The Black & The White (13 page)

Kim and Jessica chatted and gossiped
the entire trip about their affairs and spoke of sex in a strangely
precise, almost surgical way.

“
Have you tried a vibrator
to stimulate his penis?” Kim asked. “Use your rabbit on him and see
what happens.”

“
Really? It
works?”

“
Yup. Use it on the
underside of his cock and see what happens. It’s medical. Even men
with spinal cord injuries can orgasm with a vibrator.”

The casualness and decibel level of
their conversation concerned me. I was embarrassed for them. The
silver-haired lady next to us kept giving us stern looks. I smiled
at her in an attempt to alleviate the situation. It didn’t
help.

“
I mean, these guys have a
pretty girl around on their arm, a tight body to fuck, and we get
to indulge in all things lavish.” She turned to me and said, “I
know what you’re thinking. But….”

I couldn’t keep my thoughts to myself
any longer. “It’s kind of like prostitution, Kim, but you’re not
getting paid.” I felt guilty immediately after saying
it.

“
Ouch!” interjected Jessica.
“What a bitch!”

“
As I said, it’s all just
fun and everyone wins. And that’s not very nice.” She poked at my
chest with her index finger. It was the first time I had heard Kim
use an angry tone of voice with me.

Kim turned to Jessica. “She didn’t
mean that.” Turning back to me, she said, “Right, Isabelle?”
Embarrassed, I nodded my head.

They spoke about work for a while, but
eventually the conversation reverted back to men. There was no
stopping their gossiping.

“
Yeah, I’m getting sick of
the hours. I just need to find a rich man and not have to worry
about this work thing.”

“
I hear ya’ girlfriend. I
just want a family, I think. How hard can it be to be a suburban
mom?” Jessica questioned. “Think about it. We can do yoga all day.
Leave the kids to the nanny. Screw the pool boy. Go to the spa and
get facials. It takes a lot to look pretty, right?”

I thought about how they called her
Butterface. I wondered if she knew she needed more work than
most.

Kim and Jessica gave each other
high-fives and chuckled.

“
I’m sure you have more to
offer than looks, Jessica. I mean, you’re working as an analyst in
a large bank. You’ve got brains, too,” I said.

“
Yeah, but looks are all
that matters. It’s what gets you hired,” she replied, laughing. I
laughed at the irony with her.

We got off the bus to find M.D.
waiting for us at the Bridgehampton stop in his black Range Rover.
Kim got into the passenger seat and gave him a big hug and kiss on
the cheek. As I got into the backseat, I noticed a half-filled baby
bottle on the floor and a kid’s book tucked into the compartment in
front of me. Jessica found a toy on her seat and threw it in the
trunk behind her.

“
I hope the trip was good
for you guys. Those buses can be harrowing,” M.D. said. “Sorry for
having you guys stop here. You hungry? Let’s pick up some fish and
meat to cook at the house. And a case of wine.” He turned to me,
“Sound good, Isabelle?”

I nodded yes. Putting aside his
infidelity, I thought M.D. wasn’t so bad. I tried to sit back and
not think about his wife. If M.D. hadn’t had one, his relationship
with Kim would seem like a good thing.

“
Isabelle, I’m surprised you
endured listening to these girls cackle through the ride. Did they
talk the whole time?” M.D. asked me.

Kim punched his arm. “Hey, that’s not
nice. We had a lot to talk about.”

“
Oh, I know. I’m sure of
it,” M.D. said sarcastically as he drove. I was happy to know that
he too knew that about Kim. He paid attention to her just like I
did. Jessica looked over at me to see my reaction to his comment. I
looked away and smiled seeing myself in the window
mirror.

We drove through a long, tree-lined
road until we approached a circular driveway covered with white
stones. Lining the driveway were other expensive cars.

In the house, I recognized many
people, including the man Carin had danced with the previous week.
I waved to him.

“
That’s Dover,” Kim informed
me as she walked past me into the kitchen. I followed
her.

“
As in Jessica’s
guy?”

Kim nodded as she uncorked a bottle of
wine.

“
He hooked up with Carin
last week, right?” I asked.

“
I think so. But it’s a
secret, okay?” Kim said as she struggled with the cork.

“
God, Kim, what isn’t?” I
asked.

I didn’t know what made me so bold,
but I was getting tired of the secrecy. I had somehow been
involuntarily thrown into a web of lies. I couldn’t keep track of
all of them, yet everyone seemed comfortable with the
hologram.

Kim was cutting the cheeses and
arranging the crackers while I drank red wine in the kitchen with
her. She poured more wine into my nearly empty glass from the
carafe she had given to M.D. as a gift earlier in the
evening.

“
Drink up,” she said. “It’s
the weekend.”

I thought of Dover. I couldn’t believe
that he’d hooked up with Carin. Serves Jessica right for being mean
to me, I thought.

I stood up quickly and suddenly became
dizzy. I wasn’t aware just how much wine I had drunk.

That evening, I sat with the rest of
the guests around watching television and playing board games,
picking at the cheese arrangements. Kim and Eric were in the
kitchen, cooking. They wore matching aprons, and I could hear Kim
laughing and giggling in the background.

“
Baby, don’t you dare.” She
pleaded in the kitchen. “Aaaahhh! You’re dead!” she laughed. Then
silence.

“
Seems like they’re having
fun in there,” I said to Jessica, who hadn’t said much that
evening. I could tell there was some tension between her and Dover.
Earlier he had been waxing philosophical about dating models right
in front of her.

“
What more can a married man
want?” he said. “You fuck the hot chick and they leave the next
morning without complaining. If they’re young enough, they start to
feel guilty. And you take the higher ground.”

I looked around to see everyone’s
reactions to him, but no one seemed bothered.

“
How old are you again?”
Dover asked me as I sat next to Jessica.

“
I’m twenty-two,” I
responded.

“
Unsuspecting girls like you
are the easiest targets,” Dover said. I rolled my eyes.

I got up soon after and searched for
Kim. I found her snuggled into M.D.’s arms on the lounge chair
outside. I turned around to try to leave before they noticed me,
but Kim had seen me.

“
Isabelle!” she said,
“What’s up?”

“
Nothing. I was just getting
ready to go to bed and wanted to say goodnight.”

“
Hey, sorry you got stuck in
my kid’s room,” M.D. said. “Didn’t think we’d have this many people
here this weekend. We had some unexpected crashers.”

“
That’s fine. I sleep in a
twin bed every night anyway,” I replied.

“
Good thing about that bed
is that it’s waterproof, so you can pee at night any time you
want,” he laughed. “My son is a bed-wetter.”

Great, I thought, I’m sleeping in
urine.

M.D. had wanted to talk longer about
my new job and acclimating to New York, but the alcohol was making
me sleepy. I asked if we could continue the conversation the
following day.

“
You’re a young one,
shouldn’t you be up later than all of us old folks?” he
asked.

I kissed them both goodnight before I
climbed the stairs. There was no sign that the rest of the crowd
was going to sleep any time soon. It felt odd for me to sleep in a
kid’s room, and I felt somewhat guilty for being there. I felt as
though I was part of a big conspiracy. I wondered how Kim was able
to sleep in that master suite.

The room I slept in had large cartoon
characters painted on the walls. There was a crib at the far
corner. Toy trucks and boxes of puzzles were neatly organized on a
small white bookshelf. A large woven basket next to it was filled
with stuffed animals and balls of all textures, sizes, and colors.
I lay in bed and watched the glow-in-the-dark stars shine above me.
I remembered having those stickers in high school.

When I woke up the next morning, Kim
and M.D. had already prepared a breakfast of scrambled eggs, fresh
fruit, and bagels. Several of the guys were already up, dressed,
and ready to play golf.

Kim gave me a hug and a kiss as I
walked listlessly into the kitchen. “Good morning, sunshine. Did
you sleep well?” She then whispered in my ear, “Check out my watch.
From M.D. I’ll tell details at the beach,” she said
semi-cryptically.

It was too early for secrets. I just
nodded and smiled.

Other women walked groggily into the
kitchen in their pajamas. Each one seemed to know her way around
the kitchen. Their ages ranged between twenty-two and twenty-eight,
yet they all seemed to act much younger than me, laughing and
giggling like many of the popular girls had done in high school.
Without saying anything to Kim or me, they made their way to the
kitchen and ate raw cookie dough from a squeezy tube for breakfast
before leaving. I attempted to listen to them talk about their
evening at a club in the small living room off of the kitchen,
gossiping about celebrities.

“
Oh, my God. He said that?
And then…” One of the girls leaned over and whispered in the other
girl’s ear before they both started to laugh. They gave each other
a high-five.

I mouthed to Kim, “Who are
they?”

“
I don’t know and I don’t
care. It’s none of my business,” she said as she hovered above the
stove, stirring the pan that contained the scrambled eggs. “Can you
get that bottle of champagne in the fridge?” Kim asked. “And if you
can, make Mimosas in here.” Kim placed a glass pitcher on the
counter. I couldn’t fathom drinking more alcohol.

Jessica wasn’t up yet. Kim said she
had overheard M.D. and Dover talking about Jessica in the kitchen
earlier in the morning while she was preparing vegetables for the
omelet. Dover had indicated that Jessica was too dramatic and
wanted more. The fun was gone, and they mostly just
fought.

“
What did he say?” I
asked.

“
That she’s getting
annoying. He said, ‘I didn’t sign up for this,’” Kim imitated him
in a dumb-sounding low voice.

“
Is she okay?” I
asked.

“
She’ll be fine. There are
other guys out there. We’ll have fun today. I have the whole day
planned.” She took two champagne flutes from the cupboard and
poured each of us a Mimosa that I had prepared.
“Cheers!”

“
Oh, no. I
can’t.”

“
Just deal with your
headache later. Get two Advils in the bathroom and wash it down
with Gatorade and you’ll be fine. Actually”—Kim went into the
refrigerator—“take a swig of this.” She handed me a
bottle.

“
Pedialyte?”

“
It’s full of electrolytes.
Drink up.” She smiled. “It’ll cure the hangover.”

“
It’s the baby’s, right?” I
asked.

“
It’s yours now.”

I felt like I was stealing from a
baby. Perhaps I was, but I was hungover.

We waited for Jessica to get up and
get ready. In the sunroom, I made an effort to be sociable, talking
to several of the girls who all knew each other. They replied with
curt answers, so I went to the kitchen for several Mimosas to hand
out but they all said no. I had never fit in with the cool crowd, I
remembered, and was content with the rejection.

Moments later, Kim and Jessica fetched
me and we all got into M.D.’s black Carrera.

“
Well, at least one of us
had a great night,” Jessica said as she pulled the leather seat
down and made her way to the back of the car.

“
I need to get both of you
lugs laid tonight. You two are bringing me down. I got one girl who
is a prude, another who needs to get over Dover,” she
said.

While we drove to the beach in M.D.’s
beach car with its top down, Kim bragged about her gift from M.D.
“I told him at first that I didn’t want it because it’s bad luck to
give a girl a watch as a gift. But I shouldn’t say no to a Rolex,
right?”

Kim told me that she had explained to
M.D. that Malaysians superstitiously believed that giving a girl a
watch meant you were counting the minutes of her life until
death.

“
That’s bullshit,” Jessica
said.

“
It’s true,” I said. She
rolled her eyes.

“
He said I am complicated
and that I drive him crazy,” Kim said. She looked genuinely happy
to be with M.D. that morning. I wondered if they were that happy in
private.

“
And you know what, girls?”
Kim asked before answering her own question. “I have his plastic!”
Kim reached into her short-shorts and waved the credit card in the
air.