The Chocolate Money (18 page)

I take a deep breath, rub my hands over my face. I am now Calm. “You know, your father came to some of my mother’s parties.”

Cape seems interested, but not really. Mack went to a lot of parties. “So our parents knew each other?” he says in the same tone he might ask
So, you have Parker for math too?

Did our parents know each other?
You have no idea,
I could respond.

Instead, I tell him, “Yes. I would even say they were friends.”

“My mother never really talks about the Grass Woods days.”

How Mags to leave out the good stuff,
I want to say. But no.

“I didn’t know him that well, but he was always really nice to me,” I say. I heard him fucking my mother in the hallway of the aparthouse. I knew about their nocturnal visits to his country club, about his admiring her centerfold in a golf cart. I even sat and talked to him on my mother’s bed about a pearl necklace she’d found just as they were about to have anal sex.

“I’d love to hear what you remember sometime.” This is an interesting topic, he probably thinks, but it can certainly wait.

“Sure,” I say, nodding. I can follow his lead. Maybe we’ll do that sometime, if I don’t forget.

“Well, seems my work here is done. Nice chatting,” he says, holding his package.

“Yup.” I turn my back on him and step closer to the PO window. I have come, after all, to get a package. I hear Hailer walk away and the tinkle of a bell as the door shuts behind him. I know I will have to remind myself to call him Cape.

I wait for at least ten more minutes and start to wonder if anyone is still back there. But then there is a rustle, and my box arrives. It is so huge it obscures the woman who brings it. When she sets it down on the sill, I can tell by the thunk it makes that it is very heavy. I sign my slip as fast as I can so I can check the return address. The aparthouse. Babs.

Once I manage to lug my box across campus and up to my room at Bright, I go to work opening it. Inside, I find a pair of gray suede boots and a maroon cashmere dress. A gold charm bracelet I know Babs got from her parents when she was at Farmington. She never wore it but often brought it out from her jewelry drawers and let me play with the charms. A carton of Duchess Golden Lights. Big bottles of vodka, scotch, and bourbon. A box of Hard Rider condoms. Totally Babs. I dig for a note. Finally find one. Longhand on eggshell-blue stationery,
Babs
in brown script at the top.

Dearest,
it reads.
Just a few things. Miss you madly—Babs.

I’m both excited and disappointed by the package. I can’t wear the boots or the dress or the charm bracelet, since they are too rich-looking and out of sync with Cardiss fashion. And the rest is contraband. Could get me kicked out. But I’m not sure Babs really understands there are rules at Cardiss, so I give her big points for sending all this. Trying. And more important, Babs is thinking of me. Misses me. And maybe I could use the booze to rehabilitate myself with Meredith. Like Babs, I can throw a good party.

That morning, I see Meredith walking with a large group of girls, blond and beautiful like she is. They are all laughing and she is walking a bit ahead of them, as if they are a string of beads and she the clasp that holds them together. Meredith waves to me but doesn’t stop to say hello. I won’t admit it, but I want to be friends with Meredith. And not as part of the clump that follows her, but up front, holding her hand.

T
HAT NIGHT, I EXECUTE,
my plan. After check-in, I knock on Meredith’s door. Jess comes to open it. Holly’s there too.

“Hey, Bettina,” Meredith says from behind Jess, eager for gossip, “tell us something we don’t know.”

“I’ve got something better.” I hold out the bottle of vodka.

Meredith brightens. Jess and Holly look nervous.

“Where did you get this?” Meredith says.

It feels wrong to say that my mother sent it to me.

“Jake Kronenberg.”

“Ah; typical. I heard he has a full bar in his room. Your prep work paid off,” Meredith says with a smile. She’s no longer inclined to give me a hard time about him.

“I have more in my room.”

Holly’s now visibly uncomfortable. Knows that she will be expected to drink some. Mount a horse she’s never ridden.

“What if we get caught?” Holly says. She is probably thinking about the peer-pressure lecture her mother undoubtedly gave her.

“What if we don’t?” Meredith says. “Bettina, come on in and sit down.”

I join them on the floor.

“Jess, we need cups.” Jess reaches under Meredith’s bed. Produces a stack of plastic cups with the Maidstone blue-whale insignia on them. Meredith goes to their fridge. Pulls out a carton of OJ to cut the harsh taste of the vodka. Funny—Meredith has all the paraphernalia for drinking. She’s just missing the booze.

Jess makes a cup for each of us, adding two shots of vodka to an inch of orange juice. She hands them out like she’s the bartender and Meredith the hostess, even though it’s my alcohol. We all drink. Even Holly.

“So,” Meredith says, “we were just discussing Cape. I’m going over to his dorm at midnight.”

“I saw Cape at the PO today.”

Meredith takes a large gulp of vodka and OJ. “I hope you didn’t tell him you knew about what happened last summer,” she says, with a tad of trepidation that only I can pick up in her voice.

“Of course not, Mere,” I say. She adds more vodka to her cup but no orange juice.

“He is really cute,” I say, not wanting to ruin what has started as a festive gathering. I take slow sips from my cup. I notice Jess has barely imbibed anything. Too many calories. Holly has had only a few sips.

“Yes, he is,” says Meredith. She finishes her drink and goes for another. I like watching her so eager for what I have. She reaches under her bed for her smoking kit.

She drags deeply on her cigarette. Finally smokes like she means it. She’s gone on walks with Cape, but this is the first time she has plans to go to his dorm. I wonder how she’ll handle the problem of Lowell, since he and Cape share a room. Maybe Lowell is also having a girl visit.

I look at her beautiful face—it is as perfect and vulnerable as a doll’s. If she were a doll you could order from a catalog, she would have a rich name, like Veronica or Cornelia. She would not be the kind you slept with but one that had multiple expensive outfits and was kept on a shelf. If I were a boy, I would have kissed her right then just to get all her attention. I’m even tempted to do it as a girl, to cement our connection. I would push her hair back over her shoulders, maybe even suck on her neck, leaving a mark the color of a wine stain. Meredith went to Chapin, and after nine years at an all-girls school, I’m sure she has been kissed by at least one of them, on a dare perhaps. But maybe not. After the shower incident, I can’t afford to be wrong. As the minutes pass, she’s less present in the room. Distracted. Focused on leaving. She won’t be taking me with her.

I pour Meredith another drink, her fourth. This time I do not add OJ. She drinks in little sips and this seems to silence her. I can tell she’s hitting her limit but doesn’t want to admit it. She will finish the tumbler no matter what. Since neither Holly nor Jess takes the lead in talking, I say to Meredith, “Do you want to take some vodka with you for Cape? It might loosen him up and stop him from crying after you guys hook up.”

“No. Cape . . . doesn’t . . . drink. Dad died. Accident, driving.” Her words are slurred and she’s in that uncomfortable space where she’s having trouble maneuvering her body. She’s not a seasoned drinker after all. I regularly drank wine with dinner once I turned twelve. Babs didn’t want me to make an ass of myself at parties again.

I refill Meredith’s cup. Ignore everyone else. This has become an experiment for me. I want to push her as far as she can go.

She can finish only half of it and then places the cup on the floor, as if some waiter from Maidstone will be along to pick it up. She puts out her cigarette in her Doubles ashtray. Stands and tries to steady herself. I watch her take a few wobbly steps to her bed and then fall onto it.

“Not feeling so well,” she says in a small voice. She suddenly sits up and says, “Jess, garbage can.”

Jess hurries to her with the wastepaper basket. Meredith vomits. It’s in her hair. All over her baby-doll tee. She lies back down. It’s impossible to take a shower at this hour without Deeds investigating. Even if Meredith changed her clothes and put up her hair, she would still smell and probably could not navigate the distance between our dorm and Cape’s. Meredith will have to wait until morning to see him. Her visit to Wentington is now aborted.

Meredith is on the verge of passing out. Holly runs to the bathroom and brings back a cold washcloth. Dabs Meredith’s forehead. Meredith lets out a long sigh, then is out cold. I gather up the cups, take them to the bathroom. Pour the remaining contents down the sink. I brush my teeth. Fix my hair. I look in the mirror for about a minute, and I surprise myself. I’m like Babs after all. The boy, not the party, is the whole point for me.

I
WALK THROUGH THE DARK
night to Wentington. Jake will most likely still be awake, and he can let me in. Surely I can think up a good excuse for being there at that late hour. Cape’s room is on the second floor.

Jake lets me in after I rap on his window. He is wearing boxer shorts. Reading
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

“Bettina,” he says, “I wasn’t expecting you.”

I want to stay with him, but I say, “I need to go upstairs and see Cape Morse.”

“That frat boy?” Jake says derisively. “Why?”

“Meredith was supposed to come visit him, but she got sick from drinking too much. I didn’t want him to worry.”

“Those WASPs just can’t handle their liquor.” He doesn’t seem to include me in this category. I am a WASP, but in my case, it doesn’t give me membership in the elite club of blue bloods. I will always be a stand-alone entity, a marginal girl with cigarette burns on her ankles and stories about Babs I can’t publish in the Cardiss literary journal.

“What a good friend you are, Bettina,” he says, with more than a touch of sarcasm. “Come back if you feel like it. I’m not going anywhere.”

I cross the room and open the door.

It’s not hard to find Cape and Lowell’s room. It’s right above Jake’s. I knock. No answer. I push the door open. Empty. All the lights are on. Maybe Cape is hanging out in someone else’s room?

His loafers are on the side of the bed. I pick them up. Inspect them. Mack’s VDB wheat-backs are in the slots. I want to take them out, hold them in my hand, but I’m afraid I won’t have the time or skill to slip them back in. I open his closet. Check out his shirts. Some are just plain white or blue oxfords. To the right are the more casual chambray shirts: pink, green, and blue. Worn in and soft. The kind Mack used to wear. I press my head in them, smell. I wish I could steal one and sleep in it. But I have nowhere to hide it.

Cape walks in wearing baggy, faded jeans. White T-shirt. His hair is wet, body showered in anticipation of Meredith’s visit. He sees me standing in his room. I watch him narrow his eyes, as if the light has changed. I wonder which one of us will speak first.

He starts trying to act as though he is not surprised. “Hey, Bettina, what are you doing here?”

So many answers to this question. I go with the easy if not quite true one.

“I just came because Meredith got sick and couldn’t make it. She didn’t want you to worry.”

“Oh,” he says, clearly disappointed. “Is she going to be all right?”

“I think so. Just had too much vodka and passed out.”

“That’s not good,” he says.

“Where’s Lowell?” I ask. I don’t really care, am just stalling. I want more time alone with Cape.

“He’s studying with some guys down the hall. Has a Latin composition due tomorrow. How did you get in, by the way? The front door’s locked. I was about to go down and open it for Mere.”

I don’t want him to know this, but I can’t come up with any other explanation.

“I came in through Jake Kronenberg’s window.”

“Do you know him?” Cape asks, clearly surprised.

I could say
Sure, we fucked in the library
but instead I go with:

“Vaguely. He helped me with one of the papers I wrote for Donaldson.”

“Ah,” Cape says, apparently buying it. He continues. “Listen, this sounds awkward, but I need to know. What exactly does Meredith say about me? She seems to be all over the place. Like tonight, for example. We have big plans, and then she gets drunk so she can’t come.”

I neglect to tell him that it was my vodka. That I did most of the pouring.

“Umm,” I say, “a lot of things.”

“Like what?”

“She says you are really good at lacrosse.”

“And?”

“She calls you Whiplash because your hair is always falling in your face.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

Here comes the point of no return. The reason I’ll never have any real girlfriends.

“Umm,” I begin again, “she thinks it’s stupid you cry during blowjobs, and she hates your poem. She showed it to all of us in Bright and laughed.”

Cape looks like I have whacked him in the face with his lacrosse stick. Begins to pace. Moving and thinking, as if I am not there. He stops after a minute. Looks me directly in the face and says:

“I absolutely
do not
cry during blowjobs.”

“I am sure you don’t,” I say, nodding my head. “I’m only repeating what she said.”

Silence. Then:

“Do you think I am attractive?” Cape has tears in his eyes but his chin is up, determined.
See, major needy,
Meredith would say.

“Absolutely,” I admit. He’s one of the best-looking boys in school from what I have seen so far. Even better-looking than Lowell. I can’t believe he needs me to affirm it. “Cape,” I say, “most of the stupid things Meredith says are just to impress other girls. She’s lucky to go out with you.”

“Can’t tell from what she says.”