An Ex to Grind (5 page)

"Yeah, but it'll be in honor of your latest success. You wouldn't want us to drink the cheap stuff while we're toasting you. Would you, darlin'?"

That did it. I didn't even bother to count to ten. "You're a selfish jerk, pissing my money away like that, not to mention your own. It's not bad enough that I have to scrimp and save and live in a place that's a pit compared to this palace? You have to rub my nose in the world's most expensive champagne too?"

"So much for your restraint, huh?" Back came the smirk.

"Because you make me crazy!"

He winked. "That's what all the girls tell me."

Too angry to muster an intelligent response, I gave Buster a hug and Dan the finger and left.

During the entire cab ride to my office, I replayed this latest war of words between my ex and me, and I thought, How did it come to this? He was always goading me now, getting me to lose it even when I vowed not to. Was it his way of paying me back for leaving him? And if so, why had he expected me to stay? He had given up on football, on himself, on life. What was left to stay for?

As I rode down Park Avenue, I marveled at how two people who were so much in love could have ended up the way we had. But, as any woman who's ever been in a failed relationship with a man can attest, things change. Circumstances bring about change. First, there's a setback, or maybe a series of setbacks, and suddenly our hero's other self is revealed, and it's not what we anticipated. We find ourselves shaking our heads and muttering, "This is how he copes with problems? This is how he handles adversity? This is who he turns out to be?"

In the early years, Dan and I were in a perpetual state of bliss, and adversity wasn't on our radar. We were young, invincible, confident that together we could do anything. Each of us lived up to our advance billing—I was the feisty, street-smart one who was always coming up with strategies for getting ahead; he was the talented, all-American athlete who didn't need strategies for getting ahead because everything came easily. We were perfectly matched, perfect together.

Even the night Dan proposed was perfect. It was in Minco, on the back porch of his house overlooking his family's cornfields, about a week after we each graduated from college. There was a moon in the sky—not full, but almost—and the air was clean and fragrant following a late-afternoon rain. I'd come out on the porch feeling as if I'd already been designated a member of the Swains; they were the hokey, close-knit family I never
had, and I couldn't get over how warm and welcoming they were to an outsider.

"We'll live here in Minco," Dan said after he'd popped the question and I'd said yes. "Buy a farm, like Mom and Dad did. Grow corn, wheat, peanuts. Whatever we want."

At first I was stunned. "Wait a second, honey," I said. "You're Traffic, remember? The guy who's about to be drafted in the first round by a professional football team."

"Oh, that." He shrugged. "I'd rather grow peanuts. Be with my girl in peace and quiet, away from the bright lights. You in?"

"I—" Yikes. I loved Dan more than anything, but a farmer's wife?

"Minco may not be a thriving metropolis," he said, watching my face fall, "but it's got four restaurants, two gas stations, a flower shop, a beauty salon, even a video/tanning place."

I was speechless. Completely floored. All my dreams of an MBA, a job in finance, a beautiful apartment… gone?

"Mel?" he said.

"Yes?" I said.

"It's a joke."

"What?"

He grabbed me and hugged me hard. "I'm about to be drafted by the Giants, and you and I are gonna live in the Big Apple!"

I shrieked with excitement and shrieked again when he told me he'd be able to pay my way through business school, thanks to his hefty contract.

"Before you know it, I'll be the team's starting wide receiver," he said, "and you'll be hired by my rich teammates to tell them how to invest their money. How does that sound?"

"It sounds so—well—easy."

"It will be."

"But it's never been that way. Not for me."

He kissed me. "Everything's gonna change now, Melanie."

He was right, as it turned out. Everything did. He got injured, couldn't play football, flopped on TV, and stopped living. I continued to suggest a coaching job, but he said he'd never stoop that low. As if sleeping until noon, then dusting himself off for an evening of glad-handing and ass grabbing wasn't stooping low enough.

We started to drift apart. I was spending more time with clients; he was spending more time with Ernie, an even bigger slacker than his buddy. We stopped making love. He claimed I didn't respect him anymore; I claimed he didn't respect himself anymore. We were both right.

Eventually, I'd had it. I'd concluded that the differences in our personalities, once so complementary, were now liabilities. I was the go-getter who couldn't make him go and get. He was The Natural to whom nothing came naturally anymore.

Although something
was
coming naturally to him now: the alimony. God, did it stick in my craw. How could he throw my money away on champagne and shoes and—

"Hey, lady. For the third time, this is it," snapped the cabdriver, interrupting my trip down memory lane. "You want to sit here forever or what?" We had arrived at my office on Forty-eighth Street and had, apparently, been parked at the curb long enough for the cars around us to start honking. It took me a second or two to shake off my reverie, but after the driver shouted at me to pay up and get out, I paid up and got out.

As he tore away, tires squealing, I stood on the sidewalk for a few minutes to straighten my skirt, smooth my hair, and banish all thoughts of Dan, past and present. I had a show to put on, and I had to be at my best. No distractions.

I gathered myself up to my full height of five feet six, took one more deep breath and strode into the building, Jed Ornbacher's millions dancing in my head.

"Has he shown up yet?" I asked Steffi Strauss, my twenty-six-year-old assistant, as soon as I got off the elevator and spotted her in the hall. She was carrying a stapler in one hand and a package of legal pads in the other, and if she'd had more hands she would have found useful jobs for them too. She was the most organized person I'd ever met, always prepared, always on top of things. The day human resources sent her to me was a lucky day indeed. She wasn't just a bright kid who'd aced all her courses in business school. She was also what is commonly referred to as a "self-starter" and had an uncanny knack for anticipating my every need.

"No," she said, with a shake of her head that made her blonde ponytail whip across the back of her neck. She was tall and sturdy and plain-looking in her sensible clothes and sensible shoes, but she projected a positive energy that made you forget she wasn't pretty. Maybe it was the size of her mouth that threw her face off-kilter. It was too big—i.e., not in proportion to her other features—and when she smiled you got the impression she had seventy-five teeth. "He's due any minute." She checked her watch. "In five minutes, to be exact. Will you need me to sit in during the meeting?"

I smiled. She was so devoted to me, and in turn, I tried to do all I could to mentor her, involve her in my work at the company so that someday she would rise up the ranks as I had. "You're sweet to ask, but no. I'll be fine. I've got the speech down pat at this point."

"Nobody reels in new clients the way you do, Mel." She nodded and hurried off to answer my phones, my e-mails, and whatever else needed answering while I took a quick look at the messages on my desk, grabbed Ornbacher's file, and headed for Bernie Shelley's office, where the meeting was to take place. Bernie was sitting behind his throne—a Louis the Something antique table—scribbling notes to himself when I walked in.

"Mel, glad you made it," he said.

"When did I ever not make it?" I said with a laugh. I hadn't missed a meeting or even been late for one since the day I'd joined the company, but then Bernie was a worrywart. A worrywart and a notorious sacker of people who
were
late and
did
miss meetings. The managing partner of Pierce, Shelley and Steinberg, he was a thin, wiry guy in his forties with a fair complexion and tons of red hair. I say "tons" because the red hair on his head was thick and coarse and because he had a red goatee and a red mustache too. And if you looked really closely, there was red hair on his fingers and red hair on the tops of his hands and still more red hair on his upper chest, which was visible when he wore open-collared shirts on casual Fridays. He'd asked me out shortly after my separation, but I'd begged off, saying I didn't think it was a good idea to mix business and romance. The truth is, I wasn't attracted to Bernie any more than I was attracted to Carrot Top.

"I guess I'm a little overeager," he said, gnawing on a fingernail to prove it. "Would I ever love to have Jed Ornbacher as a client. If he comes on board, he just might bring along his oil-rich friends."

"You can count on me," I said.

"I know I can. You're my top gun, so I'm just gonna sit back and let you fire away."

A few minutes later Ornbacher arrived. He was a portly man with a leathery tan, and he was dressed like a cowboy—the hat, the boots, the blue jeans, the string tie. As Bernie introduced me, I kept thinking, Where's the rodeo? And what is it with Texans anyway? People from other parts of the country don't show up for business meetings in costumes that announce where they're from. I had a client from Maine, for example, and he wasn't wearing a checked flannel shirt, overalls, and a lobster bib when he came to the office.

But then Ornbacher had a reputation as a bit of an eccentric. He'd been a professional singer in his youth—a crooner of minor-key love ballads that didn't go over well with the public because they were too morbid. His most famous song was a ditty he wrote himself called "Don't You Go Dying on Me." Later, before moving into oil, he ran a company that manufactured the cord that's used to hold Venetian blinds together. Word was, he had many pursuits, another of which was the female species. While he'd never remarried, he had a slew of girlfriends. "He's supposed to be a horny bastard," Bernie had warned me. "A real toucher. But you'll have to ignore it." Easy for him to say, I thought. He wasn't the one the guy would be touching.

"So nice to meet you, Mr. Ornbacher," I said as we shook hands.

As he held on to mine for about an eternity, he gave me a big smile and his lips receded, making him look sort of predatory.

"Call me Jed," he said in a too-loud Texas twang. It was as if he had bellowed through a bullhorn. I wondered if he might be a little deaf as well as horny.

"Jed it is," I said, gesturing for him to sit. "Can we get you anything to drink? Coffee? Tea? Water?"

"What's that?" he yelled, cupping his hand to his ear.

I stood closer and repeated the offer.

"A shot of bourbon would be swell," he said and laughed one of those phlegmy smoker's laughs that morphs into a death rattle. "Water's good," he said when he recovered.

We got him his water. I sat in the chair next to his and began my routine.

"So," I said, "Bernie tells me you're in the market for new financial management, Jed."