The First Wives Club (16 page)

”Poor Elise.”

“So, Annie, on a more important note, what are you going to wear? I’m even too big for my fat pants.”

“Oh, come on, Brenda. What kind of a question is that?”

“A Jewish one. It’s one of the Four Questions from Passover, What are you going to wear? Where did you get it? How much was it? And do they have it in my size?”

“Very funny.”

“So, should I buy something?”

“You know what Emerson said.”

”I seem to have momentarily forgotten.”

” Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.”

” “Yeah, and never date a guy named Spike. What the fuck does a guy named Ralph Waldo know about fat pants, or anything? Do you know that the whole time he lived at Walden Pond he ate lunch each day at his mother’s? And he brought his laundry home? Honest.”

“Brenda, it was Thoreau at Walden Pond, not Emerson,” Annie said, but she was laughing. It felt good to laugh, and she knew Brenda liked to hear it.

”Come on, Brenda,” she remonstrated. “Cold as you like to think she is, Elise is actually a very good person, and I’m sure she’s in pain.

Maybe she just needs some friends. So get serious.”

“I am serious. I was thinking of going real bizarre. I call it my Elizabeth Taylor attends a Hawaiian bar mitzvah’ look. Wouldn’t Elise just plofz? Why is it that being around her makes me want to speak Yiddish and wear caftans? But I can’t even fit into my fat pants. I’m hitting my weight ceiling. You know what that means, don’t you?”

“I’m not sure.”’ “Of course not, you anorectic. For those of you out there in the studio audience, I will explain, When you grow out of your fat pants, you either have to lose weight or buy a new wardrobe that’s even bigger. Expensive and demoralizing, to say the least, so I eat.

But if I keep trying to fit in things I don’t fit in, I’m also demoralized, and then I eat. Of course, if I buy new fat clothes, I’m rewarding myself for bad behavior, reinforcing it, and then I eat.

I’ve never been over a size eighteen before. So, the question is, do I establish a new weight ceiling? Should I buy something even bigger for Le Cirque or look like shit?”

“Brenda, you’,re giving me a headache. Would you please let up on yourself ?”

“Yeah, yeah. Next you’ll be telling me that there’s a thin person inside me longing to get out. I wish to God she would—then I’d only weigh half.”

They agreed, at last, that Brenda wouldn’t buy anything and that they’d both wear conservative clothes, which was just as well, since Annie didn’t have any other kind.

As Annie walked over to Le Cirque on Park Avenue, she accidentally walked along East Seventy-sixth Street. Ever since her Carlyle encounter she had hated that street and had taken to going out of her way to avoid it. She’d been out that morning since eight and hadn’t even been home to change. It was her morning for work at the hospital, always exhausting, and yet she hated to leave the patients there. So she stayed late. Elise and Brenda would forgive her. But because she was late, she’d been hurrying without thinking. And now, by accident, she had walked onto the block where Aaron’s hotel was located.

She shivered.

It was a clear day in New York, complete with blue, blue sky, and hough it was still cool, that undefinable something had changed in the air.

It smelled of autumn, hinted at winter. At Le Cirque, Annie was greeted at the door by Sino, the social genius behind the place. He knew the standing of every wealthy woman who lunched in the city and seated them accordingly. Now, he smiled cordially and led her to Elise, who was already seated in one of the banquette tables, those in the narrow entrance foyer that, surprisingly, were considered the most desirable. Elise obviously still pulled weight. Annie had never liked the room, thought the crystal and ice blue decor too formal for lunch, but she had to admit, it suited Elise, who sat, beautiful and perfectly groomed, poised and relaxed, posed as though on stage. And it was a stage.

Across from them, Brooke Astor sat with two women whom Annie didn’t know, and the new “young set”—Blaine Trump busily talking to another lovely looking woman—were ensconced nearby. Elise waved when she saw Annie and air-kissed her cheek as she was seated next to her. Elise picked up her glass and smiled.

‘A martini?

Or would you prefer some carbonated French benzine?” Her voice sounded strange, almost mechanical.

”White wine,” Annie told the waiter. “Elise, are you all right?”’ “As well as can be expected. I think hospitals call it serious but stable.”

” She lifted her glass. “I’m taking medication.”

Some commotion at the door heralded Brenda’s entrance. She was wearing something very big and very red, with a neckline bordered with feathers of some type. I’m glad I convinced her to go conservative, Annie thought wryly.

“I hope that’s an endangered species, because it deserves to die,” Elise murmured. Annie herself hated fur and feathers, but was only somewhat relieved to see these were synthetic. What the hell was Brenda wearing? Annie glanced covertly at Elise, but she seemed unruffled. Elise would never publicly acknowledge any imperfection in one of her guests.

“Brenda, hello.” Elise smiled broadly and made sure that everyone heard her greet her guest. Only generations of savoir faire and selfassurance could produce that kind of confidence, Annie thought.

She often had to will herself not to be embarrassed by Brenda.

“Well, the gang’s all here,” Brenda said, smiling brightly. “What the fuck is up?”

Elise didn’t even wince. “The jig. The jig is up,” she answered, and Annie noticed again how harsh her voice sounded.

Annie and Brenda looked at Elise, waiting for her to continue. “It seems to me that something is very wrong with the balance of things, and that needs to be corrected.” Elise looked from one to the other.

‘I propose we do something about it.”

“What are you talking about?” Annie asked.

”As you know, Bill has left me, and you also know what they say about a woman scorned.” Elise’s smile was as brittle as her voice.

“Elise, I’m so sorry.”’ ”Brenda, I don’t want any damned sympathy now.

I picked a very public place to do this, so there will be no crying.

If I want a husband later, I’ll buy another one. Meanwhile, right now I simply crave a little justice.”

”Way to go, Elise,” Brenda breathed. “Let’s get that little Van Gelder bitch.”

Elise gave Brenda a look that would have withered anyone else. “I asked you here because I thought you weren’t stupid,” she said deliberately. ‘I think you’ve missed the point. It isn’t the women, the new trophies, I care about.

It’s the men—Gil Griffin, and Morty and Aaron and Bill. Certainly Bill. There ought to be some kind of retribution, some way to even the score. We have to show society that we can’t simply be discarded. We have to do something. We have the resources, the brains, the connections, and the imaginations. Let’s make sure they pay a price.”

Annie thought again of Cynthia’s letter, still in her purse. She hadn’t been able to put it away, just as she couldn’t seem to get it out of her mind.

Maybe, if she did do something to even the score with Gil, maybe then she could put it away.

”I’m in,” said Brenda, picking up her menu. “But can we order lunch first?”

They did, and as soon as the waiter left, Brenda asked, “Are we talking about revenge, I mean Death Wish 111 here, or what?”

”Not exactly revenge. Something more sophisticated, I thought. Like justice,” Elise said.

“Gee, I personally always liked Hammurabi’s code. An eye for an eye’ has a nice ring to it. So how about a little ritual castration? We get them, tie them up, wear war paint and masks, I’ve always looked good in feathers.”

Brenda preened. “And one by one we ruin them. It’s like fixing dogs—it’ll keep them out of trouble in the future. It’s actually a humane solution. An end to testosterone poisoning.”

“Castration. Hmmm.” Elise paused as if really considering it.

“Tempting, but messy,” she decided. “No, just too messy.”

“There you go, always criticizing. So, what’s your big idea, Elise?”

Listening to her friends’ remarks, Annie’s mind began to race.

Revenge?

Justice? They couldn’t mean it, she thought. We need to stick together, sure, but what Elise was proposing was violent, drastic. No, she thought, this wasn’t what she wanted.

Suddenly a vision began to form in Annie’s head. Maybe they could form a club, an action committee of first wives who could come to terms with themselves and their anger. Who could support one another. And who would finally do something about Gil. We wouldn’t be so alone, Annie thought. All three of us have plenty to be angry about.

She studied Elise and Brenda. Two such different friends, but both of them, at the core, so similar. Both honest. Both reliable. Both with real values. Too bad they didn’t like each other. Annie smiled to herself. Who but she would believe that Brenda, a fat girl raised in the Bronx, product of an Italian father and Jewish mother, and Elise, the stunning heiress to two vast fortunes, had anything in common.

But Annie felt they did. They were both in such pain, disguising their anger with self-destructiveness—Brenda’s eating, Elise’s drinking.

But if they couldn’t face their own pain and their rage, maybe they could find a release for it through Cynthia. The three of them could unite in their compassion for Cynthia and in their rage at Gil. Maybe they’d take some action on Cynthia’s behalf, such as confront Gil.

Just to let him know that they knew what he had done to her.

And then, maybe, just maybe, they could confront their own situations.

Brenda’s eating her rage at Morty, Annie thought. And she’s now driving both her children away with her constant phone calls and interference. Then there’s Elise, who looks sadder and more frozen, month by month. Elise has got to see what effect Bill’s abandoning her is having on her, on her drinking.

And what about me? Annie thought. What about my anger at Aaron? But a little voice inside her said, “He’s not as bad as the others.”’ Still, she needed a group’s support. Because to live with such pain over him was suicidal.

Well, perhaps some good could come out of Cynthia’s suicide. Annie knew she tried too hard to turn bad into good, to see the bright side, but maybe this time it really would work. This idea was too good not to try. They could form themselves into a kind of support group, like the one she had joined for mothers of Down’s syndrome children.

Elise leaned forward and smiled at the other two. “Well, maybe we can castrate them without shedding one drop of blood.” She raised her brows devilishly as Annie and Brenda leaned forward, their attention focused on her. “Let’s find each man’s soft spot. They’re certainly not invulnerable. And then let’s go for it. Make the punishment fit the crime. Bill, for example. He must have an issue about his masculinity. That, or he hates his mother.”

Brenda said, “You don’t have to be Freud to figure that out.”

“Well, let’s help him strike out. Get blown off by a woman or two.

Maybe hire some girls to jilt him. Something like that,” Elise said.

Brenda loved the idea, Annie could see, but she was having trouble with it.

God, this was worse than Annie could have imagined. Her vision of warmth and friendship, a loving support group, dissolved into thin air.

‘I don’t think so, Elise,” she began to demur.

Elise started again. ‘Listen to what I’m trying to say. A generation or two ago the deal was different. A couple married. Okay, maybe the husband was the bread earner, and maybe he made most of the rules. But the rules that society made said that if he was a decent man, if he wanted the approval of society, he stayed married. It gave a woman a certain position that she could count on.

And if the man broke that rule, his own career was over. Society called him a cad. And anyone who married him after he broke the rule was excluded and punished, too. So you couldn’t use up a decent woman like a tube of toothpaste and discard her when she was empty, the way Gil discarded Cynthia and Bill discarded me.”

“Or the way Morty discarded me,” Brenda agreed. “Not that I wanted the putz.”

“Listen to this,” Elise continued. She reached into her purse and pulled out a photocopy of a magazine article.

“Oh, God, not a self-help clipping! Have mercy,” Brenda pleaded.

“This isn’t a self-helper. It’s from last month’s issue of Fortune for God’s sake.” Elise held up the issue and showed them the picture of Carolyne Roehm.

“It’s happening all over, successful men trading in their wives for newer, better models. Listen to this, These trophy wives make the fifty-and sixty-year-old CEOs feel they can compete sexually with younger men, the kind of ego boost that doesn’t hurt when going up against Young Turks at the office.”

” She looked at Brenda and Annie. “Sound appropriate?” She continued, “‘Free from the stigma of divorce, these men are looking to be remade.”

And listen to this, I got it from Forbes.” She cleared her throat.

” The new CEO is not complete without the newer, taller, blonder second wife. She is the trophy of his success. Rather than having a stigma attached to a second marriage, corporate culture has advanced to the point where a glamorous second wife is more than an asset. She is almost a necessity.”

” Elise paused and looked over the top of her glasses at the other two women. She waited.

“Was this written before or after Malcolm discarded Libby?” Brenda asked dryly. Elise’s mother was close friends with the first Mrs. Forbes. “Oh, come on,” Brenda added. “This is not news. The deck was always stacked against women. Nothing has changed.”

“That isn’t the point!” exclaimed Elise, impassioned. “Look how far it’s gone when a business magazine recognizes the trend and states it as the norm. This isn’t Spy that I’m quoting here. For Christ’s sake, Doonesbury is doing cartoons about it.” She angrily threw another clipping on the table.

“So what do you want us to do? Wear vigilante outfits and start patrolling the streets? Go out and kill Georgette Mosbacher and Carolyne Roehm? It would be a pleasure, but I’en not sure it’s worth a lifetime of rooming with Jean Harris.”’ Brenda smiled. “Of course, I could be wrong about that.”