Into the Woods

  To celebrate Winston decided we should take the yacht to Key West for the weekend. Actually he and Mommy would find the flimsiest excuses to do something expensive, whether it was to fly up to New York to see a show and shop or to rush off to Bermuda for a few days.

  We did have a fun weekend in Key West. Winston, either at Mommy's request or after his own decision to cheer me up. spent more time with me and doted on me more than he did Mommy. He was eager to show me everything in Key West. Mommy went on another buying spree.

  "I can't wear everything you've bought me as it is," I complained.

  Of course you can, and that doesn't matter. What matters is you'll have choices to make. Clothes accommodate and enhance your moods," she explained.

  "Who told you that?"

  This designer we met in Monte Carlo. He's right. Some mornings you wake up feeling today is a turquoise day or a light green day, and if you have the outfit to wear you'll be happy you do.

  "And then there is the style as well."

  She could go on and on with these lectures if I let her. I thought. What I would do was agree and go do something else. Winston sat in the background or off to the side with that small smile on his lips. He and I began to exchange conspiratorial glances. Mommy didn't notice. I could just imagine how angry she would become if she had. but I couldn't help enjoying it.

  In fact, Winston and I grew closer and closer before the summer ended and I had to begin school. Some days we just sat and talked at the pool, discussing books. news. Sometimes he would tell me stories about his youth. Mommy was often off with one or two of her new acquaintances, going to lunch or to some lecture on art. She stopped trying to get me to go along, but she wasn't happy about that.

  "There are daughters of people I would like you to meet, girls with wham you can share things in common now. Grace, but to do that you have to come along with me occasionally."

  "I'll make new friends in school," I promised. For the present it was enough to get her to relent,

  "I hope so. At least you know the other girls and boys there come from good families."

  "Why, because they're rich?"

  "Yes," she said without hesitation. that and the fact that they have important names and reputations to protect. When you don't care about your family name you don't care what you do and who knows it."

  I shook my head. "Who is telling you these things?"

  No one has to tell me." she said, pulling herself up sharply. "It's obvious to anyone who looks and listens."

  I clamped my lips together and stopped arguing. It was far easier to nod and retreat. Soon she didn't notice that. either. It upset me, but at least we weren't arguing.

  Two days before school began Winston came to my room and knocked softly on the door. I was finishing up The Scarlet Letter, one of the required books for my American literature class.

  "Hi." he said. "I need your help with something if you have a minute."

  "What?" I sat up, surprised that he would need me for anything.

  "We've had a delivery, and it makes no sense to me. Maybe if you look it over von can figure it out."

  "A delivery of what?"

  "You'll see." he said cryptically. "Can you come?" he asked when I didn't move.

  "Sure," I said, and slipped on my sandals. I followed him down the corridor and the stairs, "Where is this mysterious thing?"

  "It's just outside." he said.

  We headed for the front door. I caught sight of one of the maids watching us with a silly smile on her face. It piqued my curiosity. Winston opened the front door and stepped aside. I went out and looked down at a red BMW convertible. There was nothing else out there.

  "What?" I asked him.

  "That car," he said. "It was brought here and left here." "Don't you know whose it is?"

  "It makes no sense to me." he said. "This envelope came with it."

  He handed me a small manilla envelope. My name was on the front. I took it slowly and looked at him.

  "What is this?"

  "I didn't open it." he said. "It's addressed to you. so I thought I'd get you and you could tell me."

  I pulled back with a grin of confusion and opened the envelope. Two sets of keys were in it and a copy of a car's registration. I looked at the document. My name was listed as the owner.

  I looked at the car and then at Winston. I suppose I had the funniest expression of shock on my face. He finally smiled, and then, coming out from where she was hiding below behind a bush. Mommy cried. "Surprise!"

  "This car is mine?"

  "You've got to get back and forth to school. and I thought it was too expensive to hire another limousine and chauffeur. And now you have your driver's license anyway," Winston said. laughing.

  'This is less expensive?"

  "Absolutely. Why don't you try it out?" he said. "I'll came along and help you learn all about the car."

  I was speechless for a moment. Mommy stood smiling up at me.

  "Enjoy it. Grace." Winston said softly.

  I couldn't help it. Even though I had a vague fear of being bribed into this new life, my own car, a beautiful red convertible, was too overpowering. I threw my arms around him.

  He and Mommy laughed as they exchanged looks of pleasure, and for a small moment, only a small, slight moment, I wondered with whom Winston was being the conspirator, me or her?

  As soon as I sat behind the steering wheel of my beautiful new car it suddenly didn't matter who it was.

  14

  Welcome to Palm Beach

  .

  For me attending a private school was different

  from attending a public school in so many ways, but when I stripped away the polish and the shine, the expensive equipment, and the smaller classes, there were similarities that went to the heart of school life anywhere, public or private. Just as in any of the schools I had attended. there was the in crowd and those longing to become part of it. Almost all of the senior high students at EJW had known one another for years and socialized with one another. They were a very tight bunch, but what struck me as really different about the girls I met at the Edith Johnson Wood School was how like their mothers they were. To call them clones was not an exaggeration. Their conversations were centered around designer clothing they had bought or were going to buy, cosmetic surgery on their noses, and collagen injections in their lips. There was even a junior girl who had already had a breast enhancement. And then there was the endless talk about the world-class resorts they had been to during the summer months, some of them comparing itineraries to show they had been in more places. They reminded me of those motorhomes with stickers from every place visited splattered all over their rear ends.

  I was sure the old adage "An apple doesn't fall far from its tree" was true for the boys and their fathers as well. They spent most of their free time comparing their luxury automobiles. Their expensive clothes, and their very expensive toys, like jet skis, speed boats, motorcycles, and sound systems. One boy I met even talked about the single-engine plane his father had bought for him. It was truly a game of "I can top that," and it was very important to get it all out in the conversation as quickly as possible that first week back, especially in front of me. Both the boys and the girls did it. I think, to let me know just how low I was on the totem pole, even though I was living at Joya del Mar.

  I was surprised by how much they all knew about me even before I set foot in the building. From the icy welcome most of them gave me I could tell immediately that they had been told Mommy and I had married into money, and we didn't come from any of the so-called core Palm Beach families, Often I felt they believed I carried contamination just because I wasn't brought up in their privileged world. Crossing that Flagler Bridge was slumming to some of them.

  "You sound like you're the one who's being a snob. Grace." Mommy told me when I described my first day and the girls and boys to whom I had been introduced,

  Marjorie Meriweather, a girl in my class, had been assigned to serve as my
so-called big sister and show me around. She made me feel as if I was a pimple on her face. "This is Grace Montgomery," she mumbled quickly to anyone who cared to listen. "New student," she added, making it sound more like a warning than an introduction.

  "Why don't you give them a chance, get to know them before you condemn them?" Mommy continued.

  "Give them a chance? Get to know them? How do you do that when the girl you meet blinks a phony smile and then turns her back on you before you can finish a sentence?"

  "I'm sure you're exaggerating. It's just your own insecurity speaking, Grace. Once they get to know you, they'll all want to be your friends. As soon as you find two or three girls or even boys you like, invite them to Joya del Mar for lunch and swimming. Once you do that you'll see how quickly you'll make friends with so many of the others."

  "I don't want those kinds of friends. Mommy. I don't want to have to bribe anyone to be my friend."

  "It's not a bribe. It's what's expected. You'll see once you get accustomed to living here. It will all work itself out," she assured me.

  Get accustomed to living here? I'll never get accustomed to living here, I thought. but I gave up arguing about it. She simply didn't understand, or maybe she didn't want to understand. The one thing that helped me go forward was that I liked my teachers, every single one, and I could see after the first week that they liked me too, or appreciated me. As far as I could tell, none of the other students in my English class, for example, had read all of the summer's required reading. In fact, many hadn't read a single title. Most of the time I was the only one raising my hand when Mr. Stieglitz asked a question about one of the books. He had a very dry, witty sense of humor. too.

  "Are you sure you're in the right school?" he kept asking me that first week, "This is the Edith Johnson Wood School. The students here don't read or write. They just sigh, moan, and complain."

  Of course I laughed, but the others glared at me with pinched faces full of indignation and annoyance. Similar things happened in my other classes. So many students didn't do their homework or did it poorly. It was as if the sole purpose of school to many of them was social, a place to gather and gossip, plan parties, and court romances.

  "School, college, any sort of professional training or education isn't as important to these students as it might be elsewhere," a boy named Basil Furness told me one afternoon in the cafeteria, if I could call it a cafeteria. It looked more like a fancy buffet restaurant with a selection of food every day that rivaled the best dining places in the Palm Beaches. There were more people working there than at any school I had attended, too, despite the school's small size. The students didn't have to pick up after themselves. Two older women bused the tables. In fact, that was how I met Basil. I had started to clear off my tray when he stopped me.

  "You want to put these poor women out of work?" he asked, half facetiously.

  "Excuse me?" I said. Everyone else wasn't exactly breaking his or her neck to start a conversation with me. For a moment I thought he was speaking to someone else.

  "If you start a trend here you could put people whose job it is to look after us out of work. Leave the tray," he ordered. He actually looked angry.

  He was a very thin, light-brown-haired boy with a bad complexion he was trying to hide under an unfortunate and pathetic attempt at a beard. His facial hair was almost transparent, and the combination did more to draw attention to his skin problems than if he didn't have the beard at all.

  His eyes were a bit too beady, his nose too lean and long, and he had a lower lip that was so much thicker than the upper it looked swollen. It wasn't simply his unattractive physical qualities that separated him from the others. however. I quickly learned he was far too sarcastic and belligerent for them,

  "Oh." I said, and took my hands off my tray quickly. Just at that moment one of the girls in my math class. Enid Emery, stopped to ask me if I had done the homework.

  "Of course." I said.

  "Oh, good. Could I borrow it to copy it quickly? I didn't have a chance to do it last night."

  "No," I said.

  "What?"

  "I don't give my homework out to be copied."

  "Well, that's pretty selfish," she said, pulling her head back like a cobra about to strike, "It's not like it's so valuable, you know."

  "Then why worry about it?" I countered, and Basil laughed. She gave him a furious look and stormed off to complain about me. That was when Basil told me school wasn't important to these kids.

  "They know their parents will carpet their futures with gold." he muttered, and then sauntered off before I could agree or disagree.

  In the weeks that followed I was practically the only one he spoke to or who spoke to him. We didn't have long conversations, nor did he show any signs of interest in me. and I certainly did nothing to give the impression I was in any way romantically interested in him, which was why I was so shocked when one Friday afternoon Mommy asked me about him.

  "I understand you've made one friend at the school. Grace," she said. "A boy named Basil?"

  "What? Who told you that?"

  "I'm often at lunch with the mothers of three of the girls at your school. Faye Wilhelm, Barbara Johnson. and Marjorie Meriweather, Why did you become so friendly with that bay? They tell me he's been in and out of therapy and would be in some special institution if it wasn't for the donations to the school that his parents make."

  "I'm not so friendly with him. We just chat occasionally," I said. "And besides, what do all these women do, spy on their children and find out whom they speak with in school?"

  "Of course not. They are just concerned. When you have position and significant wealth you have to take a lot more interest in your children. There's nothing wrong with that."

  I stared at my mother for a moment. This wasn't her talking. Someone else had crawled into my mother's body. She could see my eyes narrow with anger. I saw how she braced herself.

  "Are you more interested in me and my welfare than you were before, now that we have money, too, Mommy?"

  "Of course not. That's not what I'm saying."

  "What are you saying, Mommy?"

  She looked at me and then shook her head. "Oh, let's stop this bickering over nonsense. If you don't make an effort to become friends with decent people I'll have to help you."

  "What? What do you mean. help me? How are you going to help me?"

  "We'll have a party and invite some of them and their parents. I've already discussed it with Winston. and I have convinced him it's a good idea.-

  "No you didn't. You forced him to agree it's a good idea. You'd better not do it." I warned.

  "Stop it. Grace. You're going to appreciate it and thank me later on.' she said, and left before I could protest any further.

  As soon as I could. I complained to Winston. He had just returned from a game of golf and was heading up to their suite when I called to him from my doorway.

  "Hey. What's up, my'dear?" he asked, pretending to be Cary Grant. "Someone forget to put out your deck lounge?"

  I didn't laugh. I wanted him to understand this was serious right from the start. His smile quickly faded.

  'Uh-oh," he moaned. I could see he knew what I was about to say.

  "Mommy is threatening to stage a get-to-knowme-or-else party," I said "She said you said it was all right."

  "I see." He stepped into my room and sat on the settee.

  "It's embarrassing. Winston. And besides, the one thing I don't want these girls to think is that I'm really dying to become their friend."

  He nodded.

  "I thought you agreed it wasn't the right thing to do."

  "I did."

  "So?"

  "Well," he said, wrapping his hands around his knee as he crossed his leg. "there are friends and there are friends. For example. Grace. I know a lot of people, and whenever I've had parties I've invited almost all of them. We've had parties here with nearly three hundred people.

  "But," he continued, "if
you asked me how many friends I have. people I would really call my friends, I would have a hard time coming up with more than a handful. It takes a great deal of time and a significant emotional investment in someone to make him or her your true friend. I understand how you've been moved about so much in your young life that it was difficult for you to develop any close

  relationships. I hope that's ended for you. Grace. Your mother makes sense when she points that out. Things weren't exactly the same for you as they were for me."

  "But a party!" I protested. "For people I really don't know?"

  "It's just another opportunity to get to know someone." he said with shrug. "It's better to see them in a different environment, under different

  circumstances. sometimes. Maybe there'll be no one you want for a real friend. Maybe there'll be one or two. Explore at least. Give yourself the opportunity, or," he said. smiling, "give your mother the

  opportunity to do it for you."

  I looked away, disappointed in his logic and how he had changed his mind just to please Mommy.

  "I promise." he said. "I won't permit this to be a weekly or even monthly thing. She's just so anxious to show you off."

  "She's never done this before." I said. "And like you said, I've been a stranger in lots of places."

  "I bet there'll be plenty of things you won't have done before, too," he countered with a smile. "For example," he said. rising. "I was thinking the other day that you don't know how to sail. What good is that sailboat of ours if you don't know how to use it? Starting this weekend I could begin to teach you, if you'd like."

  "Really? Yes," I said. "I would."

  "Good. Just let this other thing happen. It won't be half as terrible as you imagine, and besides, it's time we had some jovial activity around here. Okay?"

  "Okay," I reluctantly agreed. "Thank you. Winston," I said as he started out.

  He turned and gave me a kiss on the cheek. "It was only after I had met you, you know, that I considered proposing to your mother. I knew I was getting a ready-made perfect daughter."