Chapter Four
The first time Joanna heard about the Bates-McAllister family, she had been a few weeks shy of eleven years old. She and her mother, Catherine, were waiting at the orthodontist’s office for an appointment to see whether or not Joanna would need braces—unfortunately, she would—when Catherine noticed a Main Line newspaper that was wedged between a Highlights for Children and Woman’s Day. It was the kind of paper that announced community activities, openings of new local restaurants, and road construction. In the back, it featured a society page.
Catherine folded back the page and passed it to Joanna. She pointed to a picture of a woman wearing a long velvet gown, sporting a nest of diamonds on her head. Two young boys stood next to the woman, both of them about Joanna’s age, wearing suit jackets and ties. “Sylvie Bates-McAllister and family, attending the annual gala for the Swithin School,” said the caption.
The waiting room was empty, Joanna remembered, save for the team of receptionists behind the desk, women who were made to wear matching purple sweaters and floral-print turtlenecks. Joanna’s mother had specifically chosen this orthodontist because he was the best. All the women in the grocery store or at the PTA meetings or at Catherine’s health club said that he was the only reputable guy to send one’s children to, and because the hygienists and receptionists were featured in a local newspaper not long ago for their brisk cheerfulness, their annual all-patients-invited Fourth of July parties, and their matching uniforms. In Joanna’s slowly forming consciousness about money and class, she had begun to realize that Catherine often sought out the best of things, even if they couldn’t always afford them. Catherine chose to plant Japanese maples in their front yard, instead of run-of-the-mill sequoias or pines, trying to make their little split-level just on the outskirts of the Main Line stand out. She insisted that the family go on vacation to Avalon or Cape May, where the people in the bigger, newer, cleaner houses went—and, incidentally, where the Bates-McAllisters went—instead of Ocean City or Wildwood, where the people in the shabbier ranch houses gravitated. And then, after returning from the only beach house they were able to afford in Avalon or Cape May, which inevitably bordered a house shared by no less than twenty sorority sisters, Catherine made sure to paste an Avalon sticker on their Volvo so everyone would know where they’d gone.
The summers they didn’t go away, Catherine enrolled the family at the local country club, which, in spite of not having a golf course or a bar, was pretentious and exclusive all the same. Catherine dragged Joanna to the country club every day those summers, seating them on Adirondack chairs near the tanned, pinched-faced women who lived a few train stops closer to the Main Line, hanging on their every sentence, desperate for any scrap of conversation. The country club was a sticking point between Joanna’s mother and her father. He wanted to know why they couldn’t just join the Y instead, which had two outdoor pools and more kids Joanna’s age, at a quarter of the cost. But Catherine never relinquished the country-club membership. She went, she sat in that Adirondack chair, and she belonged.
And so when Catherine saw the photo of Sylvie Bates-McAllister and her boys in the Main Line Times at the orthodontist’s office, her eyes glistened with envy. “Would you look at them,” she gushed. She placed her thumb under Charles and Scott’s faces. Their hair was slicked; their bow ties were neat and straight. She zeroed in on Scott, who even then was strikingly handsome, with big, round eyes, enviable cheekbones, and thick black hair. “Lovely.”
“What’s a gala?” Joanna asked, reading the caption.
“A big party,” Catherine said knowingly. “Probably to raise money.” As if she’d been to plenty of galas herself.