The Brittanys

by Brittany Ackerman

  Rosenberg concedes that my brother’s car is pretty cool and she hopes she’ll date a guy with a nice car one day. We joke that if it works out between them we could be sisters.

  We watch MTV in her movie room and eat kettle corn with pineapple juice. Rosenberg shows me this thing in her parents’ room that they call “the roller coaster.” It’s basically a contraption for her dad’s back, but it looks like a dentist’s chair without a seat that flips you upside down. Her mom comes in and asks if we can find something better to do.

  Rosenberg’s told me about the golf cart loophole, so we get dressed up to go meet the Vances. She does my makeup, and it’s too heavy again, but I don’t care. I let her borrow a top that I brought, a navy-blue short-sleeve shirt with buttons, while I wear the same one but in green. She drives us around her neighborhood, and the night air feels good on our skin. Our hair frizzes in the humidity, and it may ruin our chances, but we keep on riding.

  The Vance family is old money. There are four sons, heirs to the throne: Milo the oldest, then Mitchell, Merrick, and Melvin the baby. Milo and Mitchell ask if we want to play pool, and we say sure, so we play, and I enjoy rubbing the blue chalk against the cue stick. I like the way it feels, like erasing a whiteboard at school or snapping your fingers against a plastic bag to get it open when it’s stuck together, a trick my mom taught me. Rosenberg takes us to the bathroom for a pep talk and asks me which brother I want. I confirm Milo, and she still wants Mitchell. It’s settled. She fixes my hair by running her hands under cold water and patting down the frizz. I try and do the same to her, but I don’t know what I’m doing, so nothing changes.

  Milo is drinking one of his dad’s beers, a Stella Artois, and offers me a sip. The taste reminds me of trips we used to take to the Cayman Islands, when my dad ordered Heineken and always let me try. I’d sit on my dad’s leg, the one he would later have problems with, and sip what tasted like game-room coins. The Vances’ parents aren’t home, and I think about how my parents have been leaving me at home more and more while they help Brad find the perfect college, help Brad get to his competitions, take Brad for his therapy sessions. I guess I’m okay that everything has been revolving around him. It gives me time to find out who I am, what I like, what I want.

  Merrick is being punished for getting a conditional at recess, and Melvin is supposed to be asleep in his crib. Instead, he walks in with a Paddington Bear stuffed animal hanging from his hand. Brittany Rosenberg rubs his cheeks and plays with him for a while. I sit on the leather couch and drink a cup of milk that was given to me. The Vance family doesn’t have bottled or filtered water, only milk, beer, and tap water. Milo sits next to me and puts his arm around my shoulder. I don’t want him to feel me moving, so I hold my breath for as long as I can. I wonder if my mouth tastes like milk.

  Milo and Mitchell walk us out when it’s time to go, and neither of us gets a kiss. We call them later from Brittany Rosenberg’s bed and pass the phone back and forth between us, and they tell us things. Milo isn’t sure if he likes me yet, but I take it as promising that he talks to me in a low voice and recaps his favorite episode of The O.C. He has blue eyes, and his hair swoops to the side. He doesn’t smell like hair gel. He smells like the ocean and our prep school and getting out of a pool late at night and cologne and rain and bedsheets.

  * * *

  —

  February rolls around, and I’m in love with Milo. We talk on the phone at night, but at school he ignores me. He’s in the popular crowd, and I’m just one of the Brittanys. He hasn’t asked me to hang out since the infamous night when we played pool. On weekends, he frequents Chris Saul’s house parties. Milo’s best friend is Amber Goodman; it seems weird that his best friend is a girl, especially the most beautiful sophomore in school, but whatever. He tells me about his adventures but never invites me. I wonder why until Rosenberg pulls me aside one day at lunch.

  “So I got intel on your lover boy, Milo,” she says.

  “Tell me everything,” I say. “Unless it’s bad.”

  “Well…” Rosenberg says, putting her wavy hair up in a ponytail. She’s wearing her glasses today, and she looks younger again.

  “Just let me have it, I can take it.”

  “Famous last words,” Rosenberg says. “I was hanging out on the couches this morning…”

  “How did you get up there before school? Isn’t it only for seniors?”

  “Yeah, but no one said anything. Chris Saul told me to come up.”

  “Chris Saul? Who are you?”

  “I have no idea. And he’s not even a senior. He just gets invited up there because he has the best parties, which leads me to the good news.”

  “Oh, there’s good and bad?”

  “Always.”

  “Go on.”

  “We’re invited to a Valentine’s Day–themed party at Chris’s house this weekend.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “I know, right?”

  “Well, what’s the bad news?”

  “Oy, okay. Well, according to Chris Saul, Milo and Amber have been friends, like, forever, but there’s a rumor that maybe it’s more.”

  “More?”

  “Yeah, like, they’ve hooked up.”

  “Hooked up?”

  “Like, have gone all the way.”

  “Jeez. Okay. Well, does that mean I’m out of the picture? I mean, we talk, like, every night on the phone.”

  “He might be playing you, though.”

  “What the actual hell?”

  “Guys are assholes sometimes. But, from what Chris Saul says, if you’re willing to have sex with him, or at least give him a blow job, there’s a chance.”

  “I’ve never given a blow job.”

  “Me either, but at camp last summer we all practiced on water balloons. It’s super easy.”

  “I’m willing to give it a try.”

  “Milo or the balloon?”

  We laugh. Lunch continues at a dull roar: the banging of trays on tables, the drone of the ice machine, the hum of kids’ voices. Jensen hasn’t been sitting with us. Kenzie doesn’t eat, so I figure the two of them are together, not eating, somewhere. Maybe Jensen took her mom’s comment to heart. A part of me hopes she’s okay, while another part of me wonders if now I’m the bad friend, if I betrayed her by not inviting her to my birthday, if I should have said something else, done something else, to make things right. But then I remember what she said, what she did, and I push the thought out of my mind.

  Rosenberg opens up a compact mirror and applies foundation that’s way too light for her already pale skin. Her face becomes a cake layered in makeup. She takes a tool out of her makeup bag and curls her lashes. I watch and marvel at her confidence. I wonder if some of it might be rubbing off on me. Since hanging out with her, I’ve changed a little. I’m no longer staying at home wishing I was with boys but instead going out and meeting them, even getting invited to sophomore parties. I wonder if I’ll actually give Milo a blow job at the party or maybe even have sex with him and finally lose my virginity. I know fifteen is young, but I feel ready. He’s a really amazing guy, and I think it’d be worth it.

  “We have to plan our outfits,” Rosenberg says.

  “What does a Valentine’s theme entail?” I ask.

  “Here’s another piece of bad news. It’s a mandatory lingerie party.”

  * * *

  —

  Chris Saul lives in a mansion in St. Andrews Country Club in Boca, where homes are worth millions of dollars. The neighborhood has a golf course surrounding the development, tennis courts, swimming pools, and a fine-dining restaurant on its grounds. I’ve been here once before, for a play date when I was eight years old. I remember coming over to a girl’s house after day camp and swimming in the pool at the country club and eating blue Pop-Tarts that made me sick.

 
Everyone at the party is on the way to getting drunk. There are bottles of alcohol all over the place, half empty on tables, in the hands of sophomore girls who take pictures on their digital cameras, and full ones being brought out of an underground cellar by Chris Saul himself. Chris wears a black tie with no shirt and silk boxers and a matching robe that remains open. Milo Vance is at his side in a similar outfit but in red instead of black. Milo holds up a joint for Chris to take a hit, then passes it to Amber Goodman. She wears a black lace bra with high-waisted black underwear and black patent leather heels. Her hair is curled, and her lips are done in red. She looks amazing, like a Victoria’s Secret model.

  I had to borrow stuff from Gottlieb. Her parents just moved from Coral Springs to a neighborhood in East Boca. Even though we’re not super close with her, Rosenberg said we should use her house as a base of operations, since Tomassi is in Barbados with her family and we’re not really speaking to Kenzie or Jensen. I’m in a white corset that Gottlieb got at the mall and that was too small for her, and I’m wearing it with a white skirt, the same one I wore on my disaster date with Stephen, but no one else saw me in it, so it doesn’t matter. Tonight, I roll it up twice to look sluttier. Rosenberg wears the same sort of outfit but in black, something she borrowed from her sister. Gottlieb wears a pink silk baby doll, and we all wear black heels that make us walk weird.

  It took convincing to get here, and lies, the kind of dialogue I wish to avoid with my parents, but it had to be done. My mom didn’t want to let me go anywhere, not even to Gottlieb’s for a sleepover, because I got a B− on my history paper, but my brother intervened on my behalf, saying it’s not that important, just a grade, and there’s plenty of time to make up for it with the rest of the semester. Sometimes, out of nowhere, Brad will be really nice to me. It feels like an unspoken connection, the brother-sister bond, as old as time, coming into play. He sees that I’m upset by something unfair our parents are punishing me for and swoops in to save the day, the older sibling, the stronger one, wiser, more adept at handling Mom and Dad and knowing just what to say to put them at bay. He’ll smile at me from across the room, the small smile of knowing what a big favor he’s done. I remember one summer when he went on a teen tour to Australia, he gave me a little pink felt bear with a red heart that had a safety pin on its paw. He told me if I missed him I could wear the pin to day camp or put it on my pillow and I wouldn’t be alone. I used to rub the heart and hope he was out there having fun, meeting friends, thinking of me, his little sister.

  At the party, we begin drinking immediately. It seems that Chris Saul has a thing for Rosenberg, and he takes her hand and brings us to his kitchen, where more bottles are opened. She points to a bottle of vodka, and he pours us all shots in tiny glasses. We drink. It tastes like spicy water and burns the back of my throat. We take another, and another. Then he makes Rosenberg a mixed drink, and Milo walks in with Amber. He ignores me and pours Amber a refill, and she tops off her red cup with orange juice. A screwdriver. I only know what that is because it’s what Debby, played by Uma Thurman, orders in the movie Hysterical Blindness. It’s one of my favorites. It comes on late at night, and I watch as, over and over again, Debby chases after someone who’s not interested.

  Amber tugs at her bra straps. She has a small chest, but the boys don’t really care because she’s so skinny and beautiful. She has green eyes and shoulder-length brown hair. She always smells like gardenias when she passes me in the hallway of the 400 Building. About the only thing we have in common is that she wears red high-top Converse, the same ones I own. She ignores us and only speaks to Milo, who ignores us, too. I stare at him and will him to look at me. Amber catches my gaze and turns to walk out of the kitchen, waits for Milo, then leaves. I start to feel buzzed and notice that Gottlieb is already extremely drunk. Rosenberg can hold her own ever since her incident at home, but I’ve never drunk with Gottlieb before. I assumed she could handle her alcohol, especially in the presence of sophomores.

  Rosenberg goes off with Chris Saul, and I’m left to navigate the party with Gottlieb. I figure if I can get her to a bathroom she might throw up and feel better, or at least we can reconvene for a moment. We find Chris Saul’s parents’ room, and I shut the door behind us. He had mentioned something about his parents being in Tokyo for business, but that if we needed to use the bathroom and the other ones were full, we should just come in here. The room is done in shades of burgundy and gold and is so gaudy I could die. The bed is taller than me. I have no idea how Chris Saul’s parents get in that thing every night. They can probably afford to have people lift and carry them to bed. They’re so freaking rich. It’s only now that I can see that the money was relative. We were so lucky to be living how we were, in beautiful beige houses with pools and country clubs. Growing up, I never thought about violence or poverty or racial inequality; it was a shock to have my bubble popped, to realize everyone I grew up with was rich, not just Chris Saul. But back then it felt like that was how things were supposed to be. We thought life would always be green golf courses and sugar sand beaches, matching Juicy sweat suits and trips to the mall. We didn’t know anything different.

  Across from the bed is a fake fireplace with framed pictures sitting on the mantel. I see a portrait of Chris and his parents from his bar mitzvah. He’s wearing a white suit with a yarmulke and is holding a Torah, and his mother and father are standing behind him. He’s cute in that picture, always good-looking. I probably would’ve had a crush on him if I knew him when I was thirteen. Until last year he lived in New Jersey, though. He moved here as a freshman but got popular so quickly because of his car, a white BMW, and the fact that his parents are always gone and he can throw parties. When I compare myself to him, my life feels smaller, less important. Chris Saul pops his polo collar and sometimes even wears two polo shirts to school. He wears designer sunglasses and bleaches the tips of his hair. He’s like the front man of a boy band come to life right there, strutting down the hallways. It feels almost holy to get close to him.

  I look over, and Gottlieb is lying on a lounge chair, but her eyes are open.

  “You all right?” I ask.

  “Yeah. I just wish Aaron was here.”

  “Well, he doesn’t go to our school, so it’s kind of unlikely he’d be invited, right?”

  “I know. I just miss him. We don’t get to see each other that much.”

  Gottlieb’s boyfriend goes to a high school in Coral Springs where there’s no dress code, no group of Brittanys, no snotty rich kids. When she met Aaron Roth at her summer job at Cold Stone Creamery, she begged her parents to let her switch schools so she could be with him. I remember feeling bad that she would immediately trade in her friends for some boy she’d just met. But I wondered if I’d do the same thing.

  “We did it, you know,” Gottlieb says.

  “What?”

  “We had sex.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. A few times, actually. He was over last weekend to watch a movie, and my parents were asleep, and we just did it. He had a condom with him and asked if I wanted to and I did, so we did it.”

  “What happened?” I ask, and realize it’s a ridiculous question, but I want to know everything.

  “Uhh…it hurt the first time, but I didn’t bleed, because I wear tampons. But then it didn’t hurt the next time or the time after. He’s done it before, with his ex, which is good, because he knows what he’s doing.”

  “Did it feel good?”

  “I don’t know. It’s different. I guess it’s like when you kiss with tongue for the first time—you just have to get used to it. I just really like him now. I think I love him. And I think he loves me.”

  “I think I love Milo Vance,” I say.

  “I thought he was with Amber.”

  “I think it’s just a rumor.”

  “I think I have to throw up,” Gottlieb says, and runs into Chris Sau
l’s parents’ bathroom. I wait for her and fix my chest in my corset. I reach into it and try to push out my boobs so they look bigger and draw more attention. As I’m doing this, the door opens and Kenzie, Leigh, and Jensen walk in. Kenzie is in a black baby-doll dress that’s made of all see-through lace, Leigh is in a small red skirt and a red bra with her hair in pigtails, and Jensen is wearing a tight white dress that doesn’t really fit the theme of lingerie but looks good on her. She looks at me and doesn’t smile.

  “Escaping to the bathroom?” Kenzie laughs.

  “Gottlieb’s sick,” I say, and realize I should probably be more concerned, but all I can think about is that Jensen is here and I’m here and we haven’t talked and it’s weird. I know she’s only here because of Kenzie, who gets invited to all these parties because she’s Kenzie, but it still bothers me. I wanted to be the one who got invited, and now it doesn’t seem so special anymore, because we’re both here.

  “Oh no!” Leigh rushes over to the bathroom to check on Gottlieb.

  “Who did you come with?” Kenzie asks, and I can tell she’s a little tipsy by the way she’s hanging on to the edge of the bed.

  “Rosenberg.”

  “How the hell did she get invited?” Kenzie asks.

  “She’s with Chris Saul.”

  “ ‘With’?” Jensen asks, and even though it’s one word, one meaningless word, I’m glad she’s talking to me.

  “He likes her, I think.”

  “He probably is using her,” Kenzie says.

  “For what?”

  “Because he knows he can get her to do stuff.”

  “Or maybe he actually likes her. She’s been up to the upperclassmen’s couches before school. They’ve been talking a lot.”