CHAPTER 5
Joe
A few nights before my eighteenth birthday, and just after Berry and I had returned from Andover for winter break, my mother asked if the three of us could have a chat in the living room. The word chat was usually a signal that I was about to be lectured, but our grades hadn’t yet been announced and I couldn’t think of anything else I’d done wrong.
As Berry and I sat side by side on the sofa and my mother took her usual place in the wingback chair next to the fireplace, I watched her pull a cigarette out of the engraved silver box she kept them in. She held it between her fingers without lighting it, a ritual that was part of her latest attempt to quit.
“So,” my mother began. “Can you believe it? Only one semester until you’re both high-school graduates and off to college.”
I nodded as Berry said something about how the year was flying by.
My mother chatted a bit more about Andover generally, asking if we were still happy with our decision to transfer from our old school in the city. We both said we were, and I resisted the urge to make a joke about all the freedom I had now that I was living away from home.
“And you’re about to turn eighteen,” my mother said, giving me a purposeful look that was a clue about the chat to come.
My turning eighteen had always been a thing for my mother, something she had talked about for years. Obviously, I knew it was a benchmark under the law—that on that day, I would become a person who could vote and fight for my country. But it seemed to hold significance beyond that for her, something she saw as representing my official Kingsley manhood.
“Yes,” I said, nodding. “I sure am.”
She took a deep breath, then said, “Are you excited for your party?”
“Yeah,” I said, then corrected myself before she could. “I mean yes. Very excited. Thank you.”
I still couldn’t quite believe that my mother was throwing a big bash for me, at a trendy downtown nightclub, no less. It wasn’t like her; she was usually very understated about my birthday, perhaps conscious of not wanting to spoil me or create a sense of entitlement beyond that which automatically came with my name. I like to think she succeeded in that aim, but I was also happy she was making an exception this year.
“And how are your friends feeling?” she asked.
The question was vague—how were they feeling about what, exactly? So I played it safe and said, “Great.”
Berry nodded and said, “Everyone is very excited…. It’ll be so nice to get the old gang back together.”
“Yes. It should be wonderful,” my mother said as I caught the two exchanging a loaded look.
“Okay. What’s going on here?” I said, suddenly suspicious that the two were in cahoots—and my mother had waited for Berry to arrive before having this little conversation.
“Nothing is ‘going on,’ Joe,” my mother said. “I just want to talk to you about some things—”
“Like what?”
“Like certain expectations…”
Here we go, I thought, as my mother began droning on about all the adults who would be in attendance, including some notable figures in politics and business, publishing and the law.
I hadn’t given much thought to the guest list beyond the names that Berry and I had come up with a few weeks before, and was a little taken aback by the notion that it wasn’t just a fun party for my friends and family. There was nothing I hated more than making small talk with adults I barely knew and being grilled about my “future plans”—which, at that point, were nonexistent. I was still waiting to hear back from Harvard, a long shot, along with my backups: Brown, Middlebury, and the University of Virginia.
I did my best to hide my annoyance, as I didn’t want to appear ungrateful, and simply said, “Cool. It’ll be a blast, I’m sure.”
“I hope so. I want you to have fun. But please remember that you’re an adult now. And it’s time for you to start thinking about cultivating contacts in the working world.”
“Doesn’t that come after college?” I said with a smile.
“No. It starts now,” she said. “Your eighteenth birthday is a rite of passage. Things will be different now, moving forward. In the past, you’ve been absolved of your mistakes—”
“Mistakes?” I said, grinning. “What mistakes?”
“Um. Jumping the subway turnstile. Cheating on that math test. The fake ID,” Berry said, then mumbled under her breath, “as if that was going to work.”
“Thanks, Ber,” I said, giving her two thumbs up. “Very helpful examples.”
“She’s right,” my mother said. “Foolish behavior is more easily forgiven when you’re a boy. But now the stakes are raised. You’ll be under a microscope like never before. I won’t be able to protect you, and the press will no longer show you any grace.”
“Wait. Is that what they’ve been showing me to date?” I said, laughing. “Hot damn, I’m in trouble.”
Berry elbowed me and said, “Be serious, Joe.”
“Yes, Joseph. Please,” my mother said. “This is important. What you do from here on out could impact the rest of your life. Do you understand that?”
The statement seemed both melodramatic and obvious, but I played along, just wanting the conversation to be over. “Yes,” I said. “I understand.”
“Do you also understand that you’ll be found guilty by association if your friends—or your girlfriend—misbehave?” she asked, shooting Berry another fleeting, but unmistakably conspiratorial look.
I sighed so loudly that it sounded more like a groan. “Ohh. So this is about Nicole,” I said.
“It’s not about any one friend of yours,” my mother said. “Although now that you mention her, I do think it’s best if you have Nicole come to the party separately—”
“Why?” I said, having already planned to pick her up in a taxi. “That seems pretty rude. Haven’t you always taught me to be a gentleman?”
“Normally, yes. It would be rude. But if you arrive with her, the press will know you’re dating…and they’ll start digging into her past.”
“Her past, huh?” I said, folding my arms, then giving Berry an accusatory glance.
My mother pressed her lips together a beat, then said, “Did Nicole shoplift, Joe?”
“Oh, for the love—” I said, throwing up my hands. “It was a stupid dare…years ago. She was only, like, twelve—”
“She was actually fourteen,” Berry said.
“Right,” I said. “A kid.”
“But that’s your mother’s point,” Berry said. “She was a kid—and people still hold it against her. So now…imagine if she was eighteen? She’d be in jail.”
“For a two-dollar pair of earrings? I don’t think so.”
“You’re missing the point,” Berry said.
“Yes, Joseph,” my mother said. “You really are.”
“What’s the point, then?”
“The dress rehearsal is over now. The public eye will be on you as never before. You’re a man—”
“I know,” I said, cutting her off. “A Kingsley man.”
“Yes. A Kingsley man,” my mother said. “And you need to be very careful—and make good decisions. People expect a lot from you…. And remember, Joseph, to whom much is given—”
“Much is expected,” I finished for her. “I got it.”
—
That Saturday night, my mother, Berry, and I arrived at the club early, pulling up in a black limousine. Through the tinted windows, I could see that the press were already in place, waiting to get their shots of us. I scanned the sidewalk, recognizing some of the usual suspects, including Eduardo, the only one I knew by name. Eduardo invaded my privacy as much as the next guy, but he was so damn funny and friendly that I couldn’t help liking him.
As the driver helped my mother and Berry out of the car, then escorted them over to the entrance, I stepped onto the curb and grinned at Eduardo.
“Happy birthday, Joey boy!” he called out to me.
“It’s Joe!” I shouted back. “I’m a man now.”
The paparazzi chuckled as they snapped away, staying behind the velvet ropes that were being closely guarded by two thick-necked bouncers mumbling into walkie-talkies.
“Hey! Where’s your girlfriend?” Eduardo called out to me.
“Who said I have a girlfriend?” I quipped back.
Eduardo laughed and said, “You always have a girlfriend, Joey.”
—
The party started out following my mother’s exact script. My friends and I were all on our best behavior, making polite conversation with my mother and other adults. My friends, especially my female friends, had always been intrigued and impressed by my mother, probably because she was such a legend among their mothers, and that night, I watched the subtle jockeying for position and a chance to talk to her. My mother was pleasant to everyone, but she wasn’t particularly warm to anybody but Berry, a dynamic that seemed to annoy Nicole. Frankly, everything about Berry seemed to annoy Nicole that night, and at one point she accused me of flirting with Berry.
“Ugh, that’s disgusting,” I said. “She’s like a sister to me.”
“But she’s not your sister.”
“She might as well be.”
“I still think you like her.”
“Of course I like her,” I said, pretending not to know what she was implying.
“No. I mean I think you have a thing for her,” Nicole said. “And she’s clearly in love with you.”
“Stop it. She’s my best friend. That’s all there is to it,” I said, shutting the subject down. Berry was off-limits, and our friendship was not to be questioned.
Of course, my terse reply only amped up Nicole’s jealousy and insecurity, and around ten, as my mother and the other grown-ups were saying their goodbyes, I could feel a wave of girl drama brewing. I chose to ignore it, hoping it would go away, my strategy for any strife. Meanwhile, my friends and I began to drink, the bartenders ignoring the fact that most of us were underage.
Around one in the morning, long after the party was supposed to be over and when things were really turning wild, Berry cut in between Nicole and me while we made out on the dance floor. “Joe, can I talk to you for a second?”
“What the hell is your problem?” Nicole erupted, staring Berry down.
“My problem is that Joe is drunk. And it’s time for him to go home.”
“Stop bossing him,” Nicole said. “You’re not his mother.”
“Well, at least his mother likes me,” Berry said under her breath.
It wasn’t like her to be so petty, and I couldn’t help but smile, which further enraged Nicole. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she shouted.
“It means: His mother likes me. And trusts me. And you have terrible judgment. So I’m taking Joe home. Now.” She then turned to me and said, “I’m going to get you a cab. Be outside in five minutes.”
Much to Nicole’s fury, I did as I was told, gathering my things and saying my goodbyes. Then, just as I was headed out the door, one of my friends yelled that the paparazzi were still camped outside. Our collective judgment impaired, we concocted a convoluted getaway plan that involved a decoy and a protective barrier around me. The idea was to prevent any clear photographs on my path to the taxi, although at that point, it was less about privacy and more just a game. As we all spilled onto the street, one of my friends yelled at Eduardo to “get the fuck out of the way, you fat fuck.” Eduardo took it in stride, laughing it off and patting his belly, but another photographer goaded us with insults of his own.
Before I knew what was happening, punches were being thrown, and the city block was illuminated by flashbulbs. Things were a blur after that, but I remember flipping the bird at one of the photographers before Nicole and I got into the backseat of Berry’s waiting cab.
“Goddammit, Joe!” Berry shouted, as we pulled away from the curb. “Why would you do that? He has a camera!”
“I know he has a camera! Why do you think I was mad at him in the first place?”
“He wanted to make you mad! He wanted you to react. That’s why you don’t flip off the paparazzi! You played right into their hands!”
“They deserved it!” Nicole yelled.
“That’s not the point, you moron!” Berry yelled back at her.
“Oh my God, Joe!” Nicole whined. “Are you going to let her call me a moron?”
“Berry, please don’t call moron a Nicole,” I accidentally said, then laughed. “Oops. You know what I mean—”
Nicole glared at me while Berry looked out her window and said in a loud voice, “My God, your mother is right.”
“About what?” I couldn’t resist asking.
She turned, gave me the most disdainful look, then said, “You’re your own worst enemy. Your only enemy.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Nicole shouted at her.
“It means—he makes shitty choices.”
“Like what?” Nicole said.
“Like getting drunk. Like fighting with photographers. Like dating you,” Berry said. She then turned back to me and said, “This is going to be bad, Joe. This is going to be really bad.”
In that moment, I sobered up just enough to know she was right.
—
The drunken ruckus happened so late—or, as it were, early—that the story didn’t make it into the morning paper. Instead of viewing the delay as a reprieve, I felt worse with every passing hour, dreading the moment when my mother heard about it.
The moment finally came with the evening edition of the New York Post. She walked into my bedroom, where I was still nursing a hangover, and deposited a copy of the paper on my bed. I braced myself for the worst, then looked down. On the front page was a huge picture of me. In it, I was bleary-eyed and disheveled, with my shirttail out and my tie dangling loose. My middle finger was up, a giant fuck you to all of New York City, my mother included.
“How could you do this?” she asked in a low, steely voice.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I said, feeling a wave of intense shame.
“I’m sorry, too,” she said.
“Why are you sorry?” I asked with a dash of irrational hope that maybe she had seen me as the victim, for once.
Instead, she looked me dead in the eyes and said, “I’m sorry for having so much faith in you. Clearly, I was wrong. You aren’t up to the challenge.”
I wanted to ask what she meant by “the challenge.” The challenge of not getting into trouble? Or the challenge of being my father’s son? Somehow, I knew she meant both things—and probably a whole lot more—so I just said again how sorry I was.
She stared at me a long time, looking so sad and disappointed that it broke my heart. “I know you are,” she finally said. “But being sorry isn’t going to fix this.”
I nodded, feeling my throat tighten and a huge pit open in my stomach. “I promise I’ll do better,” I said. “This will never happen again.”
She took a deep breath, like she was going to say something else. But she didn’t. She just shook her head and walked out of my room, leaving the newspaper on my bed.
—
My mother never explicitly forgave me for what happened on the night of my eighteenth birthday, but she eventually moved on from it, probably because the press did first. They enthusiastically covered my graduation from high school a few months later, followed by my backpacking trip through Europe and my post-Nicole fling with a hot Danish au pair.
By the time I enrolled at Harvard that fall (with Berry still by my side, thank goodness), the nightclub incident seemed all but forgotten. I had a clean slate and was determined to make my mother proud. Following in my father’s footsteps, I joined all the right clubs and societies—from the Spee Club to the Hasty Pudding to the Crimson. Deep down, though, I felt like a fraud and an impostor, knowing that I had only gained admission to those organizations, along with Harvard itself, because of my name. It was something I brought up to Berry often.
“You need to get over this impostor syndrome nonsense,” she said after I bombed a biology exam at the end of our freshman year and confided that it felt like confirmation of my theory. It was a rare sunny day in Cambridge, and we were strolling in Harvard Yard, where kids were lounging and reading and playing Frisbee. “I mean, look around. Half the kids here are blowhards who got in through connections.”
“That isn’t exactly comforting,” I said.
“It’s not supposed to be,” she said.
“Jeez. I was telling you about my insecurities—and you come back with that?”
“Yes. Because you’re doing your best to make those insecurities a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about your ‘aw shucks’ self-deprecating schtick.”
“It’s not a schtick.”
“Well, then that’s even worse. Look, Joe. You know full well you didn’t study for this exam.”
“Yes, I did!”
“Having sex with Evie doesn’t count as studying for biology, Joe,” she said, rolling her eyes.
I tried not to smile, thinking of the study session I’d had with my hot TA—and how we’d gotten a little sidetracked. I was also wondering how Berry always managed to keep such close tabs on me. I shared a lot with her, but even the stuff I didn’t tell her, she’d always somehow discover.
“Well, it was an anatomy exam.” I grinned.
Berry made a face and told me not to be a pig. I would have been offended, but I knew she didn’t mean it. I was far from perfect, but I treated women with respect. I never cheated, I didn’t lead them on (not purposefully, anyway), and I kept my promises. If I said I would call, I would call.
“Just try to do better, Joe,” she finally said with a sigh. “You don’t have to be your dad. Just be your best self.”
“And what if this is my best self?” I said.
“It’s not,” she said. “And we both know it.”
—
I took Berry’s words to heart. For my remaining three years at Harvard, I managed to stay out of trouble and get mostly decent grades. When I did screw up here and there, I took my lumps and apologized with as much sincerity as I could muster. Generally, that was enough, as I discovered that just being a decent, humble guy went a very long way. Unfortunately, humility didn’t earn me as many points with my mother, whose bar for me was considerably higher. In fact, I think she sometimes wished I were a little less down-to-earth, seeming to believe that a certain aloofness carried more gravitas. It wasn’t so much that she was a snob, or even an elitist, and I never heard her talk down about people, at least not directly. She just wanted me on a certain path—my father’s path. That was the difference between her and Gary, I think. Gary wanted me to be the best version of me, and my mother wanted me to be like him. I can’t entirely blame her for that—for wanting me to carry his torch and legacy. Perhaps she also felt a responsibility and duty to her dead husband. When I didn’t uphold his honor in a certain way, whether it came to my résumé or my relationships, I think she felt that we had both failed him.
The good news was, after going out with a string of girls my mother didn’t approve of, I finally found one she really liked. I’d met Margaret Braswell the first week of college; she was one of Berry’s three suite mates and by far her favorite. Margaret was intelligent but quiet and unassuming—not hell-bent on proving how smart she was, like a lot of girls at Harvard. She was also very pretty, with big brown eyes and dark hair cut in a short glossy bob. A former ballerina, she was slight—almost wispy—not at all my usual type. The more time I spent with her, though, the more I liked her, and I could tell she liked me, too. It took a while, but we finally got together during the fall of our junior year. My mother was thrilled. Margaret checked all the boxes, including the fact that she came from a “good family”—whatever that meant. In some ways, it seemed as if my relationship with Margaret made up for my lackluster transcript.
“So, Joseph, do you think Margaret is ‘the one’?” my mother asked one cool June evening after finding me on the back porch of our home in the Hamptons.
I’d just gone for a long run on the beach and was enjoying a rush of postexercise endorphins, along with a cold Schaefer, straight out of the can.
The question caught me off guard. Margaret and I had only been dating a year, and I said as much.
“Well, for what it’s worth, I think she’s perfect for you,” my mother said.
I nodded—because in many ways, I did, too. Margaret had such a kind soul, and I loved how nonjudgmental and laid back she was.
“And she’d be a wonderful First Lady,” my mother said, staring at me over her glass of chardonnay.
“Jeez, Mom,” I said, laughing. “Jumping ahead a little, are we?”
“Perhaps. But I know quality when I see it. She’s so smart and elegant and gracious.”
“Okay. Yes. She is all of those things,” I said. “But you do realize that for her to be a First Lady would require that I not only marry her but, you know, also win the presidency?”
My mother waved this off, as if it was just some run-of-the-mill job that anyone could apply for and get. “I realize that, Joseph. That’s my point.”
I took a sip of my beer and laughed.
“What’s so amusing?” she asked.
“I don’t know, Mom. That’s sort of like saying you want me to be the starting pitcher for the New York Yankees.”
She shook her head. “No, it’s not. You weren’t very good at baseball.”
“The hell!” I said. “I made the All-Star team in the fifth grade.”
“But that doesn’t translate to pitching for the Yankees,” she said.
“Well, I wasn’t even in student government.”
“Believe me, I’m aware.”
Filled with my usual mixed feelings, I took a sip of my beer. On the one hand, I wanted to make her happy. On the other hand, I wanted to make myself happy. It was frustrating that both things didn’t seem possible at once, and I went out on a limb and told her as much.
“Of course I want you to be happy, Joseph,” she said, as if it were a complete given.
I stared at her, thinking of what had happened my sophomore year when I caught the acting bug and landed the starring role in The Tempest. My mother had come to see me on opening night, praising my performance and going on and on about how I’d become a real Renaissance man like my father, rounding out my sportier side. But when I raised the idea of pursuing theater as a major, maybe even a career, she quickly shut it down. In no uncertain terms, she informed me that acting was not a suitable profession for a Kingsley man.
“Well, acting made me happy,” I said on the porch that day, unable to resist the comment.
“Joseph, please,” she said, taking a sip of her wine. “You aren’t considering that again, are you?”
I shook my head—because I wasn’t. I also had to admit to myself, with hindsight, that my theater days probably had less to do with a passion for acting and more to do with Olivia Healey, who had played Miranda alongside me.
My mother blinked, then said, “So what are you thinking?”
“Well, we know medical school is out,” I said.
“Because of your grades?”
“Yes,” I said. “And also because I don’t want to be a doctor.”
“Right,” she said. “And you don’t care for math….”
“Correct. So no career in finance or engineering for me.”
My mother nodded. “So what does that leave?”
I looked at her, thinking that it left a whole lot of shit, but I knew what she was getting at, and what she wanted me to say. I also knew that it lined up with what my grandmother wanted for me, albeit for different reasons, so I played along, humoring her.
“I could always go to law school,” I said, running my thumb along the condensation on the side of my beer can.
My mother sat up straighter, her whole face coming to life, as if the thought had never occurred to her—and it wasn’t the automatic default of privileged kids across America. “That’s a great idea!” she said. “Shall I get you an LSAT tutor?”
“Sure, Mom,” I said. “That’d be super.”
—
And so I went along on my path of least resistance, studying for the LSAT, then taking the exam, getting a mediocre score to go along with my mediocre grades. I think my mother realized that even with the Kingsley name, I didn’t have the credentials for Harvard, Yale, or Columbia, but when I squeaked my way into NYU, she was happy enough. Meanwhile, I was pretty happy, too, if only because I was returning to Manhattan. Four years in Cambridge had been a pleasant diversion, but I missed the action and nightlife of the best city in the world.
After graduation, Margaret and I broke up, both reluctantly and on good terms. The decision had more to do with distance and logistics, as she had joined the Peace Corps and was going to teach English in Malawi. In other words, my mother couldn’t blame me for once.
For the next few years, I played the field, much to the delight of the tabloid press. There were a few law school girlfriends along the way, but none of them measured up to Margaret in my mother’s eyes—or mine for that matter—so I migrated to the other extreme, hanging out with a bevy of actress and model types, most notably Phoebe Mills. Other than going on a couple of dates with Brooke Shields during college (a buddy of mine at Harvard knew her roommate at Princeton), I’d never been with a woman famous in her own right. My mother preferred the term infamous when it came to Phoebe and highly disapproved of her most recent film with Michael Douglas, in which she’d appeared topless.
Phoebe’s most controversial moment, however, was her drunken appearance on David Letterman, in which she talked about our relationship in unfiltered terms, suggesting that I was good in bed. It didn’t help that she also had a wardrobe malfunction during the segment, which Dave milked for all it was worth. My mother was appalled with the entire spectacle. Berry piled on, calling her trashy and phony and accusing her of using me to amplify her celebrity. I defended her on the margins, pointing out that Berry’s pretentious banker boyfriend was a bigger phony than Phoebe. Besides, I said, Phoebe had plenty of her own press and didn’t need me for added exposure.
Over time, though, I had to admit that it was pretty suspect the way the paparazzi always seemed to know exactly where Phoebe and I would be, at times showing up before we even got there. It was also true that drama followed her everywhere. It became exhausting. To my mother’s relief, I finally ended things.
Shortly after that breakup, I graduated from law school (with a 2.9!) and Margaret returned from Africa, taking a teaching job in Brooklyn. That summer, and much to my mother’s delight, we began to spend time together again, agreeing to take things slowly as I focused on studying for the bar. That was the plan anyway, but more often, I did other stuff. Like going to Yankees games. And playing poker. And surfing and sailing. And rollerblading in the park. And going to nightclubs where I met more models and actresses and enjoyed an occasional one-night stand, all within the rules of our current relationship status.
The predictable result, of course, was that I failed the bar. Twice. The tabloid headlines were brutal—the worst they’d ever been. The Hunk Flunks and Two-Time Loser. My mother was mortified, and I was pretty embarrassed, too, though I played it off, cracking jokes about three times being the charm.
Thank goodness it was, and in a Hail Mary, I finally passed. From there, I was sworn in to the New York bar and took a job as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan. I was only going to be making forty thousand dollars a year, but my mother and grandmother were pleased, likely because everyone knows that the DA’s office is a great path to running for public office. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the idea but figured I could cross that bridge later. In the meantime, I basked in their approval, however fleeting it might be.