Playground (4 page)

Hef responds warmly.

I grin like I just got all Os for “Outstanding” on my report card.

My sister twirls past us in her oversize dainty blouse and

sparkling jewelry. Suddenly, I don’t feel as special anymore.

The rest of the ladies come running over. Dad, Hef, and the

men greet them with hugs and kisses.

“Don’t they look incredible?” one of the Playmates shouts.

“Anything for fashion,” another girls says.

“You can dress me any day,” the big-shouldered guy jumps in.

“Or undress me,” jokes the guy with the mustache.

“Or we can just play doctor,” Dad comments with a devilish grin.

“Maybe I’ll do fashion part-time,” the Playmate giggles.

“You’re hired, little one. Do you want to move in?” Dad jokes.

“Depends on the size of the house,” the Playmate responds, as

if she’s been asked this question before.

Dad squeezes her like she’s his daughter, but then kisses her

hungrily on the lips.

“The movie is about to begin,” a butler announces.

The screening room is filling up fast so Savannah and I race

in, jumping on the big velvet cushions on the floor in front of

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J E N N I F E R S A G I N O R

the couches and rows of chairs. Bowls of M&M’s and popcorn are

everywhere. A cloud of smoke fills the room. Hef sits on the first

couch along with my father and a few Playmates who mold them-

selves in between. A butler comes up to me and asks if I want

something to eat.

“Sure,” I say, wondering how he knew I was hungry.

I notice Crawford whispering to Hef again. There are lots of

secrets here.

It’s late when we pull up to Mom’s house and kiss Dad good night.

I help Savannah out of the backseat of the car as the front door

to Mom’s house flies open. She’s yelling as she runs toward Dad’s

Rolls, furious about the late hour on a school night.

My father turns to me. “Don’t worry about that bitch,” Dad

says to me before he drives off.

Savannah and I walk into Mom’s house while she continues to

chase after Dad’s car, still screaming something about the time.

My mother was born and raised in Beverly Hills and was

crowned Homecoming Queen at Hamilton High School. She looks

like a model, but still has that girl-next-door quality about her with

dazzling green eyes, long, slender legs, and silky brown hair that falls

just below her shoulders.

She graduated from UCLA, and although her parents had in-

stilled a strong work ethic in her, what they truly wanted was for

her to get married to someone respectable and prominent. At

twenty-two, she made them proud by marrying a well-known

doctor with a very large home in Beverly Hills.

They seemed like a perfect match. They were adored by every-

one and soon their calendars were filled with colorful pool parties,

round-robin tennis matches, and Sunday brunches at Nate ’n’ Al’s.

They were the charmed newlyweds of Beverly Hills, but it didn’t

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Playground

stop there. In the eyes of Mom and her parents, not only had she

married successfully but her lifestyle had surpassed their wildest

dreams.

Life turned sour when Dad started inviting striking young girls

to play tennis in the backyard while Mom helped serve lunch by

the pool.

“They’re patients. I’m networking. You’re being jealous again.

You need to see someone for that,” Dad began to say.

Mom continued watching Dad flirt incessantly with the pretty

girls and in the process made my mother feel stupid and crazy for

suspecting anything out of the ordinary. Despite his best efforts to

convince her she was the insecure one, instinct warned her this

picture wasn’t right.

Dad claimed to work late shifts at Cedar-Sinai Hospital and

eventually Mom decided to follow him. She drove a block or so

behind him and watched as he pulled into another woman’s drive-

way. It was a house call all right, only the blonde she spotted him

with was in perfect condition.

When my father returned home that night, my mother tore

downstairs to confront him. She accused him of having an affair.

I spied on them through the crack in the den door and saw Dad

sitting calmly and nonchalantly, with a large black gun on his lap,

denying her accusations, turning the conversation around to make

her feel guilty for not trusting him.

“I am not having an affair. You’re creating this within yourself.

You’ve somehow construed this in your demented mind,” he said.

Their argument continued for what seemed like hours until my

mother screamed, “I can’t even talk to you!” and stormed out. This

was the first of many fights between them.

Months later, Mom finally endured enough and although she

was afraid to leave him, something inside told her it was the right

thing to do.

Mom and Dad separated, and Dad moved out of the house.

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J E N N I F E R S A G I N O R

One night soon after, while my mother was at dinner, my father

and grandfather snuck in the house to take furniture. They moved

large, expensive pieces out the front door and were halfway done

when my mother returned home. Tempers flared. There was yelling,

screaming, and banging. I made myself small as I witnessed the

bitter, ugly blowout from the staircase above. My sister was in bed

sleeping in her floral wallpapered room beside mine.

“First you cheat on me with some hooker and then you steal

my furniture? What is wrong with you?” Mom screamed, throwing

old vintage bottles of wine against the wall.

I watched silently as my father’s face crumbled and then turned

away from the shattering glass.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing with my wine?” Dad

yelled as he grabbed her by the shoulders.

Traces of red wine dripped down the wall like blood in a hor-

ror movie. What I saw became blurry as loud-pitched noises like

fingernails screeching down a chalkboard overcame me. My entire

world was caving in.

My parents divorced and in the settlement, my father re-

claimed the house on Camden and paid my mother to move into a

home in West L.A. She obtained custody of my sister and me while

Dad’s visiting days became Thursdays and every other weekend.

Though many afternoons when Mom was working and Dad was

busy playing backgammon with Hef by the pool, Carmela would

pick us up from school and take us to the Mansion to be with Dad,

even though we knew we weren’t really going to be with him.

When my parents were together, I had ice cream with my fa-

ther downstairs in the kitchen every night. I must’ve been three or

four at the time. I don’t remember whether he came into my bed-

room and woke me or if I heard him and then got out of bed. Each

night it was the same: Jamoca Almond Fudge and a tirade of accu-

sations against my mother, who was fast asleep.

His harsh words about my mother resonated into a sort of

early brainwashing.

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Playground

Each night he made it clear that our discussions were private,

not to be repeated to anyone. The more he spoke, the more I real-

ized I could not. Any thoughts I had about what he was saying, any

opinion I held, froze in my mind and then melted away as quickly

as the chocolate on my tongue.

The mean words he said about my mother floated like butter-

flies around his head as I squinted away their meaning, concentrat-

ing only on our intimacy, his love, his availability, his trust in me.

Ice cream was one of the first of my father’s many enticements to

pull me away from my mother.

It’s a quiet afternoon in my mother’s house. Her home chills me:

its perfect order, regimented knickknacks, and white carpet are in-

vitations to disaster. Only Savannah feels at home here. I am care-

ful to avoid contact with any of the antique furniture and crystal

vases filled with white silk roses as she and I slide across the hard-

wood floors in our socks.

I ask Savannah if she wants to play doctor. She wants to have a

tea party instead. We settle on dress up. I grab a bunch of tissues

and push them up my shirt.

“I’ll be the girl. You are the boy,” I suggest.

“I want to be the girl,” Savannah whines.

“Fine,” I grab the tissues and stick them down my pants.

Savannah and I pile pillows in a big circle forming a makeshift

Jacuzzi. My pants are down while I adjust the balled-up tissue in

my underwear. Savannah has paper boobs the size of footballs,

which she fluffs with her hands.

Meanwhile, Mom returns home from her long day at school

where she’s enrolled in a graduate psychology program, trying to

earn her doctorate.

When she was married, Dad didn’t want her to work, but now

that they’re divorced, he only gives her enough money to support us.

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J E N N I F E R S A G I N O R

Later I’ll learn that she was frustrated because she was struggling to

get her Ph.D. and work while her friends lunched at the country

club, safely entrenched in their marriages to millionaires.

While rummaging through our laundry, Mom finds the Play-

boy matches I took from the phone room at the Mansion. She

examines the black matchbook closely and shrieks when she sees

H.M.H. along with the white bunny ears on it. Savannah and I

hear Mom’s high-pitched screeching and share petrified glances as

we hustle to clean the room. I have an anxious feeling in my stom-

ach, the kind I usually get when there’s trouble.

We’re panicking, scrambling to put the pillows back, tossing

them onto the couch, picking up piles of tissues off the carpet,

yanking them out of our shirts and pants.

Mom storms in as I’m pulling up my pants, the matchbook

clutched in her hand as she waves it in the air.

“Would you please tell me what the hell this was doing in your

pocket?”

Mom looks down at us playing dress up, my pants still only

halfway up. Savannah has mounds of tissues hanging out of her T-

shirt. Mom’s horrified. Her eyes say it all.

My sister and I are now crammed into Mom’s red Datsun as we

speed over to Dad’s house. I can’t breathe. I’m in trouble and I

don’t know why. Savannah is crying. A horrible pain boils in the

pit of my stomach.

We pull into Dad’s horseshoe driveway. My mother gets out of

the car and runs over to the front door. She bangs on it with all her

might until a young blonde I recognize from the Mansion steps

onto the upstairs balcony. She waves to Savannah and me, her

blonde hair swaying gently in the breeze. My mother pounds even

harder. Dad finally answers the door wearing a blue terrycloth robe.

“What are you doing here?” he shouts.

My mother holds up the black matchbook with the white

bunny ears.

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