Rich and Pretty

by Rumaan Alam

  Lauren had nothing, at twelve. Her chest as flat as those of the boys who made a big show of stripping out of their shirts during their basketball games—what, it was hot! Her hair, unremarkable; makeup, forbidden—hell, pierced ears were forbidden. Plus she didn’t know any of these kids, didn’t understand the things they talked about: the Hamptons, their big sisters’ drug dealers, their mothers’ plastic surgery, their fathers’ indictment or promotion or book deal. One of her classmates came to school daily with a bodyguard; this was never remarked upon, which drove her insane. Who were these people?

  Sarah was an ambassador from this strange world. Lauren could not understand Jonah, the boy whose father was running for mayor, or Kathe, the girl whose stepfather had three Oscars on his mantelpiece, or Bee, the girl whose portrait appeared in W, but she thought she could understand Sarah. Little kids arrive in this country speaking only Vietnamese and after two weeks of Sesame Street they’re telling their parents how to pay the gas bill. You can learn, and Lauren tried to, studying Sarah, listening to her, mistaking the chemistry between them for comprehension.

  By seventh grade, they had worked up to regular Friday nights together; eventually, they convinced Lauren’s parents to let her take the train home alone, rather than having her mother trek into the city to fetch her, which often entailed a quiet cup of tea in the kitchen, Bella Brooks’s fingers tightening around Lulu’s white porcelain cups, garishly painted with birds. Lauren listened intently and began to understand: that Barneys was better than Bloomingdale’s; that East Hampton was better than Water Mill; that Daniel was the nice one, William the mean one, with respect to the Jones twins; that the cool cigarette to smoke was a Camel Light, if you were a girl, and a Marlboro Red, if you were a boy, and American Spirit, if you were a hippie.

  One night at Sarah’s, after enough of the same had happened that Lauren could think of them as just another fact of her existence, a new development: Sarah, armed with Lulu’s credit card, took them out to dinner. A few caveats pertained—the restaurant had to be nearby, on a preapproved list, so there was the Indian on the corner or the Bangladeshi opposite, the sole difference between the two the presence of meat on the menu of the latter. There was the Chinese place, which had been called Jade Garden, then closed and reopened unchanged save the name, Forbidden City, which they found hilarious for a reason she can’t remember now.

  At twelve, Lauren got comfortable. She understood how to get by in conversations, she knew that there were boys who thought she was pretty, and that was one of the more important things. Then one night, around Thanksgiving, that’s why she’s remembering it now, something about this time of year, even here, in the tropics, she found the photograph of Christopher, tucked away, largely forgotten in one of Lulu’s many photo collages, this by the guest bedroom, then occupied by William Li, the Chinese graduate student who had come to stay for three months.

  “Who’s that?” Lauren’s curiosity. He was cute, whoever he was.

  “Oh.” Sarah matter-of-factly sipping a soda through a straw. “That’s my brother, Christopher.”

  Never, in the year plus, a mention of this brother. Lauren wasn’t even sure how to ask the question.

  “He’s dead,” Sarah said, still dispassionate.

  The story took a long time to learn. Lauren knew by that point that you don’t ask questions, you don’t demand details, you don’t ask for clarification: You dance around, you act, you feign understanding. This tactic worked at school and it worked, over time, with Sarah, and Lauren got to some understanding about Christopher, ghost brother, eleven years Sarah’s senior, dead when she was only seven, and in the second grade.

  Lauren played coy and eventually Sarah showed her other pictures beyond that one—Christopher, polo shirt, gap in his teeth; later, safety pin through his septum, unwashed hair. Christopher was, she learned, political, only his way of doing things involved throwing vials of pig’s blood at the feet of the closeted mayor. He was young, but he was a savant. The apple fell near that tree, but on the far side of it. Ironic.

  Lauren understood, later, that Lulu was a young mother, and she inferred that Huck was probably an absentee father; surely this explained something. Christopher had existed, there were photographs, but he was out of focus, he was off the page, he was ahead of his time, out of time as well. AIDS, which they blamed on drug addiction, but Lauren had studied those photographs, and divined in those eyes some sparkle, in that body, some softness. She had her doubts.

  Sarah had been sent off to a psychiatrist that year, smart enough to understand that what was ostensibly a playdate was in fact an evaluation. She passed with flying colors, as was her wont. If they were stung, Huck and Lulu, by the fact that their friend in the Oval Office couldn’t do anything to spare their son, by the fact that the newspapers carried no mention of his brief tenure on earth, by the fact of a funeral for a child, of all the unthinkable things, they were at least saved by Sarah.

  Two-thirds of their lives they’ve known each other, and Sarah’s told her so little of that brother. If Lauren complains about her brothers, Sarah reacts like Lauren is relaying something alien, something wholly unique. She had only been seven. Lauren remembers nothing of being seven: the sticky green vinyl of the bus seats on the backs of her knees, the fleshy gap in her teeth, the powdery smell of her second-grade teacher. Sarah’s recollections, if she has them, must be as vague, as fleeting, as sensory. They’ve never discussed it but Sarah works, now, for AIDS patients. It’s deliberate, but quiet, as she is. As a girl, Lauren almost begrudged Sarah her dead brother; hard to admit, as she was thirteen and old enough to know better. Like a cashmere scarf, a Tiffany key ring, a dead sibling was but another thing Sarah possessed that she did not.

  Lauren sits up in the chair. Outdoor chaises aren’t actually all that comfortable, or she’s never sat in one that is, anyway. In the end, what you want is a bed. She’s got a funny knot in her lower back, testament to the fact that she’s just drifted away into sleep, this despite the chatter Fiona and Amina keep up. They’re each flipping through a magazine, stopping every so often to jab at the thin, glossy pages with an accusing, greasy finger. Their talk is of the clothes, their cut, their color, their appropriateness for the occasion being pictured, the connotations and associations of the celebrity caught sporting said clothes by some intrepid shutterbug with a telephoto lens. Lauren’s not opposed to such discussions; she knows quite well the pleasure of sitting, feet immersed in a hot, whirling bath while a penitent Korean woman trims her cuticles, and thinking about whether a certain personage has attained sufficient fame to wear a specific garment, or whether that garment’s appearance on the frame of a reality star hasn’t forever, in her estimation anyway, cheapened their good, Italian name. It’s just she wants to sleep is all. She wants to let her mind drift up into the sky like a kite, bob and dip on the eddying air, go where it will.

  Maybe she’s being unfairly uncharitable toward Amina and Fiona. It’s easy to be that. Fiona, in her unexpectedly straightforward bathing suit, reclines like Delacroix’s odalisque on the fringed pink towel, a souvenir from a trip to Kenya. Amina, all those luxurious curves, that expanse of beautiful skin. Their every movement looks choreographed, something Lauren never knows how to do. She’s sure everyone can see it, the strain on her face as she walks through a room, that awareness of being watched. Other people have it so easy.

  At least Meredith has a headache. She threw up after breakfast, then disappeared into the confines of the former plantation in search of central air. Meredith can’t hold her liquor, which is a problem as these celebratory rites naturally involve a fair amount of it, on top of which the poor dear is drinking to forget, though in her drunkenness she keeps bringing the conversation back to remembering. It’s Sunday, a day that feels like departure, but they’re not leaving until tomorrow afternoon, which gives the day a still more decadent feeling, if it’s possible, after the lobster at breakfast, to amp up the decadence. The Sun King himself would proba
bly have taken it easy on the champagne. But never mind: Someone else is paying, and they’re all celebrating. That’s the thing with the way we celebrate in this culture, Lauren’s realized this weekend: Even if you don’t believe it, at first, and don’t mean it, eventually you get so drunk you feel celebratory. Then maudlin, but that can come later. They’ve agreed to take Sunday night off from one another, room service and pay-per-view, though she can imagine that Fiona and Amina might hit the town for dinner together. They seem to have much left to say to each other. A chat about their favorite mascara.

  They are at the pool, where the breeze is less intense, because of the thoughtfully placed fence. Lauren stands, yawns, and slips into the water, which can be done in an instant, it’s that warm. She does it with the same thought she puts into everything: reaching for grace, or to be like Esther Williams—is that her name?—and not a portly sea lion easing its way into the surf. Her bathing suit seems wanting, somehow, though the shade, something like pink grapefruit, had seemed appealing in the pages of the catalog. She slips under the water, eyes closed, and feels her hair drift behind her like an idea, like a trail of perfume. She stands. The tile underfoot is reassuring. The water comes to just below her breasts, which if not quite as shapely as Fiona’s have always stood her in good stead. Gabe had liked them, anyway. They’ve been with her through a lot, these breasts. She’d wanted them, so badly, and then they came on, pretty quickly. She remembers standing before the mirror, shirtless, in profile, studying how they sprouted from her body, and they had, too, sprouted. No wonder we use fruit metaphors, Lauren thought; breasts nurture, yes, but they ripen on our bodies, too.

  She blinks. The level of chlorine in the water has been perfectly calibrated. Her eyes feel fine. In a few weeks, the local newscasters will be delirious with joy as they estimate increasingly more dire snowfalls. The store on the corner will fill with people who never keep food in their apartments, desperate to buy milk. It’s always milk. It’s hard to fathom: In forty-eight hours, less than, she’ll be borne back home; she didn’t want to come here in the first place and now she wants never to leave. She’ll move to the island, open a cooking school, lead chartered tours, run a bed-and-breakfast, plan destination weddings for a living. Every vacation comes to this point, doesn’t it: visions of an alternate reality. Sell the house, quit your job. Tomorrow morning, the moment will have passed, and she’ll be tired of drinking subpar coffee out of cups so small that the stuff loses its essential heat too quickly. Tomorrow morning, she’ll miss the amiable chatter of the WNYC crew. Tomorrow morning, she’ll be tired of the relentless fluffiness of the towels here, the weird softness of the water in the shower, the sweetness of the food.

  There are eyes on her, and she catches them. The waiter, the same one who’s been serving the guests by the pool all afternoon, the same waiter who brought them drinks—strictly nonalcoholic, they’re all in the mood for Cokes—an hour ago. He’s handsome, of course, hotels like this don’t employ the ugly; he looks almost carved, though is that racist, only something she thinks because of the incredible blackness of his skin? She doesn’t think so, or doesn’t mean it that way, though of course, racists never mean their racist ideas in a racist way. Anyway, it’s well intentioned: He’s gorgeous, actually. He’s a bit younger than they are, she guesses twenty-five. There’s something about the ease with which he talks to them. They could be his big sister’s friends. They’re visitors from a world not his own, not New York, but their thirties.

  He had arched one eyebrow, one only, as he handed her a glass of Coke. The wedge of lemon embraced the lip of the glass in a way that was sort of beautiful. Normally, the lemon is a bit of art direction Lauren can do without. Today, she squeezed it into the thing, and damned if it wasn’t more delicious. In the alternate reality she’s in now, she drinks soda with a citrus twist at eleven thirty in the morning.

  “Thank you,” she had said, because you say thank you, and you make eye contact when you do. A lesson learned over the course of many Friday nights at restaurants with Lulu.

  That eyebrow, moving like it was independent of his face. What muscle did he manipulate to achieve this effect? It was a little flippant, not the deferential “You’re welcome” offered to the rest of the girls with their Cokes—Diet for Sarah and Fiona. There were nuts, too, a sterling dish in the shape of a seashell, a bed of peanuts and cashews, a lone, gigantic Brazil nut. She took it.

  He’s got another tray, for an older couple, the only honeymooners at the resort, or so she assumes. She imagines theirs a second marriage, maybe a third. They’re old enough that there could be older children, college aged. The man is a little dumpy and pale but with very happy eyes, the woman is redheaded and strangely vibrant, probably a yoga teacher, or an amateur ceramicist. The waiter places their tray on the table with a flourish, but is the flourish meant for her? His shirt, incredibly white for someone who works with food, his smile still easy, still convincing. Maybe he’s stoned? Lauren sees his smile falter, waver for a second into something else, and she bends her knees, drops back under the surface of the water.

  An hour later, she is the first to make her excuses. The empty glasses and bowls and remnants of the chicken Caesar salad that Sarah and Amina picked at together have been cleared. The umbrella is still useful, because the sun is so powerful, but Lauren wants a break and pretends that will be a nap. There are kisses, something she has given in to. Women like these kiss good-bye, it’s one of those when-in-Rome situations. She knots the towel around her body, a stab at modesty. Here, they can lie basically naked, but a hundred yards from here, the hallway seems to demand more decorum.

  She shoves her sunglasses up onto her head, one hand keeping the towel in place, the other gripping the flimsy cotton bag, the promising weight of the not-much-read paperback inside. Up over the path, flip-flops in her bag, the grass underfoot. It’s a wonderful feeling. Inside, the hallway is air-conditioned, if not as arctic as she knows the room will be. Her flesh prickles. Her nipples tense. She should drop the flip-flops to the floor, step into them. She doesn’t, though, hurries past the equine paintings toward her room. And there is the waiter. He’s bearing a tray, gives a nod with that smile, a nod back, tipping his chin up high, holding his face up for her to study. A nod not of deference, of servility; a nod of hello, the nod of the man on the street. She knows this nod. Then he’s past her, rapping firmly on a door down the hall and announcing himself in a cheerful voice. No accent to speak of.

  She fumbles into her room, tosses the bag onto the bed, so lush that the impact makes no sound. She drops the towel to the ground, kicks it out of the way. Absurdly she wants a hot shower. The mind-boggling waste of a hot shower on a hot day. She’s thirsty, too, ready for another eight-dollar bottle of water. A little shiver from the cold, or the heat, or the shock of the one after the other when, just as firmly as on the door down the hall, a knock. Actually, three. No explanation offered.

  She doesn’t bother trying to hide behind the towel, actually kicks it out of the way so she can open the door.

  “Miss,” he says. His voice a little softer. “Did you need something?”

  His dick fits into her mouth much as she had hoped it might. Something familiar in the arc of it, and he’s so excited he pushes perhaps a hair too far—which tells her that he is young, after all—into her throat, into that spot where the pleasure turns into discomfort, but a discomfort she finds strangely comforting. She’s thirsty but her mouth finds the saliva.

  His shirt still so white, and still all buttoned up. He picks her up off the floor, sets her down on top of the bed. They are quiet, they are focused, then, fourteen minutes later, they are finished. He pulls his clothes back on—his boxer briefs, what is it with men this age and boxer briefs?—grinning all the while. She doesn’t try to cover herself, moves about the room naked, halfheartedly righting the pillows, taking a bottle of water from the minibar, and accepting from him the condom—pathetic, spent, sticky—he’s peeled off his body. She wraps
the thing in a fistful of toilet paper, but it still makes an unpleasant sound as it lands in the bathroom trash can. The immodesty, her nakedness, feels good. He says something, something unimportant, uninteresting, irrelevant.

  She takes the damp towel from the floor, wraps it around herself just as he opens the door to leave. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction: The door across the hall opens at that moment, Meredith, still a bit green, catching Lauren’s eye. She seems on the verge of saying something, Meredith, as the waiter ducks out with a final nod. Lauren lets the door close, then stands for a moment, considering the back of the door, the helpful diagram showing the path to the nearest exit, in case of emergency. This is an emergency, of a sort. She lets the towel slip down once more, uses one corner to dab at the inside of her thigh. She goes into the bathroom. At least Meredith will have something new to talk about.

  The French toast tastes different. Not as good. Even the little slice of papaya is less appetizing, seems to be grinning at her, menacingly. Lauren pushes the plate away after a couple of bites, where only yesterday she devoured the whole thing, and even briefly considered ordering something else, a side of potatoes, fried to crispness, a plate of bacon, pink and slimy.

  There are hours until they leave, and she’s already packed, leaving aside the clothes she plans to wear on the plane, after one final shower, because suddenly the sand, omnipresent as sand tends to be, is starting to drive her mad. Her hair, which gets luxuriously wavy and full from the salt water, suddenly feels dirty, oily, a hindrance. She’ll miss this, she is sure, a few weeks from now, or even upon arrival: waiting in that taxi line at JFK, her breath visible in the evening chill. She’ll miss this when the sky grows dark at an hour when Britons could conceivably be taking tea.