by Amanda Brown
Mr. and Mrs. Baxter weren’t buying sweatshirts or bumper stickers, and their haughty expressions revealed that they had as little in common with the sweatshirt buyers as with the linoleum floor beneath Mrs. Baxter’s bright yellow espadrilles.
Mrs. Baxter smiled at Edward and pushed him along, her eyes twinkling amid crow’s-feet and wrinkles that came from too much time on the tennis court without a visor. Elle realized with horror that Anne Baxter’s dress was a Lily Pulitzer almost exactly like the one Elle had purchased at Barneys after seeing it in the “What’s Hot” column in Allure. Squinting at the flamingo pink print, Elle made a mental note to start a Goodwill pile immediately.
“Edward,” his father began, “did I ever tell you about John Kaplan, a Harvard Law classmate of mine?” Tripp glanced down at his green-and-blue happy whale pants, a color eruption thankfully ending at his brown L.L. Bean shoes.
Ed’s mouth hung open and silent in what Elle saw as an indication that his thoughts were as dishwater-bland as his hair. But he didn’t have time to answer before his father regaled all but the deaf with the tale of the illustrious John Kaplan.
“He was brilliant! Or at least he used to be,” Mr. Baxter said after a pause, “before he left the East to teach at Stanford, if you can imagine,” he said between eruptions of laughter. “Well, anyway, you should have seen him at Harvard. We’d sit there in Professor Gluck’s class; boy, he could shake you up. And Kaplan…when he bothered to show up to class…would take absolutely no notes. Not a word! He just turned his back to the professor and stared at the wall. He never even bought his books, the rascal. But when he was called on, he’d give the correct answer along with such keen insight that even the professor was stunned. What a genius, that Kaplan!”
“Terrible what happened to him,” Anne said as she arranged her headband.
“Yes, terrible.” Ed’s father nodded sadly.
“What happened?” Ed asked, his voice tremulous.
“Terrible,” Elle said under her breath. And sadder still that with all of these casebooks, all of the reading she would have ahead of her, she would probably have to miss Conan O’Brien.
Elle pulled out Allure’s September issue and noisily turned the pages in an attempt to let Tripp Baxter know that he was interrupting important reading. Her annoyance went unnoticed, so there was no choice but to find out what tragic event had happened to John Kaplan.
“Well, one tragedy for you, Edward, is that he wrote your Criminal Law text,” his father said, laughing. Ed looked down over his overdeveloped chest at the enormous book with such tiny print that it should have come with a magnifying glass.
Elle glanced at Kaplan’s name on the red Criminal Law text that she was holding.
“He died at a very young age. Around fifty, I think,” Anne answered sadly, shooting a nasty look in her husband’s direction.
“If he never studied, how could he teach?” Edward said.
“Well, he found a way, I tell you,” Daniel Baxter III answered with a resounding boom.
Elle stepped out of line, deciding the moral of Kaplan’s story was that if he never even bought his books and still managed to become a professor, there was no need for her to worry about missing her regular manicure time, which would fall during Criminal Law.
Chapter Seven
At nine o’clock the following morning, Elle was back at the law school for registration. “Elle!” Warner exclaimed with what was clearly surprise. Elle noticed that his yellow shirt matched his sun-bleached hair. He pulled a pale, frowning brunette standing beside him closer. “What are you doing here?” He looked with curiosity at Elle’s Laura Ashley pastel sundress and sensible string of pearls.
She hadn’t seen Warner approaching, and his simple question caught her off guard. “I’m registering. Like everybody else.” Elle had thought of a million lines to say to Warner alone, but the sight of him with another woman evaporated her confidence and repertoire of snappy Warner witticisms.
“Registering for what? This isn’t the textiles department, Elle.” Warner laughed.
“Really? I’m thrilled to hear that! Otherwise I would have been standing in the wrong line for hours to register for, like, fashion design when I came all the way here to enter law school,” Elle answered, smiling. She glanced at the preppie woman who was pulling Warner’s sleeve, anxious for his attention.
“This is…Sarah,” Warner said, turning toward his companion. Her mousy brown hair was bobbed and cemented in place by a navy blue headband with appliquéd daisies. Elle stared at Sarah through the pink tinted lenses of her Oliver Peoples sunglasses and managed a weak smile.
“We prepped together,” Warner said, in a pathetic attempt to break the tension. Elle remembered pictures of Sarah from Warner’s Groton yearbook. She had to admit, Warner had landed a prize preppie. Her grandfather was immortalized on a postage stamp. Grandmummy Huntington must already be selecting the paper stock for the wedding invitations.
Elle extended her hand toward Sarah. “I’m sure Warner’s told you about me.”
Sarah reached out tentatively and shook Elle’s hand limply as she surveyed Elle with contempt, deciding that Warner must have been blinded by Elle’s lustrous blonde hair. She was certainly nothing like the decent friends he’d had at Groton.
Warner had told Sarah about Elle, but he hadn’t needed to. Sarah would have found out at any number of events, such as Harriman Cup or Far Hills. Everyone they prepped with knew about Warner’s foolish college fling, the unsuitability of which was his grandmother’s favorite topic of conversation.
“Mark my words, that…that woman will never, never call herself a Huntington,” she would often tell her friends when they gathered at her beach club in Newport.
In theory, before she had seen her, Sarah had accepted Elle as within the tolerable bounds of Warner’s youthful randiness. A college fling. Now, gawking at what Sarah surmised to be a Barbie doll with a pulse, in her flower-print sundress, she realized she had underestimated the depths to which Warner had sunk since he left Groton. Wrenching her hand from Elle’s, Sarah adjusted her headband to display the massive diamond on her left hand.
“I’m Sarah Knottingham. Warner’s fiancée,” she stated pointedly in her best Groton drawl.
Elle couldn’t believe it. She stared openmouthed as Sarah, the Rock, and Warner spun around in her head while she tried to process what had just happened. She thought she might be having a nightmare and shut her eyes tightly, hoping that when she opened them, the whole scene would disappear. But it didn’t.
Elle went back to her dorm room, plopped on the bed, and patted it so Underdog would jump up. “Underdog, you’ve got to keep quiet,” Elle warned, clamping his tiny mouth to stifle a bark. “You’re not allowed, but I need a friend here.” She pulled her dog’s soft ears affectionately.
Elle sighed. Casting aside the dress she would never have worn a year ago, she slid into her more comfortable Delta Gamma Anchorsplash T-shirt to begin unpacking. She glared at the chipper dress where it lay on her bed and scowled at its floral explosion as if the dress were at fault.
“What am I doing here?” Elle sighed, sinking to the floor, her life scattered amid the boxes. A narrow twin bed, a desk, and a chair were the only furniture in her gloomy new room. A year ago, she had pictured her life after college so differently.
Elle had been sure that at this very time, her world would revolve around planning her wedding. She had thought that deciding whether she should have tulle or silk organza for the skirt of her wedding dress would be her biggest concern.
Instead, she found herself in a law school dorm. Elle trembled. “What have I done?” she moaned again as she dropped her head into her hands. She sobbed, remembering Sarah’s brunette bob and her pale hand brandishing the Rock of Gibraltar, the family jewel that should have been Elle’s.
“Well, I’m here now,” Elle decided, forcing her agony into resolve. “Warner, Sarah, and for that matter, my parents better not write me off j
ust yet.” She stood up to search for the telephone.
Chapter Eight
After finally locating her fuzzy pink Princess-style phone in a box labeled “Lifelines,” Elle sank into her bed and held Underdog tight. Looking for solace, she decided to call Margot and Serena. She knew they would be home, as they never missed an episode of their favorite soap, Passions. Margot was convinced every week that something was actually going to happen. The fact that nothing had changed in the story line since the show’s beginning didn’t bother her, eternal soap optimist that she was. Elle smiled as she thought of her friends.
Margot picked up right away. “It’s Elle,” she called out to Serena, putting the phone on speaker.
“Hi, you guys!” Elle was so happy to hear their friendly and familiar voices.
“Elle! How are you? We miss you already!” Serena said.
“I miss you guys too! You can’t imagine—” Elle began, but was cut off by Margot.
“How is the Neiman’s up there?” Margot asked. “Is it as good as the one down here?”
Elle started to say that she hadn’t had a chance to set foot inside a store, much less to make comparisons, when Serena burst in.
“Elle! How’s Warner? Was he surprised to see you? Did you get the Rock yet?” she asked in rapid succession.
Elle didn’t know where to begin, and it was just too demoralizing to repeat the horrible turn of events over a speakerphone. “Warner’s fine, but no Rock just yet,” Elle lied. “I’m getting ready for classes though and you wouldn’t believe how many books I have.” She sighed heavily.
“Oh, you poor thing!” the girls cooed together. “We are so glad to be out of school,” Margot added, speaking for both of them.
“Well, we’re dying to hear more, but we’re late for a meeting.”
“Meeting?” Elle was skeptical.
“Jesus is the Weigh!” the girls chimed together.
“It’s a new spiritual weight-loss program,” Serena said.
“You have to come with us next time you are in L.A. We’ve only been once and already we feel thinner and more at peace with the universe,” Margot said.
“Gotta go! Much love and send Warner a kiss!” they said in unison.
Elle hung up feeling worse than ever. Serena and Margot had found Jesus and Sarah had the Rock. She collapsed into a heap of pink silk pillows and cried until she had to get ready for her first law school event.
Elle tried to think of something positive as she walked across the Stanford campus on her way to the Dean’s Welcome. She noticed that a few political tables had been set up, and Elle approached one with interest. The table’s sign read “Burn Your Bra,” and though Elle was worried that the woman with the frizzy brown bandanna-tied hair clutching a clipboard was a movie extra for a sixties movie, she was still glad to see something she thought she recognized.
She smiled as she remembered the bra-burning party she’d given for Serena after her augmentation. An L.A. post-surgery tradition, all of the guests brought lingerie for the guest of honor in her new cup size.
As Elle neared the table, the table worker jumped up to yell at a couple of fraternity pledges who had dropped a few Playboy magazines on her table and then run away laughing. Elle noticed with distaste that the woman definitely hadn’t replaced the bra that she had burned.
“Bra burning is a political statement!” the gender warrior exploded.
Elle squinted, puzzled. “Are you talking to me?” she asked her.
“Liberate womyn from the dominance of male-imposed body image, force-fed by capitalists! Boycott the Wonderbra!”
Elle left quickly, deciding that her first overture to Stanford activists would be her last.
Students and parents filled the law school’s auditorium in giddy anticipation of the dean’s speech. Dean Haus was known around campus as “Great Haus,” a compliment to his warm personality and sense of humor, as well as his fabulous ten-bedroom, six bath residence, courtesy of Stanford.
Dean Haus himself looked the part of a next-door neighbor on a sitcom: fiftyish, tall, thin, and kindly looking, with faded blue eyes behind horn-rims that were perched on his long, thin nose. But Elle didn’t find the Dean’s Welcome was welcoming for long.
Dean Haus began by touting the achievements of the 180 students chosen from thousands of applicants for an exalted place in Stanford’s first-year class. Expressing his pride in the tremendous diversity of his students, Dean Haus treated the audience to a brief description of the law school’s new shining stars, pointing out a special few.
First a member of the Joffrey Ballet was recognized. Then two surgeons, one cardiac and one orthopedic, stood up to take their bows. Next, the dean introduced a Rhodes scholar, a Harvard English professor, a cellist from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and two Pulitzer Prize winners. A mechanical engineer who held twenty-six patents was booed by the four electrical engineers as he stood up. Elle was intrigued by this evidence of engineer snobbery, similar, she mused, to the way San Franciscans felt about Los Angeles. After the world record holder in pole vaulting stretched his spider arms in a victory cheer, the dean paused dramatically.
Elle’s gaze had searched out Warner somewhere between the introductions of the English professor and the patent collector. He was seated with Sarah two rows in front and to the left of her. She cringed when she saw they were wearing matching cardigans. Elle watched him to see if he would look in her direction, and she was so involved in trying to catch his eye that she was astounded by the dean’s next introduction.
“And now, ladies and gentleman, what class would be complete without a sorority president?” the dean smirked to a scattering of boos and laughter. Even Warner was among them. “Ms. Elle Woods”—he gestured for her to stand—“also has the distinction of being, among thousands of applicants, our only homecoming queen!”
Elle reddened as Dean Haus continued. “Appropriate to Silicon Valley, our own Pentium blonde!”
Elle had never heard of a shade called pentium but suspected it must be a horrible color from the outburst of laughs. Declining the opportunity to take a bow, she gathered her things and exited with hasty steps.
Chapter Nine
Elle’s first day was a disaster. When she arrived at Criminal Law, the first class on her preprinted schedule, Elle realized she had forgotten to bring her name card. Each seat had a special desktop slot that was designed for the display of these large cardboard cards, which enabled professors to humiliate you by name. Elle was alone in her anonymity: all her fellow students were impeccably labeled. Elle groaned as Sarah walked into the room and sat down behind a card that read “Knottingham, S.”
“At least it doesn’t say Huntington yet,” Elle mumbled to herself.
Sarah was chatting with Claire Caldwell-Boulaine, whose card was printed “Caldwell, C.” but had been crossed out and changed in angry Magic Marker to the appropriate hyphenated form. A white cotton cardigan hung neatly from the back of her chair.
“Like a talking Barbie,” Elle overheard Sarah whisper. Claire shushed her friend, tapping her pearl-studded ear and indicating Elle. She flipped open her monogrammed Bermuda Bag to scribble notes instead. She passed a note to Sarah on which the words HOMECOMING QUEEN! could easily be read by Elle.
“Wait and see!” promised Sarah.
The prematurely balding boy next to Elle, labeled “Garney, T.,” busily tapped away on his laptop computer. Elle wondered what he could possibly be taking notes about already as she looked around the PowerBook-filled room.
Her neighbor paused to check the time on his enormous twenty-four-function digital watch and glanced around the room. A perturbed scowl emerged on his face when he found that no professor had yet arrived. Unnerved, he compared his watch with the wall clock. Four HiLiters in a rainbow of neon hues were lined up next to his open casebook.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Elle’s pink legal pad and fuzzy pink pen topped with a feather. Shocked, he asked her, “Whe
re is your PowerBook?”
Ignoring Garney, T., Elle glanced again at her schedule, hoping it would show she was in the wrong room, in the way people irrationally look twice into an empty refrigerator on the chance that chocolate mousse has appeared. “Nope,” she said. “This is the right room.” Looks like I’ll be seeing a lot of Sarah, she thought as she watched Sarah pass the folded note back to Claire.
After four years of arranging her college schedule in a creative, now-and-then pattern, Elle had been crushed to learn three things about her law school classes: they were prescheduled, mandatory, and daily, five days a week. “Warner could walk in any minute,” she reminded herself, glad she had taken the time to dry her hair. She glanced back hopefully when the door swung open.
Her heart plunged when Sidney Ugman rushed through the entryway. Elle had known and avoided Sidney Ugman for years. He was her next-door neighbor in Bel Air and they had attended the same grade school. Sidney had circled her for years, returning like a bad dream, an evil Weeble who could not be knocked down.
Sidney’s father, Lee Ugman, was a major client of Eva’s gallery. He decorated every office of his sixty-lawyer law firm with paintings and sculptures Eva had sold him. Sidney long ago took advantage of this business relationship by being more intimate with Elle at dinners and gallery events than she ever, ever would have tolerated in public.
His parents often boasted at social events where Sidney and Elle were both present that Sidney and Elle had a “special relationship,” which is why Lee Ugman bought so loyally from Eva’s gallery. “Might as well keep it in the family,” he speculated. Of course, the idea of this “special relationship” was created by Sidney alone. Recognizing his friend the digital watch-wearer tap-tapping his keyboard next to Elle, Sidney took the other open seat in the row.
“What’s on your PowerBook?” Elle heard Sidney joke with the watch-wearer. They exchanged some sort of Trekkie handshake.
