Chapter Five

--May, 1999

Prince – “Darling Nikki”

I found myself sitting next to Dean in the way back of my Uncle’s Chevy Suburban, the only car capable of hauling the entire Vanowen brood. Kev was making good on his promise of “taking me around the club.” In front of us, the girls were fighting.

“Get off me, you lez-bo!” Kady bellowed.

“You’re touching me, gay wad!” Amanda punched her sister in the thigh, which just led to more screaming.

In the passenger seat, Aunt Lynn rubbed her temples. “If either of you give me a headache, there’ll be hell to pay!” The girls quieted down, if only for a minute.

Dean and I returned to our conversation. “Doesn’t it bother you?” I asked, my voice lowered. “These are secrets they’ve been keeping from us our entire lives...”

“I try not to think about what my parents were like growing up. It helps me sleep at night.” It was clear Dean wasn’t remotely interested. But I had been thinking about Mom’s story about Bill for the last few weeks. It was a little alarming that Uncle Bill and I had something in common, namely having to change rooms to make space for a younger sibling. I hoped that was where the similarities ended. Mom may have thought that losing his room to Lynn was the whole reason he ran away, but I was pretty certain that the reason Bill cried was because William was treating Matt like a son.

As we neared Hillcrest, I reviewed what I knew about the place. It was not as big as Canoe Brook or Morris County, but their coffers were just as full. Hillcrest benefited from the fact that it was located in Summit-proper, built right into the mountainside, a true playground for the rich. Unlike its competitors, they had a restrictive membership; admittance was granted only by invitation or sponsorship. Lynn explained the class system that existed at most country clubs. There were two types of people: the new money Armenians with their McMansion eyesores and the idle rich, who drew their wealth from family inheritance, not personal achievement. She said you could always tell the latter from the sense of entitlement they had and the way they always seemed to have time on their hands. And they weren’t “wealthy,” they were “comfortable.” But they never flaunted it. “Wasps don’t flaunt,” Lynn said. “New money flaunts.”

We arrived to find the entrance guarded, because they couldn’t let just anybody in. Lynn seemed to know the person, though. “Hi, Ben!” she smiled warmly. The security guard gave me a once over before waving us through the gate.

The first thing I noticed was the smell. It evoked, not money, but a certain carefree-ness that in and of itself ultimately led you back to thinking about money. The lawn was mown by the kind of mowers that hoovered up the grass after it cut it. I had experience with such mowers as the Vanowens had one. They were pains in the ass. You could only mow for about ninety seconds at a time before the bag was full and you had to empty it. By the time you restarted the mower, you were covered in sweat. But it was hard to argue with the results.

Kevin parked in their allotted spot near the pro-shop and all of us piled out. We followed the decorative stone walkways that led up towards the patio. The patio was strung with Christmas lights, but unlike my house these didn’t seem out of place for late spring. The sun-soaked deck overlooked an Olympic-sized lap pool and as we entered the pool area, there they were: Presbyterians.

I have met walking, talking caricatures before and at least they were honest about only caring about one thing. This new breed was more serpentine than that. But it was in everything they did; the clothes they wore and the smiles they tossed off, the ease with which they lived. They didn’t subvert clichés, they were busy making new ones. I watched them, biding their time until retirement: Florida for the wet heat, Arizona for the dry. They lived in New Jersey, but New England was their playground, the Mid-Atlantic their backyard. Forget Greenwich and New Canaan; Connecticut may have had the blue blood reputation, but there were just as many commuters in New Jersey.

Despite what Lynn thought, there were far more varieties of rich than what she imagined. There were the George Hamiltons, the liver-spotted “don’t give a fucks” who dropped brain in the locker rooms, standing up for their wives against imagined insults from young punks in shopping mall parking lots. There were family men in their early thirties who were probably seeing their kids for the first time all week. Most of them already had a wandering eye. The trophy wives that married them found car commercials erotic; the Christmas Lexus with the bow on it especially doing the trick. I heard peals of cynical laughter as over-the-hill housewives flirted out in the open with the bronzed, twenty-something whistle-spinners that worked as lifeguards, yelling at their kids not to run.

I noticed Lynn waving to some of these people from across the patio. They’d return the gesture with a surprised smile on their face. It all seemed so... fake. I decided to try it for myself. And it worked! Every person I waved to kept doing it back. So, I really leaned into it, smiling until my face hurt. “There he is!” I’d say. “Good to see you again!” Dean laughing only fueled my antics. “When am I gonna get you on my boat?!” I asked an old man.

Kevin caught me doing this and instead of being upset, clapped me on the back, saying, “There ya go, Taylor! That’s the spirit!”

But Lynn wasn’t having any of it. “No Kev, he’s making fun of these people.” I dropped my arms to my side. Well, that was fun while it lasted. She leaned in to chastise me. “Just be normal,” she said. “These people are my friends.”

I replied, “All of them?” but she was too far ahead of me by then. I couldn’t believe it. She was embarrassed of me?! And before I got to tell her how embarrassed I was of her! I got the subtext of what she was saying: the rich behaved, the poor did not.

Susan Schmidt had commandeered several pool chairs in anticipation of our arrival. She waved us over and I saw Lynn smile genuinely for the first time all day. These two were thick as thieves, practically joined at the hip. Before she sat though, she asked a porter to replace one of their chairs since it had a leaf on it. When her fresh chair arrived, she tucked in next to Susan and spent the next hour making cruel remarks about anyone who passed in an effort to get Susan to laugh. How Mr. Barsonne was unseasonably pale, how his wife’s newly capped teeth meant she was having an affair. Lynn gossiped to show she was better than someone, which put her in good company. Here gossiping was a contact sport. Susan howled at each bon motte. When she shared some of her own Lynn would slap her lightly on the arm saying “you’re terrible” which I knew she’d gotten from Nannie because no one’s said “you’re terrible” in years.

I looked at the food court menu and thanked Christ that the Vanowens were paying because I couldn’t even afford a side of fries. But at $14.75, who could?!

Susan’s son climbed out of the pool wearing a speedo. Apparently, he did this whenever he swam. I guess he thought it made him look European or something. The confidence pissed me off because his body wasn’t even that great. He talked Dean and me into heading over to the bocce ball courts where a few of their friends were.

I was nervous. I spent so much time with adults that I didn’t really know how to act around other youths. I’d always gotten off on the wrong foot with Dean’s friends. First, there was the Thompson Twins debacle where I went in for a cool guy handshake and everybody laughed. Then, there was the Hitler Youth joke I made to Avi, forgetting for a moment that he was, in fact, Jewish.

Dean’s two best friends were Schmidt and Hudson Vaughn. Hudson was without a doubt the most popular kid in all of New Jersey. I’ve been in other states and people still know who Hudson is, which was surprising because to me he looked a bit like Ron Howard. He had the same combover haircut as Uncle Bill and refused to be seen in anything other than a polo shirt and khakis. Whereas he was treated with a real reverence, Avi, on the other hand, was treated as the joke of the group, someone people laughed at and not with. He was sickly pale and acne-ridden, which couldn’t have helped his case much.

As we reached the courts, Hudson was about to pitch a bocce when he looked up and saw Avi. “Look at this little bitch!” He went to high five his friend.

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Schmidt accepted it, his face red. “Hey, huddy...”

Okay, I thought, that’s one way to treat a friend.

Dean introduced me around. When I got to Hudson, he pointed to my shirt. “What is that?” he asked.

I looked down at my off-brand polo. “What is what?”

Hudson laughed and pointed again at the little animal sewn onto the breast. “Is that a platypus?! Where’s the polo horse?”

I felt eyes on me. People were starting to stare. “These are actually rarer, so...”

I trailed off and the silence enveloped us. Thankfully, Dean continued on with the introductions. I felt stupid being intimidated by people who were a year younger than me. But these were mostly trust fund babies, all jawline and broad forehead. They were children of hedge fund managers, corporate raiders with seats on the New York stock exchange, men who worked in the Mayor’s office. And here they were giving each other dead arms and ball taps. When they weren’t swimming, they wore Brooks Brothers and Vinyard Vines, Nantucket reds with popped Lacoste collars. They attended feeder schools for the ivies: St. Paul’s, Groton, and Exeter. They talked about rowing crew and “some dyke at Wellesley.” I overheard snippets of conversation:

“Are they upper-upper class or lower-upper class?”

“I’m telling you they have a mansion AND grounds.”

“Are they south of the highway or North? I’d believe ten mil if you said it was south.”

One of the Thompson Twins came out of the blue to ask Dean where his “hot sister” was.

Dean appeared confused. “I don’t have any hot sisters, Chris.”

“You know, the one who’s hot and kind of a bitch...”

“Kady?”

“Ew, you think your sister’s hot?! Hey guys, this kid thinks his sister’s hot!”

Dean went as red as Schmidt had. “No! She’s fucking ugly!”

“What about the fat one? The one who’s gonna kill herself in high school?”

People were laughing, quietly shocked. So, Dean laughed with them. “Yeah, she’s totally gonna off herself...” he said, his eyes on the ground.

Seeing how little it took for Dean to sell his family out, I left the circle of young turks and drifted towards a sympathetic group of girls nearby. Normally, Dean gets shy around girls, but not me. They sat on a grassy hill just off the cement deck. There was tiny Stephanie Bisch who had this perfect, studious face with an adorable witch’s nose. She had slender piano playing hands and I imagined them briefly handling something else. As much as you wanted to hit on her you knew on some level that she probably wouldn’t date anyone until college and then it would most likely only be one of her professors.

Next to her was Lauren whose face was round like the moon, but who was whip smart and loved talking shit to the rest of the guys. Of all Dean’s friends, she and I seemed to get along the best. We were laughing together when Schmidt wandered over carrying a slushie from the patio bar. “Lauren, have you seen the top to my drink?”

Lauren got very serious, very quickly. “Don’t you fucking dare, Schmidt!”

Schmidt stifled a laugh. “I just hope I don’t spill this...”

Hudson, who had clearly precipitated this, stood several feet away giggling and waiting to see what would happen. Lauren got to her feet and started back-pedaling, but she was too slow. By the time, she turned to run, Schmidt had caught up with her, dumping his entire slushie over her head. Lauren wasted absolutely no time in beating the ever-loving shit out of Avi as everyone died laughing.

Behind the melee, I saw Uncle Kevin return from the pool bar, balancing an overflowing drink. Dean’s friends lit up. “Kev-bo,” as they called him, was a crowd favorite. As always, everybody got a nickname; which I was starting to realize was just Kevin’s way of never remembering anyone’s name. Eventually, he dragged everybody over to our corner with the pool chairs.

Lynn played the doting host, laughing amiably at the boneheaded things her son’s friends said. Hudson took a major swing by kissing her on the hand. “Mrs. Vanowen you get prettier and prettier every time I see you!” he said.

I groaned, but Lynn just brushed him off. “Oh, you old charmer!”

In my eyes, the club was a bust. I was counting the minutes until we could leave when I heard a voice ask, “Hey, where’d you guys go?” The sun was in my eyes, so I had to throw up a hand to block it to see who had spoken. She had lightly sunburned skin with white blonde hair and freckles along the bridge of her nose. Her wholesome, mid-western face, like a farmer’s daughter, had a smile so earnest, so gullible, that you wanted to corrupt her. She had jogged over from the bocce ball courts after returning from the bathroom and finding her friends gone. Her feet, still wet from the pool, left little prints on the concrete. I followed them up her legs to her bathing suit, unconsciously playing the first thirty seconds of “Good Vibrations” in my head. Growing up a tomboy, she was just realizing her power over men. She grinned at us from under her bangs. “I went over to the courts and you were gone.”

I learned later her name was Layla Tonche, the wild child daughter of the richest man at the club. Now I’m a man of science, a man of reason, but in the moment, all I could think of was blood-pumping carnality. My thoughts were a letter to Penthouse. I blush to even think it...

We were suddenly alone on the deck, not a soul around. Layla had her hands on her hips. When she saw me, she yelped angrily, “hey!” before marching over and shoving me roughly to my knees. Before I could protest, she pulled her soggy bathing suit bottoms down until they were nestled under her cheeks. Grabbing me by the back of the neck, she pulled my mouth to her. I was happily smothered against plump skin that had never seen the light of day. She quietly and urgently fucked my face until she came, and when she did, her ass clenched viciously, rocked by a spastic shudder.

I forced the daydream to an end before my erection could become visible. Layla had moved on to introducing herself to the adults. She was well-mannered and bowled them over with how polite she was. As they fawned over Layla, I watched golden boy Hudson sidle up to her. “How we doin, Layla?” He was doing some kind of growly-voice. Layla rolled her eyes. She seemed as chaste as whole milk just then. But as she left, I spotted a tiny Playboy bunny holding her bathing suit together. I gulped. And I wasn’t the only person watching her. Dean couldn’t keep his eyes off of her.

When Mom came to pick me up several hours later, she sent Jesse up to tell me it was time to go. My sister burst into the pool area and, misjudging the volume of her voice, yelled, “Taylor, Mom says to get out of the pool!”

Dean’s friends cackled and echoed, “Taylor, get out of the pool!” as I turned a million shades of red and swam over to the water’s edge.

Hudson, though, wasn’t through laughing. “Hey, did anybody order Chinese food?” He was clearly talking about my sister and her resemblance to the Buddha. But where Dean was willing to throw Kady and Amanda under the bus, I was willing to do no such thing.

I whirled around on Hudson. “Hey! It’s only funny when I make fun of her.” He put his hands up as if to say, “who me?” I grabbed my towel and followed Jesse down to Mom’s car.

**

After the opulence of the club, my house and its myriad home improvement projects left me wanting. It was all grass is greener bullshit, but a thousand of these thoughts probably left you with something resembling a chip on the shoulder. I went straight to the bathroom, barricaded myself inside, and spent the next half hour tugging on myself. After I finished though, I felt worse than when I’d started.

Later, Jesse, Mom and I had dinner. Or rather, I had dinner. They had rice cakes and talked about the brand-new diet they were starting. I wanted to point out the unfairness of a child going on a diet, but Jesse did seem to enjoy the quality time with Mom. I wish people would just let her eat what she wants. Maybe then she’d be happy. Janet must have noticed me staring at them though, because she asked, “how was the club?”

“It was fine,” I answered after a while. “We hung out with Dean’s friends.”

“Any winners?”

I shook my head. “They’re idiots.”

Janet sighed. “There you go with the negativity again. You were sure you were going to have a bad time, and guess what? You did. I’m sure you spent all of ten minutes with them...”

She was right of course. Part of me hated them. They’d never know what it was like to be poor. Always they had that safe and secure feeling in the back of their mind, that if anything went wrong, they had the money to solve it. But it wasn’t just money, it was everything you didn’t have; the knowledge that you could never have this. I was so far from having the life that I wanted, a life that I was both attracted and repulsed by. I wanted the far out, fantastic friends that Mom wrote about in her short stories.

I excused myself, said I was going to bed early. But when I put my plate down in the sink, Mom just couldn’t resist. “Are you just going to leave that dish there?” I let my head drop. I didn’t want to trigger the “wash one dish or many” debate. The last time we had it, Mom ended up screaming, “Goddamnit Taylor, I do everrrrrything!”

I decided to just wash the dish and leave it in the rack to dry. But when I turned to leave, Mom balked. “Would it kill you to pitch in? You can do more than one plate.” I begrudgingly dragged my feet back over to the sink and did the rest of the dishes. It took twenty-five minutes.

Drying my hands, I headed up to my room. But at the base of the stairs, Mom called out, “Taylor, wait...” I thought she was going to apologize, but when I looked at her all she said was, “It’s trash night.”

I dragged the weeks garbage - two overflowing trash bags - down to the curb. And to punish them for hurting my back, I kicked them a few times for good measure. I stomped back into the house and all the way up to my room. Throwing myself down onto the bed, I thought about how pointless my life was, how insignificant.

Just then, Mom called up the stairs, “Taylor, phone!” I picked up the Skittles receiver next to my bed and said, “hello?”

A small voice said, “Taylor, it’s Lauren.”

“Oh, hey...”

“From the pool today?”

I laughed. “Yeah, I remember.” I thought I heard heavy breathing coming through. “Mom, you can hang up.” Janet gasped and her end of the line went dead.

“What’s up?” I asked Lauren, when I was sure Mom wasn’t eavesdropping.

“Eh, nothing much just--” The small animals that lived in the wall were making a racket, drowning out Lauren’s next words. She cut off halfway through her sentence to ask, “what’s that noise?”

I leaned back against my pillow. “The walls are thin. We have a bird’s nest in the roof and I think some squirrels have taken it over.”

Lauren laughed. “Oh good, I was worried it would be something silly.”