October 19
The Present
11:30 P.M.
Where were you?” Ellie demanded when she finally caught sight of Todd. He had emerged from the bushes. Was that where he was fucking that girl? The bushes? What was this, Central Park? But he was walking over with Sanjay, who’d come from the hedges too, and Todd’s pants didn’t have telltale marks on the knees. So maybe Todd wasn’t fucking that girl in the hedges? Ellie was confused. What was he doing over there, then?
“Sorry, babe,” he said. Todd smelled like weed. Cannabis. You were supposed to say cannabis now and not weed. Weed was trashy. Weed was Jeff Bridges as The Dude heading off to the bowling alley. Weed was Beavis and Butthead. Cannabis was Silicon Valley. Cannabis was Coachella, but the VIP room.
The caterers were passing trays of Calvadoses and Cubans. The apple brandy served in snifters and the cigars hand-rolled on the premises by a company her party planner hired for the evening. The sweet smell of tobacco and brandy infused the night.
“We did the slideshow already,” Madison accused as Nathaniel hit the lights back on.
“Okay, okay, but I can still make a speech, right?” he asked.
Madison rolled her eyes.
Ellie sighed. “Sure. Why not.”
He kissed her forehead. “Calm down, babe.”
Todd stepped up to the microphone. “Hello, hello, how is everyone? As most of you know, and I hope you do, I’m Todd, Ellie’s husband. Your host. First of all, we’d like to thank everyone here tonight, especially those who traveled from so far away to be here today, and that includes our friends from the Valley.” (Polite laughter from the crowd, since technically the Valley was part of Los Angeles, but it was far away spiritually and stylistically, even though half of the people at the party actually lived there. The Valley was to LA what New Jersey was to New York.) “Tonight means so much to us; we are so happy to have everyone here to share such a meaningful moment in our lives.” He coughed.
“I just wanted to say a few words about this beautiful woman whom I’m proud to call my wife.” He turned to Ellie directly. She really was so beautiful, even though she was older now, ten years older than when they’d first met, and starting to have those little lines on the side of her eyes, which only made her more beautiful. He hated that frozen Botox look. He was glad Ellie did it sparingly, or had a really good doctor. “Ellie, you are the bravest, smartest, most hardworking woman I know. I am floored every day by your energy, your enthusiasm, your whole-hearted dedication to our life and our children. I am so incredibly lucky. Nothing would be possible without you. You make everything happen. The best day of my life was the day that we met.”
Awwwww from the crowd.
“You don’t look a day over thirty-nine!”
Everyone laughed.
“I wish you the happiest birthday, and here’s to many, many more.” He raised his champagne glass—(thanks, Madison, for putting one in hand right on time)—and the crowd did the same. “To Ellie!”
“To Ellie!” they chorused.
Clink, clink, clink.
Ellie blushed. It was exactly the kind of speech she wanted her husband to give, and yet she couldn’t enjoy it. She wasn’t even listening. She hardly heard a word he’d said. Her mind was whirling with doubt. Why had he looked so relieved when the process server handed her the papers for the lawsuit? What did he know? And who was that girl he was talking to earlier?
But before she could dwell on it too much, Sanjay was already elbowing Todd out of the way. “Ellie didn’t ask me to make a speech tonight, but I wanted to anyway,” he said, his brown face crinkling in a smile.
“I didn’t ask anyone to make one!” she yelled. (Except Todd of course.) She’d only wanted a speech from her husband. Even if she didn’t actually listen to it.
She didn’t need speeches, didn’t need toasts; she didn’t need anyone to throw bouquets at her feet, didn’t need it and didn’t want it. But perhaps it was too much to expect that anyone would not thank her for this weekend, for this party. They were her friends, after all. She had to remember that.
So one by one, they stood up and paid their tribute. First Sanjay with the usual story of how they met (She called me the Math Nerd!) and some fun memories of their kids growing up together, how they’d flipped that Jet Ski in Belize. (He was good enough not to mention all that trouble with Archer in Dubai.)
The speeches kept coming. A few of her girlfriends, the former models, with way too many anecdotes of fashion-show backstage high jinks and partying at clubs and remember when we were almost kidnapped in Dubai by that crazy sheik! (Which we would sooner forget; thanks for bringing it up.) Then the fellow parents from the kids’ schools, generic, bland speeches about how lucky they were to know her and Todd (they were right about that). It was sad to realize no one truly knew her. No one from her past, no one who knew her from before. No family either. Her mom had passed a few years ago, and as for her dad, he was, as they say, better off dead.
The only one at the party who knew her as a teen was Archer, and he’d been interested only in her body and her youth then. He didn’t even know anything about where she’d come from. Of course, Mishon had been invited, but she’d sent last-minute regrets. Maybe she couldn’t stand to see Ellie this way, even if Ellie had been Ellie for so long now. But maybe she couldn’t stomach whom Ellie had become for one more night.
“Did you know Samantha is flunking out of college?” Ellie asked when the speeches were over and she found her husband in the corner, eating a second piece of Milk Bar Crack Pie. “Really, Todd? Another piece?”
He crammed the last bite into his mouth and shot her a look of contempt. “No one else is eating. It’s all going to waste.”
“Yeah, your waist,” she said.
“Stop being a bully.”
“Okay, right, I’m sorry,” she said, shoulders slumping. “Did you know?”
“About Sam?” He frowned. “I think so. Some kind of problem with plagiarism?”
“What? She didn’t mention that, only that she had to pull up her grades. Todd! You were supposed to be on top of that!”
“I know, I know, I’m sorry. I thought she mentioned something, but I figured she’d deal with it. She’s always been able to before.” He had crumbs around his mouth and she wished he would wipe them off; he looked like a pig. Honestly, what was she so worried about? What twenty-year-old would want to sleep with him?
“Well, she’s not!” Samantha wasn’t dealing with it, and neither was Todd. No one was dealing with it, which meant that, as usual, she would have to fix this. What was new? It was so tiring always being the one who did everything. Often. Often the one who did everything. Fuck, what difference did it make? Always, often, it came down to the same thing, didn’t it? Just another chore on her list. “Sam is not dealing with it, Todd! She’s going to get kicked out! Of Stanford!” The absolute horror.
How would she face her friends? What would everyone say? It was too humiliating. She had enjoyed Sam’s academic triumph so much as if it were hers. While her friends told stories of kids slinking home freshman year, not able to hack it, or having to send them to community college, of all places, after paying hundreds of thousands of dollars on private school tuition, Ellie had been smug with the knowledge that Sam was securely perched at the top of the collegiate heap. So this was what it meant when they said pride cometh before a fall.
“Stanford, Todd! Stanford!” She didn’t have to say any more than that; he, of all people, understood.
“Crap,” he said.
“That’s all you can say about it? Crap?”
“What else is there to say?”
Ellie wanted to strangle him. He’d gone to Harvard, graduated cum laude, of course, although he explained later that everyone graduated Harvard with honors—that it was actually difficult not to. Still, it seemed so easy for him—Harvard, then Harvard Business School (H!B!S!), his luxe little life. So what if Sam had flunked out since there was supposed to be a trust fund somewhere, right? Except she’d emptied the kids’ trusts to keep the business afloat too. (Shhhhh.) There were no trust funds, not anymore. At least the kids still had their college funds. For now.
Ellie had wanted to go to college but never had the chance, never had the grades. She’d always wanted to be one of those girls who went away, to one of those fancy East Coast schools. But girls like her didn’t go to college; at the very most they went to community college, aka thirteenth grade. Girls like her weren’t supposed to end up at this house, with these friends, at this party, and yet here she was, against all those odds. She’d made it. She was the American Dream.
“Of course you don’t care,” she accused.
“I care!” He took another slice of pie. The man had no self-discipline. It was pathetic.
She’d had enough. She was going to confront him. “And by the way, who’s that floozy you’ve been talking to all night?”
“What floozy?”
“The one with the boobs!” She gestured toward her chest and mimed making mounds out of them. Not that she hadn’t had a little work done herself, but then, who didn’t? Just a little lift every couple of years; when they began to sag, she went right back to get them hauled up again. It was like getting a new handbag, and cost about as much. Except she had to hole up in a hotel suite for a few days, but Todd was pretty good about it. He always drained her bandages for her. Whatever. “The little slut you’ve been hanging around all night!”
Todd put down his plate and fork. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!”
“Oh, really.” Her tone suggested she didn’t believe him one bit.
“Yeah.”
“Ellie, I am not having an affair.”
“Prove it!”
He waved his hands in the air in frustration. “How?”
“I don’t know!” She looked over her shoulder. Guests were starting to stare their way. It would be just the icing on the cake for everyone to see her marriage melt down right at the height of her party.
He pointed his beer bottle at her. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“I saw the texts on your phone.”
“Oh, that,” she said. He’d seen? He saw the texts? Shit! She tried to arrange her face into an innocent expression.
Todd leaned over so that his face was inches from hers. “Yeah, that.”
“It’s nothing,” she said dismissively. So what if he’d seen the texts. They didn’t give away anything. There was nothing there to feel the least bit guilty about.
“Really?”
She raised her chin. “Yeah, you’ll meet him later. He’s no one. It’s nothing. Just someone I used to know.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
“Well, you should, because it’s nothing.”
“So where is he, then?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he’s not showing up.”
“Are you sad about that?”
“Not really, why?”
“It didn’t seem that way on your phone.”
“Wait, what?” She was confused now, and starting to think that maybe Todd was thinking of something else. “You know, honey, I’m not even sure we’re talking about the same thing now.”
“Um, Ellie?” said Madison-and-Lex, coming up to them with an anxious look on her face.
“WHAT!” Ellie whirled around, murderous.
“The photographer from Vanity Fair is here.”