How to Marry Another Billionaire

by Elise Sax

  “He carried you? He’s strong?” my mother asks. “Not that you’re fat, but you weigh more than a bag of dog food.”

  “How do you know about dog food? We’ve never had a dog,” I say.

  “I know about dog food,” my mother insists. “It comes in a big bag at the front of the store next to the ice machine.”

  “Wait a minute,” Rosalind says. “What did you say about Declan’s boner?”

  “The man has an enormous penis,” I say.

  “My departed husband was hung like a horse,” Bessie says. “I had to grease him down in order to do you know what.”

  “I don’t want to know what,” I say.

  “Ditto,” Rosalind says.

  There’s a long silence, when I figure we’re all thinking about Bessie’s dead husband getting greased down. Finally, Rosalind breaks the silence.

  “I’m going to let the Declan boner thing drop,” she says. “And I’m going to focus on the fact that Rock showed up at your date. Why was that?”

  “I think he had to pee,” I say.

  Rosalind shakes her head. It’s seven in the morning, and she’s dressed in a Chanel suit and pumps. She doesn’t have a hair out of place, and her makeup is done to perfection.

  Meanwhile, I have dried drool on my chin.

  “Rock didn’t go to a restaurant to pee,” Rosalind insists. “He can pee anywhere. The man has ten toilets in his house alone.”

  “I once saw a man pee in a large vase in the lobby of the Grauman’s Theater. He nearly filled the whole thing,” Bessie says.

  Rosalind points at her. “Exactly. He could have peed in a vase in Grauman’s Theater. So why did he show up at the restaurant you were in with another billionaire?”

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “Me, neither,” my mother says.

  “Oh my God!” I shout and hop up from the bed. “He was jealous! He came to the restaurant because he was jealous.”

  “But he set up the date,” Bessie says. “I don’t get any of this. You know I haven’t had coffee yet.”

  “I brewed a pot,” my mother says. “I was going to drink a cup with this morning’s Today Show.”

  Rosalind pushes buttons on her phone, and Beatrice appears on the screen. Rosalind puts the phone in front of my face. “Rock’s jealous,” Rosalind explains to Beatrice. “He showed up at Olivia’s date.”

  “You did it! You caught him!” Beatrice yells. Cole appears behind her and kisses the side of her neck. She melts against him and moans.

  “It’s like this every time,” Rosalind tells me. “Beatrice has almost lost all ability to communicate. It’s all porn all the time.”

  “I want grandbabies!” Bessie shouts.

  “If she’s not pregnant yet, she should see a doctor,” Rosalind says. “If her vagina doesn’t fall out, it’ll be a miracle.”

  “I didn’t catch him,” I tell Beatrice, changing the subject. Pregnancy talk makes me nervous, and I don’t want to remind my super ovaries that I haven’t given birth in a while. Beatrice’s head is tipped back, and Cole is kissing the front of her neck. I can’t see what his hand is doing, but it’s doing something all over her. “He didn’t make a move. He might have been jealous, but he didn’t show it.”

  But Beatrice has dropped the phone, and Rosalind hangs up. “This organization has gone to shit,” Rosalind complains. “I’m working with amateurs.”

  “I resent that,” Bessie says. “I’ve been practicing with the new reconnaissance tools I bought. I’ve got bugging down to a science.”

  “Sorry, Bessie. I’m just a little stressed out.”

  “Don’t be,” my mother says. “Rock’s jealous. You just need to keep him jealous. And stay away from other boners.”

  “Oh yes,” I say. “No more boners. The last one nearly put my eye out.”

  “Don’t worry. I have a plan,” Rosalind says.

  Rock’s given me the day off in order to go on date number two, which is date number one with Vern Grossman, billionaire businessman from Lithuania. We’re meeting in Catalina. Normally, he would take me over to the island on his yacht, but Rosalind insists that this time, my backup is coming with me to make sure that things go off without a hitch and there’s no more boners.

  So, my mother has stayed behind with the children, and Bessie and Rosalind are sailing with me on the hovercraft ship thing to Catalina. Rosalind has implemented a new plan to assure that Operation Billionaire is a success.

  It includes a duffel bag full of electronics and another duffel bag full of something that Rosalind says is better to be left as a surprise. “You’re going to turn off the Ficus Fern billionaire, and turn on the Rock billionaire,” she tells me.

  “At the same time?”

  “Of course!”

  “How?”

  “We’ve got your back,” Rosalind answers, as if that explains everything. She’s still wearing her Chanel suit and pumps. Her Birkin bag is on the bench by her, next to one of the duffel bags. Bessie is wearing elastic waist jeans and a bedazzled shirt that says “Howdy” in red, white, and blue. She’s wearing sensible sneakers and a large purse, which she keeps tapping, and winks at me.

  I’m wearing Catalina Island wear: shorts, t-shirt, and flip-flops. I’m not sure it’s enough to turn off Vern Grossman. But I don’t focus too much on the day ahead because I’ve never been on a boat before, and I never want to again.

  “I think I’m going to die,” I say, fifteen minutes into our boat trip. “Why does it keep rocking?”

  “I like it,” Bessie says. “It reminds me of rocking in my rocking chair on the porch in my house in Idaho.”

  “Are you homesick, Bessie?” Rosalind asks.

  “Oh, no. This is much more fun. I never get to have a Taser or pepper spray back home.”

  “Taser? Pepper spray?” I ask.

  “The green tinge on the edges of your face, along with ashy hangover tinge on the rest of your face is great for turning off this billionaire,” Rosalind comments, happily.

  “I just don’t understand why the boat has to rock,” I say. “I thought this was a hovercraft. Isn’t it supposed to hover?” I ask. I haven’t felt this bad since I ate discounted sushi from 7-Eleven.

  “The ocean is very big, and the water moves,” Rosalind explains. “You can hover all you want, but you’re going to rock.”

  “Like my chair on my porch,” Bessie says. “Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. So relaxing. So calming. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.”

  “Oh my God,” I moan. I’m going to blow. I can’t hold back. I look around for a bathroom, but I know I’ll never make it. In a blind panic, I open my purse and stick my head in it. The sound is terrifying, as I throw up. Explosive. Afterward, I lean back, careful not to spill the new contents of my purse, and gasp for air.

  “You should have waited until you’re on your date,” Rosalind complains. “You would have turned him off for sure.”

  We arrive at Catalina Island, and it’s very nice, which is good because I’m never leaving. Nothing and no one will ever make me get on a boat ever again.

  Vern is waiting for us at the dock, and he’s wearing a bathing suit, and an open shirt, which reveals tufts of hair around each nipple but nowhere else. “He’s wearing a swimsuit. He’s going to want to go to the beach. I didn’t bring a swimsuit,” I say.

  “Yes, you did,” Rosalind tells me.

  Rosalind and Bessie hide in the crowd, while I introduce myself to Vern. He’s a nice guy, even though he spits when he talks, and he has an unusual body odor that makes me sneeze every few seconds. I’m probably no better. I ditched my purse in the boat, but I’m sure I have vomit breath.

  “Nice to meet you. I don’t date very often because I work a lot,” he tells me, as we walk down the dock. “But that’s changing. My doctor says I need recreation. You know, for my health.”

  I sneeze. “Your cardiologist?”

  “No, gastroenterologist. He
says my colitis is due to stress. I have the worst colon he’s seen in twenty-five years. He told me that if I don’t insert at least twenty-percent recreation into my life, my colon is going to rupture, and I can die from shock.”

  How awful. “A colon can rupture?”

  “If I don’t do twenty percent recreation.”

  I wonder how much recreation I do. “Does Netflix count as recreation?” I ask him.

  “No. I asked him that. Recreation is stuff like hiking or tetherball or snorkeling. We’re going to snorkel today.”

  Oh, geez. I’ve never hiked, snorkeled, or tetherballed. I’m going to have to do at least ninety percent recreation here on out to make up for a lifetime of no recreation. I feel a twinge in my lower abdomen, and I begin to panic.

  We walk through the throngs of tourists. Rosalind and Bessie are following us. Bessie more or less fits in with the crowd, but Rosalind is the only person on the island in a Chanel suit and pumps. And she doesn’t slouch. She’s the only person I’ve ever known who never slouches. Not even a little bit. Even while lugging a duffel bag.

  I sneak her a look and make a swimming gesture, and she gives me the OK gesture back. Vern is very down to earth for a billionaire, and I feel guilty that I have to turn him off. Although I’m not sure what can turn him on. He’s not very engaged in the date, and every few minutes, he seems to be surprised to find me with him.

  We load into a luxury golf cart, and it drives us past the hoi polloi toward a VIP section of the island where folks poop diamonds and are treated like royalty. Luckily, Rosalind and Bessie have somehow managed to commandeer their own golf cart and have managed to follow us like they’re dirty cops on The Wire.

  When I go into the fancy-shmancy dressing room, Rosalind and Bessie are already there. Rosalind searches through one of the duffel bags and pulls out a large ball of fabric.

  “What’s that?” I ask.

  “Your swimsuit.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “And what else?” I ask. “A swimsuit and what else? There’s a lot there.”

  “It’s a modesty swimsuit. It takes a lot of material to be modest. Bessie, stand guard outside the door.”

  Bessie salutes her and hops out the door. Rosalind unravels the modesty suit and helps me to get into it. She pulls my hair back into a ponytail, while I look at myself in the mirror.

  “I’m not sure this is a swimsuit,” I say.

  “It is. I ordered it from a specialty company.”

  “I think it’s what they wear when there’s a nuclear meltdown.”

  “It’s for swimming when you don’t want to show anything,” Rosalind insists.

  “I’m pretty sure I saw people wearing this in footage of the Chernobyl disaster.”

  “It’s a modesty suit. Look. It’s waterproof.”

  It’s more or less a dark blue dress over a wetsuit. The only things showing are my feet and head. “Even my neck’s covered.”

  “This is good. Fern’s not going to get any boners if I have anything to do with it,” Rosalind says.

  “His name’s Vern.”

  “Whatever.”

  Bessie walks in. “Coast is clear, but the billionaire is waiting for you. He’s got a snorkel butler with him.”

  “He has a snorkel butler?” I ask. I’ve never snorkeled before. Maybe snorkel butlers are common, but I have a feeling they’re not.

  I take another quick look at myself in the mirror. “I wonder if Princess Diana had to do this to catch her prince.”

  “No, she didn’t and look how that worked out,” Rosalind says and gives me a little push out the door.

  The effect is immediate. A sea of rich people’s mouths drop open when they see me. Ditto the snorkel butlers. I try to walk like a woman toward Vern, but the modesty suit has magical properties that unsex me.

  “So, this is the first snorkeling experience for you two,” the butler says, trying not to stare at my modesty suit. “Snorkeling is an easy, enjoyable experience, but there are a few things you need to know.”

  He proceeds to tell us the few things we need to know. I want to know if this ten-pound modesty suit is going to drown me, but I don’t ask him because I don’t want to draw more attention to what I’m wearing.

  If it’s even possible to draw more attention to what I’m wearing. Cellphones are surreptitiously snapping pictures of me, and I’m sure I’m going to wind up a meme. Rosalind and Bessie are watching from seats at a nearby restaurant, and Bessie shoots me two thumbs up.

  Vern and I put on our snorkel gear and walk backwards into the water, like we were instructed. The dress part of my suit billows up and then sinks down hard when it’s soaked with water.

  Waterproof, my ass.

  “I’m sure this will be fine,” Vern tells me. He’s panting, and I could swear that he’s sweating, even though he’s submerged in the water up to his middle.

  “Are you worried?” I ask him.

  “Not too much. I learned to swim last week, and my instructor gave me a B-plus. I probably won’t drown.”

  “You learned to swim last week, and now you’re going to snorkel in the Pacific Ocean?”

  Vern nods. “For my colon.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be fine,” I say. “I’ve never snorkeled, either, but it doesn’t seem too hard. I thought you were nervous about sharks.”

  Vern grabs me and looks around, fearfully. “There are sharks?”

  “I’m sure they won’t bother us.”

  “How sure are you?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  “Is there anything wrong?” the snorkel butler yells from shore.

  “Are there any sharks around here?” Vern yells back.

  “There’s almost never any sharks around here,” the butler yells.

  “What do you think he means by ‘almost never’?” Vern asks me.

  “That depends,” I say. “Did you tip him already? If he’s waiting for a tip, I don’t think he’d send you out to be eaten alive.”

  “Good point,” he says and finally lets me go. We put our masks on and slip the snorkels in our mouths. I go first, dipping down into the water. A moment, later, Vern is next to me, and we kick softly. It’s amazing to be able to have my head underwater and breathe at the same time. I get excited the first time I see a fish, and I point. Realizing that the modesty suit is dragging me down, I kick harder to keep myself up. Vern is kicking harder, too. In fact, his whole body is moving, like he’s having convulsions.

  He shouts something underwater, and I stop swimming and lift my head above the water. Vern is struggling, and he grabs onto me for support. That’s when we both go down. The modesty swimsuit isn’t helping matters. I fight against him, but it looks like we’re both going to drown.

  But I must be a better swimmer than I think because I finally get back above water, and I bring Vern up with me.

  “Starfish!” he gasps, spitting out his snorkel. “Starfish was going to bite me!”

  “What? Starfish don’t have teeth,” I say, taking my snorkel out of my mouth. I’m reasonably certain starfish don’t have teeth.

  “They do! They do!” he yells.

  We’ve drifted far out where boats and jet skis are, and one passes us, stirring up the water. The dress part of my swimsuit gets tangled in our limbs. “I’m going down!” Vern shouts.

  He’s going down. He slaps at the water and kicks, but it just serves to tangle us up even more. I’m going to die from modesty.

  “I’m going down where the starfish are!” he shouts, panicked.

  “Will you shut up about starfish? We’re going to drown to death. Then, the starfish can eat us at their own leisure.”

  “I fucking hate recreation!” he shouts before his head dips underwater. He grabs for me as he goes down, and my head dips underwater, too.

  I struggle up, sink back down, struggle up, sink back down. I know that a drowning victim goes down three times before they never get back up. Visions o
f my children flash past me, and my survival instinct kicks in for real. I push against Vern and climb up his body to get to air. I figure I’ll save him once I save myself. But Vern’s got the same idea. After I climb up him, pushing him down, he’s climbing up me, pushing me down. Up, down, up, down. We’re both trying to save ourselves by killing the other.

  As first dates go, I’ve had worse.

  Chapter 6

  Olivia

  “That was great. He’s not attracted to you at all!” Bessie announces with glee when the lifeguards get me to shore and drop me on the rocky beach. I gasp for breath under the weight of the wet modesty suit.

  Vern is dropped on to the beach next to me, but he’s a billionaire, so he’s whisked away by butlers and other kinds of staff. I’ve got Bessie and Rosalind.

  “I thought you were a goner,” Rosalind says.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Bessie says. “Dueling snorkels, masks flying in the air. It was like a movie. Like Jaws.”

  “I must have drunk a gallon of seawater,” I gasp. “I think I drank that damned starfish that Vern was scared of.”

  They help me up and take me back to the dressing room, where I throw away the swimsuit and get back into my clothes. “We didn’t even have to use the GPS tracker or the pepper spray,” Bessie says. “I’d say this was a big success.”

  “You did so well almost killing him that you didn’t even need the modesty suit,” Rosalind tells me, agreeing with Bessie.

  “I’m very good at repelling men,” I say.

  Rosalind hugs me. “Only the men who don’t deserve you. You’ll attract the one you want.”

  “No way,” I say when we get to the dock. “I’m done with the ocean. I’ll get back to Catalina without the Pacific Ocean.”

  “How’re you going to do that?” Rosalind asks.

  “Give me a minute,” I say. “I’ll think of something.”

  Overhead, a helicopter flies by, and I point at it. “There. That’s for me,” I say.

  Rosalind puts her hands on her hips. “Be brave, Olivia. The boat won’t hurt you.”