Isn't That Rich?: Life Among the 1 Percent by Richard Kirshenbaum, Michael Gross Read Free Book Online

sensational summer camp for adults that’s a cross between a chic boutique hotel on the Amalfi Coast and the Betty Ford Center. Most people came without spouses (children don’t watch themselves, you know), and it was a diverse group. I was struggling up an arid mountain peak when I began chatting with an attractive redhead from San Francisco. We exchanged pertinent information.
    “Are you married or divorced?” I asked her as we both sipped water from our CamelBaks in the blazing sun.
    “Neither,” she said. “I am married, but I am separated. We live on the same property but have two different living areas. It’s called nesting.”
    “Nesting?”
    “Yes, we have children together and are best friends but we aren’t divorced.”
    “So do you see other people?”
    “Yes, in between family vacations.”
    On a subsequent trip to the left coast, I had lunch with Hollywood Mogul at the Ivy in Santa Monica. He looked trim, wiry, and youthful as he bounded into the restaurant on two devices. (Everyone who is successful in LA looks like they are going to a Lakers game.)
    “Our marriage may be dead, but our assets are very much alive,” he said, spooning the espresso crema onto his tongue.
    “I had a mentor when I first got into the movie business”—he mentioned a legendary producer—“He’d been married at that point, five or six times, and he said the best business advice he could ever give me was never to get divorced. Every time he got divorced he moved into a smaller and smaller house until he ended up in an apartment on the wrong side of the tracks.”
    “The sex went out of the marriage years ago,” Hollywood Mogul went on without emotion, “but we’re still best friends.”
    “How did you work that deal?” I asked, marveling at his alluring tuna tartare.
    “She always enjoyed a much quieter life. Listen, I respect a woman who goes gray, but the net net is I don’t want to have sex with a grandmother,” he said, flashing high-wattage laminations at two young starlets sharing crab cakes at the next table.
    He flexed his ageless bicep, licked his lips, and brandished his Patek as if part of the LA mating ritual.
    “And where do you all live?”
    “She lives in [a bedroom community of LA] and I live in the house (a gated mansion on über exclusive Los Angeles drive). Our girls divide their time when they are in LA and it makes total sense. I have no desire for more children and they’re going to get it all anyway. This is the way the old money people do it. So much smarter. As far as I’m concerned, this part of my life is dedicated to fun, fun, fun.”
    “So you get together for the holidays?”
    “Of course. My favorite time. Darlene (not her real name) makes the meanest turkey. If we had gotten divorced, she would have kept the stuffing recipe. For that alone, it’s worth staying married. And this way I have the best excuse in the world when I’m dating.”
    “What’s that?”
    “I’m married so I never have to commit. Now, what’s all this talk of divorce? Are you OK?”
    “I always say I married my second wife first.” I laughed.
    “We’re not separated, we only live separately,” said Chic Euro Chick (a minor-titled noble from someplace we all like to go on vacation). She flicked her ash, sporting not one but two Buccellati cuffs, as we made our way into New York’s Monkey Bar. She double-kissed those in charge and we were seated promptly.
    “Do you live in different apartments?”
    “No darling, in different wings,” she confessed as she stashed her silver lighter in her chic Boxer bag. “In my opinion, that’s the only way. We have breakfast and dinner together with the twins in the common area,” she said. “And then we retire to our own wings. It’s divine. Very Edwardian. I have my books, my Kindle. I have peace and quiet.”
    “Did divorce ever come up?”
    “Divorce is so …” She struggled to find the English word. “So … bourgeois. People got divorced