The Good Life

Chapter THREE



When Hope finished packing my overnight bag and reserved us a rental car on her iPad, we hopped into a cab and headed straight for my haven – also known as Barney’s New York.

I didn’t always feel this good about shopping. I’ll never forget my first time in a top-of-the-line designer store (which shall remain nameless, as I don’t need a lawsuit on my hands on top of a divorce).

We’d been married about two years. Caleb was still a newbie junior banker at the firm. We were invited to the housewarming party of one of the senior bankers who had bought a home in a wealthy neighborhood in the Town of North Hempstead. Yes, the word Town has a capital T. At this point in his career, Caleb was still doing a lot of minute tasks such as making coffee and going on lunch runs, and I was still serving martinis to “suits” during Happy Hour. We were basically your average struggling young couple, but that didn’t mean I wanted to look the part.

I bought a dress from Victoria’s Secret that cost $90. This was the most expensive piece of clothing I had ever owned up to that point. I felt amazing when it came in the mail and I put it on. I looked like a goddess in the short, shimmery, backless number. I put on black thigh-highs, the kind with a seam up the back, and black stilettos and splurged on a manicure and a blow-out at the salon. Caleb looked at me like I was the most beautiful girl in the world. He told me how proud he was to have a trophy wife as he linked his arm with mine, and we walked into the elegant, sprawling home in Manhasset.

To make a long story short, I’ll say I learned some important lessons in Manhasset.

Lesson #1 – There is a big, HUGE, difference between the Town Of North Hempstead with a capital T and plain old Hempstead, and one must never make the mistake of using the shorter form. Because, you see, the Town of North Hempstead was a wealthy area filled with the kinds of houses that have their own parking lots. And apparently, Hempstead, on the other hand, was a completely separate town in Nassau County where there was gang activity, government-funded housing and an Old Navy.

Lesson #2 – There is no lower scum on Earth than a waitress. I probably would’ve earned more respect from Caleb’s coworkers if I had told them I was contributing to the household expenses by hiding our neighbor’s dead body in my closet and cashing in her social security checks. Can you believe one of the wives asked me if I could grab her a drink from the bar? “To make you feel more at home, dear.” It was after this party when Caleb told me it would be a good idea if I quit my job because he would hate for one of his colleagues to show up at the bar while I was working. After feeling mortified at the party, I had to agree with him.

Lesson #3 – The shoes are everything. The dress is not important. I could have worn a dress from Goodwill and claimed it was vintage couture, and no one would have known the difference. It was the shoes that mattered. Shoes were the topic of several conversations: the shoes at the party, the shoes on the runways, the shoes in the tabloids, the shoes on the red carpet. Then someone asked me who I was wearing. Who! Not what, but who! Apparently Payless is not a designer? I decided then and there that I would never be out-shoed again. From that point on, I would have the best shoes in every room I stepped into, and that was a promise.

A week later I took the subway to the Upper East Side for some shopping on Madison Avenue. This is where the situation occurred.

I went into the designer-who-shall-remain-nameless’ store. The sales associates were a bunch of girls around my age who wore cardigan sweaters and geek-chic glasses. They all had their boobs pushed up to their chins and had very thick, golden highlights in their dark hair, the kind of highlights that made it look like their heads were striped – a trend I am so glad finally went out of style.

The fact that none of them would meet my eyes made the whole scenario a bit creepy. I began to wonder if I was on the set of Bitches of the Corn Part V. Or that I’d accidentally walked in on a top-secret cloning experiment. I decided to make my selection quickly before I, too, was kidnapped and cloned. I could do the glasses and cardigans, but I’d honestly rather die than have striped hair.

I decided on a pair of shoes I wanted to try on. I picked up the floor model and looked around for help, but the sales associates wouldn’t help me. They wouldn’t make eye contact with me. They acted like I was invisible, but I knew they weren’t blind because as soon as someone else walked in the door there were boob-on-boob collisions as they fought to see who could greet the new customer first. I knew for sure it was intentional when I spoke to one and she stared at the wall behind me for a few seconds before she deliberately turned and walked away. All right fine, so maybe Pollyanna-style pigtails and an American Eagle hoodie wasn’t the best way to dress for a shopping trip with the big dogs, but I was still a person and didn’t deserve that kind of treatment. I felt like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman when the salesladies were mean to her.

I left, discouraged. With the lyrics of Reba McIntyre’s “Fancy” running through my head, I cried all the way to Dylan’s Candy Bar. This definitely called for gummy bears.

Once I managed to get myself together, I headed back out there. I didn’t want to, believe me, but those girls at the Manhasset party had made me feel like trash and then the clones at designer-who-shall-remain-nameless made me feel even worse. I needed to get on the same playing field before everyone in Manhattan was laughing at me and I was on eBay looking for pig’s blood.

I stood outside Barney’s, took a deep breath, touched the extra stash of gummies in my pocket for reassurance, put on my bravest face and walked in ... to heaven on Earth! Everywhere I went, from handbags, to shoes, to the make-up counters in the basement, I encountered happy, helpful people. This time I felt like Julia Roberts in the “Pretty Woman” scene of Pretty Woman. I walked out of there with both hands filled with shopping bags, and my very first pair of Christian Louboutins (which are worth every penny, by the way).

When I was out on the street I threw my hat into the air like Mary Tyler Moore and hailed a cab home. Just kidding. I wasn’t even wearing a hat. But it would have been pretty cool, huh? Looking back, I really wish I had worn a hat that day.

In case you’re wondering – as I’m sure anyone would be – no, I didn’t go back to the designer-who-shall-remain-nameless to wave my bags in their faces because the bags were heavy and I’m quite lazy. But I never did go in there again.

“Roxie!” Yes, they know me by name in the shoe department. I know it’s totally cliché, but when I said I’d never be out-shoed again, I meant it!

“Carly!” I replied. No, we didn’t do air kisses or anything preposterous like that.

“We need some FMPs,” Hope told her.

I guess being married for so long I was a little out of the loop on the sexy acronyms. “What are those?” I asked.

“F*ck Me Pumps,” Hope whispered.

Carly gave Hope a knowing smile. “Those are very high heels,” she told me. “Higher than your 120s.” She was referring to the height of the heel in millimeters. For me, 120s were as high as I could go without moving into drag queen territory. Higher heels might be fun for dress-up, but if I was going to spend hundreds of dollars on a pair of shoes, I needed something more practical, something that didn’t make anyone wonder if I was packing a penis in my skinny jeans.

Carly showed us a pair of FMPs in red satin. They looked more like DQPs if you asked me. I tried them on just to pacify them, but I decided to buy hot pink patent peep-toes in my usual 120mm heel instead. Yes, hot pink stilettos are absolutely practical, thank you very much for your concern.

As I headed up to pay for the shoes, I got the worst feeling in my stomach. What if Caleb cancelled the credit cards? The scene flashed before my eyes. Me at the counter. Carly telling me the credit card declined. Me pulling another card out of my wallet. Declined. Another one. Declined. Declined. Declined. Carly with a pair of scissors, cutting up all of my cards and calling security over to escort me from the building. All of the other trophy wives taking pictures of me on their iPhones and posting them to Twitter and Instagram – Hashtag:pathetic.

I felt my face burning, my brow sweating, my breaths were becoming fast and shallow, and I thought I might pass out.

“You okay, Roxie?” Carly asked from the cash register. She looked concerned.

“Um, yeah,” I said. I sounded weak. I handed her a credit card, held my breath and closed my eyes while the blood drained from my face.

“You gonna sign, hun?” she asked patiently.

I snapped out of it and saw the signature line on the credit card screen. It went through. I finally exhaled with relief. My husband wasn’t a total scumbag after all. I mean, yes he was. But he wasn’t a scumbag who cancelled my credit cards.

We picked up the rental car when we were done at Barney’s. Hope had reserved a convertible because “Why the f*ck not?” Right?

I sent Caleb a text to let him know we were headed to the Hamptons for the night.

My phone rang almost immediately.

“Hi,” I said softly, a little scared he was going to yell at me for running away from our problems. I had a little nagging voice in the back of my head already doing as much. But he didn’t.

“Hello, darling.” He sounded totally normal, like the whole divorce discussion had never taken place.

“You got my text?”

“Yes. I think it’s a great idea for you to get away. I’ll reschedule the papers to be delivered tomorrow then. You two have a nice time.”

“Um, okay. Thanks.” It felt so awkward.

“Just be careful with the money, Roxie,” he warned. “Once it’s divided up, it doesn’t replenish itself anymore.”

Hmm. What the hell did that even mean? For some reason his comment made me think of lizards and how they can supposedly grow back their tails if they ever fall off. Why their tails would fall off in the first place, though, I’m not sure. “Okay.”

“Have a nice time, dear. I’ll send you the email with the details as soon as I finish and we’ll talk more when you get home.”

This whole thing was just too weird.

I hung up the phone and got into the passenger side of the convertible. I resisted the urge to hop over the door without opening it because I’m not eighteen.

We wrapped Boho scarves around our heads to protect our hair from the wind, put on our huge sunglasses and took off – Thelma and Louise style.