Confessions of a Corporate Slut

PROLOGUE

Over the course of my sixteen-year marriage, I’d entertained thousands, hosted hundreds of dinner parties, kissed countless asses, brokered untold deals and colluded with dozens of employees to assure the growth of my husband’s company. But the day my marriage ended only my ex-husband, our attorneys and I, bore witness to the death of this corporate wife. The settlement had been negotiated out of court and our final meeting was a mere formality required by law. My maiden name restored, my severance package finalized, I was moving to Florida to begin a new life at age fifty. I had paid a high price in terms of pride and self-esteem, and my recompense was less money per year than I would have earned had I not left my own career to better my husband’s.

I was sitting alone in my car in the garage under the Milwaukee County Courthouse, my head against the headrest, seemingly glued there. My arms, wrists bent backward as my fingers grazed the leather of the steering wheel, weighed a hundred pounds each. My legs felt like cement pilings driven deep into the ground. I was convinced the level of Lake Michigan had risen at least an inch from the volume of tears I had shed in the last fifteen months—tears of anger, frustration, sadness, madness, gladness, and humiliation with some triumph mixed in, too. Today my eyes were dry. My eyelids, suddenly heavy, involuntarily closed and images started rolling through my head like a bad 16 mm movie reel.

There I was serving dinner to ten company executives while convincing a desirable job candidate that he would be better appreciated and encouraged to grow at my husband's company. After dessert, he accepted the offer.

I was organizing a luncheon for potential customers and then planning a welcome party for the new employee and his wife. Secretly meeting with the executive vice-president, I was showing him a new approach to gain approval from the CEO-my husband-for a project that had previously been rejected.

I was shocked to hear my own laughter reverberate around the car, a repetitive echo bouncing from surface to surface like a ricocheted bullet. Could my life really have become such an appalling cliché? I had carefully crafted and culled my uniqueness from a very early age. Exactly when and how did "unique" sour like outdated milk and curdle into "cliché?" My laughter, changing key, took on a slightly maniacal pitch. What the fuck? How had I let this happen?