Baby proof

I hang up and promptly schedule another visit with my lawyer, Nina Raden. Nina is striking, hard-edged, and abrasive, the kind of creature you envision when you hear Billy Joel's 'She's Always a Woman.' Her lips are pumped up with collagen, and she smiles a lot, which is in stark contrast to her obvious desire to make my divorce as contentious as possible. I can tell her bread and butter comes from playing cheerleader to wronged women all over Manhattan. I'd wager that she's said, 'Let's get the bastard' more times than she's said, 'Good morning.'

During our second session, I have to tell her three times that I do not want to hire a private investigator, and that I'm sure there isn't another woman in Ben's life. She clearly is unaccustomed to breakups in our peculiar genre.

'You can never be sure of that,' she tells me.

'I'm pretty darn sure,' I say. 'Unless, per chance, he has already selected a vessel to carry his baby.'

She gives me a long look that says, That's exactly what he has queued up. Then she licks her thumb and flips to a fresh page in her notebook. She tells me that, based on what I told her in our first meeting, our grounds for divorce will be 'constructive abandonment.' It is a term that makes me sad as much for its formal sound as for the actual meaning.

I nod as Nina becomes all hyped up about our assets, telling me I should go for the gold, ask for the moon. She gestures a lot, her thick, enamel bracelets sliding up and down her long, slender arm. I give her a blank stare, insisting that Ben and I don't have all that much to divide. 'We've only been married three years. And we rent, remember?' I say, grateful that Ben and I never took the plunge into New York real estate.

'Okay. Okay. But what about cars? Furnishings? Rugs? Art? Crystal? Stock? Time-shares?' she says, her palms facing up. Her Botoxed face strains to frown but can't quite get there.

I shrug. 'We have a '99 Honda Civic. It's a piece of junk.'

She gives me an exasperated look that says I can do better.

'I'll work on it,' I say.

'Good. Good,' she says, glancing at her watch. 'In my experience, you only regret asking for too little.'

'Uh-huh,' I say.

'So shoot me an e-mail with anything-anything at all that you can come up with. I'll attach a list of all assets in Schedule A to the Separation Agreement.'

I have never thought of our 'stuff' as assets. I never thought Ben and I would be dividing anything; I thought we'd always be about sharing everything. Still, I decide to take my homework assignment seriously. I call my soon- to-be ex-husband and tell him I need to be at the apartment for a few hours that evening. Ben says fine, he has to work late anyway.

That evening, I walk through our apartment, poking through cabinets and drawers as I drink a bottle of wine and take notes on a sheet of paper. The whole exercise feels surreal, almost as if I'm seeing certain items for the first time. As I inspect all of our joint belongings, I realize with a mix of relief and pride that I want almost nothing. I try, but I just can't get myself too worked up about furniture, linens, and silver. I do linger briefly on our only expensive piece of art-a gorgeous Geoffrey Johnson cityscape in warm sepia tones. I love it and can't imagine not being able to look at it again, but Ben and I bought it together for our second anniversary, so I don't want that daily reminder.

For some reason, I focus on our CDs, music we acquired together, stuff we listened to during every range of mood and occasion. 'Getting ready to go out' music. 'Throwing a party' music. 'Doing chores around the house' music. 'Having sex' music. 'Setting the mood for sex' music. 'After sex' music.

I know CDs aren't the sort of big-ticket items Nina has in mind-as we're only talking a few hundred bucks for our entire collection-but the thought of going out to replace the music we enjoyed together feels too painful to bear. Besides, I know how much our CDs mean to Ben, and part of me wants to spite him. I have no desire to punish him financially, but I want him to suffer emotionally. I want him to feel a ravenous void, and taking a crystal carafe isn't going to get the job done.

So I pour another glass of wine as I jot down some of our favorite artists-James McMurtry, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Velvet Underground, Laura Cantrell, Van Morrison, Cowboy Junkies, Wilco, Tracy Chapman, and Dire Straits. Then, to reinforce my point, I take a black Sharpie and pen my initials on the CD covers. About halfway through the exercise, I catch myself using my married name-Davenport-and switch to my maiden initials, C.P. I tell myself that Parr-the name I've kept at work-sounds much better with Claudia. I've never been a fan of triple-syllable first names combined with triple-syllable last names. The wine starts to hit me around midnight, when I just give up, scribble through my list, and write 'All CDs' at the top of the page.

The next day I call Nina and tell her I only want my personal property, all of our CDs, and my maiden name back. She groans into the phone, and says, 'As your attorney, I feel it's my duty to tell you that I think you're making a mistake.'

'This isn't about money… It's about principle,' I say.

'That's precisely why I want you to include more,' Nina says. 'For the principle of things. He's the one checking out of this marriage.' Then she sighs and tells me to give it a little more thought, and in the meantime, she'll draft the Separation Agreement.

A few days later the papers arrive at my office. I read the pages carefully. They mostly consist of boilerplate language about such things as waivers of maintenance, tax returns, and debts and obligations of the parties. The only lines that really get me are in the beginning:

Whereas, as a result of certain disputes and irreconcilable differences between the parties, the parties have separated and are now living separate and apart, and they intend to live separate and apart from each other for the rest of their lives… Whereas, there are no children in the marriage and none are expected.

I think, You can say that again. Then I call Ben and ask him to meet me for one last dinner so that we can review the agreement together. I think it's what we both need for closure. Closure is one of those words I've always hated, overused by melodramatic women. But I don't think it's melodramatic to use the term when your marriage is dissolving. When you need to see your husband one more time to come to terms with the fact that he's no longer going to be your husband. Although maybe, maybe, I'm just giving him one last chance to change his mind.

'Where should we meet?' I ask him.

I know that he will tell me that he doesn't care where we meet, that it's up to me.

Sure enough, he sighs into the phone. 'You pick a spot, Claudia. It doesn't matter to me,' he says. As if he has earned the right to be weary.

I want to be passive-aggressive back, insist that he choose our final meeting place, but I decide that taking control is a pretty foolproof way to keep from losing control. I tell him I will think about it and get back to him. My voice is cold and detached.

'Okay. Just let me know,' he says, and I must face the fact that if we were having a 'try to sound as detached as possible' contest, he would have just beaten me by more than a hair.

For the next few hours, I look through virtually every entry in my Zagat, paging through the guide that once held the key to fun evenings out with Ben. There are one thousand nine hundred and thirty-one restaurant entries, and yet not a single venue seems to be an appropriate one to meet with your soon- to-be-ex-husband to discuss the division of your assets. I peruse the categories-late dining, people- watching, power scenes, romantic places, special occasions, singles scenes. None seems right. In a city like New York, how could the good people at Zagat include categories like bathrooms to visit and overlook the ever-important places to break up?

While I'm reviewing restaurants, Michael Brighton, a publicity manager, stops by to say hello. Michael and I graduated from college the same year, thirteen years ago, and both started working here the same day. He is one of my closest friends at work, and his matter-of-fact manner and wry wit make it easy to discuss my divorce. I can count on him not to give me too much sympathy.

'What's shakin', Claudia?' he asks, as he picks up my Magic 8 Ball from my bookshelf and shakes it. It is a gadget I've been avoiding lately, for obvious reasons.

'Not too much,' I say.