“Eight thousand people? And you don’t know them all?”
Max laughed. “I barely know any of them! I mean, I feel like I do—we message each other—but aside from a few city friends, you guys, some random other friends—no, it’s all strangers.”
“That really is incredible, Max. You’ve got such a talent. I can’t wait to see what you’re going to do with it.”
“I was thinking reality TV. Maybe, like, a trashy dating show? I’ve also heard there’s big money in porn….”
Her father clutched his chest, and she laughed.
“Even hearing my sweet baby girl say that word nauseates me,” he said.
Max snaked her hand up under his forearm and linked their arms together. She rested her head on his shoulder, something she couldn’t remember doing in ages. “I love you, Dad. I promise I won’t go into porn.”
He kissed the top of her head and squeezed her arm. “I know you won’t, sweetheart, but let’s take one moment here and acknowledge a truth: I won’t hesitate to have you murdered if you do.”
The train pulled up to their stop and the doors opened. “This is us,” she said, jumping up and holding her hand out for her dad. “Come on, old man. Let’s go scout some spots.”
“Max? Honey?” Her father’s voice pulled her back to the present, and Max found herself sitting across the table from him.
Max squinted. “Was everything you said last week complete bullshit? It had to be. How could you drone on and on about my ‘promising future,’ knowing it was only happening because you bribed someone?”
Everyone was silent for a few seconds before her mom put down her fork and said, “Sweetheart, we understand this, this…situation…is stressful. But it’s only temporary.”
“Oh yeah? It’s not really feeling so temporary.” Max gazed directly at her father. “I can’t believe you’d do something like this. You, of all people.” She could see the words register on his face.
“There’s been a big misunderstanding,” her mother said. “And we need you to trust us when we tell you that we’re going to get everything straightened out. No one has broken the law.”
“A misunderstanding?” Max looked between her parents. “So, you’re telling me, on the record, that Dad didn’t try to buy my way into Princeton? That the FBI got it wrong?”
Her parents exchanged a look. No one said anything.
“Okay then,” Max said. “So, he did completely ruin my life—all our lives—by paying to get me into a school that, irony of ironies, I didn’t even want to go to in the first place! Amazing, Dad. Great call.”
“Princeton is an incredible school,” Peyton said quietly, setting her fork down.
“That’s not the fucking point!” Max screamed.
“Let’s all just calm down for a second, okay?” her father said. “We’re all under a lot of stress. Max, sweetheart, please don’t scream at your mother. And, Peyton, can we lay off the ‘incredible school’ stuff?” He turned back to Max. “Max, I know this is…horrible for you. Beyond horrible. But please understand: This may seem like the end of the world today—trust me, I spent the afternoon in a jail cell, I get it. But it’s not. I swear to you that this will get better.”
Max laughed bitterly. “Get better? How? When Princeton kicks me out and I can actually go somewhere I want?” she said, having not even considered that as a possibility until she uttered the words.
Her parents looked stricken. “Honey, you are brilliant and talented, and your future is so bright,” her father said slowly. “We’re going to get through this, I promise you that.”
Her mother nodded.
Max stared at her plate. “I’ll take it over from here, Dad. As much as your whole ‘we’re going to get through this’ bullshit sounds good, I think you’ve done more than enough.”
She couldn’t sit there anymore; it was all too much. “I’m done,” she said, standing up. And without waiting for a response, she fled to her bedroom.
7
Business as Usual
The underwear itself didn’t reveal much. They were soft cotton in a perfectly nice shade of turquoise with lace trim. They looked like the dozen or so other pairs in various colors that had been in her top dresser drawer for the last however many years, ever since the day when, in a fit of wedgie-induced frustration, Skye had purged every last miserable pair of thongs and skimpy-cheeked bikinis from her life and replaced them with full-coverage hipsters. Maybe they weren’t the sexiest underwear, but they were hardly hideous. Skye was glancing at the laundry room folding table when it hit her: the perfect-condition turquoise ones must have been left behind by Carol, her mother-in-law, when she’d visited from Australia earlier that month.
“Oh my god,” she gasped. “This isn’t happening.”
“What’s not happening, Mommy?” Aurora chirped from her post on the hallway floor, where she was stretched out on her belly, chin in her hands, waiting patiently for Skye to escort her back to the kitchen.
“Nothing, chickpea. Why don’t you go pour yourself some cereal? I’ll be there in a minute.”
Skye pulled her phone from her back jeans pocket: 7:37 a.m. Everyone would be long awake, she knew, and maybe it would be normalizing to text about something ridiculous like underwear instead of the fact that her sister’s husband had been arrested on national TV the day before.
Skye began typing into the group message that included her mother and sister.
Just discovered I wear the same underwear as Carol!!! she pecked.
So? Peyton replied.
So??? That’s all you have to say when I tell you that I wear same UNDERWEAR as my MIL??
She’s very attractive, the girls’ mother, Marcia, responded.
Yes, she is very attractive. She’s also 68! How can I own the same lingerie as her??
I’ve seen your bras and panties. None of them qualify as “lingerie,” Peyton wrote.
Agree, Marcia typed.
Thank you both for your support.
I think its a way more interesting reflection on Gabe, Peyton wrote.
“It’s,” Skye typed. You need an apostrophe.
As usual, her sister ignored this correction. I mean, don’t you think its FASCINATING that your husband doesn’t mind that you and his mother wear the same underwear???
Why the f would he know what kind of underwear his mother wears? Skye pecked like a crazy person.
I’ve been telling you this forever. Your too old for multiple ear piercings and too young to be wearing granny panties, Peyton wrote.
It’s “you’re,” Skye wrote.
Marcia wrote: And that tattoo of yours. NOT GOOD.
You know about that???
Of course. A mother knows all.
From Peyton: I told her like 4 years ago. She knows all about the starfish that looks like its swimming out of you’re ass.
It’s is with an apostrophe! And Y-O-U-R ass!!!
I don’t have a starfish swimming out of MY ass! Peyton fired back.
Skye smiled.
Gotta run, Peyton wrote. Max is up. And she’s still not speaking to either of us.
Rightfully so! her mother typed.
And for the record, the starfish looks like it’s swimming IN to my ass, not out of it…, Skye typed. She waited thirty seconds for a response, but when it became obvious her mother and sister had moved on, she sighed and stuck her phone back in her pocket. She folded her mother-in-law’s underwear into a neat little square and wondered if she should mail them.
“Come on, chickpea,” she said, reaching down to help her daughter up. “You need to get dressed for art class.”
It took a bit of wrangling and slightly more yelling than she would have liked, but Skye managed to get Aurora dressed and fed by eight-fifteen. Although Aurora was supposed to do her “three things
” each morning—brush her teeth, make her bed, and put on her clothes by herself—the routine had started to unravel in January, and by the first of February it had completely fallen apart. The only saving grace had been a refresh of Aurora’s braids the week before, which shaved at least fifteen minutes off the morning. They would last for two months, and Skye again sent silent gratitude to the two angel hairdressers at the salon specializing in Black hair who advised, oversaw, and executed her daughter’s hairstyling when Skye—despite watching endless YouTube tutorials and even a few in-person lessons—could still not get the hang of it.
“Daddy!” Aurora yelled when Gabe appeared in the kitchen, ginger hair still wet from the shower. His outfit—lightweight blazer with suede elbow patches, fitted jeans, and sneakers—could have been equally at home on a college campus as it was at the boutique architecture firm where Gabe was a partner.
“How’s my favorite girl this morning?” Gabe asked in the Australian accent that charmed everyone who heard it. He stole a strawberry from Aurora’s plate and grabbed an apple from a carved acacia bowl that sat in the middle of the kitchen island.
“It’s Saturday!” Aurora declared. “Why are you going to work?”
“You remember that I design houses for people?” he said as he sliced his apple. “Well, even though today is Saturday, it’s the only day the people could meet. So I am going to my office to meet them.”
“Can you drop her at art class on your way?” Skye asked. “I told my mother I would swing by, and I’m already late.”
“Sorry, honey, I’ve got to go right now.” His three-day scruff scratched her cheek when he kissed it.
“It’s two minutes out of your way.”
He looked up; his blue eyes squinted. “It’s two minutes out of your way, too. Marcia can wait. My clients can’t.”
“It’s just that I’m not dressed,” Skye said. “And I won’t have time to come home after I drop her.”
“Stop fighting!” Aurora said, placing her hands over her ears.
“We’re not fighting, sweetheart, we’re discussing,” Gabe said. He looked at Skye, eyebrows raised in question.
“It’s fine, I’ll drive her,” Skye said. “I’m going to run up and get dressed. I’ll be right down, okay? Aurora, get your shoes on, honey.”
Gabe kissed her on the lips this time. “Keep me updated on the Peyton situation, okay? I’ll call Isaac this afternoon.”
Skye nodded and started to climb the stairs. She didn’t have time to shower if she was going to get Aurora to the class on time, so she tucked her favorite RBG T-shirt into her jeans and slipped on her go-to floral Birks. She sprayed her roots with dry shampoo and exhaled in frustration when the white residue ended up all over her shirt. After swiping and brushing at her shoulders like a mental patient, she quickly twisted her wavy brown hair into a bun and yanked a few pieces loose around her face.
By the time she got back downstairs, Gabe had already left.
“Look, Mommy, it’s Aunt Peyton!” Aurora said, pointing to the TV in the family room, just like she did every morning. “Her hair is so pretty. And so is her dress.”
Skye glanced at the television, and sure enough, there was Peyton, sitting next to that admittedly attractive buffoon of a co-host, looking every bit the perfect news anchor: straightened blond hair bobbed to just above her shoulders; crisp, emerald-colored dress with a conservative boatneck; flawless makeup highlighting a gleaming white smile that had cost more than a car.
Skye clicked off the television before Aurora realized that Peyton wasn’t actually on air that morning and the clip was actually a news story about her uncle’s arrest.
“We’re leaving in one minute. Snack bag and shoes, please! And don’t forget to bring your painting.”
The scene in the parking lot of Abington Elementary, even on a Saturday morning, never ceased to amaze her. During the week, a calm, orderly procession of Land Rovers and Tesla SUVs deposited well-scrubbed and fashionably clad children into the care of young, cheerful, and almost unnervingly attractive teachers—each of whom held an advanced degree from a prestigious university. The picture-perfectness continued inside, where the young pupils learned math on state-of-the-art Smart Boards and received individualized reading instruction from trained literacy specialists. Throughout the day they would browse the school’s expansive library, dine on locally sourced organic food in the sun-dappled cafeteria, and play on the beautifully manicured playground, which was designed by experts in children’s development and funded entirely by the PTA. Physical education, art, music, coding, foreign language, chorus, student government—was there anything these five- to ten-year-olds couldn’t do? And this was public school. Skye thought of the crumbling elementary school she and Peyton had attended in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with its mismatched desks and cranky, past-their-prime teachers who wouldn’t hesitate to turn off the classroom lights, throw in a VHS tape, and literally disappear for the duration of class. For nearly six full years, starting in kindergarten, Skye’s school lunch had consisted of salted tortilla chips topped with liquid Velveeta, a plastic cup of mandarin oranges in syrup, and a juice box of Hawaiian Punch. No one noticed. No one talked about it. No one cared. And now here she was, thirty years later, sending her daughter to a school where the mothers had started a petition—oh, who was she kidding, it was a movement—to replace the cafeteria’s Yoplait with Siggi’s, which had two grams less sugar per serving, even though it cost five times as much.
Aurora climbed out of the Subaru’s backseat and waved to Skye.
“I love you, chickpea! Have fun at art. I’ll be back to pick you up for lunch,” Skye said. She watched her daughter happily skip to the front entrance. Paradise wasn’t her first choice of communities—it was too white and too wealthy—but for Skye and Gabe, when a job opportunity arose there, like so many other families looking to escape the city, they ultimately made their decision based on one thing: the schools. And no one could claim that they didn’t deliver.
To get to her mother’s apartment in White Plains, Skye drove through downtown Paradise, a couple of intersecting streets the locals called The Village. At first glance, The Village looked like the quintessential New England town, with its narrow streets and old-fashioned storefronts. Trees and benches dotted the charmingly uneven cobblestone sidewalks. Chalkboard easels announced store hours or menu offerings; Parisian-style bistro tables were topped with potted flowers; nearly every shop provided a water bowl for all the chocolate Labs and golden retrievers who accompanied their owners. But just past the sweet facade, there existed an entirely different world, one where the lady who worked the register at the stationery store wore a fifty-thousand-dollar diamond ring, and the cobbler’s worktable was stacked with Gucci luggage and Louboutin pumps. Sixteen-year-old kids tried to guide Range Rovers, unsuccessfully, into parallel spots while blasting Ariana Grande on their state-of-the-art sound systems. For every bakery and children’s clothing store, there were ten designer shops: Tiffany, Vince, Theory, Joie, Alice + Olivia, Rag & Bone. Even a sweet little Saks Fifth Avenue outpost and, on the very edge of town, a brand-new Tesla dealership. Every time Skye went to The Village, whether to run an errand or meet a friend for coffee, she couldn’t help but wonder how she’d ended up living there.
As she neared her mother’s place, Skye’s phone rang. She almost screened it, but the 917 area code persuaded her it was an old Brooklyn friend or co-worker.
“Hello?” she called loudly into the empty car. Gabe was always making fun of her for shouting on Bluetooth.
The voice on the line was anything but friendly. “Am I speaking with Skye Alter?” a man asked.
“Who’s calling, please?” Skye asked back, already nervous.
“This is Leonard from Pacific Financial Services. Is this Skye Alter?”
She considered lying, but really, what was the point? They would find her o
ne way or another. “This is she.”
“Ms. Alter, I’m calling to inform you that you are currently three months and three days overdue on your Discover card. As of this morning at nine a.m., your balance is thirty-two thousand, six hundred seventy-seven and thirty-two cents. Would you like to make a payment now over the phone?”
Skye inhaled. Last time she’d checked, it had been closer to twenty-eight thousand. It wasn’t so different, but crossing the thirty-thousand mark felt significant.
“Ma’am?”
“Yes, I heard you,” Skye said. “I’m actually in the middle of a meeting right now, it’s not a good time.”
“Is there a better time when I should call you?” the man asked. He was polite but insistent.
“Later, please,” Skye said, and disconnected the call. Her heart was beating faster. She’d never even intended to open the damn card—who used Discover anymore?—but they’d offered so many perks: free miles and zero interest and a credit to use in her favorite restaurant in the city. All her other credit cards were linked to her and Gabe’s joint accounts, but for some reason she’d kept this Discover card a secret and had started charging all the housewares for the new residence on it. She had assured herself that as soon as the financing came through, she would reimburse herself for everything from kitchen utensils to bath towels. Gabe wouldn’t get anxious from all the little notifications popping up on his phone, because they only popped up on hers. But everything had added up so quickly, and she’d never managed to tell Gabe that they were actually thousands in debt. She’d never had any interest in shopping before—not for clothes, or household items, or anything other than complete necessities—but a compulsive desire to make the residence perfect had struck something inside her, and now it sometimes felt like she couldn’t stop.
Her forefinger automatically went to Peyton’s name on her dashboard screen, but Skye left it hovering. How could she ask her sister to ease her own anxiety when Peyton’s life was literally falling apart? They’d talked on and off throughout the day before, but she hadn’t heard from Peyton again since Isaac had gotten home. What was happening with them? Were they fighting? Meeting with lawyers? How was Max? She’d texted her niece but hadn’t gotten a reply from her either. Was it business as usual in the Marcus household, despite the fact that the entire United States was publicly discussing their family? As insane as it sounded, it was possible that Peyton was still convinced it was all a huge mistake, her combination of relentless positivity, motivating anxiety, and complete delusion colliding together to create the Peyton they all knew and mostly loved.
Where the Grass Is Green and the Girls Are Pretty Page 8