Their prosperity hadn’t done the law firm any harm, either. Michael Meadows had been a minor client and sometime tennis partner of Barclay Hampton, and when he had asked Eastman, Bartels, and Steed to incorporate his wife’s “little business,” it was more in the nature of requesting a favor. “Just have a paralegal do it,” he’d said. “That way we can keep the costs down.” There was no reason to expect that Cindi’s business would be anything but an indulgence and a flop; after all, he had married her more for her perfect California look and the way she graced a wet suit in the Petting Pool than for her education, which was minimal, or her intelligence, which was not much better. But her idea came along at the right time, and Michael’s financial acumen, once his attention had finally been caught, turned it into something big.
The stock had just gone public, and the product line was about to go into department stores, so the lawyers at Eastman, etc., were salivating over the prospect of a second Mercedes in the garage or a little Aspen condo that didn’t have to be time-shared. When we were still talking to each other, Steve had told me that Henry Eastman, the firm’s senior partner, was worried about so many legal eggs being put into one basket, but in the “Nasty Nineties,” a huge, ongoing, and successful client was like the proverbial 600-pound gorilla. (Question: What does a 600-pound gorilla do on his birthday? Answer: Anything he wants.)
Barclay Hampton’s elevation to firm superstar by virtue of his connection to Naturcare had been the beginning of the end of his marriage to Eleanor. He bought the aforementioned stunning home, complete with its own tennis court, in the best area of La Jolla, where he spent so many hours practicing for his games with Michael Meadows that he accidentally lost fifteen pounds, got fit, and acquired a not-unattractive little crinkle around his eyes from too much looking into the sun. He bought a new wardrobe to go with his new body. He acquired a Jaguar to go with the wardrobe. He was so swamped with work that he insisted on hiring his own personal legal assistant, selecting—instead of one of the decorous and professional paralegals already employed by the firm—the unfortunately decorative Tricia Lindera, the receptionist. Their working rapport soon necessitated a number of after-hours conferences and, increasingly, private celebrations. It was your basic wife’s nightmare, however scathingly Ms. might disapprove. Barclay was a bit too well-bred to fondle her ass during depositions, but let’s just say that no one was surprised when the Hamptons split up about eight months after Tricia’s “promotion.”
The awful thing was, as much as you would have liked to hate Tricia, she really wasn’t such a bad person. Somewhat dim at times, and a little bit too breathlessly pleased at finding herself the second Mrs. Hampton, but it didn’t take too long in Eleanor’s company before you could sort of see Barclay’s point. If I had to be trapped in a makeover for hours with one or the other, for example, I would have picked Tricia, hands down, even though her Italian bombshell body and her fifteen-year advantage would have made her a hard act to compete with. I bet Signor Eduardo would have liked to play Pygmalion with her, and he wouldn’t have had to strain to come up with compliments about her sophistication and symmetry, either. All in all, though, her lack of conversation might have been restful, compared to Eleanor.
Now that I was separated from Steve, I had apparently crossed over into Eleanor’s territory. “How are you?” she asked with a new and terrible intimacy, as our facial pores steamed beneath hot towels.
Without waiting for my muffled reply, she said, “I know how you feel. Men are such shits. Ten to one he’s sticking it to some twat with an IQ smaller than her bust size and talking about ‘finding himself.’”
“I don’t think—” I began.
“That’s what Barclay did,” she said, as the “facial technician” removed the cloths and began the light tapping motion of her fingers on the skin that is supposed to stimulate the circulation. “He took off with his new car and his new suits and his new wife, and he hopes it will make him a new man. He said I was carrying around too much baggage, too much of our past, and that it was holding him back. Well, Tricia could carry around her past in a bottle cap, and now she’s living my life! She has my husband, she goes to all the parties I used to go to, and he takes her to all the same restaurants. She even reads the same books I do!”
“How do you know that?” I asked her, curious. My voice vibrated a little because of the massage.
“I saw them on her bedside table.”
“Oh.” I decided I didn’t really want to pursue that further, so I succumbed to the ministrations of the attendant, who was rubbing attar of jasmine or some such thing into the hollows around my eyes. It smelled delicious, and if the circular motion could not ultimately subdue the “laugh lines,” at least it was cool and incredibly soothing.
“Have you seen a lawyer yet?” she asked sharply.
“Ummm,” I offered noncommittally. I hadn’t, and it was going to cost me a fortune by the time I finally got the divorce, but the way the legal profession screws women was one of Eleanor’s hobbyhorses. She had a point, but if you got her started you could wind up hearing the entire history of Hampton v. Hampton, and there were still six hours or so left in the day.
“You need someone savvy and tough as nails,” she continued, undeterred. “Whatever you do, don’t let some jerk-ass at the firm handle it for you. I’ll bet you anything Steve will suggest it because it would ‘save you both so much money.’ Don’t fall for it. It’s just another way of staying in control, and you’ll end up getting screwed even worse than you will anyway.”
As a matter of fact, Steve had made that suggestion, and I’d told him I’d get back to him about it. It seemed to make sense: a nice, amicable divorce, with as few fights as possible over division of the spoils. But my income-producing capacity was currently pretty low, and then Steve started making noises about selling our house and moving me and the kids into a condo in Mira Mesa or someplace—in La Jolla parlance—“east of 5,” the magical barrier of freeway that bifurcates the upscale coastal communities from the unhip and more middle-class areas of inland San Diego. I actually liked the interior, with its warmer weather and easier accessibility (La Jolla is purposely constructed so that there is only one main two-lane access road, and getting in and out of the place at commuting hours or in the midst of weekend beach traffic can be bloody Hell), but moving would have meant disrupting the kids’ school lives, and besides, the house was my security against the future.
“When Barclay and I got married, I quit teaching as soon as he finished law school so we could start a family,” Eleanor continued. “That was just what you did. I stood by him through every single bad thing that ever happened to him, I took care of his house and his children, and look what I get. I thought I had a lifetime of safety, and instead I have to depend on whatever pittance he and the rest of the asshole lawyers decided I deserve for eighteen years of marriage. He’s stolen my whole life, and I’m supposed to think it’s fair!”
“Please, Mrs. Hampton,” the technician murmured, “you are removing the cucumber moisturizing cream.”
“I’m not going to let him get away with it,” she insisted.
Right. Barclay Hampton stories now circulated at the country club, at legal functions, even at the schools the Hampton children had attended. Like some Joanie Appleseed, Eleanor sowed them everywhere. Barclay gave himself such a bad rash with Retin-A that he had to tell everyone he was going to a conference in Washington while the dermatologist cleared it up. Barclay insisted that his undershorts had to be ironed. Barclay dyed his chest hair, but it turned out to be a bad match to the rest of his body.
It wasn’t the stuff of The Count of Monte Cristo, but as revenge went, it wasn’t all that unsatisfying. The trouble was, it didn’t put money in the bank. And money, after all, is the bottom line. Money, or the ability to get more of it, is what gives you the capacity to walk away from your problems, the way Barclay and Steve did. When you don’t have money, that is the problem. Eleanor had a lot more money th
an, say, your average grocery clerk, and in the grand scheme of things it was hard to feel sorry for her, but it is humiliating to be dependent on someone who resents every dollar he is forced to give you and persists in regarding you as a Youthful Mistake. Not only that, it is hard to have a lot of money one day and not much the next. Stockbrokers have jumped out of windows for less.
“I told Barclay he had better come up with more per month, and you know what he told me?” she said, committed inevitably to telling her story to the end, though I’d heard most of it already.
“No, what?”
“He said he was thinking about leaving the firm and becoming a judge. He said if he did, he’d only make eighty thousand a year, so I’d better get used to living on less, not more. He said there’d be less for the kids, too. Can you believe the nerve of that asshole? I don’t for a minute believe he’ll do it, because he just loves being Mr. Hotshot-corporate-lawyer-who-brought-in-Naturcare, but if he even thinks about it as a way to get me, I’m going straight to Henry Eastman.”
“What could he do about it?”
She gave me a look that, despite the cucumber cream around her eyes, made me feel extremely stupid and naive. She sighed, her bosom heaving under the smock. “Caroline, you had better wake up and smell the coffee before it’s too late. Don’t you realize they’re all in this together? Don’t you think Henry had to approve it when Barclay moved all his partnership income into a bonus that wouldn’t be paid till after our financial settlement? They’re out to screw every one of us! They rewrite the divorce laws of the state of California to suit themselves, and they help each other do it through the biggest old-boy network you can imagine.”
“Would it help to get a woman lawyer?” I asked her. As obsessed as she was with the topic, I was still afraid she might be right. As Henry Kissinger is said to have remarked (or paraphrased), even paranoids can have real enemies.
“Some,” she conceded. “But the real problem is that Steve or Barclay can use all kinds of legal tactics you never heard of just to harass you, and you have to keep paying your lawyer, whoever he or she is, to fight them. Finally it just gets too expensive to go on, so you have to give in. Do you know what I owed my lawyer by the time my divorce was final?”
“I’m sure it was a lot.”
“Over one hundred thousand dollars.”
Oh. Behind me, the technician dropped one of her very expensive tiny gold pots of crushed abalone shell foundation, smearing it all over the floor.
Well, but. The Hampton divorce might have been the messiest in La Jolla history, so it wouldn’t be so shocking if it were one of the most expensive as well. Still…
“When I got on to what Barclay was doing with that tramp,” she continued as we walked to the station where Signor Eduardo’s makeup expert would exercise the full extent of his artistry on our naked faces, “I made copies of his keys to the firm and went over there at night to go through his files. I went through everything at home, too. I had piles of paper, but my lawyer wouldn’t look at any of it. He said it was privileged information and that I shouldn’t have taken it. He said it wasn’t in my best interests to do anything to hurt the firm, because how could Barclay pay me what I was asking if I did anything to jeopardize his income? So I went along with him, and the prick screwed me anyway. And what did I find out a week after our settlement? That my lawyer and Barclay had become racquetball partners!”
“Really? Before or after your divorce?”
“What difference does it make? If my lawyer had made Barclay squirm and own up to his obligations as a husband and father, do you think they would have felt chummy enough to be out on the court together?” The look in her eye would have made Savonarola quail. Her breath was coming fast, as if she were hyperventilating.
“It took me ages,” she said, gulping air, “to go through all the material. I don’t care what happens to the goddamn firm. I wouldn’t care if they all ended up bankrupt and in disgrace. I don’t give a flying fuck what happens to Barclay and that hot little number he dumped me for. To tell you the truth, I don’t much care what happens to me. But goddamn it, I just don’t want to get screwed anymore!”
“Oh, Eleanor.” Full of real sympathy, I reached out and touched her arm. She looked so weary and depressed.
“Ladies, please,” interjected Signor Eduardo, who had come to check on how our transformation was progressing, “you must be positive. You must smile. You must let your inner beauty come through. Ernesto, I think Signora Hampton needs a warmer tone of blush. Eleanor, we must soften your look a bit. Ah, Jimmy, that is the perfect eye shadow for Signora James.” He beamed approvingly. “It brings out the copper highlights of your hair. It is a whole new look. I know you will be pleased.”
I had not seen a mirror since the Treatment Room and I had forgotten I was now, apparently, a redhead. “Eleanor,” I asked, when Luigi or Jimmy or whoever the latest magician was had removed the lip pencil from the contour of my lower lip and had gone in search of the perfect gloss and I could speak again, “how does my hair look?”
She pursed her lips, considering. “Your inner beauty is coming through.”
“Shit.”
“Actually, you look terrific.”
As a matter of fact, when the unveiling finally came, I found the look unsettling. The sum total of hair-care products and makeup expended on my new look was $427, if I cared to duplicate it myself, at a today-only discount. What I would get for that was, if not quite a stranger, someone who looked unfamiliarly cool and sophisticated with a stylish haircut (something like a very mature Demi Moore), high cheekbones (how had they done that?), and aggressively bronzed lids and lips. They had refurbished me in I. M. Pei when I am fairly certain I had walked in in John Nash. Well, as Signor Eduardo had said, what had I come for if I didn’t want to change?
He, at least, was full of enthusiasm. “How do you like your hair?” he asked, his head tilted to catch all the angles of, apparently, the exciting new me.
“Well, I—”
“Did I not tell you that the red highlights would make you look more vibrant, more exciting? It has taken years from your age.”
Next they would be asking me for my ID in bars. Not that I ever went to bars. Still, I couldn’t help falling for it just a little, and I peered at my reflection with more tolerance.
My mentor was full of suggestions. “Now you must stop dressing so cautiously, Caroline. Wear brighter colors, bolder clothes. Your clothes look as if you hide in them. You do not need to throw everything out, but you must combine your outfits with more flair and daring. Use the sketches and the samples I gave you.” He flashed his golden smile again. “Be brave, cara. Live it up a little.”
By contrast, I really thought Eleanor looked great. He had loosened her hair style into soft curls around her face and warmed up her ash blond color to something like honey. She looked far more approachable and yet, as Signor Eduardo had promised, worldly as well.
“Eleanor, you look fantastic,” I told her admiringly, as we met at the counter to pick up our purchases. Not $427 worth, naturally—I couldn’t have spent that even if I had emerged as a dead ringer for Demi Moore—but the minimum required to keep the makeover pump primed.
“Do I?” she asked, frowning a little. “I think I look bizarre.”
“No, seriously. You look great. Really.”
“Thank you.” She laid a hand on my arm. “I’ve been thinking—”
“Yes?”
“You should write it up.”
“What? This?” I swept my hand around the soft-hued room, with its thick carpeting and gleaming counters running the entire length of both walls.
She shook her head impatiently. “No. About them. Lawyers. How they use their influence with the system to fuck their families. I’ve thought about doing it—God knows somebody has to—but I’m not a writer. You are.”
“Oh, no. I mean, I’m not that kind of writer. I’ve only done a few articles and some historical novels and”—blush�
��“some Regencies…”
“What difference does that make? I have piles of material. I’ll send you copies. You just won’t believe the stuff they’ve pulled. Besides,” she said, sizing up my discomfort rather shrewdly, “some of it may help you when your turn comes. And I promise you, it will come.”
Once I read an article by one of the hostages in Lebanon who described his first meeting, after long isolation, with another hostage. Instead of the expected joy at finding himself with, at last, a longed-for companion, he was surprised to discover that he felt wary and reticent. He thought he was too vulnerable, with too many exposed nerves, to open up to somebody else.
Or maybe he just didn’t like the looks of the guy and thought he would tell endless stories about all the other men his wife would be seeing, or his son’s problems with coke. If you tell too much, too often, you lose your friends. You wear them out. If they weren’t your friends to begin with, watch out.
“Well, thanks,” I said.
“You’ll do it, then?” she persisted.
“I’ll be happy to look at anything you send me, Eleanor. But frankly, I’m not sure I’m the person…” I trailed off meekly. My mother, who had raised me to be polite to everyone no matter what, would have been so proud. I couldn’t just tell Eleanor that I was afraid of catching her obsession with getting screwed, like some dreadful contagious disease. Mental herpes, that was it.
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