“I’m sorry to hear that. Well . . .” She paused and laughed. “Well, I’m actually pretty happy to hear it. Enjoy the rest of your day! See you tonight.” Then she walked away, feeling his eyes on her yoga-perfect ass.
They had dinner at a swanky place in the French Quarter, and she ordered a dry martini, Hendrick’s, twist of lemon, please. All went to plan—she charmed him, flattered him, asked him about himself and his life. Two children, one about to finish high school, the other just graduated from college and headed for the Peace Corps. Perfect. No pesky little kids, then. At the hotel, she paused in front of her room.
“I had a wonderful time, Dennis. How lucky that we were staying at the same place!”
“Can I see you again tomorrow?” he asked.
She pretended to be surprised. “Really? I’d love that!” She kissed him on the cheek, opened her door and gave a little wave. Sex on the first night? Nuh-uh.
They had dinner again the next night. She hedged about medical school, saying she hadn’t made a decision yet. “What was your MCAT score?” he asked.
“Five twenty-two,” she said, batting her eyelashes. Research, people. Research.
“Wow! Beauty and brains. With that score, you could go anywhere. NYU is one of the best out there.”
“NYU is actually one of my top choices. Columbia, too, of course.” Please, God, don’t let him ask anything else. “I’m planning a visit to the city in the next month or so.”
“Come see me.” He put his hand on her leg, and she let it stay.
“Maybe I will.” She smiled and took a sip of her cocktail. “No. Scratch that. I definitely will.”
She flew out three weeks later, her first time on an airplane. On her third day in the city, a “fire” burned her “loft” in New Orleans, and she lost everything. Dennis insisted on paying for a hotel for her (five stars, “bespoke,” whatever that meant, with fitness center and spa). She treated him to a massage there with the last of her savings, then took him up to her room.
Long story short, she became Melissa Grace Spencer Finch six months later at city hall. Oh, yes. The universe provided. She avoided a prenup with tales of her “abusive” childhood and fear of abandonment—her father, the successful businessman, had also been a drinker and a hitter. Her mother turned a blind eye and lost herself in the country club world of booze and tennis. Tragically, her sister struggled with addiction. “That’s it. My sad little family.”
“I’m your family now,” Dennis declared, fully embracing his role as white knight. “I’ll never leave you.”
Men. So easily managed.
Melissa stepped into her new lifestyle as if she’d been in training to be a Real Housewife of New York all her life . . . which she had, at least since the age of thirteen. She hired a private etiquette coach to be sure she was up to date on her social graces (and paid cash from the allowance Dennis gave her, so he wouldn’t know). She shopped in SoHo (Neiman’s was so old-lady) and bought the best clothes—always classy, interesting and yes, always sexy. La Perla underwear, Chanel makeup, designer shoes and handbags. She only bought one pair of gold hoop earrings, demure and classic, and murmured to Dennis, “I think it’s tacky for a woman to buy her own jewelry. That’s a husband’s job.” Her jewelry box filled up quite quickly after that.
She “put off” medical school so she could focus on making them a home . . . Dennis had been living in a boxy two-bedroom apartment in StuyTown.
“It’s such a bachelor pad,” she said, laughing, although it was the nicest place she’d ever set foot in. “You’re a married man, a successful doctor, a business owner and a wonderful father. You deserve a real home, honey.”
Within a month of their marriage, they owned (jointly!) a gorgeous place near Gramercy Park, the kind of apartment Melissa had seen only in magazines and on TV. She hired a decorator, the same one used by Kerry Washington! She followed enough influencers on Instagram that she knew what to buy and where (she’d begun studying New York stores the day after the conference). She took a cooking class and watched Ina Garten religiously.
She didn’t know Dennis’s net worth, but she did know the first Mrs. Finch was comfortably kept on alimony, and Dennis hadn’t (yet) put a limit on Melissa’s spending. He was wonderfully rich, not so much from being an orthopedic surgeon, which would have been rich by her Ohio standards. But he was next level, thanks to him and his three partners owning an entire surgical center. Direct pay. In other words, every nickel went to them, not the hospital or insurance company, she learned. They had just opened another center in Westchester County! Even more money would roll in.
“Baby, I’m so proud of you,” she said over the coq au vin she’d made for their dinner. She poured him more wine ($400 a bottle!). “You’re such a good provider. Even though I’m a total feminist, there’s something . . . I don’t know . . . primal about my man taking such good care of me.”
They had sex on the dining room table. Yes. She understood men quite well.
That was another thing. Dennis Finch would never be able to say he never got any at home, nuh-uh. She read a few books, listened to a few podcasts, bought a few toys and outfits. Dennis, being in his early fifties, was on a mission to prove he was the world’s greatest lover and oh so virile, and both of them were very content.
His kids were not happy, he said, but she didn’t care. Amanda was eighteen, Nick twenty-two (just a year younger than Melissa, but Dennis thought she was twenty-nine). “They’ll warm up to you,” Dennis said. Melissa knew better, but hey. Let the man cling to his fantasy. “You’re the most wonderful thing in the world. I haven’t been this happy in years.”
Dennis didn’t mind her “deferment” from school, and why would he? She still googled articles about orthopedics, and tried to look knowledgeable when he discussed his work.
She threw dinner parties and charmed his partners, if not their wives. She could see exactly what they thought of her . . . and she could see exactly what their husbands were thinking when she touched their arms or laughed at their jokes or said, “No, don’t you dare come into my kitchen! You sit there and relax. You’ve earned it.”
Yeah, the wives all hated her. Oh, well.
The universe had put Dennis Finch, MD, in that van for a reason. He needed someone to take care of him, make him look good, assure him that he was still vital and masculine and young. And here she was, spending his money, living the life she deserved.
After a year, Dennis said he wanted a baby. In addition to acquiring a woman a generation younger, Dennis types needed to prove their sperm could still swim.
Melissa pretended to go off birth control, but she was not going to get pregnant. Hell no, though she well understood the financial benefit of having a child with a rich man. But she’d dodged the prenup, and the apartment was in her name, too. Pregnancy? Ick. All those physical ailments women loved to describe—nausea, heartburn, hair loss, fatigue, bloating, weight gain—and that was just the pregnancy! Then came the agony of labor, which every mother she’d ever met loved to discuss in horrifying detail. The contractions. The gush of fluid soaking their carpet/clothing/car. The agony, the writhing, the screaming—or, even more irritating, the serenity, the earth-mother moments of woman-power and holiness.
No thanks. It still left you with a soft pooched-out stomach, stretch marks, drooping milky breasts and a saggy vagina, which you’d later feel compelled to fix at great cost through a Park Avenue plastic surgeon.