Playground (34 page)

Playground

I can tell he wants to cry but he controls himself. The pain in

his eyes is almost too much for me to bear. I stare at him in disbe-

lief.

“I took care of everything related to my burial, and the hospital

knows you have power of attorney to arrange everything related to

my death.” I am frightened by the figments of his imagination that

tell him he is dying or could be killed. I manage to listen to him

continue.

“I want a quiet burial without too much fuss. Twenty or thirty

of my closest friends, you know the drill. It’s time for me to go and

I am determined to go peacefully,” he rambles as I am consumed

with guilt for not knowing how to help him.

I peer over at the attorney, whose eyes are as icy as Dad’s can be

at times. Today Dad’s eyes are full of gloom and sorrow as if he has

seen the evils of the world. I want to reach out and touch him but

it’s as if he is already gone.

“I want to thank you for everything. Forgive me if I’ve been

too harsh on you at times, but I did it out of my deepest love and

devotion for you. I’ve only ever wanted you to lead a happy, ful-

filled life,” he says, and all I can do is nod and accept this peculiar

act of contrition.

I sign the papers, and Dad and I leave the office. We ride down

the elevator in silence. Neither of us mentions the attorney visit

again.

That evening, I sit on Grampy’s balcony smoking a pipe. I can no

longer move or speak. My insides are shriveled into a tight ball. My

eyes are red from crying.

“I need to get out of that house,” I tell him.

“Running away never solves anything,” he replies.

“Spoken like a true escapist.”

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“I keep telling you to broaden your horizons. Get involved

with something outside of yourself. Why don’t you go to college on

the East Coast,” he suggests.

“I’m afraid Dad won’t let me go.”

“If you had any discipline you wouldn’t be concerned with

what others demand. You would do what you need to do.”

“No one seems to understand, school is not the issue. I can’t

live in that house anymore.”

“I am telling you to focus on your future.”

I am frustrated with his response.

“My future? At this point, if I don’t get out of there, I may not

have a future.”

“What you need is a real education,” Grampy demands.

I take my dark shades off so he can see my face. “Do I look like

I’m ready for finals?”

“You look like you’re ready for a change,” he says. “Most of the

time we make up stories in our head that aren’t even true. They’re

illusions to keep us from doing something.”

“The only illusions I see are Dad’s hallucinations on the tennis

court late at night,” I tell him, a cloud of smoke between us.

His loyalty to my father runs deep. He seems to overlook my

father’s lack of boundaries, his antagonistic, condescending ways of

making even the smartest person in the room feel stupid. He knows

I am right about the drugs, his neglect as a parent, as a human be-

ing, his inability to differentiate between fantasy and reality; yet

Grampy continues to enable him out of guilt, out of pure love for a

son he can no longer reach.

“Darling, there are many ways of looking at your life. There is

what happened, the story of what happened, and the story of what

can happen. And depending on how you interpret it, you can

make it mean something negative or you can create new possibili-

ties for yourself. That’s for you to decide.” He lowers his head so he

can see me over his thin spectacles.

“You make it sound so easy.”

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Playground

“You can’t control what other people do. But you can control

how you respond to it, whether you allow it to eat you up and oc-

cupy all your thoughts, and how much you let it affect you.”

I try to digest what he is saying.

“You have everything you need,” he tells me.

But I can’t understand what he’s talking about. I’m so used to

the little voice in my head that believes the world owes me some-

thing and that civilized behavior is a waste of time.

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Nineteen

I t’s 1987. I graduate Beverly Hills High School with the rest of

my class and when the ceremony ends, we shoot confetti and cham-

pagne corks high into the air. Though we have grown apart, we

will always be there for each other.

We are reunited again as we were as kids.

We may not see each other every day, but our old bonds will

stay in our hearts forever.

Liz, Amber, Hunter, Michelle, Sonya, and I snap photos of our-

selves outside on the front lawn. We gather around making funny

faces as we capture the last of our days together. A knot swells in

my throat as I say my good-byes.

I turn around every few steps and watch as my old friends

blend into the distance.

J E N N I F E R S A G I N O R

I drag through the next few days and think seriously about leaving

town. I need a hiatus from my life. Somehow, it is less painful to

run away than to face the insanity of my everyday existence.

One of Dad’s friends owns a suite at the Plaza Hotel in New

York City, so I arrange to stay there for a couple weeks. Three

thousand miles away, I lock myself in my suite doing lines of coke

all night until the next day. I keep the curtains closed at all times to

keep the sunlight out. Cat Stevens’ “Wild World” drowns out the

street noise below. I spend my days on the phone with Kendall and

order room service for every occasion. At night, I drop a Halcyon,

sip vodka tonics in crystal glasses, and take cabs to clubs like Lime-

light and the Tunnel.

Around 1 p.m. I’m in a deep fog.

Hidden beneath two fluffy down pillows, I hear faint noises

that begin to sound like ringing. Flailing my arm, I bang some-

thing off the end table and lift the receiver to my ear.

“Hello?” I answer, wiping sleep from my eyes.

“Hey, kiddo, it’s me. I’m coming to New York,” Kendall says. It’s

as if she read my mind.

“I’ll be there tonight,” she whispers and hangs up.

Hours later, there’s a knock on the door. I slowly open it and

see Kendall standing in the doorway wearing a sheer white linen

dress. She is tan and toned and looks happy to be alive.

She jumps on me and we fall backward onto the bed laughing

and rolling around like kids. She seems a lot calmer than the last

time we saw each other. I tell her about my falling-out with Hayden.

“It’s about time,” she says, ordering up a bottle of Cristal. Within

minutes room service arrives and we lie on the bed feeding each

other pâté on French bread.

“Everyone thinks we’re having an affair,” I tell her.

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Playground

“Aren’t we?” she laughs.

“Are you going to tell me why you’re here?”

“To see you, silly.” She takes a small bite of pâté and licks her

lips flirtatiously. It’s difficult to ignore how sexy she is. Her beauty

drives me to distraction as she gently caresses her fingers through

my hair and we look at each other.

“Have you been a good girl?” she whispers and I blush.

“Tell me how much you missed me.” She rolls on top and pins

me down playfully, our bodies now pressed together. Her hand

slides naturally down my stomach as she slowly unbuttons my

pants. She slides her fingers gently between my legs.

“Tell me how much you need me,” she says, and I swallow hard,

breathing heavily, tortured, yearning to be loved, touched. I’m not

sure if she’s a game in my head or if she’s for real. She draws me

near, kissing me, teasing me, keeping me in her complete control,

and the impulse to give her full power turns me on even more. She

squeezes my hand and hesitates.

“I love you,” she says softly.

“I love you too.” I pause, absorbing the intensity of my feelings.

She strokes my face and I put my arms around her, unsure of

whether I’m her lover or her child. She leans her head against

mine. We are far enough away from L.A. that we can say whatever

we want, yet somehow I can’t help but always feel like somebody is

watching us.

It’s past eleven at night by the time we motivate to go out. After

painting our nails and taking a relaxing bubble bath, we rummage

through our wardrobe trying on at least three outfits each. She

ends up wearing a low-cut dress showing off her cleavage. I throw

on ripped jeans and a rhinestone tank. We stumble out of the ho-

tel room, kissing and holding hands in the elevator.

We go to Limelight, a converted church, where all the guests are

on display in a sea of glitter and camouflage. Flooding the dance

floor are partygoers in painfully bright short jackets and miniskirts.

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Long-legged girls wear carefully ripped aqua jeans, neon-blue and

candy-apple-red pantyhose with glow-in-the-dark stilettos.

Boys squeezed into tight leather pants and Spandex biker

shorts circle the scene, shirtless beneath lambskin jackets. Girls

sweat to Madonna’s “Holiday,” their blown-out bangs sturdily held

in place with red glitter hairspray.

The energy in the church is perverted as fluorescent lights and

wild sexual videos flash against the walls. Men wearing Calvin Klein

underwear and combat boots and topless females in thongs and

high heels dance in cages above the stage of clubgoers. Too many

kamikazes later, we dance, surrounded by gays, straights, and strays.

Kendall puts her arm alluringly around me and we make our way

through the hedonistic crowd. We recognize the same openness to-

ward sexuality and drugs as life at the Mansion. There is something

very enticing and exhilarating about breaking free from restrictions

that bind us to who we are rather than to who we are supposed to be.

In the morning, I can barely open my eyes as I hear faint, muffled

sounds of someone talking.

“I have to go.” Kendall whispers through my sinking haze. She

kisses me gently on the lips and she’s gone. My eyes droop and I go

back to sleep for hours.

It’s late in the day when the phone rings, startling me.

“Hello?” I answer, groggy.

“You’re not going to believe what happened to me today.” It’s

Savannah.

“Dad and I went to Nate ’n’ Al’s and he fell asleep in his soup!

He told me the turkey made him tired.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, and then he made me drive him home!”

“You barely have a permit.”

“It was a nightmare.”

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