The Hazards of Hunting While Heartbroken (19 page)

“Wow. That would make you what? Their number two person in shoes?”

Angela beams. “And all other accessories.”

“So when do you find out?”

“Not until March or April, but
her
boss is sick to death of people opting for part-time or getting out altogether, just because they have children, and she’s told me I’m in line for the next good spot that opens up.”

“I guess you’re reliable that way. She doesn’t even have to worry about a serious boyfriend diverting your attention from
Vogue
.”

A woman bartender in a dopey outfit featuring a men’s waiter jacket and black bowtie sighs loudly because we don’t order fast enough for her liking. She frowns with disapproval as she starts mixing our Stoli Raspberry tonics.

“Can you make one more, but stronger?” Marvin’s familiar voice asks from over my shoulder. “Did I mention earlier that you two look fab-u-lous,” he fawns, before asking where we’re sitting.

“Over there with the hot gay men.” Angela flashes a flirty smile at Marvin.

“Good girl.” Marvin nods his approval and stirs his drink. “I might need another of these before we face the cheap chicken.”

Someone behind me clears her throat deliberately in that irritating way some people use to attract another’s attention. She does it a second time, and when I turn to look, there’s a familiar face, out of context, and I scramble to place this older woman in an elegant black and white dress. It’s Trudy Bainbridge, from the opera. Her lips are outlined in crimson, which makes her mouth look enormous, and her eyelashes are fluttering at me rapid fire. “Zoë,
darling,
what a pleasure to see you again,” she says, in a more affected tone than she deployed the other night in the presence of her husband. “Have you met my dear, dear friend, Olivia Sevigny?”

Olivia? Oscar’s Olivia? Of course I haven’t, and I don’t particularly relish the opportunity to do so, but it’s too late. A thin, olive-skinned beauty with a regal face and an incredible purple dress is already extending her hand. “It’s nice to meet you,” is all I can manage. She has highly defined collar bones, and flawless arms and shoulders that belie hours of torture at the gym. I steal a glance at her ring finger. She’s sporting a diamond the size of a dime. Both Carol’s rocks look like trinkets in comparison. She wears no other jewelry, except for a gold pendant that dangles suggestively just below her breasts.

“The pleasure is mine,” she says, in an accent that sounds neither quite French nor Spanish. Any hope that this would be a coincidence—that Trudy would be in the company of a different Olivia—vanishes. As does any hope of immediate extrication from this situation. While I stand there, stupefied, and wonder what’s expected of me, especially since this is now the second time in as many encounters that Trudy Bainbridge has caught me blinking vacuously, Angela steps in, introduces herself and Marvin, and begins gushing over Olivia’s clothes. “I love the more sophisticated look in the new Cavalli collection, and this dress looks like it was made for you,” she purrs.

“Thank you. I think Roberto’s show was the most exciting in Milan this September. Don’t you agree?”

Angela, who is always on the prowl for kindred spirits, swoons as the second “
r”
in
Roberto
rolls off Olivia’s tongue. I decide in that second, perhaps irrationally and unfairly, that I don’t want anything more to do with Olivia. I’m not sure whether she’s a threat, or whether she just makes me feel inadequate and off my game, but either way, I don’t like it.

Trudy asks me and Marvin whether we’re long time supporters of “the cause.” I tell her yes, which is technically true in that I’m a lifelong feminist, just not a check-writing one before tonight. I try in vain to shoot Angela a look that says, please wrap it up. Trudy, oblivious or unconcerned with my distress, starts to explain that her family foundation is partnering with the Feminist Majority to fund several girls’ schools in Afghanistan. Which is indisputably cool. Trudy starts explaining how Olivia has been
instrumental
with the PR, and I feel a flush of shame. It somehow seems wrong to hate her for being stunning, or for being an adulterous bitch who broke Oscar’s heart, if she’s donating her time to such a worthwhile project.

Mercifully, a waiter interrupts and asks that we start making our way to the tables.

We snake through the tightly packed tables and find ours, by the stage in the see-and-be-seen section of the room, and two tables over from Olivia, whose presence here tonight has unnerved me way more than it should, seeing as things are over between her and Oscar. I expected she’d be sophisticated and attractive, but did she really have to be drop-dead gorgeous? I suddenly wish I’d worn something with more panache.

Seven of Angela’s fashionista friends are already seated, and I see that she didn’t misrepresent the talent to Marvin at all. Two of the men are beautiful, in a juvenile, slightly underfed way. I do a double take thinking I know one of them, and then realize I’ve seen him, larger than life over Times Square, wearing only his underwear.

Marvin leans in and whispers in Angela’s ear, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, sweetie,” she says in a normal conversational voice. Then she whispers to me, “Look at him sucking in his tummy.”

“Why do guys like that agree to do an event like this?”

“They make huge bucks advertising in women’s magazines, so we sell it to them as an easy way to give back.”

Marvin slides in and introduces himself to the underwear model and his friend, who’s presumably also a male model of some ilk. Surprisingly, the two young guys don’t appear the least bit put off by the intrusion of this middle-aged man, who’s blessed only with average looks. I park myself on Marvin’s other side, which means I’ll have his back for company, and Angela sits to my right.

“Your new friend back there is Oscar’s Olivia,” I hiss into her ear.

Her eyes widen. “Are you sure?”

I nod.

“Too bad. I like her. I don’t suppose you’d be alright with me being her friend?”

“Not a chance.” Maybe this is lame, but I can’t stomach the idea of my best friend consorting with the enemy.

“I know. But I had to ask. What a shame.” Angela leans backward in her chair to take a closer look at my boyfriend’s ex-wife. We can see her in profile. Her hair is swept into a loose bun at the nape of her neck. She has an easy elegance about her that I’m sure men find irresistible.

And even with her clothes on, it’s obvious she has an incredible body. I can see why Oscar was despondent enough after to losing her to swear off dating.

Angela starts introducing me to the other
Vogue
staffers, but before she gets all the way around the table, the room erupts with the industrious buzz of simultaneous whispering. It starts in the back and sweeps over the space like a wave. Within seconds, word has spread to the farthest reaches of the ballroom that the Councilman’s wife is here.

Holly McDonough O’Malley marches into the room in her no-nonsense black dress with her head held high, but she’s not fooling anyone. She looks like she’s accidentally bitten into something rancid and cannot bring her well-bred self to spit it out. Her eyes sport tremendous dark circles and it seems she went a bit overboard in trying to cover up the worry lines that have no doubt deepened in recent days. The result being that her make-up looks crusty. Little lipstick flakes flutter around the edges of her narrow mouth and as she passes our table, I notice she’s got her hands clasped together to prevent them from shaking. At forty-five, the presumptive future lady of Gracie Mansion never seemed old to me, but it’s like the events of the past week have aged her ten years. I wonder whether Oscar looked that haggard after Olivia left him for the film maker, if he wore his bitterness and betrayal on the outside for all to see. I wonder if he knows she’s back in New York. Does that change anything? Could she be the one he talks to behind closed doors in the middle of the night? My stomach lurches and my palms start to sweat. I fidget with my napkin and wonder whether people will notice that I look stricken.

My quick survey of the room confirms that all eyes remain on Holly O’Malley, who has taken a seat at the table next to her husband’s. All eyes, that is, except Marvin’s. He’s completely focused on the reason he came tonight, and, inexplicably, the boy toys are listening to his life story with rapt attention. I’ve heard the whole thing before, probably a dozen times. He’s going to tell them about his early, life-changing sexual experiences with an upperclassman in the boat house at boarding school.

Immediately after the waiters serve the first course, Kevin heads to the podium to introduce the Councilman. I’ve never heard him keep it so short and sweet. Under the unforgiving lights, his expression is nearly as dark as Holly O’Malley’s.

The Councilman takes the stage, looking surprisingly relaxed and in charge. Polite applause greets him. He thanks everyone for coming and cuts straight to the chase. “Many of you have been reading the news and wondering whether to believe the things they’ve been printing about me.”

People start whispering when he pauses for a breath, but the room falls silent again as soon as he continues. “Let me say this clearly, and unequivocally. I abhor
all
exploitation of women and children. Especially children. And in recent days, I’ve done a lot of research on the subject. My campaign has been working around the clock on this, and I believe there exists no better forum than this dinner to unveil my latest initiative.”

I glance over at Kevin. A tiny hint of a smile is forming at the corners of his mouth.

O’Malley clears his throat. “The average age a girl enters prostitution, or any segment of the adult entertainment industry, in New York City, is twelve.
Twelve.
Most of you probably didn’t know that, because the days of the Manhattan streetwalker are largely past. Tourists come to New York, and they don’t see the adolescent girls with half-dead souls selling their bodies. Which is a good thing for our local businesses, but it also makes it a little too easy for the average person to ignore this blight on our city.”

Judging by the expressions around the room, this is news to most people here.

O’Malley pauses for a moment to let the fact sink in. He must have nerves of steel. I bet most candidates in his position would not willfully keep the audience focused on any kind of exploitation of young girls.

The Councilman consults his notes and keeps going. “Make no mistake: the oldest profession in the world is alive, well, and thriving right under all our noses. And the fastest growing segment of the oldest profession is the sale of teenage girls. So let’s not lie to ourselves for one second longer. The overwhelming majority of these girls and women are
not
entrepreneurs. They are controlled by pimps who beat them down, isolate them from everything and everyone familiar, force them to turn tricks for hours on end every night, and take all the money they earn. They control who these girls see and speak with, and what they eat for lunch. Despite what the music industry, and several legitimate but misguided feminist organizations would have you believe, there is nothing glamorous—or good for women—in prostitution.”

I glance around the room. Many people are silently nodding as they listen.

“Because of the Internet, all prostitution, but especially child prostitution, has moved indoors, into the shadows, and most of all, into hotel rooms. My predecessors may think they’ve cleaned up the problem, but they’ve just brushed it off 42nd Street and into the Executive Suite.

“So what can we do about it? Our great city wastes millions of dollars every year prosecuting
children
, stuffing twelve-year-olds into over-crowded jails. After these kids serve their weeks or months, we release them back onto the streets, with no direction, education or means of support. And then we act surprised when they turn up with the same pimps who lured them into prostitution in the first place.”

O’Malley has everyone’s full attention. People are actually leaning forward in their chairs, waiting to hear where he’s going with this.

“We need a complete change of course. We must go after the adults who profit from the vicious abuse of our children. Adult men pimp these girls, these
children
, to adult customers, many of whom are well-to-do, middle-aged,
educated
men who pay the pimps good money to—let’s be honest here—sexually assault minors. And what happens to these johns? What does the greatest city on earth do to punish these predators? I’ll tell you what we do. We fine them a hundred bucks and clear their records if they manage to stay out of trouble for one year.”

Stunned whispers emanate from a few tables, but O’Malley keeps going. He looks around the room and makes eye contact with select reporters.

“Under my mayoral administration, all of this will change. I’m rolling out a plan, here, tonight, to protect young girls from the worst kind of exploitation. As your mayor, I will propose new legislation so we can stop jailing kids and instead get them the help they need. I will champion funding for prevention programs, to mentor at-risk kids, to keep them out of the sex industry. And I will use every ounce of political capital I have left to change the laws of this great city so the pimps and johns, grown men who permanently damage innocent kids, go to prison.” He pauses and stares straight into the lone TV camera in the room. “And if you pay for sex with a minor on my watch in New York City, I will do everything in my power to make sure you will have to register as a sex offender. I don’t care who you are, or how outwardly upstanding you look.”