At the end of one conversation, Ben sighs and says, “I just want you to be happy, Claudia. That’s all.”
It is a total non sequitur as I’ve just told him that I checked the messages at the apartment, and his aunt called twice.
“Right,” I say under my breath.
“Come again?” he says, an expression that has always annoyed me. Ben only uses it when he knows exactly what I said, but doesn’t like it.
“Clearly that’s not the only thing you want,” I say, picturing him with a squalling newborn.
He says nothing back, and as we both register that there is nothing he can say to this, I feel a strange little rush of victory and satisfaction. It’s always a good feeling when you can produce just the right one-liner to prove your point so tidily.
“Well, see ya,” I say, to drive it home.
“Yep,” Ben says flippantly. “See ya.”
I hang up and promptly schedule another visit with my lawyer, Nina Raden. Nina is striking, hard-edged, and abrasive, the kind of creature you envision when you hear Billy Joel’s “She’s Always a Woman.” Her lips are pumped up with collagen, and she smiles a lot, which is in stark contrast to her obvious desire to make my divorce as contentious as possible. I can tell her bread and butter comes from playing cheerleader to wronged women all over Manhattan. I’d wager that she’s said, “Let’s get the bastard” more times than she’s said, “Good morning.”
During our second session, I have to tell her three times that I do not want to hire a private investigator, and that I’m sure there isn’t another woman in Ben’s life. She clearly is unaccustomed to breakups in our peculiar genre.
“You can never be sure of that,” she tells me.
“I’m pretty darn sure,” I say. “Unless, per chance, he has already selected a vessel to carry his baby.”
She gives me a long look that says, That’s exactly what he has queued up . Then she licks her thumb and flips to a fresh page in her notebook. She tells me that, based on what I told her in our first meeting, our grounds for divorce will be “constructive abandonment.” It is a term that makes me sad as much for its formal sound as for the actual meaning.
I nod as Nina becomes all hyped up about our assets, telling me I should go for the gold, ask for the moon. She gestures a lot, her thick, enamel bracelets sliding up and down her long, slender arm. I give her a blank stare, insisting that Ben and I don’t have all that much to divide. “We’ve only been married three years. And we rent, remember?” I say, grateful that Ben and I never took the plunge into New York real estate.
“Okay. Okay. But what about cars? Furnishings? Rugs? Art? Crystal? Stock? Time-shares?” she says, her palms facing up. Her Botoxed face strains to frown but can’t quite get there.
I shrug. “We have a ‘99 Honda Civic. It’s a piece of junk.”
She gives me an exasperated look that says I can do better.
“I’ll work on it,” I say.
“Good. Good,” she says, glancing at her watch. “In my experience, you only regret asking for too little.”
“Uh-huh,” I say.
“So shoot me an e-mail with anything, anything at all that you can come up with. I’ll attach a list of all assets in Schedule A to the Separation Agreement.”
I have never thought of our “stuff” as assets. I never thought Ben and I would be dividing anything; I thought we’d always be about sharing everything. Still, I decide to take my homework assignment seriously. I call my soon-to-be ex-husband and tell him I need to be at the apartment for a few hours that evening. Ben says fine, he has to work late anyway.
That evening, I walk through our apartment, poking through cabinets and drawers as I drink a bottle of wine and take notes on a sheet of paper. The whole exercise feels surreal, almost as if I’m seeing certain items for the first time. As I inspect all of our joint belongings, I realize with a mix of relief and pride that I want almost nothing. I try, but I just can’t get myself too worked up about furniture, linens, and silver. I do linger briefly on our only expensive piece of art, a gorgeous Geoffrey Johnson cityscape in warm sepia tones. I love it and can’t imagine not being able to look at it again, but Ben and I bought it together for our second anniversary, so I don’t want that daily reminder.