The Debutante Divorcee

by Plum Sykes

  A few days after Hunter had gotten back, I’d decided to cook dinner at home. We were both exhausted from work and needed a cozy night in. Thack and I had been working long hours finalizing our spring order book, and Hunter had been locked in script meetings till late at night. I popped into Citarella on the corner of Ninth Street and Sixth Avenue to pick up some delicious Italian food for the evening. Just as I left the meat counter, I remembered that we had run out of Drano, so headed toward the back of the store to get some. As I was scanning the shelves, I started adding some more household items to my cart—Soft Scrub, toothpaste—all the domestic products that seem to be required in ever-increasing quantities once you are married. It was depressing actually, I thought, as I piled detergents and dishwasher powder into the cart.

  The fact is, marriage comes with an awful lot of non-sexy, non-romantic projects. Like Drano shopping. However cute my new husband was, he went through way more toilet paper than I did. For every six-pack of Charmin I lugged home, I felt a kilo of energy, that, pre-marriage, would have been allocated to love or sex, dissipate into the void of the supermarket checkout. New wives are never allowed to admit it, but being wed is, sometimes, a grind. Even a few weeks after your wedding. Sorry, but it’s the truth.

  Last night, for example, I had found myself, against my own free will and better judgment, discussing how to deal with Hunter’s laundry over dinner with him. Prior to marriage, the only reason to discuss the washer-dryer over dinner was if you were intending to have sex on it. Then, later on, just as we were falling asleep in bed, Hunter had said to me, “Darling, I love you very much. Where are those hiking socks I got in Telluride?”

  Is this really the sort of thing that married couples discuss in bed, I’d thought, miserably. Shouldn’t we have been making love? Hmm, I’d thought to myself as I drifted off that night, this wasn’t at all like an Eternity ad: the truth is, domestically speaking, being married is more like being in one of those suburban sitcoms like Everybody Loves Raymond. No matter how Eternity-ish a husband looks, they all have one or two horrific habits. Hunter’s was leaving shaved bristles caked onto the sink. Even more horrific, someone (you) has to point it out and request their removal. No one ever explains that in marriage there is no getting away from chores—even if you are lucky enough to have a housekeeper—and that chores do not put you in the mood for sex.

  Sex, I thought wistfully, as I dragged a box of trash bags off the top shelf, sex and…dry cleaning. I glanced at my watch: 7:30 P.M. I needed to finish up here and get home. There was a whole bunch of Hunter’s cleaning being delivered at 8:00 that I needed to pay for.

  I schlepped everything to the cash register. I hate to admit it, but my heart sank when I realized I was on line behind Phoebe Calder. The epitome of the G.W.V.W., she looked glowing. She was carrying a chic-looking parcel of French cheese in one hand and one of her own pale yellow PHOEBE BÉBÉ bags in the other. Her bump was hidden by a short tweed cape, and she had impossibly skinny Kate Moss–style jeans on underneath. Her brown hair looked so polished I could virtually see my reflection in it. I had to say hello to her, I thought, slightly gloomily. It would be rude not to. I tapped her on the shoulder.

  “Hi, Phoebe,” I said.

  Pheobe turned and looked at me. She peered at my overflowing cart. There wasn’t even a blink of recognition in her eyes. Suddenly she gasped, “Sylvie! Is that you? I didn’t recognize you for a minute there. With all that cleaning stuff.”

  No wonder I was unrecognizable. I wasn’t having nearly as much sex as before. Hunter and I used to make love every day when we were dating, I was sure of it. Now, by my estimation, it was every three nights. Was that bad? Excellent? Average? Was that how often the Eternity couple did it?

  “How’s married life, Sylvie?” said Phoebe, as we waited on line.

  Why is this the only question anyone ever asks you once you are married? What are you supposed to say? Maybe I had post-marital depression, I thought to myself grumpily. Surely if you could get post-natal depression, you could get the married version.

  “Wonderful,” I replied, because that is what you are supposed to say.

  Do you have sex with your husband between eating glamorous French cheese and making unaffordable baby wear? I wanted to ask.

  “Does Hunter travel as much as he used to for work?” she asked, as the line snaked forward.

  “Barely at all,” I lied, thinking how little I’d actually seen of my husband since we got married. I didn’t want to open up the conversation and have Phoebe regale me with more Hunter-on-the-loose stories.

  “I do hope I’ll see you tomorrow,” said Phoebe, putting her cheese on the counter. The clerk swiped it through.

  I looked at her, confused.

  “At my new store. The Baby Buggy luncheon? Everyone’s coming. Lauren, Marci. Spenderella. It’ll be so much fun,” said Phoebe in a voice that implied everyone must have fun, or there would be severe consequences. “Didn’t you get the invitation?”

  Baby Buggy luncheons are, among a certain set, the most exclusive charity baby events in town, peopled by billionaire mommies and their disciples. Their messiah is Jessica Seinfeld, Baby Buggy chair, mother of three, wife of Jerry. How does she have time to wear a different Narciso Rodriguez dress every time she goes out, throw Baby Buggy luncheons, have sex, and get manicures, I wondered.

  “Forty dollars, miss,” said the girl at the cash register.

  Phoebe handed her a hundred dollar bill. Then she said merrily, “This cheese is sixty-four dollars a pound. This place is daylight robbery, daylight robbery.”

  She smiled happily. There is nothing a woman like Phoebe adores more than being daylight robbed in front of a new acquaintance.

  “I’ll count you in for tomorrow. One o’clock. All the tickets are gone, but you don’t need one. You’re my guest.”

  This wasn’t an invitation. This was an order.

  By the time I got home that night, I had decided, rather than be depressed by Phoebe’s glittering wifeliness, to be inspired by it. There was no point, after all, in making myself miserable wondering where exactly one got chic little tweed capelets, or how on earth eight-months-pregnant people could fit into Kate Moss jeans: it was much better to take a leaf out of Phoebe’s book and make an effort to be glowing for one’s husband rather than gloomy. I would cook Hunter a delicious risotto, and change into a new jersey dress I’d bought a few days ago from Daryl K before he got back. It had a slightly offbeat cut, which made me feel a little avant-garde and sexy. Phoebe was right, I thought to myself, as I slipped the dress on. Being a wife was infinitely more enjoyable in good clothes.

  Just as I was starting to chop the onions, the buzzer rang: that must be the dry cleaning. I rifled in my bag for some money and went to open the door. Jim, the Chinese delivery boy from World Class Cleaners on Ninth Street was standing there weighed down with a pile of Hunter’s suits and my evening dresses. I helped him in with them, and he laid the whole lot over a chair in the hall.

  “Thanks,” I said. “How much is it?”

  “Eighty-five dollar,” replied Jim.

  I gave Jim ninety and told him to keep the change.

  “Thanks, miss,” he said, tucking it in his belt.

  “See you next time,” I said, holding open the door.

  Jim was almost out the door, when he turned and said, “This in Mr. Mortimer pocket, miss.”

  He shoved something into my hand and disappeared off down the corridor. As I shut the door I looked at what Jim had given me: it was a small, clear plastic Ziploc bag. It looked like it had a bunch of receipts in it. That was nice of Jim, to rescue Hunter’s bills, I thought. As I went to put the bag on the hall table for Hunter, something caught my eye on the receipt at the top of the stack. Was that…I picked the bag up again and looked closer through the plastic. Was that a £ sign printed on the top receipt?

  It couldn’t be, could it? Anxiety enveloping me, I tore open the bag and grabbed the receipt. It read, />
  * * *

  BLAKES HOTEL

  33 Roland Gardens

  London SW7

  17th September

  Room charge: £495.00

  Room service: £175.00

  Mini bar: £149.00

  * * *

  Mini bar! Mini bar? Hunter had drunk three hundred bucks worth of alcohol! In a hotel room! In one of the sexiest hotels in London! I felt myself panic: I checked the date again, wracking my brain. September 17th. Two weeks before Lauren’s divorce shower. It was That Weekend, I was sure of it, when Hunter had been impossible to get hold of in Paris. Phoebe had seen him in London. Hunter had point-blank lied to me and, worse, blamed an innocent, pregnant woman’s mushy brain.

  My hands were trembling. Maybe I was getting MS, I feared, regarding my wavering fingers. Maybe my husband had caused me to contract MS by his callous hotel-hopping activities. This was hideous. What was I going to do? Should I call Hunter now and tell him I had found him out? Or was I too emotional? Should I call Lauren and tell her what I’d found? Or would she call in the lawyers then and there? Maybe—

  “Hello, darling.”

  I jumped. I had been so wrapped up in my thoughts I hadn’t noticed Hunter slip into the apartment. Before I could say anything, he was kissing me hello and stroking my hair, as though he could see I needed to be calmed down.

  “Oh, Sylvie, what a great dress this is on you,” said Hunter. Noticing the pile of clothes he added, “Thank you for getting the dry cleaning. You really don’t need to…you’re so busy. I could have picked it up.”

  I didn’t say a thing. Anyone ever hear of something called domestic un-bliss?

  11

  Socialite Baby

  I can’t say I was really in the mood for Phoebe’s Baby Buggy luncheon the next day: all I could think about was that London hotel bill, and what on earth I was going to say to Hunter. But when I told Thack I was too busy at the office to slip out to Phoebe’s lunch, hoping he’d agree, he did quite the opposite and pressured me to go. Alixe Carter was a patron of the Baby Buggy charity, and he wanted me to try and nail her down for another fitting—she had never bothered to call us after not showing for that first fitting, even after I’d met her at the Divorce Shower.

  Phoebe Bébé, situated on the corner of Washington and Horatio Streets, right next to the Christian Louboutin boutique, exactly matches the store’s shopping bags. All the walls are painted pale yellow, and the trims are dove gray. When I arrived at the shop, it was already crammed with glossy-haired, baby-buggy-mad moms shopping for $750 cashmere bootie and cap sets aimed at the six-week-old demographic. Meanwhile, Phoebe was in the middle of the store with three publicists, who were orchestrating photographs of her and her friends in front of mounds of yellow, logo’d baby product.

  “Have you met Armenia?” she hollered at me as I walked up to her.

  Phoebe was dressed in a long, gold vintage Halston dress with just enough give for her bulging belly. She had a tiny satin purse in one hand, and in the other was clutched a sixteen-month-old child. Somehow, she was simultaneously sipping a glass of water.

  “Ooooh! She’s going to be a supermodel,” shrieked one of the publicists at the child. “Quick. Photo. Photo? OK. Lemme take that drink from you.”

  While Casey Silbert, the aforementioned publicist, snatched her glass, Phoebe professionally contorted her face into a maternal but youthful smile for five photographers who appeared, snap-snap-snapped her, and vanished, like human shooting stars.

  “Good girl,” said Phoebe, jiggling the child on her waif-like hip. “We call her Meni for short.”

  “What a sweet name,” I said.

  “Isn’t she amazing—”

  That second there was an explosion of flashes from the back of the store. Phoebe’s head swiveled, mid-sentence, in the direction of the glittering light.

  “Look! There’s Valerie with Baba. I think it’s short for Balthazar,” said Phoebe, rushing off in the direction of another glamorous girl whose baby was squished photogenically into a fur-lined Baby Björn on her front.

  The fact was, the only people anyone was taking any real notice of were the cherubic babies in the crowd, of which more kept arriving. This is, though, the era of Socialite Baby. Rarely older than eighteen months, Socialite Baby attends only the grooviest events—art galas, exclusive movie preview dinners, fashion shows (front row only. What’s the point of bringing your baby if you’re in the second row and no one can see it?). Before it is barely three weeks old, Socialite Baby has ninety-six Google entries, knows its way around the dressing rooms at Yoya Mart better than its own cot, and has met Kate Winslet’s kids at least three times at baby music class at Soho House. The identifying marks of a bona fide Socialite Baby include bluish-black craters beneath the eyes and an exhausted green tinge to the infantile skin. If you don’t recognize one at a party, no matter—Socialite Baby is so heavily photographed you can always identify one a few days later by flicking through the pages of Gotham or New York magazine, in which there are usually at least three Socialite Babies showcased on the party pages.

  Hmm, I thought, scanning the room. There was no sign of Alixe Carter. Maybe Phoebe would know where she had gotten to. I headed through the throng of girls toward her, feeling less and less glossy the deeper into the party I got. Judging from the spectacular array of outfits here, I was the only girl who’d come from an office. I had thrown a beautiful embroidered coat of Thack’s over my jeans when I’d left work, but I couldn’t compete with girls who’d been at Blow all morning getting hair and makeup done.

  “Seen Alixe Carter?” I mouthed at Phoebe across the mass of women crowding around her.

  “She just went to the restroom. Spenderella’s had to take a break!” Phoebe yelled back. “She hasn’t even got kids, and she’s bought three gold satin diaper bags. She just can’t stop herself.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and headed toward the “Powder Room” sign at the back of the store.

  Phoebe’s powder room looked like a charming guest bedroom. A small sofa upholstered in white cotton printed with yellow roses sat invitingly at one end of the room. A heavy, gilt-framed, antique mirror hung above the basin, and a huge vase of yellow roses stood in front of it. Piles of yellow sugared almonds were heaped into little silver dishes. Small bottles of water had labels printed with the words EAU BÉBÉ in silver lettering. It was all soft pseudo-French perfection, even though Phoebe wasn’t the slightest bit French. She was (secretly) from Miami.

  There was no sign of Alixe Carter. I was rather relieved. I was so wound up about the hotel bill that I really wasn’t in the mood for sweet-talking a woman like her right now. Maybe I could have a break in here from the madness outside, I thought. The bathroom was occupied, so I collapsed into an armchair, in, I suppose, a sort of personal sulk. What was I going to do? I kept asking myself over and over. There was only one outcome if I confronted Hunter, I thought with dread. But I couldn’t not confront him…or could I? Why couldn’t I just gloss over the suspicious hotel bill, forget it? Is that what wives did?

  It was in this disconcerted frame of mind that I noticed a giggle-giggle-giggle sound drifting to my ears from behind the bathroom door. Then a husky, cigarette-hewn voice whispered, “I fucked him standing up in the hallway. Adorable Nicky. When I asked him how old he is, he said, ‘I’m going to be nineteen.’”

  My ears, I’m ashamed to admit, perked up.

  “Eew! Where does he live?” said another voice.

  “On 117th Street, with his mom and dad.”

  “You are trash. Trash.”

  “I know. I love it.”

  I couldn’t figure out who owned the cigarette voice, but it was soon obvious who the other party was: Lauren. Slowly, a silver twist of cigarette smoke crept from under the restroom door.

  “Gross!” shrieked the Lauren voice.

  The door opened and Lauren tumbled out, followed by a fog of smoke and Tinsley, who, cigarette between her lips, was almost unreco
gnizable. She was wearing tight black leather trousers and a white blouse, the most noticeable feature of which was the amount of bosom it revealed. She had a diamond-studded Cartier watch on her left wrist and huge pale pink diamond studs in her ears. It was a bizarre evolution from her gamekeeper incarnation of a few days ago.

  “Sylvie, I’m so glad you’re here,” said Lauren when she saw me.

  “Look at me.” said Tinsley, without removing her cigarette. “I’ve turned into Kimora Lee Simmons. I’m getting much younger guys with this look.”

  “It’s worth it, then,” I replied, amused.

  “This powder room is the best spot in the store. Please, can we not go back out there? I’m really enjoying fiddling with my makeup in here,” said Lauren. “I adore Phoebe, but she’s insane. I mean yeah, like, there’s really fifty zillion kids who are dying to get their hands on that $20,000 baby-llama-hair sleeping blanket.”

  Lauren and Tinsley each grabbed a bottle of baby water and squished onto the sofa opposite me. Tinsley nonchalantly emptied a dish of the sugared almonds into the trash bin and flicked her cigarette into the pristine silver tray. She clocked me clocking her.

  “Phoebe likes me being bad. I’m her only outlet. She’s so…well-behaved. I don’t understand her,” she declared, looking confused. Tinsley opened her purse and dug out a mascara wand and a tiny hand mirror. “This looks très Kimora if you load it on like cement,” she said, starting to apply the eye makeup.

  “You are not going to believe what happened to me last night,” said Lauren, looking at me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “She had five orgasms,” interrupted Tinsley.

  “How can you be positive it was five?” I asked.

  A girl has to be sure of the exact amount of orgasms she’s potentially missing out on by being married.