The Birthday Girl

by Melissa de la Cruz

  Besides, she’d loved Archer after all, and therein lay the difference. Whoever this backdoor Betty was, she was definitely with Melvin for the cold, hard cash.

  “Never mind her, who’s that guy over there by the bar?” said Todd. “I don’t think I know who he is. I’ve never seen him before.”

  Ellie froze. Was it him? She couldn’t breathe for a moment. But when she looked over to where Todd was motioning, she saw that it wasn’t. There was only a stranger, an older man, slightly out of place, eyes darting furtively around the party.

  “No idea,” she said. “Maybe someone’s date?”

  “He hasn’t said hello to anyone,” said Todd. “Maybe he crashed?”

  “Out here? In Palm Springs?” Ellie scoffed. This was a far cry from the velvet-rope affairs of Hollywood shindigs or New York nightclubs. Their house was in a cul-de-sac, and no one knew about the party except people who had been invited. This wasn’t an event that appeared on publicists’ radars or in media press releases. It was private. Whereas during her youth in Manhattan, it had been almost blood sport to crash exclusive parties, and the most famous crashers even had nicknames like Shaggy and the Sultan, none of that existed in the desert. The strange man had to be someone’s guest, a friend of a friend.

  “Maybe he can leave and take the hooker with him,” said Todd, who was uncharacteristically disturbed.

  “I’m sure he’s fine,” said Ellie. “Don’t make a scene.”

  Todd grunted and left to his mission.

  Ellie sighed. Hookers and billionaires. Happy fortieth. She had everything she ever wanted, and then some. Or did she? She wanted to tell Sanjay he was wrong, thirty million wasn’t enough; look at Johnny Depp, who was bankrupt too. Thirty million wasn’t even close to cutting it. She was a huge, yawning pit of desire.

  “You have a void in you,” her therapist had said once.

  “Oh, I know I do,” she’d said, laughing. “I have a void in me that I fill with jewels and houses and husbands!”

  Then she fired her therapist for telling her something so obvious. Of course she had a void in her, and no matter how much she had, she never felt satisfied, never fulfilled, always hungry. More. Archer hadn’t been enough. And Todd—well—to be fully honest, Todd wasn’t even her second husband. He was her third.

  But she didn’t count the first one. She’d erased him from her past and scrubbed every bit of him from her memories. She’d been so young! Too young to get married, for sure, which was why it had been easy enough to get it annulled after a few months. There was only Archer, then Todd. Who needed to know about the first guy? He wasn’t important. The past was past. The past was history and so was her first husband.

  But as a famous writer once said, the past isn’t dead, it’s not even past, which the presence of Todd’s ex-wife at the party made abundantly clear. “Montserrat!” Ellie said, trying to sound sincere, as her husband’s toxic ex-wife made her way to her.

  “Ellie,” she purred. “Happy birthday! Forty. Wow. I wonder what I’ll do when I get to be that age! You’re so brave!” Only Montserrat would equate courage with growing older.

  Montserrat never failed to remind Ellie that she was all of five years younger. When Ellie had first married Todd, when they were still cuddly newlyweds, Montserrat would screech “HOW DO YOU LIKE FUCKING THAT OLD CUNT!” on his voice mails. But now the new and improved and medicated Montserrat would be horrified at her former actions. It had been years since she’d tried to run over Ellie with her car or knocked her down and pulled her hair during one of their violent, custody-battle drop-offs and pickups. Now Montserrat was the queen of the subtle knife, the underhanded diss, the undermining, left-handed compliment. In a way, Ellie missed the days when they’d resorted to punching and clawing at each other; at least back then they had been honest about their feelings.

  Now they had to air-kiss and make nice.

  Annoyingly, the bitch looked good. No wonder Todd had married her. She was a vixen, all bodacious curves in the right places with a flat tummy and tiny bubble butt, sex on a stick. She had almond-shaped dark brown eyes, skin the color of an iced latte, as beautiful as her daughter. Ellie felt a pang. No matter what, this was Sam’s mother.

  “How are you, how are the children? How’s Giggy?” Montserrat asked, making a sad face. Montserrat never failed to rub it in that her child was a genius and Ellie’s was a dum-dum.

  “Imogen’s great. The twins are great, everyone’s great,” said Ellie brusquely.

  “Samantha said Giggy’s moved on to another new tutor,” Montserrat said smugly.

  Ellie didn’t take the bait, refused to play that game. She loved both her daughters, even the one who’d come out of this one. “When did you talk to Sam?”

  “Oh,” said Montserrat. “Isn’t she here?”

  “You know she’s here?”

  “Of course. She came to my house first. But I told her I was renovating and she should stay here.” Montserrat had a cottage in La Quinta, which she bought years ago after the divorce came through. Ellie’s victory lap when she bought Gulf House was that much sweeter, knowing that her husband’s ex was stewing in a dinky little nine-hundred-square-foot bungalow while she had this grand, historic estate.

  “Why is Sam home?” she asked.

  “She didn’t tell you?” asked Montserrat, feigning surprise.

  “No.”

  Montserrat grimaced, and Ellie could tell she was actually upset this time. “I think she should be the one to tell you.”

  FOURTEEN

  Poppers in the Alley

  October 19

  Twenty-Four Years Ago

  8:30 P.M.

  Arnold was gone for a while. Leo rocked back and forth on her heels. She was still a bit drunk from the vodka and Mountain Dew. “He’s not coming back,” she said.

  “He totally is.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because Arnold likes you,” said Mish.

  “What?”

  “He told me.”

  “Oh,” said Leo.

  “I know he’s like so old,” said Mish. “And it’s Arnold!” Mish made a face.

  “He’s like nineteen,” said Leo. “That’s only three years.”

  “Do you like him?”

  Leo blushed. She hadn’t really thought about it, but Arnold was cute in his own way. “I don’t know, maybe, why?”

  Mish huffed, then changed the subject. “I wish Dani were here, she was fun,” she said, meaning Arnold’s older sister.

  “Yeah,” said Leo, wondering why Mish would care whether she liked Arnold or not.

  Dani Dylan was kind of a legend in the trailer park. She was loud, brash, and had a real mouth on her. The kind of girl Leo’s mom told Leo to stay away from. Dani liked to say she was an accidental hooker, not a hooker hooker.

  “I just met this guy at the club,” she told them once, sucking on her cigarette. “And I slept with him in his hotel. The next day he leaves me like two one-hundred-dollar bills. He thought I was a prostitute!”

  “Oh my god!” screeched Mish while Leo’s ears went red.

  That was last year. Mish told Leo her mom said she saw Dani the other day, getting out of a red Camaro. “Supposedly she’s dating the manager of the Chili’s where she works,” said Mish. “A real sugar daddy.”

  “Gross,” said Leo. “Isn’t he like thirty?”

  “Older, I think,” said Mish.

  * * *

  —

  Arnold finally returned. He looked left and right and took a seat on the sidewalk with them.

  “Hey, how’s Dani?” asked Leo. “We never see her anymore.”

  “She’s all right.” He shrugged.

  Mish crossed her arms over her chest. “Heard she has a new boyfriend.”

  “I guess you could call him that.”
>
  “You don’t like him?” asked Leo.

  He shrugged. “Not really. But what’s she going to do? Stay here. I mean, you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah.” She did know.

  “At least he doesn’t beat her like the other one,” said Mish.

  Leo nodded. During the accidental-hooker phase, Dani had sort of slipped into real-hooker hooker territory. One of her boyfriends was also her pimp and beat her so badly she had to go to the hospital. Arnold never talked about it.

  Leo thought that maybe Arnold looked out for them because they reminded him of his sister. Or maybe he was just nice. Sometimes he was the only person she could talk to who wouldn’t judge.

  “So what do you have for us?” asked Mish.

  “Come see,” said Arnold, pulling out a plastic bag from his jacket.

  * * *

  —

  What Arnold had was poppers. “Have you done these before?” asked Leo as Mish stuck the tiny amber bottle up her nose.

  “Yeah,” said Mish, shrugging as if it were no big deal. “With Arnold.” She and Arnold exchanged a look. Arnold frowned, as though embarrassed for some reason.

  “These aren’t like addictive,” he explained. “I didn’t give her crack. I would never.”

  “Arnold, do you even deal crack?”

  He didn’t answer, just looked uncomfortable.

  Mish sucked in a breath and handed it to Leo.

  Leo stuck it under her right nostril. “Now inhale!” said Mish.

  She did. It burned, it felt as if it were frying her brains, like it went right up her nose and into her mind. It was dizzying. “Oh my god!”

  “Right?” said Mish gleefully.

  Leo started laughing hysterically.

  “Take another hit,” said Mish.

  She did. And another. And another. Arnold joined them, snorting and laughing the loudest.

  The three of them passed the bottle among them, laughing hysterically. The high lasted only a few seconds, but it was intense. Leo had no idea what was so funny, only that whatever was in the little bottle was like inhaling a lot of fun.

  “Wait! Don’t finish it; we’ll need more for the club, when we get out to the dance floor,” said Mish, taking the bottle back.

  They smoked instead, Arnold once again providing for them. He shook out a couple of Camel cigarettes from his pack and they each took one. Leo’s head was pounding from the alcohol and the poppers, so it felt good to slow down a little, smoke a little nicotine, which took some of the edge off. Arnold bought them beers from a deli and once more, they sat on a curb, drinking.

  Mish took out the Polaroid once more and held it up. “Say cheese, you two,” she said.

  Leo and Arnold looked up from their beers. “Cheese!” they said, as the flash went off and the camera made a whirring noise and spat out another photograph.

  “So, Sparkle, huh? Anyone playing tonight?” he asked.

  “No idea,” said Mish, sucking on her cigarette and blowing smoke rings. Mish didn’t seem too high or too out of it. She’d drunk the vodka like a pro, and while she laughed at the poppers, she seemed to be in control. But that was Mish—high tolerance, high maintenance, always cool.

  In contrast, Leo felt as if she were out in a sea, a great big sea of illicit fun that she’d never realized was out there. How easy it all was. How scary that it was so easy, although the fear was part of the fun, that edge of danger that made it so delicious. Did Mish do this all the time? She seemed to know how to get liquor, and she’d done poppers before. What else did she do?

  Mish flicked her cigarette on the ground. “Okay, thanks, see you around.”

  “Hey, you can’t just leave,” said Arnold.

  “Why not?” said Mish, jutting out her chin.

  “Told you I would collect,” he said.

  “Well, what do you want?” said Mish, hands on hips.

  Arnold pretended to think on it. “How about a kiss?” he suggested.

  Mish screwed her face. “Ew! Never!” Mish had a boyfriend. She didn’t have to put up with this kind of thing from Arnold, the neighborhood loser.

  But Leo was already leaning toward him. She couldn’t see clearly, she was high, this was fun, Arnold was fun, he was a friend, and all he wanted was a kiss. She could do that. Why not?

  “I’ll kiss you,” she offered.

  Mish wrinkled her nose, obviously opposed to the idea. “Ew, no! Don’t kiss him! We don’t owe him anything!”

  But Arnold was already leaning over, and Leo leaned closer as well. She closed her eyes, prepared for a full tongue bath, but he gave her only a peck on the lips.

  “That wasn’t too bad, right?” he said with a smile. “So, Sparkle?”

  Mish once again looked repulsed. “You’re not coming.”

  Arnold slung an arm around Leo’s shoulders. “I think that’s for the birthday girl to decide, don’t you think?”

  What could it hurt? Arnold had given them drugs for free. Mish had her boyfriend, so why couldn’t Arnold come with them? Was Mish embarrassed to be seen with two people from Woods Forest Park? Screw that.

  Leo put her arm around Arnold’s waist. “The birthday girl says Arnold’s welcome.”

  FIFTEEN

  Exes and Ohs, Part One

  October 19

  The Present

  8:45 P.M.

  As Montserrat walked away, smug with the knowledge that she knew what was going on with Sam while Ellie didn’t, Ellie was struck by another fear. One that had never occurred to her before. Did Montserrat know what was going on with Sam because she was still sleeping with Todd? Was Todd cheating on her with his hot ex-wife?

  Everyone cheats. That’s what her mother believed and so that’s what Ellie believed. Before her dad went to jail, he hadn’t been faithful, her mom said. It was just the way it was. Like the lights going out if there was no money to pay the electric bill, or the way they made do with a dinner of hot dogs and crackers when the food stamps ran out.

  Everyone cheats, no one is faithful, no one is good, the world is cruel, the universe indifferent, and your husband will sleep with someone else in time.

  Everyone cheats. Half her friends in LA were cheaters. They all had affairs. London and New York, not so much. What was the difference? Ellie wondered. Were the LA people just more attractive and hence had more opportunity? Possibly. Archer’s group of aristocrats were a somewhat shabby bunch. Sure, they owned vineyards in South Africa and threw lavish hunting parties in their country homes, but most of them were total bow-wows, snaggletoothed and dandruffy. The richer they were, the more they resembled their dogs. There was a reason Camilla Parker Bowles was nicknamed the Rottweiler. Her New York friends were decidedly more glamorous, but more intent on building their brands, their companies, and ferrying their children from one status-signifying extracurricular activity to another. They were too busy to have sex with anyone.

  Still, everyone cheats. Ellie had been a guest at an engagement party for one of her model friends, and the talk of the night was that Cosima was annoyed that Kate Moss was coming to her wedding because it turned out Kate Moss was her fiancé’s mistress.

  “So what’s the big deal? So Marcus fucks Kate once in a while, everyone fucks Kate,” the bride was told. Go on with the wedding. So he’s a cheater. So he cheats on you with Kate Moss. At least she’s famous. Europeans were so blasé.

  Americans felt guiltier about infidelity, but they still did it.

  Ellie scanned the room, knowing half the couples were keeping secrets from each other. There was the beautiful soap star cheating on her husband with their eighteen-year-old manny, while her husband, the producer of the show, was cheating with his assistant. Over by the piano, there was the magazine executive who spent half her time traveling with her “work husband,” who took that title literally—they even bo
oked the same rooms on every trip. Meanwhile, her husband husband had a new skank on his arm at Soho House every night. There was Todd’s sister-in-law, who’d gone to Rome on an artists’ retreat and slept with the eighteen-year-old nephew of the artist. Todd’s brother was still married to her—why, Ellie didn’t know. Maybe he was just biding his time to hook up with his own eighteen-year-old, if he hadn’t already. When her friends caught their husbands cheating, they didn’t even divorce them; usually they just embarked on revenge affairs. Divorce was messy—a drain on the lifestyle and the cash flow, plus there were the kids to think about. A revenge affair was much more efficient.

  Everyone cheats. It was depressing.

  Didn’t people make promises when they got married? Vows? Forsaking all others, to love and to cherish, till death do us part? Didn’t she promise that? Didn’t Todd? Ellie can’t remember their vows. The guy who married them in St. Barts had a thick French accent; who knows what he asked of them? She was pretty bombed when they walked out to the beach, so drunk she could hardly keep the dress on her shoulders, and the baby was crying.

  They’d met at a party in Brooklyn, of all places, at one of those humongous loft parties in Dumbo thrown by the hippest people you know, when Brooklyn was finally the place to be instead of the place no one ever wanted to go because you could never get a taxi back to Manhattan. It was before Uber, practically prehistoric. It was ten years ago, when she’d just moved back to New York again from London. She and Archer had tried to work things out for the sake of the baby, but neither of them had that kind of self-sacrifice in them. Archer was Archer. He was there for her all the way up from conception to the birth. But after the baby was born, Archer was back to his old habits, hitting Annabel’s and leaving for Spain for the weekend while she had to stay home and take care of the squalling bundle of joy. If she was going to be alone, Ellie decided she’d much rather be alone in New York.