14. “All Happy Families Are Alike” #5
“I got up at four in the morning so I could have that time with you,” Lori says.
Her eyes shine with tears, and East feels like a monster.
He invited his beautiful mother to Tiffin, she and Charley like each other, they’re out at a nice dinner, and what does East do?
Makes a scene. He’s aware that sometimes Family Weekends blow up like this—but nobody would expect it from him.
Then again, nobody realizes how badly he’s been hurt.
“I’m sorry,” East says. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” He thinks about the Tolstoy line that Charley likes to quote: All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Lori says.
Harmony is restored: The food is delicious, Charley tells Lori that East wrote a paper on Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, and Lori asks if she can read it. Their server appears at the end of the meal to ask if she can tempt them with dessert. Lori orders the pumpkin crème br?lée with three spoons.
“Outstanding choice,” the server says.
Then suddenly, Lori and Charley are looking over East’s head. He hears a voice. “Hey, Charley.”
It’s Maverick. He’s here at the Wooden Duck wearing a quarter zip and his freaking Dockers. He’s with a woman who has sandy blond hair and a ton of freckles.
“Hi?” Charley says.
There’s a beat of awkward silence before Mav ushers the woman forward. “This is my… this is Amanda Maverick. She’s the Head of School at Colbert. Amanda, this is Charlotte Hicks.”
Amanda reaches across the table—her arm brushes East’s ear—to shake Charley’s hand. “I’ve heard so much about you, Charley,” she says. “Mav simply cannot stop talking about you.”
Charley emits a squeaky laugh, and Amanda doubles down. “Seriously, I feel like I know your whole life story. You’ve made quite an impression on him.”
Lori stands up. “I’m Lori Litavec, East’s mom,” she says. “Visiting from California.” She shakes hands with the Mavericks, then says, “Charley was just telling us about the art history class.”
“Art history?” Amanda laughs. “Well, I guess you’ll finally live out your dream, Mav: sharing all your arcane knowledge about Jacob van Ruisdael.”
“I volunteer at the Getty,” Lori says. “If you’re ever in LA and want a tour…”
Is this happening? East thinks.
Amanda says, “Mav is only an art historian in his spare time. His real job is as Tiffin’s college counselor.”
“Which is why Andrew and I haven’t really gotten to know each other,” Mav says.
“Ah,” Lori says. “I see.”
There’s another awkward silence, during which East tells himself not to be a douchebag and not to stand up and knock Mav the fuck out, which is what he would like to do.
“Actually,” East says, “I’m coming to see you on Monday.”
“Really?” Mav says.
“Really?” Charley says.
“Yes, really,” East says.
The Mavericks say their goodbyes—Nice to meet you, enjoy your “dinner”—and East watches Mav until he leaves the dining room. He has never been so glad to be rid of someone.
When the pumpkin crème br?lée arrives, East taps the burnt sugar crust with his spoon; it shatters like glass.
Olivia H-T has miscalculated, in more ways than one.
The original plan for Saturday night of Family Weekend was for Olivia and her parents to eat with Tilly and her parents and Pippa and her mother, Sondra Sacks.
(Olivia’s mother was thrilled about meeting Sondra.
I’ve been a fan of hers since the Housewives days!)
But then Sondra got “called out of town.” When Olivia assured Pippa she was still welcome at dinner, Pippa snorted. “You’re kidding, right? I have the house to myself this weekend. I’m having Liam over.”
Right, Olivia thought. In an unexpected (and cruel) twist of fate, Pippa has taken an interest in Liam—and there’s obviously no way Olivia can compete even if she wanted to (but she doesn’t want to, her relationship with Pippa is far more important).
Olivia’s only consolation is that although Olivia can’t have Liam, Davi can’t either.
Then, just this afternoon, Tilly announced that her parents had a meeting with the school psychologist, Dr. Pringle, and they were now insisting on taking Tilly to dinner alone.
“Why?” Olivia said. “What did Dr. Pringle tell them?”
Tilly ignored this question, as Olivia predicted she would.
Tilly hasn’t been right all semester. She told Olivia that she’d broken up with the older guy she’d been seeing, but she still sneaked off to the woods behind school or to the beach at Jewel Pond to talk to him on the phone.
Olivia had tracked her a couple of times from a distance so as not to be noticed, and she saw Tilly’s shoulders heaving with sobs.
On the surface, Olivia, Tilly, and Pippa were “best friends,” but there was no intimacy.
Tilly wouldn’t tell Olivia anything about the guy—not his name, not where he lived.
Olivia knew only that he was older and, she was now beginning to suspect, married.
(But was this really possible? Was it?) And Pippa had never asked Olivia one thing about herself.
Pippa kept talking about having Olivia and Tilly over—Olivia was dying to see the house, which was being featured in next season’s Gut Punch—but so far, the only person Pippa had invited over was Liam.
Not only does Olivia feel rejected by Pippa and Tilly but now she has to endure eating with her parents alone.
Unlike Tilly’s parents, Jim and Sloane Benbow, who know absolutely everyone from Greenwich and Newport and Lyford Cay, Olivia’s parents are neither magnetic nor connected.
Olivia’s father works all the time, and Olivia’s mother has struggled to fit in among the other Beacon Hill matrons.
To fill her time, Diane H-T has become vested in the minutiae of Olivia’s social life at school.
(Diane follows Davi on Instagram and TikTok, for example, although Olivia has warned her against liking any post.)
Olivia’s worst miscalculation, however, was telling her parents that she’d quit thirds hockey and joined the staff of the school newspaper.
Her father sent her the thumbs-up emoji—he was so clueless he didn’t realize Olivia was required to participate in an afternoon activity—and her mother wanted to know if newspaper was considered more normal than doing a sport, a question that had made Olivia cringe like she’d never cringed before.
But she said, “Yes, this year it is. Pippa is doing it with me.”
That was all Diane needed to hear.
Somehow Olivia had overlooked the possibility that Diane would want to read Olivia’s contribution to the paper, and of course this was the first thing Diane asked when she arrived. Olivia said, “I just wrote up a listicle, not worth reading.”
Olivia thought she’d successfully redirected her mother—there was no mention of the school paper during the reception or steak dinner—but after the football game, when Olivia and her parents went to the Teddy to “get something to eat” from the Grille (Olivia and her mother would get Diet Cokes, Olivia’s father would get a smashburger with shoestring fries), they passed the ’Bred Bulletin office, which Olivia was careful not to acknowledge—and Diane must have snatched up a copy of the paper without Olivia noticing.
Both Diane and Olivia’s father had read Olivia’s In and Out list while they were at their hotel changing for dinner.
The second Olivia climbed back into her parents’ car, she knew something was wrong because her parents were eerily silent.
Diane didn’t even comment on the new ivory LoveShackFancy jacket that Olivia was wearing.
Olivia wondered if her parents had had an argument, but as soon as they drove out of the Tiffin gates, her father cleared his throat.
“Your mother showed me the… piece you wrote in the school paper,” he said. “You have some explaining to do, young lady.”
Olivia closed her eyes. Shit, she thought.
There was no way Olivia could explain the In and Out list to her parents.
She’d needed to write something as attention-grabbing as Charley’s list from the year before, which proclaimed orgasms were In.
Olivia also wanted her list to let the school know that Pippa had replaced Davi as Tiffin’s queen.
Cassie Lee had sent Olivia a text: The list is .
Although Olivia hadn’t written the list with Cassie and her fourth-form squad in mind, yes she had.
Pippa herself had emitted a long, gravelly laugh.
“Sugar mama, that’s me.” She’d given Olivia a one-armed hug (Pippa reeked of cigarette smoke) and whispered in her ear, “Raves and orgies, baby.” This was all the validation Olivia needed.
The rest of the school might be looking at Olivia askance, wondering if she frequents the tanning salon in Capulet Falls or why she so blatantly dissed Davi, but Olivia had pleased the people who mattered.