The Starter Wife Read online

  So there Gracie was, performing her motherly duties with one other mother and thirteen nannies, even though her world was crumbling around her like an Irwin Allen movie.

  And now, she had run into the rumor-mill generator, Patient Zero of The Gossip Pool.

  “Is what true?” Gracie asked Sharon. “Are you talking about global warming? Or the brave new direction of the Democratic Party?”

  Sharon Adler was also known as The Local National Enquirer. Having a conversation with her was like looking at the cellulite-ridden celebrity photographs inside the Star—you were just happy the story wasn’t about you.

  But this time it was.

  Sharon focused on her, and Gracie suddenly felt a familial empathy toward shark bait. “Cricket told me,” she said. “I can’t believe it—I heard Julia Roberts left her husband for Kenny.”

  “That’s ridiculous. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gracie said. But Sharon the Great White smelled blood in the water, so Gracie added, “Kenny and I are just taking a little break.”

  What she really wanted to say was: “Kenny and I are just taking a little break of his neck.”

  Gracie looked at her daughter, finishing up a sand pie in the crowded sandbox. Gracie wondered what the real estate market was like in Costa Rica. She wondered what the food was like in Costa Rica. She wondered what the men were like in Costa Rica.

  “Jaden doesn’t know anything,” Gracie admitted, “so I appreciate you keeping this quiet.”

  “You know I’d never say anything to anyone,” Sharon replied.

  “I know,” Gracie lied back.

  “Someone said Kenny was gay. Is he gay?” Sharon asked.

  “Sharon!” Gracie said. And then she thought for a moment.

  “Actually,” Gracie said. And then she didn’t say anything. But she posed a philosophical question in her mind: If a lie falls in a preschool sandbox without making a noise, is it really a lie?

  “YOU ARE A bitter, hateful, pathetic—” Kenny was calling Gracie on her cell phone. Gracie was heading back to the house from Whole Foods, an upscale, organic-enough-to-feel-good-about-yourself grocery store she was now drawn to on a daily basis.

  Whole Foods had become Gracie’s crack.

  “And hello to you, my young friend,” Gracie said. She realized, as she swallowed the remainder of a yogurt pretzel, that she’d forgotten her thrice-weekly training session.

  “Did you tell Sharon Adler that I was gay?” he said in his best demanding studio-exec tone.

  “No.”

  “You didn’t say I was gay.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “She told Ben that you said I was gay.”

  “I don’t know how she would have picked that up,” Gracie said, “unless …”

  She dipped her hand back into the yogurt pretzel bag. She reminded herself to call her trainer.

  “You are a sad, sad person.”

  “Actually, I’m feeling a bit better, thanks for asking.”

  He hung up on her.

  The truth is, Gracie was crushed. She didn’t know why, but somehow, talking to Kenny was better than not talking to him. Even if they were unhappy together, even if they rarely had intimate conversations anymore, much less sex. Gracie didn’t know her life without Kenny.

  Gracie would have to learn.

  She ate the rest of her pretzel, washed it down with the protein smoothie that tasted suspiciously (and gloriously) like a Jack in the Box milkshake, then dialed her personal trainer and told her she was taking the next rest of her life off.

  HOW COME Gracie felt so much older at forty-one than she had at forty? She surmised it was because forty-one is closer to sixty than to twenty. Gracie remembered twenty well, as though she had been sitting in a creative writing class at UCLA just last week, but she had trouble imagining what sixty could be like. Sure, Gracie had seen pictures of Gloria Steinem, but Gracie didn’t have Gloria’s impressive genetics and style and more impressive sense of indignation. Gracie would have to creep into old age with her shortish legs and chronic sense of doom.

  Doom. Perhaps it was postpartum depression run amok, but doom had been a shadow of her every waking moment for the last few years. Doom would greet her quietly at daybreak, seeping into her consciousness like the fog draped over Santa Monica on most mornings. Doom would wake with her, nestled comfortably in her head, assuring her gently that all would end in catastrophe. Doom had been her companion since shortly after the birth of her child, when Gracie realized that, after wanting a baby for so long, she had made a huge mistake in actually creating one. If a woman who has all the advantages finds the world a scary place, what hope does a seven-pound baby have?

  Besides which, in Gracie’s view, a forty-one-year-old broad with an almost-four-year-old is not a pretty picture. So why take so long to make a baby? The first answer is that Gracie forgot. Gracie was into her thirties before she and Kenny got serious about having a family. Her friends were starting to have babies, friends who once had careers and now had husbands, or friends who still had careers and wanted the added stress of motherhood. One of her friends at the time,Victoria, a former trial lawyer who now worked overtime at her children’s private school (for nothing), was first pregnant at thirty-five. Gracie had experienced one of those maddening Oprah “aha!” moments. Gracie thought, Damn, of course, I knew I was forgetting something.

  That something was children.

  Gracie called Kenny on the way home from Vicki’s house to tell him that they needed to make a baby, and soon. The reports were out, the news was in: At the age of thirty-five, a woman’s fertility drops precipitously. It was time to get on the stick. So to speak.

  Three and a half years later, after six months with no luck and almost three years of assistance, with mixed results and her (un)fair share of miscarriages, Kenny and Gracie finally had their baby. What they didn’t have was their marriage.

  Gracie dropped Jaden at her class (avoiding Sharon Adler’s piercing stare like a dose of smallpox) and drove to Starbucks and sat with her hands wrapped around a Venti something and pondered her next move. Gracie knew something about spirituality, a smattering about I Ching, a bit about the flexibility of the universe. And so, Gracie wondered what lesson the last thirteen, fourteen years could provide her.

  Gracie actually wondered why she wasn’t more present, more upset about her impending divorce. She felt as though she were in a fog, as though she were living out someone else’s story line. Maybe Gracie felt like she deserved unhappiness in her life. Or maybe Gracie felt like she deserved more happiness. Either way, the fateful (cell) phone call from Kenny had been a signal to her.

  That maybe, for good or bad, her life was about to begin.

  A MAN sat down two tables from Gracie’s, carrying a laptop and a latte in a ceramic mug. He wore glasses. He had a cap of thinning hair. He was in that male netherworld in terms of age and looks, somewhere between forty and fifty, and neither attractive nor unattractive. Gracie looked at him, stared really, and wondered what it would be like for her to start dating. Gracie hadn’t exercised her “dating muscle,” hadn’t sent any mating signals out to men, except for that one spinning class with that one spinning instructor. But her signal got crossed with every other sweating, angry-at-her-husband female in the class. The signal hadn’t been picked up.

  Gracie decided to try out her somewhat rusty signal on this unsuspecting writer-type. He looked unhappy enough to actually respond; Gracie had sized him up pretty quickly. She suspected he wrote hour dramas. Or, more likely, had written hour dramas, a format being overrun by the less-pricey reality shows. He had a condominium in Santa Monica and drove a late-model Volvo. He voted Independent but thought Democrat and shopped at Whole Foods. He masturbated five times a week to DIRECTV porn but didn’t feel good about it.

  There. He finally looked up at her. Gracie smiled, cocking her head in a friendly, unthreatening manner. Did she look like a Labrador retriever? Gracie suspected she did. But t
his was only a run-through. A rehearsal. This was not her life.

  The middle-aged writer adjusted his glasses and looked down. Gracie was suspended in midcock. Her smile hardened and had become painful, an emblem of humiliation. She let her eyes drift upward, toward the ceiling. Gracie was now smiling at the ceiling. Gracie prayed for a bolt of lightning to hit her between the eyes.

  How could Gracie not even merit a smile out of a middle-aged, out-of-work writer?

  Gracie dropped her rictus grin and tried to not pinch her lips together, as the vertical wrinkles surrounding them had recently reached critical mass.

  This is not my life, she thought to herself. I am not trying to pick up men at Starbucks.

  A young woman walked in.“Young” to Gracie meant anyone from three years old to three days after she was born; a subset of the population which included a lot of people. Far too many people for her liking. This particular form of infant looked to be in her twenties, but then most people look to be in their twenties to Gracie. What is it her father used to say? “Growing old is not for sissies.” Maybe for men. For women, it’s more like “Growing middle-aged is not for sissies.”

  So back to this girl. This fetus, really. She was all of about twenty-one, judging by the angle of her backside jut. Gracie’s backside no longer jutted—it leaned. And there she was, Gracie thought, look at her, how cute she is. Jesus. Keep me from vomiting. The girl danced over to the counter, and what was that? A yoga mat curled under her supple arm. How lovely. Really. Spectacular. Couldn’t be happier for her.And a ponytail in her hair.And look at how much hair she has, and so shiny. And so hers. Isn’t that wonderful.

  And look at Mr. Frumpy. Look at him. Paying nary any attention to his laptop. And yet, moments ago, whatever cable TV Movie-of-the-Week crap was on it was so important to him. Look at him, fascinated with the mat-bearing bimbo. Absolutely fascinated. Couldn’t be happier for the both of them. Maybe they’ll get married and have five thousand kids. But early, not like Gracie. Not too late, like Gracie.

  Gracie watched the girl as she ordered her drink and waited. Her eyes skipped over Gracie’s way for a mere nanosecond. Gracie was sure her existence rated not a blip on this girl’s radar screen. And then Gracie remembered what another friend had mentioned to her; this friend been walking down Rodeo Drive and she’d just turned thirty-seven, and she realized everything she knew about herself before that moment was over with. Everything she’d taken for granted was gone.

  Not one man looked at her.

  Not a suit, not a construction worker, not a driver, not a young man, not an old one.

  A moment ago, this woman had long, thick, blond hair, full lips, almond eyes, a lush body. And youth. Now, she still possessed all the physical attributes. But not Youth. Without Youth, she had nothing. Nothing but a rich husband who took long suspicious trips to Las Vegas and three beautiful kids.

  And an ironclad pre-nup.

  Which yanked Gracie to her next subject. Gracie was a woman on the verge of divorce, and she needed to get a lawyer. Joan had given her a Xeroxed list of divorce lawyers with fierce reputations and fiercer billing schedules.

  Gracie decided to leave Starbucks for the warmer climes of her green-but-not-too-green kitchen, where she stood little chance of further humiliation.

  WIFE NUMBER TWO

  Is married to a famous, and famously sexual, musician. Theirs is a happy marriage, partly because she procures his concubines while he’s on the road, after putting them through a vigorous workout herself.

  He recently went back on the road to pay for her jewelry.

  4

  IF I HAD A (DIVORCE) LAWYER

  GRACIE HAD A THEORY: Forty in L.A. is like fifty anywhere else—a single woman over fifty in New York can’t get a date. In L.A., lop ten years off that number.A fifty-year-old woman in New York gets her first face-lift; in L.A., the number is forty. A fifty-year-old woman in New York can still carry an air of viability; in L.A., a woman after forty is no longer viable except to her children, and sometimes, if they are old enough for driver’s licenses, not even then. Factor in the “single” dimension and the effect is mathematically analogous to standing in a hall of mirrors.

  Gracie was staring down the barrel at this future: She was a woman over forty years old in a city in which even if she had a face-lift and dieted her way back down to Mary-Kate proportions and published eighteen best-selling children’s books, Gracie was still a person who would never have another date in her life.

  Neither, apparently,would Gracie have a divorce lawyer.

  First on her list was Mr. Maxwell Havens, Esq., lawyer to such luminaries as Jack Welch and Tom Cruise, nemesis to such luminaries as Michael D. Eisner and Bruce Willis. And friends with all of them. Known for having a chauffeur-driven Rolls and dressing like a dandy. Did time in prison for petty theft when he was a teenager. Tired of petty theft when he became acquainted with divorce law, a license to steal big money.

  Gracie punched the numbers quickly, before she could back out, and also as a result of too much caffeine.

  “Havens and Sussman?”

  Gracie wondered why the receptionist posed the name of the firm as a question—was it a question where she was working? If so, hadn’t someone answered the question by now?

  “I need to talk to Maxwell Havens.”

  “Hold, please.”

  Gracie was switched over to an assistant.

  “Maxwell Havens calling. This is Gina.”

  A confusing way to answer a phone, but Gracie was familiar with the ploy—“always appear to be on the move.”

  “Hello,” Gracie said, slightly nervous though Gina had a calming voice. “My name is Gracie Pollock. I would like to speak to Mr. Havens.”

  “Your name?”

  “Gracie Pollock.”

  There was a pause.

  “Gracie Pollock?” Gina asked.

  Gracie got nervous. Was she supposed to still be using Kenny’s last name? What were the rules of divorce for the Starter Wife? She would look it up on Google right after this phone call.

  “For the last nine years—until Tuesday night,” as Gracie settled the question in her head.

  The girl put Gracie on hold. The hairs on the back of Gracie’s neck, which was the only place she hadn’t lost hair after the birth of her child, stood up. Gracie didn’t know why, all she knew was that this particular “hold” was weighted with portentousness. This “hold” was a bad one. Why did she feel this way? Sure, Gracie was not in the habit of calling lawyer’s offices. She barely knew any lawyers—except for the ubiquitous entertainment attorneys who argued with themselves over their competing clients’ interests and considered the term “conflict of interest” a quaint throwback, and who skied more than they worked and skied while they worked and considered skiing to be work. Gracie was about to hang up when a man came on the line.

  “Gracie,” he said, “how are you, sweetheart?”

  Ah, yes, Gracie thought, the familiar overfamiliar greeting, as the word “sweetheart” rang in her ears, as though Gracie and this stranger were not only close friends but perhaps had had children with each other.

  “My life sucks,” Gracie replied, “who may I ask—” “Maxwell. Maxwell Havens here,” the man replied. Still with the syrup in his voice.

  The hairs at the back of Gracie’s neck had given up standing and were now performing cartwheels.

  “I’m so glad you called,” he continued.

  “Have we met?” Gracie asked.

  “No, no—but I’m a good friend of Kenny’s.”

  Aha! thought Gracie. She knew now that she couldn’t trust Maxwell Havens—no one was a “good friend” of Kenny’s. Men in L.A. didn’t have “good friends,” they had commerce.

  This little factoid made Gracie crave Maxwell Havens in her life and divorce even more. She searched her brain for some clue of what he looked like—late fifties, early sixties, in good shape (what with all that skiing). Gracie found herself daydreaming of maki
ng a love connection with someone who was old enough to be her father. Who was she kidding? If her father had been a teen groom.

  “Which is why I can’t represent you,” Maxwell said.

  “What? You know that’s why I’m calling?”

  “I’m assuming—you’re still getting a divorce, correct?”

  Gracie’s stomach lurched in the same way it did the time she accidentally cut a motorist off in traffic and he waved a handgun at her. Why would someone wave a handgun at a woman driving a Volvo with an I ♥ TINY MIRACLES PRESCHOOL license-plate holder? Seemed sort of beside the point, no? And what would have happened had the angry young man in the painter’s cap shot her? Kenny would have dined out on that story for months. He would have made a wonderful widower—a dream widower. His wife cut down in the prime of her life (cough) while her young child sat in her booster seat, watching cartoons on the car’s television screen. Gracie suddenly felt inferior; what was she doing exposing her child to television even in a motorized vehicle? She, who had been raised by parents who eschewed television completely. Her father claimed that watching TV would turn her brains into oatmeal. Gracie caved in to peer pressure—all the Wives Of had televisions in their cars. Gracie had just purchased the Volvo last year, and when the dealer said she might need a DVD screen in the back—for those long trips to Disneyland, Gelsons, and the three miles to school—well, she meekly agreed.

  “How did you—”

  “Know you’re getting a divorce?”

  Why did men feel the right to finish a woman’s thought? Well, maybe certain men.

  Most men.

  Gracie hated that behavior. But then, Gracie would never have to deal with that kind of behavior again, now would she? Because she’d never again be dating and/or married to another man, unless—unless a massive earthquake swallowed up all the young women in Southern California.