him—a subtle exhale of frustration over what would probably feel to him like my second rejection of the night.
He shrugged. “Because I see my ex around, too, just like you see Matt.”
“She’s in the city then? She’s around?”
(She’s alive? is what I was really asking—because if Quinn’s theory about Bruce’s having a trigger and snapping out violently were true, it would probably have first manifested on his wife.)
“Oh, yeah, she’s around. And I hate to tell you, I’ve seen her in the Blend. You’ll probably meet her soon enough, but I hope it’ll be later rather than sooner. It’s understandable she’s come to the city. The Westchester place was this vast thing. Lots to care for—grounds, tennis courts, but at least I’m not sharing a space with her.”
“Is that what you meant earlier when you said this house is an escape?”
Bruce shifted. “Yeah, it’s an escape…from her…from the bad marriage…and just…from my past…yeah.”
My past? What did he mean by that exactly?
Bruce poured more wine for us both. “So you’re telling me that Matt’s a really stubborn guy, then? Won’t give up his rights to the duplex?”
“No…but then neither will I…”
“Joy just as stubborn?”
“I always say she gets it from her father. But I know I can be stubborn, too.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
“Oh, come on, and you aren’t?”
“Yeah, I can be, I guess…I was in the divorce.”
“Over what?”
“Ten years ago, when Maxi and I first moved East, Maxi had put up the money for the Westchester house, but I’d put in a decade of sweat equity. We split the proceeds from the sale after a really long, ugly fight in court. She was determined to keep it all, but I was stubborn about my position, too. My years of work had more than doubled the value of that property. The judge agreed, even though New York’s not a community property state. She made every possible argument, but the judge split it down the middle. She still says I don’t deserve a penny.”
“She put up the money originally?”
“Yeah…to be completely honest with you, Clare, ten years ago, before I started my own company, I didn’t have much. Remember I told you how I grew up in Napa?”
“Sure.”
During his visits with me at the Blend this week, Bruce had told me some general things about his background. Surprisingly, we had a lot in common. Like me, he’d been brought up primarily by his grandparents. Also, like me, he’d grown up without much money, which made his appreciation of the finer things in life all the more poignant. Frankly, I felt the same. It always amazed me when I’d meet people in Madame’s social circle. Some of Madame’s friends were old money, some new, but to many (not all, but many), the finer things were just a function of entitlement or prestige. Appreciation for the history and artistry of a thing was far from a prerequisite to ownership. I didn’t feel that way. And, obviously, neither did Bruce.
In any event, Bruce had told me it was his grandfather who had given him an early mastery of basic carpentry, plumbing, and the general set of “This Old House” skills. It led him to start working in construction, then restoration, and eventually architecture.
“Well…” said Bruce slowly, “what I didn’t tell you was that my grandfather was a handyman on a Napa Valley estate. That’s where I grew up, on the estate itself. It was Maxi’s family’s estate…and when she and I got involved, her family didn’t like it. But Maxi was used to having her way. She’s very bright, too, but she couldn’t make a career work, didn’t play nice with the other kids, you know, kept getting fired from jobs and kept losing well-heeled fiancés, too.”
“Sounds like a real gem.”
“In a lot of ways, she is. Maxi’s beautiful. Brilliant. Rich. She can be a fantastic person when she wants to be. And there were a lot of reasons a lot of men gave her multiple chances, but she was a princess, too, and a lot of men wouldn’t put up with her games. So, when the last fiancé broke it off, she ended up living back in her parents’ home. She was thirty-two at the time and very worldly, and I was barely twenty-four and, in a lot of ways, just a stupid, gullible kid. We fell in love, eloped, and I was too young to see she was using me as a way to stick it to a family she saw as trying to