“I know,” I murmured, thinking of all the offhanded disparaging remarks he’d made about average, hardworking Americans, the kinds of people you might see at a professional sporting event or an amusement park or the zoo. The public, he called them, and that was the nicer of the terms. I’d also heard him use riffraff, dregs, proles, and plebs. He usually pretended to be joking, but the sentiment was real. That was how he felt. If something was accessible or populated by “those people,” he wanted no part of it.
Even Disney World, I thought, reminding Julie how much I had wanted to take Finch when he was little, and how Kirk had refused to go until he learned about the VIP tour guides that movie stars used. How you could access everything from the backs of the rides. Circumvent all lines. Avoid the commoners. Yet he still managed to squeeze in remarks about all the “fat people with their turkey legs who were riding in scooters because they were too lazy to walk.” And the worst part was that he would sometimes make such comments within earshot of Finch. I shushed him, of course, or came right out and told him that wasn’t nice, but I still worried that some of those ideas would rub off on our son.
Julie listened, her lips pursed, then chimed in with more. “And he only pays attention to people who have a lot of money. Otherwise he sees right through you, doesn’t give you the time of day. Do you know he has never, once, asked me about my work? And I’m an attorney. So forget Adam’s job. It’s as if fighting fires is…is…I don’t know.” She threw up her hands, at a rare loss for words.
“Is equivalent to being in jail?” I said.
“Exactly,” she said. “Although that might depend on what kind of jail. In his eyes, a white-collar criminal in a cushy federal prison probably has more status than a firefighter.”
I nodded, thinking of how Kirk still defended Bob Heller, a neighbor of ours who had been sent to prison for running an elaborate Ponzi scheme. And it wasn’t because Kirk believed in mercy, redemption, or forgiveness—that would have been admirable—but because he insisted his friend was a “good guy” who got a “raw deal” and “hadn’t ripped anyone off that much.”
“So Adam hates Kirk, too?” I said, wondering how much they’d discussed us.
Julie shrugged. “I wouldn’t say hate. Adam doesn’t care enough to hate him. And honestly, I wouldn’t either except for the fact that he’s married to my best friend. I hate him for you. And for Finch.”
And there it was. The point of no return. My realization that if I didn’t divorce Kirk for me, I had to do it for my son. Staying in the marriage any longer was giving tacit approval to everything Kirk had done. Finch needed to know that there were repercussions to his father’s entitled mindset and selfish behavior. I had to make him see that there was another way to be.
Tears stung my eyes, and I tried to blink them back, telling myself I had to be strong. But I couldn’t. I expected Julie to glance away, as most people do when you start to cry, no matter how close they are to you.
But Julie didn’t look away. Instead she fiercely held my gaze and my hand, telling me it was time—high fucking time—and that Kirk wouldn’t be ignoring her anymore.
I thought kissing Finch was a distinct possibility when he invited me over, especially after he made it a point to say that his parents wouldn’t be home. But I didn’t think we’d do anything more than that.
Backing up, I should say that I’m not a virgin, but I’m also not a slut. I’ve only had sex with one guy. His name was—still is—Caleb King. We vaguely knew each other from middle school, where he’d been a grade ahead of me. But then he went on to Stratford, the public high school near us, and I went to Windsor the following year. So he never really crossed my mind again until last spring, when we ran into each other at the Gulch, shopping at Urban Outfitters. I didn’t notice him at first (I get really focused when I’m shopping), but then he tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Hey, didn’t you go to Dalewood?”
I put down the T-shirt I’d been considering and said, “Yeah. Hi. It’s Caleb, right?”
“Yeah. That’s right,” he said, smiling at me. “And you’re…Layla?”
I smiled back at him. “Close. Lyla.”
He asked me where I went to school, and after we covered those basics and a few others, he told me I had beautiful eyes. A few minutes of flirting later, he asked if I wanted to hang sometime. I was more flattered than psyched by the idea, but I still said yes, then gave him my number before he left the store.
It was all good until Grace, who had been standing impatiently nearby, started dissing Caleb, saying he was annoying and came on too strong. Maybe he had been a little aggressive, but I somehow got the feeling that she had a bigger problem with the fact that Caleb was (still is) black. It surprised me because I’d never thought of Grace as being at all racist, and she certainly had never said anything negative about our friend Hattie (who is white) dating Logan (who is black). I’d once even heard her say something about how cute their babies would be. So I gave her the benefit of the doubt. Until she threw out the word ghetto, that is.
“Ghetto?” I said. “Caleb lives in my neighborhood.”
“I don’t mean where he lives,” she said, ignoring the actual definition of the word. “I mean…his whole look.”
“What about his look?” I said, then reminded her that we were all shopping in the same clothing store.
“He was wearing a gold chain.”
“I think some guys can pull off a chain,” I said, even though I didn’t love jewelry on guys, either.
“Maybe. If you’re, like, Brad Pitt or Robert Pattinson.”
“You mean white?” I asked, which was as close as I came to calling her out.
I waited for her to get defensive, but either my question was too subtle for her or she just didn’t mind the implication, because she sloughed the comment off with a shrug. “Okay. Maybe the chain’s okay, but nobody can pull off those saggy jeans,” she said, making her way to the cash register with about seven items, none of which were on sale.
“His jeans weren’t sagging,” I said, empty-handed and superannoyed. “They were just…loose-fitting.”
“What’s the diff?”
“The diff…is…his jeans weren’t falling down,” I said, thinking that I distinctly remembered watching Caleb walk away from us. “I know for a fact his boxers weren’t showing. At all.”
Grace shrugged. “Still. I just think you could do better. Way better,” she said, then went on this whole tirade about how I needed to aim high in life, and wasn’t that why I was at Windsor in the first place?
I knew she just wanted the best for me, and maybe there really was something legit about Caleb that she didn’t like but couldn’t put her finger on. But I still felt like she was being really rude to him and condescending to me, and I couldn’t help feeling offended. It wasn’t the first time she’d made me feel like her little pet project, the poor girl she had taken under her wing—not just because she liked me, but because she felt I needed help. Her help, as a rich white girl from the heart of Belle Meade. I almost told her that my dad hadn’t sent me to Windsor to change up my dating pool. I was there for an education. Period. But I figured it wasn’t worth dissecting all of that. I was grateful to have Grace, and I didn’t want to jeopardize our friendship by playing the race card or making a big deal out of something so little. Nobody was perfect, after all.