know and some you don’t want to know. “Adrienne,
your parents are actually flesh-eating coneheads” would fall into the “don’t want
to know” category. “Adrienne, is that you? It’s the Virginia lottery calling. You’ve
won ten thousand buckets of pure gold!” would be categorized under the “need to know
immediately” category.
I deemed “Olivia Campo may or may not be slapping the pony with the junior senator
from Arizona” to be “don’t want to know” information. This was the wrong instinct,
because I was a gossip columnist and that was definitely glorified gossip, but I still
didn’t want to know. Because what if she was? And what if I found out and reported
it and the senator from Arizona had me killed? I was far too young to be bugged, stalked,
and murdered. I had never been to Bora Bora or finished In Search of Lost Time or run naked around the Washington Monument or gone skiing with Karl Lagerfeld. I
had so much living to do.
I was, of course, jumping to conclusions. I had seen Olivia skulking around a pretentious
ghost town at midnight. Not a red flag. Maybe a pink flag. Then I had seen Hoyt Stanton,
a United States senator, say the name Olivia into a telephone while leaving a swanky
hotel bar in the same pretentious ghost town. Another pink flag. I decided to look
up his family history to see if therewere any Olivias floating around his Wikipedia page. None. His wife’s name was Charlotte,
his sister Mary-Clare, and out of his six kids—three biological and three adopted—only
two were girls, Danielle and Daisy. My mind was spinning with possibilities, and they
all seemed to lead to the bedroom.
“You seem distracted,” my mother said after dinner en famille the next Saturday night. She held on to my freshly highlighted ponytail as I finished
the dishes in her hand-carved soapstone sink. “It’s not like you, you’re usually so
vivacious. And you just seem a little defeated.”
I think I had become immune to 5-hour Energy shots and extra-strength Excedrin migraine.
I needed a new legal upper. Worse, my new obsession with Olivia and Senator Hoyt Stanton
was exhausting me. I felt like two little incidents had suddenly stamped every corner
of my mind with the words “what if?” I had never seen them together. Never even in
the same room together. I didn’t know if Olivia Campo was on the other end of his
phone call. But I couldn’t shake the feeling. Middleburg was too small for coincidences.
“I’m just thinking about a few of the people from work,” I answered my mother. I reached
for a handful of candy from a bowl on the counter.
“I think you just ate soap,” she said. She was right. I had ingested a full teaspoon
of lavender-scented Palmolive rather than after-dinner mints, but I was too tired
to spit it out.
“You need to stop thinking about work and start thinking about yourself,” she said.
“You never go out anymore unless it’s for your job. You spend your weekends moping
around this tiny old person’s town, and even your horse looks depressed. You were
never like this in New York. Remember all those pictures of you in New York Social
Diary and Gotham magazine? Andyou made that 40 Under 40 list, remember? That’s the girl I know.” She kissed me loudly
on the cheek, grabbed my tired shoulders, and told me I looked hunchbacked.
I wanted to remind my mom that in New York, my job started at 10 A.M. and not 5 A.M. That the Town & Country editors encouraged us to go out, not to become cave dwellers with female facial hair
and lots of Twitter followers. Instead, I just said, “I’m still getting my legs under
me.”
Braiding my hair, she secured the end with a rubber band meant for vegetables and
used a step stool to take a seat on the slightly damp counter. My mom went to Wellesley,
too. She loved it. She’s on the board now and goes up every other month to help advance
the elite
your parents are actually flesh-eating coneheads” would fall into the “don’t want
to know” category. “Adrienne, is that you? It’s the Virginia lottery calling. You’ve
won ten thousand buckets of pure gold!” would be categorized under the “need to know
immediately” category.
I deemed “Olivia Campo may or may not be slapping the pony with the junior senator
from Arizona” to be “don’t want to know” information. This was the wrong instinct,
because I was a gossip columnist and that was definitely glorified gossip, but I still
didn’t want to know. Because what if she was? And what if I found out and reported
it and the senator from Arizona had me killed? I was far too young to be bugged, stalked,
and murdered. I had never been to Bora Bora or finished In Search of Lost Time or run naked around the Washington Monument or gone skiing with Karl Lagerfeld. I
had so much living to do.
I was, of course, jumping to conclusions. I had seen Olivia skulking around a pretentious
ghost town at midnight. Not a red flag. Maybe a pink flag. Then I had seen Hoyt Stanton,
a United States senator, say the name Olivia into a telephone while leaving a swanky
hotel bar in the same pretentious ghost town. Another pink flag. I decided to look
up his family history to see if therewere any Olivias floating around his Wikipedia page. None. His wife’s name was Charlotte,
his sister Mary-Clare, and out of his six kids—three biological and three adopted—only
two were girls, Danielle and Daisy. My mind was spinning with possibilities, and they
all seemed to lead to the bedroom.
“You seem distracted,” my mother said after dinner en famille the next Saturday night. She held on to my freshly highlighted ponytail as I finished
the dishes in her hand-carved soapstone sink. “It’s not like you, you’re usually so
vivacious. And you just seem a little defeated.”
I think I had become immune to 5-hour Energy shots and extra-strength Excedrin migraine.
I needed a new legal upper. Worse, my new obsession with Olivia and Senator Hoyt Stanton
was exhausting me. I felt like two little incidents had suddenly stamped every corner
of my mind with the words “what if?” I had never seen them together. Never even in
the same room together. I didn’t know if Olivia Campo was on the other end of his
phone call. But I couldn’t shake the feeling. Middleburg was too small for coincidences.
“I’m just thinking about a few of the people from work,” I answered my mother. I reached
for a handful of candy from a bowl on the counter.
“I think you just ate soap,” she said. She was right. I had ingested a full teaspoon
of lavender-scented Palmolive rather than after-dinner mints, but I was too tired
to spit it out.
“You need to stop thinking about work and start thinking about yourself,” she said.
“You never go out anymore unless it’s for your job. You spend your weekends moping
around this tiny old person’s town, and even your horse looks depressed. You were
never like this in New York. Remember all those pictures of you in New York Social
Diary and Gotham magazine? Andyou made that 40 Under 40 list, remember? That’s the girl I know.” She kissed me loudly
on the cheek, grabbed my tired shoulders, and told me I looked hunchbacked.
I wanted to remind my mom that in New York, my job started at 10 A.M. and not 5 A.M. That the Town & Country editors encouraged us to go out, not to become cave dwellers with female facial hair
and lots of Twitter followers. Instead, I just said, “I’m still getting my legs under
me.”
Braiding my hair, she secured the end with a rubber band meant for vegetables and
used a step stool to take a seat on the slightly damp counter. My mom went to Wellesley,
too. She loved it. She’s on the board now and goes up every other month to help advance
the elite
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