I Never Promised You a Goodie Bag Read online

  The famine times were when my parents went away for my father’s selling trips. For three weeks at a time, several times a year, they were gone, and we kids—Rachel, our youngest sister Marissa, who is ten years younger than I am, and me—were left in the care of a nanny or housekeeper. Every time they left us, my mother agonized. A part of her wanted to stay, but a part of her wanted to go, too. This was thirty or more years ago, and in our privileged suburb the moms stayed home. They certainly didn’t leave their children while they went abroad for long periods. But my father insisted that he needed her with him, and she saw it as her job and her responsibility to go. She also loved the experiences. If she wasn’t traveling with my dad, then she was studying some foreign language with a tutor at our kitchen table.

  We knew the trips were required of my father for his work, and it instilled in me a strong work ethic from a very young age. Growing up, I always had a job or was hatching some kind of entrepreneurial plan. Once it was flooding the backyard to make an ice-skating rink (for which I’d collect admission, of course). Another time it was putting on a circus in our backyard. I was the star performer—the only performer—and my middle sister Rachel was my trusty sidekick and ticket collector. In high school I started a shockingly lucrative business selling necklaces from a huge overage of beads that my dad had imported. He was thrilled. It was also mandatory that I waitress one summer. My dad felt very strongly that serving hungry people was an essential lesson if you wanted to be a success at anything in business.

  Even though I valued my dad’s work, my parents’ trips away from us felt like little eternities, and it only got worse as I got older. When I was going through all my adolescent changes and I needed my mother most, it didn’t feel like she was always there. And because I was so good at taking care of myself, I’m sure it didn’t even occur to them to check up on me. I was smart, and I brought home good grades. I played field hockey and lacrosse. I skied, I sailed. I was even an expert at riflery. I was a strong, independent little girl, and I grew into a self-sufficient young adult.

  But like any kid, I made my mistakes, and my parents weren’t necessarily there to pick up the pieces. When I ended up in the ER after an accident at age twelve, it wasn’t a parent who came to get me; it was the family friend whose name was listed under my emergency contacts. I had fallen at school while running on concrete and torn up my hands and hips. Actually, I’d fainted before falling, because for days, all I’d eaten were gummy bears, popcorn, and Cheerios—and then I’d biked several miles to school. That was my adolescent idea of a healthy lifestyle, and it seemed like a really good idea at the time. Lying in that hospital bed not having my parents around was the first time I felt something close to homesick—only my parents were the ones who were away from home.

  My friends’ parents seemed to hold their daughters’ hands through every milestone. I went into the SATs completely cold. My parents had registered me for the prep course, but they never checked that I was actually attending, and so I just didn’t go. They were on a trip when I took the test, and the night before, my sister Rachel threw a loud party. The next morning, when other kids’ parents were making a special breakfast for them and driving them to the test, I set my own alarm and drove myself. When it came time to apply to colleges, I spent hours at my friend Karin’s house writing my essays and filling out the applications, and then she proofed my essays for me. My friends and their families were the support group I created to get me through the times I longed for my parents and a consistent childhood. The moms made me dinner, always including me in their rituals and standing in when my parents were absent.

  Karin was one of my five closest friends in high school, and the others of our core group were Dianne, Julie, Carolyn, and Jenny. Everyone called us the six-pack, because we were inseparable. The night after we all took the SATs, I decided that we should throw the high school party to end all high school parties. I’d been to parties at other kids’ houses, and I’d taken careful note of all the pitfalls—I knew what got the cops called, and even more important, what got the parents called. I’d been to crazy parties where kids decimated the liquor cabinets and desecrated the bedrooms. The family’s home would be such a wreck afterward that no amount of frantic cleaning up could ever cover the tracks.

  Not at my house. I perfected the art of throwing a chaperone-free party without getting caught. I’d even learned that the way parents figured out their kids had thrown a party was by counting the rolls of paper towels afterward. If too many rolls were missing, that meant a lot of drinks had been spilled over the weekend. So I made sure to count the rolls and replace exactly the number that we’d used. (To this day, my mother finds this hilarious; she says that even then I ran a tight ship.) I got the six-pack together, and I divided up the jobs. One girl had an older brother who hooked us up with kegs of beer. I was dating the star football player, so he recruited his teammates to be my bouncers (pity the peewee freshman shaking in his boots when one of those football players asked for his cover charge).

  Meanwhile, I worked on the invites. I prided myself on making friends with everyone—popular girls, jocks, nerds, stoners, artists. So I got the word about the party out to all my diverse circles of friends and told them to invite their other friends as well. The message “Party at Jen’s house” eventually got passed to (easily) six hundred teenagers in a twenty-mile radius of my town.

  The entire party was held outside in my backyard. It was a cold fall evening, but there was no way I was letting those kids into my house. When people needed to use the bathroom, they waited on line and then one of my girls escorted them to and from the bathroom door. Every other door in the house was closed and locked. I stayed outside—dressed in my cargo pants with all the pockets stuffed with money. I collected $10 from the freshmen, less from the upperclassmen, and if I really liked you, then you got in for free. We made thousands of dollars that night. I paid for my prom ticket, the dress, and the night out after.

  I wasn’t a big drinker anyway (and I hated beer), but I never drank at my own parties. So when the cops finally did come, I was sober and managed to conceal my terror when I answered the door. I remember the incredibly nice officer standing there with his partner, both of them kind of laughing. He was about my dad’s age, and he said, “Look, I know my son’s back there somewhere, and I don’t want to go in and embarrass him. So just turn the music down, and everybody goes home in a half hour.”

  My girlfriends all slept over—each of them making the excuse to their parents that they were staying at someone else’s house. Then the next morning, my friends and I and my youngest sister Marissa (who was a tender six or seven years old at the time) each took a five-foot-square area of our backyard and picked up every bottle cap, cigarette butt, and scrap of litter. That night turned out to be just the first of many “parties at Jen’s house” when Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert were out of town. Now of course my parents credit themselves with giving me my start in the event-planning business.

  They’re not entirely wrong. And I know I have them to thank for my taste for adventure, too. As a kid I had already figured out how to be resourceful and independent, and capable of going through my life without having to ask for help all the time. When most seniors were terrified of leaving the nest, I was unfazed by my impending freedom. One of the main reasons I chose to go to the University of Vermont was because I loved skiing so much, and I’d spent such an important portion of my childhood racing down those mountains. I loved sailing just as much, so my senior year in college I was accepted into the Semester at Sea program and traveled around the world on a boat.

  Throughout my college years I was always meeting new people, and my love of organizing events stayed with me. I was president of my pledge class for my sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta, and then I was voted “service chair,” which meant that I was responsible for planning our large parties for charity. I had a wide circle of friends—girls on my dorm hall, in my sorority, and on the w
omen’s lacrosse team that I tried out for my freshman year. But I needed a new support system—my college family. My best friend at that time was Nicolette, and we became very close with another girl on our hall named Andrea. Later the three of us became roommates, both of them a year ahead of me. I was the sloppy one (and the procrastinator), and Nicolette and Andrea would close the door to my room because it was such a disaster area. The three of us were attached at the hip, and my most vivid memories of college are of Nicolette, Andrea, and me, out until the wee hours, coming home buzzed, and knocking on the door of the campus bakery that was located (conveniently enough) on the ground floor of our dorm. They’d open up for us, and we’d scarf down free cookies and brownies.

  After they graduated, Andrea went to work in New York City, and Nicolette moved to London. As my own graduation approached, I knew that Dianne, Julie, and Karin from my high school six-pack were also getting temporary work visas and moving to London. There was no way I was going to let them have that adventure without me. Nicolette found me an apartment and a roommate close to her flat, while my other friends were just a few tube stops away. My parents had no problem with me going so long as I knew that they weren’t bankrolling the trip, so I made my own money while I was there and saved up as much as possible. Then when my work visa was about to expire, I traveled all over Europe with my friends—backpacking, hitchhiking, flying by the seat of my pants. I was the girl who led the way and took charge, deciding on the spur of the moment to head west to Portugal or south to Spain, and everyone else followed along.

  Eventually my savings ran out, my visa expired, and it was time to go home and figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I wasn’t sure what exactly that was, but it would look something like this: I’d be in business or finance, taking corporate America by storm. I’d live in Manhattan and wear a Donna Karan onesie under my power suit. It would be a fabulous life.

  I’d been back from London just a week when I took a train into downtown Manhattan to visit Andrea. While I was away, Andrea and I had talked once a week so we wouldn’t miss any part of each other’s lives. We couldn’t wait to see each other.

  I was a smiley twenty-two-year-old with long straight hair and dimples. I remember exactly what I was wearing—black flats, a tan linen wraparound skirt from Ann Taylor, and a black T-shirt. As I walked along, I caught my reflection in store windows, checking out how I looked. My reflection showed a sophisticated woman, and I felt proud and invincible after my year working abroad.

  I was always frugal, and even though I’d never ridden the subway in Manhattan before, it didn’t even occur to me to take a cab. I figured I’d been taking the tube in London for the last year, and how hard could it be? I did pretty well, but I missed my stop and got off at Canal instead of Houston, where Andrea lived. So I walked up Varick a few blocks, then made a right on Houston on the wrong side of the street. I was looking at the building numbers, realized my mistake, crossed the street again and then doubled back to Andrea’s apartment. The doors to her building were propped open because a couple of men were there working on their motorcycles. I cruised in the front door without buzzing to get in, and smiled and waved at the men. I made a right turn down a long hallway to Andrea’s ground-floor apartment. There were other apartments, but the hallway was empty.

  I rang the doorbell, and then I heard a noise. I looked to my left, and walking toward me down the hallway was a man—about 250 pounds and carrying a backpack. Red shirt, black pants. It was odd, I thought, the way he was walking right up against the wall, on a beeline to run into me. I rang Andrea’s bell again. The man’s head was down, looking toward the floor, and then his gaze—just the eyes—shifted up, and he was looking straight at me, through his eyebrows. That’s something I will never forget: those eyebrows and that hairline. What I saw in those eyes was terrifying. It wasn’t lust, or drug-fueled rage, or insanity of any kind. It was pure hate. A shudder rolled across my body, immediate and involuntary. Now I was frantically ringing the doorbell. Hurry up, hurry up.

  Thinking back on it now, the most amazing thing about what happened next wasn’t the attack, it was the way my brain worked. I kept thinking the entire time. Never once did I stop calculating what might come next. Never once was it a blur.

  The first blow landed on the side of my head, then came two or three more fast, pounding blows. Bam. Bam, bam, bam. I instantly threw down my bag, thinking he wanted my purse, and I thought, Take it, just for God’s sake stop hitting me. That was when the real terror struck me, because he didn’t stop. He didn’t want my purse—he wanted something else. The next blow didn’t feel like the others, which I’d thought were punches—this one landed on my thigh, and then it penetrated and sank into my flesh. That’s when I realized: he hadn’t been punching me this entire time, he had been stabbing me. I was on the floor now, curled up and trying to block him from stabbing my face. That’s why I still have scars on my hands and between my fingers. Later, I would find out that he’d used a screwdriver.

  Then the door opened. I looked up and saw Andrea’s face, and I thought, Oh, God, thank God. She saw me lying on the floor covered in blood, straddled by a man whose arms were pumping up and down while he stabbed me over, and over, and over again with the screwdriver. By this point my ear was ripped, my neck was bleeding, and I had stab wounds on my head, hands, and legs. In her panic and horror, Andrea closed the door.

  Now I was alone again, in the hall, with the man who was about to kill me. I remember yelling, “Oh my God, Andrea, help me, he’s stabbing me.” I fought. I kicked, I screamed, and somehow I got him off me, and I got to my feet. My skirt was off then, and I thought, That’s it—he wants to rape me. In that moment, Andrea opened the door again.

  I leaped for the opening and ran down the hall of her apartment—to what I’d hoped was safety. But it wasn’t. I turned to look behind me, and the attacker had pushed past Andrea, flailed at her with the bloody screwdriver, and was running after me down the hall. Andrea, who said later that she had feared for her life, dashed into her own bedroom and locked the door behind her.

  As I ran away from the attacker, I remember seeing a marble chess set, and I was so desperate for something to fight him off with that I picked up the chess pieces and threw them behind me. Once I was at the end of the long hallway, I was trapped in Andrea’s small, square living room with nowhere else to run.

  I wedged myself on the sofa and shot my leg up to kick the attacker in the balls. Instead, he grabbed my foot, spun me around so that I was flat on my back, and straddled my stomach, facing away from me. Until that point, I had continually been thinking, What does he want? When he ignored my purse, I knew he didn’t want to rob me. Now that I was pinned underneath him, facing his massive back while he tried to pry my legs open to stab in between them, I knew that he didn’t want to rape me, either. This man didn’t want anything from me—he wanted to kill me in the most violent way possible. I thought: I am alone, and I am dead. I clenched my legs so tightly closed that I would have trouble walking for at least a week after. I screamed and I beat and pounded on his back.

  I felt no physical pain in that moment, even though I probably had more than thirty stab wounds. I have scars all over my body from the attack—scars between my fingers, on my neck and throat, all over my legs—but I have no memory of feeling pain. Andrea’s white sofa was red with my blood, and still I couldn’t feel anything physical. What I felt was an instinctual fierce, bottomless urge to fight, no matter how convinced I was that I was dead.

  Then, suddenly, the attacker was off me. I heard him run down the hall, and the door to the apartment slammed behind him. I had no skirt on, and there was so much blood dripping from my body that my feet slithered and slipped in my shoes. I wasn’t crying, though. I walked down the hall, past Andrea’s locked bedroom door, and then I turned the locks on the front door.

  After I locked the door, I screamed, “Andrea, Andrea, open the door!” and she sai
d, “Is he gone?” I said, “Yes, he’s gone, open the door.” When she opened her bedroom door and saw me, she started shrieking. I was standing there, underwear soaked with blood, stab wounds all over my body, and one ear hanging. I must have been in total shock, but I calmly said, “Call the police, call an ambulance, call my parents.” I found out later that she told them that I’d had an accident and suffered a few scratches, but I was okay.

  After Andrea made her calls, the disbelief hit me. I said to her over and over, “Did this just happen to me? What just happened to me?” Then I had to lie down, right there on the floor of the hallway. I asked her, “Did he get my face?” She didn’t answer, and I said again, “Andrea, did he get my face?” She said she didn’t think so. Then I said, “Did he get in between my legs?” She said, “Gilbs, I don’t know . . . there’s so much blood.”

  Years later, it would be a shocking revelation to me that Andrea’s four roommates were actually inside the apartment when I was attacked. When Andrea closed the door on me, she’d tried to tell them what was happening, but she couldn’t speak. She hadn’t even been able to get the words out while I fought for my life in the hall. After I ran inside, chased by the attacker (and Andrea had locked herself in her own bedroom), instead of together helping me to fight him off, the four roommates had run to get help from some male family members who lived in the building. As I lay on the floor of the hallway, minutes after the attacker had already run out, two of those men came in, holding baseball bats. Then they took off after the attacker and chased him to the subway, but lost sight of him when he jumped onto the tracks.

  Before running away, my attacker had the presence of mind to tell the two men working on their motorcycles out front that a woman was being attacked inside. The two men said to the police that when the attacker followed me inside, they’d assumed he was with me—that’s how close to me he was. Apparently he’d followed me all the way from the subway. All that time I’d walked from the wrong subway stop, crossed the street, and doubled back, trying to find my way, there he’d been—right behind me.