The Birthday Girl

by Melissa de la Cruz

  People (therapists, her best friends, Todd) said she had daddy issues, but she never knew her dad long enough to be hurt by his absence or his negligence. So how could she have issues if she never even related to having a father? Archer was more a baby than a father figure. Even when she was seventeen and started dating him, she had to take care of him, not the other way around. Sure, he paid for everything, duh, but she did everything else.

  Anyway, Todd. He was at that loft party, and still wearing a wedding ring. Technically, of course, he was still married, but they were separated, he told her. They were living apart. His wife had moved out and had a new boyfriend—some real estate guy. Todd had showed her pictures of his kid—gap-toothed Sam—and she had shown him photos of baby Giggy. She told him she was divorced, which was the truth. They had filed papers before she’d left, but they weren’t finalized yet.

  Todd was such a star back then. He’d just come back from Rockefeller Center for the network upfronts. At the party in Brooklyn, Ellie remembered, all those young starlets clustered around him, pressing their tits against his elbow. But he’d only had eyes for her.

  Sure, Ellie had gotten around. She went through a bit of a slutty phase. She’d slept with a lot of famous people. She was a model, come on. Rock stars. Rap stars. Actors. It was something to do. Later, she would see them on television or on the movie screen and she’d laugh, remembering which one couldn’t finish, which one had a pencil dick, which one had cried afterward. But she’d never truly fallen in love. Not like this. Okay, so maybe Archer, twenty years older, had been a sort of daddy after all. She loved Archer, but she’d fallen in love with Todd. There was a difference.

  Todd was a daddy, but he wasn’t her daddy.

  Todd was only five years older than her.

  When they met, he was thirty-five, not even forty, but he was a dad with a kid, and Ellie was just over thirty with a baby already. A single dad and a single mom. She was feeling bloated and ugly and her boobs were leaking. But that night she’d worn her usual tank top without a bra and her torn jeans and her shitkicker boots, and her hair was a blond tangle down her back. She looked like the kind of girl who graced every car commercial and hamburger ad in America and when he looked over at her, past the overdressed starlets, she’d smiled at him.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he’d said, a hand on her back. So confident, so sure. She can’t even remember what she’d said or did that made him think she would leave with him right then, but she did. She had live-in help, and a night nurse giving Giggy her 2:00 A.M. bottle.

  They went back to his hotel room and fucked all night. His penis was huge. What did they call it now? Big Dick Energy, yeah, exactly. She had to smile just thinking about it. She’d told all her gays the next day at brunch, holding up her hands spaced widely apart. It was like she’d won the lottery.

  Was Todd cheating on Montserrat back then when he’d slept with Ellie? When he’d taken her back to his hotel room? Was he cheating if he was still wearing a wedding ring? Was he cheating if he was only separated, not divorced?

  Was she the other woman?

  Ellie had never slept with a married man. Never. It was another of her rules. No married guys. Had he lied to her about being separated?

  No, because when she flew out to Los Angeles the next weekend, Todd was living in an apartment above Sunset. He’d been there for a while; it was decorated—rugs on the floor, art on the walls. There was a little bedroom for his kid, Sam, who lived with him every other week; they traded custody.

  When Ellie met Todd, Montserrat was already living in a penthouse on Wilshire with her boyfriend. Ellie had seen the photos of them online. Montserrat had traded Todd for some real estate mogul, much older and swarthier but with a much fatter bank account. But try reminding Montserrat about that, because when she found out Todd wasn’t coming back to her, she was livid. When the boyfriend dumped her, she wanted her husband back, except he didn’t want her back anymore. Todd had moved on, to Ellie, to Giggy, the four of them with Sam in tow, doing all the dorky family things. Ellie left New York and the four of them had settled into a five-bedroom Spanish colonial in Brentwood. They’d even gotten a dog together—their pouty little Maltese puppy, Cece. Ugh—that was another problem—Ellie had completely forgotten about the Cece issue. She still had to tell Todd about it. Crap.

  Todd paid Montserrat off with Ellie’s money, and the minute his divorce was final, they hightailed it to St. Barts and made it official. No prenup, even if Ellie’s company was flying high. What was she thinking? She was in love and Todd had his own money. She’d had to sign a prenup when she married Archer, but there was land in Surrey and in the South of France, unbreakable trusts that had been set up for his children, for Giggy.

  So: Was Todd cheating on his wife with her back then? Ellie weighed all the facts and decided no. He was truly separated from Montserrat and their marriage was over.

  But was he cheating on Ellie with his ex-wife now? Had the tables turned?

  Todd and Montserrat had become chummy lately. They were positively affectionate these days, sharing laughs about Sam. During Sam’s high school graduation, everyone assumed they were still a couple, they presented such a united front—the proud parents. Ellie was just the stepmonster, just the one who’d paid all the bills for that fancy private school and the private SAT tutoring and the elite summer camps, yeah.

  Todd would be insane if he was sleeping with Montserrat. He couldn’t be. He couldn’t be sleeping with her. Montserrat was toxic. No matter that she was a serene yoga goddess now, she had the heart of a viper and Todd wasn’t dumb. He wouldn’t go back there.

  But just because he wasn’t fucking his ex-wife didn’t mean he wasn’t fucking someone else.

  But who?

  Who was he fucking?

  But didn’t Ellie have bigger things to worry about right now? Like the fact that he was coming to the party?

  Talk about an ex.

  She’d ex’d him out of her life.

  What did he want? Why was he coming over? Did he want to talk about that night? That night that they never, ever, ever talked about—the night when . . .

  Ellie shook her head. She didn’t want to remember. Maybe, hopefully, he wouldn’t show up at all. But when had she ever been that lucky?

  SIXTEEN

  Exes and Ohs, Part Two

  October 19

  The Present

  9:00 P.M.

  Todd downed the rest of his drink and kept his gaze upon the strange man in their backyard. Ellie swore she had no idea who he was, but Todd had learned not to believe everything his wife said. Oh, not that she was lying per se, but she often didn’t want him to know exactly what she was up to, and he had a strong feeling that Ellie wasn’t telling him the entire truth. Not about that guy, nor how much the party cost, nor exactly how much money she had borrowed from the bank. He knew they were deeply in debt, and buying this house two months ago hadn’t helped, but it wasn’t as if he could stop her either, it wasn’t as if she ever listened to him. Her label was floundering, that much he knew, since she was always complaining about their weak social media presence and how they couldn’t compete with all the new internet-based clothing companies with no overhead and brick-and-mortar expenses.

  He was vaguely aware that their entire enterprise was a literal house of cards that could crash down at any moment, but he didn’t know exactly how bad it was, and he wished he did. He wished she would lean on him a little more, let him in, but they’d been estranged for so long and they’d gotten used to living with the tension. He’d been depressed and withdrawn, and she’d thrown herself headfirst into saving her company, so there was little time for intimacy, let alone decent conversation.

  “Todd!” came a honeyed, patrician voice that could only belong to his wife’s ex-husband.

  Lord Fauntleroy! he’d almost said, but bit it back. “Archer!” he said, sl
apping the tall, red-faced Brit on the back. “How are you, man? Good to see you!” he said, without an ounce of sincerity. He wasn’t jealous of Archer, who was old and graying and had a paunch and, honestly, was a bit pathetic with all the skirt chasing at his age. But the fact that the old coot had known Ellie first, yeah, that still grated.

  “Everything good?” he said, hoping he could get rid of him as soon as possible.

  “Good, good,” said Archer affably. “You?”

  “Can’t complain,” said Todd, who had a lot to complain about, including the end of his television career, the twenty pounds he’d gained from the stress (not fifty; Ellie always exaggerated), his wife’s manic overspending, and the mystery of why his eldest daughter had suddenly come home from college. “Did you and Giggy have a nice weekend?”

  “Lovely,” said Archer.

  Whenever Archer blew into town, they had to force his daughter to spend time with him, which she hated. It gave Todd a certain satisfaction. Giggy had reluctantly spent the weekend with Archer at his hotel with his newest girlfriend, and had returned home with more complaints.

  “He’s embarrassing!” Giggy had told him while they ate ice cream in the kitchen together. “He doesn’t know how to work the TV remote in the hotel, so he’s always calling for someone to do it, even at three in the morning, which wakes me up even in the other room because the walls in the suite are so thin. He’s a child,” said their ten-year-old child.

  She detailed the rest of her grievances: Archer couldn’t find his eyeglasses and so had to have someone from the hotel read the selections to him, which took so long that he decided he wasn’t hungry after all, so Giggy didn’t get breakfast; Archer invited a few of his girlfriend’s friends over and they had a loud party in the suite and she couldn’t sleep.

  “At least we’re not in LA,” said Giggy.

  “Why? What happens in LA?”

  “He can’t drive, so he takes me to school in an Uber, which isn’t allowed on campus, and the guard always stops us at the gate, which makes everyone beep,” she whined.

  Privately, Todd wished that Ellie would put her foot down with Archer and tell Giggy she didn’t have to see him. Giggy didn’t even like to be called Giggy anymore—she preferred Imogen, barely. “What kind of stupid name did I get?” she’d say, scowling.

  “It’s British,” Ellie would explain. “You’re British.”

  Giggy refused to believe it.

  After eating her ice cream, Giggy was back to running around the party with her little friend Zoe, ignoring the mean triumvirate this time. The twins were once more causing havoc in the playroom, now that the lesser DJ had absconded. But where was Samantha? Where was his eldest child? Why was she home all of a sudden?

  Oh, wait. He knew why she was home, didn’t he? Didn’t she mention something when she’d texted him a week or so ago—some kind of thing at school? But he had been too busy to pay attention, and it was Sam after all—she’d never gotten into any kind of trouble before, had been the model child, so well behaved, studious, and diligent, so he hadn’t even really believed it. What was it? There was a scandal of some sort, with a professor of hers, about a paper she’d plagiarized. Wait, what? How could their perfect eldest child be accused of plagiarism of all the insane things? Was he remembering correctly?

  “Hey, Otis,” he said, spying the younger twin (even if he was only two minutes younger, he would always be the “younger twin” for the rest of his life) barreling out of the game room, holding a Super Soaker. Oh boy. Todd had to give the twins props; they never gave up on causing mayhem.

  “Have you seen your sister?”

  Otis grinned, his mouth red from the Popsicles Todd had allowed them earlier, and pointed at Giggy, who was now blowing bubbles by the pool.

  “No, not that one. Sam? Have you seen Sam?”

  “Sam’s here?” Otis asked, jumping up in excitement. “Where’s Sam?”

  “That’s what I was asking you—oh, forget it,” said Todd. “And give me that! Don’t wet the guests!” He grabbed the water pistol from his boy’s hands and handed it to the party planner, denying the child for the first time that evening. “Put that somewhere he can’t find it, will you?”

  “Of course,” said Madison Lexington (Todd joked she was an intersection until Ellie corrected him and said those two avenues actually didn’t meet). The poor woman had two distinct lines on her otherwise frozen forehead, probably because she couldn’t satisfy any of Ellie’s demands quickly enough.

  Todd looked over the party to see if he could find his eldest daughter and instead found the couple Ellie had wanted kicked out.

  Had Melvin really brought a hooker? And, if so, how much did she cost? He was merely curious, not interested. When they’d first gotten married, Ellie had been wary, if not downright paranoid, that Todd would remain faithful to her, given the parade of actresses and wannabe actresses throwing themselves at him, Mr. Network President.

  Sure, he’d had his fun over the years before he met Ellie, had his share of girlfriends, hookups, one-night stands, but here was the thing that he kept telling her, kept trying to make her believe—actually, it was not that fun. It was not fun knowing they liked you only for what you could do for them. Yes, he’d been surrounded by pretty girls, the prettiest girls from all their small towns. They all ended up in Los Angeles, all vying for the same tiny number of roles, all desperate for stardom. All willing to do whatever it took to land the part, except he was never interested in the casting couch, never took anyone up on that kind of offer. He was not a transactional guy. His girlfriends were agents and executives, friends of friends from business school. Sure, the occasional actress, but he was careful never to date anyone employed by his studio. It was such a cliché, and all those pretty girls—not all of them could or would be stars—most of them ended up in real estate if they were lucky, and if they were not, porn. The Valley, after all, was only a few exits away from Hollywood, and it was just another studio.

  He could have dated the hottie of the week, but he found the girls boring, vacuous to the point of stupid, and always working. Sure, he was a bit of a snob. He’d always been a smart, good-looking guy, not the kind of nerd who suddenly dated bombshells, even though he had his share of attention. Now that he was nobody, it was almost a relief at first. He remembered when people craned their necks to see him, when they hung on his every word, and it initially felt liberating to be free of the pressure. But now he was like a ghost; sometimes he wasn’t even sure if people noticed he was there. He’d mourned a little, but it wasn’t so much the attention he missed as much as his old identity.

  He’d worked for the network for almost twenty years, working his way up from production assistant to line producer to executive producer to executive vice president to president of the whole shebang! He called the shots, decided on which shows to put on the air, and the town prostrated themselves at his feet. He hadn’t made it as an actor, but he still looked like one. He was proud and, like Ellie, he’d come from nothing—he too was a poor kid from a podunk town, but his route was through Harvard and Harvard Business School to the top of the ranks.

  Then, disaster.

  Streaming services grew in popularity and the network began to flail, loss of audience leading to loss of ad dollars and finally to loss of faith. His boss explained it was time for a change, new blood at the helm, someone who could get the eyeballs of those kids who spent more time on their phones and tablets than watching network television.

  So Todd was out. And some young buck was in.

  Whatever. He was done with TV anyway, and he certainly didn’t want his kids anywhere near the industry. None of the executives ever did; it was agreed among them that it was the absolute worst environment for a child. It wasn’t that the stories were true about Hollywood pedophile rings, at least not as far as he knew. Todd had no idea if it was truly as skeevy as the rumors said—th
e grotto parties and the rent boys and the abuse and the suicides. All he knew was that he had never seen it himself. He steered clear of those directors, those producers who wafted around with whispers about their clandestine behavior. He avoided them.

  But he knew enough about how the industry worked to know he didn’t want his kids anywhere near it. He’d seen network executives make fun of kids’ looks, of their weight. He’d been one of those executives on the phone with the stage moms, berating them for their offspring’s tabloid antics. When a certain child star transitioned from moon-faced cherub to nearly naked cover star, he was the one who’d had to send the angry email to her parents. But he was also the one who okayed the tiny miniskirts on the show, clothes he’d never let his teenage daughter wear.

  Hollywood was a caste system, with the wannabes on one side who would let their kids do anything to land a role, book a gig, while the insiders were on the other, and their children were special. Their children didn’t have to work to put food on the table, their children went to private schools and starred in school plays, and when they were good and ready, they could be cast in a film if they chose to pursue acting, but only after they’d graduated from high school and only if Steven was directing (Spielberg of course.) Otherwise, their kids went to Stanford, or Harvard, or Columbia, or USC, and if they worked in entertainment, they were producers or executives. There were exceptions of course—there always were, but the exceptions proved the rule.

  They’d done all right with Sam, and he figured whatever was wrong, they’d be able to fix it. Sam was a good kid. They’d been lucky with all their kids. If only Ellie could see that, if only it was enough. They didn’t need all this and they certainly didn’t need this fancy party they couldn’t afford.