NOW YOU SEE IT

I should have stayed in South Beach, I thought as the car service rolled up to the curb at 86th and Fifth. Effing UES! Even the Upper East Side of Manhattan now seemed grungy and chaotic after two slothful weeks with toes in the water and plenty of half-naked women to look at. At least I had come back with an honest-to-God tan, not one of those $200 quickie Bronze Boutique jobs (The secretary special).

And I had to come back, I had to!

” Grant Cantor, cool your jets, man”. I was muttering to myself like a homeless person as I rushed out of the car and up the steps of my brownstone.

  Was it really the traveling and the job that was eating at me? No, it wasn’t managing a hedge fund that did it. I could do that with my hands behind my back after 10 years. It was Hanna, damn Hanna! It was always Hanna. What did I expect Hanna to say after all these months, me here, her there, or vice versa? All that transatlantic texting. Stupid, pointless. Those were two words that described Hanna pretty well now that I thought about it. A thirty-year-old who still acted like a 12-year-old. Wearing scrunchies around her ponytail (the one with the pink highlights), keeping a diary, still a fan of old nineties boy bands. What had I ever seen in Hanna? Why were we still talking t? The divorce had been final for months, even if she insisted on acting like a puppy kicked to the curb. Bitch. 

I needed a scotch, a backrub, something. 

 I put the key in the lock and turned it. The door, with its bronze mortise locks and that old-school lever handle that felt so good in my hand, swung open with a kind of comforting creak, like it was saying “Welcome Home, boss!” 

The room was empty. From the French Oak hardwood floors I had paid through those to have installed), to the high pre-war ceiling that had taken a year to restore to its former glory.

It was empty of everything. No Herman Miller lounge chair, no Roche Bobois modular sofa, no Calacatta marble coffee table, drapes gone from the windows, and my vintage 10th-century bookshelves vanished along with the countless number of first editions I had spent half my lifetime collecting. The Kashmir silk rug, a wedding gift from my first set of in-laws, that had covered the living room for the last 10 years was gone, just a dusty space where it had been the morning I left two weeks ago. 

My cavernous front room was naked, empty as a room in an abandoned warehouse. The bare floor creaked as though it was not used to human footsteps. I had to walk from wall to wall with my arms outstretched to convince myself that all I was seeing was emptiness. There was literally nothing here to suggest that anybody had ever lived in this room, least of all me. Me and (sometimes) a partner.

What was happening?

What was it that Maisie had told me that night in that lowdown bar in the Bowery just two weeks ago? I remembered her trying to talk over that loud and queer black hoedown band. Her voice is so soft. Like hearing a baby bird. chirp. And let's face it, I was already wasted. Whatever she said was probably important. Critical even to my life, safety and maybe future. But did it get through to my vodka-soaked gray matter at 1 a.m? Apparently not, or I would have known better. Did it have something to do with my missing furniture? 

Bitch.

I folded my legs and sat down on the bare floor like some kind of sad Buddha and tried to do some yogic breathing to target my vagus nerve. At least all that vinyasa yoga– Hanna, for all her fruitiness, always came up with one-of-a-kind Christmas gifts— had left me with flexible hips, and even at 45, I still had good knees.

“What are you doing down there, Grant? For chrissake!”

It was Maisie, of all people, standing over me. All 5’11 inches of her, with her tattooed calves all admirably tanned below a pair of cutoff jeans. Her magenta hair was coiled up sloppily on top of her head.

She dropped her handbag, the size of a small animal, to the floor and bent down to bring her pale Irish face, inches from mine, her shifty green eyes fixed on me like a chameleon about to strike. She smelled innocent, like she’d dusted herself with baby powder. 

“What are you doing here? You are supposed to be in Milan”

“What?”

“Didn’t Hanna tell you the movers would be here today? You know all about the deal with the TV studio, right? It was pretty last minute. But, hey, Grant, you’re a last-minute kind of guy, right?” I’ll never forget that time you bought that log cabin in Vermont with cash on a whim at the tail end of a super bender. And I didn't even get a single log of it in the divorce. Crazy Grant.”

I couldn’t find words. Not the right words. Any words. This must have been what a stranger in a strange land must feel like. Someone who doesn’t speak the language and doesn't understand the words coming at him. 

“Why are you looking at me like that, Grant. Grant, honey?”

“Is everything gone, even my first editions? What studio? What deal? What’s happening, Maisie?

“Well, yes, I expect so. Hanna is pretty efficient. Didn’t you look around? It sounded like a great deal. With the studio.”

“What studio?”

“First Takes, the TV production company. Grant, have you had an accident? I mean, did you hit your head or …have you been drugging again?”

“No, I’ve been substance-sober for 3 years. I haven't even smoked a joint since you left. And since First Takes seems to have taken my wet bar too, I guess I won’t be having that scotch either. Jesus, Maisie. This is nuts.”

“Grant, you can’t just sit there like some unhoused person”

“This is lotus position.” 

And it's time to fold up the lotus and get on your feet. and ….I don't know …take that plane to Milan”

“Why would I be going to Milan?”

“Because you have a plane ticket to go there. Remember, a generous birthday gift from the ex-wives….me and Hanna.”

“ I need to talk to Hanna. Where’s my phone?”

“Oh, honey, take a deep breath. It’ll all be back, just like before, after the movie is wrapped up.”

“I want my stuff back, all of it.”

“Oh, honey, have you forgotten everything? Hanna is on the Cape. Doing a digital detox at that retreat she told you about. You can't reach her. She’s off the grid.”

“Maisie, what happened to my Jeff Koons and my Anselm Kiefer?… They were over there on the south and west walls.” That’s 30 million bucks worth of contemporary art! Hanna just loaned them to some two-penny TV company, for chrissake?” 

“Oh, she said you signed all the papers. . Are you sure you haven’t been abusing a substance or three, Grant? Your memory seems a bit tired. You can be honest with me. You owe me that, if nothing else, since nothing else is a pretty good description of what I (and Hanna) got in our breakups with you.”

She had a point. I had been a real bastard when I was on coke, and my Wall Street lawyer was leagues better than hers, especially at hanging onto my investments and holdings. Not once, but twice. Hanna was like Maisie; she also thought just because I had deep pockets she could dig deep into them as wifey #2. But I won that battle, too. Let them both go back to selling real estate or being administrative assistants or whatever. Bitches.

“Come on, Grant, take my hand and get up like a good boy. I’m sure your stuff is in good hands.

“And Milan seems like just the getaway you need now that, well, your home sweet home is on vacation, so to speak.”

“Very funny, Maisie. I need a strong drink.”

“You got it. Come on. I know a cute little bistro around the corner, and I’ll pay. You can couch surf at my brother’s place for a day until you get on that plane. Maybe it will all come back to you, the agreements with the TV company and all that.” 

I was too tired to fight, too tired and confused to call the police or my lawyer. Or maybe too embarrassed to admit I didn't even remember “renting” out my furniture, my artwork, and my bar to total strangers!

“Where will you be??

“Oh, Grant, honey, I know you don’t have access to my calendar. Even if you did, you would have forgotten, but I have a Luxury Property Specialists conference in Savannah, I’ll be there at least a week. Oh, I almost forgot. Here.”

She reached into her bag and fished out a pale gray envelope the size of a playing card that smelled like potpourri. It looked like it contained an announcement or an invitation.

“It’s from Maisie. Well, actually it's from Maisie and me. Promise me you won’t open it until you are sunning your already tan body on the beach in Bergamo in Milan. That’s the decadent place we picked for you to be your decadent self!. Hug?”

She wrapped her muscular arms around me and gave me a hug, then a peck on the cheek.

And then, for some reason, a mischievous wink.

And then she was gone.

Just like all my belongings.

Just like a kid who can't wait for Christmas to see what Santa has brought him, the kid in me needed to open that envelope. And I wasn’t waiting for any Milanese sunset.

Hopefully it would include a copy of that damned agreement I had in some kind of fog signed with that production company I had never heard of.

Dear dear Grant:

Maybe your charm, after all these years, is wearing a bit thin. You know, that charm you used to get me and then Hanna to the altar (ok, court). And then that greed and selfishness and general meanness of yours that had us both miserable by turns and both poor by turns because you reward your divorce lawyers so well. .

You prospered, but Maisie and me, not so much!

Until now. 

That contract you signed? …it just turned the contents of your beautiful townhouse (just the good stuff) over to Hanna and me to keep or auction off as we see fit. Seems like we’re even steven now, 

Oh, and that TV production company, First Takes? I guess we should more accurately have called ourselves The First and Second Wives Take it all!  

Listen, do you hear that sound, Grant? It’s the sound of the door closing on your old life.

Love, Hanna and Maisie.

“