Aware that the family’s handsome pilot tried to avert his eyes as her skirt blew up in the wind, Alexa made sure to flaunt her inherited sexuality with every step just to drive the poor guy nuts. She thought about how crazy it would be if she blew him. Some of the staff in her young life (pilots, chefs, that one doorman) were, like, really hot, but, it wouldn’t be right to do them. Her parents’ guests at parties were much fairer game.
She had fuller legs than her mother, a smaller waist, larger breasts, and a rounder, J-Lo ass, an attribute she made sure to highlight with each day’s well-planned outfit changes. Her long tresses were held up most days in a high ponytail that still reached the middle of her back.
Young Richie descended next with his curly brown hair, and slightly pudgy eight-year-old build, wearing nondescript jeans, running shoes like any American boy, but a “Free in St Barth’s” $140 T-shirt that gave him that superior Manhattan rich-kid badge. Finally, the patriarch, Jake, surveyed the adjacent parking lot across the road just to check out any less-monied onlookers who stopped to gawk at the arrival of a helicopter. He reminded himself it was a great thing that, just by showing up, he could remind anyone in the near vicinity of his monumental success in the Laundromat sphere.
In the car, the oldest sibling, Evan, sat up front in his usual seat and instantly plugged his iPhone into the car stereo AUX jack. He played the latest ASAP Rocky song at a volume that he knew would annoy his mother.
“Turn that down!” she yelled on cue as she pulled herself into the second-row seat. “That hip-hop gives me headaches. You know that, Evan. If you’re going to live with us this summer in the city and every weekend, there are certain rules of mine that have to be respected.”
“Mom. Stop,” cooed Alexa. “You have to let him live his life now. He’s got a real job and he needs to unwind.” Things had been on the upswing after that episode a few years back in his junior year spring in high school where Evan had been caught dealing Xanax. He’d collected it from the adult medicine cabinets at his friends’ houses. (His father had to give the school enough money to construct a rooftop art center to get them to give him a diploma.)
Life for her brother had been very stressful, and he was finally getting everything back on track before his delayed first year at University of Miami this fall. He had repeated tenth grade, and also took a gap year to “calm down” and “work in the real world” after those rough years in high school. A few months ago, Evan had finally found an internship he’d liked (he’d quit half a dozen after one-week trials), and seemed to be flourishing in the music video–producing firm his father had largely financed with a golfing buddy from Boca.
Evan turned from the front seat. “Since when do you defend me?”
“I’m not. Mom’s just being ridiculous. Like when she tried to tell me I couldn’t go to Tide Runners today. It ends at noon and it’s only 10:00 a.m.” Alexa then raised her voice, so the driver could hear her. “I’d like to be dropped off at water camp please, Mario.” She was in the far backseat of the three-row SUV and was already draping a towel over her body to change into the outfit she’d instructed the housekeeper, Edviane, to leave in the car for her. Mario wasn’t, like, hot at all, so she didn’t need to flash him anything in his rearview mirror while she changed.
“Give me a break,” Evan yelled back at his sister. “You’re not going to honestly spend another summer with those idiots. Why don’t you get an internship at the Southampton magazine, or with some P.R. party company here, rather than hanging out on a water ski boat all day?”
“Your job at the video company that Dad forced those guys into hiring you for is not really a job if you’re taking every Friday off to ‘wind down’ with your Xbox and FIFA game. And besides, I get in shape in the water.”
“All right, all right.” Jake stepped in. “It’s not up to you all to judge each other’s choices. Your mother and I decide what is an appropriate way to spend the summer. Alexa, you honestly want us to drop you from the city right into the camp?”
“Yep,” she groaned from the third row, shimmying out of her miniskirt and into an even mini-er bikini under the shield of her towel. “I promised Kona I’d be there. I just have to be there.”
That got Julia’s attention. “You what? What does Kona have to do with any of your choices?” she asked, aware her daughter was growing into a woman way too fast. “Kona is not aware of every single kid who’s there; he can’t be that concerned who shows up.”