Privileged (17 page)
(e) all of the above
A
ccording to the College Board, which created the test, the SAT assesses how well you analyze and solve problems. Colleges use it as a rough predictor of how well the test taker might do at any given school. I’d told the twins this many times. And then I’d added that in my humble opinion, what the SAT really measures is a person’s ability to prepare for and take the SAT.
There was no way I could make up for their twelve years of academic neglect in eight short weeks. But I knew from seeing the intricacy of their beauty database that they had the raw intelligence to succeed. My bet was that if I could get them accustomed to how this system operated—to think the way the testers thought—they might be able to squeak by.
The twins had trouble with abstract concepts. But when I made the learning relevant to them, that also made it memorable. I resorted to first-grade tactics. My best weapons were flash cards.
For example, rather than displaying a trapezoid and asking for a description of the area and perimeter, my flash card outlined the dimensions of the ladies’ room at the Everglades Club. Instead of working out theoretical proportions, I’d sketch a picture of a mirror, give its length, and ask how many girls, each using ten inches of mirror space, could repair their Stila lip gloss at the same time. For vocabulary building, I used pertinent examples. Purgatory was described not only as a place between heaven and hell, but also as being stuck in coach next to a screaming baby on a transatlantic flight from New York to Paris.
There was academic progress being made. Not enough, but enough to keep me from losing all hope. And enough to keep them going, too. The biggest problem was effort. No matter what I did, I couldn’t impress on them how studying was a cumulative process, and how extra hours put in on day one paid huge dividends on day seven or day eight. It was hard to undo seventeen years of relative sloth. Basically, when you can call room service, cooking for yourself becomes a massive challenge, even if you stand in front of the stove for four hours a day.
Since we had decided to take off Christmas Day, the twins and I started work on Christmas Eve day at an absurdly early hour—nine A.M. This schedule would leave them—and me—free in the afternoon to prepare for the ball that night.
We ordered coffee and croissants to eat poolside and started our work on vocabulary. I held up a homemade card for Sage.
Suzanne used _______________ to steal her rival’s boyfriend.
(A) chary
(B) coeval
(C) duality
(D) chicanery
“D,” Sage pronounced. “Definitely D.”
I praised her, since she was the queen of misusing words. Next card.
White pants after Labor Day is no longer considered an __________ wrong.
(A) aggravating
(B) egregious
(C) ergonomic
(D) astute
“B,” she said. “Egregious.”
Damn. Two in row. It was followed by three wrong answers, but two in a row felt like a milestone. Rose took over and doubled her sister’s feat. We moved on to sentence structure, and between the two of them, they successfully identified topic sentences, compound sentences, subjects, predicates, though the concept of conditional clauses still eluded them. Yes, this is stuff most of us learn in middle school, but the twins had missed it along the way.
To make it all relevant, and to hone their writing skills, I asked them each to write a five-paragraph essay comparing and contrasting their looks for tonight’s Christmas Eve ball with what they wore to last month’s Red and White ball, and then identify the topic sentences, subjects, predicates, etc. I heard the requisite bitching and moaning, but they did settle down with pens and paper. As for me, I retired to a chaise while they worked, enjoying the morning sun on my face, thinking of what I would tell James when he called that afternoon. Forty-eight-hour flu? Something like that.
I must have dozed off, because I was jarred awake by Sage nudging my ankle.
“Megan? You fucked up yesterday.”
I opened my eyes. She was on the chaise next to me. “You finished your essay?”
“No, I stopped midway with an overwhelming urge to enjoy your scintillating company,” she droned. “Of course I finished.”
I looked over at Rose, who was still writing, and then closed my eyes again and smiled. “Good.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me that you’re crushing on Will?”
That comment got me not just to open my eyes but also to sit up. “What are you talking about?”
“I saw him at the Breakers last night. He told me everything.”
“What’s everything?” I asked cautiously.
“How you spent the day together, how he boned you in a pond—”
“He did
not
bone me in a—anywhere!” I sputtered, feeling that familiar heat creep up my face.
“Kidding. Don’t go all tomato on me. He did say you hung out and that he likes you. Happy?”
Actually, yes. But I didn’t say that. I didn’t say anything.
“You could have just told me yourself.” She sniffed.
“I was trying to be professional.”
She yawned. “Bullshit. Rose knew. Like I give a fuck. He also said you’re going to the ball with him.”
Rose came padding over to me with her essay, which had taken her approximately twice as long as it should have to write, and sat down next to her sister. “So you like him, Megan?” she asked eagerly.
Maybe it was because I never really got to do the cute-girl-crazy-for-the-cute-boy thing in high school. Maybe it was because I had gone to my senior prom with Bruce Peterson, he of the formidable IQ and dubious skin, with whom I had about as much chemistry as a Rich Text file. Or maybe it was because my sister, Lily, got all the pretty-girl moments and I could never hope to compete. Whatever the reason, some dormant girly-girl thing rose up and forced out my one-word answer.
“Yes.”
Let me admit something here: It’s very hard to convince yourself that you’re going to a ball with a guy for research purposes after you admit to your students that you’re into him.
“So what are you wearing?” Sage pressed.
“The same thing I wore to the Red and White ball, I guess,” I replied, hoping I could still squeeze my Marco-fed ass into it.
I’m sure you’re familiar with Edvard Munch’s most famous painting,
The Scream.
Give yourself double vision, substitute the twins’ faces for the terrified guy on the bridge, and you’ll have a reasonable approximation of Rose and Sage’s reaction to my statement.
Sage was, as usual, the first to manage words. “Is
that
how they do it in Philadelphia?”
“Like, you’re so rich, you don’t care if people see you in the same thing twice?” Rose clarified.
Of course. Main Line Philly Megan would already
know
not to wear the same gown. She’d be as horrified as the twins at the thought. Backpedaling furiously, I explained that I’d brought only one formal with me to Palm Beach and had no time to shop. I figured I could use that excuse tonight, too, if it came up.
Sage nodded. “We understand.”
“We do?” Rose yelped.
“Yes,” Sage insisted. “Let’s order lunch. Although it will probably suck, with Marco on vacation.”
“Where’d he go?” I asked. Marco was on vacation? This was news to me.
“To New Jersey with Keith,” Rose explained while Sage called in the food order. “They go every year to see his family. He’ll be back for the New Year’s Eve ball, don’t worry. Grandma puts him in the charge of the caterers.” She got up and took off her jeans and T-shirt; she was wearing a green tartan-plaid bikini underneath. “I’m going to swim till the food gets here. Want to come?”
I shook my head, feeling the blood drain from my face. No Marco
and
no Keith for tonight? And I was supposed to be ball-ready in only a few hours? I couldn’t even zip myself into my own damn dress without Marco’s help. Cinderella was going to end up looking like Cinder-hella this time around.
“What’s up with you?” Sage asked me as she stepped out of her jeans and left them in a pile at her feet. “You’re reverse-blushing.”
“At home . . . well, I always think of makeup as art. And—don’t tell anyone—I’m a terrible artist. Stick figures give me trouble. So I never, ever do my own makeup.” That wasn’t a lie. Exactly.
“And you don’t have Marco to help you tonight.” Rose dove into the pool, her wet hair fanning out behind her as she resurfaced. “He told us Keith knows your stylist back in Philadelphia.”
“He
did
?” Bless him for covering my ass in more ways than one.
“Sure.” Sage stepped into the shallow end. “But you’re still kind of fucked for tonight, huh?”
Rose giggled. Sage giggled. Nice of them to enjoy the schadenfreude even if they didn’t know what it was.
“Come,” Sage barked to her sister, if giving an order to a well-trained dog. She stepped out of the pool and slipped her flip-flops back on. “We’ll call the main house and tell them to bring the food inside.”
She headed toward her manse while I waited for Rose to climb out and towel off. Then we found Sage in her den, in front of her computer monitor. She clicked once, and a close-up of my face appeared on the monitor.
“How did you do that?” I marveled. My face had on makeup I’d never worn.
“That’s one more feature we built in to our system,” Rose said proudly.
“Watch and learn,” Sage ordered. With a few quick mouse strokes, she thickened my eyebrows. “Although the Brooke Shields thing is so not a good look for you.” She thinned them out again.
As the girls illustrated on Sage’s computer and I watched, I got a double-barreled lecture on correct makeup and hair for a girl with my particular features. Then they switched to a full-length body shot and treated me to a speech on body proportion, how to hide “figure flaws below the waist,” and making the most of what could kindly be called my modest cleavage.
“Okay. Come to my dressing room,” Sage ordered. “Let’s see what you learned.”
A moment later, she pushed me into a seat at her vanity. Rose opened what looked like a tackle box finished in pink pearl. Its pink-velvet-lined compartments were full of new upscale cosmetics.
For the next hour, the twins worked on my face. Unlike Marco, they took pains to explain everything as they did it. Then they handed me step-by-step instructions so I could duplicate what they’d done if they weren’t around, simplifying things so I could do it no matter how clumsy my hands were.
Then
they handed me the box.
Yes, it was mine. They’d bought it for me. Before I could begin to thank them, we’d moved on to my hair, which Sage deemed clean enough, because updos actually stay better if your hair is slightly dirty.
Who knew?
Sage flatironed it and slicked it up in a ponytail. “There are two key elements to making this look work,” she decreed, “Hair U Wear and tendrils.” With that, she brought out a gorgeous hairpiece, perfectly straight and exactly my color. She attached it over my own hair, and voilà, I had a ponytail halfway down my back. Then she artfully arranged tendrils around my face to soften the look and added a lavender grosgrain ribbon to the ponytail. Rose completed the process by spackling my lips with another layer of gloss. From the neck up, I looked fantastic.
Rose had to run back to her room for something, and Sage placed her hands on my shoulders. “You do understand that you can’t wear the gown from the Red and White ball tonight, right?”
“I—”
I’d gotten no further than that one syllable when Rose reappeared with a lavender gown worthy of a princess draped over her arm. “Versace Atelier. Lavender is your color. Look at this.”
She handed me a
Scoop
with Emmy Rossum in the “Purple Is Royal!” fashion section, wearing the exact same dress. And I had to admit that I
did
look a little bit like her. If she put on ten pounds, that is. “It won’t fit,” I protested.
“Try it on,” Rose insisted.
Off came my Juicy warm-ups and T-shirt. I was wearing only panties, a positive, they decreed, since the bodice would hold up my breasts. With their help, I dropped the gown over my head, then held my breath while Rose zipped it.
“You can exhale,” Sage instructed.
I stood up straight and faced them.
“Oh, yeah. We’re good.” Sage offered her sister a fist bump.
I turned to the mirror. The bodice was strapless and fitted. They were right; a bra would have been superfluous. The skirt was pleated chiffon and georgette.
“How did you . . . when did you . . . ?” I stammered.
“When you drop six figures a year on clothes, your personal shopper is your best friend,” Sage explained. “We gave her an order last night. It was here before breakfast.”
“You look beautiful,” Rose said, grinning hugely.
“I can’t believe you did all of this for me.”
Sage nodded. “Me, neither. We must have been on drugs.”
But I could tell she was kidding. Was it possible that I had gotten through her facade and hadn’t even known it?
“Before you start giving yourself all kinds of credit,” Sage went on, as if reading my mind, “just think of the anguish we’re saving ourselves. If you went to the ball in an
already-worn gown
, we would have been totally humiliated to be seen with you.”
I smiled in response. They handed me my new train case full of cosmetics, the diagram of instructions, and then shooed me out so they could get ready. I left, but not until after I thanked them. Sincerely. How would this turn of events fit in to my article? As I floated to my suite under layers of butterfly-wing-thin chiffon, I couldn’t help but think that the shallow Baker twins I’d planned to write about never would have done something like this. So who was shallow now?
Socializing romantically with more than one person can be considered:
(a) ludicrous
(b) foolhardy
(c) equestrian
(d) decadent
(e) misanthropic
W
hen Will picked me up that evening, he told me I looked beautiful. The weird thing was that I believed him. It was as if I’d started to see myself as the person I had pretended to be. Not rich, maybe—some fantasies are too ridiculous to buy in to, even for someone who had gotten as good at lying as I had—but pretty. When I looked in the mirror, I no longer saw Lily’s ordinary little sister.