Our Spy On The Upper East Side: Corporate Wife Vs. Corporate Girlfriend

I have Corporate Wife envy but don’t want to play one in real life. The tougher question is do I even want to be a Corporate Girlfriend?

There are times when it would be nice to have a private jet waiting at Teterboro, my own secretary to order the dog food, and then, of course, the use of that heady ‘charge it please’ mantra as I cruise through Valentino, fawned over by sales help working on commission. It must have turned Ellen Barkin’s head long enough to make her lose it temporarily to Ron Perelman who is known to be incredibly generous while he woos, but not so much when he pulls the plug. (A recent Corporate Girlfriend, perhaps soon to be wife, of Perelman’s went to Manolo Blahnik and without even a credit card Perelman bought her 23 pairs of shoes. Do the math: We’re talking about $15,000 worth of leather.)

Yes, that’s part of being a CW or wife of any major Wall Street wizard. But, then you have the boring stuff like making sure all the houses have monogrammed towels, dealing with endless amounts of staff each with their own immigration issues, making sure you’ve got first run movies for the media room, and, being Lady Bountiful gracious all the time. That’s my big problem: I don’t care enough about that stuff to keep my mouth shut.

I don’t want to be a kept woman in any sense except maybe having my taxes and Amex bills paid—and, ideally, I’d just like the cash fairy to drop into my online account and magically fill it up. I like to earn my own money and I like having the right to do what I want. When someone else pays the bills, someone else has the right to call the shots.