Privileged (15 page)
Oh-kaaaay
. “Sage knowing would be a problem,” I surmised.
Rose sighed. “You have no idea.”
I looked over at Thom, who was fiddling with his guitar case and looking so handsome. “Can I ask . . . why?”
“
Why?
” Rose echoed, as if I had to be incredibly dense not to get it. “Let me draw a picture for you: last year there was this guy named Richard who I really liked, but every time Sage saw him, she’d go, ‘Oh, hi,
Dick
,’ and hold up her pinkie finger. She told all our friends his nickname was the Big Inch. After a while I just couldn’t take any more.”
“That’s a bitchy thing to do,” I commented, noticing how Rose’s eyes were actually tearing up over the little-dick story.
“Then there was Scott, who I met at Bath and Tennis,” Rose continued. “Sage claimed he had BO and held her nose around him. Then everyone else did, too.” She sniffled.
When I was in high school, and even at Yale, how many angst-filled hours had I spent worrying that I would never, ever be in Lily’s league? One nod of approval from her, a smile, a “cute outfit, Megan” had meant the world to me.
So, God help me if I didn’t reach out and hug Rose. Seeing her cry, I thought she looked as sweet as any seventeen-year-old—well, any seventeen-year-old with a navel piercing, sitting at a bar—could. “You’re not Sage’s shadow, Rose. You don’t need her approval.”
Rose shook her head. “You know how you told us you were the cooler sister? I’m sure you were the smarter sister, too. It’s . . . different when you’re like me.”
I looked away at that one. My chest tightened. “Rose, just think about how well you’re doing with the studying. If you just try a
little
bit harder—”
“I don’t think I
can
study any harder. This is the hardest I’ve ever worked in my life.”
For one instant, I wished that I had the magic power to materialize the Yale library right here on the beach across from O’Malley’s so that Rose could absorb the reality of hundreds of college students pulling all-nighters during exam week.
“For tonight I’ll let it go,” I told her, glancing back at Thom. “You guys look like a good couple.”
“Speaking of good couples . . .” Rose smiled. There was a new, knowing look in her eyes. “I was talking to Will the other night.”
“Will Phillips?” I asked. As if I didn’t know. Yuh.
She nodded. “He wanted to know how you were doing.”
Hard to believe. I still felt hurt by his frozen-tundra treatment at the end of our “I’ll show you Palm Beach” walk on Worth Avenue.
“If he wants to know how I’m doing, he can call me.”
“Or we could call him.” Rose took out her Razr and put it to her ear. “Will?” she asked. “I’m with Megan down in Hollywood. I ran into her here . . . yeah, I know . . . Anyway, she says you could call her.” She listened for a moment and then smiled. “Fine. I’ll put her on.”
Before I could protest further, the Razr was in my hand and against my ear.
“Hey,” Will said.
“Hi.” And then silence. I had no idea what else to say.
“Rose was telling me what a great tutor you are,” Will continued. “She couldn’t stop talking about you.”
“Really?” I glanced over at her and smiled. “That’s really nice.”
“Yup,” Will went on. “I got a lot of
Megan this
and
Megan that.
”
I kept my voice low so Rose couldn’t hear. “She’s smarter than she gives herself credit for.”
“All her Megan talk got me thinking,” Will said as I re-adjusted the phone against my ear. “I’m sorry about cutting out the other day, but maybe I can make it up to you.”
I smiled. Evidently, Rose’s seal of approval had redeemed me. “What do you have in mind?” I asked him.
“If you’re interested, I’m taking a drive in a couple days. I was thinking maybe I could show you a side of Florida that most people on the island don’t know at all.”
“I’d love to,” I answered quickly and felt myself blush. Then I blushed some more, though he obviously couldn’t see me through the phone.
“Good,” Will said, and I could hear him smiling. “I’m glad you’re interested.”
Interested?
God help me, I was.
The key theme of the myth of Sisyphus is:
(a) Don’t fuck up in this life, or you’ll pay dearly in the next.
(b) Manual labor sucks!
(c) Do unto others as you want others to do unto you.
(d) Live each day as if it’s your last.
(e) The grass is always greener. . . . blah blah.
T
wo days later—two days before Christmas—I did three solid hours of work in the morning with the twins. We were prepping for the writing portion of the exam, and I was trying to get them to grasp the importance of using actual examples to illustrate a point. I extracted a promise that they’d each write two five-paragraph essays over the course of the afternoon; I’d review the papers when I came home. I gathered my papers into a pile and stood up.
“What?” Sage asked. “You’re leaving?”
“Taking the afternoon off,” I reported, and offered Rose a quick wink as I strolled back to the pink manse to change.
Next came the most important test question of the day: What would parallel-universe rich-girl me wear for a drive to the folksy side of the Sunshine State? When he called that morning, Will had mentioned a drive to the Everglades, so I was thinking casual and comfortable. Interestingly enough, designer clothes are, by and large, not very comfortable. They’re also, by and large, not very large, and God knows I wasn’t getting any thinner. I chose a pair of deconstructed Stella McCartney white stretch—thank you, God—cotton capris and a white tank top under an oversize navy linen shirt. I managed the low-maintenance version of my makeup and flatironed my frizz but tied it back in a simple ponytail.
When Will picked me up at the main mansion in his Beemer, I was pleased to see him dressed casually, too. Gone were the Palm Beach preppy blazer and the loafers without socks. He had on jeans and a navy T-shirt—no muss, no fuss, no designer labels.
As he got us off the island and pulled onto the state road that he said would cut across the peninsula, he asked for a progress report on the twins.
“They’re doing well,” I told him, which was mostly true. “Especially Rose.”
“Sage isn’t as tough as she acts,” he replied, and I wondered if there had ever been anything between them. “So what have you been doing with yourself when you’re not tutoring?”
Playing my role perfectly, I filled him in on the parties and the dinners and the club hopping.
“What about O’Malley’s down in Hollywood?” He glanced into the rearview mirror. “What were you doing there?” So. This was how it was going to happen. My cover would be blown on the middle of an interstate. I felt my palms sweating and wiped them on my white pants. They left dirty marks behind. “I was just . . .” I tried to imagine what on earth Heather the Perfect would have been doing at a place like O’Malley’s. “Truthfully,” I lied, “I got lost on my way home from shopping in Bal Harbour and was just getting directions.”
“Yeah, I figured that wasn’t really your kind of place.” I wasn’t positive, but I thought something in Will’s voice sounded almost disappointed.
“Not exactly,” I agreed, wondering what the problem was. Then I rattled off some names of places I’d been to with the twins or heard them talk about. Those were more my kinds of places, I told him. They were nothing of the sort, of course, but the more I pretended to be rich-girl Megan, the easier it was to get comfortable on my nondate with Will. If I wasn’t the real me, the real me had nothing to be nervous about.
It wasn’t until he yawned that I realized he wasn’t really paying attention.
“I take it the only social life you’re interested in is your own,” I said, trying to sound light. I was a little surprised to hear the edge in my voice.
“Sorry. I was thinking.” He took a right off the exit ramp and then a quick left onto a hardly two-lane road. “Check this out: Right now we’re heading into the Lake Okeechobee region. There’s a big lake filled with largemouth bass and not much else.”
We passed a wooden sign that said CLEWISTON: AMERICA’S SWEETEST TOWN, then slowed for a stoplight in front of Norm’s bait store. Norm was advertising a special on all spinner baits and crank baits, plus guide service that guaranteed CATCH A HAWG OR YOUR MONEY BACK!
Clewiston looked like the land that time forgot. No Ta-boo for lunch, just a place called the Okeechobee Diner. Actually, it said DI ER, since the N had fallen off and no one had bothered to replace it. I saw a little boy running on the sidewalk with bubbles floating out of a bubble wand, his thoroughly ordinary-looking parents walking behind him, hand in hand. The boy looked happy, just having fun. You never saw happy kids just having fun in Palm Beach. You either didn’t see them at all, or you saw them dressed up and trotted around like show dogs.
I let my face catch the warm Florida sun through the window. “I like it here,” I murmured, forgetting all about being some other Megan for a moment. I could feel my shoulders unhinging from my earlobes. Turns out pretending to be someone you’re not can take some energy.
“Me, too.”
When the light changed, Will gave the Beemer just enough gas to get rolling and pointed out a state trooper’s squad car neatly hidden behind a parked bread truck. “They look for people with Palm Beach County plates. I guess they think we can afford the ticket.”
“Well, you can.” I lowered the passenger window.
Will glanced at the open window. “You sure about that? There’s mosquitoes here the size of a small child.”
“Yeah, I’m sure.” It had been a long time since I’d breathed country air. Warm and humid as it was, it reminded me of hot July evenings in New Hampshire when Lily and I used to chase fireflies until Mom called us to bed. “Now,
this
is relaxing. No Palm Beach. No twins.” I turned to Will. “Maybe you can help me with something.”
“What’s that?”
“Sage. I don’t understand her. You’d think eighty-four million dollars would be a great motivator, but teaching her is a Sisyphean challenge.”
Will glanced at me, bemused. “Wasn’t Sisyphus the Roman guy with the rock?”
“Greek, actually. The gods punished him by making him push a boulder up a hill only to have it roll back down to the bottom again, over and over and over. Some scholars think the Greeks created the myth to make sense of the sun rising every day in the east only to set every night in the west.”
“You Yalies,” he teased. Safely past the police car, he sped up to thirty miles an hour.
“Northwestern is a good school. You must have spent some time studying.” I didn’t mind taking the opening he’d given me. We could talk about Sage another time. Or not.
He shrugged. “I was a legacy frat brat.”
I studied the perfection of his profile. “Are you still?”
“Hey, I
like
to party,” he insisted. “But I’ll give you that it’s not necessarily a life calling.” He gave me an enigmatic half-smile. “Did I tell you what we’re doing on this outing?”
“No, Mr. Phillips, I don’t reckon you did.” Will slowed behind a rusty red pickup truck towing a bass boat. “Care to
elaborate
?” I prompted.
That smile flashed again. “Her name is Hanan Ahmed. She’s an artist.”
“And you’re interested in her for your dad’s gallery . . .” I knew I was leading, but interviewing Will was proving a frustrating task.
“Not at all. She came to America from Yemen on a student visa to go to the Art Institute of Chicago. I saw her work at a student show there. When you see what she paints, you’ll understand why she applied for political refugee status. Her home country is a pretty conservative place. It was a big deal even for her to come to America to study.”
Wow, an entire paragraph, and an intriguing one at that.
“So if you’re not interested in her art for your dad’s gallery . . .” Come on, Will. Fill in the blank.
“At Northwestern, when I wasn’t partying”—he offered me a sidelong glance—“I majored in art history.” It didn’t answer my question, but there was no way he’d been an art history major at Northwestern without hitting the books, and now, apparently, he went to art shows, too. Interesting.
“So, Hanan, she lives in this sleepy place by choice?” I asked.
The bass truck turned off toward the big lake, and we finally cleared the sign beckoning us to return to Clewiston. Will sped up.
“She hates noise—it gets in the way of her work. She was in a bookstore in Chicago and came across a book of photographs of Okeechobee and the towns around it. She fell in love. That was, like, three years ago. Then her visa got approved, and here she is.”
“Are you two . . . involved?”
What?
I had to ask. Research. And BTW, I was impressed I’d held off that long.
“Megan, she’s gay.”
Oh.
Just beyond another bait-and-tackle shop, Will turned right on a gravel road canopied by lush foliage. After spooking a great blue heron resting in the overhanging branches, Will stopped the car in front of a ramshackle house badly in need of a fresh coat of paint. “We’re here.”
He honked the horn twice. Almost before the second beep had died away, a beautiful young woman came bounding around the side of the house. Her thick raven hair was tied back in a messy ponytail with what looked like a shoelace. She wore paint-spattered jeans, a white T-shirt smudged with crimson and ocher, and a huge smile.
“Hanan!” Will greeted her as we got out of the Beemer.
“Hello, both of you! You’re just in time to help me,” Hanan exclaimed in admirable English. She shook my hand heartily. “You must be Megan.”
Evidently, Will had told her he was bringing a friend.
“Nice to meet you.” I couldn’t help smiling at her; she had an infectious energy.
“Welcome to my little corner of the universe.” Hanan opened her arms wide. “Far, far away from that peculiar place called Palm Beach. Come.”
She ushered us around to the side of the house; I was surprised to see an immense vegetable garden in full bloom, protected by a chicken-wire fence. I recognized cucumbers, three different kinds of peppers, zucchini vines, and six or seven enormous tomato plants ripe with fruit. Wow. Would my parents ever covet this kind of growing season. In New Hampshire, there was usually snow on the ground by mid-November.
