by Jill Kargman
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Follow-ups
DUTTON
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Published by Dutton, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First printing, April
Copyright © 2009 by Jill Kargman
All rights reserved
REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Kargman, Jill, 1974-
The Ex-Mrs. Hedgefund / by Jill Kargman. p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-101-02243-6
1. Rich people—Fiction. 2. Adultery—Fiction. 3. Divorced women—Fiction.
4. Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. 5. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. I. Title. PS3611.A783E’.6—dc22 2008042999
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
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Dedicated with xoxos
to
My loving family
and
To the Chères—my Kikis—the best friends in the world.
Acknowledgments
First of all, I want to worship the amazing Trena Keating, who is a brilliant yummy mummy of three-slash-editor in chief—I bow down to you and Lily Kosner for all your incredible insights and wisdom. To the incredible ICM posse: Jennifer Joel and Amanda Urban, plus Josie Freedman and Elliot Webb on the “leff coass.” Special thanks to Steven Beer and Mary Miles of Greenberg Traurig. Megakudos to Lee-Sean Huang for help making the graphs, and a special shout-out of major thanks to my anonymous Hedge Fund Deep Throats for the Wall Street crash courses and juicy tidbits, plus amazing supporters like Amelia’s mom, Laura Tanny, Jacky Davy, Lisa Jacobs, Aviva Drescher, Tiffany Dubin, Carrie Karasyov, Janisse Tio, Tara Lipton, Alexis and Philip Mintz, the Heinzes, the Bevilacquas, Dan Allen, Jenn Linardos, Michael Kovner and Jean Doyen de Montaillou, Suzanne Cleary, Allison Aston, Beth Klein, and especially Carol Bell and Barbara Martin.
And to my Kikis: All of you inspired me to write this ode not just to finding amore, but also to true friendship, and I love you so much: Vanessa Eastman, Jeannie Stern, Dana Jones, Trip Cull-man, Lauren Duff, and most of all, Lisa Turvey for all your genius early edits, notes, and advice.
Last but not least, my family: Willie, Mom, Dad, and all the Kopelmans and Kargmans, especially my LC—thank you for being the best, most supportive husband—and to Sadie, Ivy, and Fletch, I love you, my little nuggets.
The Mrs. Hedgefund Rolodex of Favorite Words, A to Z
a. is for Armani, Aston Martin, Aman Resort, AmEx (Black)
b. is for Bonpoint, Bergdorfs, BOTOX, Bulgari
c. is for Cartier, Chauffeur, Chanel, Citibabes, Concierge
d. is for Dolce, Driver, Doorman, Dior
e. is for Emaciated, Endowment, Envy
f. is for Fendi, Frette, Furs, Frederic Fekkai
g. is for Gucci, Golf, Goyard
h. is for Housekeeper, Helicopter, Hamptons
i. is for iPhone, The Ivy, Italy
j. is for Jacadi, Jewelry, Jimmy Choo
k. is for Kelly Bag (in every color)
l. is for Lanvin, Louboutins, La Perla, Lobel’s, Long/Liquid Lunches
m. is for Missoni, Mercedes, Manicures
n. is for Nina Ricci, NetJets, Nannies
o. is for Oscar de la Renta, Opera Tickets
p. is for Pilates, Porthault, Paris, Pricey Parties
q. is for Quantity, Quality
r. is for Rive Gauche, Rachel Roy
s. is for Swifty’s, Saks, Season Tickets, Skybox, Second Home
t. is for Tiffany, Teterboro, Third Home
u. is for Ungaro
v. is for Vogue, Valentino, Van Cleef, Vivier, VIP List
w. is for Whatever, Whenever, Whomever I Want
x. is for Xanax
y. is for Yellow Diamond, YSL, Yacht
z. is for the Zone, Zegna, Zenith
1
New York, 2006
“Have you heard of the new Divorced Barbie? She comes with all of Ken’s stuff!”
It is 1789. An ethereal mist rolls through the gray-smudged streets as coiffed heads are rolling into baskets at the Bastille. The muddied, bedraggled, and oft-diseased onlookers cheer in every Parisian alley. Dawning is the day when preened, brioche-nibbling, wig-powdering royal schmucks no longer shall prance the palace courts in ornamented couture; the chasm between the upper crust and the crumb-eaters is closing with each crisp slice of a once-bejeweled neck, to the thrill of the roaring crowd.
As a raging Broadway geek, I had s
een Les Misérables probably twenty times, but the music was even sweeter when a limited engagement briefly reopened on Broadway recently. It was packed with tourists and fanatical theater-worshippers like me, and I relished the airtight lyrics and live voices versus my well-worn CD. Seeing it again was like enjoying a short season of a favorite fruit you know you can’t savor next month—blood oranges for your ears.
Even in the decade since it last appeared on the Great White Way, a lot has changed in our gritty city. In New York, a glistening new empire was raging, full of the same boundless excesses and sheltered luxuries in which cosseted royals reveled. I thought how lucky I was. Not only because we are now rid of gangrenous wounds, lepers, and inefficient sewer systems, but also because even if there were a class pyramid like the one they had in old Europe, I knew I would be at the triangle’s apex, safe from the storm of clamoring mobs raising tattered flags and angry voices. No, I’m not a blue-blooded queen; I’m a normal, down-to-earth, non-over-the-top gal. But I must confess: I am a hedge fund wife.
But wait!
Don’t let go of that guillotine rope!
I’m not like the rest of them. I promise. I am not some skeletorious trend-splashed fashion victim or five-foot-eight Xanax tablet with a face. I look my thirty-four years and have not succumbed to the BOTOX needle or boob lift, despite the 9.81-meters-per-second force of gravity taking its toll. Okay, some of my friends are a little OTT, but some are very down-to-earth, and their favorite thing about having money is giving it away. While I must admit, a gal can obviously love the perks of not stressing about dough, there are some drawbacks to the world that I inhabit. Namely the incessant quest for perfection at all costs. In every way—perfect kids, homes, bodies, lives. Many of my friends are slaves to their appearance: nips, tucks, $600 creams made of sheep’s placenta, trainers, lipo, the works. Anything to be fabulous. But I myself am more drab than fab. More J.Crew than J. Mendel. Sometimes I’ll stare at a fashion spread and wish I knew how to work a look like that, but even though I could maybe afford the crazy price tag, I could never in good conscience do it; I’m just not wired that way. I grew up in a well-off but supergrounded, relaxed family in Boston, where people didn’t flash cash—my dad is a sweet-natured retired pediatrician and my loving late mother was the epitome of warm elegance rather than opulence, class instead of crass. Sure, a few classmates of mine were megamillionaires (back when that was a big deal), but they made their chauffeurs drop them blocks before school out of an embarrassment of riches. Now in New York I regularly see Rolls-Royces with kiddie car seats glutting the street in front of my son Miles’s school. In Boston, the entrepreneurs really created products and didn’t show their money around Versailles style. The father of a girl I knew invented the nail clipper; another developed the lawn mower as we know it—patents that still yield serious buckaroos, but none of the families were advertising it. Even though many of my parents’ friends had money, there wasn’t the flamboyant arrogance I see now.
You see, Manhattan is a different beast. Fortunes are made on people moving around money, not widgets. Very few companies create a palpable product, something you can hold in your hands. It’s all about trading, investing, forecasting ups and downs in those markets. Nothing annoys my husband, Tim, more than when he asks what so-and-so does and I blithely respond, “Oh, you know, Wall Street.” He tries to calmly explain that there are titans of private equity and mere cold-callers, a spectrum of skill and wealth. But numbers now blur into hieroglyphics for me, despite my A+ in BC Calc in high school. It’s as simple as this: I have zero interest.
More than once Tim has given me a mini-crash course—basically verbal Sominex—on the differences between traders who trade stocks versus commodities (like pork bellies and the all-famous Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice in Trading Places), versus venture capitalists who invest in small companies with high-growth potential. And then there are the current reigning titans, the kings of ka-ching: the hedgies. What my husband and his brother, Hal, do is all very mysterious and, well, to me, boring. Hedge funds, which are not really regulated, are based on an exorbitant “two and twenty” (or “three and thirty,” depending on how well they do) percentage of fees and profits, resulting in lots of boys with lots of cash. All anyone knows is that these guys are minting it, and that the culture, even if clueless about what they actually do, is obsessed.
Fashion designers are telling E! Television that their inspiration is “hedge fund chic.” Artists at the Miami ArtBasel Fair rub shoulders not with other artists or their dealers but with their new buttoned-up clientele, who fork out millions for a formaldehyde-suspended pig or a splatter-painted panel. When people ask what Tim does and I respond, “Hedge fund,” they say, “Oooooooh,” and I cringe, embarrassed; these funds are on people’s lips and brains and are synonymous with piles of gold bricks. Not to mention people with no brains: There is even a new book, Hedge Funds for Dummies. Like their Gekko-y eighties counterparts, these guys love the money. Greed is good, so it was said, but these days, bragging is better. It seems that every guy my husband works with needs the latest phone, newest car, biggest house, to show off; there’s no modesty—it’s in-your-face, loud and clear, volume to eleven. And that’s how they like it. As do the women who chase them. But while most women would secretly wear Nikes under their Vera Wang bridal dresses so they could sprint faster down the aisle to marry one, take it from me: There are sacrifices.
First of all, the MIA husband syndrome. Tim has to travel all the time, so I’m often solo after Miles’s tuck-in with my remote control, learning way too much about Hugh Hefner’s three girlfriends on E! or wincing at a taped tummy tuck on the Learning Channel (dashing any desire to have one, despite slight paunch). Then, when Tim is in residence, we have to go to a million “functions.” Hedge fund events, charity balls, Tim’s co-worker’s sister’s wedding. The more money you have, the more friends you get, Tim jokes, but he loooves being the life of the party. Me? I’m way more boring. While he likes going out and sampling aged scotch or expensive wine, I prefer . . . Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice.
All of this is a terrific boon for my field of interest: charity work. There is so much money out there, and the dough coupled with the mounting social ambition yields a prime moment for raising money, so I’ve thrown myself into my volunteer work for the hospital, getting people to come to our benefit and raising tons of funds. In fact, I’ve raised so many Benjamins that Susan in the development office whispered I was being groomed for the board. But of course, there’s a charity version of mutual back-scratching. It means that everyone who donates or buys a ticket to my event then asks me to buy one for their cause as well, resulting in a full calendar of going out.
These events can be fun, sure, but lately the whole black-tie thing has gotten worse, spiraling out of control to the point where we can conceivably be out five nights a week. Sometimes I worry about how easily lying comes to me in terms of wriggling out of attending. It’s truly almost like breathing. Hi, it’s Holland. I’m sooo sorry, but Tim and I can’t make your Night of Wagner at the Opera because we have friends in town! Or: Gosh, I’ll have to miss your museum luncheon—I have a doctor’s appointment, bummer! Come to think of it, it’s really just minifibs to spare people’s feelings, because I generally much prefer small, intimate gatherings to stuffy formal fetes with penguin suits and pearl chokers.
And take luncheons, for example. I have a strict no-luncheons policy, which can be tricky in Manhattan, and thus involves at least weekly lies to various hedge fund wives who invite me to their interminable afternoons at La Goulue or Sette Mezzo. Let’s face it: The word “luncheon” is “lunch” plus “eon” because it takes eons for the darn thing to end. My last was a Museum of Natural History luncheon that went on so long, it was as if the gigantic T. rex dinosaur jawbones bit a humongous bloody chunk out of my day. Whether I was giving tours at Miles’s school, working at the hospital writing fund-raising letters, or simply running the house, my time was in scatt
ered pieces like the fossils. So I feel zero guilt as I rattle off faux excuses to various invitations that would no doubt be the equivalent of social root canal.
But lying to Tim was different.
My husband of seven years knew me so well, I had to avert my eyes when I spewed out some invented plan, tending to a supposedly errant cuticle or lip gloss touch-up rather than look him in the eye. It had come to this since our last major fight a month ago.
“I don’t think you quite understand, Holly,” he yelled at me, brown eyes ablaze. “You are NEVER to speak to Kiki again. Ever. She is out of this family. She left my brother and she’s a tacky little bitch. The Talbott family sticks together, and if Hal has booted that slut from his life, we do the same. Delete her from your Outlook. That garbage Kiki Talbott is Out. Of. Our. Lives.”
He slammed the door to his bathroom. I heard the shower go on and closed my eyes, knowing that despite his fervent militaristic command, my best friend—my now ex-sister-in-law—was most certainly not going to be dumped in the trash.
We had married two brothers, the scions of Comet Capital, a thriving New York City hedge fund. When I first met Kiki Silverstein, I wasn’t quite sure about her—she was kind of a loud-mouth, wearing a leopard-print Dolce&Gabbana coat with big gold buttons, huge Rachel Zoe-esque sunglasses not unlike an insect’s compound eyes on top of her head, and five-inch platform tranny-esque black patent leather heels, rattling off a laundry list of orders to her assistant through a headset on her newfangled shiny cell. She ran a manicured hand with dark red nails through her shiny dark-brown shoulder-length hair and had a bit too much eye makeup on her crystal blue eyes. While Posey, Mary, and Trish, my circle of New York mom-friends I’d met through Miles’s school, were incredibly refined and traditionally “ladylike,” Kiki was brassy and sassy and had edge to spare, with a gutter mouth and a sick bod she flaunted that immediately put all guys’ minds in the gutter right beside her language. But little by little, I saw that beneath the windup doll that cracked everyone up with her hilarious zingers and often scathing one-liners was a gentle, nurturing, warm soul who, in the six years of her marriage to Hal, truly grew to be family. In fact, despite how polar opposite we were, she became the sister I never had. And I couldn’t excise her from my life just because Hal did.