Chapter 42
A WOMAN IS SITTING on a sofa, sniffing a leather pocketbook.
That sounds like the beginning of a joke. It isn’t. The woman is Amber, dressed in her favorite white tennis outfit with a lime-green sweater draped across her shoulders and her hair in a ponytail.
I thought she was on her way to a lesson today. Instead, she’s on the couch turning the leather purse over in her hands, smelling all sides of it. Then she opens it and inhales the inside, then the clasp and the strap. She sees me watching her. She frowns.
“Do you know how to get a yucky smell out of leather?” she asks.
“Uh, no.”
“I’ve had this bag since… well, forever,” she says. “It’s been in my closet. But now there’s a kind of musty smell. Like it’s been hanging around a thrift shop.”
That surprises me. Not that the leather scent is off. But that Amber would know how a thrift shop smells.
Like everything else she owns, the bag looks expensive. Maybe crocodile or alligator, definitely some sort of endangered species that gave its life for her. Looking for advice on what to do, Amber takes out her cell and scrolls for a while, eyebrows wrinkled, deep in thought.
“Hmm,” she says. “It’s so confusing. Some websites say to rub it with alcohol and warm water. Others say alcohol can ruin the leather, and I should put charcoal briquettes inside. Or put it in a plastic bag full of baking soda and let it sit for several hours. I don’t know.”
Clearly, this decision is weighing heavily on her mind.
“Guess I’ll try the baking soda.”
She goes to her Sub-Zero refrigerator, takes out the Arm & Hammer box, and sprinkles half of it in a plastic bag. Then adds the pocketbook, zips the bag closed, and shakes it to disperse the powder. She stares at it for a minute in silence.
Then she bursts into tears. “I can’t do this anymore,” she says.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “There are leather repair shops that can—”
But she’s shaking her head. “It’s not the bag,” she says. “It’s…”
She leaves the sentence unfinished, then slams her tennis racket against the wall. Is she talking about tennis lessons?
“I really liked him in the beginning,” she says between sobs, grabbing a tissue and blowing her nose.
Oh. It’s not the lessons. It’s Ben.
“He was so nice. And nobody knew about us. We wanted to keep it a secret.”
Wait. Is she talking about her tennis instructor, a handsome ex-lifeguard who, according to club gossip, is known as Bud the Stud? Did something happen between them?
“Is it always like this?” she asks.
“Like what?” I say.
“Like this. Life.” She sweeps her perfectly manicured hand around to indicate her perfectly manicured lawn, her swimming pool, her beautiful view.
Is life always like this? Interesting question, I think. I wonder how to break it to her: There are actually people in the world who don’t have massive homes and reptile accessories and walk-in closets the size of a school bus.
I look at her, in tears in her designer tennis whites and her balayaged hair and her Tory Burch sweater.
I’m trying to be sympathetic, but it’s tough.
As the old saying goes, it’s hard to feel sorry for a pretty girl on a yacht.
Still, I’ve never seen her like this. Might as well delve a little deeper. Maybe I can learn something.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“He was so kind at first. Funny. Fun to be with. So much nicer to me than most of the guys I knew.”
“You mean Bud?” I say.
“Who? No,” she says. “God, no. I mean Ben.”
Funny? Fun to be with? Ben?
“Crazy, isn’t it?” she says. “You keep falling for the same kind of man, and they disappoint you for the same reasons. Is that always the way it happens?”
Hold on. She’s asking me? Surely there’s someone in her smartphone contacts who’s better suited to advise her on this than I am.
But maybe that’s the point. In her social set, there’s an eleventh commandment: Thou shalt not air thy dirty marital laundry in public. If you need to complain, talk to people you barely know. Strangers on a bus. The hairdresser. Even, if you get really desperate, the help.
“We had so much in common when we first met,” she says. “I was an art history major at Middlebury College, then I went to graduate school at NYU, and after that I got an internship at his gallery.”
“Oh,” I say.
“And he was so charming.” She sees the look on my face. “No, really. He was. Loving too. But once I got pregnant, everything changed.”
“How so?”
“He didn’t want more children after Hailey,” she says. She shakes the lime-green sweater off her shoulders and folds it carefully. “And now he’s, well, not really into Lily. I’ve heard that’s pretty common. A lot of men can’t relate to babies until they start talking. Is that true?”
“Sure,” I say. I have no idea. I know less about parenting than I do about romance.
“But lately he seems so… distracted. More than usual. I mean, he always gets this way when he’s mounting a new show, but now—”
“How hard can that be, hanging pictures on a wall?” I say, playing dumb. Or as the FBI brochure on eliciting information calls it, feigning incredulity.
To my surprise, she begins to laugh. It’s a great deep laugh that brings new tears to her eyes. A different kind of tears. “Is that what you think mounting a show is?”
“Well, I guess. Yes.”
“That’s so funny. No. It’s a major ordeal. I’ll tell you about it sometime,” she says. She’s still laughing as she wipes away her tears. Whatever was upsetting her, she’s over it.
“Hey—I’ve got a great idea,” she says. “I want to get out a little. Why don’t you and Lily join me? We’ll go shopping. You could probably use a few things.”
A quick moment of panic. Will I have to undress in front of her? How will I explain the bodysuit?
“Things for your room, I mean,” she adds. She’s right. My lodgings could use an upgrade. White walls, white ceiling, white sheets and blanket. It has all the warmth and charm of an ICU.
“I know this great home-goods store,” Amber says. “I’ve bought tons of stuff there.”
“What’s it called?”
“Unnecessary Objects. We’ll go when Lily wakes up,” Amber says. “Let’s take the collapsible stroller. I’m going upstairs to change.” Her smile is as wide as a newly carved pumpkin.
She’s a woman who’s been given a new reason to live. Clearly, Amber delights in retail therapy, and—could it be?—she might have run out of things to buy for herself.