“Like is she a model and how did she end up with a bum like your father?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I just meant that she obviously could have done better.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why is it obvious she could have done better?”
He looked at me like I was crazy for even asking such a stupid question. I was used to that, too.
“Look at her,” he said, holding up the phone for me to see like I didn’t know what my own mother looked like. “She could have had any man she wanted.”
I knew what he meant by “any man she wanted.” He meant rich. Because the whole world knew that if a woman was beautiful, she was a shallow, stupid slut who spent her whole life dreaming of marrying a rich man who treated her like a fucking hunting prize to show off to his rich asshole friends. After all, what woman in her right mind would want love and respect when she could have cash instead?
“What she wanted,” I said, coming very close to losing my cool, “was a man who loved her regardless of how she looked. But what she got instead was one rich megalomaniac after another parading her around like she was the gold medal in the ‘Hottest Girlfriend on Wall Street’ competition. She wasn’t a prize for some rich bastard to lock up in his trophy case. She was a woman with hopes and dreams and feelings who wanted to be loved for who she was, same as anyone else.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ian look down at his lap, seeming ashamed. That I wasnotused to. No matter how hard I tried to explain my mother’s situation, no one ever even tried to understand. If you were a good-looking woman, you were a brat who got everything you wanted. Case closed. Shut up and stop complaining. But Ian? He actually looked kind of sympathetic.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to go off on you like that. I just get upset when I think of all the times my mom was used by men she thought loved her.”
He kept his gaze focused on his lap. He looked almost despondent, and I was starting to feel a little guilty for holding him personally responsible for the actions of others.
“You didn’t say anything wrong,” I said. “Really. You actually seem a lot more understanding than most—”
“So did she finally get smart and start dumping the bastards?” he interrupted.
I was shocked. His tone was tense, even a little angry. I could hardly believe it. He agreed with me. But he probably wouldn’t agree with what I was going to say next.
I put the car into park as the traffic came to a complete standstill. “No,” I said, looking over at him. “She finally got smart and started marrying them.”
CHAPTER 16
Ian
Toward the end of his long and illustrious career, Freud observed that the one question he could never answer was:What do women want?As a general rule, I wasn’t a fan of Freud’s penis-centric view of humanity, but at the moment, I kind of agreed with him. Not two minutes ago, Clara had been bemoaning the injustices inflicted upon her mother by trophy-hunting males. And now here she was, telling me that her mother not only sold herself out as a trophy, but was “smart” to do so.What do women want?
“So which is it?” I asked.
“Which is what?”
“First you tell me how sad it is that your mother never found true love, but then you tell me she was smart to marry men for their money. So which is it?”
She leaned back in her seat and rubbed her eyes. “It’s hard to explain,” she said. “To someone who hasn’t been there, I mean. My mother didn’t sell herself out as a trophy and then expect to be loved for it. She fell in love and then realized she was a trophy. And it’s not like it only happened once or twice. It happened so many times that she finally just gave up. She stopped wasting her time looking for love and started giving men what they wanted: a smokin’ hot babe they could show off. An adoring female whose sole purpose was to tell them how strong and brilliant and powerful they were and look sexy while doing it. They treated her like a professional ego-stroking service. Why shouldn’t she treat them like a professional credit card?”
At last, I was starting to follow. I was starting to follow so well it hurt. The fact was, not only had I “been there,” but I’d been thinking along the same lines just the night before. If all a woman was ever going to want me for was money, why shouldn’t I expect a pretty face and a hot body in return? If my only options for a life partner were a beautiful woman who didn’t love me or an unattractive woman who didn’t love me, why shouldn’t I go for the beautiful one?
It wasn’t what I wanted. Not by a long shot. But the fact was, I understood Clara’s mother. Being used and deceived was exhausting, and I got why she finally just threw in the towel and started using men right back. It wasn’t that she wanted to be a trophy. It was that she didn’t think she had a choice in the matter.
But there was one thing I still didn’t understand. “If you think it’s okay for a woman to be a gold digger,” I said, “why were you so hell-bent on defending Greta when I said all she wanted me for was my money?”
She seemed shocked. “You thought I was defending Greta?”
“I didn’t think it,” I said. “I heard it with my own ears. Loud and clear. You said I was a monumental dick for assuming Greta was a gold digger. Don’t tell me you don’t remember it.”
“I remember it,” she said. “But I wasn’t defending Greta. I was defending you.”