Iced

“You don’t remember me, do you?”

I scan her facial features for recognition, while standing in the middle of the sidewalk outside of Cartier. There is something familiar about this woman, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.

“Bergen Villa?” she adds.

I think back to the boarding school in the Swiss Alps that I attended as a teenager. It was one of the oldest boarding schools in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and it offered a comprehensive intellectual, physical, emotional, and social education to anyone who could afford to attend. I was sent there as a twelve-year-old girl. My parents, or as I referred to them at that time – the fascists- felt I would benefit from the discipline that was meted out at Bergen Villa so that I could reach my full potential. The place was nothing short of a hellhole run by the descendents of the Coulier family. The only thing members of that family were interested in was lining their pockets with the lucre of the rich.

I gaze into the eyes of the woman standing before me, and suddenly it clicks into place. “Patricia?” I say in recognition.

“Yes,” she replies.

Fatty Patty, alive and in person. I quickly recall the chubby girl with the big nose and brillo-like hair who had desperately tried to fit in with the other girls at Bergen Villa. Her parents were muckety-mucks in Hollywood, film producers or something, and they had sent their precious porker of a princess to Bergen Villa to gain discipline and, they hoped, to lose weight. From the looks of her at this moment, I would say mission accomplished.

“I hardly recognize you, Patricia! You look amazing.”

“Thank you. It’s amazing what Bergen Villa, plastic surgery, and twenty years can accomplish.”

“What have you been up to? I mean, don’t you live in Silicon Valley, or something?”

“I do. I created an online media company and I just merged with my father’s Hollywood agency to produce and promote movies. I am in town on business and I am doing a little shopping before I meet up with my boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend? You’re not married?”

“Heavens, no. I don’t believe in marriage. My boyfriend is married, though, but he plans to leave his wife and move in with me.”

Who would have thought it? Fatty Patty as a homewrecker. “Your boyfriend lives in Beverly Hills?”

“Yes. He’s unhappy in his marriage and he wants out. Thankfully, they don’t have kids. His wife let herself go, apparently. He refers to her as the cow.”

We share a laugh at the reference. Patricia laughs at what her boyfriend said, and I laugh because I had called her the same thing twenty years ago. “Does she know about you?” I ask.

“No. He plans to serve her with divorce papers today.”

I realize that no marriage is perfect, but I almost feel sorry for the woman. Her husband is having an affair with this media titan and the poor woman doesn’t have a clue.

Patricia looks over my right shoulder and says, “Oh, here he is now. I’ll introduce you to him.”

I turn around to meet her boyfriend, only to come face to face with my husband. “Tom, you know Candace.”

“What the hell?” I scream at him.

Tom shoves divorce papers at me and says, “I want a divorce.”

I am so shocked, I can’t speak. I think back to the numerous business trips on which Tom had gone, only to realize he had been cavorting with Patricia. I also remember trying to initiate sex with him, only to hear him say, “I have a headache, or I am tired from work.” Not to mention the cow reference from earlier. I am suddenly unhinged.

“I’ll get you for this, Patty! No one messes with me and gets away with it!”

Patricia laughs and says, “Now you know what it feels like.”

I lunge at her in an attempt to claw her eyes out. Tom grabs me and holds me tight, and I watch as she walks toward Cartier’s front door.

“Coming, darling?” Patricia says to Tom. “I want to take a look at that necklace.”

“Yes,” he replies.

I watch, helplessly, as Tom leaves me and chases after Patricia. I am devastated and alone, and I finally understand how Patricia had felt years earlier at Bergen Villa.

“It’s the icing on the cake,” Patricia says to me, in a final act of vengeance.