The flight from New York to the private airport in Stowe, Vermont, is a short one-hour hop over two and a half states, but for some reason today’s journey feels more exhausting than it usually does and we’re not even at the airport yet. I try to push the fatigue back, not give value to the anticipatory anxiety growing in my chest. But the closer we get to Vermont—to the wedding—the more my chest starts to feel heavy, my eyes weary, my head foggy. Though that’s normal. It’s just prewedding jitters. It’s all just prewedding jitters.
Graham takes my hand in the back of the Uber and squeezes it, smiling like someone would on the way to their wedding, and I remind myself to take a deep breath and do the same. One step at a time.
When we arrive at Teterboro, the Walker family’s preferred airport because of its proximity to Manhattan and strict privacy rules, Graham hands our passports through the back seat window to a stocky Port Authority officer who looks comically oversized in the small security booth. We arrived five minutes earlier than expected thanks to my flying anxiety.
Anytime I hand over identification, I get inexplicably nervous. As if I haven’t done my research. As if my identity wasn’t a life in the making. But I brush it off by the time the man hands our documents back and wishes us a safe flight. As if we can control that.
The glass double doors of the terminal part like the Red Sea before us and a man who looks like Harrison Ford but sounds like Cyndi Lauper appears, flanked by two tall associates in black suits. “Welcome, welcome, welcome,” he sings, snapping his fingers at the men, an instruction for them to collect our suitcases from the trunk. God forbid we lift a pound of our own things.
I’ve met him many times—nearly every single time I’ve taken this trip with Graham, which turns out to be at least once a year—but I can’t remember his name. Louis, maybe? Pronounced the French way—Louee? I’m sure Graham knows. He remembers everyone’s name—a business habit his father taught him: remember their name and they’ll feel important, and if you’re in a position to make an equal feel important, you have the upper hand.
Harrison/Cyndi stops a foot away from us and firmly shakes Graham’s hand, then takes mine and puts it between his. The most professional version of a hug this man is allowed to give. “We are just so thrilled to be even the smallest part of your special day,” he says, holding just a second too long before freeing my fingers. The worst part is that he means it. He will genuinely be thinking about us for the next five days, smiling at the thought of our cocktail parties and cake towers and handwritten vows. But we won’t think about him again after this moment. Hell, I’ve met him at least five times and I can’t even remember his fucking name. That’s how much space this man occupies in my mind.
From the corner of my eye, I catch one of Harrison/Cyndi’s Men in Black flunkies pulling my white garment bag out of the trunk like it’s a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of his shoe.
“Oh, that one stays with me,” I say pleasantly, trying to sound nonchalant and not like a worker at Williams Sonoma whispering they break it they buy it to the mother whose children are playing hide-and-seek in the glassware section. “This one gets its own seat,” I joke, overcompensating, of course, as they place the white bag in my outstretched arms.
This dress cost more than they make in a year, and I love every single fucking stitch.
I had the dress picked out before Graham and I even started officially dating—a silk masterpiece with a high neck and a back so low no underwear is possible. It was the kind of dress that looks like a cheap Zara slip if you have even one extra pound on your waist. But me, right now, the only thing protruding from the silk will be my hip bones, wiry and ossified, precisely what the dress was made to highlight. Just what God would want, right?
The week after Graham proposed, Lena made an appointment at the boutique in Greenwich Village—where Emmy Rossum is purported to have browsed before her nuptials—and we bought the dress. I didn’t try it on in the moment because I knew it was fruitless. My bingeing was back and strong, and it wasn’t until buying this dress that I realized I needed to supplement my binges with something that could get me to the skin and bones I was expected to look like at my wedding. That night, after Lena and I celebrated with martinis and veggie burgers (in lettuce wraps, not buns, obviously), I stabbed my tonsils with a finger to throw up for the first time.
During the final alterations three weeks ago at the tailor I’d hired to come to Vermont and tighten as needed, Graham’s mother insisted on joining me to see the dress in person for the first time. I’d never even shown her photos and she recognized that, in not paying for it, she didn’t technically have a right to see.
She sat next to Lena on the white velvet couch, a judgmental smile tucked onto her face as she pretended to sip Moët—champagne has too many calories for her. Even in the Village’s most sought-after wedding boutique, Cheryl was acutely aware that she was the most expensive thing in the store.
When I came out of the changing room and stood on the small pedestal, the dress—an inch too large now—softly tucked with clips at my hips, I watched Cheryl’s face carefully. She and Graham have the same expressions, so once I learned his, she became easy to read. As she looked at me, listening to the seamstress explain where the dress would be tailored, her usually unemotional face from the Botox and fillers had a layer of something else to it. It wasn’t until I got home a few hours later that I recognized what it was: impressed. Not by the dress or the way I looked in it—she called it “lovely” which in Cheryl means not what I would have chosen—but impressed by my successful manipulation of the system to get exactly what I wanted.
Between the gown and the expected alterations, I’d put down the better part of my salary for the dress of my choice, but I knew that was the only aspect of our wedding I was paying for. And I insisted on paying for it for that exact reason: to get what I wanted. I didn’t give a shit about the flowers or the cake or the band or the table settings. Graham’s mother could dictate those items entirely. But if I was going to be immortalized in photographs and a New York Times feature, if this wedding was going to be the talk of the town and my photo the token image to go along with it, I wanted complete control over what I was going to wear.
Past security, after we’ve retrieved our things, we’re escorted to a sitting area that looks more like a hotel lobby than an airport gate. Brown and white couches and chairs are organized into small groups, so you never have to share a side table or an outlet with someone you don’t know. This isn’t the kind of place you usually wait for long. Since the private plane can’t leave without you, there’s no need to be more than a half hour early. But I was nervous this morning, last-minute unpacking and packing at 4:00 a.m., double-checking we have our passports and marriage license at 5:00 a.m. By the time Graham woke up, I was dressed with two coffees and an Uber scheduled for that afternoon. Thus, our plane wasn’t ready for us, despite us being ready for it.
“I apologize for the wait, Mr. Walker,” the man said to Graham as I sat down. “It should only be a few more minutes as they finish up the inspection.” Outside of gushing about the wedding or asking if I need anything, I’m not the one people address here. It’s not my account, it’s not my money, no one needs to suck up to me.
“Thank you, Clarke,” Graham says, shaking his hand one last time. Clarke. I would never have guessed that.
“If there’s anything we can do to make this an even more special weekend, please don’t hesitate,” Clarke says with a smile so big you’d think he was talking about his own wedding. “Anything,” he emphasized. What does he expect us to say? He’s a concierge at a private airport. There’s one job he can do and he’s already doing it.
There are many differences between flying private and flying commercial, but the one I most appreciate is how peaceful the waiting area is without the constant overhead announcements and overtired children. In fact, there are only five other people here: an older couple reading the New York Times and drinking coffee from Best PopPop and Best Grandma to-go mugs from home, and three men sitting in separate couch circles, probably traveling for business judging by their suits.
As I position my dress on the empty couch, carefully laying it over the cushions like a dead body, Graham takes a phone call—his mother, no doubt, asking for our ETA.
“We’re a little early, so we’ll probably leave a little early,” I can hear Graham tell her as he paces across the floor-to-ceiling windows looking out on the tarmac. I count five planes behind him and there are seven people here. It always intrigues me how inexplicably different the plane-to-human ratio is in a place like this.
Graham is one of those men who looks sexier in a cashmere sweater and jeans because everyone’s used to seeing him in some variation of a suit or workout clothes. It’s not that he’s sexier when he’s more casual, but the feeling I get knowing I’m one of very few people who get to see this side of him—that exclusivity—that’s what I find very sexy. I also feel it when I call him at work, telling his secretary to please pull him out of that meeting, only to say that a special outfit he’s going to want to take off me arrived from NET-A-PORTER, and I’ll have to try it on for him later.
Based on the paparazzi shots of the Kardashian sisters that littered every magazine I could steal growing up, I always thought that being rich meant ostentatious silver Gs on your belt buckle, dresses with “Balenciaga” running up and down the sleeves, sandals screaming “CHRISTIAN DIOR” on the leather toe strap. It wasn’t until I moved to New York that I realized there are multiple layers of rich, in the same way there are multiple layers of poor. Two-white-collar-parents-in-debt-from-their-McMansion poor was different from single-mom-who-buys-groceries-at-the-dollar-store poor, which was different from homeschooled-on-a-farm-in-a-religious-cult poor.
What I saw in magazines was New Money Rich. The kind of rich when you’ve recently—often quickly and hastily—lifted your status in the world and want everyone to know it. That’s when you plaster “GIVENCHY” on your chest but still pronounce it Give-in-chee not Zhee-vaah-shee. That’s when you buy the Aston Martin with the doors that open like a spaceship just to keep it in your driveway because you can’t afford the insurance. When your house has more rooms than you can afford to furnish.
But that’s not Walker rich. Walker rich is two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar sweaters so plain you could have bought them at the Gap. It’s five-hundred-dollar white sneakers you lightly scrub with a toothbrush after each wear. It’s four-hundred-and-twenty-five-dollar raincoats that only have a label on the inside tag.
That’s what I’m marrying into. They wouldn’t stand out in a crowd for anything other than looking perfectly pressed and put together, but their clean and uncomplicated outfits probably cost more than your average mortgage. That’s the point, I’ve learned time and time again. Blending in so as not to be a target. But blending in is a much more arduous task than standing out. It takes considerably more effort to look like you belong than to intentionally go out of your way not to.
The plane ride was so steady my dress only swayed on the hook in the closet as we took off and landed. In between, we floated through the clouds, the blue sky around us and the world below us.
Graham is asleep across from me, snoring just low enough that it blends in with the engines. His small sinuses don’t allow him to sleep sitting up—he’s a fragile man—but he refuses to get comfortable on any kind of transportation, regardless of whether it’s just the two of us. His shoes stay on, feet planted firmly on the floor, his seat only slightly reclined. I used to be the opposite—I’d slip my shoes off, sit cross-legged as I looked out the window, my coat or a blanket draped over my legs, the same way I’d be sitting if I were on the couch at home. But on our second flight to Vermont, when we were in our seats waiting for his parents to join us for what they called a “carpool,” Graham leaned in like he was about to kiss my cheek but instead moved toward my ear and whispered that I looked unprofessional. We had a status to maintain, even at thirty thousand feet. I didn’t realize until a few minutes later that our appearance was for his parents, not the airline.
The Walkers aren’t the pick you up at the airport kind of family. They’d rather pay absurd amounts of money for car services to alleviate the inconvenience of greeting their son as he arrives. Instead, we’ll show up to the house and Oskar, the family’s “house manager”—a title invented by rich white people to make themselves feel less guilty for having a full-time maid—will tell us what time to meet for dinner and we will retreat to our bedroom to “freshen up” until then.
It’s an hour drive from the airport to the house, winding down familiar roads, passing through small one-block towns filled with Victorian mansions brilliantly posed on the edge of a stream or inlet, so delicate that as quickly as you approach the town, you’re exiting and watching it blend into the trees until it completely disappears behind you. That’s why this place is divine. The trees. The most beautiful treescape you’ll ever see—green, copper, gold, and rust leaves radiate off the mountains like a bright acrylic painting. The entire place is an Instagram filter in itself, encapsulating the cottage-core, cabernet-by-the-fire vibe that twentysomething New Yorkers pay sixty dollars in Metro North fares to feel on some mountain “upstate” that’s littered with so many people it may as well just be Harlem Hill in Central Park.
I didn’t do much for this wedding, but I did pick the season. October. When the foliage is pornographically alluring, calling me into it like a shadow in the night. I’ve always had a thing for that kind of shit.
As we arrive at the base of Walker Mountain, where the main two-lane road meets the skinny one that snakes up to the family’s several homes and yet-to-be-developed plots of land, Graham asks the driver to stop. He pulls to the side and before he’s even pushed the gear to park, Graham has the door open and a foot out on the muddy ground.
“Sorry, just one minute,” I explain to the driver who nods and shrugs, nary a concern on his face. He’s getting paid whether we’re moving or stopped. What does he care about Graham’s weird tradition?
Above the road hangs an arched wooden sign, cracking and stained from years of snow and rain. It’s barely visible now, but branded in a plain serif font is Walker Mountain, the two words separated in the center by the family’s crest involving a coyote and a maple tree. It’s one thing to be a part of a family with its own crest, but it’s another to have the crest on a sign, and printed on lowball glasses, and embroidered on the chest of Oskar’s uniform. I hate this fucking family.
On the forest green poles flanking the road, supporting the sign above us, Graham finds a spot and begins to write his initials and the date with a black marker he keeps in his carry-on for this reason and this reason alone. He and his brother each have a pole and, ever since they moved out, they record every day they return to the mountain. Graham said it was born out of a competition to see who visited their parents more when they were both at Yale. Reed stopped adding to his years ago, but Graham continues, again unable to break a tradition.
When he got back in the car, the bitterly cold air sneaks in with him and sends shivers up and down my arms. He reaches his phone screen out toward me and smiles. On it is a picture of his initials and the date, and next to it a poorly scribbled heart that looks more like a drunken tattoo someone would pay good money to remove from their ankle. “The next time we’re up here, you get to put your name on it, too.” He’s beaming at the thought, expecting from me the kind of excitement I’d feel if he were gifting me a house.
Once in our early days of dating, we were lying in bed, talking about our families for the first time. I told him about how tragically my parents passed away, offering the occasional look away and rub of the eyes to really sell the vulnerability. He nuzzled his face into my neck and whispered, “I’m sad you don’t have traditions of your own. But one day, you’ll have mine.”
I smile back at him as he closes the car door. “I can’t wait,” I say, letting him kiss me.
Then he turns to the driver. “Okay, we’re ready,” he says. But I don’t think I’ll ever be. My heart beats in my ears, and I start to feel light-headed as we pass under the sign and begin to climb the mountain.
The road gets thinner and steeper as we approach the peak and it feels, for half a mile or so, like the trees are closing in on us and the mountain could, at any moment, swallow me whole. It is an odd claustrophobia I only feel here, surrounded by sky and nature, but never in Manhattan, where even the most normal thing—a bedroom, a street, a park—was made to squish in as many people as possible. But maybe it’s the opposite of claustrophobia—whatever you feel when there’s too much space, too much silence, too much darkness. When you can sleep with the windows wide open and hear nothing in the night. When there’s nothing connecting you to the outside, to people. When you’re in a place where no one could hear you scream.
At the crest of the hill, the road opens onto a flat and green meadow, overlooking layers and layers of mountain ranges in every direction, the closest textured with swaying leaves, getting lighter and smoother until the farthest is merely a thin blue line that almost blends into the sky. The sun is setting slowly behind the farthest mountain, painting the sky pink and orange, like a watercolor in a hotel lobby. It’s the kind of endless horizon that makes me feel small and grateful for the mansion we were about to park in front of; something stable and close I could grip onto, something cementing me to the ground. Somewhere I could hide.
We round the circular cobblestone driveway and the house emerges before us, like a man-made mountain hidden atop the peak. Tall, angular lines formed by metal and concrete shaped the house, while exposed wooden accents were taken from the trees that used to live on this land, whose roots are now dead and buried under the foundation. It’s a multimillion-dollar modern log cabin built to be an extension to the surrounding forest, with so many massive un-curtained windows you can watch the sunrise while you shit. I never understood the curtainless style in a place like this. I’d live in a windowless black box if I could. Sure, the view is beautiful, but every time I look out on it, I’m afraid of what could be looking back in.
I pull my sweatshirt sleeves all the way down and put on my coat as the car parks and we step out into the brisk October air, so fresh it smells like nothing.
“My Grahmmy boy!” An old woman, petite and rotund, lumbers down the front steps, her arms outstretched as wide as her chubby smile. The family insignia faded and worn on the chest of her too-tight polo shirt.
“What are you doing here!” Graham jumps out of the car and embraces her in a way I’ve never seen him apply to the help. If thanking them makes one look weak, what does hugging them do to your marble reputation?
I climb out of the hulking car and stand beside the open door, watching them hug like a third wheel. She starts rocking him back and forth, mumbling in Spanish.
“Where’s Oskar?” I finally ask to no one in particular. Just something to say, out loud, to remind them I was there. Graham certainly seemed to forget.
“Vacation,” she says. “I had to come out of retirement for this very special weekend.”
Graham untangles himself from the woman’s grip and steps beside me, resting his hand on my lower back in the way he does when he’s about to show me off, like a falcon he’s trained to land on his gloved arm. “This is Eliza,” he says, excitedly, more so than when he was introducing me to his mother for the first time. “My fiancée.”
The woman steps back and cocks her head to the side, examining me like a piece of meat at the butcher. I don’t like being looked at that way—studied. It feels intrusive. So I do it right back at her, offering her the same puzzled stare she was giving me. The longer this lasts the more I start to feel like she does look familiar. Maybe I met her before, though I doubt it considering the way Graham introduced me. Maybe it’s just that she looks like an older Melissa McCarthy.
“Babe, this is Lorraine—” He continues to say something else about her, but I can’t hear anything. My ears start ringing like I’d spent the past twenty-four hours front row at a Metallica concert, and I feel so light-headed I think I could realistically pass out right here on the uneven cobblestones.
I have seen her before, I realize. I most definitely have seen her before. And I don’t like the way she’s looking at me.
“It’s so good to see you,” she says, further shoving my heart into my throat. Had she been trained to greet people that way, just like I trained myself to? In that way all rich people do, as if they meet so many people it’s hard to keep track, so let’s just assume I’ve met everyone. Or did she truly remember me?
“It’s great to finally meet the living legend,” I manage to say, each word taking extreme concentration to get out of my mouth. Graham used to talk about Lorraine the way someone would talk about their mother or a doting aunt. She started her tenure as the Walker house manager when Graham was two years old, and didn’t retire until he was in college. I’d only heard about her, but Graham always implied they’d lost touch after she was replaced by Oskar and she stopped serving a purpose. Growing up in a household that was cold, where family dinners were more like mandatory business transactions, Graham cites Lorraine as the only person who ever showed him affection; the only person who wanted to hear about the boys’ day and learn what they did in school. Once, in the early morning hours on a Saturday when we first started dating, when we’d wake up and fuck and then lie on the terrace watching the late sunrise in a carnal daze, Graham said he wished Lorraine was his mother.
She stretches her hands out, palms up, and I rest mine inside them, feeling her cold and dry fingers coil around mine. “You’re going to be the most beautiful bride,” she says with a smile that, maybe I imagine this, seems to fade and turn into something else as she drops my hands and looks behind us, at the driver unloading our luggage from the trunk to the front door.
She faces Graham, doting on him like he’s her own son. “Your mother’s at her facialist, your father’s in his office. Your brother and Veronica took Henry into town. Everyone will be here for supper in two hours.” She glances down at her watch—a gold Cartier I wasn’t expecting to see twisted on her dimpled wrist. “One and a half hours,” she corrects.
She looks at me one more time—as if she wants to memorize my face—and I smile politely, pretending I’m not bothered by any of this, like I have no idea who she is, nor she, I. She shakes her head, like she’s pushing away the same memory I am, and, without another word, I watch her turn and disappear into the house.
Fuck.
This was not part of the plan.