Rebooting in Beverly Hills: A Wise and Wild Path for Navigating the Dating World

By Marcy Miller

Rebooting in Beverly Hills is Sex and the City for the next generation. It's the witty, charming, and absolutely true account of Marcy Miller, a competent, attractive professional woman, as she struggles to re-enter the dating world after an esteem-killing divorce of an adulterous husband.

Set in the opulent oasis of Beverly Hills, Marcy riffs on pickups, fix-ups, internet dating, matchmaking, divorce, and all the other craziness—like psychics, girlfriends, and sex—that pop up along the road of leaving single life behind.

This fun, engaging memoir, written by a loveable and slightly saucy storyteller, is for anyone who has faced rejection and the need to start again. It's for anyone who still searches for love.

A hilarious look at the world of dating, Rebooting in Beverly Hills is full of great stories, helpful advice, Beverly Hills glamor, and fun.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bancroft Press
• Release date: May 27, 2012
• ISBN: 9781610880480

Book preview

REBOOTING

IN BEVERLY HILLS

A Wise and Wild

Path for Navigating

the Dating World

Marcy Miller

Copyright 2012 Marcy Miller.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by electronic means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote passages in a review.

Cover Design: Steve Parke, Image Carnival

Interior Design: Tracy Copes, Daft Generation

Author Photo: : James Marcus Haney

Published by Bancroft Press

Books that Enlighten

800-637-7377

P.O. Box 65360, Baltimore, MD 21209

410-764-1967 (fax)

www.bancroftpress.com

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012931351

ISBN 978-1-61088-046-6 (cloth)

ISBN 978-1-61088-048-0 (e-book)

Printed in the United States of America

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To Stephen and Amy: You know why

TABLE OF CONTENTS

THIS MARRIAGE HAS A SHELF LIFE OF ELEVEN YEARS

THE WAY WE WERE

HOPE IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD

HARRY CONNICK, JR. SAVED MY LIFE

PIN MONEY

GOSSIP AND THE DREADED SINGLE DISEASE

SEARCHING FOR WARMTH IN SIBERIA

LEGAL UNEASE

AGAINST MY BETTER JUDGMENT

ALWAYS WEAR LIPSTICK

THE C-WORD

OTHERWORLDLY ADVICE

SKEPTICS, BEWARE

CUT TO THE CHASE

BORED

PALM SPRINGS ETERNAL

CON TIKI

FIX-UPS

REBOOTING

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

MY BRIT

PEP TALK

KOI ARE OUT

THE TALKER

SEX 101

FIX-UP #2

THE POWER OF WOW

HE’S JUST NOT RIGHT FOR YOU

A CHECK-UP WITH DR. SAMANTHA

PARTY ON

SHOULD I TAKE MY PILL YET?

BUTT . . .

MR. NEEDY

NON- vs. UN-

MALIBU MADNESS

I WOULD RATHER HAVE CHOCOLATES

EVERY WOMAN NEEDS HER BGF

FIND ME A FIND

WHINE, ANYONE?

DAPPER DAN

FIX-UP #3

MR. NOT-SO-BIG

BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO

PICK-UP STICKS

PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

IT’S ALWAYS ABOUT SEX

REALITY CHECK

CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR

SWEET DREAMS

REALLY?

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

THIS MARRIAGE HAS A SHELF LIFE OF ELEVEN YEARS

It was December 5, 2005, and the mail arrived as it always does in Beverly Hills—on time and neatly stacked. In the inch or so of invitations and announcements of openings and events was an envelope from Bergdorf Goodman in New York, the Garden of Eden for shoppers. Having often received Bergdorf mail addressed to my husband, I ripped this one open to see what retail therapy was available today. What I read would change my life.

Dear Mr. Eagle,

Thanks so much for your purchase of the beautiful sable coat the other day. It was a pleasure meeting you and your lovely wife, and I look forward to seeing you both again on your next trip to New York.

Sincerely,

Jack Kann

Manager, Fur Salon

My first thought was, Where’s my sable? My next thought was, What wife is he talking about? I checked the envelope and the name and address were correct. So what could this possibly mean? What should I do with this nuclear bomb that had landed in my lap?

I am a serial marry-er and this, my latest marriage, having lasted eleven years, was nearly a personal best—. Like any marriage, ours had lost some of its excitement, but I still felt as loved and protected and happy as I had on my wedding day. I had every reason to believe that my husband felt the same way. In fact, just two weeks earlier, in honor of his birthday, I had given him a celebratory dinner party at our home, catered by a celebrity chef, with a sommelier, a magician from Las Vegas, and a special birthday cake baked in the shape of his favorite dog. He had toasted me with such adoration that several guests teared up. I did, too.

This letter must be some mistake, I reasoned, although it dawned on me that my husband had in fact been in New York on business when the letter was sent. I just wanted to hear from the source that a mix-up had occurred. So I picked up the phone and called Jack Kann, employing my very best Nancy Drew snooping skills.

Hello, Jack, this is Mrs. Eagle.

How are you? Have you worn your fabulous sable in L.A. yet?

No, not yet. I wonder, do you really think it goes well with my hair color?

Of course! What could be prettier than red hair and sable?

I’m a blonde.

In a prior life, I had been a high-powered lawyer, and one of the first women in a huge Wall Street law firm. In 1998, my husband of four years convinced me to stop practicing law and make myself available to him full-time—as a kind of Jewish geisha—and I embraced the new role.

But I smelled blood emanating from New York’s Bergdorf Goodman, all my years of being a shark in the courtroom had trained me to go in for the kill, and it was time to cash in some professional chips. So I called the managing partner of my old New York firm, a well-respected ex-politico who always had a fondness for me.

I need a favor, Mark, but you can’t ask the details. Do you still have a private detective on staff?(Big New York law firms often keep a detective as a consultant for due diligence investigations and as a service to their clients—a Michael Clayton type).

Of course. Why?

No asking ‘why,’ but I need about four hours of his time ‘on the house.’ I could not take the risk of alerting my husband to my espionage through a charge on American Express.

He’s yours—call and tell him I adore you.

So I sent my new operative (or Private Dick, as I preferred to call him) to the scene of the crime to interview Jack Kann. I requested that he employ water boarding to get to the truth, but no Bush torture techniques were necessary. In fact, by the next day, thanks to advanced technology and a few well-placed Franklins, I had more information than I could stomach.

On the week in question, my husband had taken a suite at the St. Regis, not the small room at the Peninsula that we always stayed in. He had not been alone. He had gone on a shopping spree at Bergdorf’s with our community property—a black AmEx card—and spent more than $75,000 on a woman named Therese de Compte, who turned out to be a red-haired former escort. Several years ago, she had moved from Las Vegas to the San Fernando Valley, obtained a real estate license, and begun brokering her way into numerous bedrooms.

And this New York rendezvous had not been their first trip. The week before, he had taken Therese and her out-of-wedlock five-year-old son to the site of her wildest dreams, her personal Disneyland—the Mall of America. The three had flown first class from L.A. and spent thousands of our dollars on tacky miniskirts and fishnet stockings for her and overpriced Snoopy gear for the kid.

I wanted to believe that this was all some kind of horrible mistake—that a credible explanation would soon be forthcoming, or at least that my husband’s midlife crisis had played out and he had returned to sanity, full of repentance and unconditional future devotion to me. Maybe I could still salvage my Beverly Hills bubble of a life and avoid a thunderous pop. I needed to get the slut out of my husband’s life, enroll in marriage crisis counseling, and try to mend this massive breach of trust before it became too much for me to forgive.

So that night after we made love and while he was still in his post-coital daze, I gingerly raised the issue.

Honey, a very peculiar note came in the mail from Bergdorf’s the other day.

What?

It appeared to be a thank-you note for a fur coat that you bought with your wife.

What on earth are you talking about?

Just what I said.

It must be some sort of mistake. How dare you open my mail!

There it was—the defensive maneuver that men always employ when caught cheating. Some super-secret male manual must set forth specific instructions on how to respond under such circumstances. Even if you catch him in bed making love with another woman, he will blame you for driving him into her arms. Chapter Two of the same manual must state that, even if a black lace bra falls out of the glove compartment of his car, you had no right to open the latch.

Or, for those men not given a copy of the manual, perhaps this is a male reaction programmed during childhood: I’m rubber and you’re glue. Whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks on you.

Ludicrous denial is the grown-up version. Everything is your fault and now, as the faithful wife, you must beg for forgiveness for being inconsiderate and untrusting in order to stop his pouting and maintain the peace.

This time, however, I just rolled over and pretended to go to sleep. After all, I knew the truth, he did not know that I knew it, and knowledge is always power, particularly when you need to devise an intelligent strategy.

THE WAY WE WERE

My ex was a charming man. Tall, handsome, and five years younger than I, he was also intelligent, endearingly funny, and beyond quirky—eccentric, even alien, at times. As a foreigner living in the United States, he spoke with an accent so cute that my friends asked him to record the outgoing messages on their answering machines.

He ate unusual, exotic foods. He loved rugby and Formula One racing. He had a vast knowledge of trivia, especially scientific facts and information about animals. He loved television, particularly the ads, which he often found hilarious. He had trouble remembering the names of business associates, concluding that if he called everyone Mike, he would be correct enough of the time.

He was attentive and generous towards me. Even before he was established and successful, he would buy me extravagant gifts for my birthday, particularly diamond jewelry or furs. He respected my advice and allowed me latitude to run our social life while he grew his business.

But most importantly for me, he and my young son (from a previous marriage) bonded and became instant best friends. They would spend hours studying baseball cards and their individual value. They would visit luxury car dealerships and test-drive their dream cars. They would go-kart race, watch sports on TV, barbecue on summer evenings, and talk business. My ex was, for my son, the male role model I had always wanted.

One day while we were still dating, my ex took my son out of school for a surprise. Unbeknownst to me, he had located a breeder of golden retrievers in a nearby county, and the two of them went on a road trip. When they returned home with a large, adorable puppy, I never saw my son so excited. I alternated between feeling thrilled and feeling angry that I had not been consulted, but the dog turned out to be one of the loves of my life and a perfect addition to our family.

My ex and I shared common values, lots of laughs, an enjoyment of watching and playing tennis, a mind for business, a love of travel, and passions for classical music, wine and food, opera, and raising one smart, hilarious kid. My ex even decided to convert to my religion after observing holidays with my family and me for a few years.

Although we had so much in common, no amount of similarities could temper his short fuse. Because he spoke English as a second language, his slip-ups could sometimes lead to fights. But even some of those missteps were quite amusing. James Taylor’s You’ve Got a Friend was one of his favorite songs. Whenever he would sing, Winter, spring, summer, or autumn, my son and I would roar with laughter—the correct lyric is fall, not autumn—and he would furiously accuse us of mocking him.

His language mix-ups were not my only memories relating to his foreign upbringing. Several involved his brother, who lived in South Africa but was a frequent part of the steady guest stream that flowed through our home. A jovial, sweet guy, my brother-in-law was supported financially by my ex and could never quite find himself.

He often invested in hare-brained schemes. One such nutty venture involved enlisting a Zulu tribe in a remote part of South Africa to make a particular type of basket for export. In order to impress the tribe’s leaders, he arranged for two Zulu princes to visit us at our home in rural Baltimore County, Maryland. My ex somehow forgot to inform me of this plan, and my brother-in-law walked into our house one afternoon with two tall tribal leaders dressed in full African regalia. They had gold and black wrapped turbans, flowing robes in bright clashing prints, lots of beaded necklaces, and what turned out to be elephant-hide sandals. My son, who was fourteen at the time, was thrilled and fascinated by these guests, but after the princes sat down and started barking orders at me, I found myself less than enthralled.

Why are you allowing guests in our home to treat me like a servant? I asked my ex.

This is cultural, he replied, so don’t take it personally. They have no respect for women, and they have never been outside their village in the African plains. Brewing some rooibos tea for them would be very hospitable.

Rooibos tea in Hunt Valley, Maryland? Sorry, but the local Giant Food does not stock Zulu treats, especially those made from a plant found only in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. Instead of pointing out this fact, I bit my tongue and made them Tetley’s.

My ex turned to my son, who was still staring in awe at the visitors, and asked, Where shall we take our honored guests to dinner tonight?

The biggest treat for my son, and for many Marylanders, is hard-shelled crabs. Seasonal, expensive, and spicy, they are served on long tables covered with brown paper, or even newspaper, to soak up