The Arrangement

by Sarah Dunn

  After nearly a year out of work, Owen managed to find a job as a corporate recruiter. In his best moments, he thought of it as marketing people to jobs and jobs to people, but really it was just spending a lot of time on the phone and on the Internet tracking down individuals through their LinkedIn profiles and trying to wrestle their cell phone numbers out of them so he could hound them into changing jobs so he could earn his split of 15 percent of their first year’s salary.

  Owen had developed something of a specialty, matching medical professionals to new opportunities, and he’d even begun to contemplate leaving the small firm he worked for and setting up his own shop. The thought of it was depressing, though. The thought that this was his forever job, that this was his legacy, was almost too much to bear. He wasn’t interested enough in money for its own sake. If he had been, he could have embraced the entrepreneurial aspect of starting his own recruiting company; he could spend time implementing systems and motivating his employees, maximizing profits and expanding into new markets, but instead, well, instead—

  “I wanted to reach out to you to see if you are interested in a new opportunity—

  “And if I may, can I ask, what is your current salary?

  “Would you be willing to relocate for the right opportunity? What about Danbury, Connecticut?

  “I see. Well, yes, Danbury isn’t for everyone—

  “Can I ask you, do you know of anyone, perhaps an individual not as senior as yourself, who might be interested in a new opportunity in your field that might involve relocating?

  “Yes, well, thank you for your time. Is it okay if I reach out to you in the future if I find any opportunities in your field that would meet both your salary and relocation targets?”

  It was either that, or this:

  “You’ll show up tomorrow for the interview? It’s at Mount Sinai. It’s at three o’clock. Can I confirm with them that you’ll be there at three?

  “And you know where you’re going. I sent you an e-mail yesterday with the details—

  “I’ll send you the e-mail again right now. There. You should have it. Do you have it?

  “All right, one last thing. You haven’t been returning their calls, and it’s made them nervous, and they’ve expressed concern to me that you aren’t interested in the position. I’d like you to take down this number and call them right when we hang up the phone. Do you have a pen and paper handy? Okay, I’ll hold.”

  Good God, this job! It was like babysitting. And these were well-compensated medical professionals. Specialty nurses who made six figures a year. Lab technicians, radiology professionals, diagnostic sonographers. Even doctors!

  “Okay, now call and confirm that you will be there at three tomorrow. Can you do that right after we hang up? Great. And I’ll be following up with them in five minutes to confirm that you’ve reached out to them.”

  Now imagine having those two conversations over and over again, day after day, for the rest of your life.

  You might want to have sex with strangers too.

  * * *

  It was at the behest of Hugh Willix, his personal attorney, that Gordon snuck into Kelly’s office while she was off at yoga to see if she had signed the papers.

  “They’re not here,” Gordon said into his phone while he was creeping around.

  “What do you mean?” asked Hugh.

  “They’re not on her desk where I put them. I can’t find them.”

  “Look for them.”

  “I looked. I’m looking. I’ve looked everywhere.”

  “Maybe she signed them and put them somewhere in your office.”

  “I don’t think so. If she did, she didn’t mention it.”

  “Shit,” said Hugh. “Tell me again exactly what you said to her.”

  “I said what you told me to say,” said Gordon. “I said I wanted her to sign some papers about our estate. Nothing more.”

  “And now you can’t find the papers.”

  “No,” said Gordon. “Should I ask her where they are?”

  “No. Don’t do anything,” Hugh said. “Let me think on this a bit.”

  “Let me think on this a bit” meant at least three billable hours, which would cost Gordon eighteen hundred dollars, but Gordon was not in the mood to pick nits.

  “Why do you need to think?”

  “If she took them to an attorney, we could have a situation on our hands.”

  “Kelly wouldn’t do that,” said Gordon. “She wouldn’t even know how to find a lawyer.”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  * * *

  Kelly had, in fact, done just that.

  “So, your husband asked you to sign these papers, and you told him you wanted to read them first, but instead you brought them here.”

  “Yes,” said Kelly. “I just want to know what I’m being asked to sign.”

  “That’s wise,” said one of the two lawyers she was facing. “You’re a smart woman.”

  “I don’t want to sign something I don’t understand.”

  “Of course,” he said. “Now, before we go any further, tell us what you know about your prenup.”

  “I don’t have a prenup.”

  “I mean your and Gordon Allen’s prenuptial agreement. Do you know what it contains, in broad strokes?”

  “Gordon and I don’t have a prenup.”

  The young lawyer looked over at Lawyer Number Two, who had been furtively zipping through his BlackBerry under the conference table and totally silent up until he heard this.

  “You don’t have a prenup,” said Lawyer Number Two.

  “No.”

  “You never signed a prenup?” Lawyer Number Two was clearly taking over.

  “No.”

  “Gordon Allen and his attorneys never asked you to sign a prenuptial agreement of any kind?”

  “Nope,” said Kelly. “Am I not being clear?”

  “How is that possible?” Lawyer Number One asked Lawyer Number Two. “The guy’s gotta be worth ten billion dollars. That’s legal malpractice.”

  “We got married pretty impulsively,” Kelly said.

  “What do you mean, ‘impulsively’?”

  “Well, we dated for a while, and then he got a divorce from Elaine—it wasn’t my fault, she’s a major-league bitch—and the day the divorce was final we flew to Vegas.”

  “And in Vegas…”

  “We got married.”

  “You got legally married.”

  “Yes. Legally married. Is there another kind?”

  “Was Gordon Allen compos mentis at the time?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Was he in his right mind? Does he have Alzheimer’s? A history of cognitive difficulties of any kind?”

  “We’ve been married for over six years,” Kelly said. “If Gordon was out of his mind, I’m pretty sure I’d know.”

  It was, in hindsight, a freakish stroke of luck that Kelly was halfway through Philippa Gregory’s novel The Other Boleyn Girl when she first met Gordon Allen. Kelly was not what you would call a reader. She’d dropped out of high school in eleventh grade and could count the books she’d read since then on one hand. But Kelly picked up the book in a nail salon during a French pedicure and found herself turning pages, so she’d slipped it into her purse on her way out.

  Gordon Allen was stuck in Key West because his yacht needed a two-and-three-eighths-inch bilge strainer that no one had in stock in the entire Western Hemisphere, apparently, and he was alone in the Screaming Lobster at three in the afternoon because he was mad at his wife, Elaine, and at her bitchy friend Coco and at Zeek, the faggoty hairdresser Elaine insisted on shipping down with them each winter to the Caymans. The Screaming Lobster was dark as night and smelled like booze and fries and fish. The decor—dark wood and droopy fishing nets, rusty anchors and weathered wooden mermaids—matched his mood.

  “Hi, I’m Kelly and I’m going to be your server,” said Kelly.

  “I’m Gordon.”

 
; “What can I get you, Gordon?”

  “What’s good?”

  “It’s all good,” Kelly said with a smile.

  “Is it, now.”

  When Kelly came back with his Glenlivet, Gordon didn’t waste any time. “I just got off my yacht.”

  “Oh yeah? Everybody in this place just got off a yacht.”

  “I’ll bet mine’s the biggest.”

  “That’s what they all say,” said Kelly.

  After two hours and six scotches, Gordon left Kelly a thousand-dollar tip and a business card with a phone number scrawled on the back. This was not the first time something like this had happened to Kelly. Waiting tables at the Screaming Lobster was about two inches shy of prostitution, at least for a girl with a face and a body like Kelly’s.

  When she got back to her apartment, Kelly popped open one of her roommate’s Coronas and sat down in front of her computer. She Googled the name on the business card, out of curiosity more than anything.

  Gordon Allen. Sixty-two. Real estate developer. Prominent Republican donor. Outspoken conservative. Anti-environmentalist. Racist. Fascist. Bigot.

  Net worth?

  Twelve billion dollars.

  Refusing to have sexual intercourse with Gordon Allen before their wedding night turned out to be easier than Kelly could have ever imagined.

  For one thing, Kelly had a boyfriend at the time. His name was Renaldo, and he worked as a day-hire deckhand who dealt drugs in international waters. He was Argentinean, and he was extremely popular with the ladies, because he had an unending supply of Xanax and Vicodin and Klonopin and Oxy, as well as ones for the super-old gals like Darvocet and Seconal. He even had fen-phen! It would put a hole in your heart, but it kept the weight off! Whether he made the ladies happy in other ways was not something Kelly chose to waste her time thinking about. She and Renaldo knew they had no real future together, but they dug each other and they got each other.

  Gordon didn’t know a thing about Renaldo, of course. Gordon would have had a major problem with Renaldo.

  Kelly had had a few rich old boyfriends, but she didn’t have anything to show for it. Well, that wasn’t true; she had some things. Gifts. Little presents she kept hidden under her mattress. Her jewels. A Cartier watch. Things she held on to, thinking someday she might be forced to sell them. She didn’t want to be one of those strippers who waited too long to go to nursing school. At some point, the world was going to stop putting twenties in your G-string and start tossing quarters instead. Best to plan ahead.

  It started out as something of an experiment. Like Anne Boleyn, Kelly slowly ceded her married lover territory, and with each new drawing and redrawing of the borders, he was permitted to explore new undiscovered terrain. She said she was shy. She respected the institution of marriage. She was not that kind of girl.

  It was a long-drawn-out, Oscar-worthy cocktease. And it worked.

  “I’m filing for divorce.”

  “Not because of me, I hope,” said Kelly.

  “Of course because of you,” said Gordon. “I’m in love with you.”

  “Don’t say that, Gordy,” said Kelly. “You’re a married man.”

  “Not for long.”

  * * *

  Owen brought home pizza for dinner, and the two of them ate off paper plates at the kitchen island with paper towels for napkins.

  “I think I might have found someone to take Randall off our hands,” said Lucy.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “There’s a guy up here who loves roosters.”

  “Does he eat them?”

  “At this point, I don’t really care. But no. Apparently he just likes to rescue roosters. I’m sure he’s a very normal and well-adjusted individual.”

  “Does he have a farm or something?”

  “I would assume so. I hope they aren’t living in his house. Anyhow, I got his number.”

  “Do you think you-know-who will be upset?” Owen gestured toward Wyatt, who had already eaten and was wandering around, wordlessly, looking both focused and confused.

  “Upset would be good,” said Lucy. “Upset would show awareness of feelings, and empathy, even.”

  “You’re right, he will not be upset,” said Owen. “Maybe we can try to make him upset. Take him on the trip to give away Randall. We could all stand there and cry.”

  “I’m not sure that’s the best idea,” said Lucy. “Anyhow, I was reading about this online. The problem with Randall is, he thinks we’re chickens.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Because we raised him the way we did, in the house. And because we let him roam around outside near us. He thinks we’re his, uh”—Lucy glanced over at Wyatt, who was pacing in and out of the kitchen, touching the sides of the door frame with his fingertips each time he passed through, muttering to himself—“ladies.”

  “He thinks we’re his ladies?”

  “Yes, he does. That’s why he’s charging us all the time. The other day, he chased me around the car. I had to dive into the passenger seat.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah,” said Lucy. “And I’ve been using the umbrella and poking it at him, and then opening it up to scare him, but it’s starting not to work. He’s not afraid of the umbrella anymore. He’s trying to make the umbrella his lady too. Plus he’s having his way with all of the chickens too much, I think. I think they’re getting tired of it.”

  “Is that even possible for a chicken?”

  “If you watch them, they’re like, Dude, get off me.”

  “So what do you want to do?”

  “I want to give him to the rooster guy,” said Lucy. “Apparently the minute you’re scared of your rooster, you need to get rid of him.”

  “Let’s do it,” said Owen.

  “Oh, and honey?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re covered in cat hair,” said Lucy.

  “What? I am? I don’t think this is from a cat—”

  “Honey.” Lucy picked a piece of orange cat hair off his blazer and held it up. “This is a cat hair. And we don’t have a cat.”

  Owen just sat there, half guilty, half caught, a little confused. Lucy stared him straight in the eye for a moment that felt like it went on forever.

  “Do us both a favor,” she finally said, “and put a lint roller in the glove compartment. Hey, Wyatt, bath time. Upstairs.”

  * * *

  Well, it’s official. She knows.

  Owen was wrapping the leftover pizza in foil. My wife knows I’m sleeping with a woman who has a cat. In a way, it was good. In a way, it was proof that the Arrangement was working, that it wasn’t just a weird dream he’d had, and that Lucy wasn’t going to snap at some point and act like the whole thing hadn’t been essentially her idea. He had fought the urge to check in with Lucy on more than one occasion. He had forced himself not to ask, Are we really doing this? Is the deal still on? Or maybe just two words, followed by a question mark dangling up in the air: Fight Club?

  Because Owen was pretty sure Lucy wasn’t doing anything. Not 100 percent sure, but, say, 95 percent sure. From what he could determine, she was as busy as ever with her usual mom stuff, taking Wyatt to soccer practice and horseback riding and birthday parties, and whenever he glanced over her shoulder at her computer screen she was on Etsy or Instagram or Pinterest, just the way she always had been. And she still lost her phone at least once a day. Completely lost it. It would show up several hours later under the front seat of the car, or in a laundry basket, or on a shelf in the pantry, or in the back pocket of a pair of jeans she’d slipped out of and then kicked under the bed. If she had something going on, she’d be much more attached to her phone, Owen thought.

  But mostly, well, it was a feeling. Owen felt like he would know, he felt like he would be able to sense it if Lucy was sleeping with somebody else. He was okay with it if it happened. That was the deal, and he was fine with their agreement, he was cool with her taking advantage of it. On some level, he like
d to think, he even wanted her to take advantage of it, so she didn’t end up feeling like she’d missed out—but he didn’t think she had done anything yet.

  Yet.

  Eleven

  How many times have you heard a woman say that her idea of foreplay is watching her husband do the dishes? How about changing diapers, scrubbing the toilets, vacuuming the floor? Are you getting excited, ladies? Feeling a little tingle down there? Today’s marrieds have been told so often that a man folding the laundry constitutes foreplay that both parties are shocked when it doesn’t actually work.

  —Constance Waverly

  Women and Power, New York City

  I’m not going to caulk your tub, Izzy.”

  Owen and Izzy were in bed, watching the ceiling fan as it made slow, lazy, a bit wobbly rotations.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t know how to caulk a bathtub. I am not a handyman. Nor am I a plumber. I’m not even handy around my own house.”

  “The guy at Home Depot said it was easy,” said Izzy.

  “Then you do it.”

  “You know I’m very sensitive around chemicals,” said Izzy. “It’s a small space. I’ll pass out.”

  “Then it sounds like you have a problem,” said Owen. “You should probably figure it out. But I am not going to caulk your bathtub, I don’t care how easy the Home Depot guy said it was.”

  “Well, how would you get your tub caulked if you needed it done? The one at your house.”