Hancock Park

by Isabel Kaplan

  “No, don’t worry, it’s totally a good thing.”

  Did she really think that it was a good thing?

  “Yeah, I mean, I’ve got a bunch of new friends here, and I’ve been hooking up with this really cute guy for the past few weeks. Oh, and I made the volleyball team!”

  “Congrats!” I told her, trying not to resent the fact that she knew boys—went to school with boys, even—and I didn’t.

  “Oh, and get this! Some of my new friends on the team invited me to go with them to this crazy Halloween party.” I had completely forgotten that Halloween was coming up. “Speaking of,” Amanda continued, “are you going to Pimps and Hos this year? You should. I bet your new friends could get you an invite.”

  Pimps and Hos was Whitbread’s most notorious party. Every year, one upper schooler hosted, and because of all the money flying around at my school, each year’s party was more elaborate and ridiculous than the past year’s. Or so I heard. The idea was that guys dressed like pimps of some sort, and girls dressed like hos. Because Halloween was, after all, basically just an occasion for girls who were usually decently covered up to dress, and act, like sluts.

  “Yeah, um, maybe I’ll go. Who knows?” What I meant was, “Who knows if I’ll even be invited?” I wasn’t so sure that I was officially friends with the Trinity. Not yet, at least.

  “Okay. You totally should, though. I’m dressing up as a Nava-ho for my Halloween party. It’s going to be so cool. No parental supervision, a full bar. It’s a real high school party!”

  I took a deep gulp in. My idea of an exciting night was renting a movie and watching it at home with Taylor. That was fun in its own way, but it wasn’t helping me grow socially or meet any boys. If I just sat around and waited, I might never get what I wanted. I figured maybe I had to make the effort.

  A real high school party. Maybe that was just what I needed to push me in the right direction.

  June Kauffman

  I wonder if there’s a rule that says all psychiatrist offices have to be either beige or full of ultramod glass. Maybe this “soothing” design scheme was created to provide a contrast to the vibrantly crazy people who frequent the offices. Maybe I’m one of them. But I don’t find the design scheme particularly soothing.

  June Kauffman came highly recommended by my mother’s psychiatrist. I wasn’t particularly nice to her the first time we met, but it’s not like I was so hot on shrinks right then.

  Before June Kauffman, and after Sara Elder, there had been Dr. Watson, who had pretty much betrayed me, as well as Dr. Rosenberg, who had asked me about which medications I was on. As a joke, I’d included Claritin in the mix, at which point he decided that Claritin was the root of all my problems and forbade me to take it. I didn’t believe a word he said, but just to be safe I stopped taking it for a few days, and the only thing that happened was that I sneezed a lot more.

  June Kauffman’s office was just down the street from Sara Elder’s, so I walked quickly into the building, with my head down. Her waiting room had several straight-backed wooden chairs that surrounded a beige plaid couch. The coffee table was oak-colored and worn down, topped with copies of Architectural Digest. Was this a theme, too—resoundingly unexciting choices in magazine subscriptions?

  Dr. Kauffman looked like a younger version of Grandma Elsie, which terrified me a little. Her hair was single-process blonde, and she was about two inches wide. Her face was softer, though, and her lips weren’t drawn in that hard line of Raspberry Passion lipstick. “Nice to meet you. I’m June, or Dr. Kauffman, whichever you’d prefer,” she said as she led me down the short hallway to her equally beige office. Then she asked how I was. I didn’t answer because it seemed like a ridiculous question. I sat down on the couch, right on top of the crack between the two sofa cushions. If I hid the cracks, maybe everything would just put itself back together again.

  June asked me again how I was.

  “Just great, really. My last shrink prescribed me enough Topamax to harm a horse, I tend to overcommit myself, my parents just separated, and yesterday, I put my house key in the car ignition by mistake. So I’d say I’m doing really well.” I crossed my arms.

  “Why do you think you feel the need to be so sarcastic? Could it be a way of protecting yourself?”

  Was I that transparent? “I’m not being sarcastic,” I said. “I’m just telling the truth.”

  “What medicines have you taken?”

  “What medicines haven’t I taken,” I replied, rolling my eyes over to the river landscape on the opposing wall. “Really. I can’t remember all of them.”

  “Tell me what you can remember. It’s important that I know.” She crossed her thin, stocking-clad legs and sat upright in the tall, dark blue armchair. That was the only piece of furniture in the room that wasn’t beige.

  I spoke to the floor. “Prozac, Zoloft, Effexor, Tenex, Clonidine, Topamax, Xanax, Valium, Wellbutrin, Ambien.” That was most of them.

  “Ambien? Who gave you sleeping pills?”

  “Sara Elder, when I was in sixth grade.”

  “That’s dangerous!” June Kauffman’s glasses dropped down on her nose a little. She sounded outraged.

  I shrugged and gripped my arms together tightly, wrapping them across my stomach. “I guess shrinks aren’t that trustworthy.”

  “Becky,” she said. “I’m not Sara Elder. And I’m sorry that you had such a bad experience, but I hope that you’ll trust me when I say that I would never do anything to hurt you.” I stared at the wall, making sure not to look June Kauffman in the eye. “The first thing I want to do, if it’s okay with you, is take your dosage down on some of these meds. How does that sound? Can we work with that?”

  It sounded pretty great.

  The Ladies

  I was online trying to find at least one Halloween costume that didn’t involve showing massive amounts of skin, when Mom called me into the kitchen and announced she was looking for a new apartment.

  “We just need more space!” she exclaimed, after opening a kitchen cabinet only to have a pile of high heels fall out of it and onto the counter. “Look at this!” She held up a red stiletto. “Not only is there nowhere to put my shoes, but I have absolutely no idea where the big serving bowls are, and the ladies are coming over in an hour!”

  The “ladies” were the members of the Hollywood Women’s Political Committee, and this would be the first meeting held at Beach Tower.

  “Being at the beach is great,” she told me, “but this is a little cramped.”

  An hour later, our living room was full of chattering women. And, to my surprise, Joey was there. When we had been little, Joey had often come to HWPC meetings with his mom, and while the women talked, we played in my room. But now that we were older and busier, he rarely showed up.

  “Hey, Becky!” he said, catching sight of me sitting on one of the kitchen barstools. He gave me a wave, so I hopped off the stool and headed over to say hello.

  “Becky, darling. I was just telling Joey how absolutely magnificent the new apartment is. Isn’t it great, sweetheart?” Pam nodded toward Joey and then flashed me a bright red smile.

  “Yeah,” I said to Pam as she turned around to talk with my mom. Then to Joey I said, “Um, it’s a surprise to see you!”

  “Well, Mom just got a manicure, and her nails were still wet, so I offered to drive her.” He smiled sheepishly.

  Was it just me, or was that excuse really lame? Was it possible that Joey came just to see me? I felt something flutter within me.

  “You look really good, Becky,” Joey added. I remembered that Joey hadn’t seen me since I changed my hair. Self-consciously, I tucked a strand of blonde hair behind my ear.

  “Thanks,” I said, genuinely meaning it.

  “Doesn’t she look fabulous?” Pam gushed, tuning back into the conversation.

  Trying to escape the awkward moment, Joey changed the subject. “Where’s your room?”

  “Down the hall,” I replied. Suddenly
, I was a little nervous. I led Joey down the hallway and into my room, where Jack was on my computer. “Hey! What are you doing with that? You have your own, you know.” I pushed Jack off of my desk chair.

  “Yeah, but I’m downloading something on my computer right now. You weren’t using yours, so…” He put his hands on his hips. “Hey, Joey. I have some pretty good movies if you want to watch.” Jack winked at Joey. “You wouldn’t be interested in them, Becky. Probably not your kind of entertainment, although you never know! After all, you had a pretty interesting web site up on your screen when I came in here.” He laughed, and Joey fidgeted his legs.

  I shot Jack a dirty look.

  “Um, no thanks. I think I’ll just hang out…” Joey began.

  “Up to you.” Jack shrugged. “But Becky, that definitely was quite a web site you were browsing!”

  “It’s none of your business! It’s my computer; I can do whatever I want on it.” Please, I thought, please don’t say it out loud. Please, not right now. I was pretty sure that I didn’t like Joey that way, but still. My life was already Embarrassment Central—I didn’t need it to get any worse.

  “What was on there?” Joey asked, shooting me a boyish grin.

  Ugh. Bad question, bad question.

  “Leg Avenue!” Jack shouted with glee. “Becky’s looking at slutty Halloween costumes! What are you going to do, trick or treat at the Orthodox houses in Hancock Park dressed as a kinky French maid?”

  “Um.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Plus, since when did my baby brother know what “kinky” meant?

  “Okay, I’m out. I have business to attend to.” Jack scooted out the door while I stood, staring at the dark computer screen, frozen.

  I sank down to a sitting position on the floor, and Joey followed suit. “Are you going to Pimps and Hos?” he asked me.

  “Maybe. I’m not sure yet,” I said, pulling at the loose strings in the woven, rainbow-striped rug I’d bought to break up the monotony of the room. I didn’t add that I didn’t know if I’d even be on the guest list.

  “I had no idea you were, you know, into that sort of thing.” Most of the boys at Pimps and Hos, and any other Whitbread party, came from Stratfield, so Joey knew all about it. There was no “list” for boys for Pimps and Hos—Whitbread parties naturally had a high girl-to-boy ratio, so the girls throwing the party tended to be less exclusive when it came to which boys were invited. Joey ran a hand through his hair. “I was thinking of going,” he added, “but I’m not that into the drinking scene.”

  I nodded. “It might be fun to do something different for a change.” The truth was, I’d never been drunk—well, not in a party situation, at least. But I didn’t need to expose myself as totally innocent.

  “Yeah, maybe. So, you think you’ll be on the list?”

  “Hopefully. I don’t know.” I stood up, feeling a little awkward. “I’m going to go get a soda. Do you want anything?” I asked.

  Joey stood up next to me. “I’ll come with you.”

  We walked down the hallway silently, and after waving and saying hellos to the HWPC women, we slipped into the kitchen, which was just an extension of the living room. There were only two walls in the kitchen, and the view of the Pacific Ocean was uninterrupted. I passed Joey a Sprite and took a Diet Coke for myself. I popped the top off my soda, and Joey said, “You know, I think the biggest problem I have with P & H is that it’s basically just an excuse for girls to dress up like sluts and guys to ogle them. It objectifies women.” He shook his head.

  I didn’t disagree with him.

  But was it bad that I sort of, kind of wanted to be one of those ogled girls? I could still maintain my self-respect while dressed like a slutty fairy-tale character, right?

  “What was that?” Laura Turner, Kim’s mom, called out to us, breaking away from the discussion of a married senator’s affair with a call girl and craning her neck to see us. I elbowed Joey in the side, and he looked at me, confused. “Did you say P & H? I wish Kim would tell me what that stands for.” Laura always wore pearls, and today was no exception. She turned back around to face the other ladies. “My daughter is throwing a Halloween party this year. It’s called P & H, she says. She insists that I rent out the Key Club for the party. It’s absolutely necessary, she tells me.”

  So it was Kim who was throwing this year’s party. Getting an invitation should be doable, then. But why hadn’t she mentioned it yet?

  “What do you kids think?” Laura asked, turning to face us again. “Should I do it? Should I rent out the club for her?”

  Joey elbowed me back.

  “Well, I mean, I don’t know. I hear it’s a fun party,” I said.

  “Yes, Kim tells me it’s some sort of school tradition.”

  “Yeah. I’d totally go, it’s just, I don’t know if I’m going to be on the list.” The second the words were out of my mouth, I wished I could take them back. It made me sound so pathetic.

  “The list? Is this one of those parties where only the supposedly cool kids get to go?” my mom asked. All other discussion in the living room had ceased. “Oh, I used to hate those kinds of parties. I never got invited.”

  Laura’s head shot to my mom, back to Joey and me, and then to my mom again. “That’s no good, is it? Am I aiding my daughter in all that popularity stuff? I shouldn’t rent a club for that, should I?”

  “I have an idea.” My mother smiled brightly, as if a spark had just gone off inside her head. “Why don’t you tell Kim that you’ll only rent out the club if she invites everyone. The whole grade.” Mom winked at me. “Plus Joey, of course.”

  Joey nudged me. “Guess you’re invited now,” he said.

  Yeah, I guess I was.

  The Younger Woman

  “So, I think my dad’s dating younger women.”

  June sat across from me, one leg crossed on top of the other, and asked if I had met any of my father’s dates. I said no. “So maybe he’s just exploring. If he were dating someone seriously, he’d have you meet her, would he not?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows? It’s not like I’ve ever been in this situation before.”

  “That’s true. But try to remember, he is your dad. And no matter how much you might feel the opposite, you do love him. You might not like him right now, but you love him.”

  I sat still, feeling numb and confused. June knew that I was interested in help, but she also knew that my parents were making me come to see her. I wanted to take it all back, everything that was happening, and go back a few years. I wanted a normal, shrink-free childhood.

  As if I’d conjured her into being by discussing the subject with June, it wasn’t long before Darcy came into our lives. I guess Dad realized that since he was stuck with us through the weekend, and we were stuck with him, if he were going to go out on a date, he’d either have to cough up the truth or come up with a pretty good excuse.

  Jack and I were in the sunroom, together but not actually talking. I was reading T. S. Eliot for English class, and Jack probably should have been doing homework, too, but instead he was reading PC Gamer magazine, his legs propped up on the crayon-scribbled coffee table. His skinny legs poked out of his sagging shorts, and he had a do-rag on his head, covered with the hood of his sweatshirt. It wasn’t even cold inside, but I guess that was what he thought completed his look. “Hey,” I said, and he turned his head toward me slightly, his eyes peering out from under the hood. I was almost going to tell him about JDate, but his face looked so small. Jack was still little, I realized. He didn’t need to be worrying or thinking about this crap.

  The doorbell rang, and because we weren’t expecting anyone, at least as far as I knew, I didn’t rush to answer. Jack never answered the door unless forced to, so he continued to sit, silent and reading. “Hello!” I heard my dad call out as he opened the door. There was a pause, and I wondered who it could be. “I want you to meet my kids.” My father’s voice was growing louder as he drew closer. A girl wearing skinny
jeans and gold ballet flats entered the room through the doorless archway; my father was right next to her with his hand on the small of her back. She was blonde and young, and her breasts were bigger than mine would ever be. More important, this girl looked like she could be my older sister—and not even by much. She was definitely closer in age to me than to him.

  Behind us, out the window, the sun was setting, melting into burnt oranges and pale yellow-golds. I tried to focus on the sunset instead of on the inappropriate couple that stood before me.

  I gave Jack a sharp look, wondering if he knew what this was. He didn’t meet my eyes, but instead continued staring at the magazine page.

  Dad introduced her as Darcy, saying that she was in the entertainment business and had gone to NYU. They sat on the couch opposite Jack and me, a respectable distance apart from each other, and I wished I could install some sort of magnetic field that would force them to remain three feet apart permanently.

  “So, Darcy, I bet you want to be an actress,” I said. Entertainment business, my ass. This girl just shouted aspiring actress.

  “Yeah, actually. I’m trying to break into the industry.”

  And she thought my dad could help her. She must not have realized that dad’s clients were mostly stars from decades ago, and that he rarely attended industry events. She probably assumed that he would bring her to parties and premieres and introduce her to the hotshots of Hollywood.

  “Dude, Dad, she looks like Maddie,” Jack commented, giving Darcy the once-over from behind his magazine.

  “Who’s Maddie?” Darcy asked, looking nervously from Dad to Jack. I fought the urge to giggle.

  “My girlfriend.” Jack smiled. Maddie was a seventh grader at Whitbread. Even my little brother had a better social life than I did.

  “Adorable,” Darcy said, flashing her teeth in a smile. Darcy winked at me and folded her hands in her lap. “How old are you, Becky?”