The Good Life

Chapter ONE

Eight Years Later

I was sitting on the toilet when he told me he wanted a divorce. This wasn’t the way I imagined it would happen. In fact, I didn’t ever imagine it would happen, which is odd because I’m the kind of person who likes to be prepared. I consider myself a hardcore planner. Not the kind who takes a list to the grocery store or sticks a chore chart to the refrigerator. That’s too easy. I’m more of a life planner. I don’t sit by and idly watch life happen to me. I grab the wheel and let me happen to life. I imagine every possible scenario behind every corner and by planning ahead I make the ordinary moments extraordinary and the disasters more bearable. It’s not because I’m a total control freak or anything; it’s because, well, I guess I am a bit of a control freak. And if we’re dissecting my personality here, I should probably admit to being a tad bit neurotic because you’re going to find out anyway. But not in a crazy, spastic kind of way. I like to think of myself as more quirky than crazy.

As a film junkie I had a habit of expecting my life to resemble a Best Picture nominee. Or maybe a Golden Globe or MTV Movie Award would be more my style. But nevertheless, I wanted a life filled with edge-of-your-seat excitement and the kind of comedy that makes people shoot soda out of their noses. I wanted witty dialogue, romance and suspense in all the right places and a perfect soundtrack playing in the background. It’s a lot to ask for, yes, but we only get one shot at life. There are no second takes. If I find myself in a crappy moment, I can’t just “fix it in post” or delete the scene like I can with editing software. So I simply don’t allow crappy moments. That is all.

This obsession with perfection started when I was a teenager. There are certain things little girls look forward to as they’re growing up. For example, their first kiss. My big moment happened when I was fourteen. I was walking home from school with my brother, Adam’s, best friend, Jake. Jake Odom had lived around the block from us for as long as I could remember. He spent so much time at our house playing Nintendo (the original Nintendo) with my brother he was practically another member of the family.

Adam and Jake were both juniors that year and I was a freshman. Jake and I walked home from school together nearly every day. We weren’t exactly friends but since we both went to the same school, lived in the same neighborhood and he didn’t have a car and I wasn’t old enough to drive, we ended up walking together by default. I guess we ended up friends by default, as well.

Adam did have a car but he also had football practice after school in the fall and basketball practice in the winter and baseball practice in the spring so I never got to take advantage of that particular older brother perk.

There we were, two non-athletic high school kids stopped at a crosswalk, when he suddenly turned to me, grabbed my head on both sides by my ears, pressed his lips on mine and stuck his tongue in my mouth. I was so shocked and disgusted by the slimy violation that I gasped in shock and got my raspberry-flavored bubble gum caught in my windpipe.

It was the closest I’d ever been to death. I was unable to make a sound so I started flapping my arms around like a panicking penguin until Jake realized he had literally taken my breath away. Fortunately for me, he had taken a first aid class in middle school. He got behind me and Heimlich-ed the gum right out. Unfortunately for him, a lady who happened to be looking out her window at the time thought he was assaulting me and called the police. The cops found some rolling papers in his pocket and busted him for paraphernalia. Magic moment? Hardly.

Girls also think losing their virginity is going to be a sacred and special memory. I was sixteen and one of the last of my friends to take the plunge. After hearing the horror stories from everyone else, I knew better than to expect roses and candlelight. But when my boyfriend led me into his bedroom after school while his parents were at work, I was expecting something at least a little bit sweet, like maybe some Boyz II Men on the CD player. What happened instead is he never even took his shirt off. He dropped his pants and went at it looking like Winnie-the-Pooh in his red polo shirt. And the worst part of it all – he farted! Loudly and intentionally, at his moment of climax (about fifteen seconds in), he farted. He said later he thought it would be a good way to break the ice. Break the ice!? Really? Your penis is in my vagina! We’re like six months and three layers of clothing past ice breaking!

I don’t consider myself to be an unreasonable person. I could make do with a less-than-perfect moment every once in awhile as long as it was something I could laugh about later. The kissing scene, for example, was quite funny in retrospect. Jake and I have laughed about it on more than one occasion. And I can deal with a man being in such a hurry to get in there that he can’t even take three seconds to get his shirt off. That kind of urgency can be sexy at times. I also understand that accidents happen and sometimes things just slip out. But a flatulent ejaculator is unacceptable. Fart jokes stop being funny to girls when we’re about six. I understand boys mature at a slower pace, but farting should stop being funny for them by at least age thirteen. And farts are never funny when your penis is in my vagina.

After the fart fiasco I was determined to make sure I had no more blooper-reel moments on my DVD. That’s when I became a bit obsessed with directing – I mean planning. I realized my experiences could not be put into the hands of others.

I can’t always predict how the supporting cast will behave. Sometimes they forget their lines or decide to adlib. But I can be prepared to turn things around if they start to go sour and that’s why I always have a trick up my sleeve. This girl does not like awkward silences or second act slumps!

I’ve been doing a pretty good job of keeping the pace so far. My life post-virgin has been better than I hoped for. I was voted “Best Laugh” and “Most Likely to be Seen Pushing a Car Down the Road” in my senior class superlatives. Both are less boring than “Most Likely to Succeed,” if you ask me.

I went on to a pretty good university where I grabbed the proverbial bull by the horns every chance I got, as well as the literal horns on the mechanical bull at City Limits Saloon in Raleigh, where I stayed on for 5.3 seconds.

I changed my major three times (Film, Journalism and Social Work), wrote a popular column for the school newspaper and was a DJ at the campus radio station during a primetime study hour slot. I never declined an invitation to a party and went somewhere tropical every year for spring break. I had lots of friends and lots of fun, which amounted to four years of great “footage” and ever-lasting memories. Isn’t that what college is all about? I mean, except for the learning and never-ending debt.

It was the beginning of my senior year when I met Caleb Golightly during Speed-Dating Night in the Morehead Lounge. (Yes, that’s really the name of the place. I am not making this up). I wasn’t looking for anything serious, but I couldn’t believe my luck when he introduced himself. Breakfast at Tiffany’s was my all-time-fave! Holly Golightly was my hero! And when he told me he intended to move to New York City after graduation, I decided not to meet with any of my other “speed dates” that night. He was the one. That’s a wrap!

Caleb Golightly was a dorky grad student with an ambitious goal of becoming an investment banker in New York City after he got his MBA. I liked a guy with goals, no matter how far-fetched they might be, and I’d always been turned on by guys who were smarter than me – probably because so few of them existed.

Speed-dating night was the beginning of a whirlwind romance with lots of roses and candlelight and even some Boyz II Men during flashback hour on 90.1. Our passionate courtship led to a (totally prepared for) proposal back in Morehead Lounge, complete with a bended knee from him and a dramatic exclamation of surprise from me (one I’d been practicing in the mirror for nearly two weeks). I had a Photojournalism student waiting in the wings, so not only was a picture of the proposal in the school paper, but I now had a canvas print of the perfect memory on our mantle.

I became Mrs. Roxie Golightly three months after graduation. The ceremony was held in my hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan, in front of two-hundred of my closest friends, acquaintances, former classmates, coworkers and neighbors, and a few people that Caleb knew, too.

I was a young bride, only twenty-two. I definitely showed my age when, after a little too much champagne, I stole the microphone from the DJ and burst into Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York.” After my dazzling performance, I told all of my guests that Ann Arbor sucked and I was leaving and never coming back. I am not proud.

We moved to New York City after the wedding and spent the next few years living in a studio apartment in the West Village. A studio apartment in Michigan means you have a living room, kitchen and bedroom, but no walls to separate them. A studio apartment in Manhattan means you can cook your dinner on the stove, eat your dinner at the dining room table and then wash your dishes in the kitchen sink, without ever getting off the couch. It was tight, but I made the best of it by spending as little time there as possible. While Caleb’s full time job was looking for a job, I worked as a cocktail waitress at night and stayed busy during the day by exploring the city in my big black sunglasses, occasionally drinking Starbucks in front of Tiffany & Co. NYC wasn’t what I imagined it would be. It was even better!

What happened next is something I’d dreamed about, but never thought would really happen. I didn’t think Caleb would get his Wall Street dream job. Or that he would be really good at it. Or that we would eventually move from our closet-sized apartment to a two-bedroom condo in Battery Park City complete with doormen, concierge services and the most incredible views of the East River and Midtown.

He wasn’t an overnight success. He worked his butt off for several years before we bought the condo, and his hard work was worth it because every year he climbed higher and higher up the corporate ladder. And me, what have I been doing? Not too much. I watch a lot of ridiculous reality TV and cooking shows. I do a lot of shopping. I also take care of the condo. Granted, it’s very small, only 900 square feet plus the terrace (we have a terrace!), but I keep it clean. I also take care of Caleb, even if he doesn’t notice. I cook his dinners, pack his lunches, make sure his expensive ties match his expensive shirts, and the creases in his expensive pants are perfect. But the bottom line is that I do not have a job outside of the home, and this is why my friends call me a “kept” woman. I preferred the term “Trophy Wife.”

Once we settled into our life together I started preparing for my next role: MILF. I wasn’t pregnant yet, but I was planning. I had a list of baby names. I had a board on Pinterest filled with ideas for the nursery decor. I had an unpublished baby registry at Pottery Barn Kids just waiting to go live. I’d even gone as far as making a big-to-us-but-small-to-them donation to a prestigious preschool. From what I heard, Manhattan preschools were a real bitch to get into, and I was hoping to get a leg up by making donations every year. Right now we were still considered middle-class compared to the crust of the Upper-East Side, but I figured by the time our baby was ready for preschool we’d certainly be sending the kid off to school in pinstripes.

A baby. That was supposed to be the next step. Not a divorce! Even during our nastiest arguments or the longest stretches of dullness, divorce was never an option. Not because we’re the happiest couple on Earth, or because I’m super religious or anything, but simply because I don’t like to admit when I’ve made a mistake. Especially when that mistake was made in front of two-hundred people, several of whom told me to slow things down and not get married so young. I figured if I had chosen to go against the advice of my family and friends, it was my own fault, and I deserved nothing less than to suffer in this gorgeous loft with breath-taking views!

So no, I hadn’t taken the time to plan an ideal divorce, and now I was caught with my pants down – literally! As dumbfounded as I was by the morning’s topic of conversation, all I could think about as I stared at the tile on the bathroom floor was Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt.

They were America’s sweethearts. I was disappointed and crushed when they announced they were divorcing. Okay, maybe “crushed” is a bit dramatic, even for me, but there was a moment when I doubted if happily-ever-after existed outside of fairy tales. Then I saw a photo of them looking sweet and romantic on a Caribbean beach that was taken just one day before they announced their separation. Those pictures seemed to soften the blow a little. There was no better way to say goodbye to each other than by walking hand-in-hand on a warm sandy beach. At that time I told myself if ever I was to divorce, I was doing it up as classy as they did.

Is it too late to book a vacation? I wondered, as I looked at the grey sweatpants and old cotton panties that were pooled around my ankles. This is definitely not Anguilla.