The List Read Free Page B

I
     prepared myself for a little humiliation. That morning I had been writing copy about
     why tiaras weren’t at all out of fashion, and just twelve hours later I had to grovel
     for room and board in the commonwealth of Virginia.
    “Let Dad answer, let Dad answer,” I chanted out loud as the phone rang. “Helloo, helloo,
     Caroline Cleves Brown here!” my mother shouted into the receiver after three rings.
    This was going to be a very belittling experience.
    “Adrienne Brown here!” I shouted back. “Your favorite child. The one who didn’t pour
     scalding water on your feet when she was a teen.” This was true. When she was fifteen,
     my very dexterous and evil-spirited sister, Payton, “spilled” a large pot of boiling
     water on my mother’s toes. I don’t think my mother or her pedicurist ever truly forgave
     her.
    After I yapped out some small talk, spouting lines about how much I appreciated her
     continued love and affection and how I would be a shred of an ugly little person if
     it weren’t for her wisdom, grace, and guidance, I made my request.
    My mother huffed and puffed like someone at the summit of Everest, paused, and then
     declared, “Of course you can live with us! It will be just like old times. Except
     that spoiled sister of yours now lives in Argentina and your father has turned her
     bedroom into some sort of Hoarders den. I’m sure the housekeeper is thinking of reporting us to A&E. And did I tell
     you we had to fix the Tuscan shingled roof because of a hurricane and that the insurance
     company claimed it was ‘an act of God.’” She stopped to catch her breath, muttered
     something about the pains of seasonal affective disorder, and then added, “Oh, and
     you. Sorry. Yes, it will be great to have you home. The barn apartment happens to
     be empty right now.”
    I looked at my feet to make sure I hadn’t sprouted hooves. “I have to live in the
     barn?”
    “Sweetheart. You make it sound like we’re treating you like a donkey! It’s the barn apartment . The horse trainers used to live there, but their kids just shot right up into giants
     and they outgrew it. You’ll feel more independent there, anyway. You’re just a touch
     o-l-d to be living in your parents’ actual house, don’t you think?”
    No, I didn’t think. I thought it might be nice not to dwell twelve feet above piles
     of horse manure. I knew just what to say to my gentlemen callers: “Keep walking until
     you’re almost floored by the smell of animal feces. Then look up! I’ll be waving from
     the barn window!”
    But free rent was free rent, so I sucked it up and agreed to live in the barn at my
     horse-loving parents’ house. Who cared if the first floor of my residence was full
     of dung? I was goingto be a reporter for one of the country’s most prestigious newspapers. Writing careers
     were made at the Capitolist . There was more blood, sweat, and tears within those walls than in an Amsterdam brothel.
     Or that’s what I was told, anyway. All I really knew about the gig was that it would
     allow me to go back home, hobnob with politicians, and write breaking news. And everyone
     would pay attention.
    I had been hired to work at the Capitolist (or the List, as the employees called it) by a very intense woman from L.A. named Rachel Monsoon.
     She had been a music critic for Rolling Stone, a book critic for the Los Angeles Times, and then media editor for the San Francisco Chronicle . Basically, nothing like the usual Capitolist employee. But, to the delight of her conservative mother, she fell in love with a
     preppy East Coaster who made hand-carved wooden boats for a living and took the gig
     with the D.C.-based paper to avoid a life of air travel and conjugal visits. She had
     been there for three months when she hired me. There was an opening on the Style section
     because one of the reporters had left to “reclaim her soul in the blue waters of Goa,”
     according to Rachel. I didn’t