Richard.
Up until two years ago, I used to be Mrs. Richard Arbiter Bisque. Yes, I know, what an absurd name. I’d screamed with laughter the first time he’d introduced himself to me; extending one of his well-manicured hands, announcing his name in a muffled, oh-God-is-this-really-my-name sort of way. “Richard Arbiter Bisque.”
I quite like that he was ashamed of his name. There’s something very endearing about a man who knows when to laugh at himself. Especially when that man has the sexiest, gravelliest laugh. Although, Elizabeth once suggested that if his name embarrassed him that much he could always drop half of it, but I never looked at it like that…not at the time.
From the moment we met, it was all gorgeously romantic and whirlwindish and I’d married him six weeks later. Kitty and Martin had naturally flown to the moon and back with the joy of it all. My friends had pretended to be really excited for me but I knew they weren’t by the way they kept saying things like, “Are you sure you’re not rushing into this, Lola?”
Meanwhile, Kitty and Martin—imagining themselves to be Surrey’s answer to Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, fronted up an obscene amount of money for the wedding reception.
“This is the most marvelous news we could have had!” Kitty had declared when I’d called her from Richard’s house in Chelsea with the announcement. All they’d said when I’d called with the news that I had graduated from Bristol with a first, was, “Good, dear, but look we’re in the middle of reading the morning papers at the moment, call you back, cheerio.” My degree was never mentioned again.
But romance and marriage and passion, well…there was no calming them down over that. “I know it seems really fast,” I explained. “I mean, six weeks. Gosh, you’re probably thinking we hardly know each other, but—”
“Nonsense. Six weeks is a veritable eternity. Why, Martin knew the first time he caught a glimpse of my shadow that I was the one. Didn’t you, darling?” My parents always take phone calls together. There are two phones in every room of the house.
“Oh, Kitty, but what a shadow,” Martin extolled. “Even in darkness I could sense the glorious beauty of your soul.”
I really wished my parents could have toned it down a bit—especially as I had had them on speakerphone with Richard.
So anyway, I became Mrs. Richard Arbiter Bisque in a civil ceremony at the Chelsea Registry Offices, although I’d actually kept my own name of Morton because, well, Lola Arbiter Bisque just sounded mad. Richard’s parents hadn’t even bothered to attend, which I found odd, but then they’d moved to the South of France several years before. Still, they didn’t even call to congratulate us, although Richard left a message on their phone with the details of our wedding.
The reception was held at Claridges. As parents of the bride, my parents had pushed the boat out so far I was sea-sick. It doesn’t come naturally to me as an events organizer to leave such matters in the hands of someone else—especially if that someone happens to be Kitty. With good cause, as it turned out. For a start there was the food—oysters, lobster and caviar.
“What about the people who don’t eat seafood?”
“What rubbish, everyone eats seafood!” Kitty declared. “What could be more simple and humble than the fruits of the sea?”
“Well, there’s Jewish people?” I hazarded. “I don’t think they—”
“Don’t be absurd! Silly girl, of course Jewish people eat oysters, what do you think they lived on during all that parting-of-the-Red-Sea business?”
Kitty isn’t really someone you want to go head-to-head with.
Then there were the speeches. “Isn’t it marvelous, she’s only known him six weeks, you know! Oh, the flourish of love. I could die with pride!” That was how Kitty’s speech began, but it picked up a much more floral pace after that, with many an anecdote about herself and my father and their numerous remarriages.
Even Aunt Camilla loved Richard and, okay, I know she was old and kept calling him Oliver, but she was quite tearful with the joy of it and gave us the most beautiful gift a single aunt can give her niece, a week at a spa, although unfortunately it was only for one. But like I said, she was in her nineties.
It was at our wedding reception that Richard met Jeremy and Hamish. In the flush of love, a girl gets all magnanimous and wants to share her happiness. Or in my case, show Jeremy, first love, and Hamish—college sweetheart—what they had so stupidly missed out on.
Me.
But instead of sobbing pathetically over their missed chance and looking on dolefully as I cut the cake with my husband the way I’d envisioned, they had double-crossed me completely and become friends with the groom, My Husband!
I remember being incensed at the time. “Isn’t that like the first rule of ex-etiquette, no becoming friends with your ex-girlfriend’s new husband?” I’d complained to my brides-maids—Elizabeth and Clemmie.
“No, I think that comes after the rule about not inviting ex-lovers to your wedding, Lola,” Elizabeth mentioned in her irritatingly pointed way.
It all seemed like yesterday now as I crouched in my little hiding spot behind the Machu Picchu drinks station, clutching Jean to my chest, my heart pounding, my mouth dry as the Gobi.
Seeing the three exes, chatting away like old mates, sent a cocktail of confused emotions coursing through me. Richard was as handsome as ever, tall, lean and, oh fuck…I couldn’t bear to look at him, any more than I could bear to look away.
Hamish had put on a little weight, maybe, but even he seemed to look fitter than ever, and he still had that easy laugh and aristocratic bearing that had made me swoon in college. Actually, technically, Hamish and I had never even really broken up, we’d just drifted apart after college. He had his estate to run in Scotland and I had, well, a degree in English literature, which was basically useless, but I had a dream called London.
And then there was Jeremy, still with that adorable little-boy-lost look about him that only a tall, dark, fit millionaire can make seem sexy.
Watching them there in my little hiding spot I couldn’t help but compare them to the men I’d been dating in the two years since my divorce from Richard. And suddenly I was wondering what madness could have possessed me to allow three such lovely guys to exit my life. See, that’s the thing about your twenties…you live them without the wisdom you acquire in your thirties!
“So what’s our operation, Agent Provocateur?” Charlie asked as he ducked, spylike under the drinks station to join me.
“Operation Ex.”
“Will we be requiring backup? Shall I call up our lethal Secret Weapon?”
I raised my eyebrow quizzically.
“Agent Daphne?” Daphne was the gospel-singing cloak-check girl, about as lethal as a nice cup of tea and a short-bread biscuit.
“What’s the noun for a gathering of exes, darling?” I inquired, faux casually. “I was thinking ex-cite, what do you think?” My heart was pounding against my rib cage. I really was starting to feel a bit like a covert agent on a dangerous mission.
Charlie, blithely unaware of my trauma, imagined it all to be a game. He’d never seen me flustered, never seen me falling apart, and even when it came to gushing—he agreed with the girls, I only gushed when disinterested. He looked about the room to see where my eyes were fixed. “Depends whose exes we’re talking about, old thing. Ex-ocet would be the term if we’re talking about a gathering of any of my exes,” he mused. “Christ, you haven’t spotted any, have you? Not Tamara?”
Charlie had a colorful love life, changing his girlfriends more often than most men changed their sheets. As far as my girlfriends and I were concerned, they all looked alike—certainly none of them looked like us! They all looked as if he had ordered them from the same catalog. Long, straight, blond hair. Tall. Clear skin, blue eyes, posh-as-all-get-out and skinny as greyhounds.
When I first applied for the job as events coordinator here, I had imagined Charlie to be the son of the owner. It didn’t occur to me that someone
so young (and good-looking) could be the owner of such a club. I could hardly pay attention to the questions I was being asked, mesmerized as I was by his voice. If a good piece of antique furniture could talk, it would sound like Charlie. Which was probably why, during the interview process, I gave up hope that I’d get the job but decided it would be some sort of achievement if I managed to score a date with one of England’s most eligible bachelors out of it.
Since leaving Bristol University, I had worked in several grotty hotels and had grown accustomed to receiving letters from prospective employers at better establishments that began, “Unfortunately…” And those positions were far less prestigious and much more junior PR jobs than the one I was applying for at Posh House, so I was shocked beyond belief when Charlie told me during the interview itself that the job was mine if I wanted it.
I think what I’d actually said was, “Whaaa?”
“Yaah, it’s yours if you want it. I can’t be shagged interviewing anyone else and you’re by far the most attractive and amusing applicant so far.”
“Erm, well, that’s…”
He ran his hand through his thick thatch of hair. “Fuck, you should have seen the ghastly crew I’ve had parading in here all day. Veritable march of the cannibals. I was afraid for my life! What is it with PRs? They all have those sinister fixed grins.”
I looked as serious as I possibly could. “Oh, yes, don’t they! Well, that’s lovely.”
“Yes, well, not so lovely when Attilina the Hun is eyeing you up for an axe opening.”
“No I meant it’s lovely that I have the job, not that you had to interview a ghastly crew of axe wielders. Poor you, on that front.”
“Right ho, well, I’ll push off then, I guess,” he’d said, air kissing me and heading toward the door. “Big date.”
“Oh,” I’d exclaimed, adding, “Does anyone ever go on a small date?” Suddenly shocked by what I’d just said, I thought he might take the job off me for impertinence, but instead he’d laughed.
“No, you’re right, dates are always big. Cheerio!” And with that all thoughts of dating Charlie flew out the window and my new career as a PR got properly under way.
I looked at his profile now as he crouched beside me at the drink station, scouring the room. It’s funny how can you be attracted to a guy one day and lose all sight of why the next. Self-preservation was partly the case, although watching the way Charlie went through girlfriends I was rather glad I hadn’t tested the waters with him myself.
“No, Charlie, you’re safe, but don’t you think there should be some law against exes becoming friends? Isn’t there some statute, some, well, I don’t know, social etiquette ruling on that?” I asked, still faux casual.
“Mmm, that’s a toughie. I’ll have to check my Ex-etiquette for the Modern Man to be absolutely sure, but no, as far as I’m aware, exes forming friendships with other exes, comes under one of those subclauses of All’s Fair in Love and War.”
Jean had started to squirm with boredom. I couldn’t hold her here forever.
“Jeremy’s looking well on it.” Jeremy was one of Charlie’s personal friends, quite separate to my previous relationship with Posh House. They’d attended the same prep school.
“You think? I thought he was thinning a little on top, actually,” I responded bitchily, which was absolute rubbish. Jeremy was looking better than he ever had when I was doing him—clearly working out, big-time.
“So, good night, then? All in all?” Charlie inquired brightly, obviously choosing not to be drawn further on the Jeremy matter.
I had to get out of there.
“I have to get out of here!” I announced abruptly…surprising even myself.
Charlie looked at me, his face one of concern—he really is one of the kindest men I’ve ever met. “Are you okay, Lola?”
I flicked the switch from romantic fool to businesswoman mode. “Oh, yes, totally. Fantastic party, actually, a really easy crowd, especially considering the kick that Picchu punches.” I laughed breezily as if I wasn’t on the verge of keeling over with shock.
I hadn’t seen Richard for months, and when I had seen him last, we’d had one of those close encounters, only narrowly avoiding that sex-with-the-ex thing.
We’d even snogged. “Come on, Lola, stay the night,” Richard had wheedled, his hand running sexily down my spine, but Elizabeth’s voice was ringing out in my head, “NO! NO!”
Elizabeth is my most persuasive friend with firsthand experience in these sex-with-the-ex matters, so after a bit of tongue action I was able to resist. I knew from her that that way lay disaster. She was living proof of how dangerous sex with the ex could be. She’d broken up with Mike, aka the Serial Womanizer, a year ago, but every three weeks or so she ended up in bed with him. We all blame her proclivity for sex with the ex for not being able to move on. As she says, they were together for a long time, and for all his faults, he was comfortable (i.e., he knew all about her virtually nonexistent cellulite). She’s never, not once, had sex with another guy.
Even she admits that all this sex with the ex has held her back. “Thing is, it’s so damn easy. You can call an ex up in the middle of the night and he’ll be over like a rocket. Best of all, you can shove him out of bed afterward without looking like a tart. To tell the truth, I can’t be shagged doing the whole dating thing and trying to hide the truth about my wobbly bits with someone else. Sex with the ex is like comfort sex, with a little of the thrill of the one-night stand thrown in.”
Although lately, even Elizabeth is getting tired of the setup. It’s been over two months now and she swears that she’s not going to be tempted again, no matter how comfortable and easy it is. She’s moved her phone out of the bedroom even, to avoid making any more of her desperate late-night calls.
I was dragged back to the moment as I realized Charlie was asking me more questions about the evening.
“So, did that supermodel girl turn up?”
“Yes, but they carried her out ages ago, so you’ve missed your chance there. Well, she left her phone in a Picchu sour if you wanted to use that as an excuse…” I passed it over to him.
“No, I was just asking about the evening generally.” I noticed that he still pocketed the phone, though. Typical.
“Fine, no problems whatsoever. Apart from when one of the harem girls threw up on a sofa.”
“Harem girls?” he asked, raising one of his sand-colored eyebrows questioningly.
That’s what I call the cosmetically enhanced entourages of skinny, madly gorgeous girls that tag along to any bash involving London’s rich. “I mean, the girls, the younger pretty ones that come with the, erm, older guys.”
“Oh, you mean the girls that trail around after the pajama boys?” Charlie remarked.
“Pajama boys?”
This time it was my eyebrows that were raised in confusion.
“As in Hugh Heffner, you know how he always wears…” His sentence melted in the moment though as he finally realized what all my ex angst had been about. “Isn’t that your ex-husband over there, talking to Jeremy?”
I nodded.
“Actually, you dated Jeremy once, too, didn’t you?”
“Uh-huh.”
This city was getting too small for me.
Change the subject, change the subject, my sane side screamed. Change the subject and run. “Yes, and I also dated Hamish,” I added insouciantly. “So all in all, three exes all in the same room.”
“Blimey!” Charlie responded. “A royal flush.”
I was relieved that he didn’t make some smart comment then about my dating history. Sometimes I love my boss and his impeccable manners. I breathed a sigh of relief as I squeezed Jean into my chest for a cuddle. “That was very naughty of you crawling along the sofa back and humping that nice lady’s hairpiece,” I scolded.
Jean looked up into my eyes innocently and blinked as if she didn’t know what I was talking about.
“So, let me get this straight. You
dated all three of them? Putting it about a bit around the club, aren’t you, old girl?”
Sometimes I truly hate my boss.
“Yes, I dated all three of them but long before I came to work here!” I told him pointedly. “Well, apart from Richard. They must be having a little summit or something. Actually, if you don’t mind, Charlie, I think I might shoot off. The party’s all but over and, well, I have things to do.”
“Ex-orcisms?”
“What?”
“Sorry, joke. Not funny. I was referring to the exes. Are you planning on going over to speak to them?”
I blushed. “God no, I’m going to drop Jean off home and go join the girls at the Met Bar,” I replied indignantly.
“Okay, well, get going then, seems like we’ve got everything under control here, Agent Lola,” he said, mocking the way I was still whispering into my mouthpiece even though he was only inches away from me. Then he gave me a kiss on the head and Jean a kiss on the nose and left the drinks station.
Jean looked up at me with her big golden eyes and wriggled her nose and I gave her ears a stroke.
Then she started on my arm.
God knows I’ve tried my best to train her. If only there were rabbit correction schools. Once back at my windowless office I closed the door and pulled myself together, but all I could think of was Richard. And all I could feel was…actually, I didn’t know what I felt but it wasn’t pleasant.
I gathered up my things, tucking Jean into her large white YSL leather bag and tried to focus on the gentle strains of the grand piano wafting through the wall of my cupboard-cum-office.
I’d just locked the door and was pulling on my coat as Charlie called out to me from the top of the staircase. I waited by the marble pillar outside my office while he took the stairs two at a time in his trademark athletic way.
Sex with the Ex Page 3