High White Sound, Page 3

  ***

  I awoke one unusually hot morning that summer to the rhythm of a ringing phone and sensed trouble.

  “Addison!” The name drooled out of the receiver in sweet dulcet tones. “When are you coming home?”

  “Christmas,” I lied to my cousin. The delicate civilities I managed with Grace relied heavily on white lies regarding my whereabouts.

  “But I haven’t seen you in ages!” Grace squealed.

  “I haven’t seen anyone,” I replied. Which was true.

  “I still can’t believe you broke up with Dan.” Ah, Dan. There he was again. “I just always thought you two would get married.”

  “I’m lucky, son,” Dan’s father once told him. “I got one of the last good ones. A woman who still wants to stay at home and raise a family. A good Christian mother.” He shook his head sadly. “There aren’t many of them left in this world.” Yet still there was Grace.

  I tried to change the subject and her voice lowered to a whisper. “His dad got fired.” Thousands of miles away in a clean white bedroom I could see her eyes fixed hard on the mirror and the red lipstick arcing back and forth. A cupid bow pout in harmony red. Perfect. “His poor mother now works at the pharmacy to make ends meet. Isn’t that horrible?” The sincerity of her remark was punctuated by the sound of her compact snapping shut.

  Then Grace’s breath grew heavy and I knew we were getting close to the reason for her call. “You won’t have to wait until next Christmas for a piece of home. I’m coming to New York in two weeks!”

  I had several apprehensions about my cousin’s visit, which only increased when I first saw Grace approaching down the street closely followed by five trotting kids all grinning their cornfed mouths a little too broad. Grace ran down the street at first – then slowed in her final steps, planted stilted kisses on my cheeks, and straightened and stepped back.

  “I can’t believe I’m actually here!”

  My eyes darted around at the ducklings now crowded behind Grace.

  “Hi,” I offered. Grace glanced around as if she was just remembering their presence.

  “Oh! You wouldn’t believe what happened to my friends. They were all supposed to stay on 54th Street, but they got the dates mixed. Now the girl is upstate!” Her cupid bow lips sank. Then in a flash she brightened back. “Isn’t it lucky that we can all stay with you?”

  “I don’t have room for all these people,” I sputtered in protest.

  “It’s okay. I’ll just have everyone stay in the room I’m sleeping in. Don’t you worry about us.” I tried to glare, but Grace was busy fixing her hair in a storefront. “I hear there is this place in New York where you can drink margaritas the size of your head!”

  “Margaritas!” A rumble of approving noises erupted from the figures alongside her.

  Grace cast her eyes back and smiled faintly at the support. “It would be wonderful.”

  “Sure.” If I appeased them early, perhaps they would leave sooner. “What’s the name?”

  “I can’t seem to remember.” Grace wrinkled her lily white nose as her shoulders shrugged. It was adorable when she was five. Then she brightened. “But you’ll be able to find it, Addison. I’m sure of it. You can do anything.”

  Our departure was held up by several dozen small bathroom trips, each one promised to be the last, which left pools of congealed hairspray and an even layer of fine powder across the length of our cracked and yellow tiled bathroom floor.

  Grace stood in front of the mirror like a Victorian hourglass, applying liberal amounts of powder to her face.

  “I can’t wait to see your church,” Grace cooed as she pinned an artificial flower in her hair. “What time are we going tomorrow?”

  I forgot we had to do this. I took a deep breath. “Oh right,” I said slowly. “You know, I don’t really go to church… much… anymore.”

  Grace’s head whipped around, her mouth frozen. “Addison, that’s terrible!”

  “Well,” I shrugged. “I’m feeling pretty anti-Catholic these days.”

  “Anti-Catholic?” Her tongue bounced off the word in disbelief. “What’s the Pope ever done to you?”

  “Organised religion just – ” Grace had turned and was already rapt in another conversation. “Attracts a certain breed,” I finished to no one.

  By the time the girls determined themselves sufficiently painted the sky was black. We spilled out past the iron gates and tumbled into the subway. The 1 roared and slung its way down the rails to 50th Street, the Texas crew shouting and falling and gripping tight. They spilled out the exit buzzing with energy and exalted the muggy night.

  “Oh, New York!” Grace cried, as if the dirty trembling ride was a giant kiss from the city, a secret perversion all her own.

  For a while I attempted to match their stride as they scurried across the street, but somehow they always quickly fell back three lengths or so, leaving me to drag them along the sidewalk like a pack of tangled dogs.

  The place was a tourist junkhole in Times Square. I had a strong urge to point the chattering group in the general direction of downtown and vanish, but the risk of Bad Things was irrevocably great. Their collective naïveté danced along the borders of their throbbing mass like a glowing halo. I took them to the courtyard of a concrete alley.

  “Sorry guys, we are no longer serving dinner,” the waiter said behind clasped hands. “But I can serve you drinks, if you would like.”

  “Oh!” Grace cried, as if it were the furthest thing from her mind. “Yes, that will be fine.”

  The waiter’s smile was thin like ice. “Sure thing. I’ll just need to see some IDs.”

  I casually flipped my fake ID across the table in one practiced move. I waited for similar cards to come flying across the table from deep-seated Texas pockets and purses, but there was only silence. Grace stared straight ahead, her face rigid.

  “You don’t have ID?”

  “We forgot them,” Grace said, turning suddenly towards the waiter.

  The waiter arched an immaculate eyebrow. “I can’t serve you drinks without ID.”

  “But we never get carded in Dallas!” The high notes of desperation in her voice swept upwards on the summer wind and twisted it round the fire escapes dangling off broken buildings.

  Finally the waiter let out a long, exasperated breath. “Why don’t you go around and each tell me your age.” Each lie tumbled out a whispered prayer. He turned and stalked back to the kitchen.

  “So far so good!” Grace insisted once he had left. “Now, tell me all about your adventures, Addison. What have you been doing lately? I have so much FUN when I’m with you!” There was nothing I was doing lately that Grace would have approved. I said I was keeping to my job.

  Grace eagerly leaned forwards. “Did you hear what happened to Ruth?” Ruth was a Mormon neighbor who had been pushed into a marriage after falling pregnant last year. “She’s getting a divorce. The poor girl. You know what her husband said to her? ‘I love you like a sister.’ Like a SISTER.” Grace shook her head in sorrow. “I can’t believe it.”

  I feigned extreme interest in the grotesque neon drinks to maintain my ability to drift in and out of the conversation.

  “And your grandfather is bringing that girlfriend of his along to the Fourth of July,” Grace was saying as I faded back in. “Only two months after the death of his wife.”

  “It’s just because he’s lazy,” her friend said. “She cooks for him, and cleans his house.”

  “She’s like a glorified maid,” Grace marveled.

  “Oh, I’m sure she does more than a maid.”

  “Don’t you dare put that image in my head.”

  Several mango margaritas later my head began to hurt.

  “You know who always makes me laugh?” Someone said a name I hadn’t heard for a long time. He was an old friend from high school, one of the few that went through Opus Dei and managed to stay sane.

  “He was in my Eth
ics class. Always talking. But I could never even take him seriously, because – ” she pressed three manicured fingernails to her forehead – “he was always wearing these cheap silver dog tags around his neck.” She leaned into Grace and the two erupted into giggles.

  I stared into my drink. Each word dripping from the honey voice made me feel worse. “He wouldn’t even take them off when he went swimming. He must have thought they were the coolest thing.” Her Tiffany earrings jangled as she swung her blonde hair. “What a freak.”

  I slammed my drink down and the table jumped. The tequila was taking effect. “Do you know why he wears those?” I asked slowly.

  She offered a condescending smile. “Were they a gift from his dog?”

  “Did you ever think to ask?”

  “No,” she started, although her voice had grown more still. “It’s just jewelry.”

  “It’s not just jewelry,” I corrected her. “They were on his dad when he died.” The words drifted out over the quiet air. Faces grew solemn behind brightly colored straws. The girl was staring intently at her drink. I excused myself and vomited. When I returned, everyone was ready to leave.

  Over the next few days heavy clouds split open over the city and flooded the streets with gray rain. I spent most of my days inside, so it was all the same to me, but the guests were growing irritable. I returned to my apartment after a late night at work to find them gathered in the dark around the television, their eyes vacant in the iridescent glow. In my room Grace was lying facedown on the bed. When she picked up her head I saw that her eyes were stained with tears.

  “What’s the matter?”

  Grace lifted the bottle of Ambrosia. “I found this under your bed.”

  “So? You drink now too.”

  “It’s one thing to drink when you’re out having a good time with your friends, Addison,” she sighed. “It’s another to be hiding bottles–“

  “It’s not even opened,” I pointed out.

  “This one isn’t.” She shook the bottle in her fist. “Why are you back so late? Where were you? Out at a bar?”

  My silence was interpreted as an admission of guilt.

  “I have to tell your parents,” she moaned. “I can’t stand by and watch you throw away your future importing bottles from...” She turned the bottle. “New Zealand? What did this cost you, Addison?”

  “Grace,” I said, exasperated. “You are taking this way too far.”

  “What if...” Her lips quivered. “What if I do nothing, and you drop out and end up pregnant like Ainsleigh?”

  I nearly fell off the bed when I heard my sister’s name. “What?”

  “Didn’t your mother tell you? She’s gone. Ran off to New Mexico.”

  “But… why?”

  “No one knows.” Grace wiped her eyes and looked up. The alcoholic sorrows that had completely taken her only moments before had morphed into pure indignation. “You know what she said when she left?” Then her voice lilted into a sing-song that sounded nothing like Ainsleigh. “’I’ve been eating from the silver spoon my entire life. I want to eat from the wooden spoon because I made it myself.’” Her cupid bow lips curled into a snarl. “Can you believe that? Two weeks before finals too.” She clucked her tongue. “What a waste of money.”

  After Grace went to sleep I called Katrina down to our favorite lounge. During the year we would stay up all night composing songs on the piano and feeding candy to the guards as their eyes settled near shut on the late night shift. Katrina hunched over the grand piano searching for a melody while I paced in dizzy circles around the black casing.

  “Pregnant!” I howled. “Yesterday my sister was sweet and twenty, and now she is pregnant? Does no one tell me anything in this family?”

  “Maybe they would if you called home more often.”

  “That’s entirely besides the point.” I sat in a huff on the bench next to one of the chinchillas we had brought down for some late night exercise. The startled chinchilla vaulted the keyboard and disappeared into the piano’s inner workings. Katrina lurched after it.

  “All my life I have followed straight in Ainsleigh’s steps.” I plucked listlessly at the untuned strings on my electric guitar. “Every award, every class, everything she ever did, I did too. I have always had this sense that whatever she does, I’m destined for the same.”

  “That is completely ridiculous,” Katrina replied from inside the piano.

  “My parents are going to see it that way. Once Grace tells them I’m an alcoholic, they’re going to cut me off at the knees.”

  Katrina was only a pair of legs. “They can’t be that bad.”

  “They are,” I insisted. “To them, everything is a competition to be the best. Last time they were in New York, instead of taking cabs, they took separate bicycle rickshaws and made the guys race.”

  “Oh my God.” Katrina resurfaced clutched the indignant ball of fur, her brow furrowed in sympathy. “Surely they would be slightly more sane with their daughters.”

  “Or worse. The house of Atreus has nothing on us. What makes a parent, anyway? They didn’t raise me. My mother never had time for us as kids. I saw my piano teacher more than I ever saw her.”

  “You poor thing!”

  I shrugged. “I learned to play the piano didn’t it? I got something.”

  “What about your father?”

  “He was always off traveling.” I waved a hand.

  “To where?”

  “Who knows? I asked him about it once and he said, ‘I put a roof over your head. That’s all you need to know.’” I took a seat by Katrina and we started trading off the swing.

  “I don’t think either of my parents really know how to raise kids,” I continued. Any time a normal parent would show some degree of affection they just buy us things.”

  “Whoa – affection as a commodity,” Katrina mused. “Someone should wire Pentheus in Zug.”

  “At least your parents are still married,” Katrina conceded. “I find that somewhat refreshing.” Katrina was the child of a love affair between a philosophy professor and his prize student that slow burned into marriage before crashing into a rocky divorce. As a consequence, she felt she had the market cornered on family dysfunction.

  “It’s not refreshing at all,” I protested. “It’s smothering. I have a sneaking suspicion my parents hate each other, but are too comfortable with their lives to ever divorce. Every time I’m in that house I feel the life drain out of me. And I have to go back for the Fourth of July.”

  “Why?”

  “Big party,” I replied. “Big.” My heart filled with sorrow. “I don’t want to go.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Katrina offered. “Why not? I’ve never been to Illinois.”

  “I don’t think you realize what you’re getting into.”

  “It’ll be fun,” she insisted. “Chicago is supposed to be beautiful.”

  “Katrina,” I reminded her. “Freedom Woods is not Chicago.”

  back

  Three. The Party

  Thirty miles northwest of Chicago, Freedom Woods' motto was ‘By Endurance We Conquer,’ and it was working – the town had survived industrialization, a depression and two wars. The place really took off in the suburban sprawl that crawled out of the Second City fringe following World War II. In the fifty years since a few major factories settled in and the town morphed into an endless landscape of neon signs and supermarkets. Storefronts that used to house the tailor, butcher and shoesmith now boasted rows of coffee chains and sub shops. Fashionable mothers strode proudly through and everyone else walked around dazed, as if wondering how or why they had ended up there.

  If you’re ever going to visit, the best time is for the Fourth of July. Everyone goes hog wild. Streams of red, blue, and gold billow all over town and everyone's got a smile. Most of my friends back East dismissed stuff like that as blind patriotism, but I still respected it somehow. I liked to think it meant people still believed in the spi
rit of the country, even when it was low.

  Outside 1945 Victory Lane the manicured lawns were clean as money. An inflated pink castle hummed meditatively before a thatched forest background. Dew glistened from the diamond shapes in the netted black thread of the volleyball net.

  If one was to judge the inhabitants by the size of the American flag draped across the roof, one would imagine it to be the residence of the governor, or some other political dignitary in a red state. But such was not the case. Instead, beyond the golden door, my father pulled the brown tired gloves from his weathered hands, one finger at a time. He had set everything up on his own. He liked it best like that.

  Inside my mother paced the entire foyer corridor in total distress. The party was going to be a travesty. It always was. Last year no one had noticed the wandering teenagers that had ambled in until they were all completely trashed on the special lemonade. Why did she agree to these parties anyway?

  Of course, it wasn’t like she had a choice. By that point they were a neighborhood tradition. For thirty years, no matter what – rain, shine, or nuclear holocaust – my grandfather put on The Best Fourth of July Party in all Lake County. My grandfather used to haul out blockades, and girls and kids and dogs all ran relays, caught up over hot dogs and took turns manning the dunk tank.

  The tradition had fizzled out for a bit in the Seventies, but then my mother married into the family money and brought it back from the dead. Now the wrought iron gates poured open to reveal a flood of florists and caterers and hired hands to replace the people who had retreated into their houses long ago. Under the guise of ribald celebration everyone was together again – but it was only temporary. An illusion that lasted just long enough to extinguish in a matter of hours amid a flurry of loud and restless fireworks.

  I found my mother in the kitchen next to the hors d’ouveres. I reached for the food and she slapped my hand away.

  “That was not done for you, it was done for our guests,” she snapped. “If you want some, make your own.” She turned to the man by her side and beamed. “This is my daughter Addison.”

  It was the start of a ritual waltz between the two of us that took place over the course of every party. As her favorite conversation piece I would get called over to entertain, cajole and dazzle with my newly acquired well-bred Ivy wit whenever she was at a loss for words or wanted an extra feeling of superiority over her friends.

  “I thought your daughter moved to Mexico?” the man asked.

  “No!” she snapped. “This is the good one.” I stared at her in shock. Grace hadn't told. “She goes to Columbia.”

  “Now how about that!” he remarked, popping a shrimp into his mouth. “I have a nephew that goes to Columbia as well. It’s a fine art school.”

  “That’s the one in Chicago,” I corrected him. “There’s another one in New York.”

  “Never heard of it.” His front teeth crunched on the tail, shooting three pink exclamation points upwards into the bristles of his mustache. “What’s your major?” I tell him History and a puzzled look crosses his face. “Do you want to be a teacher?”

  I say no. "I just love that history is about meaning beyond death," I explained. “Understanding the past not only provides a path for the future, it also reveals the secrets of the human race.” The man’s face was blank. “By finding that which is universal in humans, no matter when they lived, we find the timeless ether that binds us all together."

  By this point his eyes had started to glaze. But now that I had started there was no stopping.

  "It's immortality!" I chattered excitedly. "It’s a dance between chance and destiny. An art and a science while also neither. It holds up a mirror to ourselves."

  The mustache was back to sniffing amongst the food.

  "And it's so fascinating," I continued. "Especially the changes in America in the nineteenth century. In just a hundred years it flipped from a small agrarian nation into a world empire. But how?"

  "Hmph," the man replied.

  My mother let out a short laugh. "Addison is adopted," she explained, attempting a joke.

  His hands plunged into the tortilla chips as if there was a prize at the bottom. "I didn't know that!"

  "I am not adopted." I glared at my mother.

  "Well you look nothing like us." She shrugged. "Maybe they switched babies at the hospital.”

  "But what is it that you want to do?" the man pressed. Ah, the all-important question – what is it I want to do?

  "I don't know," I said simply. This admission appeared to make them both very nervous.

  The man’s hands surfaced from the candy bowl with three king size bars. “You want to know where the money is?” He leaned in with eager eyes as he tore into the packaging with his teeth. “Property.” He leaned back and beamed as my mother strode across the kitchen to open a window. His odor was unbearable.

  “I’ve got a whole instruction set at home. I’ve read the thing three times over and am ready to start flipping. You don’t even need money to get started. Being a good salesman is how to get ahead these days,” he declared, slamming a fist the Jell-O. “Without that a college education is useless.”

  Ten minutes later I sprouted from behind the bushes. “Katrina. Thank God I found you. I’ve got to escape.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I think I’ve finally stumbled on my get rich quick uncle. I’ve been cornered for the last hour listening to him ramble about property infomercials.”

  Katrina lifted an index finger to her chin. “So there is one in every family.”

  “I don’t actually know if he’s related. But I wouldn’t be surprised. We have some real weirdos on my mom’s side in Minnesota.”

  As if in response to her name, my mother materialized on the balcony and raised her glass and eyebrows sharply over a thin smile. I drifted past the disaffected lifeguards and neon blue water and floated up the stairs.

  She cast a disapproving glance over my outfit. “I was hoping that for a family gathering you would decide to wear something more appropriate.”

  I glanced down. “It’s a barbecue.”

  “It may be for everyone else, but for you it’s a responsibility. A responsibility to not embarrass me,” she hissed, re-arranging the pieces of my hair. “Did you hear back about your Economics grade?"

  "Yeah – I got a ninety-eight on the final."

  "Well what about the other two points?" I felt my heart fall as my mother strode away, leading me by the arm. “Now come with me and meet our new neighbors.” Since I had left the small ranch house next door had been bought, destroyed and replaced with a colossal stone edifice. “You aren't going to believe the new addition on their house. Would you believe they even hired the same interior designer?” she clicked, briskly walking towards the stuck pig. “Some people really have no taste."

  She halted before the pointed feet of a wan woman whose hair was styled the exact same as my mom’s. My mother introduced us by rattling off a long list of accomplishments.

  “That’s wonderful,” Mrs. Jones smiled upon hearing the school’s name. “The Ivy League is a wonderful place to find a husband who can provide for a family.”

  “Oh, not for me. I’m entertaining the idea of having a kept man.” I smiled politely back.

  Mrs. Jones sighed. “It sounds so promising, doesn’t it? The feminist manifesto.” She looked at me with knowing eyes. “I met my husband in graduate school. I got my Master’s and he went into Law. When we decided to get married…” She sighed. “He’s working as a lawyer, it would be stupid for me to – ” She cut herself off and tried again. “You have children and things change,” she said finally, exasperated. “Now I have a Master’s and I’m a – ” She curled her lip as she watched her young son dart across the lawn. Suddenly her face was at peace. “But our faith reminds us that everything happens for a reason," she said serenely.

  I could never understand why someone would want a child.

&n
bsp; “I hear you’re close to engaged yourself.” Her face registered true emotion for the first time as I shook my head. “Don’t worry,” she implored, touching my arm. “You’ll find someone.”

  Good God. In the fifties they had tranquilizers to sort this stuff out. What is keeping housewives so calm now?

  From there the guests got worse.

  “New York is the loneliest city in the world,” Mrs. Snoot pronounced. After Wellesley she married a stock broker and settled in Lake Forest, and now spent her days sighing contentedly in the window as cars slowed down to pass her home. In her spare time she had a keen ability to articulate the downsides of any fortune that might come upon her neighbors and possibly bring them in a league comparable to her own.

  “It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brothers,” I replied.

  She arched an eyebrow.

  “Now I’ve always loved New York,” her husband interjected. He turned to me with a wink. “I even got my Economics degree there.”

  I stifled a cough. “That’s very impressive.”

  “I loved that city even when Ford was against us. That’s the real city.” He held his glass up and shook his ice in a kind of twisted salute. “I don’t like what I see happening to it. Nowadays when people think of New York it’s Giuliani and chain stores in Times Square. And Ground Zero.” His eyes turned sad.

  His wife looked at him in shock, then glared at me down her filed nose. “Your building probably has cockroaches.”

  “I believe it’s only fair that we share living space.” I smiled sweetly. “After all, they were here first, and they’re going to repopulate the earth after the apocalypse.”

  Her eyes narrowed and her head jerked in a birdlike fashion. “What apocalypse?”

  “That reminds me,” her husband interrupted, sensing a convenient transition to politics. He furrowed his brow. “I heard on the radio they may delay the election.”

  Mrs. Snoot gasped. “The presidential election? But it’s months away.”

  He nodded solemnly. “After the attacks in Spain they’re taking extra precautions.”

  It was as if the world was getting more and more ridiculous. “How many more precautions can they take?” I declared, exasperated. “They even have armed Marines in camo on the one line.”

  He looked shocked. “Do you prefer the alternative?” I went silent. “Who do you think the terrorists would rather have in office – a strong leader who isn’t afraid of a fight? Or socialists like those in Spain?”

  “I really doubt that the President is a lone warrior adrift in a sea of socialists.”

  Mrs. Snoot's mouth dropped into a small O. “An enemy of our country is harboring weapons, and you think – ”

  “No one has found weapons,” I corrected her.

  “How do you know?”

  “I read the newspaper.”

  “Oh, they only print what the liberal media want you to hear.” She waved a hand.

  “What about the footage?”

  My mothers’ eyes flashed. “Be careful not to bite the hand that feeds you, Addison,” she said, grasping my wrist with a tight smile and digging her nails in. “It might just bite back.” Then her voice lowered. “You never want to see your guitar again?” I fell silent.

  My mother turned with a serene grin and the sweet taste of a new secret. “The day the war was declared, Joe shifted all our stocks into the defense industry,” she beamed. “In six months, he had made enough to send all six of our children to college.” I had never heard that before. Mrs. Snoot’s made a half-hearted attempt to stretch her thin lips into a smile. I stared numb at a single blade of grass. My father was a war profiteer.

  “A wise investment,” Mr. Snoot said. “A pre-election terrorist attack is not a question of if, but when.”

  “But,“ my mother interjected, “this is no talk for a party.”

  “That’s right,” Mrs. Snoot trilled. “Besides,” her voice and glass rose, “it’s a yellow day!”

  “I’ll drink to that,” Mr. Snoot said, mopping his brow with one of the aging designer ties from his days on the trading floor.

  I held up my glass, signaling the need for more ice, turned on my inappropriate heel and glided back towards the pool. Bored and bloated bodies floated by in bubble gum blue water.

  “Maybe property wouldn't be so expensive here," a man remarked, floating past, "if Mr. Banks stopped buying up the whole town.”

  Children with plastered grins sailed down waterslides with eyes clamped shut.

  "I thought he made all his money from oil," a woman next to him replied between mouthfuls of popcorn.

  Our father was always silent on the subject of money. Whenever we asked he only spoke about it in parables. “I have it,” he would say, “because I didn't spend it yesterday.”

  I sat alone at the long dining room table my mother used on nights when she wanted to feel important. Stacks of paper plates soaked through with grease and untouched food were scattered across the table. All around me kids and parents alike slurped on snow cones and sucked on hot dogs stepped on popcorn. And no one could see me.

  “The mother's a drunk, you know,” a woman said. “Abused the eldest daughter. That's why she's run off.”

  "You know I’ve never even seen their father once?" A man with dried ketchup on the corners of his mouth reached for the chips.

  "I heard he's in Barbados with his mistress," the woman replied.

  “With money like that,” he laughed, "he probably has a girl on every island.”

  "Whoops!" The woman cried as her paper plate flipped onto the floor, exploding potato salad.

  "Don't worry about it," the man laughed. "We'll just get more."

  I wondered how Katrina was handling it. I wandered through the menagerie of white spotted tables outdoors, now covered with burnt sparklers and melted electro neon popsicle sticks and half eaten burgers and orange and red wrappers and long twisted strings of confetti binding all the scattered guests together.

  “Hey Addison!” A kid cousin called my name. His chubby left hand clutched an upright noisemaker. “How many digits of pi can you recite?” His sticky face twisted into a smile. “Go.” In high school I had once won a contest for memorizing over 300 digits of pi. I only did it to see if I could. But since then none of my relatives would ever let it go.

  “Addison!” Another table called. I halted in front of a semi-familiar man whose face had gone cherry red. We had one of those strange relationships between adult acquaintances and kids that only exist when the former is fully inebriated. “Are you still playing guitar?” I nodded. “The next Jimi Hendrix!” he declared. “You’ll have to play us a song later.” I said I would try. I knew he would come up to my room later, drunk.

  “Your mother tells me you only like to play the blues,” the man next to him slurred, a green party hat pointing out of his forehead. He cackled and threw his arms into the sky. “Bluuuuuuuuues!”

  I used to play the blues to escape. Skip James, Blind Lemon, Leadbelly – those guys knew what it was to want to get away. After listening to Ma Rainey I could feel better about anything. Nothing beat Cotton Slim. Who cares if I was alone? At least I didn't hear voices like Screamin' Jay Hawkins.

  “Excuse me, are you Addison?” With only steps to go I turned, ready to put on my last show of the night. In front of me stood a nervous man and woman. The look in their eyes spoke of a desperation for only one thing. The woman held out a quivering hand. “You go to Columbia, is that right?” The pedigree.

  “Our daughter is now a junior at the high school,” she began. Her eyes looked as though she might cry. “Oh, how did you do it,” she pleaded. “How did you get in?”

  The Ivy League is the ultimate trump card of the suburban elite. I think parents get desperate for their children to attend because they believe it will somehow validate the crap that their lives have become since they had kids.

  “You shou
ld meet my classmate, Katrina,” I said, moving over to the dessert table. I placed my hands on her shoulders and Katrina snapped upright, shaken from her reverie over the food. “She got a perfect score on her SATs.” The mother’s pupils visibly dilated.

  “Hey Addison!” the party hat called from the balcony. “Bluuuuuuuuuuuuuues!”