by Diana Welch
Also, Mrs. Hayes thought I was a bad influence on Billy, her own crazy son. I got blamed for everything Billy did, like the time the whole house smelled like pot because he took apart some orange-spice tea bags and tried to smoke the leaves.
I was just sick of it, so I was up in my room, blaring “Add It Up,” which goes, “Why can’t I get just one fuck I guess it’s something to do with luck.” Mrs. Hayes had complained about the lyrics before—she hated swear words. So every time the word “fuck” came on, I turned the stereo way down, then turned it up again full blast. “Why can’t I get just one.” I kept doing it over and over, blasting it and turning it down, blasting it and turning it down. I was driving them nuts.
Finally, Mrs. Hayes screamed from the kitchen, “Dan! Your sister is on the phone! She wants to talk to you!” I picked up the phone and heard Mrs. Hayes going off on Amanda about me. I don’t remember what she said, because when people yell at me, I just tune out. But I can picture her face all red and spitting. When she was done freaking out, she hung up, leaving Amanda and me on the line together.
And Amanda said, “Oh my God.”
And I was like, “Yeah.”
We were both quiet, until she said, “Well, pack your bags. I’m coming to get you.”
AMANDA
MRS. HAYES WAS screaming, “I’m so sick of his shit! I can’t deal with it anymore! It’s ruining my family! He’s not my problem! He’s your problem!” Once she got all of her evil out, she was like, “Dan is no longer welcome in this house; he needs to be out. Tonight.” So I went and got him.
Driving there from Brooklyn, I couldn’t help but wish that Mom had let me be the guardian. If she had, then none of this would ever have happened. But I also knew there was no way a family judge would let Dan live with me now. I was about to turn twenty-one and was still partying hard that summer. I knew I needed to get an adult involved.
I called Karen, and she agreed to let him live with her immediately. She didn’t hesitate. But this time around, I made sure my name was on any legal paperwork, so that if anything went wrong, I’d be able to step right in. There was no way I was going to let Dan be left like this again. Meanwhile, I couldn’t get in touch with Liz in Norway. She was on some island taking care of those kids. I called the Stewarts to get her number, but they said she was unreachable for two weeks. So I wrote her a letter and forged ahead.
There was a lot to sort out. Like school. Karen lived in Manhattan, which meant Dan couldn’t go to Fox Lane anymore. I was so pissed off that the Hayeses had pulled Dan out of Trinity Pawling without consulting me. Mom had worked really hard to get him in there. He had a full scholarship, and the Hayeses totally screwed that up. I was like, “Okay, yeah, don’t follow the wishes of the woman who just died—just undo all that. That’s just great.” So now that I had some say, I decided to focus on getting him reaccepted.
Karen helped. We filled out all this paperwork and basically begged them to take him back. They were at maximum capacity, so they put him on a waiting list and it was pins and needles until late August. Karen started looking into public schools, but I didn’t want Dan going to school in Brooklyn or Manhattan. Mom wanted him to go to Trinity Pawling. Then we got the call: They had a space for him, but we lost the scholarship; the Hayeses had fucked that. It was okay in the end because Mom specifically designed the trust to cover tuition for each of her kids.
So it was true, what I had thought all along: The Welches were better-off on our own, together.
DAN
RALPH AND I wound up crashing on Amanda’s couch for a week or so before I moved into Karen’s. It was fun while it lasted. Amanda was the coolest chick: She could blow perfect smoke rings out of the bowl of a bong. And one time, she brought me to a party where there were bowls of cocaine put out like peanuts. At fifteen, I thought that was very impressive. But mostly, we just hung out in her apartment. Her friends would come over, and Amanda would be like, “Let’s paint Dan!” So I’d lie on the kitchen floor in my underwear, and she and all her friends would paint my body while Grace Jones played in the background.
AMANDA
I WENT TO Tramps practically every night to see David Johansen test out his new persona, Buster Poindexter. And I was still hanging out with these three gay boys, Jim, Donny, and Rafael, plus my first boyfriend, Dennis. For my twenty-first birthday that August, Dennis took me out to his dad’s place on Fire Island. When we got back, we had dinner with Karen and Dan. Liz sent me a long letter from Norway telling me about her adventures. She sounded like she was having fun. And Dan gave me a bunch of joke presents, like Silly Putty and a mini Slinky. The next day, Dennis, Dan, and all the boys came with me to see the Psychedelic Furs. Afterward, we went to Rafael’s place and had cake.
A few days later, Dan, Dennis, and I went to see Diana at the Chamberlains’. They had invited me for my birthday, and I wanted to make a good impression. It was the first time I had seen Diana since Liz’s graduation party three months earlier. I wore my best clothes, a paisley renaissance skirt with a black button-down shirt, new wave but conservative. Dennis wound up talking to Nancy and Ted while Diana gave me and Dan a tour of the property. It reminded me of our house growing up, with its pool and manicured lawns and gardens. I was happy that Diana was going to get that experience. But she seemed different, subdued—all buttoned up and belted down. Diana took us up to her room, but Nancy wouldn’t leave me alone with her for too long because she thought I was a drug addict and a bad influence. And God knows what else.
DIANA
WHEN AMANDA AND Dan came to visit that August, my strongest memory was of their leaving. I remember being with Dan on the lawn, away from the Chamberlains, who were clumped together on the slate patio, watching us while they talked to Amanda and her boyfriend, some guy I’d never met. As they talked, Dan and I both pulled at green blades of grass; I remember the sound of them ripping. Dan’s face was the most familiar thing I had seen in so long; I saw myself in his freckles and his eyes, which looked worried, sad, and scared, despite the close-lipped grin that covered his small, yellowish teeth. His teeth were like Dad’s. My two front teeth were big and rounded and white, brand-new and full-grown. Margaret, who still had mostly baby teeth, described them as having ruffles; the edges were scalloped, not yet ground down.
Amanda sat primly on the slate patio as the Chamberlains asked her questions like “How is school?” and “What kind of work do you do?” I’d never seen her act this way before. She wasn’t laughing or dancing or being mean. There was no music, no smoke. She was being so serious. Grownup. I wanted her to come over here on the grass with Dan and me. I looked back at my brother. I thought about grabbing his neck, pulling him down, and rolling around. We would laugh and have fun. But Mrs. Chamberlain had dressed me in white pants and a white shirt with a blue Indian print on it. It made her mad when I got things dirty or stained; she would hold the soiled thing in one hand and say, “Who do you think you are?” and I’d never know the answer.
Finally, Dan asked if I would show them around, and Amanda excused herself from the Chamberlains, leaving her boyfriend on the patio. I jumped up, took Dan’s hand, and dragged him farther out onto the expanse of grass and trees that fanned out toward the stone wall that lined the busy road at the bottom of the hill. Thurman, the Chamberlains’ dumb, friendly dog, lurched alongside us, wearing a little box on his collar that zapped him if he crossed the property line. This was called an Invisible Fence, and it made him yelp. Once we were out of the Chamberlains’ earshot, I told Amanda and Dan that I thought the Invisible Fence was awful, and they agreed. When I had moved in, one year ago, I had told Mrs. Chamberlain the same thing, and she’d looked at me as if I was a moron. She said it was better than getting hit by a car. I said nothing then but thought that maybe getting hit by a car wasn’t so bad after all.
When we reached the stone wall at the bottom of the big green lawn, I thought of lyrics from the Tiffany song “I Think We’re Alone Now”: “Running just as fas
t we can / Holding on to one another’s hand.” I loved Tiffany. I thought that we could make a break for it. We weren’t wearing any collars. But I didn’t say anything; I just hopped up on the wall and walked on it as if it was a balance beam, testing. Then Dan asked if they could see my room, so I jumped down and led them back to the house. As we passed Dad’s old, banged-up Mercedes, I wished that Amanda would get in and turn the key and Dan would push me into the backseat and that we would drive off, like a kidnapping. But she didn’t and he didn’t and we didn’t. We just walked right past the Chamberlains, still talking to Amanda’s boyfriend on the patio. Mrs. Chamberlain was drinking her favorite drink, Campari and tonic.
Amanda and Dan followed me up the narrow stairs single file to my room. It felt small. The strawberry wallpapered walls closed in on us. I didn’t know what to say, so I showed them the Cabbage Patch Kid that I got for Mom dying. Amanda grabbed it from my hands and held it beneath its armpits, making it dance. She used to do this to me when I was a baby. She told me she used to pick me up and say to her friends, “Look at the demon baby!” And they’d all laugh as my crossed eyes rolled around in my head. Now, here she was in my room at the Chamberlains’, laughing and making my doll dance and saying to Dan, “He looks like Buster Poindexter, doesn’t he? He looks exactly like him!” And to me she said, “You have to call him Buster Poindexter!” I told her I would. I had no idea who Buster Poindexter was, but I knew this Amanda, the one who knew about cool stuff and who was loud and laughing.
I don’t know how long we stayed up there in my room, but it wasn’t long enough. They probably asked me questions, told me stories about their lives, and maybe even made me laugh. I don’t recall. I just remember that they didn’t stay and that they didn’t take me with them.
I didn’t leave my room for the rest of the night; I just took off my shirt and got into bed with my pants still on, pulled the covers up over my head, and started to cry, wondering how I could have made the visit go better. “Why didn’t they take me with them, Buster?” I asked my stupid Cabbage Patch Kid. My tears made his hard plastic head slick. Maybe I was still too annoying to be around—maybe that was it. Maybe I wasn’t fun enough. Maybe that’s why they just walked down the stairs, got in that car, and drove away, leaving me alone with all those strangers.
DAN
WHEN I MOVED into Karen’s apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan that summer, the first thing she said to me was “I’ve had five abortions.”
I was still standing in the doorway, with all my bags. I was like, “So, you didn’t want kids?” She said nothing, just continued to read the newspaper. Karen was a bitch; that was her way. I learned quickly that my survival there depended on my ability to be charming. As long as I told her she was smart and beautiful, crap like that, I’d be fine.
Looking back now, I realize how cool it was of Karen to take me in. I’ll always be thankful for that. I had my own bedroom and bathroom in her apartment, though she made me sleep on the pullout couch whenever there was an est “Forum” workshop in town and a “Forum leader” needed a place to stay. Karen was this weird mix of eighties career woman and self-help hippie cult member: a commercial casting director who wore Donna Karan power suits but had framed sayings by Werner Erhard, est’s leader, all over her apartment.
Also, I wasn’t used to living with a grown woman who had boyfriends. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with it; I mean, after she was sick, Mom went on a date with my friend’s father. I thought that was the sweetest thing. But Karen’s dating was gross, somehow. One time, I walked into her room and there was this old guy, bald but otherwise hairy, sleeping spread-eagled and nude on top of her bed.
Don’t get me wrong: Living with Karen was way better than living with the Hayeses. I mean, Karen made it clear that it was her place. I wasn’t allowed to smoke inside, and she’d yell at me about putting the dishes in the dishwasher a certain way, but besides that, she was cool. She treated me like a roommate, not like a kid. After all, my monthly Social Security checks went to her for room and board.
Plus, I got the place to myself a lot. Karen would always be at the theater or out on dates. So I would watch TV and eat cheese tortellini for dinner, because that’s all that was ever in the fridge. That and chardonnay. I’d finish whatever bottle was open and then drink another one to the spot at which the last one had been filled. The trick seemed to work; Karen never noticed.
LIZ
I SPENT MY first two weeks in Norway on a small island off the western coast called Vaskalven where the Ankers had a summer cottage. There was no electricity or hot water, so the first morning, I followed the Ankers’ two young boys down to the sea for our morning bath. They dove in headfirst, so I did too. As soon as I hit the icy water, my heart stopped beating and my breath froze in my lungs. I thrashed my way to the surface and let out a howl, which set the boys off in a fit of giggles.
By then, their mom, Hege, had walked down to the end of the pier with Elisabeth, her youngest at eight months. “Didn’t the boys warn you the water is cold?” she said in her sing-songy English. The boys continued to laugh as I splashed my way to the ladder and clambered up on the dock, where I lay in the sun to defrost. By the end of our stay, I was jumping in before the boys. On rainy days, Hege taught me how to knit, and we’d sit in front of the fire drinking coffee and eating bolle, Norwegian hot cross buns.
Those two weeks were blissful—I wasn’t homesick for a moment—until we returned to Oslo, where a stack of letters awaited me. Amanda sent me a care package with a mix tape that made me miss her in a visceral way. I’d lie in my bed and listen to the first song, James Taylor’s “You’ve Got a Friend,” over and over again. Amanda wrote that Dan was living with Karen, which made the most sense to me. She was the closest thing we had to family. She would never kick him out. Ever. I got letters from Maureen, Rita, and Liz Subin, too. Daisy sent a sweet letter in which she wondered if Norway’s slow pace might be a tough transition for me. She wrote, “I am sure it is a very difficult adjustment for you. Just bear in mind that the long-term benefits are great. If you can’t figure out how to be by yourself, you will never be able to live with anyone else.” Then she joked, “So much for my motherly words of wisdom—or bullshit!” Auntie Eve sent me care packages, too—a nail kit in one, a popularized version of the Bible called The Greatest Story Ever Told in another. I read it, out of my love for her, but didn’t think it was the “greatest” story.
Nancy Chamberlain’s letters made me feel that we made the right decision for Diana. Poor Dan got screwed time and time again, but at least, I thought, Diana wound up with a stable family that seemed to love her. Nancy wrote in the first letter that she had taken Diana back-to-school shopping and that Diana had picked out a Guess jean skirt and Reebok sneakers. That sounded like the right outfit for a fourth grader. That sounded like the old Diana. In another letter, Nancy wrote that Dan and Amanda visited Diana in Bedford that August, and I wished more than anything that I had been there, too. She also wrote that Diana was getting yet another eye operation—she’d had two before she was two years old—to fix her lazy eye. I hoped this one would finally be a success.
DIANA
I STARTED FOURTH grade at West Patent with a flesh-colored patch covering my left eye. It looked disgusting beneath my pink glasses. I had wanted a black pirate patch to replace the thick gauze taped to my face after yet another eye operation to fix my lazy eye, but when I reached for one in the drugstore, Mrs. Chamberlain shook her head. “You’ll just take it off,” she said, scowling. She grabbed something that was higher up on the wall. “How about this one?” she seemed to ask herself. Before I could answer, she walked to the register and bought it.
Then, new gold wire-rimmed glasses replaced the eye patch. I didn’t want to change from my pink frames, but Mrs. Chamberlain made me. And she made me cut my hair. She said I had to cut it short because my long red hair was unmanageable. I didn’t argue. She told the lady to cut it like Dorothy Hamill,
the ice skater. I didn’t know who that was. Then the hairdresser whipped off the black plastic apron and handed me my new glasses. And when I looked at my reflection in the mirror, I wasn’t sure who that was, either.
DAN
BACK AT TP, I became fully immersed in boarding-school hippie culture. I knew I was stuck—I hated TP but I had nowhere else to go. So I woke up in the morning and did a bong hit, then went to class and did another bong hit after lunch, then more bong hits at night. Every day, I slept, ate, and got high. My only real friend, Parker Sweeney, had gotten arrested the summer before for stealing car stereos. He didn’t come back that year, so I just hung out with other people who got high. There were lots of them.
That first semester of my sophomore year, I’d go to Karen’s on weekends and smoke cigarettes on the fire escape, get high in the bathroom, and drink her chardonnay. My new survival tactic was to be invisible. I never called Amanda when I was in town; I didn’t want to burden anyone. I just wanted to get through it.
AMANDA
I DROPPED OUT of NYU that fall even though I was halfway through. Better than failing out, I figured. I didn’t want to waste the trust money on school if I wasn’t going to give it my all. So Karen helped me get a job at a payroll company for production companies. It was basically a bunch of math and typing. I was terrible at both, but I made nineteen thousand dollars a year, which seemed like a lot back then.
I spent most of it on drugs and Kamikaze mix drinks out at the boy bars, which were still amazing magical Wizard of Oz places for me. I could dance all night long, and no one bothered me. Everyone there was oblivious to my existence. No creeps, no expectations. I loved it. I was invisible.
