finished packing, Nancy goes over to the fire and warms her hands, though it is perfectly warm in here and the fire’s not really that hot. “I kept telling myself that maybe Kline wasn’t so bad and maybe I made the situation worse than it was because I was under a lot of pressure as a young associate or because Ron and I were having financial difficulties.”

  Financial difficulties—that’s a new twist.

  “Then, this morning, he did it again. We were standing in the elevator and I noticed him ever so slightly pat the ass of Tanya Williamson, a kid who’s so fresh out of law school she still has the bar tapes memorized.”

  I know “bar tapes” has something to do with the law, but hearing the words made me think of some Paris Hilton Internet spam.

  “That’s when I realized that even if I’m not on his radar anymore, this guy is constantly on the prowl for fresh meat. He’s not going to quit until someone steps forward and slaps him down. You following me, kiddo?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “OK.” She goes over to her drawer, pulls out a compact and lipstick, and does her lips so they are an affirmative brownish red. Goes very nice with the hair, actually. “I’m ready.”

  “I’ll be right here waiting for you when you get back.”

  “No way.” She takes my hand. “You’re going with me. You don’t think I’d jump into that shark pool without a witness, do you? How’re you at raising your right hand and swearing to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”

  If she knew about Belinda, she’d know better than to ask a ridiculous question like that.

  “Gentlemen, ladies.” Nancy marches in ahead of me, smart and efficient in her suit, a heavy file folder tucked under her arm. I can tell by the way everyone snaps to attention that she is a commanding force here.

  Me, on the other hand, not so commanding. The serious faces gathered around the oval table can’t help but glance at me questioningly, I’m so out of place in my black elastic-waist skirt, tan ribbed turtleneck sweater, and scuffed boots. Clearly they have concluded I am one of Nancy’s lowlife clients, the kind who sue candy bar companies for getting their dentures stuck on caramel.

  “This meeting’s almost over, Nancy. I thought you were too busy on the Boardman case to attend.” A white-haired man with a flushed face and a loud pink-and-navy striped tie that you see on the cover of catalogs but you can’t imagine some real man wearing is standing by a chart with all sorts of zigs and zags on it. CLIENTS CONVICTED? BILLABLE HOURS? It’s a mystery.

  “Maybe someone here can bring her up to speed.”

  “I don’t need to be brought up to speed, and I don’t give a tinker’s damn about this firm’s third quarterly report.”

  There is a shocked gasp, the kind of shock one might express, say, if it were revealed that the Reverend Pat Robertson had conducted a longtime affair with a hooker—a gay hooker, at that. I suppose this is what passes for scandal at the Barlow, Cafferty and Kline law firm, not giving a “tinker’s damn” about quarterly reports.

  “Nancy,” Kline is saying, his tone instantly patronizing. “If it’s outside the scope of the firm’s fiscal health, then at least wait until the end.”

  “Oh, it’s within the scope of the firm’s fiscal health, all right.” Nancy slams the file onto the table and opens it, pulling out a stack of copies that she distributes. When I get mine, I see it is a sworn affidavit of some sort. A “quick, sleazy” read (the kind we do best at Sass!) tells me it’s from one of Kline’s clients swearing that he sexually harassed her during a divorce case.

  If Mr. Kline hadn’t gotten me more alimony than I asked for as well as full custody of the children and our primary and vacation home, I would have walked, Ms. Suzanne Cantos of Cranbury, New Jersey, writes.

  Hmm. Now what would Belinda say about something like that?

  “Before we go any further, I think that for obvious reasons this meeting should not be open to nonmembers.”

  I look up to see Kline glaring at me.

  “Right.” I put down the affidavit. (Too bad, because I was just getting to the part where Kline suggests after taking the poor, well, not poor exactly, former Mrs. Cantos out to dinner, that she and her fantastic body go back to his place to celebrate.)

  Nancy starts to protest but stops, since Kline’s obviously got a point.

  As I walk toward the door, glad, really, to get out of there, I whisper to Nancy some Belinda-ish words of advice: “If you only stick up for Mrs. Cantos and Tanya Williamson, you’re not sticking up for yourself. Keep that in mind.”

  “I will,” she whispers back. “Thanks.” She gives my arm a squeeze.

  For the next hour, I make small talk with the receptionist who, it turns out, is a complete Bon Jovi groupie like Eileen and, by the way, occasionally sleeps with Kline to keep her job. I hope Nancy in her wisdom had the foresight to interview her, too, because this woman makes Ms. Cantos’s story look like Kline wanted to hold hands.

  “For the record, he’s got a super-small dick. You can barely see it,” the receptionist informs me. “Then again, those kinds of guys always do.”

  Now, that’s the kind of news you can use.

  It’s not until six thirty, long after the receptionist has pushed in her chair and gone for the day, that Nancy emerges, ominously alone. Her expression is taut, defiant, and I know immediately who’s won.

  “Give me your keys, and I’ll bring your car around,” I say. “And I’ll take a box while I’m at it.”

  Which is when Nancy bends over and dashes for the ladies’ room, where she promptly throws up in a Barlow, Cafferty and Kline private loo for the very last time.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  To: belinda.apple@sassmag.com

  From: david.stanton@sassmag.com

  Re: Holiday Party

  Dear Belinda:

  After learning that you would be in town for Eileen Devlin’s wedding, I made sure that Lori DiGrigio, who is eagerly handling this nightmare of a holiday party I’m throwing, would see to it that you received an invitation. The one she sent to your Deeside address in Scotland was returned with a somewhat puzzling note claiming that you do not live at that address, that you have never lived there and would Sass! magazine please “cease and desist” from sending further correspondence to Balmoral Castle. (?)

  Anyway, I do hope you’ve received my invite and that you will come. I promise there will be no talk of whether you have or have not been writing your column.

  However, I should confess that I am CONFUSED IN CALIFORNIA, who wrote you
about being torn between a woman I have known for many years and a woman I have met recently. That’s one of my reasons for inviting you to this party, my selfish need to speak to you, alone.

  As an update, there is a tremendous amount of pressure on me from all sides to allow Olivia to permanently move in with me in Princeton, though she hates the East Coast and has been complaining constantly about the rain and snow since she arrived. She much prefers sunny Southern California.

  I tried to talk her out of the move on the premise that time and distance apart would allow us an opportunity to “reevaluate” our relationship. She countered that I was commitment-phobic and that the only way for me to “cure myself” would be for her to show just how committed she was on her end by hiring a moving company to deliver all her belongings to my doorstep last Friday as a surprise!

  Talk about an ethical dilemma.

  Nor has it helped matters that my father’s health continues to decline, and he is not expected to live throughout the upcoming year. Or that my mother back in L.A. is so in love with Olivia that she has sent her own mother’s platinum and diamond Medici ring to a jewelry store in Princeton so that it may be reset and presented to Olivia at the party in front of four hundred people.

  Help!

  I know that in the past you’ve advised me to really consider whether my feelings for Nola are merely a distraction and that many “commitment jerks,” as you so quaintly phrased it, often decide they’re in love with women they’ve just met right when they’re about to make a big commitment. I’ve thought about this and I can honestly say that I’m past that phase in my life and that what I feel for Nola goes beyond diversion.

  It is hard for me to describe my feelings since, being male, I apparently am biologically incapable of doing so. But in a nutshell, without getting sappy, Nola does it for me. That’s all I have to say. When I look at her, when she laughs or smiles and rambles in that endearing way of hers, all I know is that she is the person I want by my side for the rest of my life. I’ve never felt that way before.

  And yet . . . there’s Olivia already taking over my house, a beautiful, understanding woman I’ve known since I was a teenager, a woman who’s stuck by me through my moments of supreme pigheadedness. Is it right to simply say thanks, but no thanks for our years together? To say, uh, there’s this woman who works at the magazine who seems kind of kooky whom I’d like to get to know first?

  I can hear Olivia now, accusing me of being an incurable adolescent, and maybe she’s right.

  So perhaps you see why I have to meet you—before it’s too late.

  Please come.

  David

  I have read and reread this letter so frequently that I recite whole passages by heart as I lie awake at night, unable to sleep because I am thinking about what could be and what never will be with Chip.

  Nola does it for me. Ditto and double ditto, as Eileen and I would say when were kids. Maybe I’m biologically challenged too on this front, because while in the past I’ve called other guys cute or drop-dead gorgeous hunks, I am at a loss for words when it comes to David A. Stanton III.

  He does it for me. Yup. That’s about it.

  So what to do? Do I arrive on his doorstep like Olivia’s moving men and present myself? I can’t. I can’t because every word of love Chip has uttered has been to Belinda. Aside from the occasional smile or his playful kiss as my boyfriend in the Annex (which was before he was even interested in me), Chip has said nothing directly to me besides, “How’s that car working out?” or “We’re looking for an extra feature this spring on the lipstick line. We just nailed the Elan makeup account.”

  Sometimes I wonder if in these e-mails he is talking about the same Nola. I have to beat back those old insecurities that he can’t possibly be referring to me, the frumpy editor in Lane Bryant Venezia Supremes. And then I remind myself of what I’ve learned during my “exciting weight-loss journey that is guaranteed to change my life forever.”

  I am and have always been worthy of great love, no matter how many extra inches of denim around my thighs.

  Fortunately, I have our much-awaited shopping spree to look forward to. Our promise to meet six months later at the Willoughby Café and celebrate the Cinderella Pact is here. Nancy has even reserved the table under a different name as part of a grand scheme. I only hope Chester Markham is in the building.

  It is weird to think of how we were back then. Nancy was looking at a divorce. Deb was attached to her husband like a lamprey eel. And now Nancy’s looking to get back with her husband and it’s Deb who’s considering divorce.

  OK, so our shopping spree and Willoughby Café date is also on the day of the famous Stanton Winter Solstice Gala. You don’t think I know that? I know that. Look, I need some kind of celebration to keep my mind off the fact that every other woman in Princeton is having her hair done and her nails lacquered in preparation for the big event.

  Apparently, all the salons are booked starting at six a.m. and all the decent eveningwear is sold out. My landlady, Bitsy—who has been invited because she heads the Princeton Historic Revitalization Committee—has been whining that she had to order her dress online. The horrors! At least Nancy and Deb don’t know Chip, so I won’t be subjected to hearing how they blew the bank on a Carmen Marc Valvo cocktail dress.

  It is snowing lightly on December 20, the shortest day of the year and what I dread will turn out to be the longest night of my life. Nassau Street is so sparkling white and festive, it might as well be the movie set for It’s a Wonderful Life (the colorized version), what with shoppers bustling by with bags of gifts and carolers singing on the sidewalks. The quaint eighteenth-century street is decorated with pine firs and tasteful little lights that practically scream high-end retail.

  Deb and Nancy look fantastic when we rendezvous outside the Willoughby. Deb is in her favorite skinny jeans, high-heeled faux leather boots, and a Calvin Klein peacoat. Her blond hair is no longer bright and frowzy. It is a rich honey color, pulled back straight from her head in a casual, though sophisticated, ponytail, and her makeup is sleek and tasteful. She bears no resemblance to the shy dumpling in the pink jumper back in June.

  In her Burberry trenchcoat, Nancy is equally stunning—though a bit paler than usual. She still hasn’t been able to find a firm willing to bring her on as a senior partner, and so she’s been rambling around her big house, depressed and fretting.

  Word on the street is that Ted Kline has smeared her reputation, accusing her of being one of those women who imagine sexual harassment and is out to ruin the careers of all white males. Gee, who would have expected such nasty behavior from the most ruthless attorney in New Jersey?

  As for me? I am wearing a clinging cashmere twinset and black velveteen pants—the product of our fabulous shopping spree. At Nancy and Deb’s insistence, I went whole hog. In Ann Taylor alone I bought a three-quarter length plush wool coat, a fine knit cashmere turtleneck in gray, and three pairs of flare pants, including this pair in velveteen.

  Nancy also convinced me to splurge on the bone-colored cashmere twinset I’m wearing and a pencil skirt. Don’t even talk to me about the suede slingbacks ($108!!) I bought to go with these outfits. I was so out of control, my saleswoman wrote her home phone number on her business card—in case I needed her in an emergency!

  Figuring it was too late to turn back now, at Talbot’s I picked up a wrap dress, several camis and tank tops, not to mention an entire suit. Then there were the shimmering velvet skirt and belts (I never buy belts!) made out of brass and glass stones I threw in at Chico’s, where I also snagged a green ribbed turtleneck that clung to every inch of me and thigh-high black boots in leather. The pièce de résistance? A set of Dolce & Gabbana stretch silk string bikini underwear. (That’s when Visa wanted to talk to me personally to make sure my card hadn’t been stolen.)

  By the end I was giddy and possibly delusional, as I could hear my mother’s voice chastising me for spending so much on myself at Christmas when children
are hungry and homeless. So I wrote out a check for $500 and slipped it into the bucket of the Salvation Army Santa Claus. He handed me a candy cane in thanks, which I bent down and gave to a kid who was hanging around for the rejects. When I looked up, I saw It in the window of Ann Taylor.

  It is the most beautiful dress in champagne silk with adorable satin ribbon ties at the waist. It is strapless, though there is a matching silk shawl. My body literally aches to wear such a thing, which I immediately realize is a ridiculous extravagance.

  I mean, where would I wear a strapless dupioni silk dress in champagne? This isn’t something you can throw on for running out to the grocery store or even wear to work. It wouldn’t be appropriate for Eileen’s rehearsal dinner, for which I bought the wrap dress at Talbot’s today. No, this is the kind of glorious item that would hang in my closet for years like some pathetic reminder of my fleeting youth, haunting me, reminding me of the dances and balls I never attended and the kisses I never received.

  Eventually, when I turn eighty, I will have to resign myself to my spinsterhood, pack the Dress up in its original garment bag, and take it down to the church auxiliary, where I will say in a shaky old lady’s voice, “Here. When you sell it, make sure you note that it was never worn.” Did I mention the tears welling up in my faded old-lady eyes?

  “OK,” Nancy announces, shaking me out of my dress lust. “Are we ready to go in?”

  Deb opens the door to the Willoughby. “I think I’ve got my lines down. How about you, Nola?”

  “No problem.” We’ve only gone over the script seven times.

  The Willoughby is packed with shoppers, even though it’s late in the afternoon. We arrive right on time and, sure enough, there is Chester Markham, buzzing about, making small talk with his chic clientele.