Teenage Wasteland
Hearing that Epstein and his charming, British girlfriend were frequent visitors to Interlochen, an art school about an hour from my current home in northern Michigan, was both disturbing and made perfect sense. Interlochen prides itself on being “special” and certainly the two predators targeted “special” girls, God forbid they groomed someone who lacked talent, although beauty was the thing that they found especially enticing. Of course, Interlochen no longer functions as it did in the years when Epstein was able to visit his private accommodations so kindly provided by the school’s gratitude for his large contributions. Now there is security and possibly teachers who are not like several of the teachers who once taught at my own “special” school; a private school in Princeton, New Jersey that I attended during my final three years of high school.
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The Fracturing of Female Friendships
The first time I realized I was breaking up with a female friend, an Irish friend I’d met during my year at Trinity in Dublin, a wild, talented, impossible woman with whom I had shared many drunken nights, the stage, family sadness and other things, came when I realized she had pursued and captured my ex-boyfriend for whom I pined, while he remained elusive. I had called from the States to talk to her, and her sister told me she was with him in his faraway country, a place I had longed to visit.
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The Bolter
I was that kid whose name was often broadcast over public loudspeakers, the zoo, the supermarket, the department store, once on an ocean liner, and another time from a police car when I disappeared on a trip to Fire Island. That day was going really well after I joined a family having a vast beach picnic and was fed lobster until the families left with their own children. When I was a teenager, I saved my babysitting money until I had enough to go to Europe on my own. My sister made the mistake of revealing her earnings, so my parents suggested she pay for stuff. I remained mute until one day I announced I was spending the summer in England and Ireland. One year my mother gave us money after she finished a design job. My sister got her roof fixed; I flew away. My father’s nickname for me was “The Bolter” after an English woman with five husbands who was always running off. I only had three husbands.
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