Standing several people behind Jane in the line to enter the ballroom, we gawked. “I want to touch her,” I said. Wendy dared me.
I started snaking my way through the black-tie throng. As I got closer, I saw Jane throw her head back and laugh—what a thrill to see her legendary warmth and graciousness in the flesh. About a foot away, I summoned my nerve and squeezed past, getting close enough to graze her gown with my knuckles.
After that night, Wendy and I would French-braid each other’s hair, just like Jane’s.
5
Binge, Purge, Repeat
MY NEIGHBORHOOD GROWING up was the postwar suburban dream: hilly streets teeming with kids riding bikes and playing capture the flag, roving house to house on Halloween dressed up as cowboys and witches. Striving middle-class families who’d moved there for the good schools.
My parents had high expectations for the four of us; they were demanding and strict, and poor Emily was the guinea pig. One night when I was five, I heard her sobbing in her bedroom—she was in big trouble for something. So I tiptoed into the bathroom, wrapped a wad of toilet paper around my chubby hand, and brought it to her so she could blow her nose and dry her tears. I remember feeling so useful.
Our parents expected her to be a leader. When Emily ran for student council, the kitchen became her campaign headquarters. Our dad helped write her speeches, and our mom oversaw the posters. One of my favorites, tacked up over a water fountain at school, read FREE WATER COURTESY OF EMILY COURIC. （Kiki, Johnny, and I followed in her footsteps, turning our family into a political dynasty—at least in the Arlington County public schools.）
By the time I was born, my parents were slightly more relaxed, but they still kept us in line. When my dad asked a question and we answered, “Yes,” he’d say, “Yes, what?” Our conditioned response: “Yes, sir!” （Though Johnny’s slight lisp made it “Yeth, thir!”） Thankfully, the Captain von Trapp phase didn’t last very long.
My father had a bit of that midcentury-dad mystique, driving off to some serious place with a big typewriter and a leather chair that swiveled. On weekends, he tended to manly duties like mowing the lawn and raking leaves （the sum total of his handiness）。 His favorite spot was an olive-green wingback chair in the den surrounded by hundreds of books and his beloved toby jugs—Farmer John, Admiral Nelson, John Barleycorn…And while he had an air of gentility and formality about him, he was always our loving dad. I think of him helping us so patiently with our homework and telling us to “boat your oars” at the dinner table （a navy term that means placing your silverware across the center of your plate to show you are finished）。 I can still picture his khaki trunks billowing in the local pool as I dog-paddled frantically toward his outstretched arms.
But when things got serious, he put the fear of God in us. I remember getting whacked a couple of times when I did something that might hurt me—once when I glanced up at the solar eclipse after I’d been warned it could make me go blind, a second time when I swallowed a plastic bead I’d been chewing on. It was less painful than humiliating. I got the message.
Our parents wanted us to be good citizens…and have strong extracurriculars for our college applications. Among other things, that meant being camp counselors at the Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind every summer at Mount Vernon College in DC. Kiki did it first and staged a full-fledged production of Peter Pan, starring her campers. I remember sitting with my mom in the audience and being so moved by the performances, I cried. A few years later, my group of 6-and 7-year-olds formed a band; I played “The Entertainer” on the piano while the campers accompanied me on bongos and tambourines. The job also required me to apply ointment to the eyes of a little French boy named Didier every day at lunchtime. For a 16-year-old busy collecting Bonne Bell Lip Smackers and perfecting the Hustle in Janet Taff’s basement, it was intense. To this day I thank my mom for insisting we “experience life beyond 40th Street.”
Good grades were paramount: My parents regarded getting into a prestigious college as a critical rung on the ladder of life. Emily nailed it, accepting an offer from Smith, one of the “Seven Sisters” and the pinnacle for women before the Ivy League started routinely accepting them. （I knew all about it from studying the Barron’s Guide in junior high, memorizing which colleges were “most selective” versus “selective” and the median SAT scores for each.） I’ll never forget the excitement of our family heading to New York City, having dinner at Schrafft’s, and seeing Emily off as she boarded an ocean liner to Paris for her junior year abroad.