Lots of traveling again this weekend, to my summer place and then on Saturday, up to Philly for a black tie wedding with a reception at the old Ritz. Wedding receptions at the Old Ritz are filled with people with old and new money, but mostly old money. New money goes to those estates in New Jersey ala Allen Iverson.

It's somewhat of a joke that I travel in these circles, disguised in essence because I slipped into the crowd so easily years ago without even realizing the societal leap I took in my pre-teens, and no one bothered to check my background since. As far as they can remember, I was always there. I was around in high school, even though I didn't go to a private school on the mainline, because I didn't even live in the Philly area. All they remember is that I went to the right college.

I went to the right college and I present myself well. I am likeable and I have a flair that isn't so much that I threaten anyone's social standing. I blend in unquestioned.

I didn't feel like wearing black-tie to this wedding filled with all of the right people, so I didn't. I wore a faux Lily dress and a pink cardigan, dressed up with the right shoes and and imported beaded handbag. It didn't matter what I would have worn, I would have been talked about anyway; everyone talks about everyone.

These are people who don't have to work. The men own their white formal dinner jackets, fitted to perfection and when a woman joins their cigar circle, they each stand to great her, as they did when I walked over after dinner to chat, and again when I stood to leave.

They have impeccable manners, or the good breeding to shield disdain for an individual with civil coolness. I did the same with several of them whom we've had a falling out with recently related to my friend the new widow, whom they regard with disdain right now for quietly moving forward with her life.

The crowd split into two camps and I played the game with the same assumed coldness, although my blood boiled at the way she was so subtely snubbed and I wanted to scream, "How Dare You!" and hear my anger bounce off the tastefully papered walls of the sitting room.

But I didn't yell or scream because I know the rules, I've been playing by them for years. I *do* good conversation. I laugh in the right places. Not because of old money or new money or any money, simply because I was breed well under my circumstances and I am a quick study.

At 10:30PM, my brother and I left, having spoken to all the right people and most importantly, having been seen.

By 11:30PM we were walking onto a dock in our sleepy hamlet of a summer town, where our friends in hawaiian shirts, shorts and flip flops and girls in hippie dresses cheered at our surprise appearance to their theme party, a night of revelry created by the town as a summer celebration before I was even a glimmer in my parents eyes, and raised their bottles of beer and homemade brownies to us.

I thought briefly of the $300 per head gala I had just left as I threw my new shoes on the sidewalk, tossed my handbag on a picnic table, smiled and said, "Never let it be said that I have missed this holiday in my life. My record stands intact."

The small crowded cheered my name.

previous next