CHAPTER 1

MAGGIE

1984-2000

My parents, both products of large families, tried in vain for years to have children. My father, Maxwell Foster Vincent IV, wanted a boy to carry on the family name. The Vincents went back more generations than I could count on both my hands. Each generation made more money than the last. It was as if each patriarch were resolute to not go into the afterlife in second place. My father was no exception.

My mother held fast to the old values as well. She insisted for nine months that a proper lady never speak about private matters such as pregnancy or childbirth, so in total bamboozlement to my mother and all of polite society, I made my naked, shrieking appearance one August night shrouded in mystery like an heir to a throne. I bounced into the world distinctly lacking boy parts, ergo I went from Maxwell V to Margaret. My middle name was still Foster—a repeated reminder of my parents’ reluctance to deviate from an established plan.

My childhood was like a Norman Rockwell painting on steroids. Most of the year was spent at our estate in Connecticut. My days were filled with private school, private etiquette classes, and dressage lessons after school. I had more control over my horse than I had over my own life. I wanted to name him Jack, but like everything else that surrounded me, he was from a prestigious lineage and had to be named after his parents. Sir Higgenbottom Donnersun Bladegrass was always Jack to me, though.

I learned the proper way to fold a napkin before I learned how to walk. One Saturday a month while my father went fox hunting in Bridgewater with the other titans of industry, our driver would take my mother and me into the great city of New York for tea. There were no family outings for the Vincents where guns, cigars, aged bourbon, and foxhounds weren’t involved. The hunt was my father’s personal passion. Some pastimes don’t go quietly into the night when you have children. Fox hunting was one of them.

We would move into our penthouse on Manhattan’s Upper East Side during long school holidays. New York looked interesting, but most of what I saw was from the back seat of a car.

Marseille was our home base for the warmest few months of the year. Summers were usually spent with a nanny trudging from one boring French museum to another. When I wasn’t neck-deep in European art history, I was in the cabin of the yacht learning the fine art of deciphering navigational charts. My parents never got the boy they wanted, but they were determined to carry on the family traditions just the same. I didn’t mind so much until I got older and found out other kids were at this mythical place called Disneyworld while I was memorizing the number of tines on a shrimp fork.

That was when things started to go sideways.

It wasn’t as though I thought my parents didn’t love me. They did what their parents before them did, and what everyone around them did. The thing that changed the game for me was I discovered the Internet. I could see what people outside our chalet were doing. It made me realize I’d been living in a fishbowl when there was an ocean outside my door. They had theater that wasn’t live. Of course I’d seen a movie before. We had a TV at home that was as tall as it was deep. But going to an actual theater full of people walking on sticky floors and shoving buttery popcorn down their gullets—not a chance. I wanted that. I wanted the processed foods and the spaceship movies and the Tiger Beat magazines. I wanted loud music that didn’t need to be dissected. I wanted to be Vanna White and turn letters, or possibly be a superhero vigilante. Maybe even both. The possibilities were endless.

The silk wallpaper in my bedroom was soon covered with posters of bands and movie stars. I craved pop culture of any kind from any era. My parents’ bank account information was on file at Sotheby’s, so it wasn’t much of a challenge to get anything I wanted. David Bowie’s scarf? Mine. A lock of fur from the monkey in B.J. and the Bear? Mine. A hat allegedly worn by one or more of the members of 98 Degrees? Mine. A velvet Elvis painting with a light-up belt buckle? You better believe that was mine. Some joker thought he could outbid me on that one.

It took a couple of months for our accountant to notice the increased charges, but by that time I had amassed quite a treasure trove of collectibles. When I wasn’t gazing at each item in my hoard, I was online looking for more. I felt like a museum curator, and I took my job very seriously. How many people could say they owned a miniature replica of a Star Wars TIE fighter that had once been in close proximity to Harrison Ford? I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if anything happened to one of my babies.

I wanted to be anything except like the people around me. They were boring and predictable, and I couldn’t think of a more cursed life.

I dyed my hair with blue Kool-Aid in ninth grade and got suspended for three days. That didn’t go over well at home. My parents tried to rein me in. They really did. The more they pushed, the more I pulled. When I was fifteen, they took away my credit card so I would stop spending money on magazines, music, and collectibles. In retaliation, I stole two of their vases that turned out to be from some really important Chinese dynasty and traded them for Britney Spears tickets. That also didn’t go over well. My mother threatened to put a metal detector at the front door. I told her I always used the back door anyway. She reached her breaking point when I traded an ugly jeweled egg for a belt that was worn in The Matrix. After that, a sort of “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was enacted. If they didn’t see it, or could pretend they didn’t see it, then it wasn’t happening. We had a truce.

Until the invitation for the International Debutante Ball arrived.

I begged.

I bartered.

I threatened to run away to Australia.

They weren’t swayed. I was “coming out” whether I wanted to or not. I took one prep class and found the other debs to be utterly insufferable. I refused to spend another second with any of them. I bought a plane ticket online and headed for the airport. When I landed in Florida, I had at least fifty voice mails from my father, each more serious than the last. I caved when I listened to the one saying he had my Bruce Springsteen nail clippings over the garbage disposal. He had won this round. Plus, it turned out Australia was the other direction.

The ball preparation was pure torture. My hair had to stay boring blond. Temporary tattoos were strictly forbidden. My gown fitting was a joke. My dress had to be virginal white and not fuchsia. My Star Trek pin was confiscated, and I didn’t think I was seeing it again. I was in hell, and chastised repeatedly for making rude noises with my mouth each time one of the girls practiced their full court bows. My mother had been phoned twice when I wouldn’t stop scaring the debs by suggesting they had zits on their faces. All in all, the training was a complete waste of my time.

I was so impossibly bored by this rite of passage and wanted to ensure all future generations of my family line would be banned, and thereby not forced to suffer through it. I was taking one for the team. The evening went off as planned, and I kept my mouth shut—literally and figuratively. When it was time for the formal portrait, I sat in the center, smiling widely and proudly displaying the two front teeth I had blacked out. I couldn’t wait to see that photo prominently displayed on mantels in the highest ranks of society.

My parents took that one pretty well. I think they anticipated some type of rebellion and were happy it didn’t warrant a visit from the fire marshal. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was their way of meeting me halfway. They got their wish—I was presented to society. I got my wish—I fought the power while doing it. That photo had a place of honor on top of our Steinway. We had found a delicate middle ground.

The relative peace lasted until it was time to start interviewing suitors. You know when you’re playing a video game and you finally get past an impossible level? And then you realize that level was only a light warm-up for the next round?

We just leveled up.