Playground (32 page)

Playground

I lift my head, hitting it on the box spring. I’m wearing the same

robe from the night before. My neck is stiff. My shoulders are sore.

Slowly, I realize that I am still under the bed.

At school, friends pass me in the halls and whisper behind my

back. I’ve withdrawn from everyone, and everything around me

feels like it’s moving in slow motion.

I overhear my friends say, “I heard she’s having an affair with

Hef ’s girlfriend.”

“Gross.”

“That is so nasty,” another says.

“Ew, do you think she looks at us when we’re naked in the girl’s

locker room?”

“Not even,” Hunter says. “She’s so into that actor, and besides,

I’ve never even seen her in the locker room.”

Nobody knows what to think of me anymore. I’m in a spaced-

out daze that doesn’t wear off. My friends distance themselves

from me even more. I don’t let myself wonder what is affecting my

entire life or why everyone keeps asking me what’s going on. For

some reason I keep turning to the one person who pushes people

away yet continues to tell me he is the only one who understands

what I am going through.

That afternoon I pass Dad in the upstairs hallway and ask if

we can spend some time alone. I am anxious to talk to him about

Vicki. He looks at his watch and tells me about some pornographic-

art gallery opening in a few hours. “It’s a must,” he insists, so I agree

to join him.

“Oh goodie, I have you all to myself,” he giggles.

On our way, we stop by the Mansion so he can check on Hef.

While he’s upstairs I ask one of the butlers if he can let Kendall

know I am here. He tells me she is unavailable.

At the gallery showing, Dad and I sip champagne. My father

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stops at a black-and-white sketch titled “The Butler Did It.” The

picture depicts a man dressed in a butler’s uniform having doggy-

style sex with a woman on all fours.

“I really love this one. Something about it,” Dad chuckles. He

motions to a salesgirl.

“Hmm, could it be the leash or the fact that she’s on all fours?”

“If they want to be treated like dogs, I am more than happy

to accommodate them,” he scratches his head. His eyes look a little

bloodshot, but I try my best to ignore them.

“So I assume we’re replacing the tennis court with the your

own Kennel for Dogs?” I laugh with him.

“I was thinking more along the lines of an Obedience School

for Girls,” he giggles like a boy.

“I’ll screen them to make sure they don’t have a mind of their

own,” I say matter-of-factly as Dad puts his arm around me.

“I’m glad to see you’re finally getting with the program,” he says.

We approach a life-size portrait of an olive-skinned brunette

with big boobs. “Now this one I like,” I tell him, knowing the por-

trait reminds me of Kendall.

“It’s a little hard for my taste, but if you want it, get it,” Dad of-

fers generously, our subliminal battle coming to an end. He signals

for the salesgirl to wrap it up. I thank him and we continue roam-

ing. He glances at his watch and I can’t help but notice how tired

and stressed he seems.

“I have to go. I’m rushing to meet a private investigator and

then I’m off to play gin with Hef.”

“What’s the private investigator for?” I ask.

“I can’t get into that right now,” he says.

“Why?” I plead.

Dad signs his bill and walks briskly outside. He hands the

valet our parking ticket. “It’s a long story. But the truth is, I think

Vicki may still be involved with her ex-boyfriend in some capac-

ity,” he says.

“How do you know?”

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Playground

“I have my sources,” he confirms.

“You should dump her. She’s bad news.”

“Her ex-boyfriend runs the largest West Coast operation from

here to Colombia. Why would I want to get into a big thing with

him? I’d rather not do anything until I have all the facts.”

“I don’t see what her ex-boyfriend has to do with you dumping

her?” I ask, confused.

“Let me handle it, okay? I’m the one getting life-threatening

messages on my answering machine every day, not you!”

“Fine,” I say, at a loss.

He never gives me a real answer. I am confused yet sworn to

secrecy. We get into the car and drive. Dad picks up his car phone

and calls his bodyguard, telling him to check the house before we

return. We pull up in front of the house and get out. Dad looks

around and paranoia sets in. It’s difficult to tell whether he is act-

ing delusional and suspicious or if there really is something to fear.

Either way, it frightens me.

It’s a Saturday night and I’m still in bed when I hear someone ring

the doorbell. After a few moments, the doorbell rings again.

I throw on a Puma jersey and boxers, walk downstairs, and look

through the peephole. I am surprised to find my mother standing

there, looking worried. I open the door.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she says. “I called you all morning but

your father said you weren’t home. When I saw your car in the

driveway I realized he was lying.” She is shaking nervously and I

suddenly suspect my father is lurking nearby. His reaction to my

mother being here makes my anxiety level skyrocket.

“Why would anybody want to kill your father except me?” she

laughs half jokingly. I shrug. Small tears fill my eyes as my mother

pulls me in close, and for an instant, nothing else matters.

“Everything’s going to be okay.” She rubs my back soothingly,

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trying to console me. But a little rubbing is not enough to make

everything okay. I haven’t been okay in years.

“What can I do?” she asks as I hold on to her for dear life, never

wanting to let go.

“Nothing.” I shake my head, petrified Dad will find me speak-

ing to his enemy. There is no way she can pull me away from such

a powerful man. She is too weak. He will destroy her. She cannot

save me. No one can.

“Honey, why don’t you come with me now?” But her voice

quivers as she says it, and hearing her trepidation sends chills

down my spine. I am a prisoner, yet somehow that is less frighten-

ing than the thought of actually defying my father.

“Everything will be fine. I just need to get back to the house be-

fore he gets home,” reassuring myself that he really loves me.

“Are you sure?”

I nod.

“As long as you’ll be all right, sweetie.” Mom seems relieved to

return to our usual state of denial. We hug and for a moment, for

one moment, I am safe. She will never know how much I need her

approval and love like the child I was when I left her.

The moment quickly evaporates as we say good-bye and I hurry

inside, using the side gate. I enter the French doors by the pool, run

upstairs to my room, swallow two Xanax, and slip into bed.

The next morning, the phone rings, startling me out of a heavy

haze. It’s my mother. The next thing I know, I look up to see my fa-

ther looming in my bedroom doorway. He’s rocking back and

forth in his blue terry-cloth robe. My hands shake because I am

talking to the one person my father despises most.

A thick rubber band is now aimed inches from my face.

“Who are you talking to?” my father demands, hovering over

me with crazed bloodshot eyes.

“A friend.” I flinch, hoping my mother does not say a word. He

pulls the rubber band back even farther as if to spring it at me. The

rubber band is now pointed directly at my face.

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Playground

“Who are you talking to?” he asks again. Anger clouds his eyes.

My heartbeat is so irregular that it almost stops. I can’t speak and

part of me is too scared to face him or what he’ll say if I open my

mouth.

At this point, I would welcome death.

“I gotta go,” I mumble into the phone.

“Well, let’s try to meet more often,” Mom says, unaware of

what’s happening.

“Okay.”

“Call me when you have time, honey,” she says.

We hang up and Dad lowers the rubber band, but continues to

sway back and forth. There is an awkward silence.

“How are you?” he asks, momentarily calm. His bloodshot eyes

peer right through me. I feel naked and uneasy. I hate that he’s just

barged in.

“Good. You?” I say in a trembling voice, still shaken by his psy-

chotic behavior.

“Fine,” he says, and walks out like a zombie.

I lower my head, ashamed of how easily I was bought. How

readily I walked toward a life that promised me freedom but

turned into a prison.

By Monday, I can’t wait to go to school. I stop by my tutor’s house

to pick up my term papers that are due and waiting for me in a

manilla envelope on the bench outside her front door. She has

been kind enough to write them because she knows I couldn’t

graduate without her help.

I’m a senior now and therefore afforded the luxury of flicking

cigarettes at freshmen who walk by in the courtyard. Out of

nowhere, I hear some annoying loud-pitched screech: “Hunter, you

slut, you fucking slept with my boyfriend, didn’t you?” I get up and

race over to where others have gathered around in a large circle. A

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catfight ensues. A high-fashion Euro snob, a label whore from Bel

Air wearing Gucci everything, slaps Hunter across the face. Hunter

turns bright red, shrieks, and holds her hand on her face. My old

group, along with everyone else, backs up and leaves Hunter all

alone in the middle surrounded by the Gucci label whore clique.

I slowly take off my sunglasses, light a stogie, and walk casually

up to “Gucci.”

“Listen, you little knockoff queen. Why would Hunter fuck

your nuevo Euro trash boyfriend who reeks of Drakkar?” I say,

pressing my finger into her fake gold-plate oversize “G” necklace.

“If you so much as look or lay a hand on her again, I can make

you disappear and no one will ever notice,” I add, exhaling smoke

from my Marlboro Light into her face.

Students clear the way as I pass, clapping, high-fiving me, and

rooting me on. My old group smiles warmly as I quietly and hon-

orably regain my status as a very cool chick and someone not to

fuck with.

I skip PE and stop by the Polo Lounge to call Kendall while

having an afternoon martini. I’m hoping she can meet for a quick

rendezvous at the park across from the Beverly Hills Hotel. I know

we won’t be followed there. When I call she is not there, as usual,

so the butler takes a message. We have been discreet since the

phones have been tapped and I miss talking to her.

That evening, I’m alone, curled up on the couch in my Nike

sweats, and I order in kung pao chicken from my favorite Man-

darin restaurant. I’m watching
The Breakfast Club
when the phone

rings. Someone listens and says nothing. For a moment, I am

frightened until I hear Hayden’s voice.

“I don’t know why I’m calling. It’s probably the thirty Perco-

dans I’ve swallowed, but I just thought you should know some

asshole got their hands on my car,” he mumbles as if there’s some-

thing in his mouth.

“Your car? What happened?” I ask, knowing that only a crisis