Social Lives (3 page)

She pressed a tissue to her lips, peeled it off, and checked her face one last time. She practiced a smile, went over in her head her carefully concocted responses to any comments she might have to endure.
Are you all right? How's Caitlin? How's Barlow handling it?
Rosalyn adjusted her face slightly. Pleased with the expression, she committed it to her memory, then rose from the table. She was ready when her husband entered the room, out of breath and dripping wet. His face was flushed with the thrill of childish antics and the cool evening air.

“We're leaving at seven thirty, darling,” Rosalyn said sweetly.

Barlow pulled off his swimsuit, dropped it on the antique oriental, then used his towel to dry his hair. Naked in the middle of their room, he answered his wife. “I thought it started at eight.”

Rosalyn stood before him, seemingly indifferent to the exposed genitalia that were jiggling about as he toweled off the mop on his head.

“We should get there early tonight.”

Barlow looked up, puzzled. “Early?”

“We should be the first ones there.”

“Aren't we always the
last
ones there?” The question was rhetorical. Still, Barlow couldn't imagine what the hell she was up to now.

“Yes, darling, you're right. We usually are. But tonight, we will be the first ones. And we're taking my car, if you don't mind.”

Suddenly aware of his wife's eyes upon him, Barlow stopped drying his hair and wrapped the towel around his waist. He studied her as she stood there before him, arms draped delicately beside her petite frame in a demure pose, bland outfit, flat shoes. Her hair was unusually casual, her face colorless. And where were the jewels he'd bought her? It was calculated, he knew. Everything his wife did was carefully planned to achieve some end result, though it was rarely apparent to him until the plan bore its fruit. He thought about this night. Nursery school benefit. They'd been to a dozen of them over the years. With the oldest boy away at prep school, it hardly seemed possible they still had to massage the preschool system. It was so very contrived. Parents got to meet one another—though this was a joke, since you had to know everyone to get into the damned place. And Rosalyn practically
owned this school. She chaired the board. She donated half the operating budget. She hired, she fired, and hers was the final stamp of approval, or rejection, for the wee little applicants dying for a spot at Wilshire's finest learning institution for the under-five crowd. This was her show, and if he was remembering correctly, this was usually her night to shock and awe.

Then it hit him.

“Holy shit.” He rubbed his face, now in a state of genuine disbelief.

“What?” Rosalyn asked coyly, though she'd enabled the battle that was coming and was fully prepared to wage it.

“Is this what I think it is?”

“What?” she asked, more fervently this time.

“Is this about Cait . . . ?”

Rosalyn waved him off as though she were surprised at the accusation. “Oh, don't even—”

“Don't even what? This is all about Cait, isn't it? The clothes and hair. Taking your car. Arriving early.”

“And what if it is?”

Barlow was stunned. How was it possible he kept overestimating his wife?

“I thought this was over. She had her day of suspension. She met with the counselor. For Christ's sake, how long is this going to be an issue?”

Rosalyn crossed her arms now, though her face remained calm. Barlow, who kept his head conveniently buried in the sand, would never understand the subtleties of their world. “This is our first night out after—”

“After what? You think anybody cares about this? She's a
teenager
. . . .”

“Uhh . . .” Rosalyn was on the verge of being disgusted by her husband's ignorance. She took a breath to retrieve her composure. Then she struck.

“Our lovely
teenager
was caught in a hallway with a boy's dick in her mouth. She's
our
daughter. Believe me, Barlow,
everyone
cares!”

Barlow stood before his wife as the vulgarity of her words encircled his head. This was her best move, the one he usually forgot in the face of her perfect breeding and skilled aloofness. Just when one was expecting a delicate pearl of wisdom, she could drop something like this, something so dreadful and ugly, yet delivered with a silky tone. It was downright eerie.

“You're right about one thing: She's our
daughter
. And I don't want this whole twisted, morally corrupt town to think we're ashamed of her.”

“That's not what I'm doing.”

Barlow's face was red with the heat of anger. “Of course it is, Rosalyn. You're showing contrition. Why don't you put on a red dress with a neckline to your navel, and we'll dance on the tables! I mean, fuck 'em if they think they're better than us just because our daughter was the one who got caught!”

Rosalyn let out a long sigh and unfolded her arms. “I'm not ashamed of our daughter. But if we don't do this my way, it won't be over. If you want it to be over, shave, shower, put on a blue blazer, and get in my car by seven thirty.” Her voice was calm, her face steady. She was right, and somewhere inside him, Barlow knew it. Whether or not he liked it was another matter altogether, and not one with which Rosalyn was overly concerned at the moment.

She walked past him, leaving him naked, standing on the wet carpet. When she was gone, her footsteps no longer heard against the wooden staircase, Barlow shook his head and accepted the defeat. He walked to the table in the corner, where he kept a decanter of scotch, and poured himself a large glass. As he let the alcohol settle his nerves, he peered out the window onto his estate. Good fortune had brought them significant wealth. They were the wealthiest family in Wilshire, the wealthiest town in the country. In the whole goddamn country. There was no way this was what life should look like after all that accomplishment. A wife he couldn't understand. Boredom. Loneliness. And now a daughter whose teen years were slipping away from them like a wet bar of soap.

Right out of their grasp, Caitlin was sliding—into
what
, Barlow could hardly fathom. What would posses a young woman who would never have to rely on a man for anything to perform sexual favors in a school hallway? What world was she living in? Their oldest had sailed through these years—sports, schoolwork, PlayStation. His world had been straightforward, and Barlow had believed this to be evidence of the invincibility his wealth provided.

He closed his eyes as he swallowed more scotch. With his gift to focus, he chased from his lids the image of her on her knees and instead played across them her broad smile, the one she used to get when playing with Mellie. He let his ears remember her infectious laugh, more like a child's silly giggle, and he thought now how he would sometimes think the sound was
coming from Mellie and not Caitlin at all. Those days were months gone, but he would not believe they were over. This was a problem. A glitch. And though he recognized the arrogance his conclusion implied, it came nonetheless. He had accumulated over a billion dollars in wealth by the age of forty-five. This problem had a solution, and he was hell-bent on finding it.

 

 

 

 

 

I
T WAS A FULL
closet. That was not the problem. Actually, it was
more
than a closet, at eight feet by fifteen. With plush cream carpeting, adjustable track lighting, and its own temperature control, it was an actual
room
by any reasonable measure outside of Wilshire, Connecticut. Standing at its epicenter, surrounded by an absurd amount of clothing and footwear, and now overwhelmed by her own indecision, Sara Livingston wondered where else a room such as this would be demeaned to closet status. Only in Wilshire, Connecticut, it seemed. And it
was
keeping to scale with the six-thousand-square-foot house, the same one that had turned out to be unlivable after all and was now under construction. That was a whole
other
story. Closet? Room? What did it matter? That this closet-room was occupying her thoughts to such a degree was, she knew, one last (and entirely futile) attempt to distract herself from the task at hand.

She should have had it down after four months, the wardrobe choices for a Wilshire mom. Neat slacks, button-down shirt for school pickup. Black stretch pants with a T-back sports shirt for exercise classes (if she ever found time for them). And for the present occasion, the nursery school benefit, that evasive sexy formal. The trick here was the “sexy” part. She had the body for it—long legs, moderate height, a cute light brown bob, and healthy C-cup
breasts (all hers)—but that did not help with the choices. Short skirt? Low neckline? Bare shoulders? Stiletto heels with lots of straps, shoes that cried out for attention, first to the ankle, and then, of course, to the leg? For once—
Christ, is it too much to ask?
—she wanted to fade into the backdrop, go unnoticed.

But for Sara, sexy formal was more complicated than it seemed. It was one thing to be sexy, and quite another to be slutty. To be slutty, or not, was currently the domain of a small clique of Wilshire women who had snatched it up as the latest fashion trend when they'd grown tired of seventies-retro. It was their trademark, a stake inside some invisible hierarchy that Sara did not fully understand. But it seemed to indicate that they had risen above the discretion of others in this town. If they wanted to wear thigh-high leather boots and thick black eyeliner to pick up their preschoolers, then by God, they were going to do just that.

This was her conclusion, after much analysis (and analyzing her new environment had risen to the point of obsession), that there was, in fact, an invisible hierarchy. It was not strictly based on wealth, though wealth was a prerequisite. Social connections seemed to be of equal importance, and getting them required a certain level of wealth. It was confounding to Sara, who had a degree in journalism from Columbia and, until moving to Connecticut, had thought herself a capable analyst of the world around her. Her pedigree aside, there was an art to rising through the ranks in Wilshire that still eluded her after months of astute and careful observation. She had stormed into this town with high expectations. This was a place of educated people, where even the stay-home moms were former professionals, well traveled, and in many cases, transplants from Manhattan like herself. They were just like her, and yet no matter what she did, she could not manage to be just like them. Every decision she'd made from day one had been wrong. First, it was the car she'd chosen. A red minivan. Minivans were, apparently, out. In were monstrous three-row SUVs: Lexus, Mercedes, Cadillac.

After the car, it was the choice of decorator, then the choice of everything the decorator had shown her. She'd gone with French country when old European was in, chunky white dishes when delicate china was back in favor. And the deer that roamed as freely as New York pigeons had devoured every flower she had planted. Now she had bare stems when everyone else managed to keep flowers.

She had adjusted her goals within the first month. Her new aim was modest. She had no need to be Rosalyn Barlow—Wilshire's reigning queen—or even to befriend her, for that matter. What she now wanted was
not
to be noticed. And at the moment, that meant choosing something on the sexy scale that wouldn't cross the line.

She loosened the sash of her silk robe as she walked to the built-in drawers containing her undergarments. She pulled open the drawer with the panties and thongs, and made the first decision of the night. Panties, no question. After fighting with her contractor over the price of crown molding, then driving two hours to pick out antique light fixtures for the new living room, and ending her day by spending more than sixty dollars on gas, she just didn't have it in her to tolerate a string up her ass.

The bra would be more difficult. Low-cut padded, low-cut push-up, strapless, crisscross, lace, cotton, nylon. Going braless was not an option, though she imagined one day after she'd mastered this universe and risen sufficiently among the ranks, it would be, and would go nicely with the fuck-me boots and black eyeliner.
Ugh!

She was hanging up the robe when she heard the voice through the open door.

“What time is this thi—?”

Nick Livingston was in midsentence when he noticed his wife, nearly naked under the bright lights.

“Oooh laalaa.”

Sara managed a smile as her husband entered the closet, his hands reaching out for her, and a look on his face that belonged to a teenage boy seeing his first pair of tits. He was almost in a full-on grope when she gently pushed him away.

“We don't have time, honey,” she said in a playful way, the way she might if she actually had an ounce of energy to be interested in his advances.