Relationship In Love

Party Girl’s Tale of Sex and Woe: He Was Rich, Doting, and… Ugly

Carrie was walking out of Bergdorf’s when she ran into Bunny Entwistle.
“Sweetie!” Buunny said. “I haven’t seen you for years. You look great!”
“You, too,” Carrie said.
“You must have lunch with me. Immediately. Amalita Amalfi—yes, she’s in town too, and we’re still friens—stood me up.”
“Probably waiting for a phone call from Jake.”
“Oh, is she still seeing him?” Bunny tossed her white-blond hair over the shoulder of her sable coat. “I have a table at ’21.’ Please have lunch with me. I haven’t been in New York for a year, and I’m dying to dish.”
Bunny was fortyish, still beautiful, L.A. –tanned, a sometime TV actress, but before that, she’d been around New York for years. She was the quintessential party girl, a girl so wild no man would consider marrying her, but plenty tried to get in her pants.
“I want a table in the back. Where I can smoke and no one will bother us,” Bunny said. They sat down and she lit up a Cuban cigar. “The absolutely first thing I want to talk about is that wedding announcement.” She was referring to a notice about the marriage of Chloe—thirty-six, still considered a classic beauty—to a homely fellow named Jason Jingsley in a ceremony on the Galapagos Islands.
“Well, he is rich, smart, and sweet,” Carrie said. “He was always friendly to me.”
“Please, darling,” Bunny said. “Men like Jingles, and there’s a whole group of them in New York, are not the type of guys you marry. They make great friends—attentive, always there when you’re in a tight spot—and late at night when you’re lonely and desperate as hell, you whisper to yourself, ‘Well, I could always marry a guy like Jingles. At least that way I wouldn’t have to worry about paying the rent.’ But you wake up and really think about it, and realize that you’d have to share a bed with him, watch him brush his teeth, that stuff.”
“Sandra said he tried to kiss her once,” Carrie said. “She said, ‘If I wanted a fur ball in my bed, I’d get a cat.’”
Bunny snapped open a compact, pretending to check her eyelashes but really, Carrie thought, checking to see if anyone in the restaurant wsa looking at her. “I’d love to call Chloe and ask her about it directly, but I can’t, because she hasn’t exactly been talking to me for years,” she said. “Strangely enough, I did get one of those invitations to one of those Upper East Side museum benefits, and sure enough, Chloe is once again a cochair. I haven’t gone to that benefit for years, but I actually thougt about paying the $350 and going by myself. Just so I could see what she looked like.”
Bunny laughed her famous laugh, and several heads swiveled around to look at her. “A few years back, when I was kind of fucked up and sometimes even had dried coke residue around my nostrils, my father used to call me up and say, ‘Come home.’ ‘Why?’ I’d ask. ‘So I can seeee you,’ he’d say. ‘If I seeeeee you I’ll know whether or not you’re all right.’”
“It’s the same thing with Chloe. If I can just see her, I’ll know everything. Is she filled with self-loathing? Is she on Prozac?”
“I don’t think so,” Carrie started to say.
“Or do you think she’s had some kind of remarkable religious experience?” Bunny contined. “People do these days. It’s very chic.”
“Anyway, I have my reasons for wanting to know. A few years ago, I almost married a guy like Jingles,” Bunny said, slowly. “The situation is still not resolved and probably never will be.”
“Let’s have champagne. Waiter!” Bunny snapped her fingers. She took a breath. “Well. It all started after a nasty breakup with a man I’ll call Dominique. He was an Italian banker, Euro-trashy and proud of it, with a personality like a scorpion. Just like hismother. Of course he treated me like shit and I put up with it, and strangely enough, I didn’t mind that much. At least, not until the end when I drank too much psychedelic mushroom tea in Jamaica and realized he didn’t love me after all. But I was a different person back then. I still had my beauty—you know, strangers stopped me on the street, that kind of thing—and a good-girl upbringing that comes from growing up in a small town in Maine. But on the inside, I was not nice. I had absolutely no feelings at all, emotionally or physically. I’d never been in love.”
“The only reason I lived with Dominique for three years was, one, he asked me to on our first date, and two, he had a gorgeous two-bedroom apartment in a prewar overlooking the East River and a big house in East Hampton. I had no money, no job—I did some voice-overs and sang some jingless for TV commercials.”
“So when Dominique and I broke up—he found out I was having affairs and made me give back jewelry he’d bought for me—I decided that what I needed to do ws get married. Quickly.”

The Trilby Hat
“I moved into a friend’s apartment,” said Bunny, “and about two weeks later I met Dudley at Chester’s—that East Side bar for young swells. Within five minutes of meeting him, I was annoyed. He was wearing spectator shoes, a trilby hat, and a Ralph Lauren suit. His lips were damp. He was tall and skinny, with no chin to speak of, eyes like boiled egges, and a large, bobbing Adam’s apple. He sits down, uninvited, at our table, and he insists on ordering martinis for everyone. He tells bad jokes, makes fun of my pony-skin designer shoes. ‘I’m a cow, moo, wear me,’ he said. ‘Excuse me, but I believe you’re the big beef,’ I said. I was embarrassed to be seen talking to him.”
“The next day, sure enough, he called. ‘Shelby gaveme your number,’ he said. Shelby’s a friend of mine and somehow related to George Washington. I can be rude, but only up to a point. ‘I didn’t know you knew Shelby,’ I said. ‘Su-u-re,’ he said. ‘Since kindergarten. Even back then he was a goofy kid.’”
“‘He was? What about you?’ I said.”
“My mistake. I should never have gotten started with him. Before I knew it, I was telling him all about my breakup with Dominique, and the next day, he sent flowers ‘because a beautiful girl shouldn’t be depressed about being dumped.’ Shelby called. ‘Dudley’s a great guy,’ he said.”
“‘Year?’ I said. ‘What’s so great about him?’
“‘His family owns half of Nantucket.’”
“Dudley was persistent. He sent gifts—stuffed bears and, one time, a Vermont cheese basket. He called three or four times a day. At first, he set my teeth on edge. But after a while, I got used to his bad sense of humor and almost looked forward to his calls. He listened with fascination to any spoiled, mundane detail of my day: you know, like how I was pissed because Yvonne had bought a new Chanel suit and I couldn’t afford one; how a taxi driver kicked me out of the cab for smoking: how I cut my ankle again shaving. He was setting a trap for me and I knew it—but I still thought that I, of all people, could get out of it.”
“And then came the weekend invitation, via Shelby, who called me and said, ‘Dudley wants us to go to his house in Nantucket with him.’”
“‘Not on your life,’ I said.”
“‘His house is beautiful. Antique. Main Street.’”
“‘Which one?’ I asked.”
“‘You think?’”
“‘I’m pretty sure. But every time I was there, I was fucked up. So I don’t really remember.’”
“‘If it’s one of the brick houses, I’ll think about it,’ I said.”
“Ten minutes later, Dudley himself called. ‘I already bought your plane tickets,’ he said. ‘And yeah, it’s one of the brick houses.’”

Dudley Dances
“I still have no explanation for what happened that weekend. Maybe it was the alcohol, the marijuana. Or maybe it was just the house itself. As a kid, my family had spent summers on Nantucket. I say that, but the reality is, we spent two weeks at a rooming house. I shared a room with my brothers, and my parents boiled lobsters for dinner on a hot plate.”
“I slept with Dudley that weekend. I didn’t want to. We were on the landing of the staircase, saying good night, when he sort of swooped down and started to kiss me. I didn’t refuse. We went to his bed, and as he lay on top of me, I remember at first feeling that I was being suffocated, which probabl wasn’t in my imagination since Dudley is six feet, two inches, and then feeling like I was sleeping with a little boy, since he couldn’t have weighed more than 160 pounds and he had no hair on his body whatsoever.”
“But for the first time in my life, the sex was great. I had a sort of epiphany: Maybe if I was with a guy because he was nice and adored me, I would be happy. But still I was afraid to look at Dudley when we woke up, afraid that I’d be repulsed.”
“Two weeks after we got back to the city, we attended an Upper East Side museum benefit. It was our first official event together as a couple. And, in what would become typical of our relationship, it was a series of mishaps. He was an hour late, then we couldn’t find a cab because it was 105 degrees. We had to walk, and Dudley—as usual—hadn’t eaten anything that day and nearly passed out, and someone had to get him glasses of ice water. Then he insisted on dancing, which basically consisted of flinging me into other couples. Then he smoked a cigar and threw up. Meanwhile, everyone kept telling me what a great guy he was.”
“Except my friends. Amalita said, ‘You can do better. This is ridiculous.’”
“I said, ‘But he’s great in bed.’”
“She said, ‘Please don’t make me puke.’”
“A month later, Dudley unofficially asked me to marry him, and I said yes. I had this feeling of shame about Dudley, but I kept thinking I would get over it. Plus, he kept me busy. We were always shopping. For apartments. Engagement rings. Antiques. Oriental rugs. Silver. Wine. And then there were weekend trips to Nantucket, and trips to Maine to visit my parents, but Dudley was perniciously late and always unorganized, so that we were always missing trains and ferries.”
“The turning point came the night we missed a ferry to Nantucket for the fourth time. We had to spend the night at a motel. I was starving and wanted Dudley to go out and get Chinese food, but instead he came back with a head of iceberg lettuce and a pitiful looking tomato. While I lay in bed, trying to block out the noise of a couple screwing in the next room, Dudley sat at a Formica table in his boxers, cutting away the rotten parts of the tomato with his silver Tiffany Swiss Army knife. He was only thirty, but he had the persnickety habits of a seventy-five years old.”
“The next morning, I started in. ‘Don’t you think you should work out? Gain a little weight?’”
“After that, everything about him began to drive me crazy. His silly, flashy clothing. The way he acted like everyone was his best friend. The three long blond hairs on his Adam’s apple. His smell.”
“Each day, I tried to get him to the gym. I would stand there and force him to do reps with five-pound barbells, which was all he could handle. He actually did gain ten pounds, but then he lost it all again. One night, we went to dinner at his parents’ apartment on Fifth Avenue. The cook was making lamb chops. Dudley insisted that he couldn’t eat meat, screamed at his parents for not being considerated about his eating habits, and made the cook run out to the store to buy brown rice and broccoli. The dinner was two hours late, and still Dudley only picked at his food. I was mortified. Afterward, his father said to me, ‘You come to dinner again anytime you like, but leave Dudley behind.’”
“I should have ended it right there, but Christmas was two weeks away. On Christmas Eve, Dudley officially asked me to marry him, with an eight-carat ring, in front of my whole family. There was always something a little bit nasty about him, and in typical Dudley fashion, he squished the ring into a Godiva chocolate and then handed me the box. ‘Here’s your Christmas present,’ he said. ‘Better start eating.’”
“‘I don’t want chocolates now,’ I said, giving him the sort of dirty look that usually shut him up.”
“‘I think you do,’ he said, somewhat menacingly, so I began eating. My family watched, in horror. I could have chipped a tooth, or worse, choked. Still, I said yes.”
“I don’t know if you’ve ever been engaged to the wrong person, but, once it happens, it’s like being on a freight train you can’t stop. There were the rounds of Park Avenue parties, little dinners at Mortimers and Bilboquet. Women I hardly knew had heard about the ring and begged to see it. ‘He’s such a great guy,’ everyone said.”
“‘Yes, he is,’ I’d reply. And inside, I felt like a shitheel.”
“and then the day came when I was supposed to move into our newly bought, perfectly furnished classic-six apartment on East 72nd Street. My boxes were packed, and the movers were downstairs when I called Dudley.”
“‘I can’t do this,’ I said.”
“‘Can’t do what?’ he asked.”
“I hung up.”
“He called back. He came over. He left. His friends called. I went out and went on a bender. Dudley’s Upper East Side friends sharpened their knives. They made stuff up: I was spotted at someone’s house at four in the morning wearing only cowboy boots. I’d given another guy a blow job at a club. I was trying to pawn the engagement ring. I was a gold digger. I’d taken Dudley for a ride.”
“There is no good way to end these things. I moved into a tiny studio apartment in a dirty walkup on York Avenue, which I could actually afford myself, and started working on my career. Things got worse for Dudley. The real estate market crashed, and he couldn’t sell the apartment. It was all my fault. Dudley left town. Moved to London. Also, my fault. Even though I kept hearing about what a great time he was having. Dating some duke’s homely daughter.”
“Everyone forgets that the three years after that were hell for me. Pure hell. Even though I had no money and had to eat hot dogs on the street and was suicidal half the time—I once actually called the suicide hot line, but then someone beeped in inviting me to a party—I vowed I’d never get into that situation again. Never take another penny from any man. It’s terrible to hurt someone like that.”
“But do you really think it was because of the way he looked?” Carrie asked.
“I’ve been thinking about that. And the one thing I forgot to mention is that every time I got into the car with him, I fell asleep. I literally couldn’t keep my eyes open. The truth is, he bored me.”
Maybe it was all the champagne, but Bunny laughed a little uncertainly. “Isn’t that just awful?” she said.