скачать книгу бесплатно
“Nothing. Drinking a glass of wine. Through a hot pink crazy-straw.”
“At two o’clock in the afternoon. Uh-oh. I take it things did not go well with Ben. Tell me you’re not scheduling forty weird-ass cosmetic procedures, or obsessing over whether one of your kneecaps is rounder than the other.”
“I—”
“Oh, God. You are. Listen to me, Marina—this is a psychotic condition of yours. You do this every time you get depressed. And you don’t need anything done!”
Marina gathered the shreds of her dignity around her—she’d left most of it back at the construction site with Ben. “I am not,” she stated, “mentally ill. And we can all use a little improvement here and there.”
“Uh-huh. How many appointments have you made this afternoon?”
Time for a subject change. “Did you see that there’s a sale at Saks?”
Chloe didn’t bite. “How many?”
Damn. Marina sighed. “Five.”
“Oh, my God!” Chloe bellowed into her ear. “No. I am coming over and we are going to cancel them.”
“Chloe, leave me alone—”
“I’m bringing ice cream. Normal women eat a quart of ice cream when they’re depressed. They don’t have their entire bodies resurfaced, like some kind of molting reptile. Are you going to dye your hair blond, too? Get a third breast?”
Marina jumped up from her mink-covered stool. “I can’t eat ice cream. Are you crazy? It will go straight to my hips and Ben will never look at me again.”
“Not only am I bringing ice cream—four different flavors—but you and I are going to have a serious talk about what Ben really loves about you, and it’s not your bony hips!” Chloe hung up on her, and Marina stared at the receiver.
“Jeez. No need to get hostile.”
Thirty minutes later, her friend was knocking on her door with an entire grocery sack full of pints of Ben & Jerry’s and Häagen-Dazs. Marina squinted at her. “You’re the devil.”
“It’s great to see you, too. Now, either invite me in or get out of my way so I can barge in,” said Chloe. “By the way, Ben would love the way you look right now.”
Marina looked down in horror. She wore a ratty gray T-shirt of his with the arms ripped out and a pair of panties. That was it. “Are you high?”
Chloe shook her head, shoved past her and made her way to the granite-topped kitchen island, where she started unloading the ice cream and pulling off various lids. Then she got a fork for each one and stabbed it into the center of every container.
Marina shook her head. “Don’t you realize how demented it is to eat ice cream with a fork?”
“Not any more demented than drinking good wine through a crazy-straw. Besides, it’s practical. Ice cream is usually too hard to eat with a spoon. With a fork, you can jab into it and dig out the good stuff.”
Marina shook her head and tried to psych herself out of attacking the ice cream. “There is no good stuff. It’s just fat, sugar and liquid squeezed out of a cow, which is a disgusting, smelly, filthy animal with four stomachs and no brain power. Plus, there are so many preservatives in that container that your butt will look like a sea sponge after one spoonful.”
Chloe pulled one of the forks out and threatened her with it. “There is something really, really wrong with you, honey. And there are no preservatives in Ben & Jerry’s or Häagen-Dazs. They’re chemical free, unlike—” she scanned Marina’s body “—your hair, your face, your boobs and your nails.”
Marina gasped. “My boobs are natural!”
“Yeah, just like my tiny waist. Save it,” said Chloe, around a huge forkful of Marsha Marsha Marshmallow. “I’ve seen the scars under your arms, remember?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Marina sucked at least three ounces of cabernet through the pink straw.
“Ice cream,” said Chloe, “doesn’t make you drunk.”
But Marina was determined to think of the stuff in the grossest possible way so she wouldn’t want it and it would not go straight to her thighs. “Why not just crawl under a cow, suck on its hairy udder and then squirt chocolate syrup into your mouth?”
Chloe set down her pint and eyed her with distaste. “Just because you won’t eat any does not give you the right to ruin my enjoyment of Ben & Jerry’s forever. Now, be quiet.”
“Yes, ma’am. Wait—isn’t this my house? My kitchen? My cow-free domain?” She yelped as Chloe came at her with the fork.
“Be nice. Be a good hostess. You invited me over—”
“Actually, I didn’t.”
“So tell me what happened with Ben and we’ll figure out how to fix it.”
Marina hunched her shoulders and stuck out her lower lip. She twisted the hem of her ratty T-shirt as she walked into the living room, dominated by white leather furniture and a breathtaking view of Biscayne Bay. “Ben says he loves me, but he hates my money.”
Chloe nodded as Marina kicked an ottoman with her bare foot and set down her wine.
“After all the guys who have been thrilled to date a rich woman with her own jet, I have to fall for the one guy who is uncomfortable with my filthy lucre!”
Chloe curled up in a big armchair with her ice cream and fork. “I have the perfect solution—give it to me.” She grinned.
“I should. I’d be a happier person and I wouldn’t have to keep on firing employees who steal from me.”
“Not another one.”
Marina nodded. “But this one’s a single mom, and I just can’t make myself pull the trigger. I know her daughter since she’s in school with my cousin’s daughter.”
“Okay, one problem at a time. We cannot solve them all in a day. What happened with Ben?”
Marina crawled onto the couch. “I tracked him down at one of Mathew Tremaine’s construction sites and we, um, had a chat.”
“A chat,” Chloe repeated, in disbelieving tones.
“It was all very civilized—”
“Yeah, right.” Her friend smirked. “How many times did you hit him? What names did you call him?”
“But he won’t change his mind. And I don’t know what to do.” She looked sadly down at her engagement ring, which Ben must have saved for two years to buy. It was a two-carat, pearshaped diamond that she’d simply forgotten to throw at him earlier in the day. She’d have to remedy that, but the thought depressed her even more.
The wine had made her emotional, because when she looked up again at Chloe her eyes streamed. “What can I do, Chlo?”
Her friend jumped up, set down her ice cream and gathered her into her arms. “Oh, honey. Is it really the money that’s bothering him? Or is it…” She paused and, uncharacteristically, stepped delicately. “Is it maybe your lifestyle that intimidates him?”
“What do you mean? I’m just a normal person.”
Chloe took a deep breath. “No, Marina, you’re not. I hate to break it to you, but most women can’t afford three-hundreddollar monthly highlights, six-hundred-dollar shoes or cute little custom-painted jets that take them to Paris at a moment’s notice.”
“You think he’d change his mind if I flew coach? Went to Super Cuts? Shopped at Payless?” Marina sucked the last of her wine through the crazy-straw.
“Well, I’m not sure it’s that simple, but maybe. I think your money intimidates Ben. Makes him feel like he’ll never make enough to be able to compete.”
Marina threw up her hands. “I don’t want him to compete! I don’t need him to compete.”
“Honey, you’re not getting what I’m saying. I’ll be blunt. Your financial situation makes Ben feel like he has a small penis.”
Marina gaped at her. “Ben Delgado is hung like a horse!”
Chloe closed her eyes and stuck her fingers in her ears. “Too much information!”
“Hey, you’re the one who brought up the topic of penises.” Marina pinched at the flesh of her thigh. “Do you think I need liposuction?”
“No!” yelled Chloe. “You need brain suction. See, this is exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about.”
“What is?”
“Normal women do not just go have liposuction on a whim. They save up for it for months, or run up their credit cards and have to pay them off slowly. It’s a big deal, not a narcissistic whim!”
Marina’s mouth trembled. “You’re saying I’m narcissistic?”
“No, no, no. Wouldn’t dream of it, sweetie. All I’m saying is that maybe you’re a teeny, tiny bit, um, self-absorbed. Just with the whole beauty thing—not in other areas.”
“Self-absorbed,” Marina repeated. “Ouch. I think you’ve officially hurt my feelings, Chlo.”
“Stop. Be hurt later. Right now we have to discuss this, if you love Ben and you want to hang on to him. He is in crisis at the moment, and you’re talking about your thighs!”
“But maybe that’s why he dumped me—guys don’t dump women who look perfect.”
“Yes, they do! Ben loves the Marina Reston who reads to sick kids in the hospital and speaks to the state legislature about education and public after-school programs. He loves the woman who endows thirty charities and has trouble firing a single mom.
“Ben does not love the woman who won’t eat even a tablespoon of ice cream and inspects her butt with a hand mirror every night, checking for dimples!”
“Who told you that?”
Relentless, Chloe forged on. “Ben does not love the Marina Reston who is obsessed with her appearance to the point of ridicule and spends a hundred-thousand dollars a year maintaining it—”
“I do not spend anywhere near that amount!”
“Add up the receipts for the clothes, the jewelry, the massages, the hair, the nails, the facials, the treatments and the cosmetic surgeries. Seriously, Marina, add them up and then ask yourself why Ben might be intimidated at the thought of marriage to you.”
“But I don’t ask him to pay for any of it,” Marina wailed.
“That’s not the point. The point is that he couldn’t if he wanted to. Men like to know they can keep their women happy. And I think he’s afraid that if you lost all your money tomorrow on the stock exchange, he wouldn’t be able to keep you happy.”
“So what are you saying?”
Chloe shrugged. “What do you think I’m saying? Prove to him that you can live without any of it.”
Marina stared at her, appalled. Life without massages and facials and trips to Paris?
Then she thought about the alternative: life without Ben. That was much, much worse.
She got up and padded into the kitchen, where she stared at the other three melting pints of ice cream with forks in them. She pulled the fork out of the Coffee Heath Bar Crunch and licked it. Then she licked the other two and put them all in the sink.
Marina put the lids back on two of the pints and stuck them in the freezer. But the vanilla? That she poured into a mug, which she took back into the living room.
She stared at Chloe glumly. “Do you know how to have a garage sale?”
5
TWO DAYS LATER, Ben pulled his Chevy work truck into Marina’s circular driveway on Key Biscayne and stared. A massive yellow moving van blocked his way, and it did not appear that his darling had simply ordered five suites of new furniture. No, small herds of men were removing her things from her two-story Mediterranean and a four-by-six sign announced that the house was for rent. What the hell?
Ben drove the Chevy between two royal palms and onto a stretch of lawn, then put it in Park. He swung out and strode around the van, up the wide, shallow entrance stairs and through the door. “Marina?” he called.
She popped her gorgeous head out of the kitchen. “Ben? What are you doing here?”
She was clad in color-coordinated baby-blue and brown aerobics-wear, which did nothing to obscure her perfectly proportioned body. Her chestnut hair was held back with a brown tie and a baby-blue sweatband completed the outfit. Christ—the woman even wore couture to the gym.
His lips might have twitched—if he hadn’t been instantly fixated on the curve of her bottom and the complete lack of a panty-line anywhere on it. Dios mío. And she was prancing around like this in front of a platoon of moving guys?
He completely forgot that he was here to apologize to her. “Marina, what is the meaning of this?” He gestured toward the white leather couch disappearing out the door, the stacks of cardboard boxes in the dining room and the plastic sheeting protecting the floors from the men’s boots.
Her expression changed. She’d smiled involuntarily at first sight of him, but now she elevated her little gringa nose and leveled a glare at him. “I’m moving to a condo.”
He gaped at her. “A condo? You couldn’t even fit the contents of your closet into a condo, mi vida.”
“That was yesterday. Today is different.”
It is? “Marina, look around you. You have far too much. Rugs, art, furniture—where are you going to put everything?”
“In storage,” she said airily. “And some of it I’m giving away.”
“But why?”
She tilted her head, folded her tanned, sculpted arms and took a deep breath. “Because Chloe says that all of this makes you feel like you have a small penis.”
Ben stared at her. His jaw worked, but no sound emerged.
“So I’m getting rid of it, and I’m going to divert my private income to the foundation and be poor.”
He finally managed a choking noise.
“Yes, really!” She produced a brave smile, but then her nose wrinkled. “I’m going to try to buy my shoes at Payless from now on. I might not be able to do it, though, in which case I’ll have to wear last year’s Louboutins and Choos. Oh, and classic Chanels—they never go out of style.”
She blinked rapidly. “I’ll be just fine. And I’ve canceled my trips to Milan and Paris for fashion week, though, if you don’t mind, I’ll still go to New York, since I can get a coach fare for under two-hundred dollars.”
Ben struggled mightily, but he dissolved into laughter. The idea of Marina abandoning her Learjet to fly coach with cocktail peanuts was too much. Besides, she’d spend more than the coach fare on dinner in the city with a friend.
