“You guys, come off it,” protested Eliza.
“Seriously, Eliza, you know I’m not as out there as Helen,” began Victoria. “But this is odd. How can this be a coincidence? If ever there was something telling you to go for it, this is it.”
Eliza gave them all a skeptical look. But inside she was exploding. Although she wasn’t as New Agey as Helen, she did think that it was somehow a sign. And she knew that no matter how much she loved her husband, Tyler Trask was the one man on earth who could steal her heart. But it was dangerous, and he was dangerous. Was it worth the risk?
“I’m not agreeing, but I wouldn’t mind seeing him again,” she finally sighed. “Now that I look semidecent, it would be nice to have someone appreciate it. But I’m not promising anything, and you have to help me track him down.”
The ladies squealed in delight.
“You won’t regret it,” said Victoria.
“I don’t think I have any more room for regrets,” said Leelee.
“Guys, I want to make it clear: I’m not agreeing, I’m just saying I’ll see Tyler, which means nothing, and only if you guys help me arrange it,” said Eliza.
“We know, we know, but you’ll come around,” said Victoria with certainty. She would do everything in her power to make sure Eliza agreed. Eliza was the one she needed to help her most of all.
“Don’t forget, we only live once. We’ve got to live each day as our last,” said Helen. She leaned across the table and put out her hand. Eliza, Victoria, and Leelee put their hands on top of hers, and they all squeezed.
•• 9 ••
On the day Victoria first met Wayne, the weather was overcast and everything that had transpired earlier had put her in a lousy mood. She couldn’t find a parking space outside her kickboxing class, so she was late and therefore relegated to the worst bag in the gym. Then she had sat through an endless Lilly Pulitzer Advisory Board lunch meeting where the spring collection was brought out on a large rack and select invited women analyzed each outfit down to the very last accessory and gave their assessment as to whether or not their friends would wear it. She had never seen so much effort put into dissecting a mock turtleneck and she could not, could not, believe that grown women, with college educations—some even with master’s degrees!—could debate the size of the blue turtles on the pink Capris for forty minutes. Forty minutes! Didn’t these women have to be anywhere? Get a life. She could not fathom how she had ended up in this suburban hell. She had gone to Harvard. She had an MBA from Stanford. She had been the youngest VP ever at Twentieth Century Fox, and now she was talking about stitched turtles? It was insane. Just bury me now, she thought.
And after that it only got worse. Because of the endless lunch from Hades, she ended up being last in the carpool lane to pick up the twins from school, and after ditching them with Marguerita, her Spanish nanny who spoke no English, so she could make her hair appointment with Khao at Fred Segal, she found that she had raced down the hill at top speed just to sit in the goddamn waiting room for forty minutes with two-month-old Vogues because some young starlet on the WB Network was late to get her roots covered. And as she sat there steaming, Victoria saw nymphet after nymphet, in their midriff-baring Britney Spears–wannabe outfits, pass her by without so much as a glance, because to them she was just another middle-aged studio exec wife. Okay, agent wife, but may as well be studio exec for all they care, but of course they don’t! And what were these women thinking wearing those outfits? Granted, it was California, but it was April—save it for the beach! When she got home, her hair finally done and her outfit for the evening ready because she had managed to beg the man in the dry cleaner’s to reopen the door and let her get her new Chloe cling dress, her husband from hell called to tell her that he was skipping the premiere and was instead going to dinner with Tad Baxter, because he was officially Tad Baxter’s bitch. All that running around, getting her hair blown out, letting the woman at the makeup counter “sample” makeup on her so she could get a free makeover, and spending a stupid hour getting a mani-pedi and a lip wax, and for naught.
Victoria was about to crumple in a ball, throw off her clothes, curl up in front of the TV with a bowl of microwave popcorn and the latest episode of Grey’s Anatomy from her TiVo list, when she stopped herself. She didn’t have to do that anymore. Why the hell did she have to wait for Justin to come home from sucking his client’s dick (not really, but for all she knew, really) when she had just spent her whole day and millions of hours to look amazing? She was going to that premiere.
It was too last-minute to enlist any of her posse to accompany her, but with her newfound attitude, she couldn’t care less. She would stroll down that red carpet alone, watch that movie alone—the new Drew Barrymore/Vince Vaughn, which was supposed to be cute, and she was actually psyched to see it—and then go to the after party by herself. The fact was, going it alone wasn’t all that ballsy, because whenever she was there with Justin he always ditched her anyway and went to lick his clients’ and potential clients’ balls. She would inevitably link up with the other ditched wives and commiserate over how seldom they saw their husbands and then how awful their husbands were when they actually did see them. She used to just listen, never bash, just take it all in and hold her cards close. But lately she didn’t care and would openly bash Justin. He was just too much of an asshole to her publicly to try to pretend that she was a happy, dutiful wife.
In the end she was glad she went; the film was humorous and helped put her in a better mood. As expected, she sat with other wives while their husbands “watched” the movie (that is, scanned the room for clients or potential clients) and had a huge bag of popcorn to herself. It was nice not to share it with Justin, who usually scarfed down the entire thing himself, licking his buttery fingers and dipping them back in, slobber still on them. God, he was repulsive. The premiere had been in Westwood, by UCLA, a frequent locale for premieres for reasons she didn’t understand but was grateful for; it was much easier going there from the Palisades than, say, Hollywood. The after party was being held at the Buffalo Club, a dark-paneled, overpriced restaurant with a large garden in back, located on an innocuous strip of Olympic Boulevard in Santa Monica.
With new determination, Victoria sped across the city in her black Mercedes SUV with the identical Britax baby seats in the back and Eminem blaring on the stereo. Eminem was a secret crush. She loved the contradiction of his take-no-prisoners attitude and his obsession with his daughter and inability to get over Kim. That was one thing she liked about strong men. Strong women brought them to their knees. They could be such tough assholes and yet they were able to be tortured and manipulated by a certain woman who knew just how to do that to them. In fact, any woman could do that to them; she just had to have the recipe for that particular man. Kim sure had Marshall’s number. She wished she had it also; he was a hottie. She’d seen Eight Mile something like ten times. Victoria didn’t feel as though she really had Justin’s number, when she thought about it. She used to, when she had been pursuing/ignoring him. But then when she got him…she wasn’t sure how it happened, but she couldn’t get his attention anymore. Probably they were too much alike, both just in it for the kill. And probably because there wasn’t any sort of true love there. There had been sex and passion and now there was just mutual torture. Pathetic.
Victoria strode into the party, head held high, and actually felt as if her new kick-ass attitude was getting her a lot more looks than her old confident-wife attitude. The club was packed— people were mingling, gripping drinks, starting from the bar inside all the way to the bar outside, and every seat was taken. Whenever anyone came through the door to the garden, every head turned to see if Drew or Vince or any other celeb had dared to make a cameo, and when they realized it was just another studio exec, they all just turned back to the person they were talking to and fake-listened to the conversation again. Victoria went to the bar and waited patiently for the bartender to serve twenty men and thirty nymphets who had
all cut in front of her, and when she finally got her dirty martini she turned around to find her friends. In her haste she practically knocked into the man in front of her, the alcohol in her glass dipping perilously close to the edge, and she was cursing out loud before she looked up to see that it was Wayne Mercer, the self-proclaimed “über agent” at ACM (Artists’ Creative Management) and the man her husband hated most.
“Sorry, did I get you?” he asked, unnecessarily clasping his arm around her wrist and squeezing it. She felt like she had just dipped herself into a wave of Calvin Klein cologne.
Wayne looked like every other agent, gelled dark hair, bonded teeth, Zegna suit, everything a little too slimy, a little too slick. She had no idea who had started it, but Wayne and Justin were constantly engaged in battle for each other’s clients. The war was probably launched by Wayne, who stole Dominique Swain from Justin, and then Justin in turn stole Leelee Sobiesky from Wayne. (Hard to say who actually won that fracas, considering the careers of the ladies in question.) Victoria just knew that Wayne Mercer’s name was dirt in their house, and if she was ever to see him at a party or anywhere else, she was ordered to run for the hills.
“Almost, but I’m okay,” said Victoria, literally batting her eyes and placing her hand on his shoulder and rubbing it.
Wayne looked at Victoria and smiled. “Wayne Mercer,” he said, still holding on to her wrist.
“Victoria Rand.” She had kept her maiden name—Coleman was just so pedestrian to her—but for a fleeting second she wished she hadn’t. How fun to see if Wayne could make the connection.
“You look familiar. Are you with the studio? Drew? Vince?” he asked, still holding on to her wrist but letting his eyes wander up and down her body. She was glad she had worn the dress, which had a slit up the side to show off her toned legs and somehow managed to cling and fold into every desirable nook and cranny of her body. Glad that she had picked it up from the dry cleaner’s, glad that she had gotten her hair and makeup done, and glad that she had worked out that morning.
“I’m with me,” she said, swirling the olive in her drink and taking a sip. Then she licked her lips seductively. She couldn’t believe she was actually doing it, but what the hell. With these monkeys, you had to lay it all out.
Wayne was intrigued. “Ha ha,” he chuckled. “Haven’t heard that one before.” She knew he was dying for her to ask him who he was with, she also knew he was “with Vince” because his agency repped him—so not actually with him, but he would spin it that way. She knew that he wanted to brag and that associating yourself with a celeb was the only way to win brownie points in this town, but she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction yet. The conversation would too quickly go to industry talk, too quickly get to who her husband was, and ultimately too quickly end. She wanted to play this one out, so she said nothing.
Wayne raised his eyebrows, as if intrigued that she didn’t ask him the question, and then started to say something. He stopped, obviously changing his mind, and leaned in instead. “What do you say I grab a drink, we go inside and sit in one of those booths and have a real dinner, and a real conversation?” He said the last part proudly, as if she had never had a real conversation.
Victoria cocked her head and examined her prey. Yes, he had that oily agent look, but he did have thick eyelashes and nice blue eyes, and his skin was smooth and soft-looking. He obviously worked out. He wasn’t gorgeous, but hey, he was her husband’s enemy. That was enough.
“Sounds great,” she said with a smile.
•• 10 ••
After dinner at Giorgio Baldi, Victoria, it seemed, was the only one of the group who believed that the pact had been agreed upon. Within a week, Victoria was cajoling her friends to get started on their extramarital activities. Leelee had readily agreed to cheat, but only because she thought that it was a fun conversation they were all having and it would lead nowhere. She wasn’t morally disgusted the way Eliza was, but uncertain. Could she really do this? Helen was on board, and the only reason she had not made headway was because it always took her a long time to do anything. She had to analyze, consider, reconsider, hesitate, dissect, and brood before she could make a move. Eliza remained unconvinced. She had a wonderful husband who appreciated her. Why would she mess that up?
But over the next few days, things started to change. The fantasy started to overwhelm the reality and become much more desirable. Because what was their reality after all? Shopping? Working out? Carpooling?
On Monday morning Eliza was getting ready to go out. She was in fact admiring herself in the mirror and had a vivid flash-back to a Thanksgiving long ago when she was in high school and she realized her body had undergone a metamorphosis and she was now a full-fledged woman. Even though she hadn’t gained very much during her pregnancy, she had never felt this fit. The bread belt that had nestled around the middle of her body like a life preserver had disappeared. She actually had a six-pack!
Declan came out of the bathroom and smiled at her. “Admiring your body again?”
“No—well, yes. I’m just psyched this trainer paid off!”
“Me too, at eighty bucks a pop,” he said. He started to button his shirt and put his tie on.
“Worth every penny,” said Eliza, putting on her shoes.
“Maybe I should work out,” said Declan. “But who has the time?”
Eliza looked over at her husband and stared at his protruding stomach. He was a large man, so he never really would be fat, but he definitely had a belly, and his arms were in no way toned.
“You should work out. You should find the time,” said Eliza.
“Come on, then I’d never see you,” he said, putting on his pants. “Besides, you don’t care what I look like. We have each other.”
“Do you mean you don’t care what I look like?” asked Eliza.
“I do, and you look great. But, you know, you’re in your midthirties, you’re a mom—you look great for that.”
Eliza was instantly pissed. “What are you saying, no one else would find me hot?”
“What do you care what anyone else thinks? You’re married,” said Declan, putting on his blazer.
“Then why did I kill myself in the gym? If you don’t care how I look and no one else is looking at me, what’s the point?” asked Eliza, her voice rising.
“Well, for one, it’s better for you to be fit. And two, you know the ladies in your social group. They all talk behind one another’s back. God forbid someone weigh an extra fifteen pounds. Look how Victoria talks about Leelee.”
Eliza slumped down on the bed. “You just made me feel really bad. I was feeling so good, and now you made me feel old and ugly.”
Declan came over and put his arm around her. “I didn’t mean to do that, sweetie. You’re gorgeous to me, and you always will be.”
“Right.”
“What, you want other men to want you? Isn’t that a little strange, considering we’re married?”
“No. Don’t you want other men to think I’m attractive?” asked Eliza.
“Sure, but I don’t want you working out so that other men will. There’s something a little distorted about it.”
“Whatever.”
Declan rose. “Look, honey, you look great. But we live in Los Angeles. There’s an Angelina Jolie on every corner. Don’t try to compare yourself with them.”
“Right,” said Eliza.
Declan went downstairs and Eliza sat, steaming, on the edge of the bed. She picked up one of her small flowered boudoir pillows and fondled the scalloped edge with her fingers. Why did her husband always have to be a pragmatist? Why did he never indulge in any of her stupid fantasies that maybe she was now the sexiest mom in the ’hood? She had sweated and toiled to get this body. It would be nice to have more appreciation. Tyler Trask would appreciate her. He’d liked her when she still had an extra fifteen pounds on her!
Eliza lay down on the bed and thought back to when she’d first met Tyler. Things were so different t
hen. She and Declan were living in New York, and she was still working full-time writing for Chat. She had just had Donovan and was dying to get back into the land of the living when her editor called and begged her to do an interview with “the incorrigible Tyler Trask.” It would be a huge favor to me, he said. It’s a huge favor for me, Eliza had thought. She loved her new baby but was feeling overwhelmed by waking up all hours of the night and experiencing hormone malfunctions and everything else that went with new motherhood. Going back to work was like coming up for air after almost drowning. And her encounter with Tyler did stop her from drowning. She closed her eyes and tried to remember how it felt, and why it was so good.
She had arranged to meet him at his hotel room at the Mark. She arrived early, nervous and wishing she wasn’t. He’s just a human being, she thought. Why get nervous? Hollywood actors were granted too much credit. She was sure he would be just like the rest of them. He was on the phone when she got there, and his publicist let her in and offered her bottled water. While she made polite chitchat with the publicist, she watched Tyler out of the corner of her eye. He was much handsomer in person, which was unusual, because she found that typically actors were less attractive in person—generally much shorter than they appeared on-screen, and they either had delicate fey features or really extreme features from the front but looked flat-headed from the side. Actresses were the opposite: they were far more attractive in person, and they were all emaciated. Tyler was an anomaly. He was about six feet tall, with a big, buff body and masculine, rugged features. He was all man.
He brought her water. He smiled. He asked his publicist to leave, which he did, reluctantly. They talked about small things, his latest film role, where he got his clothes, then big things, such as why he had such a terrible reputation for fighting, his alcohol benders, for which he had great remorse but refused to become a teetotaler, how his mother died of cancer, and the nature of fame. It got darker outside, then started to rain, and Eliza called her babysitter and told her she’d be late. Tyler told her she looked great for someone who’d just had a baby. They ordered room service. Then the interview took a strange turn.
The Infidelity Pact Page 7