An American Rich Girl

By Bruce Cook

Kate Fairchild is born a rich, privileged American millennial. She grows up in Beverly Hills, attends a fancy east coast boarding school, and eventually attends the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. There, she falls in love for the first time with a senior pre-med major, but her heart is crushed when he leaves her behind for medical school.

Running from pain, Kate ends up in Newport Beach, the glitzy California town on the Pacific Riviera. She begins to follow her dream career path into the world of fashion design. A chance meeting with a dashing young man named Cole Baldwin electrifies her. Cole seeks fame and fortune in real estate, and the two find big time sexual attraction as they rise in star quality.

Along the way, Kate confronts the feminist ideal of “having it all”—career, marriage, and family. Cole claws his way to the top of the real estate game, while Kate moves forward on her path into fashion design. Her privileged perspective turns upside down, however, when struck with the realities of tragedy and loss. Faced with insurmountable challenges, a turn of events brings Kate the promise of a future of redemption, hope, and the shocking possibility of true love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Apr 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9781665722094

Bruce Cook

Bruce Cook is an Emmy Award-nominated writer and producer with twenty-five years of network television credits. He is the author of eight books, including the 2020 release Fame Farm. Cook pens the Society Column for the Los Angeles Times Daily Pilot.

Book preview

AN

AMERICAN

RICH GIRL

BRUCE COOK

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Copyright © 2022 Bruce Cook.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Archway Publishing

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.archwaypublishing.com

844-669-3957

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Grateful appreciation for the editing talents of Laurie Veitch,

Gus Kane and Archway Editorial.

Cover design by ebooklaunch.com.

ISBN: 978-1-6657-2208-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-2553-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-2209-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022907235

Archway Publishing rev. date: 06/16/2022

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 A Privileged Youth

Chapter 2 The Big Crush and a Big Bust

Chapter 3 First Love, True Love

Chapter 4 A Left Turn in Life

Chapter 5 Changing Course

Chapter 6 Lunch with the Girls

Chapter 7 Carrie Comes Clean

Chapter 8 Fate or Real Estate?

Chapter 9 Facing the Truth about Jamey

Chapter 10 Beach Blessings

Chapter 11 Opportunity Knocks

Chapter 12 A New Day and a New Job

Chapter 13 Unexpected Moments

Chapter 14 Remorse or Rebirth?

Chapter 15 Reality Check

Chapter 16 Life Turns Upside Down

Chapter 17 Picking Up the Pieces

Chapter 18 The Big Payday

Chapter 19 A Week Never to Be Forgotten

Chapter 20 Aloha

Chapter 21 Unexplainable Actions

Chapter 22 Questioning Everything

Chapter 23 A Life Changer

Chapter 24 Turning the Corner

Chapter 25 Facing the Family

Chapter 26 Charting a Course

Chapter 27 A Lesson in Family History

Chapter 28 Coming to Terms with My Reality

Chapter 29 Picking Up the Pieces

Chapter 30 Moving Forward

Chapter 31 The Ukuleles Perform

Chapter 32 A Rite of Passage

Chapter 33 Moving On

Chapter 34 The Choices We Make

Chapter 35 An Attempt at Redemption

Chapter 36 And Baby Makes Three

Chapter 37 The World Slams on the Brakes

Chapter 38 Gut Punch

Chapter 39 The New Normal

Chapter 40 Life Is Good

Chapter 41 Dangerous Midnight Moves

Chapter 42 Apologies and Confessions

Chapter 43 Easy Money

Chapter 44 This Changes Everything

Chapter 45 Time to Get Serious

Chapter 46 Emotional Highs and Lows

Chapter 47 Life Is a Journey

Chapter 48 Life in the Fast Lane Accelerates

Chapter 49 Following the Money

Chapter 50 Hetero Sex Takes Center Stage

Chapter 51 The Rubber Hits the Road

Chapter 52 Money Is in the Bank

Chapter 53 Living the Life

Chapter 54 The Best Gift of All

Chapter 55 Strike Two

Chapter 56 The Truth Shall Set You Free

Chapter 57 Growing on Trees

Chapter 58 An Expanding Empire

Chapter 59 The Family Dinner

Chapter 60 A Turning Point

Chapter 61 The Lie Was Preferred

Chapter 62 The Big Deal

Chapter 63 A New Day

Chapter 64 What Comes Around

Chapter 65 Holding On

Chapter 66 The Reckoning

Chapter 67 Throwing It All Away

Chapter 68 Picking Up the Pieces

FOR HEIDI MILLER

Of course all life is a process of breaking down, but the blows that do the dramatic side of the work—the big sudden blows that come, or seem to come, from outside—the ones you remember and blame things on and, in moments of weakness, tell your friends about, don’t show their effect all at once. There is another sort of blow that comes from within—that you don’t feel until it’s too late to do anything about it, until you realize with finality that in some regard you will never be as good a man again. The first sort of breakage seems to happen quick—the second kind happens almost without your knowing it but is realized suddenly indeed.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

CHAPTER ONE

A PRIVILEGED YOUTH

In this age of the independent woman, my father set me up with the man I eventually married. He was doing a business deal with the guy and thought he would also be an ideal husband for me. Sort of a package deal. The semiarranged union, made without the benefit of the internet, became my own modern version of the American love story.

My name is Kate Fairchild. It is a name that sounds just about as Waspy as once can imagine. A true generation next girl on the outer cusp of the self-absorbed millennials, I am blonde, of course, and tall. Some even label me statuesque, with a figure that compels construction guys to whistle.

Raised in glittering Beverly Hills, north of Sunset Boulevard on Lexington Road in a fabulous southern colonial home, complete with obligatory pillars, gleaming, white-painted siding, and high-gloss black painted plantation shutters bordering the tall paned windows on two floors, my childhood was the stuff of a Lifetime Channel movie without the drama. Beautiful people, beautiful everything—so ideal you might be inclined to disbelieve the level of privilege. My parents, despite their indulgence in the material pleasures afforded by their financial ability, are truly happy people. Somehow, despite any challenges, they have managed to escape the downside that often comes with a life of not shopping anywhere but Neiman Marcus, not flying any class but first, and never worrying about any expense. While they have not completely avoided life’s pitfalls and heartaches, including the loss of loved ones and the trials involved in raising kids in an often-insane world, my parents have kept it together on many levels.

Nancy Fairchild, my mother, might be the original Martha Stewart. Martha would have trained under Nancy. Mother Nancy exudes a strong, over-the-top fashion sense and a real flair for the only the best will do. Way too much Beverly Hills style. The understated Martha Stewart Connecticut country idiom is a notch or two below my mother’s operating current.

At fifty, Nancy has the vitality of a thirty-year-old. She also has the skin, thanks to Dr. Klein, and the hair, thanks to stylist Hugh. Nancy is a five-foot, four-inch velvet bulldozer with platinum-blonde hair and piercing blue eyes, accentuated by just enough eyeliner, always ready for public view, sporting a very pale pink lip gloss to coordinate with her nail polish. She serves on a million committees and takes care of her husband first, her children second, and herself last, but makes everyone in her life feel as if they are treasured, as if each is the most important person alive.

My father’s name is Dalton Fairchild, a.k.a. Dalt. At fifty-two, he is one cool dad. Drop-dead handsome and athletic, Dalt plays tennis competitively with ferocious aggression at least two times a week. He is unapologetically positive, always smiling, dressed by Ralph Lauren from head to toe since the time he was in college, and rich. Should I mention how rich? Very rich. Dad came from money and then made more on his own. Making money is an art for my father. And he is generous—too generous with some, me included. He also makes life too easy for my younger brother, Jamey.

I was properly indoctrinated in the lifestyle of the American rich girl over the course of six years at Foxhaven Academy for Girls, tucked away for more than one hundred haloed graduations in a wooded glen off the Philadelphia Main Line. There were so many Buffys and Muffys, and a broad selection of Daisys and Merediths, that it is a wonder I did not rebel and become a latter-day flower child. I grew up with a certain attraction to the liberated 1960s. To my mother Nancy’s horror, I redecorated my pink toile sixth grade bedroom in tie-dyed sheets and added a lava lamp found at the Pasadena Flea Market. It was heaven.

As my seventh-grade year dawned, it was farewell to my hippie flashback fantasy and hello to Ms. Ardith Collins, headmistress at Foxhaven Academy. We are talking uniforms, rules, and behavior so foreign to me that I thought I was being subjected to an exorcism. One of my favorite 1960s-era movies that made me think about my mother’s childhood was The Trouble with Angels, so at boarding school I pretended I was Hayley Mills reincarnated as Kate Fairchild, and I adjusted. Eventually, I rose in status, becoming one of the popular girls at the academy. The Beverly Hills address helped, along with visits from Nancy and Dalt, which created an excitement level more appropriate for European royalty. It didn’t hurt that they always brought an abundance of treats.

By the time I reached seventeen, my virginity was in the rearview mirror. Girls’ prep school did present its opportunities for boy-crazy behavior. The liaisons were not regular, or often, but I did feel entitled to a share of carnal exploration. Okay, I had sex twice, sort of. It was not romantic, not special, and unplanned, but I did like it. The first time was with a basketball player. My class was on an athletic field trip for a game at an all-boys’ prep school in Lower Merion Township. He was Jack-in-the-Beanstalk tall and skinny, and the sweat of his exertion at the winning game lubricated my skin as our bodies met behind the gym on a very cold afternoon in April.

He put his arms around me, pressing his wet and hot uniform against my white blouse and gray pleated skirt. With a strong, hard body, this seventeen-year-old had one thing on his mind. I could feel what was on his mind as his manhood hardened beneath the rayon shorts.

I don’t know how he managed to raise my pleated skirt just enough to pull down my white lace panties, but he did, and it happened very fast. I helped, dropping those basketball shorts just enough to release a spectacular vision of a rather significant male tool. He entered me with the speed of a subway entering Pennsylvania Station. I screamed, a controlled sort of pleasurable scream. It felt amazing, and I finally knew just what all the hoopla over sex was about.

As my basketball boy pushed and pulled, making grunting noises I’d never heard, and certainly had not expected to hear during my first sexual encounter, all I could think of was, first, how much I liked it, and second, that this was God’s ultimate trick to control mortals: give them immense pleasure that cannot be duplicated in any other pursuit in life, and they will always remain loyal and loving children.

Just like in the movies, or in any number of trashy novels I read, some over and over again, the sex was over almost before it had started. For my own first time, he came inside me very fast, the warm fluid heightening my pleasure. I think I experienced orgasm, but I’m not sure.

Thank you, he said, pulling up his shorts after removing himself from inside me.

How odd, I thought, to be thanked. Nice meeting you or Nice having you might have been better, at least more appropriate. I laughed at my bizarre thoughts.

I knew one thing: it wasn’t love. Yet it was sex that I liked, and I didn’t place any super meaning on the moment. It happened. We parted. I did not feel bad or guilty or shameful. It just happened, a life experience for an American teenage girl, probably like the first time for millions of others. I got back to the bus just in time for the ride back to Foxhaven. Everyone had been looking for me, waiting impatiently.

Where have you been? Ms. Collins asked.

Gee, I’m sorry. I was just looking around the school. This is quite a neat campus, I told her.

The bus ride back was something of a challenge. My first-time partner’s man juice kept creeping out and running down my leg. With no tissue, I had nothing but my sweater to use as a wipe. With great care not to reveal my situation, I managed to keep the crisis private. As soon as the driver put on the brakes and pulled into the parking lot at our school, I dashed off the bus, pushing my way past everyone in front, going out the door, and heading straight for my dorm room shower. The hot water was magical as I watched the tiny remains of my lovemaking swirl down the drain. No doubt I would ever forget this basketball game. What was the boy’s name?

Once Was Not Enough

Almost a year had passed after I’d bid farewell to my virginity, taken by the sweaty and very tall basketball player. I thought about that night a lot. None of the self-analysis revealed any universal truth. There was no epiphany, other than my ability to recount the physical pleasure without any form of regret. Was I just a tramp in training?

Nonsense. I was not a tramp. So many of my good-girl friends from good families were doing it whenever the opportunity arose. Males are not the only gender to pursue the sex act, and they are surely not the only gender to talk about it, brag about it, or share all the juicy details with friends or anyone willing to ask, practically anywhere and anytime.

There had been new possibilities over the past year, yet the setup remained the same: sex by chance, sex in secret and in a serious hurry. I wasn’t interested, or not interested enough. Mother Nancy was loud in my subconscious: Save yourself, my darling. Don’t give it away. Wait for the right time, the right place, and most importantly, the right man.

At boarding school, it seemed to me that there was no right time or right place. How could I possibly know if my suitor was the right man? Why are Americans all so preoccupied with sex? And so judgmental in a double standard kind of way? Often adults take a Do as I say, not as I do hypocritical stance. I decided to hold out, take the abstinence road. I suppose it was supertraditional, but my motivation came from my soul. I needed more time to figure out my life without sex.

Never would I be so phony to call myself a born-again virgin. What a concept. What a denial after doing something that is so natural, so real, so human—the absolute core of life and civilization.

Yet, for what it’s worth, over the past year, I had taken the path of abstinence. I didn’t talk about it. Since I was popular and pretty, my friends just sized me up as private. They all expected that I was doing it whenever and with whomever I pleased. It must have been my aura of confidence.

Right. Well, maybe not, but it was working for me. That is, until the night of the prom. Private school, public school, boarding school, it doesn’t matter—prom is another rite of passage for kids who make it a goal to end the dance with sex.

The whole concept is, frankly, trashy. Add to the equation a prom attended by wealthy girls and boys, supposedly raised better than the massive hordes of the unwashed public, and guess what? I realized that we are all members of the unwashed society, regardless of bank balance, especially if that balance belongs to our parents.

My prom was scheduled for the first Saturday evening in December, prelude to the upcoming Christmas season. The tony Glenville Country Club welcomed the onslaught of future business leaders and their soon-to-be debutante future wives. A magnificent setting exuded old-world taste and screamed traditional values of courtship. Decorated with astounding winter white orchids and pastel cabbage roses overflowing from crystal vases, the club dining room had been transformed into a magical winter garden. Table settings boasted sterling silver candlesticks designed in the fashion of Corinthian columns, with tall eighteen-inch ivory tapers producing a very elegant, subdued spray of illumination.

We were all dressed to impress. Our parents made sure of that. Federal Express boxes had been delivered daily in the days and weeks before our big night. Opening the goods made for quite a frenzy, with plenty of comparison and jockeying for attention and status.

While I tried to rise above it all, I failed, finally succumbing. My first package came on what was a very dreary day in late November. I was with my parents over the Thanksgiving break in the Big Apple, and Mother Nancy and I visited the designer salons with considerable gusto.

I found several dresses off the rack at Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf’s, and even my favorite, Bloomingdale’s, but Mother wanted me to have my first couture gown. Most girls would kill for my off-the-racks, and I was seriously embarrassed going with Nancy to appointments at the House of Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, and Carolina Herrera.

At Dior, arriving for our showing at eleven o’clock in the morning, we were ushered into a private salon by a very dapper man who was wearing a gardenia bud in the buttonhole of his lapel. He was joined by two very serious middle-aged women dressed in finely tailored black suits, cream blouses, and low black and cream Ferragamo pumps.

I confess I was really enjoying the entire experience, especially since my dream was still to go to fashion school in Paris. At this moment, the Dior salon on Fifth Avenue was as close as I was going to get.

Mother and I were seated on a settee covered in ivory damask and were each offered a flute of Veuve Clicquot. Accepting with pleasure, I saw that another waiter was entering from a hidden door, carrying a silver tray of canapés and a frosted Lalique bowl of caviar accompanied with the essential capers, chopped onion, egg, and perfectly sliced toast points, no crusts. At least I had learned something about the delicacies available to the few who were very fortunate in life. How many teenage girls know about caviar and capers? That bit of knowledge and one sexual encounter had surely made me into a woman of the world.

After trying on at least a dozen gowns, all amazing, I gathered enough courage to say, I am so grateful, but no thank you. Nancy was slightly embarrassed, but she let it go and smiled, thanking the Dior staff, never apologizing. Nancy never apologized.

What was that all about? she grilled me as we left the salon. Our driver was at the ready, pulling up to the curb just as we had come through the door. The man jumped out of the black Lincoln Town Car, then ran around and opened the rear passenger door with military precision.

How did he know we were coming? I questioned rather incredulously.

Don’t be silly, darling. I sent him a signal on my mobile phone, my very much in-charge mother told me, putting out her arm, signaling me to slide in the back seat first.

I followed orders perfectly.

What would you like to do now? Mother Nancy asked, taking my right hand and looking right into my eyes.

How about lunch at Serendipity? I responded, giving a sheepish grin.

Fabulous idea, was all she said.

Somehow the driver heard, and the Town Car made a U-turn and headed up Fifth Avenue to Fifty-Ninth Street, where it made a right turn and proceeded toward my dream restaurant. On this day of fashion hunting, we arrived in minutes. We got out of the car and waltzed down the narrow steps, through the well-worn pair of Victorian-era double glass doors, and into the romantic world of the 1950s Beat generation in New York.

Will there just be two for lunch? the superskinny black hostess asked. She had a huge Afro hairstyle and wore an African-inspired dashiki-print tunic with a necklace fashioned of dark-stained wooden nuts the size of tangerines.

What’s your name? I asked the hostess. Nancy sent me a look as if to say, Are you planning to ask her to join us?

I’m Abigail, she responded. Having expected an exotic ethnic name, I tried not to be surprised.

Please follow me. Abigail grabbed two menus and seated us in the center of the main dining room at one of the small ice-cream tables made of chipped, white-painted iron.

May I have a frozen hot chocolate? I asked as Abigail handed us menus.

Right away, miss. Turning to Nancy, she asked, Madame, may I get you something?

May I have a glass of pinot grigio? What is your selection?

Santa Margarita is nice.

Fine. Thank you.

Mother was not a big drinker, so I was somewhat interested in her request. I feared that I had worn her out on the morning gown hunt.

Darling, I enjoyed our shopping together. Why did you decline a purchase? That last dress at Dior was superbly perfect. You looked like a princess. If your father had been with us, he would have cried.

That’s just it. I don’t want to look like a princess. I just want to look like—well, me. Not that I really know what me is supposed to look like. Do you understand?

Mother paused, took a large sip of her Santa Margarita, put the glass down, and reached across the tiny table, staring at me with such kindness and love that I almost started to tear up.

Of course, I understand, she said with slow, deliberate resolve. "Would you like to try Bloomie’s after lunch? I saw in the Times this morning that they are having a really big sale." Nancy began giggling with an all-knowing sense that her only daughter, a young woman-child, was trying to find her path in a very complicated and confusing world. Since when had my mother cared about a big sale?

We finished lunch, then exited Serendipity, to find our driver waiting curbside. Again, he knew without asking where we were going. Bloomie’s was only a few blocks away. I was convinced my mother had mental powers of communication.

At my favorite New York store with the giant alternating black and white gleaming tile floor, and all the special displays that had made the emporium a landmark in the retail world for decades, I felt at home.

My parents had taken me there many times as a child whenever we came to New York. I used to hopscotch on the tile floor and was never stopped by staff, never interrupted.

Funny how little things last in the memory bank. Once I hopscotched right into a big display of some sort of candy and did a header into the cart, sending fashionable multiflavored jellybeans flying like bullets. I didn’t get in trouble, even as I sat on the floor attempting to eat as much of the evidence as possible.

Coming of Age at a Dance

I selected a simple navy-blue velvet dress at Bloomingdale’s on that day with my mother on the fashion search. It was a short, almost mini, dressy winter frock. High at the neckline, cut low in the back all the way to the waist, my prom dress had long sleeves with a row of about eight or ten pearl buttons from the wrist almost to the elbow. This was not your typical formal floor-length evening gown. I absolutely loved it.

The dorm at Foxy—that’s what we called Foxhaven by the time we were in our junior year—was buzzing with electricity as we all prepared for the big night. I slipped on my dreamy blue dress and adjusted the backless bra, so grown-up and sophisticated, and pulled on white silk hosiery. Nancy had sent me a pair of navy-blue velvet pumps she found at one of her favorite Rodeo Drive shops in Beverly Hills. With four-inch heels, I was standing close to six feet. Nancy did not shy away from helping her only daughter tower over the other girls and plenty of the boys as well. I was never afraid of that reality either.

For better or worse, my date for the evening was a boy named Chase Smithson. He stood about six feet one, so we were going to be face-to-face, eye to eye. Chase, or Smithboy as he was called, was one of the lacrosse stars at Boys’ Prep, the school sponsoring the prom at the old-line country club. We had met a few times at organized mixers held over the previous year, but that was the extent of our friendship. We had never dated and didn’t talk, not much anyway. I liked him; he seemed sweet. And he was extremely handsome in that classic East Coast next-generation male chip-off-the-old-block prep school kind of way. I also liked that he was a star jock. Since I had become a rather formidable tennis star on the girls’ varsity squad, it was an appropriate match.

My father, Dalt, was particularly proud of my prowess on the court, a talent that I had not exhibited as a kid back in Beverly. Girls’ prep must have brought out some of Father’s latent genes in me. I was just a natural player. My stroke was clean, and it came easily to me—no forcing, no struggle. It even impressed me at times. Accolades from fellow players, competitive players, and coaches did not hurt. Nor did the praise go unnoticed.

Smithboy knew all about my talent. So did a lot of the boys across town. When he had asked me to attend prom with him at the last social before Thanksgiving, he confessed, awkwardly, that he really wanted to ask me to join him for a tennis match at the Montgomery Tennis Club, the famous mainline sanctuary of tennis that required all the players to wear white uniforms on court without exception. I told Chase I would accept that invitation as well, and then asked him if his male ego would be damaged if I were to win.

I am a modern man, Smithboy replied. I think any woman who could beat me in an athletic contest would be a woman I would like to know better!

Over the previous couple of weeks, I had talked to my prom date only twice. We talked tennis and lacrosse, and we exchanged a bit of family history. We had plenty in common. His dad was an important Wall Street investment banker, and his mom was another Martha Stewart with the perfect home and the ideal family life in Greenwich, Connecticut. We were two spoiled rich kids with spotless pedigrees—Beverly Hills, meet Greenwich.

My roommate Sara, a nice girl from Savannah, finished dressing for the dance. Sara was also tall and slender. Her auburn hair flowed, framing her ultrawhite complexion and accentuating her superseductive emerald-green eyes. Sara had no idea how powerful those eyes were. She could stop traffic with those eyes.

Her prom dress of choice was conservative, as to be expected for a nice southern girl. The gown was one part deb ball, one part church social, and two parts not very sexy or fashionable, unless you were living in 1958. But that’s okay because Sara was a genuine sweetheart. In so many ways we were opposites, yet we had each other’s backs, 100 percent. Sara and I had been roommates since we had both arrived at Foxy four years ago at the age of thirteen.

Can I help you with your hair or makeup? she inquired. Sara looked like a mannequin: flawless skin, hair perfectly coifed. She struggled a bit trying to fasten a simple gold chain necklace sporting a diamond drop.

I’ll get that for you, I said, coming up behind her and fastening the clasp.

Kate, sit down so I can fix your blonde head of hair. How do you want it? Sara asked.

Can you just pull it back into a ponytail and tie it with this white ribbon? I gave the white ribbon to my sweet Sara.

The conversation then took a serious left turn.

Are you ready for this prom? Sara asked with a very different, slightly scared tone of voice.

What do you mean?

You know.

No, I don’t know.

Ready for what is expected of us.

I think it is just expected that we have a nice time.

It is expected that our dates have a significantly better time, she said, pursing her lips.

Oh, that’s just an urban myth started by a bunch of testosterone-driven males in some small corn town in Iowa, I answered, trying to comfort my friend.

Then we are all in Des Moines, not Philadelphia.

Seriously? So, the only reason we have been invited to this prom is with the hope and expectation of sex?

You’ve got it right. Tell me, how well do you know your date? Have you been out with him before? Do you share anything special in common other than some surface trivia? Sara was direct, which surprised me. I thought she was a very smart girl, but very naive.

I hardly know my date, I responded. So what? What does that matter? How do you go from hardly knowing someone to assuming that these prom dresses we have all been so preoccupied with are going to be dropped to the floor?

We both howled uncontrollably, falling to the floor of the dorm room, unable to stop.

Come on, Sara, I have no plans to have sex with my date. Do you?

I’ve thought about it a lot. I think I’m obsessed. Sara paused, then shared, I’m a virgin. Is this my time?

It’s not about time or a place; it’s about how you feel about yourself and your partner.

That’s just it. I just want to have the experience. I want to do it. My partner is just one notch above a stranger, but he is a handsome boy. Don’t you think he wants the experience too?

Oh my God, Sara, you have just undermined hundreds—no, make that thousands—of years of social order and religious doctrine, not to mention the accepted roles of females. I began giggling again over Sara’s sarcastic remarks, which set her off and reduced the seriousness of the exchange dramatically.

You know what, why don’t we take a break and agree to be open to possibilities? I said with all-knowing wisdom.

Easy for you to say, Doctor Phil. I’m a nervous mess. It’s all I can think about, shy, sweet Sara replied, sitting there in her slightly debutant ball gown, perfectly styled hair, and painstakingly applied makeup.

What time do we get picked up? I asked.

In about fifteen minutes, Sara answered. Promise you will stay near me as much as you can.

Promise. I raised my hand and did a high-five slap with my roommate. I’ll be right there all the way, I added, again coming close to Sara and giving her a serious hug without compromising her hair and makeup.

We two seventeen-year-old beauties on the brink of putting another notch on our life belts exited the dorm room and made our way down the grand old wooden stairs at Foxy to the foyer, joining a sea of hormones in overly expensive prom attire, all of us waiting for a bus to transport us to the country club and a much-anticipated rendezvous with destiny.

The Big Night

Upon arriving at the Glenville Country Club, the bus turned down the long winding drive bordered on both sides by perfectly manicured evergreen trees.

Suddenly the high-decibel chatter in the chauffer-driven coach fell to a mere whisper. A mix of nerves, adrenaline, and the expectation of what the night would bring silenced the bus full of us girls arriving at our prom. The coach pulled up slowly to the front entrance of the two-hundred-year-old stone structure resembling a European castle more than a club for golf lovers sharing stories from the green over dry martinis. Framed portraits of generations of club presidents lined the walls of the walnut-paneled living room, which was furnished in properly worn leather-covered Chippendale-style furniture placed over antique Persian rugs woven in threads of a deep crimson tone, slightly frayed at the edges. The difference between the rich and the nouveau riche is simply that the really rich feel no compunction to replace rugs frayed at the edge.

Sara and I were among the first to disembark. The night was cold and very dark, but there was no rain and no snow. Nancy had sent me another Federal Express package that followed the arrival of my blue velvet dress, which had come from Bloomingdale’s in New York. It had only arrived the day before my big night. Opening it in my dorm room, with Sara by my side, I moved aside the layers of tissue protecting the contents. Sara saw it first and screamed. It was a scream of Oh my God. I want one!

I pulled back the paper and pulled out a sable jacket. It was familiar to me; I realized Nancy had sent me one of her fur coats. Sara reached for the jacket, and I released it. She held it against her torso, stroking the thick, almost black as coal pelts.

This is exceptional, she said, breathing rather heavily.

Don’t hyperventilate over a fur jacket, I cautioned.

There was a note in the box from Nancy. It read as follows:

I know that you are an animal lover. And while I do not wish to compromise your principles, I hope that you will understand that this jacket did not harm or endanger any species. The fur was raised on a farm for use by humans, just as a cow is raised to provide food.

I read the note out loud to Sara, who did not appear to be listening at all. She kept stroking the jacket and putting the fur up against her cheek. I continued reading:

I also want you to consider that it would be fashion suicide to wear your down parka over that gorgeous blue velvet dress, so please, please consider wearing this jacket, partly to please your compulsive mother’s fashion sense, and partly to comfort your mother with the knowledge that you will not freeze and catch pneumonia when you decide not to wear a jacket at all.

This was pure Nancy philosophy. I had to smile. Sara finally allowed me to take the jacket from her. I put it on. It was waist length and trim-fitted with a high Mandarin collar. I looked in the mirror and liked what I saw.

Do you think I am a horrible person for wearing this fur jacket? I questioned my roommate, even though I knew what her answer would be.

Are you kidding me? she came back. Probably more than half the class will be wearing fur coats. You know that.

So, nobody will throw red paint on me? No protestors lined up along the driveway of the club awaiting our fur-covered arrival?

I don’t think so, Sara replied.

She was right. There were no protestors, and just about every girl on the bus was wearing one of her mother’s coats. Sara wore a black wool cashmere coat with a mink collar, also sent by her mother. I was going to trade, or at least offer to, but her coat really looked matronly and was long. I wanted to show off my minidress. I figured I was the only one so brave.

As we got off the bus wearing our coats, I was glad Nancy had sent me the controversial jacket. Even more grateful that there was no controversy, I decided I could live with myself for briefly deviating from my principles.

The entrance to the club was adorned with white twinkling lights over the main doors—not too garish, and not strung on every plant, eave, and rafter. Back home in Beverly, if you decided to light up for the holidays, then Southern California Edison would send you a thank-you note for your dramatically increased business. No such concept as restraint. That was the So Cal life, especially in LA. Full throttle ahead; as the slogan goes, go big or go home.

In my years on the opposite coast, I had come to favor restraint. The stuffiness, the inherent exclusion, and the prejudice of old-world values did not offend this California kid. Not too much, anyway. There was an element of comfort and security in the rules and the accepted practices. At least some of the time. I did not totally give up my rebel ways, despite Headmistress Collins’s entrenched efforts to reform my uninhibited searching for truth and meaning on the planet.

You will come to realize that there is great beauty in order, Ms. Collins favored saying. Life must be lived with diligent purpose. We must conform to the known truths given to us by our forefathers and tested through centuries of trial and error.

I got the message, but I often wanted to say to her, Are you serious? Yet I restrained myself.

I had learned the virtue of silence and circumspection when it came to expressing my opinions at Foxy. I worked hard, studied, excelled, and made a real and conscious decision that rocking the Foxy boat would get me nowhere, except possibly expelled.

The Rise of Animal Instinct

Entering the club with the expectedly high anticipation of what would happen on this once-in-a-youthful-lifetime night, we were greeted by a virtual receiving line of extraordinarily handsome men, all in black tie. The sea of gorgeous penguins dispersed into our arriving flanks, hands outstretched, awaiting their respective companions for the evening. A choir of Dickens carolers sang O Come All Ye Faithful in the background, making it difficult to hear the greetings from the troop of Prince Charmings. The enormous fireplace, with its baronial carved mantel and raised black marble hearth, roared. We were all thankful for the warmth. The fur coats were quickly removed and spirited away by stately looking women in black and white uniforms overlaid with crisp white pinafore aprons that were ruffled on the border. All the women sported dramatically slicked-back hairstyles and very subtle single-stud pearl earrings.

Smithboy saw me immediately as I crossed the threshold, which wasn’t surprising since I had been the first to come through the door. I always liked being first. I was the first to arrive in class and the first to choose to sit in the first seat of the first row.

You look beautiful, he said, taking me in his arms and giving me a very polite hug, followed by an air-kiss on my left cheek.

Thank you. Do you like the short dress? I asked, hoping he wasn’t expecting a formal gown. Then again, most teenage guys, even those from rich and formal families, are not particularly focused on the fashions of their dates in high school. Later, when they marry and when they are working on Wall Street, they expect their women to fit a certain substantial and appropriate fashion profile. We had a ways to go before all that kicked in.

I repeat, you look beautiful. I am proud to be your date. Shall we go into the reception? He was as smooth as he was handsome, a poster boy, the all-American perfect son of a family with its place within a certain socioeconomic and ethnic hierarchy. I recognized that I was also part of that race by birth, by upbringing, and by association. It was what I knew. It was my comfort zone. He was one of my people.

I took his arm. We left the entrance hall, which was still overflowing with arrivals and greetings. The choir was now into Silent Night. Sweet Sara was chatting up a storm near the glowing fireplace with her date, a boy named Wyatt Kennedy, but not one of those Kennedys. She had abandoned her mother’s long and matronly mink-trimmed cashmere coat and was doing her utmost southern best to charm Wyatt. From the looks of him, I didn’t think it would take much. Wyatt was a football player at boys’ prep—not a star quarterback, but a utility end, a big bruiser of a fellow. Kind of a stereotype, he was not a mental giant, but he too was handsome, in a goofy way. Tall, broad, and muscular, Wyatt towered over sweet Sara, even though she was a good five feet eight herself.

I turned back briefly to glance at my friend so she would know that I was keeping close and in touch as promised. She caught my glance, which I saw, but never really took her focus off Wyatt. Smithboy and I continued down the corridor toward the reception room. He pulled me in closer to his side as we made a second entrance on this prom night.

The reception hall was more of a ballroom, and it was decorated with appropriate restraint for the holidays. Two ten-foot-tall evergreen trees festooned with identically placed gold balls on both, no tinsel, no ribbon, nothing additional, flanked the roaring fireplace in this room, which was set in the center of a wall of dark-stained raised paneling, which I could see from the opposite entrance portal. A life-size portrait of colonial pioneer and founding Father Benjamin Franklin hung above the mantel, framed in aging gold leaf–painted wood.

Smithboy and I were among the first to enter, thereby keeping my reputation as first intact. Chaperones, including both our headmasters and many of our respective teachers, awaited our arrival. Their greetings were warm but not too familiar. One of Smithboy’s teachers, a diminutive woman with dark and stringy straight hair, wearing a rather frumpy black cocktail dress with absolutely no form or style, was especially happy to see him. She gave him a hug. I asked him what was that all about, given the otherwise strict Maginot Line of decorum displayed by the faculty.

I’m her favorite student, he replied. She’s my French teacher, and she says I have a perfect accent. He continued, I also participate in class. Most of the other guys sit in silence. She has to drag a response out of them.

So, you’re a pet, a teacher’s pet, I joked.

I don’t know. I like French. I like languages. Maybe I’ll go to France for college. The Sorbonne maybe.

I had no idea my date was a budding Francophile. This was potential kismet. My fantasy world kicked in, and I envisioned us both in Paris. I would work as an apprentice to Yves Saint Laurent, and he would be studying international relations at the Sorbonne. We would live in a crumbling but romantic eighteenth-century apartment with ridiculously high ceilings, walls adorned with elegant boiserie moldings, and French windows all opening to Juliet balconies framed by handcrafted iron balustrades. Red geraniums would grow wild in cracked terracotta pots that I would water regularly with my tin watering can hand-painted with yellow posies. I would have to fill it with water in a sink down the hallway in our communal lavatory. This was the life of my dreams.

Sweet Sara and Big Wyatt entered and found us. Sara went for the faux champagne when she saw that I was also sipping. She was shivering and probably preferred cider, but it just wasn’t cool. Her dress left her bare across her shoulders and arms, and that flawless white skin was showing some prickly protrusions in response to the cool night temperatures inside the club.

Fortunately, the temperature began to rise as the room filled to capacity with the entire roster of prom participants. The din of conversation rose in direct proportion. The party was certainly off to a successful start. On the eastern wall of the big room, another massive pair of double doors opened, and a duo of men wearing red uniforms resembling the costumes of Christmas toy soldiers raised their trumpets and began blasting a call to prom. There were about a hundred of us girls and boys, and we all, obeying the bugle call to prom, gracefully paraded out of one ballroom and into the next. The dance was to begin.

Dancing into Trouble

Given the austere surroundings, an orchestra playing standards from the twentieth-century Great American Songbook would have been a fit for the dancing salon at the country club. Instead, an alternative rock group, part punk, with a little funk, rap, and R & B, headlined the prom. They called themselves the Ice Tongs. Really? They were loud; that’s one thing I gave them. I could not envision Ms. Collins booking the Ice Tongs. They must have had an in with somebody. Maybe they were former students at boys’ prep, expelled or dropouts to be certain. I thought they were borderline crude, but everyone was dancing bigtime, high on sparkling cider and most likely plenty of smuggled vodka. If it looks like water in the cup, it’s not.

Smithboy had his share of the forbidden elixir tucked away in a silver flask in the breast pocket of his not rented Armani tuxedo. We had been dancing and socializing with fellow classmates on the dance floor for nearly two hours nonstop. The Ice Tongs needed a break. So did I. Sara and Wyatt were dancing right next to us at this point, when the band music stopped for a twenty-minute intermission. Recorded rock ’n’ roll came over the speaker system to keep the dance going, but just about everyone was ready for a break. Most of the class just milled about the dance floor. Some wandered back into the reception room to find a place to sit. A massive stone terrace wrapped around the outside of the building, accessible through arched French doors from all the public rooms. December had made it a rather impossible destination as an escape from the crowd.

Surveying the terrain, Smithboy took my hand, leading me to his desired private spot. Sara was doing a little making out with Wyatt and seemed to be doing fine without my supervision. In fact, there was a whole lot of making out. God bless the band for having taken a break.

Having escorted me out of the dance, Smithboy led me into the reception room and then out again into the main corridor. There was no one in the hall; it was quiet. We could hear the squeaking of the wide-plank wooden floors echoing with our footsteps.

Where are we going? I questioned.

I have an idea about somewhere we could go to have a little time alone, he said.

Was time alone the polite term for sex?

Perhaps a little sex. I knew why we needed privacy, and it wasn’t to share another swallow of vodka from that silver flask in his pocket.

Just the same, I did what was expected of me. Following along, holding his hand, I prepared for my second foray into womanhood. At least I thought I was ready. This time it wouldn’t be in the back of a gym with a sweaty basketball player. Yet, it probably would be once again fast, secret, and decidedly unromantic. I was prepared for that too. I had no unrealistic expectations of finding true love and meaning at the junior prom. I liked Smithboy, but that was about the extent of my feelings for him. How could this be love?

We came around a corner and found a staircase to the upper floors.

Are you game? he asked.

Game? What’s upstairs? I asked.

Come on. I’ll show you.

Up we went. Again, there was nobody anywhere to be seen or heard. It was a morgue. At the top of the second-floor landing, we encountered another long, wide hallway with rows of doors on either side.

These are the guest rooms, he said.

Guest rooms? They have guest rooms in a golf club?

Sure. These old country clubs always have a wing of rooms for members who wish to stay overnight.

Why would they need to stay overnight?

Maybe for the use of out-of-town relatives or business guests. Maybe after too much to drink at dinner. Maybe for reasons nobody is supposed to know or ask about. Smithboy gave a full accounting.

I see, I said, now knowing for certain where we were going and why. About to become one of the occupants of a guest room that nobody was going to find out about or even ask about, I prepared myself.

As we walked down the dimly lit hallway, Smithboy tried several doors, all of them locked. The fourth doorknob he tried turned, and he led the charge into the portal. With his hand behind his back, he clasped my hand with his other, and I followed.

The room was pitch-black with no glimmer of light whatsoever thanks to very heavy fabric covering the windows, pulled tight and overlapping at the center.

After searching for a light switch on the wall beside the door, without luck, he left me standing there with what light was coming from the hallway surrounding my silhouette, which must have created an aura and halo around my body. I was clearly not an angel.

My date felt his way across the room, eventually finding a lamp on a night table beside a queen-size four-poster mahogany bed. He turned the knob, and there was light. I remained in the open doorway, presumably without the halo. He crossed back to me.

You are a stunning girl, the prettiest and smartest I have ever known, he said in a soft voice.

I said nothing but smiled just a little.

I am the luckiest guy in the school to be with you tonight, he went on.

I still said nothing.

Smithboy put his arms around my waist and pulled himself up against my body. Managing to shove the door closed behind me, my handsome young man moved up against the closed door and placed his lips on mine, slowly, deliberately, and passionately. A moist tongue entered my mouth, and I felt a tingle that ran down to my toes. This was quite a nice start, but the tingle transitioned to a tinge of remorse, and I suddenly felt, well, regret. I don’t know why. I was prepared for sex, better prepared than my first time with basketball boy. And I had no fear of moral accountability. This was a new millennium after all. Hookups, as my generation labeled sex, were no big deal. That’s what I thought until he kissed me and continued to kiss me.

He left my mouth, and his lips and his tongue pursued the nape of my neck, one side and then the other. His soft hands left my waist and were now clutching the back of my neck and stroking my hair.

I believe at this point he could feel my resistance, as I was not participating, not in an equal kind of way. Still, his passion grew more intense.

Why don’t you get comfortable over on the bed? He paused and pulled away from me, running his hands down from my head and gently touching my breasts under the blue dress. Taking my hand, he led me over to the bed and gently pushed me down, then sat on the side.

I’ll be back in a flash, he said, removing the pillows from under the coverlet, fluffing them, and stacking them against the headboard.

Lean back and relax. I’ll just be a second. He exited into what I assumed was a bathroom through a door next to the night table supporting the lamp. Turning off the light as he opened the bathroom door, he was gone in a flash. I could see some light in the bathroom shining through from beneath the door. What was he doing? Did he need to relieve himself? Maybe he was readying a condom?

Not moving back against the fluffed pillows, I preferred to sit on the edge of the bed and wait. Seconds later, literally seconds, the bathroom door opened with the light still coming through as Smithboy had neglected to hit the switch. He was totally naked.

Gasping, I let out more of a giggle than any kind of noise to signal objection as he came toward me.

Would you care to join me? he asked, reaching up to my shoulders, attempting to pull the blue dress down over my arms and to my waist. The dress was very fitted and did not budge. He tried again, not with force, but with more resolve.

I looked at this exceptionally handsome masculine creature. His torso was worked out to perfection, and his arms and shoulders exhibited elegant muscles. He had no body hair except a trimmed section above an exquisite penis—a penis that was at attention, circumcised, with pearl-white unblemished skin and a very large pulsating head. He moved his penis up and down my leg, and that tingle came back with a serious rush.

Now he really sensed my hesitation. I did not assist removing my dress, and while I was into the sex, my response remained unequal to his pursuit.

Is something wrong? he whispered.

No, I said rather sheepishly.

Then would you like to make love on your prom night—something to remember always?

Again, I did not have an answer.

Without a beat, Smithboy got the message that this was not happening. Not in the way he had imagined, and not in the way I had imagined either.

He once again reached for my hands and lifted me off the bed, his penis still erect, still touching my body.

Then he did something I had not seen coming. As we were standing face-to-face, he pushed me to the floor. I now was down on my knees. He positioned his penis on my cheek, moving it over to my mouth. Gently, he pushed it toward my lips, between my lips, into my mouth, and back toward my throat. This was a first.

I responded to his desire for oral sex and kissed him with my tongue.

This is so nice. He hardly got the words out.

I was still not totally committed to this act, but I wasn’t pulling away either. Continuing to try to satisfy him, I worked it with more passion.

Have you ever performed oral sex before? he inquired in a seriously breathless voice; his words interspersed with moans of considerable pleasure. His joy was a definite turn-on for me.

No, this is a first, I mumbled, not able to speak with eight inches of rod in my mouth. I wanted to laugh or yell or say anything, but it wasn’t possible.

At that moment, probably on the cusp of Smithboy’s delivering his male DNA into my mouth, we heard a bloodcurdling scream so horrible that he pulled out of me. We looked at one another.

What was that? he asked.

I don’t know, but it came from what sounded like next door.

Smithboy rushed into the bathroom, where he scrambled to find his clothes and dress. I ran out of the room into the hallway. The screams were louder, the crying, more desperate. It was coming from the room next door. I froze for a moment. Should I just go in? Reaching for the doorknob and pounding on the door at the same time to announce my intention to enter, I found the door unlocked.

Entering the room with adrenaline rushing, not knowing what to expect, I was once again in near darkness in yet another guest room without light. In the shadows created by the open hallway door, I could make out someone on the bed against the far wall.

What’s the matter? I called out, still standing in the open door. Are you all right?

There was no immediate answer, just crying that was obviously coming from a female. The deep sadness was reverberating in staccato waves between breathless gasps and choking sounds.

Please get off me. Please, you are hurting me. Finally, some audible words I could clearly understand.

This was a plea for me to enter and come closer.

I raced across the room to find my sweet Sara pinned under Wyatt. She was hysterical and he was comatose, in another world.

Wyatt, get off Sara. Don’t you hear her? Stop hurting her, you big dumb jerk!

Wyatt was in a sex act coma. He was paying no attention to Sara’s begging him to cease, and he certainly had no conscious awareness of my presence or my words.

Do you hear me, Wyatt? Get off her, I screamed at him.

Again, nothing. He kept drilling into her, and she continued to cry out for help. All I could see was the broad back of the big football player, who was still nearly fully dressed in his prom tux. Well, at least he still had his jacket on. The pants were down at his ankles, stuffed against a pair of black patent leather oxfords. I could not see Sara at all. Wyatt had fully engulfed my roommate, smothering her beneath his three-hundred-pound manhood.

With no choice but to grab Wyatt by the satin collar of his tux, I yanked him as hard as I could to get his attention. Smithboy came charging into the room to find me pulling on Wyatt with all my strength but having little success. Others followed, having heard the screaming and commotion. Several security guards, two chaperones, and what seemed like a dozen kids from the prom rushed into the room. Finally, Smithboy managed to pull Wyatt off Sara. Then he shoved him with tremendous force and even slapped him across the face to bring him out of his sex trance. Pulling up Wyatt’s pants just in time, Smithboy spared him further humiliation as the crowd came on scene.

I ran to Sara. She lay on the bed, burrowed into the comforter as if she were wedged in a trough under the weight of her conqueror. Sara’s church social prom dress had been torn in the onslaught, and her perfectly applied makeup had dissolved in the tears running down her face and neck, creating a pattern of rivers going down the front of her gown like the lava flow from an erupting volcano.

Sara, Sara, can you hear me? Are you hurt? What happened to you with Wyatt?

Attempting to speak between tears, Sara looked at me and very softly whispered, Please come closer.

Tell me what’s going on. Do you need a doctor? I asked, turning around and seeing all the people who were now in the room.

Can all of you please leave? Wait in the hallway, I said, This is my roommate, and I will deal with this privately, at least for now.

One of the guards and both the chaperones objected.

Get out and leave us alone! I was now yelling at them.

I will give you two minutes, the guard came back. Then I am calling the police. He spread out his arms as if to corral the entourage out the door and back into the hallway.

Smithboy had Wyatt calmed down and sitting in a chair. Still in a daze, Wyatt did not fully comprehend the gravity of his behavior. My unsatisfied date came over to me, and I barked at him to retreat and go back to Wyatt.

Shut the door, Smithboy, I ordered. He did so without question.

Sara, let me have the guard call 911.

No. Do not do that. Absolutely not!

They are going to do something. He says he is going to call the police too.

Don’t let them do that, she begged.

My two minutes were fast evaporating.

Smithboy, go out in the hall and tell them all to leave. Everything is okay in here now. Tell them nothing happened and that everything is going to be fine. Just do it.

Those guards and the chaperones won’t believe it, he came back.

"Make them believe it. Sara wants to be left alone. Do you think the Glenville Country Club wants a rape on the front page