Rent A Husband Read online

“I have an account there. Go over and get yourself wardrobed. The tux and a casual outfit to travel in. Stylishly preppy, you know the score. Then I want you at Union Station by six to get the train to Santa Sofia.”

  “Eric, I’m a little financially embarrassed. I think train fare is beyond my means.”

  “Darling, darling, darling, what has happened to the power elite? Okay, James at Lightbodys will make some cash available to you. Enough to get you to Santa Sofia. I’ll meet you at the station at seven-thirty.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “Don’t let me down.”

  “I won’t.”

  As Forrest levers himself to his feet and walks away from the small pile of belongings he no longer wants, he whistles the song from his alma mater to stop himself weeping at the pain in his bruised abdomen.

  He no longer feels the bruises to his ego.

  3

  The only time Poor Billy Bigelow isn’t clumsy is when he dances, an amazing fact that only a handful of the ancient female inhabitants of the Santa Sofia Senior Center know.

  In the last few months of his life, Ben Bigelow (Big Ben, of course, to his cronies) had been too ill for homecare and had to go into assisted living at the Senior Centre where cancer had finally taken him.

  Billy had visited his father daily, and one evening had been press ganged by a bevy of old women to dance with them, and found he’d retained all the steps his mother had taught him, to the delight of the widows that made up the bulk of the population of the Center, their husbands keeling over young.

  So once a week he danced with these old ladies who smelled of lavender and medication, knowing that he’d never be able to do this with a younger woman.

  Like Darcy.

  Twirling skinny Mrs. Keeler, with skin as blue as the rinse in her hair, the tubes of a portable oxygen tank in her nose (the cylinder in a bag hanging from her bony shoulder) the woman light as air in his arms as they sway to “Some Enchanted Evening” while the other old ladies look on smiling and applauding, he imagines he’s leading Darcy in the first dance of the Spring Ball to the applause of the well heeled citizens of Santa Sofia.

  Pretending to be stacking books in the self-help section that abuts the coffee shop, he’d eavesdropped earlier when Darcy spoke to Eric Royce, and caught the first part of their conversation before a customer summoned him.

  He’d heard Darcy bemoaning her lack of a date for the ball.

  Unbelievable that a woman as desirable as Darcy should have to be escorted by her gay friend Eric.

  So, Billy imagines that he’s invited her, that she’s accepted and they are dancing, light as feathers, under the glow of the chandeliers at the country club.

  The song ends and Poor Billy comes back to reality, thanking Mrs. Keeler who gives him what he once heard described as an old fashioned look.

  Billy goes out on the porch, taking in the ocean air and the sweetness of the blooming bougainvillea.

  “Who is she?”

  He turns to see Mrs. Keeler shuffling out after him, her breath coming in little rasps.

  “What do you mean?”

  “That sure as hell wasn’t me you were twirling around back there.”

  Poor Billy is pleased for the darkness that masks his blush. He shrugs and stares out into the night.

  Mrs. Keeler says, “You’re a nice guy, Billy.”

  “Thanks.”

  “That’s not meant to be a compliment.”

  “Okay, sorry.”

  “Hell, stop apologizing for being alive, Billy.”

  “Sorry,” he says again, before he can stop himself and Mrs. Keeler laughs.

  The laugh becomes a coughing spasm and he looks away.

  When she’s recovered she says, “Look at me.” He does. “I was a hot number, you know, years back?”

  “I can believe it.”

  “I had more than my share of suitors, and one thing I learned: nice guys really do finish last.”

  He has nothing to say to this.

  “This girl you’re crazy about . . .”

  “She’s not a girl.”

  “Honey, next to me they’re all girls. You’ve got to show her you have gumption, okay? Nice is for puppy dogs.”

  She coughs again, covering her mouth with a Kleenex.

  Gasping she says, “Life is short, sonny. Over in the blink of an eye. Get off your butt.”

  She shuffles inside leaving him with the moon and his dreams.

  4

  Madness.

  This. Is. Madness.

  Darcy Pringle, prowling the sprawling mausoleum of a house—always more to Porter’s taste than hers—feels so agitated that she cracks a bottle of wine for the first time in months, and has slugged half a glass before she even realizes it.

  Slow down, Darcy.

  Breathe.

  She settles on a couch in the living room, staring blankly at The Bachelor on TV, and realizes that she has taken leave of hers senses.

  That the sight of Porter and his fertile little floozy left her unhinged enough to be hypnotized by Eric Royce and his screenwriter fantasies.

  She has an image of Eric as a snake charmer, dressed in pantaloons and a turban, blowing on a flute in some Kasbah or souk—is there a difference?

  Porter would know.

  God, how she misses him.

  They were the golden couple at high school and married while Porter was still at college finishing his business degree.

  They’d battled through a few tough years, and then Porter had started making serious money in property development, and the cash rolled in and with it came the big house and the cars and the trips to Europe.

  Suddenly Darcy had a walk-in dressing room jammed with Prada and Manolo Blahnik.

  But the room that she’d decorated as a nursery stayed as empty as Darcy’s womb.

  Porter said it was fine, that he loved her, and when in vitro didn’t take, they spoke of adoption.

  But Porter started spending more time in the apartment down in LA, needing to be close to his office.

  Spent more time traveling, too, on business.

  Taking along his assistant, the froth-haired Paige.

  Darcy feels so miserable she is tempted to call her sister Susan, who lives in a small town up in Maine.

  But when she looks at her watch she realizes that Susan and her stolid carpenter husband and their three angelic kids will be asleep.

  Darcy, no matter how hard she’d tried, had always felt just a little smug when she compared her life to Susan’s.

  But now, imagining that family sleeping in their cluttered little wooden house (built by her brother-in-law) with their menagerie of pets, she feels so alone and unloved and empty that it takes all her strength not to dissolve into a puddle of tears.

  She has no other family to call.

  Her mother died five years ago of an aneurism, dropped dead at the returns counter at Walmart, arguing with a customer representative.

  She’d been left enraged when her husband had walked out on the family when Darcy was ten, and had spent the rest of her life directing that rage at the world in random fits of temper.

  Where her father is, and if he is still alive, Darcy neither knows nor cares.

  But what Darcy does know is who she must call: Eric.

  She must stop wallowing in self-pity and call him and put and end to this madness.

  No matter how desperate she is, there is no way she is going to pay a man to escort her to the Ball.

  Darcy picks up her cell phone from the side table and hits speed-dial.

  The phone trills for a few seconds before Eric answers. “Darling.”

  “Eric, we need to call this off.”

  “Come on Darce, don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet?”

  “If they got any colder they’d be frostbitten.”

  “Hah, hah.”

  “I’m not doing this, Eric. It’s crazy. I should never have let you bully me into this.”

  “Bul
ly? Darling, I object!”

  “Object away, but just stop this madness. Get hold of your Forrest Lawn—”

  “Forbes, darling, Forest Lawn is the cemetery.”

  “Whatever. Just get hold of him and tell him it’s off.”

  ‘Too late honeybuns.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s en route, clickety clacking your way on Amtrak as we speak.”

  “Well, derail him.”

  “I hope you don’t mean that literally? There are innocent lives at stake.”

  “Stop trying to be witty, Eric, and hear me when I say this isn’t going to happen.”

  There’s a moments’ pause before Eric says, “Darcy, I understand your apprehension.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But may I make a teeny-weeny suggestion?”

  “No.”

  “Why don’t I pick him up at the train station and bring him by? If you don’t like him we’ll send him packing. Think of it as an audition.”

  “I won’t like him. This is worse than a blind date. I feel like you’re pimping for me.”

  “Ouch!”

  “Admit it, Eric, this is distasteful.”

  “Oh, I don’t know, it all feels quite sophisticated to me. Almost French.”

  “Call the man.”

  “Darce, I’ve gone to a lot of trouble on your account.”

  “I’m sorry, Eric, I know you have.”

  “Please, just take a look at him.”

  “No.”

  “I may have called you many things, Darcy, but never rude, and turning this poor fellow away sight unseen, is very, very rude.”

  Oh the bitch knows just where to hit.

  Darcy sighs and says, “Okay, bring him here for a drink, then I’ll very sweetly explain that I wasn’t in my right mind, that it has nothing to do with him and pay him some kind of cancellation fee and send him packing.”

  “Okay, deal.”

  “Good.”

  Darcy ends the call, feeling more in control.

  Then she sees herself in the mirror and realizes she looks like hell.

  She can’t receive guests looking like this.

  Even though the man is never-to-be-hired-help, standards must be maintained.

  5

  Forrest Forbes (or Forrest Bennett Forbes III to be precise) feels remarkably restored as he sips a more than decent single-malt in the dining car of the train, staring out into the night.

  His ribs ache, of course, and there’s a nasty twinge in the area of his liver where the Mexican thug sank his boot, but he is dressed in a crisp new Lacoste, chinos, loafers and a cashmere jacket.

  A suit bag containing a very elegant tuxedo and dress-shirt hangs beside him.

  After his trip to the outfitters, he’d made use of his gym membership (bought during an all-too-brief flush period months ago) and showered and shaved and dressed in his new clothes.

  By the time he got down to Union Station he felt almost his old self again.

  Lifting his glass to signal for another drink, Forrest feels a sharp pain in his shoulder, and he’s back in that filthy alley, being tenderized like the filling of a beef fajita.

  Forrest’s good mood slips a little as he considers his predicament, understands just how messy and unpleasant his life has become, after such a promising start.

  He was born into a very old Boston family, silver spoon firmly in place when he exited the birth canal.

  The eldest of three children he was sent to Andover and Harvard just like his father and grandfather before him.

  His father, Forrest Bennett Forbes II, seemed interested only in blowing the wealth accumulated by his father, FBF I, an austere Yankee industrialist who had served two terms in the Senate.

  By the time he was ten Forrest had skied at Gstaad, holidayed in Monaco with the Grimalidis and had ridden on an elephant with an Indian princeling.

  When he reached his early twenties—even though he’d scraped together a useless degree from Harvard—he’d been encouraged to play just as his father played.

  His was a world of women, horses, racing cars and yachts.

  Then in Forrest’s thirtieth year (on a day in late 2008) his father called him to his office.

  Forrest—tanned as teak from a month in Morocco—assumed that the older man was going to tell him that it was time for him to curb his life of leisure, to at least feign some interest in the family business.

  The elder Forrest Forbes, standing by the window, held up a decanter of fine brandy.

  “Drink?”

  “Of course.”

  His father—whose face, disconcertingly, was like an age-ravaged version of his own—poured two glasses, and when he leaned over to hand a tumbler to his son his hand shook and Forrest could smell that this wasn’t the older man’s first drink.

  “Good luck,” Forrest said.

  “We’re going to need it.”

  They sat and his father threw back most of the Scotch in one gulp.

  “You know my father actually increased his fortune during the Great Depression?”

  Forrest nodded, bored. He’d heard this story too many times.

  “Yes, he was quite the captain of industry, wasn’t he?”

  “That he was. His hands never left the tiller, if I may flog a dead metaphor.”

  Forrest laughed politely, his mind on the Austrian princess he had been dallying with.

  The filthiest woman it had ever been his pleasure to bed.

  “Thing is, Forrest, I’ve never been much of a hands-on man myself.”

  “God forbid. Too tedious.”

  “Yes, that’s what I thought. So I let the so-called financial gurus handle our money. And, it has to be said, we prospered.”

  “Certainly seems that way.”

  His father looked at him with an expression he had never seen on the man’s face before. Was this fear?

  “What’s up?”

  “You’ve heard about Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae?”

  “The old Vaudeville act?”

  The older man bared his teeth in a snarl. “You know they went belly up?”

  “I heard something to that effect.”

  “And that Wall Street is in a panic, and that the whole damned financial bubble has burst?”

  Forrest shrugged. “Not really my thing.”

  “No, mine either.” His father slumped in his chair. “Forrest there’s no easy way to say this: our fortune is gone.”

  “You’re not serious?”

  “Oh, but I am. Those gurus consulted some poorly informed oracles, I’m afraid.”

  “It’s all gone?”

  “Everything.”

  “What about our properties?”

  “Gone. A house of cards.”

  “The art collections?”

  “Seized. Under lock and key.”

  “So no more trust fund?”

  “No.”

  “You’re saying that I’ll have to work?”

  “Yes, my boy. I’m sorry.”

  “Good God.”

  “Yes.”

  “What will you do?”

  His father, suddenly an old man, shrugged.

  “I don’t know.”

  Forrest stood. “We’ll stay in touch.”

  “Of course.”

  Forrest shook his father’s clammy hand and walked out into a very different world.

  The next day his father took his boat out onto the Sound and never returned.

  His body washed up on a Martha’s Vineyard beach a few days later, causing an awful fuss at a society wedding.

  Accidental death was the coroner’s verdict, but Forrest had no doubt that his father had polished off a few bottles of Bollinger and hopped into the cold Atlantic, unequipped and unwilling to live in poverty.

  Forrest, though he was alive, fared little better.

  He found that his lack of funds caused doors to slam in his face.

  His calls went unreturned.

  Men
he’d thought were friends ignored him in clubs and watering holes.

  So Forrest traveled west, to Los Angeles, with the half-baked notion of trading on his patrician looks in the movie business.

  There was some initial interest due to the cachet his name carried, and he landed himself an agent.

  A part in an independent movie came his way, playing himself, really.

  But he found that once the camera rolled being himself wasn’t at all easy.

  His usually flippant delivery became leaden and—most embarrassingly—he froze, was literally incapable of remembering a line of the script, take after mortifying take.

  So his career was stillborn.

  He got a couple of photographic shoots—no lines to forget—posing on the decks of yachts with pretty girls, or stepping out of luxury cars in tuxedos, but somehow the camera just did not love him, as his agent told him when he snipped all ties.

  So Forrest Forbes started to gamble.

  He’d always been a dabbler—it was in his blood—but now he played with desperation.

  Desperation and very little skill.

  He lost.

  He lost badly.

  Lost so badly that he ended up having the pâté kicked out of him in that downtown alley.

  And now he is on a train rattling north toward one of those horrible coastal feeder-towns, all new money and Spanish kitsch, he is sure.

  He sighs and polishes off his drink as his stop is called.

  When Forrest steps out onto the platform he sees Eric Royce waiting for him, waving a languid hand.

  “How are you, darling?” Eric asks.

  “Peachy.”

  “Good trip?”

  “It was fine.”

  They walk, Eric eyeing him.

  “Why are you limping?”

  “A jujutsu accident.”

  “Ah.”

  They arrive at a brand new Jaguar saloon.

  “Your chariot, sir,” Eric says.

  “Where does this come from?”

  “A prop, darling. A rental. To fit with your image of the wealthy young scion.”

  Forrest nods.

  Eric holds out the keys. “You can drive, I presume?”

  “I chased Michael Schumacher around Nürburgring when I was seventeen.”

  “Well, I hope he let you catch him.”