“ARE YOU STILL THERE?”
Amanda Jamison was on the line waiting for her answer, but Caitlin was busy making the adjustments. They were gone, out of sight. The golf cart with her father and younger siblings had pulled into the garage, and she was, mercifully, alone in the yard. In an instant, the taps were turned back on and the stream of new feelings was again flowing inside her, washing away the anger, guilt, and shame. All at once, the wicked girl, the ungrateful daughter, the poor role model, receded with the sound of the garage door closing, and of her friend’s voice.
“Yeah. I’m here.”
And she was, fully. Caitlin Barlow was back from her alternate personality, the rude, cynical, unfeeling monster that lived inside the mansion she was now gazing at from the swing that hung from a giant oak. It was cold. But she didn’t care. With a bare foot dangling from the wooden seat, she breathed in the smell of the decaying leaves and settled back into herself.
“So . . . you didn’t answer me. Did you . . . you know . . . finish the business?” The anticipation oozed from Amanda’s voice, and it made Caitlin smile. In spite of the trouble she’d had to weather, this confirmed it. She was now firmly entrenched within their elite circle of friends.
“It was so close, I swear. I mean, if Mr. Carter hadn’t come in, it was over.”
“Really?” Amanda said, begging for details. “How could you tell?”
“You know—from the stuff you told me.”
“Hard, harder, then . . .”
“The grand finale . . .”
“Exactly. Only no finale for Kyle. Went home with a boner. Poor baby.” Amanda’s tone was mocking, though they both knew Kyle Conrad was immune to their ridicule.
Caitlin smiled again, her mind now filled with the contours of the boy’s face, his broad shoulders, and the smell of his cologne, which she had managed to capture on her not-so-subtle descent to her knees. Thinking of how awkward she’d been, how unsure—downright terrified, if she were being honest—made her shiver deep inside her body.
“Yeah, poor baby,” she managed to say through the devastating embarrassment she was now reliving.
“Well . . . don’t worry about it. I’m sure you’ll get another chance, and he’s usually really quick. So how long are you grounded?”
There was a pause, a long hesitation as Caitlin connected the dots. Of course, idiot, she thought to herself. You’re not the only one.
“Two weekends, including this one.”
“Fuck.”
“I know.” Caitlin managed a response, though her mind was stuck somewhere between Kyle’s smile as he stroked her hair, and the image of her new best friend getting him off in some hidden corner of their world.
“Sucks for you. Listen, I gotta get ready. . . .”
“Yeah. No problem. Text me when you get back?”
“Course I will. Love ya,” Amanda said. Then she was gone.
When Caitlin flipped the phone shut and saw the time, a heavy weight filled her body, and with it came the churning. It was a part of her now, as much as anything. As much as the exhaustion that crept in after lunch hour. As much as the hunger that she tolerated day in and day out, and sometimes in the night as she tried to sleep. It was the churning of the new. Her new friendship with Amanda and the informal club she was now a part of. Her new discovery of Kyle Conrad, and the feelings he stirred up. And at moments like this one, when she teetered between this new world and her life inside that house, it was driven by the impossibility of living in both.
She could see it in their eyes, each and every one of them. Her mother was more pissed off than worried. Cait was now interfering with her plan—the plan that had worked so well with her older brother, who was now a jock at Choate. Keep them busy, keep them on a schedule, and they will grow like structures off an architect’s drawings. Cait’s refusal to try out for varsity squash, her inability, which was taken as unwillingness, to get A’s at the Wilshire Academy meant mommy dearest would need a different plan. Different drawings. Such a bother with all her charity work and luncheons and, of course, the incessant baby-making.
Her father, on the other hand, was more worried than pissed off. The vertical lines between his bushy eyebrows were becoming deep caverns drawn into his face. Nothing a little Botox couldn’t fix, but Daddy was hardly the type for that, and even if he was, this thought did little to alleviate the guilt that was thrown into the brew that had infected Caitlin’s blood. She was Daddy’s little girl, his first girl, and the only one until Mellie was born. After her brother left, she’d been Daddy’s best buddy, then an occasional buddy. Once upon a time, she’d loved board games, cards in particular, and he had taught her to play blackjack. Once upon a time, that had made her feel edgy and grown-up, listening to him talk about Las Vegas, how he would take her there when she was older. He’d taught her to drive, let her peel around on the grass in his coveted Creamsicle Corvette.
It wasn’t fair that he expected this never to change. She was fourteen. Card games were the equivalent of a merry-go-round to the Amanda-Kyle roller coaster. The first time she’d broken a plan, he looked like a child who’d discovered the cruel farce of Santa Claus. Fuck him anyway. He’d canceled on her for business meetings before his retirement. And what? Now that he was bored out of his mind, she was supposed to provide entertainment, like his cars and scotch and arm-fart contests with her little brothers? This was her life, her defining moment that would dictate everything for the next four years. She had been a social nobody since before she could remember, the blanks having been filled in by her older brother. Remember when we had to beg kids to come to Caitie’s birthday party? Remember when Caitie puked in kindergarten and no one would talk to her? Even the Barlow name hadn’t saved her from herself all those years, and those were the years that had set the stage.
It was cruel how this was sorted out in towns like this one. Preschool, lower school, middle, and upper. They had grown up side by side, the Amandas of Wilshire and the Caitlins—the ones who lacked that something, the secret ingredient that was necessary to be in and not out, though what that ingredient was, Cait still had no clue. At first blush, she had the obvious things, some of them in spades. Enormous estate. Private plane. Servants. World-renowned father, socially connected mother. As for her appearance, even in a place like Wilshire where you’d have to search the maid’s quarters to find a fat chick, Caitlin Barlow was attractive. Petite like her mother. Skinny legs. Blond hair, long and straight. Blue eyes. Straight teeth. Adequate tits for a fourteen-year-old. Clearly showing potential. Not too smart, not a retard either. By all accounts, Cait should have been popular.
And yet, she had not been surprised by her fate. There was, she had observed over the course of her school years, a kind of calling that was felt within before it could be outwardly displayed. It was a calling that she had always lacked, though she had tried in so many different ways to fake it, to pretend that she was born to be admired, to be coveted. Amanda Jamison had possessed it since their first days in pre-K. Long, curly brown hair, pretty sundresses, she had carried herself like a princess from the start. And her admirers had fallen into place and never left her side. It was, Caitlin knew, something expected of the Barlow children, and her brother had pulled it off with his usual effortless brilliance. It showed on his face, in his gait and smile. Even with defeat, rejection, momentary failure, it never left him. One look, and you knew he had it, that he felt it inside.
What Cait felt inside, she was certain, could not be anything like that. Confusion, insecurity, and doubt, a deadly potion that ran through her blood and invaded every cell. When she looked at her life—at any piece of it—she saw a senseless jumble of tasks and imaginary hoops, of distraction and blindness, and it left her with a giant pit that was filled alternately with anxiety and resignation. Not exactly the makeup of a born leader. No one made sense to her. Not her older brother, who filled his time with sports and video games. Not her mother, whose eyes drew her in but left her with a greater mystery each time. Barlow was a child himself, brilliant they said, but now somehow happy rolling around on the floor with the babies. He said there was joy in a hard day’s work, in achieving great things. Even little things. And yet, when the money rolled in, he had retired.
There was a chance for her now. He should be proud. All of them should. Weren’t they the ones who scowled at her old friends? Weren’t they the ones who pushed her to “expand her social circle”? She had done it, found a way in, and now they were disappointed because they didn’t like what she’d had to do. How could they not have known the price of admission?
The anger was powerful as it poured from a well inside her, a place she had never known existed. She let out a moan and closed her eyes. The anger was surpassed only by the agony—the sum of all these loose and scattered pieces. Pure agony, churning and churning. Standing on the brink of a social breakthrough. Soaring with possibilities. The thoughts she allowed herself at night in her bed. Kyle. His hand sweeping through her hair. Was it really possible to want to crawl inside another person and be lost forever? Had he stroked Amanda’s hair? Would he ever notice her again? Then there was the dismissive way her mother looked at her, the look that had once been laced with pride, narcissistic as it might have been. It had felt good at the time. And her father—was that the worst piece? Or was it Mellie, who sulked incessantly because Cait refused to play? But how could she, really? How could she sit on the floor and pretend to be the purple Pretty Pony when she wanted to scream until it all stopped? And how could she ever enjoy the turn her life had taken when she had to go back inside that house—right now, as a matter of fact, and every day after this one—and feel the weight of their disappointment? What would they do if she were dead? Somehow the family would go on, mourning their dear saint Caitlin and accepting visitors with plates of food (prepared by chefs, of course—Wilshire didn’t do homemade), like at her grandmother’s funeral. After it was said and done, they would carry on, filling in whatever gap was left. Why couldn’t they just do that now? Pretend she didn’t exist and let her get on with her life?
“Cait!” The boss sounded pissed as she screamed from the kitchen sliders. Now she would have to pretend to babysit while the nannies supervised her every move. At least it was past seven. All that was left was TV and bed. She could survive that. She shoved it down, the new Cait, and brought out her shield. Sarcastic Caitlin. Indifferent Caitlin. Typical teen Caitlin. The teen-stranger, as her father now called her. She willed herself off the swing. The ground was getting cold, the grass starting to stiffen from it. With frozen toes, she began her journey back to her family, screaming as she walked.
“I’m coming!”