Love is blind, deaf and bankrupt

Imagine you’re a wealthy surgeon with a Beverly Hills practice. You’re about as studly as they come, fitting in well in a place that values good looks and money above all.

Chick magnet, right?

You betcha. You marry a former Miss Arizona, a half-Navajo beauty with legs up to here and cheekbones that should be outlawed. She agrees to a Jewish wedding and the relatives fly in for the extravaganza.

You situate her in a mansion exquisitely furnished, adorned with pricey artwork and all those classy wedding gifts: hand-painted china, the best silver, a well-stocked kitchen to make a chef drool.

Being a doctor, you could be excused for not knowing much about the law, especially that whole community property thing that kicks in after a year. Exactly 13 months after your wedding, you return home from a busy day at your practice to find:

Nothing.

Furnishings – gone. Wedding gifts – gone. You move from empty room to empty room in amazement. You find your clothes heaped on the floor; she took the hangars. These are the days before cell phones, so you can’t call anyone because she took all the phones. There’s not a single spoon in the drawer, and nothing in the cabinets – or your bank account. The only thing you do find is a few cookbooks, the one thing she had no use for.

Two days later, a clerk from Harry Winston’s calls, concerned about your canceled credit card. Your wife bought $50,000 worth of sapphire jewelry, and who’s going to pay for it now?

“Get the money from my wife,” you say, then hang up.

The divorce sets new standards for ugly even in a town accustomed to such acrimony. She asks for half the value of your lucrative practice, which the judge refuses.

You won’t be so lucky the second time in court.

A few years later, you’re crossing the parking lot to your latest Mercedez when a man asks if you’re Dr. M. Of course you are. He flings a stack of papers at you. “You’ve been served.”

It’s a paternity suit.

The plaintiff is a hospital administrator in her early 40s who heard her biological clock a-ticking. You remember it as a brief, uneventful affair. She decided the M stood for “meal ticket.”

The judge nails you. Your lawyer gives you a choice: stay away and write big, fat checks. Or become a real dad. You’ll still write big, fat checks but at least you’ll have some say in how they’re spent.

You opt for fatherhood, kicking and screaming the whole way. But you fall in love with this athletic, good-looking kid with his father’s hazel eyes and goofy grin. You sign up for a lifetime of hassle and tug-of-war with his manipulative, lying bitch of a mom.

Your next girlfriend moves in. She moves out. She cleans out your kitchen of all your replacement china and gadgets. Your guests from then on will always eat from plastic plates.

So the girlfriend after that is a sweet California thing, about eight years younger than you, too naïve even at 30-something to see the “damaged goods” sign flashing over your head.

She stays with you though you treat her like shit. Your parents love her even when you insist you don’t. You don’t let her move in, forcing her to commute to see you. Worse, she works as a nurse in your office, and she’s too skilled for you to dismiss no matter how many times you break up with her. After 10 years, you realize she’s not going anywhere and you may as well get used to her.

I love telling this story about Cousin M. I used to joke that money can’t buy you love, but it sure gets rid of a lot of misery. Probably M would disagree, though he can laugh at most of what’s happened to him.

His poor current girlfriend though: all that angst and heartache and not even a Harry Winston bauble or a decent blender to show for it.

Comments

[Faith]

Wow. That makes my five weeks with Psycho Boy at the Meth camp seem almost idyllic.

[Anne-Marie]

Oh my god, can you say "prenup"? This story has "MOVIE SCRIPT" written all over it. It's priceless and damn funny. The problem, I'm sure, is to make it into something - book, magazine article, movie, etc. - without pissing off your cousin and forever being cut off of free used furniture and kid stuff. Maybe you can ghost write his memoirs or appeal to his ego some way?

Loved it!

[Anne]

Faith: Hmmm ... I really don't know what to say to that. Is Meth camp where they give you drugs or help you get over them? Pardon my ignorance.

Anne-Marie: I think it could be a great movie, but it would have to end happily and not take 10 years! I might do it as a short story somehow. The cousin would never see it (I hope). Thanks.