The Ex-Mrs. Hedgefund (28 page)

“The Empire State Building doesn't serve dinner,” he said. “But the best view of it is right up here at the Rainbow Room.”

I was euphoric. “I haven't been here in ages!” I exclaimed as he led me through the doors to the grand lobby of 30 Rock. When we walked in, two guys were carrying a full-length mirror—presumably for one of the many sets in the NBC studios. Elliot stopped walking and put me in front of the mirror, standing behind me and putting his hands on my shoulders.

“See? Look at yourself. You look like you just swallowed a vat of radium and you're glowing from within.”

I caught myself blushing in the mirror and looked down bashfully. I had that excited sense that we were on the same plane in terms of our connection and I couldn't have been more relaxed and at ease about it. The bellinis upstairs were delicious and the view from our window table beyond intoxicating, and I kept thinking that because he made me feel beautiful, confident, and generally happy, I was suddenly smitten, and this time, felt that I could finally picture myself sleeping with him. I wasn't frigid! I wasn't scared or nervous or shaky. I was calm and whole. I felt known and understood and it was so new a sensation that I almost felt reborn.

Weirdly, the more he said, the more I felt like Elliot was more similar to me than any guy I'd ever met. For one, it was as if his taste buds were grafted onto my own. Same tastes, same dislikes. He loved mushrooms, hated fennel, and was a coffee addict. We ate a delicious dinner of grilled artichokes with lemon, light fluffy gnocchi with vodka sauce, and coffee gelato. After he paid the check, Elliot asked the maître d' if the private party room was available for a sneak peek. He let us in to the grand room, dark and majestic. The massive Empire State Building looming in the giant floor-to-ceiling windows, and the whole city was before us, an ocean of glitter.

“This is the most gorgeous thing ever,” I said, absolutely mesmerized.

“No,” Elliot replied, taking my hand and kissing it. “Second most.”

With that, I was, as they say, a goner.

Elliot moved the hair out my face, then caressed my neck down to my shoulder. He leaned in and kissed me so passionately, I felt as electrified as the countless skyscrapers that peppered our majestic view.

We grasped each other as he kissed my neck and ear, jolting shivers down my back as our fingers interlaced, our breathing growing heavier.

Suddenly a dude burst in and switched on the lights—the definition of buzz kill. We looked like busted teens in the basement rec room, all guiltily disheveled and rosy. Elliot took my hand. “Let's go.”

We hailed a cab and this time I felt perfectly fine having him come to my place, and we kissed excitedly the entire ride home. When we pulled up to my awning the driver had to turn around and announce that we had arrived. I didn't make eye contact with our doorman, who I was certain would report the sighting to the whole staff. Inside the apartment, we jumped on the bed and as we kissed I realized I was turned on by Elliot the person, not just the newness of him. It felt safe being in his arms, not loaded with shades of the past or elevated on a pedestal, just real and comfortable. And just when I thought I couldn't like him any more, he awed me with each passing moment, a cute smile here or a dopey gesture there. In our blissful downy vacuum he was more forceful than I first realized; he pulled me to him with such confidence, like a man who goes after what he wants. I felt oddly protected by his strength despite his thin frame. He pulled me down to him and we kissed for what seemed like hours. But whereas John had gone immediately for my bra, Elliot just had his hands in my hair and down my back, under my sweater. Was he not turned on by me? Why no going for the gold? The make out continued and I started to really want him. I put my hands under his shirt to feel the skin underneath. His stomach and torso felt like perfection and I moved my hands up his chest as I climbed on top of him, pants on. We kept kissing but I sensed him tense up a little bit.

“Are you okay? What's wrong?” I asked.

“Nothing at all. I just . . .” He put his hands on my waist and rubbed my sides. “I thought we maybe should take it slow, you know.”

Oh.

“Oh . . . okay,” I said.

“Trust me, I want to sleep with you. I really want to, I just thought—”

“Cool, sure, fine, whatever.”

This whole not-wanting-to-rip-my-clothes-off-and-nail-me thing begged the question:
What the fuck?
I thought all men were little horndogs. I wanted to be begged for it! I didn't want to feel like some dirty ho who's craving it from him. Am I some estrogen-dripping predator? Should I be playing it more coy? Oh, my God, it suddenly dawned on me: Men are the new women.

Lost in my thought about changing sexual tides and the androgynizing of the world, Elliot pulled me back to him and kissed me.

“Sweetie, I see the wheels turning.”

“No, I just, I don't know.” He did call me sweetie. But why no pouncing, lion-style? Eff it, why not be frank? “I just have never had a guy stop me, that's all. I usually am the one to put on the brakes. But I guess you want to take it slow, so . . .”

“I just wanted to let it happen and not speed it up for
you
.”

“What do you mean for
me
? Can't you see I'm pawing you?” I was semi-embarrassed by my odd situation.

“Listen, Holly,” he said, putting his arms around me. “All I want to do right now is sleep with you, trust me.”

Okay . . . “So . . . why? . . .”

He put his hand on my face. “I just wanted you to know that it's not like that with you. From the day I first saw you, I was smitten. Then after we met again, I really liked you.”

All right, how could I not be into that response? “I hear you, I guess. Me, too.”

“Come here—” He grabbed me and we kissed even more intensely. I felt so open and able to talk with him, which enhanced my yearning. I didn't want any barriers between us, because the more I knew him, the more I liked him. Boldly, I pulled my sweater over my head. He kissed my neck and chest and I could tell he was changing his mind. Panting like teens, we rolled over the comforter, melding into each other until he really was trying to undress me and reached for my skirt. This time, I stopped him.

“No, you're right, let's just wait . . . ,” I said flirtily.

“Now you want to wait?” He smiled.

“Maybe you were on to something. Plus we've already talked so much about it, it's awky now.”

“Awky? I'm not awky, are you awky?”

“No, not really.”

“So?”

“I just think you were maybe right. Let's wait. Until tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow night, eh?”

“Yeah, I promise. Sex date. I haven't done that since I lost my virginity.”

“Me neither.” He smiled.

“Really? How did you lose it?” I asked. Maybe I was plunging too fast into his young romantic life. “Is that too personal?”

“There's nothing too personal for me. No skeletons.”

“Okay, I just wasn't sure if I could quote unquote ‘go there' yet.”

He wrapped his arms around me and squeezed me. “Sweetie, you can go anywhere with me.” I loved how he called me sweetie. I felt like the happiest, most comfortable me there ever was. “It was my high school girlfriend. She insisted we play ‘In Your Eyes' by Peter Gabriel, and there weren't remote controls back then, you know, so I had to get up and walk across the room to press play on the stereo since she wanted to lose it to that song.”

“I lost mine with the Rolling Stones playing.”

“Hmm. That gives new meaning to “Start Me Up.”

“Yeah, more like “Let It Bleed.”

“Nice!”

“See, Elliot, I must be comfortable with you if I'm telling you about First Time gore. Hope it's not an overshare.”

He kissed my forehead, putting his hand on my shoulder and running it down my arm. “No such thing.”

I smiled and kissed him.

“Listen, though . . . ,” he started, his forehead crinkling with seriousness. “There's something I wanted to—”

The phone rang. I gave him a look to say hold that thought as I reached for the phone, perplexed about who would be calling at midnight. Miles.

“Hi, Mommy, it's me.”

“Hi, lovie! I'm so happy to hear your voice!”

“I know, I missed you, too . . .”

“But Milesie, it's so late, even with the time change, how come you're up?”

“I'm supposed to be in bed, but I couldn't sleep. I wanted to say hi. Dad and Avery went out, so I'm just here with Grandma. She's in her room watching Nick at Nite. I went in, but she said I had to get back in bed, so I wanted to call you.”

Elliot got up and I signaled one minute, but he smiled and mouthed out that I should take my time. He went into the kitchen while I talked to Miles, sang him a lullaby, and tucked him in over the phone.

“Okay, pull up the covers,” I instructed.

“I did it!” he seemed to like this.

“Twinkle, twinkle, little star . . .”

I sang to him, and when I was done, he quietly said, “Good night, Mom.”

“Good night, sweetie, I love you.”

While I didn't want him to be a total mama's boy, I did love that he needed me and thought of me all the way out in snowy Colorado. Thank goodness Elliot and I had ended up at my place. He came back in with some hot chocolate I didn't even know I had, and in T-shirts and underwear, we cuddled like married people.

“This is good,” he said. “But you know what's even better?”

“What?”

“Machine hot chocolate. It is the best thing.”

I couldn't believe it. “TOTALLY! I love machine hot chocolate! All my friends teased me in college because I'd make them go to the Cumberland Farms to get some everyday!”

“Same. My friend and I were so addicted that we made friends with a guy in the kitchen and during the summer he smuggled us a machine and we had it in our house.”

“Oh, my God, that's my dream! Except I'd probably drink myself into a Roseanne Barr state.”

“Then there'd be more of you to love.”

He turned out the light and kissed me good night. Once he fell asleep, I was dying to surprise him by climbing on him naked, but we had our sex date for the following night. I lay there watching him (thank God he didn't snore) and thought about Tim. Of course I knew Tim so much better than Elliot—I had been with him for so many years. But looking at Elliot's cute face, and knowing how much I loved kissing him and how much I wanted to know him more, I realized that I was a truly different person now. The biggest shock is when you look back on a relationship and understand for the first time that even if you did try and go back to each other, it wouldn't be like before, because you're completely changed. The agonizing first months apart and the suffering and the heartbreak sculpt you into a new person, and that was the Holly that Elliot was curled up next to.

 

 

 

T
he next morning we woke up at around noon and I immediately snuck to the bathroom to degrease my face. Looking in the mirror, I could have sworn you could fry an egg on my T-zone. While I was brushing my teeth I felt a hunger pain in my stomach; I was dying for anything, and I had nothing in the fridge since Miles was away. I came back to bed (hair brushed, teeth minty) and flopped on Elliot, who smiled and hugged me like a little bear cub. I felt so happy and needed and couldn't believe how easy it was to wake up with him or that it was our first time waking up together. It felt so normal.

“I'm hungry,” he said.

“Feed me, Seymour, feel me AWL night long,” I sang from
Little Shop of Horrors
.

He laughed and looked up at me and patted my face.

“Do you want to go out for a big yummy brunch?” I asked him.

“No.”

“Well, I hate to tell you this, but I'm not some pancake-flipping Betty Crocker type.”

“That's okay. I am.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Do you have pancake mix?”

“No. I have nothing. I have mustard.”

“Mustard, huh. Looks we're going to order in.”

“I have a single girl's fridge.”

“I don't think you're a single girl anymore.” Did that mean he was my . . . boyfriend? I thought so. My heart did a Nadia Comaneci. I excitedly scampered to get my little pail of menus. There were hundreds.

“Holy shit, what did you do, go through Zagats and demand menus from every place in town?”

“Kind of.”

“You are very organized.”

“I know: Martha Junior.”

“This looks good to me,” he said, producing a big one with a sun. “The smiley yellow guy is telling me this is our place.”

I dialed and Elliot kept yelling out more stuff to add until finally I put my hand over the receiver and said, “Yo, this could feed a family of four!”

By the time I had hung up, we had ordered a quasi buffet. We smooched in front of cartoons for a while (Miles had left my TV on Nickelodeon), and I learned that Elliot was a massive SpongeBob fan even though he had no kids. Odd-slash-cute. We smooched and watched until my buzzer rang.

I spread out all the goods for us, which made me feel like I was preparing something for him by peeling off the tinfoil on his egg and cheese on toast and flopping it onto a plate. So domestic! Mrs. Brady, dream wife. Okay, maybe not. But at least I made everything look nice. I even found a tray my mom gave me and laid everything on it with OJ poured into glasses and coffee in mugs and brought it to him in bed.