Separate Tables

Sure and begorrah today is St. Patrick’s Day.  When she was twelve, Natasha and I took a mother-daughter trip to New York City for this holiday.  Our carefully-laid-out plans were totally disrupted by the hordes of drunken revelers that had completely taken over Manhattan but we still managed to have a Big Apple ball.

And because I never once touched the minibar, ordered room service or ate in a pricey restaurant, my Little Miss Miser was appeased.  (The fact that I had paid extortionate scalpers’ prices for the two Broadway shows she had wanted to see somehow escaped her eagle eye.)

I think Bill took Nick down to Florida for a father-son getaway. We all had fun- which, after all, was the main idea.  It wasn’t the first vacation that Bill and I had split up and gone our merry ways.  And it wouldn’t be the last.  Which reminds me…

True story.  Years ago, when I was still married to my ex, I was having breakfast at the Snowmass Club with some ski instructor friends when an acquaintance of mine from Chicago sidled up to our table.  She leaned in and asked,”Is Bill out here with you?”

I answered no.  (Ever since we bought a place in Colorado, I would try and get out there every two weeks. Most of the time my then husband would try and join me. But he couldn’t make it this trip and so I was breakfasting with my buddies.)

“Be careful, Ellen,” she warned.  “I lost a husband that way.”

At the time I scoffed.  I thought she was meddlesome and way off base.  But her words would come back to haunt me later.  And with the clarity of 20/20 hindsight, I retroactively went over all the other times when our vacation schedules hadn’t quite synched up.  For whenever Bill had a business trip (real or concocted) I would hightail it out to Snowmass if I could.  Why should I stay home and miss all the fun?

Like when he went on his customer fishing trip in Costa Rica.  There was this storied tarpon fishing camp on the Rio Colorado and Bill was invited to go for a few days with some business friends.  The camp, though rustic, was luxurious by jungle standards. It was run by a world-famous fishing guide, staffed to the eyeballs with native helpers, the cook and cuisine were legendary and the whole venture was strictly stag and guaranteed to make for a macho good time.  (And if this trip wasn’t on the level, please don’t tell me.  I can still be the last to know, okay?)

He was really looking forward to it.  He could get away from the old ball and chain and do business at the same time.  Win win.  He kept raving so much about this upcoming adventure that I got jealous.  And staying home alone and moping (the kids were off at school by this time) seemed like a surefire way to amp up my envy factor.  So I got proactive and booked a solo trip to Aspen that covered the sames dates that he was going to be gone.

This was springtime and I hadn’t any special social or ski plans on the calendar but I figured I’d vamp until I got out there. I’d fake it and see what happened date book-wise.

I had’t been in Aspen an hour when I ran into friends of friends who “adopted” me for the four day week-end. They invited me to dinner with their already-huge party. And then we all went back to their gorgeous 360 degreed glass-from-floor-to-ceiling showplace in Starwood where we admired the unbelievable views (only the airplanes coming in for a landing had better ones) and regaled each other all night long with tall tales.

It was a blast.  And since one of the guests owned Nuages, a great boutique in Aspen, the good times continued when I hied myself over there the next day and bought a killer Chrome Hearts motorcycle jacket.  I mean I scored.

The fun kept on happening.  Even though I was stag, I was now a sought-after dinner guest and went out every night.  The days were fun, too.  As a bonus, I spotted Cher in town.  Not tall and not what I expected.  But still…Cher.

The four days flew by.  And then I flew home.  Just in time to grab the phone as it was ringing in Bill’s room.  The connection was awful but not as awful as he sounded.  Through all the crackling and the static I could barely hear him.  But what I could make out didn’t sound so hot.

There had been a hurricane on the Costa Rican coast and it blew away the fishing camp.  And when the camp blew away, the natives took off.  And when the natives adiosed, the world-famous guide went AWOL.  

“After the camp blew away, we had to ride out the storm all night in the fishing boats on the river,” Bill shouted over the lousy connection. ”Those boats are small. It was standing-room only in there.”

“Didn’t you get tired standing up all night?” I asked, half-concerned (the nice half) and half-gloating (the non-Mother Teresa half) because his trip had sucked.

“HELL NO!” he screamed long distance.  “There were crocodiles in that river and I wasn’t going to be bait. Trust me, I was not going to fall overboard.  I’ll be home in a few hours.”

He did come home, looking none-too-refreshed from his harrowing ordeal.  I, on the other hand, looked awesome in my new Chrome Hearts jacket.  I told him about the great gang from Starwood and Cher and the dinners, and I have to admit that I (kind of) rubbed it in.

“You didn’t choose wisely,” I (kind of) crowed.  “You should have come with me on my trip this time. I had a ball and you had a catastrophe.”

Then I felt (kind of) bad for gloating.

“Oh, yeah?” he replied.  “You know what I wanted to do to you?  As the storm was raging and knocking out all the electricity, I wanted to send you a fax that said ‘Losing all hope.  May not make it back.  If I don’t return the money is hidden in the …’  And then I wouldn’t have finished the fax.  You would have gone crazy trying to find the money.  Wouldn’t that have been a riot?”

Some joke.  Why- even after all these years- don’t I think it’s all that funny?

And that nosy-parker acquaintance at the Snowmass Club breakfast years ago?  The one who I had thought so way off base?

A stand up triple, I’d say.

Sláinte!