Perhaps it is because of my parent's constant arguing about it, or because I watched my mother trapped in an alcoholic marriage because she had none of her own, that my relationship with money has never been about how much. For me, money became a matter of independence and making sure I kept mine. I was determined never to have to rely on someone else to support me so against all odds, I fought my way through college and into a career. So, when my son asked, at an age when I thought that he was too young to even consider it, whether or not we were rich, I answered him the only way I knew how.
We raised our boys in a small town on the north shore of Long Island. It is coined "The Gold Coast" and is famous for such characters as Gatsby, Vanderbilt, and most recently, Joey Buttafuoco. However, like a crooked hem on their silken skirt, our little town only abutted these golden villages. Close, but in a place where distance is measured in dollars and cents and not miles, we resided in the cheap seats. Still, we had things in common with our wealthier neighbors, like a zip code, several good delis, and two churches. Our kids went to the same schools and played on the same teams. We ate at the same restaurants and were in the same carpools. So, it was from these connections that unexpected relationships formed and, from one of these relationships that the ‘Words and Whine Book Club', was born. It was Linda's idea, one cold morning as we sat watching our boys play soccer, both the club and its name.
"We can read a little bit then whine about our lives," she said.
We would rotate hosting and to avoid turning it into a bake-off instead of a book club, she said there'd be a "no cooking" policy. However, when I arrived at her house for our first meeting at the same time as the caterer, I realized just how seriously I had misinterpreted that rule. I had been there before, but it did not stop me, yet again, from being just a little bit jealous. Her house stood on a hill overlooking five landscaped acres and, it was bricked, double-doored and columned. As our meetings nudged their way deeper into the village, I would be hosted by women whose homes were even more spectacular but, opulence aside, I did love the unpretentiousness of our book discussions. I thought they grew us toward new understandings as our lives connected with and intertwined with, the characters and the cultures that we read about. I was never blind to the fact though, that our real lives remained very different from one another's. By the time we started to degenerate into a group that whined a lot more than it read, we'd been together for almost two years. The divide was growing, from the looks I saw them give to each other at the first meeting I hosted to my inability to contribute to the "which country club should we join" conversations. I wonder to this day if they realized that I knew that they referred to all of the people living where I did, as "townies".
But the divide laid bare one night when the ladies of the club were discussing their neighbor and her newly-discovered-to-be-cheating, husband. Lately, our meetings had become consumed with whispers about who had to let-go her housekeeper or worse yet her personal trainer, because of these indiscretions and the divorces that followed. But tonight felt different. I was not in the company of vain hostesses or women who dominated tennis courts. I was with ladies who were scared, perhaps because of this spike in wayward husband sightings. Nonetheless, I was taken by surprise when that fear turned into anger, and more so when that anger was directed toward me.
"You do realize, don't you," Linda said, "that the only one in this room who can get a job that does not begin with the words, ‘Do you want fries with that?' is you?", and instead of sounding like a compliment, which of course it should have been, her tone was acerbic.
I didn't respond so perhaps that is why she felt empowered to go on.
"You are used to it! Do you have any idea what it would be like for one of us?"
"Used to what," I wanted to ask. My life, which was obviously where she thought you landed when your own fell apart? How does one respond to that? So, instead, I just sat and listened while these women hypothesized, over their wine and brie, exactly what they'd be forced to bear.
"I'd be in a 3-bedroom, someplace in town," one laughed. I was.
"I'd be driving a Ford," quipped another. I did.
"I'd be cleaning my own house," from a third. I do.
I was stunned silent. These women might be able to pull off a good book discussion but, it seemed, fiction was their only forte. Perhaps the fault was mine for letting it go this far. After all, the signs were there. Had I been too naïve to heed them or, on some level was I smitten to have been invited into their circle? From the onset I knew that I was the anomaly but, tonight I began to see very clearly that it had nothing to do with our addresses. What set us apart was that these ladies had made their golden beds and no matter how lumpy they became, there was no climbing out of them. I, on the other hand, slept in peace. Such was our great divide.
Turns out, that was my last meeting with The Words and Whines. I had given them far more of my time and way more consideration than they deserved. But they stayed together, running for their lives on their treadmills and making themselves essential in a thousand menial ways, in the hopes of stemming the tides that threatened to drown them. But I moved on. First, to another club. We call ourselves ‘The Workin' Girls' because, all of us do. And second, secure in the knowledge that the answer that I had given my son all of those years ago was the only right one.
"Rich? Of course, we are, Buddy!" and I named all of the people in the world who loved us to the moon and back.
