As I drove to attend a lecture in Greenwich today (at the stalwart Greenwich country club) I stupidly ignored my GPS’ coaxing and turned the wrong way and got lost in the serpentine maze of residential streets. It wasn’t long before I forgot about the lecture and became instead mesmerized by the enormity of the mansions I passed. I slowed down to take them all in— like vying beauty queens on steroids— brick, colonial, arts and crafts, stone—the distinct styles so overblown as to be comical versions of their original ancestors. Each was wrapped by stone walls or elaborate gates which seemed silly, since they were on postage sized lots, set just off the road for all to see.
At one point I asked a blond hair woman on a bike—who looked rather like a passing bunny—where the club was and she pointed and said: “Up there behind two stone pillars.” This was like telling someone lost on Park Avenue that the building they were looking for had a doorman.
When I got to the lecture— crowded with women perched on ballroom chairs— I noticed a later-comer sashay in, her long, blue-black hair moving with Wonder Woman sex appeal. She was wearing unusually high heeled boots and a mohair mini dress with small cut outs along the sleeves appeared painted onto her voluptuous body. A woman in a simple wool suit and barrette next to me sniffed slightly as she sat just in front of us, her intense perfume suddenly draped over me like a velvet curtain. I then realized I knew this woman: I not only went to college with her but she had successfully cast such a spell upon my boyfriend that for a good month or two there was not a thing I could do about it but sit in my dull little dorm room and play Carole King’s Tapestry. As the lecture began, I recalled her dorm room: the door was always open and she and her room mate —the Betty version to her Veronica— blared Madonna on continuous play. On one side was an enormous vanity, crowded with makeup and brushes. Fresh long stem roses from various male suitors were always on display. The other side of the room had been cleared except for a ice cream parlor table and chairs in bubble gum pink. I had no idea where she had gotten such furniture and their frivolity totally transormed the drab space into a place you wanted to gossip and dance in. As tacky as it was, I was jealous. My furniture consisted of just my single bed and my brother’s old bureau I had painted white and replaced the hardware on to make more feminine. After I left the lecture, I slowly wove again past the many mansions and wondered which one she lived in. I imagined her waving good bye to her friends, jumping into her shiny black Range Rover and driving past the stone pillars into the grandest home of all with lots of granite and surfaces as shiny as her hair. She’d toss her pocket upon the black marble entry table calling hello out to the maid who was setting a vase of long-stemmed roses onto the piano. She’d go upstairs and draw herself a bubble bath and, as she soaked she’d look out the enormous glass window down to the road and wonder why a car was driving past so slowly. And why so much house couldn’t offer a little more privacy.