Men at Work: Through the Roof / Taking His Measure / Watching It Go Up

“You think he’d change his mind if I flew coach? Went to Super Cuts? Shopped at Payless?” Marina sucked the last of her wine through the crazy-straw.

“Well, I’m not sure it’s that simple, but maybe. I think your money intimidates Ben. Makes him feel like he’ll never make enough to be able to compete.”

Marina threw up her hands. “I don’t want him to compete! I don’t need him to compete.”

“Honey, you’re not getting what I’m saying. I’ll be blunt. Your financial situation makes Ben feel like he has a small penis.”

Marina gaped at her. “Ben Delgado is hung like a horse!”

Chloe closed her eyes and stuck her fingers in her ears. “Too much information!”

“Hey, you’re the one who brought up the topic of penises.” Marina pinched at the flesh of her thigh. “Do you think I need liposuction?”

“No!” yelled Chloe. “You need brain suction. See, this is exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about.”

“What is?”

“Normal women do not just go have liposuction on a whim. They save up for it for months, or run up their credit cards and have to pay them off slowly. It’s a big deal, not a narcissistic whim!”

Marina’s mouth trembled. “You’re saying I’m narcissistic?”

“No, no, no. Wouldn’t dream of it, sweetie. All I’m saying is that maybe you’re a teeny, tiny bit, um, self-absorbed. Just with the whole beauty thing—not in other areas.”

“Self-absorbed,” Marina repeated. “Ouch. I think you’ve officially hurt my feelings, Chlo.”

“Stop. Be hurt later. Right now we have to discuss this, if you love Ben and you want to hang on to him. He is in crisis at the moment, and you’re talking about your thighs!”

“But maybe that’s why he dumped me—guys don’t dump women who look perfect.”

“Yes, they do! Ben loves the Marina Reston who reads to sick kids in the hospital and speaks to the state legislature about education and public after-school programs. He loves the woman who endows thirty charities and has trouble firing a single mom.

“Ben does not love the woman who won’t eat even a tablespoon of ice cream and inspects her butt with a hand mirror every night, checking for dimples!”

“Who told you that?”

Relentless, Chloe forged on. “Ben does not love the Marina Reston who is obsessed with her appearance to the point of ridicule and spends a hundred-thousand dollars a year maintaining it—”

“I do not spend anywhere near that amount!”

“Add up the receipts for the clothes, the jewelry, the massages, the hair, the nails, the facials, the treatments and the cosmetic surgeries. Seriously, Marina, add them up and then ask yourself why Ben might be intimidated at the thought of marriage to you.”

“But I don’t ask him to pay for any of it,” Marina wailed.

“That’s not the point. The point is that he couldn’t if he wanted to. Men like to know they can keep their women happy. And I think he’s afraid that if you lost all your money tomorrow on the stock exchange, he wouldn’t be able to keep you happy.”

“So what are you saying?”

Chloe shrugged. “What do you think I’m saying? Prove to him that you can live without any of it.”

Marina stared at her, appalled. Life without massages and facials and trips to Paris?

Then she thought about the alternative: life without Ben. That was much, much worse.

She got up and padded into the kitchen, where she stared at the other three melting pints of ice cream with forks in them. She pulled the fork out of the Coffee Heath Bar Crunch and licked it. Then she licked the other two and put them all in the sink.

Marina put the lids back on two of the pints and stuck them in the freezer. But the vanilla? That she poured into a mug, which she took back into the living room.

She stared at Chloe glumly. “Do you know how to have a garage sale?”

5

TWO DAYS LATER, Ben pulled his Chevy work truck into Marina’s circular driveway on Key Biscayne and stared. A massive yellow moving van blocked his way, and it did not appear that his darling had simply ordered five suites of new furniture. No, small herds of men were removing her things from her two-story Mediterranean and a four-by-six sign announced that the house was for rent. What the hell?

Ben drove the Chevy between two royal palms and onto a stretch of lawn, then put it in Park. He swung out and strode around the van, up the wide, shallow entrance stairs and through the door. “Marina?” he called.

She popped her gorgeous head out of the kitchen. “Ben? What are you doing here?”

She was clad in color-coordinated baby-blue and brown aerobics-wear, which did nothing to obscure her perfectly proportioned body. Her chestnut hair was held back with a brown tie and a baby-blue sweatband completed the outfit. Christ—the woman even wore couture to the gym.

His lips might have twitched—if he hadn’t been instantly fixated on the curve of her bottom and the complete lack of a panty-line anywhere on it. Dios mío. And she was prancing around like this in front of a platoon of moving guys?

He completely forgot that he was here to apologize to her. “Marina, what is the meaning of this?” He gestured toward the white leather couch disappearing out the door, the stacks of cardboard boxes in the dining room and the plastic sheeting protecting the floors from the men’s boots.

Her expression changed. She’d smiled involuntarily at first sight of him, but now she elevated her little gringa nose and leveled a glare at him. “I’m moving to a condo.”

He gaped at her. “A condo? You couldn’t even fit the contents of your closet into a condo, mi vida.”

“That was yesterday. Today is different.”

It is? “Marina, look around you. You have far too much. Rugs, art, furniture—where are you going to put everything?”

“In storage,” she said airily. “And some of it I’m giving away.”

“But why?”

She tilted her head, folded her tanned, sculpted arms and took a deep breath. “Because Chloe says that all of this makes you feel like you have a small penis.”

Ben stared at her. His jaw worked, but no sound emerged.

“So I’m getting rid of it, and I’m going to divert my private income to the foundation and be poor.”

He finally managed a choking noise.

“Yes, really!” She produced a brave smile, but then her nose wrinkled. “I’m going to try to buy my shoes at Payless from now on. I might not be able to do it, though, in which case I’ll have to wear last year’s Louboutins and Choos. Oh, and classic Chanels—they never go out of style.”

She blinked rapidly. “I’ll be just fine. And I’ve canceled my trips to Milan and Paris for fashion week, though, if you don’t mind, I’ll still go to New York, since I can get a coach fare for under two-hundred dollars.”

Ben struggled mightily, but he dissolved into laughter. The idea of Marina abandoning her Learjet to fly coach with cocktail peanuts was too much. Besides, she’d spend more than the coach fare on dinner in the city with a friend.