All We Ever Wanted(43)

I felt a stab of grief, thinking about both Lyla and my own experience at Vanderbilt. “I know Lucinda is as obnoxious as her mother….But unfortunately, she’s right. If it were coming from someone else—”

“It would still be obnoxious!” Melanie said. “Keep your opinions off social media!”

I actually disagreed with her—and thought that activism of this kind is one of the only decent upshots of social media. Otherwise, it’s just a regular brag or snooze fest—a way to either show off your vacation or bore everyone with your Brussels sprouts. I almost said something along those lines, but Melanie was on a roll.

   “I mean, Finch and Beau are good kids! From good families!” she said once again, removing an elastic band from her hair, shaking it out, then putting it up in a fresher ponytail. “And Lyla is so not their type.”

“She is very pretty, though,” I said, mostly just musing aloud.

“Have you seen her in person?”

I shook my head and said, “No. But I saw some other photos of her.”

“Is she mulatto?…Beau said she is. Is that true?”

“Mulatto? I haven’t heard that in years,” I said, wondering if it was still politically correct and feeling pretty certain that it was not.

She shrugged. “Whatever the term is. Mixed? Biracial? I can’t keep it straight. Is she?”

“She’s half Brazilian,” I said.

“Huh,” she said. “So her mom must be foreign. Because I heard her dad’s white. I also heard her mother’s in jail for drugs and prostitution. No wonder Lyla’s so promiscuous.”

“Who said she was promiscuous?” I asked, thinking that Melanie was trying to have it both ways. Lyla didn’t do anything that night with our boys, yet she was also promiscuous? Which one was it?

“Did you not see her outfit?” Melanie tugged on her tank as she made a cross-eyed, tongue-lolling face.

“Come on, Mel. You know better than that,” I said, tensing. “An outfit doesn’t make someone promiscuous. That’s almost like saying ‘She wore a short skirt, so she had it coming.’?”

Melanie stared at me for a beat then said, “Okay. What’s going on? Why are you so Team Lyla? I don’t get it.”

   “I’m not,” I said. “I just have the feeling she’s a nice girl who got caught up in something she didn’t ask for.”

“And why do you think that?”

“Because. I had coffee with Lyla’s father,” I blurted out, as my mind exploded with a flowchart of possible repercussions that came from Melanie knowing this. She was well intentioned in our friendship but had an absolute inability to keep much of anything to herself.

“You did?” she said, probably already mapping out who she would tell the second she left my house. “When?”

“Yesterday,” I said, making a split-second decision not to make it more irresistible by telling her to keep it a secret. “It was no big deal, really….It just felt like the right thing to do.”

She nodded. “So? What was he like?”

“You’ve actually met him,” I said. “His name is Tom Volpe. Ring a bell?”

She gave me a blank stare, shook her head, then said, “Wait. That does sound familiar. How do I know that name?” She repeated Volpe under her breath a couple times, frowning as if trying to place him.

“He did your butler’s pantry,” I said. “And your keeping room shelves.”

Her face suddenly lit up. “Oh yeah! That Tom! Right. He was hot. You know—in a scruffy, blue-collar way….”

The characterization slightly annoyed me, though I couldn’t pinpoint why, especially given that it was a pretty accurate description. In any case, I just nodded and said, “Yeah. I guess.”

“Wait. His daughter is Lyla?”

I nodded.

“That’s surprising,” she said.

“Why?” I asked.

   “I don’t know. Because he’s a carpenter, I guess? There aren’t a lot of carpenters’ kids at Windsor….She must be on financial aid.”

“Maybe. Who knows,” I said, resisting the temptation to add and who cares. Instead I said, “But if she came in the ninth grade, then she also must be pretty smart. Or supertalented in some area.”

Everyone knew that admissions standards became more stringent in high school, whereas the criteria for five-and six-year-olds were considerably broader and had much more to do with who your parents were. Nobody said it, but it seemed pretty clear that if two applicants were completely equal but for the ability to make a big donation, the big donation won. To Kirk, there was nothing troubling about that. It was just life.

“Or maybe she got in because of the mulatto thing,” Melanie said. “You know how Walter is about diversity.”

I shrugged, feeling intensely uncomfortable. To deflect, I pointed at a bottle of pinot noir that I’d opened with dinner and said, “Would you like a glass?”

“Maybe just a teensy one. I’m trying to cut down on sugar….I’m so fat. Ugh…” She leaned forward so that she could get a pinch of skin covering her washboard stomach as I poured a glass and handed it to her.