Taken just before I left for Stanford summer school; the torn jeans were my new uniform of choice.
Photo courtesy of the author
Marrying Wray, in 1999 at Sherwood Country Club.
Photo courtesy of the author
“You realize you’re paying for that car, right?” Tiffany said to me when she came into my room and saw the brochure.
I just raised my eyebrows and shrugged. I’d realized by now that Mom was controlling every dime that came in. She collected everything my father, Tiffany, or I made and doled it out as if it were hers. I’d seen her write checks out of the account that was supposed to be my trust fund.
“Isn’t that account for college?” I’d asked when I saw my name at the top of the check. She paused initially, like she’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, but then explained that she was writing a check for my private school tution.
“It’s for your education. You don’t want to pay for Chaminade? That’s not your bill? That’s mine? How about your clothes? Your horses? Your head shots? Your hair appointments? All mine? I don’t have furs or big diamonds! I barely have clothes! You wear designer everything! What a spoiled monster you are!”
She’d attack with such vehemence anyone who dared to probe into how she was handling the money that each of us soon gave up. It was exhausting.
The irony was that, now that I was emancipated, anything I made was supposed to be my own. Those checks no longer had to go into a “trust.” But gaining control of my money never seemed like a real possibility to me.
Still, I began to worry that Mom saw herself as the family banker, and she didn’t seem like much of a long-term investor, or even fiscally responsible.
I tried to talk to Dad about it the next time we were alone.
“You certainly don’t have to have a BMW,” he said. “You could be sensible and buy yourself a gently used Honda. That’s what I would do. I think that car you’re buying is silly and a waste of money.”
The severity of his tone panicked me. Was there reason to worry? Was money running out? In my most adult voice I said, “I’d like to know how much money I have left.”
Dad put down the paper he’d been reading and said, “Look, college will be paid for, no matter what. Everything that comes in is spent on you and Tiffany. You should have quit riding horses earlier if you were worried about saving money. You should get a good used car. Don’t blame your mom for decisions you’re making. You wanted us to spend family money on clothes and horses and private schools and save your own earnings off to the side? Well, I guess that would nice. If you had spent less that could have happened. Everyone’s spending has gotten way out of control, and you don’t make the same bread you used to. I mean, that’s fine. You don’t need to work. Other kids aren’t out there earning money like you. You just need to understand the math.”
I got his logic. And I couldn’t disagree. I just would have liked to have been informed when we officially started spending what I had thought was my trust fund for later. Had I known the money I was making wasn’t just going into a pot somewhere, waiting until I turned eighteen, I might have made different decisions.
That assertion made me seem pretty selfish. I would have spent differently the last few years if I knew I was spending the money I was making? Now I felt guilty on top of everything else.
When the red BMW arrived from the factory, Mom brought it to school with a huge red bow on the roof and parked it in the faculty parking lot. I immediately got detention for leaving my car in the faculty lot, even though the principal, Brother Bill, knew I’d had nothing to do with it. He had to punish someone for the obnoxious behavior and he didn’t have jurisdiction over Mom. I’m not sure anyone did.
In a single move, Mom pissed off my teachers and alienated my friends, all to show off. Then she wanted a debt of gratitude from me for giving me such a great birthday gift. I spent the next few days doing damage control at school.
“I really got in a lot of trouble over the car,” I grumbled after dinner one night.
She laughed in disbelief. “You’re so ungrateful! I bought you a beautiful red BMW convertible for your birthday! Name one other parent you know who did that!”
It wasn’t worth pointing out that most parents wouldn’t handle all of our finances the way she was. She would just hit me and ground me, and never cede the point anyway.
We were in the kitchen. I was washing the dishes, having made chicken and rice for the two of us. Dad was still at his office, hiding from the rancor that had taken over the house lately. Mom was standing at the tile island in the middle of the room sorting bills and reading the junk mail.
“I know. It’s just that we aren’t allowed to park in the faculty lot.” That was hardly the issue and we both knew it.
She shrugged. “They are all just jealous because it’s such a nice car. You don’t have to have nice things if you don’t want to.”
“Even still, I’m not sure hitting them over the head with it is the way to go.”
“Great.” She sighed and threw the junk mail in the trash. “If that’s how you feel, I’ll drive the car tomorrow. You can ride to school with Cori.”
The only way I had of escaping my mom was to get out of the house. Once I had a car, I’d use any excuse to go out. There was always a price to pay once I got home—she would be suspicious of my whereabouts, or irritated by my increasing independence, or both—but evading her grasp for an afternoon or evening was worth it.
I joined the track team, which annoyed Mom to no end. I’d never been allowed to participate in a team sport because the practices would place time demands on my schedule. Mom always said there was nothing special about being part of a team. But by high school, I wanted to be part of a group, not always an individual. Track wasn’t exactly a team sport the way basketball was, but by this point, all of my classmates had laid claim to various sports and track was the only sports team I could join this late in life and do decently.
I loved having a uniform and going to meets. I could run relatively fast and placed well in the hurdles, and I somehow showed promise at the field events, like javelin and triple jump. Plus track was a positive way to shape up or lose weight without starving. But Mom hated that someone other than her was managing my time.
One day after a track meet I walked into the house with a medal I’d won. Even though we’d come in second, I was proud that the coach had let me run with the 440-yard relay team. My hands shook before the race, but I ran my heart out, and I still glowed with the feeling of winning a ribbon with three other girls at my side.
“Check it out. We got second in the relay. I ran the first leg,” I told Mom as I entered her room. She was lying on her bed, watching the local news. Her eyes were narrow. She didn’t turn to respond or look at me. I thought maybe she was just feeling down.
After a few moments of silence, I turned and started to walk out of the room.
“Where were you really?”
“At a track meet,” I said, wondering what this was going to be about.
“Against whom?” she said coldly.
“Beverly Hills High School. I told you that this morning.”
“I went to Beverly Hills High. You weren’t there. You’re lying.”
It took me a moment to realize she was serious. I had been at the meet for hours. I had no idea where she was going with this.
“I was at the meet. You can call Coach Ryan. I got third in the shot put,” I said, my feelings hurt.
“I went there. It was empty. There was no track meet. Beverly Hill High on Wilshire.”
“It’s on Moreno. It’s not on Wilshire. You went to the wrong place. I could have told you where it was if you wanted to come watch. We all took the bus, but it would have been great to see you there. I’m actually pretty good,” I said.
“I don’t believe you,” she said, holding her ground.
I couldn’t believe she was accusing me of lying about going to a track meet. I knew
she didn’t support my foray into high school athletics, but this charge really burned. Other parents proudly supported their kids’ athletic achievements. I wasn’t that good, but I was working really hard and getting a boost from sticking with the commitment I’d made to the track team.
“If you don’t believe me, let me dial Coach Ryan right now. Right now. Ask him. I won’t say a word. You ask him! Or come next time,” I insisted. I wasn’t lying and I wasn’t going to let this go, even if this time she threw me against the wall instead of the phone.
“It’s a waste of your time. You should take an acting class if you need something to do. What’s the point of being one in a sea of millions? Are you going to run track for a living when you grow up?”
I left and went into my room and threw myself on the bed. She was acting as if I were doing something dirty by joining a team. I guess I understood her suspicions. I was making it my job to get away with everything I could, pushing the envelope as far as I could without getting caught. But she didn’t really know what I was up to and she had no proof even if she was suspicious.
I’d crawled out my window a few times to meet Oscar. I had a fake ID so I could go out in Westwood to the hangout spots by UCLA. But she knew about that and didn’t care as long as I didn’t drink, which she’d never caught me doing.
I drank wine coolers with my friends at parties, but everyone did that, and it had never amounted to any trouble. I cut some classes, but I always had a well-forged note, and she’d never gotten a call from school. The bottom line was that I had straight A’s and every academic honor possible. I’d barely received a detention. My record was perfect and clean.
She just sensed that I usually wasn’t where I said I was, which was pretty accurate. My goal was to get beyond her reach, and we both knew it.
I called Tiffany to commiserate. This year she’d moved into a house off campus with a girlfriend, Molly, and a bunch of guys. I called the phone in their living room and it took them a few minutes to track her down.
“Hey, what’s up?” she said.
“Mom is driving me nuts.”
“That’s her specialty,” she chuckled.
I heard people yelling and laughing in the background.
“You need to just keep her happy. It’s the only way to survive. I’ve got my hands full here. Trying to get Thor to clean up the kitchen and not leave his dishes everywhere. Collecting rent. Dealing with the landlord who doesn’t like the renovations Chris made in his room. I’ve got to find time to go to class. You’ve got it good at home.”
Tiffany had been the one to find the house, so she had taken on the role of den mom. She was complaining but I could tell she relished being in charge.
“Can I come up for a weekend?”
“Of course. That would be fun. If Mom will let you.”
It took a lot of finesse—I had to find a way to suggest the idea without seeming overly interested in going, which would’ve made Mom suspicious—but Mom actually let me drive up alone to stay with Tiffany. In the end, she probably just wanted me to go and report back on what Tiffany was doing.
I drove five hours alone, stopping only once to go the bathroom and get a Diet Coke. I felt compelled to make good time, for no real reason. I had made the drive a number of times with Tiffany, or with Mom and Dad, but never alone. I wasn’t nervous really, just eager to do it efficiently and get to Tiffany’s house without incident, plus I enjoyed the solitude of the drive.
When I got to her place, I hoped I had the wrong address. The faded tan house looked like it might collapse into a heap of dust at any moment. The bushes in the front yard were gnarled and dusty, roots gripping the dry earth beneath them for dear life. A driveway ran from the street to the backyard, loaded with dilapidated cars. Tiffany’s red Jeep, now dinged up and road worn, sat at the front of the pack.
I walked over the threshold with my duffel bag full of clothes. A dirty, tattooed guy with piercings dotting his ears and nose stumbled down the stairs and looked at me warily before turning the corner into the kitchen. Another group of guys slumped together lazily on a cluster of mismatched, dusty recliners in the living room. I tried not to touch anything while I scanned the room, looking for any sign of my sister.
My pink cable-knit sweater glowed against the faded khaki backdrop of the room. I couldn’t tell what color the walls and floors had been originally, but now they just blended together into a universal shade of grunge.
“Hello!” Tiffany smiled, bounding down the stairs. “What do you think? Mom would hate it, I know. But it’s ours! And I’m in charge.”
She was bursting with pride, so I tried to look positive.
“Oh, you’re such a princess. You hate it, right?” Suddenly she looked crestfallen.
“No!” I said. “It’s really cute. Hey, I’d love to live anywhere but home. I’m completely jealous.”
“Molly is still at class. This is Dave, Chad, and Thor,” she said, gesturing to the lumps in the living room. “Did you guys say hello to my little baby sister?” She always got a kick out of calling me that since the top of her head barely cleared my shoulder.
“Come on up to my room and put your stuff down. I have the master bedroom.”
We walked up the creaky stairs and past a few doors to the room at the end of the hall. It was the same size as my room at home, with two old-fashioned double-paned windows that slid up and now hung open without screens.
The comforter that Mom bought her for the dorm stretched across the bed, stained and tattered from abuse. Dresses and a slew of collared shirts and sweaters hung in the open closet next to a row of pants and short skirts, while still more clothes lay in a heap on the worn carpet. A mountain of shoes and boots, most of which I recognized, covered the floor of the closet. Posters of various Seattle grunge rock bands covered the walls. Heaps of funky jewelry she’d probably bought on the street covered the top of the natural pine dresser.
“I’ve got a wine-making chemistry class in about thirty minutes. We could go on campus for that and then grab some dinner. There’s a great vegetarian place on Telegraph.”
I had forgotten she had become a vegetarian, while fully embracing the hippie-chic lifestyle that still had a grip on Berkeley. She’d even registered as a Democrat to stick it to our conservative parents. Still, I knew the act was just for show, because she snuck a cheeseburger the last time we drove through Jack in the Box in L.A.
We went to class, which was more chemistry than wine-making, and put me to sleep after the long drive, then we strolled back through the sprawling campus before settling into a table at the Grove.
“So what’s new at home? Dad still miserable? I have no idea why he doesn’t leave Mom. She treats him so badly,” Tiffany said, picking at her roasted vegetables. I had ordered a salad, but I could already tell I was going to need a pizza chaser.
“Yeah, I have no idea why he puts up with it. Inertia I guess. Maybe when I go to college he’ll bail,” I said.
The waitress stopped by the table and dropped off two fresh Diet Cokes.
“This is pretty cool,” I said, gesturing to the atmosphere around us. “I could see myself at Cal.”
“Oh, no. Mom and Dad expect you to go to Stanford. At least,” she said, dissecting an enormous eggplant on her plate.
“Like Cal isn’t a great school?” I said brightly, eager to undo the damage Mom had done denigrating Berkeley. In millions of other families, Tiffany wouldn’t be second-rate.
“You can’t choose a college just to spite Mom.”
We spent the next day walking around downtown Berkeley, shopping, talking, and laughing. This was the Tiffany I loved. Calm, happy, funny. Wearing jeans and pink Birkenstocks with a Clockwork Orange T-shirt, she picked out oversized earrings and handwoven sweaters for me to take home.
The girl who had graduated from high school and left our house had quietly vanished: stick skinny, blonde, beautifully made-up, but reined in and tugging at the bit. Her new messier, more relaxed
look matched her demeanor and it suited her. It seemed as if she could finally breathe.
We walked down Telegraph, moving in and out of shops, trying on things, chatting. I wanted to stay for a week and see what this relationship could be.
When we got back to her place a few hours later, I changed into tight Guess jeans and a black Lycra top. She told me she and Molly had planned a house party in my honor, though I got the sense from the keg on the counter they did this whether a special guest was in town or not.
By ten the place had filled with twenty-somethings in rumpled shirts and torn jeans. Talking to people and listening to their conversations, I quickly realized that most of the people at the party didn’t go to Berkeley, or any college for that matter. Neither did the guys who lived in the house. They were all locals, friends of friends, musicians, waiters, bartenders, bouncers. Tiffany’s off–campus house was an off-campus life. She had tried to fit into the sorority scene, but couldn’t wear the costume of a perky coed. She was too shy and insecure to make it in that Lord of the Flies culture. She found a spot to fit in, but it wasn’t terribly collegiate.
I wandered around the party, not having much in common with most of the people I bumped into, making it hard to keep a conversation going. They were deep into liberal politics, and as they talked about the evils of corporate America, I wondered if anyone had ever received a paycheck and seen the difference between their gross income and what was left after taxes.
Nursing a wine cooler, I went upstairs and found Tiffany and a handful of people sitting in a circle on the floor in one of the other bedrooms.
A guy with long brown hair tied back in a ponytail used a lighter to ignite a whitish ball that sat on a piece of tin foil on the ground. As he lit it, another guy in a black Metallica T-shirt leaned in and inhaled the vapor with a pipe.
A girl with blue hair and thick black eyeliner walked in next. “Oh, speedballs. Yes!” she said as she took a seat. I’d never seen anything like this before. I’d seen cocaine at parties, but I’d never tried it. Flaming balls of speed and coke were far beyond my comfort level.
Diary of a Stage Mother's Daughter Page 15
