Where the Grass Is Green and the Girls Are Pretty

by Lauren Weisberger

  Skye sat down at the kitchen table, a knotty, uneven farm table that Max loved.

  “What’s going on with you?” Max asked. “You’re here early.”

  Her aunt didn’t say anything at first, only twirled a piece of hair around her pointer finger. Max had learned, and not from her mother, that sometimes it was better to talk less, to wait.

  “I lost the funding from my major investor,” Skye said, staring at the table. “And without it I don’t know how we can open the residence. Or pay for what we already committed to. I had to email the families and tell them. It was a pretty rough night.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine.”

  “This single dad, Emilio, he’s a widower with three daughters. Two of them were going to come here in September. He’s devastated. The others are, too.”

  “So, what happened with the investor?” When Skye said nothing, Max said, “It’s because of my dad, isn’t it?”

  Skye looked down. “Not directly.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means, I don’t want you blaming your dad for this,” Skye said.

  “Even though you are.”

  “It’s complicated, honey. I understand Henry, my investor, not wanting to take what was supposed to be an enormous charitable contribution from his company and…I don’t know…sully it with potentially negative media associations. It’s the world we live in now. I just feel like I failed these families. Crushed their dreams, after building them up…it was one of the worst things I’ve ever had to do.”

  Max slapped her hand on the table. “You didn’t fail at anything! My father did. It’s because of him your investor bailed.”

  Skye shook her head. “I don’t understand any of it. Your father wouldn’t do something like this.”

  “Yeah, except he did. What is their obsession with the Ivy League? I mean, I’m asking seriously. I get that it’s, like, extremely prestigious. That the professors and campuses are the best in the world, and that you’re on some short-list path for success with a degree from one of them. But still! None of that can possibly explain why people lose their minds over getting into these schools….”

  Skye sipped her coffee. She smiled at Max. “You are wise beyond your years. Have I ever told you that?”

  “Only, like, every time we see each other.”

  Skye glanced toward the door. “Are you sure your mother is upstairs?”

  “Mom?” Max called out, louder than a regular speaking voice, but not loud enough to actually be heard if her mother was in fact holed up in her room, watching her replacement on ANN.

  No response.

  “You know part of the reason why your mother is so hung up on prestigious schools, yes? Regarding her own background?”

  “She went to a state school,” Max scoffed. “My god, the travesty!”

  “It’s not just—”

  “I mean, come on! Penn State is a great school! You can’t tell me that she—”

  “She didn’t start at Penn State,” Skye said quietly.

  Max set down her mug. “She didn’t?”

  “No. She spent her first year at a local community college near Lancaster. She didn’t get into Penn State when she applied, or anywhere else. Her grades were horrible.”

  “They were?” Max couldn’t believe it—her mother had never mentioned anything about bad grades or community college. “But she’s so smart! The entire country listens to what she has to say.”

  “She is smart! That hasn’t changed. And I’m sure she’d kill me for telling you this, but I guess that’s sort of what aunts are for, being the oral history of our siblings….Anyway, the truth is that she basically blew off high school. She partied too much, skipped classes, all that kind of stuff. She got rejected from everywhere she applied.”

  Max whistled. “I didn’t know that.”

  “When the reality of that set in, and all her friends left for college and she was at home with Grandma, well, I think it was a dark time for her. A lot of other people might not have recovered from that, just sort of figured that they weren’t meant for college. But not your mom. She immediately enrolled in community college and worked her ass off for a year—literally, she worked two jobs and went to school full-time. Then, when she was finally able to transfer to Penn State her sophomore year, she just kept on working. It took her a fifth year to graduate, but only because your grandmother refused to pay for her college after what a disaster she’d been, so she had to keep up her paying jobs, too.”

  “How could she have never told me any of this?”

  “If I had to guess, I’d probably say she was ashamed, even though she should have been so damn proud of herself for turning it around. But I’m sure she feels like she’s been making up for that mistake and working to prove herself ever since. She’s a fighter, your mom.”

  Max considered this. She’d often wondered why her mother worked as hard as she did, with the demanding schedule and workload, and she’d always chalked it up to her blind ambition. A win-at-all-costs attitude that, suddenly, didn’t seem quite so repellent as it had before.

  “But I’m the furthest thing from a partyer,” Max said. “I mean, I barely have friends. She couldn’t have been worried about me flunking out of school.”

  “I’m sure she wasn’t worried about that, honey. But I imagine there’s some part of her that sees all this opportunity in front of you—literally, the whole world, stretched out ahead of you, exactly as it should be—and it panics her to think that in some way it won’t be perfect. And of course, it won’t be perfect—no one’s life is! But—and I’m speaking from experience here—moms are irrational when it comes to their daughters whom they love more than anything else on earth.” Skye reached across the table and patted Max’s hand.

  “It does explain why she freaks the fuck out any time I even float the idea of not going to college. Or at least taking a gap year.”

  “Yes. Don’t forget, the entire time this was happening with her, I was on a full academic scholarship to Amherst. Which, I don’t need to tell you, Grandma never, ever shut up about. I knew it then, but I can see even more clearly now how that made everything even more difficult for your mom.”

  “Yeah, that would suck. At least I don’t have any über-brilliant older siblings to overshadow me.”

  Skye hugged herself. “It wasn’t easy. For either of us. I still think about the time when your mom won Homecoming Queen—she was the first junior to do it in the history of the school—and we all missed it because Grandma and even Pop both came to watch my orchestra rehearsal instead. Nothing special, just a rehearsal. But they made it pretty clear to all involved what they prioritized that night.”

  “That’s brutal,” Max said. “I didn’t know about that either.”

  “I’m only telling you all of this so maybe you can understand where your parents are coming from a bit more, you know?”

  “Yeah. I do. But that doesn’t solve your problem. What are you going to do now? It can’t just all be over.”

  Skye appeared to consider this. “There’s a conference every year in DC. I haven’t gone in ages—I never had time once we adopted Aurora—but it’s a great networking opportunity, especially for information on grants. Lots of connected people in the NGO and nonprofit world. It’s been an easy path for me to lean on your parents for their connections, but I should be taking responsibility myself for finding new people. The conference is coming up, so I think I’ll go this year.”

  They both heard footsteps on the stairs and then Peyton appeared in the kitchen, wearing sweats, wet hair half up. She stopped and looked at Skye. “Hi! I had no idea you were here.”

  “Just chatting with your lovely daughter,” Skye said, smiling at Max.

  “Max, sweetie,” her mom said, “Skye and I are going to catch up a little on the screened-in por
ch. Do you have something to do?”

  Max looked sideways at her mother, giving her a look of disbelief. “Mother. I am seventeen years old. I’m perfectly capable of amusing myself.”

  She watched as her mom gave Skye a look by raising her eyebrows and said, “See what I deal with?”

  “You’re being a bit smothering, P. I have to be honest.”

  Max high-fived her aunt. “Thank you. It’s nice that someone understands.”

  “And you,” Skye said, pointing at Max, “should not be so bitchy to the person who gave you life. Who apparently ruined her vagina in the process, as she never misses an opportunity to tell me.”

  “Okaaaaaaay,” Max said, holding up her hand. “I’m out.” She scrolled through her emails while Aunt Skye and her mother went to the screened-in porch. She counted to twenty and then crept quietly to the door, where she could clearly hear what they were saying.

  “Has she talked to Isaac yet?” her aunt asked.

  “Define ‘talked.’ ”

  “Peyton. He’s her father. They’re so close.”

  “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed that Max does whatever she wants, whenever she wants to, and I have very little input these days. But yes, we have talked about it. And I do think they’ve been in touch, although it’s strained.”

  Max’s phone vibrated, and she silenced it immediately, relieved that neither Skye nor her mom had heard it.

  Her mother continued. “Did I tell you that after she got the notification from Princeton, she made a comment about not going to college at all? I don’t think she was serious, but my god. What would we do if she’s serious?”

  I am serious, Max thought. And you don’t have to do a damn thing.

  “Max is a smart girl with excellent common sense. Maybe taking a little time to figure things out isn’t the worst thing in the world,” Skye said.

  “What, so she can mope around and work on her blog? No, thank you,” Peyton said.

  Rage surged up Max’s throat. All her mother’s supposedly unconditional love and support from that morning hadn’t meant a thing.

  “Between that, my ‘extended leave of absence,’ and the latest call with the lawyer, it’s been a banner week.”

  “What did the lawyer say?”

  “Nothing’s official yet, but she said the judge will probably give Isaac two to six weeks in jail, community service, and a large fine.”

  Skye whistled. “Two weeks for trying to game the system and wrecking your daughter’s life in the process?”

  Max had never before understood what people meant when they called silence “deafening” until that very moment. She was scared to shift, breathe, even blink. Even though she couldn’t see either her mother or her aunt, she could physically feel their tension.

  After what felt like hours, Skye very quietly said, “I’m sorry.”

  There was another silence. Max had the strange sensation that her mother wanted to say something else—maybe even was about to—when Skye’s phone rang.

  “It’s Gabe.” And then into the phone: “Hey. I thought your meeting wasn’t until nine.” More silence. “Got it, I’m leaving now.

  “Gabe’s first meeting got moved up, so I have to get home to Aurora,” Skye said. “Let’s finish this later? I hate to leave like this.”

  Max beelined to her bedroom just before she heard the front door open and then close. A moment later there was a knock at her door.

  “Max? Sweetheart? I’m going to head to town to do some grocery shopping. Need anything?”

  “All good!”

  “All right. Keep in touch with me, okay? Let me know if you go anywhere?”

  “Copy that,” Max said. She waited until the footsteps disappeared and then headed back to the kitchen. Her thumb hovered over her phone, coming so close to pressing the “Dad” button in her Favorites list, but Max didn’t do it. What would she say when he answered? I miss you desperately, but I also hate you intensely. Not forever, just at this moment in time. And also, can we go fishing soon, because that’s basically my favorite thing in the whole world? Or, I worry about you going to jail and Mom completely losing it? She’d sound like a psycho. Instead, she poured herself another coffee and debated taking a run to clear her head.

  What a strange freaking morning, Max thought, as she changed into one of her heavy-duty sports bras, a tank top, and a pair of sweat shorts. It wasn’t until she was nearly a mile from the house, settled into her running rhythm, that Max felt a strange pang of loneliness and realized: she wished she’d asked her mom to join her.

  18

  He Was Married

  “Keep walking,” Gabe urged.

  Skye and Aurora diligently followed, the ground crunching beneath their hiking boots. Although the fresh night air felt wonderful, Skye still felt like she couldn’t fully fill her lungs. Her mind was on a loop reel: residence, debt, uncertain future.

  “Are we there yet, Daddy?” Aurora asked. They tromped a dozen steps farther and emerged from the cover of the forest. A clearing of some sort stretched out before them, surrounded on all sides by trees and lit only by hundreds of stars.

  “Here,” Gabe declared. “We call this area the Sanctuary, because it’s the area of the park reserved just for the animals. What are some of the things we could see here tonight?”

  The three of them huddled together and gazed upward into the spectacular night sky.

  “Bats?” Aurora offered in her sweet, six-year-old squeak.

  “Yes, definitely bats. Although it may still be a bit early for them. What else?”

  “Snakes?” Skye could see that her daughter’s eyes were wide.

  “No, probably not snakes. But wait a minute.” Gabe fumbled around in his backpack and pulled out his phone. “Close your eyes for a minute.”

  Aurora immediately clamped her eyes closed. A deep, realistic-sounding whoo-whoo hoot filled the air.

  “That was my phone,” Gabe whispered. “But wait.”

  They stood in silent anticipation, the only sound the rustles from their windbreakers. A moment later, deep from the mysterious darkness off to the left, came the faintest whoo-whoo in response.

  “Daddy, an owl!” Aurora yelled in excitement.

  “That’s called a great horned owl. They are common around here, but they’re very hard to spot. They like to stay hidden. But sometimes when we call to them, they call back,” Gabe explained.

  Aurora whispered loudly, “Do it again, Daddy.”

  The electronic owl hoot from the Bluetooth speaker Gabe clipped on his backpack once again filled the air. And again, as though on cue, the real owl called back to it in a quieter, more reserved whoo!

  Skye breathed in the crisp night air and smiled as she watched Aurora race around the clearing in excitement, laughing.

  “Well?” Gabe asked, wrapping his arms around Skye and burying his face in her neck. “Are you happy?”

  Skye nodded. Camping a weekend in July had become a family tradition. After news of the funding, Skye hadn’t wanted to go, but she was glad now that Gabe insisted.

  “It’s perfect,” she said, kissing his cheek. “I needed this. Tonight reminds me of that first night, you know, with us? I remember walking over to your apartment, and there were so many stars in the sky. My god, it feels like a hundred years ago,” Skye said.

  “The first time we met? Or the second?” Gabe asked.

  Skye swatted him.

  Aurora had found a large puddle and was leaning over to examine it.

  “What? It’s a fair question!”

  Skye forced a laugh. It was crazy it still bothered her, all these years later, something as unimportant as how they’d met. Who really cared? Couples met all the time online, or drunk in a bar, or while they were in relationships with other people. It only mattered what you did after tha
t, what kind of partnership and life you built together, right? But sometimes Skye couldn’t shake the feeling that their marriage—despite being one of the best things in her life—had somehow had a cursed beginning.

  She’d spotted him for the first time in Religions of the World. He wore a flannel shirt over a Phish T-shirt. Reddish-blond hair pulled into a ponytail. Sneakers holding on for dear life. Not that Skye liked her guys preppy—far from it, that was Peyton’s domain—but she didn’t normally go for the patchouli-loving pot smokers, either. Yet from the moment she saw him, Gabe seemed different. He had an enormous, almost electric smile that he flashed unsparingly and the sort of easy, constant physical affection that made everyone around him, men and women, want to stay close—a very Australian trait, she soon learned. A backslap here, a hug there, a hand squeeze or a shoulder rub: Gabe was comfortable with physicality in a way so many American men were not.

  They’d ended up at Gabe’s off-campus apartment, the exact sort of male undergrad abomination one would expect, complete with wall-sized tapestries and lava lamps and a bong so tall it rivaled the height of the resident Bernese mountain dog, Larry. There were books on every surface and framed color photographs of various birds, mountains, and seascapes vying for attention with dramatic black-and-whites of stupas, prayer flags, and monks. Gabe gave Skye and their two other classmates a brief tour of his photographs, and then they all got down to the real business of the evening: getting high and discussing how to best incorporate Buddhism’s end-of-life traditions into their group presentation.

  She was stoned, yes, but she didn’t blame the weed for what happened that night. At some point the others left and Gabe and Skye were alone. When she leaned over and kissed him, he seemed momentarily surprised. Yet when he kissed her back, and their tongues touched for the first time, it felt inevitable. They made out in the living room for three minutes or three hours, she honestly couldn’t have said, and when he grabbed her hand and led her into his bedroom, Skye remembered feeling grateful. It was 2002 and back then no one breathed a word about consent, and surely what happened next would not have met present-day criteria. But twenty-two-year-old Skye knew exactly what was happening. They both did. She couldn’t remember a lot of the details from that night, but she knew it was one of the best of her life.