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 booked 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.
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?