The Trophy Wives Club Read online

  The Trophy Wives Club

  a novel of fakes, faith, and a love that lasts forever

  Kristin Billerbeck

  For Nancy

  Contents

  Prologue

  I have a tendency to walk into walls. It’s not…

  Chapter 1

  You’ll keep the house?” Anna asks me. Anna is Anna…

  Chapter 2

  My heels click resolutely along the tile. I sound most…

  Chapter 3

  Arriving in San Francisco two days later doesn’t exactly bring…

  Chapter 4

  The Trophy Wives Club meets Wednesday nights at a local…

  Chapter 5

  Hop in.” Lindsay chirps a BMW. I climb in, remembering…

  Chapter 6

  I woke up this morning and gazed at my enormous…

  Chapter 7

  Against my better judgment, which indicates I have some, and…

  Chapter 8

  Hamilton Lowe looks up from his desk casually. His eyes…

  Chapter 9

  It’s been almost a month since those words cut deeply…

  Chapter 10

  Is it just me? Or are there an awful lot…

  Chapter 11

  I’m a snob. It sort of snuck up on me.

  Chapter 12

  Penny, the dark-haired yoga gal, walks in with a double…

  Chapter 13

  CMG is a giant conglomerate in the talent industry, and…

  Chapter 14

  After two months, and the end of a long, cold…

  Chapter 15

  June comes in like a lamb. Stays that way. This…

  Chapter 16

  Running along the beach in the morning hours is my…

  Chapter 17

  Haley!” My boss yells and then focuses on my foot.

  Chapter 18

  My friendly stalker and I arrive at Cutler & Lynchow at…

  Chapter 19

  There are certain fall days in northern California where the…

  Acknowledgments

  Dear Reader

  Discussion Questions

  About the Author

  Other Books by Kristin Billerbeck

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  I have a tendency to walk into walls. It’s not a trait that I’m proud of, but I’m easily distracted. I get lost in my thoughts, turn, miscalculate doorways, and bam: I’m tasting drywall and plaster.

  Once, I was walking alongside a friend on Rodeo Drive, she’s relaying the most fascinating story about mineral makeup. Next thing I know, she’s in the Marc Jacobs shop and I’m in their window. Complete face plant. They had to bring out Windex and wipe off my smeared lipstick, and I can tell you, they didn’t do anything to help me! I threw the back of my hand against my forehead and swooned to the floor, hoping everyone would think I had some sort of fainting spells, bad batch of Botox…Something. Anything.

  I went to the doctor to see what was physically wrong. Official diagnosis: klutzy and focused on the wrong priority for the moment. In fact, he said, “Haley, you need to get your head out of the clouds. You need to prioritize.”

  Well, there’s an understatement. I need to keep my head out of plate-glass windows, most definitely. (I actually paid money for that diagnosis.) I should have just gone for a pedicure. I can always focus better after a pedicure, and I don’t feel dull-witted afterwards. There’s nothing that says, There, there, everything is going to be fine, like a foot massage and fresh polish.

  In retrospect, it probably shouldn’t have surprised me when my marriage did its own face plant. But I was completely blindsided, my head in the wrong cloud once again. Jay had moved on, and I simply hadn’t noticed. (Truth be told, there wasn’t much difference between the marriage being intact, and its suddenly being over, except I had to collect my things and move out to make space for the new woman he’d selected to ignore.)

  By now, I probably shouldn’t admit that I’m blond because it has nothing to do with the fact that my head’s in the clouds. Really, it doesn’t. It’s two separate facts: I’m blond. And I walk into walls.

  Chapter 1

  You’ll keep the house?” Anna asks me. Anna is Anna Lynchow of Cutler & Lynchow, the producing partnership that garners tons of cash and few Hollywood accolades. Our husbands are the “lowbrow” entertainers of Middle America. If there is money to be made on bathroom humor, our husbands have found the key to its success.

  I shake my head. “No, not keeping the house. Just the Porsche Cayenne.” We both look at each other, understanding the comedy of a Porsche minivan. Or SAV, as they call it. Sport activity vehicle. Like that isn’t a Carrera. “He bought the house through the business, and I only got a portion of it if we made it to ten years. I imagine your husband has more rights to it than I do.”

  Anna rolls her eyes, and in her New York drawl says, “Knowing Craig, he probably does. I don’t think he drinks a latte without figuring out how he can make money on it. But God love him, I can spend it with the best of them, so I’m all for his making money.” Anna straightens out of her smile. “Not at your expense, of course.”

  “I’m entitled to $10,000 per year of marriage.”

  Anna stares blankly, unable to do the math.

  “Which, being just short of eight years until the separation, if you call it that, puts me at about $70,000.” Less than my husband’s annual golf fees, I want to add. “But it’s not the money, you know, Anna? He won’t even discuss this. He claims that I know exactly why he left me.” Two months of hotel living and still no answers.

  “What’s to discuss? He left you, Haley. It happens every day. It isn’t right. It isn’t fair, but men get bored. Jay got bored.”

  Even for Anna that’s a heartless question. “What’s to discuss? Our marriage. We made vows!”

  “In Hollywood you made vows,” she says in the same tone as duh! She leans back into her vibrating pedicure chair.

  There are times when it’s painfully obvious I didn’t grow up here. I know I come from a boring, middle-class background, but I never will understand the lack of emotions here when it comes to marriage and their coming to an end. Whatever the statistics might be, I got married for the same reason she did. She was in love. She only gets credit because her husband was poor when they married, and mine wasn’t.

  I know in certain circles, it seems kind that Jay packed up my things neatly and arranged for me to stay at the Wilshire, but it’s only kind to someone who has never seen their life belongings left on a front porch. To one who looks at a mansion and says, This is it, all I’ve earned for the last decade, it’s devastating. A Porsche and a porch with three suitcases. And he left the Vuittons in the house.

  I found myself paralyzed, unable to understand how my life had changed. I still had the credit cards, I was still officially married and driving the Porsche. What exactly was different?

  “It’s a good settlement, Haley. I mean, you did pretty well considering there’s no kids.” She turns her hand over and looks at her nails, “Can you make them more rounded?” Anna asks the manicurist before turning her attention back to me. “That money will help you get started again, buy the right clothes, get you to the right parties. You’ll be back in no time.”

  “Back? I haven’t even left yet, and I don’t want to come back.” I’m tired of playing house. I want to be loved, not worshipped like a forgotten treasure from the past. That’s not true either. Right now I’m Garbo. I just want to be left alone.

  “If the money runs out, you can sell the Cayenne and get a Prius, you know? This is L.A. Get something practical for crying out loud, now that y
ou don’t have to worry about Jay’s colleagues thinking he’s cheap. Or heaven forbid, a Republican who has money to burn. Not that round!” she snaps at a poor Vietnamese girl, who might not understand her words but recognizes the tone immediately. There’s a rash of pressured conversation in Vietnamese.

  “Anna, take it easy. You’re scaring her.”

  “I’m not scaring her. She’s screwing it up, and I’m asking her to correct it. I’m a paying customer! Look at them, they’re plotting how to take revenge out on me this very minute. Listen.” She narrows her eyes toward the poor girl. “Wicked manicurists. Someday I’m going to employ my own at the house and not bother with this. I’m probably getting some dangerous fungus as we speak.”

  Most days, I think Anna is a dangerous fungus. “Oh, I bet they’ll jump at the chance to work for you,” I say sarcastically. “Your picture is probably plastered as a warning at the beauty schools throughout L.A.”

  “Just because you let everyone walk all over you—I come in here for a manicure; they do it my way. It’s that simple. That’s something you never understood, Haley. This town will walk all over you. You’re letting Jay walk all over you now.”

  One thing I’ve learned in my years as Jay Cutler’s wife: There’s no sympathy garnered for a trophy wife. We are, by our very nature, hated entities. We get what we deserve, or so they say. But I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I have yet to meet a trophy wife who married for money. Life as a trophy wife evolves. Any good woman in L.A. becomes what her husband desires—plays the part, if you will. Some men are just more shallow than others.

  We married for the same reason most women marry; we were hopelessly, devotedly in love with Prince Charming, who swept us off our feet and made us feel cherished. He would provide the security we needed, the unconditional love we craved. What we failed to realize during our courtship was how calculated and well acted the role of Prince Charming was. How utterly naïve we were—putty in their aged and creased hands.

  Is it any wonder I walk into walls as a hobby? Somewhere along the line, I stopped being able to be who I was. “Remember that time I wore the sequined gown to the SAG awards, Anna? Man, was I green.”

  “Do I? You looked like you were wearing one of Cher’s old costumes, a cheap copy of a Bob Mackie creation.” She laughs. “Oh, we got a good laugh that night. You were the talk of the town, and we all wondered how long it would be before Jay hired you a stylist.”

  “I think it was the next morning. I liked that dress,” I admit. “I liked it a lot, in fact. I liked how it sparkled and how it was cut—I looked good in that dress.”

  “Haley, it was straight off the rack. It was polyester at best, probably made in some sweat shop on the south side.”

  “I liked it.” I look her straight in the eye. “It made me happy to wear it until I incurred the wrath of all of you. That’s something I’ll never understand about this life. Everyone does exactly the same thing, or they’re blasted. I’m different. I want to be different.”

  “Well, someone had to teach you. Being different will land you in divorce court.”

  “After all these years of learning the ropes, I’m still in divorce court, and I’ve forgotten what I liked because everyone told me what I liked was tacky and inappropriate.”

  “It was tacky and inappropriate. You have the worst natural taste of any woman in L.A.”

  “I think I am tacky and inappropriate. It’s my natural state.”

  “If I remember correctly, that was a whopper of a fight you picked with Jay that night.” Anna has a knack for remembering the negative of life. It’s a gift.

  “He thought I looked beautiful before everyone made fun of me. If I looked beautiful before we left for the party, why did he let everyone else influence his opinion?”

  “You looked like an eighties’ prom queen. You even wore frosted lipstick!” She laughs aloud again and normally, I’d giggle right along with her. But not today.

  “I was a nineties prom queen, and all we had was grunge. Why wouldn’t I long for what I missed? Besides, you were probably just jealous I looked good in ‘off-the-rack.’” I want to add something about the amount of “work” she’s had done, but my mama didn’t raise me to be like that.

  “No…we weren’t. Haley, your husband is one of the foremost producers in Hollywood. You could have dressed in any designer you chose that night.”

  Foremost in money. Not respect. If he could make money at bodily functions, why couldn’t I wear sequins? You see my dilemma. “But I couldn’t really. Don’t you see? I chose to buy off-the-rack. That was not acceptable. I was supposed to go to some uppity shop and be told what to wear and like a good robot I did just that after that night. Fell into line. Didn’t you ever want to shake things up a bit, Anna?”

  “You’re telling me that you’d rather wear sequins than an elegant, well-cut Armani?”

  I ponder this for a moment. I did wear Armani to a premiere once. It was a gorgeous gown of canary yellow and fit like a glove, but all I thought about that night was the dress and how I might spill caviar on it, or slip on the train. “Yes, I think I would rather wear sequins. You can’t actually wear them and be sad. Sequins say here I am world, and I am ready to par-tay!”

  “That’s because you look like a disco ball.”

  “And what’s more fun than dancing under a disco ball? They had one on this cruise Jay took me on one time and—”

  Anna sighs. “You’re hopeless, and if you want to shop off-the-rack, with your divorce, it looks like you just got your wish.”

  This was one thing I was actually looking forward to. I finally get to do what I want to do. Some days, life here feels like one big heaping pile of drama over nothing. We’re getting manicures, and there’s this silent catty struggle over how rounded a nail is. No one but me seems to get that this is a complete waste of time. Yet in everyone’s mind, I’m the ignorant one. The poor fool girl who gets taken advantage of and dumped by her suave, successful husband because she can’t play the game correctly.

  A dying marriage is a sad and heartbreaking venture, and everyone else, including my husband, has just moved on as though nothing has happened. There’s no service. No burial. No acknowledgment. It’s just over, and my presence is no longer required.

  Anna is currently yelling and using her sign language to get what she wants. I’ll miss Anna. In her own way, she’s a breath of fresh air. She says exactly what she means, unlike most people who just belittle you in their own subtle language. She just outright tells me I’m tacky. You can’t beat that.

  “Like I have a choice in the matter.”

  “You always have a choice. I don’t care what that pre-nup says, lawyers’ fees can add up quickly if you know what I’m saying. You have to wonder if Jay would have enough energy to fight it.” She turns the massage chair on again and starts to vibrate while she speaks. “You know, I really thought you two would make it,” Anna says, as pensive as she gets. “You did everything he asked. It’s good to know rolling over and dying doesn’t necessarily keep them around either. I guess it pays to be mouthy sometimes.” Anna gazes at me. “Oh sorry, didn’t mean anything, just taking mental notes for future reference. That’s all.”

  I take it back. I won’t miss friends like Anna. I’m tired of manners not being an issue. Friends who say whatever they please and expect you just to swallow any opinion of your own. No matter how subtle their comments are, they have the same stinging effect. I won’t miss friends whose hearts are well encapsulated behind silicone and a suspicious view of everyone.

  “Hopefully, Anna, you won’t need any of that advice. May your marriage live long and prosper.”

  “He wouldn’t dare leave me. It would cost him a fortune. You see, Haley, that’s the beauty of marrying young, before they have anything. I have rights to half of everything. No starlet is worth giving that up for.” She laughs and flips her hair. Anna is truly beautiful, mesmerizing to look at, and she doesn’t look anywhere near
her age, but I’ve seen Craig. He doesn’t watch her with the same intensity he once did, and the truth is, she doesn’t know that he’ll be there forever. I suppose none of us know.

  The fear of loneliness drives us to desperation. How could I have known married loneliness was worse? I’ve gone over the facts a million times, wondering if my fate could have been different, how I could have spared myself this overwhelming sense of failure. But the facts are that I was twenty years old, fresh out of Pasadena City College, and Jay Cutler, Hollywood Producer, bought me, little Haley Adams, a tennis bracelet.

  “It’s for me?” I asked him, my mouth agape. I had never seen anything so beautiful in all my life.

  Jay clasped it around my wrist without taking his eyes off me. “Who else would it be for, Haley? No one makes me feel like you. I’d buy you the world if I could package it with a bow.”

  “Jay”—I put my head on his chest, twisting my arm to allow the diamonds to sparkle and color under the sunlight—“you give me so much already. I don’t need things.”

  “You’d love me if I had nothing,” he states as fact, and I can hardly contain the warmth radiating in my chest. He knows, I thought. He knows I’d do anything for him. That my love is infinite. It wasn’t long after that I had a pre-nup thrust in my lap.

  In my defense, who knows anything at twenty? Add to that, the fact that I looked like Gwyneth Paltrow with breasts, and I was ripe for the taking. Fresh meat thrown into the lion cage that is Los Angeles. I gave my heart and soul for the price of a few longing glances and a tennis bracelet. I was a bargain.

  I know what people think. Trust me; they’re not usually shy with their opinions in this town. I know they think he threw diamonds at me, and I traded my innocence and youth for his riches. My eyes as wide as saucers, and my objective met, but that wasn’t it at all. I wasn’t a gold digger. Not for a moment. It wasn’t the diamonds. It was Jay looking at me that way, like I was the only woman he’d ever laid eyes upon. He opened doors for me, made sure I had food in my fridge, a place to do laundry. His actions said, “I’ll take care of you, Haley. You are so valuable, and you won’t be alone. You’ll never have to fear again. Trust me.” But sign this first.