Four Blondes

II

LA LA LA LA LA LA

Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better.

Not.

I’m getting worse and worse.

And who can blame me?

Everyone.

Everyone blames me.

I can’t handle fame. I’m really, really bad at it.

My husband knows this. Isn’t that one of the reasons he married me in the first place? I don’t care about fame. Or money. I don’t want to be famous. I only want to be with him.

He is everything to me.

And I am nothing.

Without him.

“Leave my wife alone!” Hubert had shouted at the photographers during our honeymoon in Paris and Rome and then on a remote island off Tunisia. “Q

uittez ma femme. Quittez ma femme,” he had said over and over, with his arm wrapped around me protectively as I bowed my head and we walked quickly from the hotel to the car, from the car to the museum, from the museum to the boutique, until it became a sort of joke mantra. I’d be in the tub, under heaps of bubbles, and Hubert would come in, and I’d say, “Quittez ma femme” and we’d both crack up.

We haven’t cracked up in a long time now.

I think it was the food in Tunisia that first put me off my feed. You had to eat unidentifiable stews—God only knows what was in them—yak?—with soggy pieces of bread, and I couldn’t do it. Not in front of Hubert. I suddenly felt like he was watching me. And secretly criticizing me. Wondering if maybe he shouldn’t have married me after all.

Okay. So I’ll starve.

Nobody likes me. Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think I don’t sit for hours and hours, partly because they’re feeding me all these pills all the time (they say they’re going to kick in any day now, and then I won’t be depressed anymore, but I doubt it), agonizing over every slight, knowing there are people out there laughing behind my back, saying, “Why doesn’t she get a clue . . . what a tragedy . . . what a bummer for him having married her it sure didn’t turn out the way he expected I bet and I bet he’s miserable,” when I’m the one who’s miserable, but you can’t tell people that, can you?

Especially if you’re a woman. Because marriage is supposed to make you happy, not make you feel like a rat trapped in a very glamorous cage with twenty-thousand-dollar silk draperies.

And this is the best there is. It doesn’t get any better than this, does it?

Because this is it. The crown. The dream. The brass ring. No more worries. Not a care in the world. Your mother will never starve in her old age. Your sister will have her new car. Your children will go to private school, have nannies, and all the toys they want, including a pony. Honor will be restored to your family name. Your mother will be proud of you. Your father, wherever he is, the bastard, will realize he made a terrible mistake.

And you will have: 1) A castle. 2) Houses around the world. 3) A chauffeur. 4) Lots of clothes with matching shoes and handbags. 5) Jewelry. 6) A horse. 7) A saddle(s) from Hermès. And 8) No friends.

Now here’s what really pisses me off: Everybody thinks they could live my life so much better than me. They think, if they had my life, they’d be so happy to be me that they’d do everything perfectly. But they just don’t get it. They don’t have a clue. They couldn’t get this life unless they had my personality and looked the way I do. If you changed one thing, the destiny part wouldn’t work at all.

For instance, Hubert would only be with a woman who was tall, blond, thin, and had large breasts. And was younger. And had a certain kind of face. Classy. He never wanted to be with a model, because he doesn’t want to be with a woman other guys might masturbate to.

And personality. You have to really know how to work guys. You have to be able to manipulate them, except “manipulate” isn’t really the right word, because it has negative connotations. What you have to do is you always have to be different. You have to be unpredictable. Some days, you’re really really nice and sweet and loving, and other days, you’re a total bitch and steely. They keep coming back because they never know what they’re going to get. You have to be able to be aloof, and you have to be willing to make a man jealous. But you can’t do any of this unless you have the right physique, because otherwise the guy will just say you’re a bitch and who needs it and dump you.

Of course, there are women without the physique who do marry well, but they don’t marry men like Hubert.

In fact, right up until I married him, Hubert wasn’t totally sure that I was going to marry him. You’ve seen his face in the wedding photographs. How happy he looked when we came out of the church.

Oh. And one other thing. You can never think that your husband, or anyone he introduces you to, is better than you. Just because your husband is a prince does not mean he’s better than you are. You could meet a guy who’s just won the Nobel Prize, and you have to know that he isn’t any better than you are or more accomplished. I’ve always thought that I was just as good as anyone, no matter what they’ve done or how many hit songs they’ve had or how hard they say they’ve worked. One day, Tanner told me I had no sense of proportion because I wasn’t fawning all over his acting career, and I broke up with him on the spot. Life just isn’t like that, you know?

I feel better now. I think I can go to sleep.