on Secret Societies: That Time I Almost Joined a Cult

I love getting invitations in the mail. It’s always a thrill to find expensive stationary hiding out amidst the usual bills and junk mail. I’ve never tired of seeing my name written in calligraphy on a high-grade envelope. And though it makes me feel fancy like a Victorian dandy, I’m never surprised by these invites. I always see them coming. A friend who I know is getting married texts me asking for my address and a week later an envelope comes in the mail. It’s nice, but no surprise.

I was surprised once, though. It was great. It came out of nowhere. I took my time and savored the envelope before opening it. My name and address were written by the hand of a real calligraphy artist. Not printed on a computer. That meant genuine personal attention! The return address was in Burr Ridge. That meant top-shelf liquor! I opened it slowly and read:

Now, for me, that was a real surprise! I can’t tell you how flattered I was that Eileen Silverman wanted me to come to her cocktail party so badly she actually hired a professional calligraphist to write my name on an envelope for what must have taken, I don’t know, ten solid minutes of serious calligriphization. I really appreciated that.

I just had one question: Who the hell was Eileen Silverman?!

The name meant nothing to me. I was left with the panic of having completely forgotten a person who liked me enough to hire a tradesman with an antiquated skill to write my name on an expensive envelope. I decided to call the RSVP number immediately.

First, let me be honest: the name Eileen Silverman isn’t real. I made it up to protect the actual person. But I think it gives a good sense of the social-demographic and religious affiliation that we’re dealing with here. Actually, now that I think about it, Eileen Silverman is a little too strong. I should tone it down a bit. Let’s call her…Rebecca Schwartz.

A woman picked up the phone.

“Hello,” I said, “I’m calling for Rebecca Schwartz.”

“I’m Rebecca Schwartz.”

“Hi, Rebecca, this is Christian Rangel calling.”

“Christian!!!” she screamed. “I’m so glad you called!! I guess you got the invite!”

Shit! Obviously, Rebecca Schwartz was my dear friend, and I had forgotten her completely.

“Rebecca, I’m so sorry, but, uh, could you remind me how we know each other?”

“Know each other?!! We don’t know each other!” she squealed with delight.

“We don’t?” I asked, relieved. “Then why did you invite me to your party?”

And then she explained it. Rebecca and her girlfriends threw monthly cocktail parties to which they invited only a very exclusive list of high-caliber single men. The only way to be invited to a party was to be handpicked and vetted by the hostess herself. It couldn’t be expressed clearly enough how extraordinary a man needed to be to merit invitation. One of Rebecca’s friends knew me and felt that I fit the profile.

“But who invited me?” I asked.

This seemed to confuse her.

“What do you mean who invited you? Don’t you know?”

“No. I don’t know anything about this.”

“Well . . . that can only mean one thing,” she said, her voice turning mischievous.

“Uhhh . . . yeah?”

“You have a secret admirer!!!”

“I have a what?! Who is she?!”

But no matter how much I pleaded, Rebecca Schwartz refused to tell me. She said she didn’t even know, but that she wouldn’t tell me even if she did.

“The only way you’re gonna to find out is if you come to the party. You have to come!”

Did I, though? Did I really need to put myself in that position? Did I really want to show up alone at some strange cocktail party thrown by a meddlesome yenta wannabe like Rebecca Schwartz? Sure, it was nice that she paid good money to have my name written in calligraphy on a fancy envelope, but I didn’t even know her. Besides, if there’s one thing I hate, it’s pretentious cocktail parties—even if there is top-shelf liquor! And who the fuck was this secret admirer?

But, then again, who the fuck was this secret admirer?

I was thirty years old and casually seeing someone. As much as I feared the worst, I’d have been lying if I said I didn’t like the idea of having a secret admirer. I liked it a lot. The more I tried to temper my expectations, the more dramatic my fantasies became. Outwardly, I insisted she was going to be a disappointment, but inwardly, I saw supermodels. I saw movie stars. I saw gorgeous physicists in lab coats and glasses. I thought of a girl I once met who, I’m pretty sure, was related to the royal family of Belgium. I think it was Belgium. It could have been the Netherlands. Belgium or the Netherlands. Or Finland. Anyway, we had a nice chat. So, maybe it was her. Maybe it was a previously unknown granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway. I had driven through Idaho once, so that was totally a possibility. In fact, there were literally dozens of beautiful women it could possibly have been. Surely Rebecca Schwartz was friends with many beautiful women; women who would feel right at home at a cocktail party in Burr Ridge to which only extraordinary, high-caliber men like myself were invited.

Goddamnit, Rebecca Schwartz was right. I had to go.

In typical fashion, I waited until the day of the party to decide what to wear. I’ve never been the cocktail party type, certainly wasn’t at thirty. I figured this was going to be a gathering of young professionals, and I suddenly feared that my usual outfit of black T-shirt and black jeans was going to make me stand out in a bad way. I began to resent the whole thing. I just wasn’t in the mood to wear a collared shirt to impress a bunch of “high-caliber” yuppies. Then I remembered that I didn’t need to impress anybody. I was invited by a secret admirer. She was already impressed! She just wanted me to be myself, God bless her! I put on my best black T-shirt, some jeans, and a pair of New Republic leather Kurts. Instead of my normal leather jacket, I pulled out my lighter vegan suede jacket. I checked out my reflection in the mirror and liked what I saw. It was hard not to secretly admire myself, myself.

When I got to the address, I approached a man unloading ice from a truck and asked if this was for the Rebecca Schwartz party. He nodded and directed me to walk along the garage to the yard. Party was in the back. I was shocked by how nervous I was. It had all seemed like a silly joke up until then. But there I was, in the kind of home that you see in Wolf of Wall Street or Casino, about to walk into a party where I’m going come face-to-face with a girl who has a crush on me, a girl I may or may not be happy to see. Suddenly the “may not” part of that equation seemed very real. I considered turning back, but then, didn’t I owe the Belgian royal family at least the courtesy of showing up?

The property was absolutely massive. A covered patio emitting folksy twang featured one of three bars and a spread of hors d'oeuvres. Furniture sets were grouped and clustered throughout the lot, each their own private little lounge. I stand there admiring the beauty of a large private half acre property, wondering what kind of money one needs to own this, when suddenly a smiling zaftig woman in her fifties with frosted blond hair approaches.

“May I help you?” she asked.

“Um, hello, I’m Christian Rangel. Nice to meet you.”

“Oh, hi, Christian,” she said, the smile glued to her face, “I’m Rebecca Schwartz.”

Actually, now that I’m picturing her there, smiling in the back patio in her smart pantsuit, I’m not so sure the name Rebecca Schwartz was right after all. I think I may have had it better at the beginning. Yeah, she was definitely more of an Eileen Silverman. Or, even a Helen Goldfarb. That’s what she was, a Helen Goldfarb.

“Welcome to the party. I guess there’s someone here waiting to see you,” said Helen, smiling.

For two weeks I imagined a lot of things, but I never imagined what I had just walked into. The youngest man there was no less than fifty-five. The oldest could easily have been eighty, maybe more. Every woman in here looked like she could be my aunt. I walked over to the bar to get a drink. The liquor options were good. I ordered a vodka soda, 2 lemon wedges. The couple ahead of me ordered wine. A Nelson Rockefeller type and a woman who might have been Bette Midler’s sister. At one of the lounges was a bald man with a fringe of dyed black hair attempting to chat up a woman who looked exactly like my therapist, Connie. Over by the food station, a lonely man in a cardigan spread cheese on a cracker. I’m fairly certain he was the father of a college friend.

And then there was me, in my vegan suede jacket and jeans, looking for my secret admirer. I chugged my drink and ordered another.

With the exception of a few clusters of chatting women, it was a scene of perpetual lonely motion. There was very little conversation. Everyone just wandered around, eyeing each other. This was a meat market for the old and rich. No one said a word to me. I wondered if my youth made them uncomfortable. Maybe they thought I was there to fix the air-conditioning. I made a quick lap through the party, but I knew it was pointless.

After about six minutes I walked into the home where Helen Goldfarb was preparing a charcuterie board. I offered to carry it out for her, and she instructed me to come right back into the kitchen when I was finished. The guests, I’m sure of it, probably thought I was a waiter at this point. I entered the kitchen and Helen scrunched her face into a pained smile.

“I think there must have been some kind of mistake,” she said.

“Yeah, I think so, too. Why am I here?”

“I really don’t know.”

“But what about the exclusivity? What about handpicking every guest to make sure that only extraordinary, high-caliber men are invited?”

She had no response.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, the smile finally breaking.

I was sorry, too. My secret admirer was neither the princess of my fantasies nor the troll of my fears. In fact, my secret admirer wasn’t anything. She didn’t exist. There was nothing left to say. I shared an awkward moment of silence with Helen, then asked if I could exit through the front door. Helen nodded yes and walked me out.

A couple of days later, Helen Goldfarb called. She wanted to apologize. She’d gone back to her books and couldn’t figure out why I’d been invited.

“Nothing like this has ever happened before,” she insisted.

I told her not to worry about it.

“Well,” she said, “let me know if you ever want to come to one of my parties in the future.”

She had to be kidding.

“Your friends seemed nice, but I can’t imagine any of them are looking for a guy like me,” I said, trying to be polite.

“Who knows? Maybe some of them have a Mrs. Robinson fantasy.”

That cracked me up.

“I really don’t think your friends go to your parties with a Mrs. Robinson fantasy in mind,” I laughed.

“Don’t be so sure,” she said slyly.

“I’m pretty sure,” I insisted.

“Well don’t be!” she practically purred.

Was this possible? Was Mrs. Goldfarb trying to seduce me?

“Are, uh, you saying that you . . . have a Mrs. Robinson fantasy?” I stammered.

“Maybe I am.”

So there it was. I had no secret admirer, but I did have my very own Mrs. Robinson.

I was shocked. Like any healthy thirty year-old, I had a couple of Mrs. Robinson fantasies stored in the old fantasy Rolodex. I was very open to the idea of afternoon trysts at a discreet hotel with a grown-up woman with grown-up needs. But, again, something just wasn’t right. I mean, a Mrs. Robinson fantasy is one thing, but Mrs. Goldfarb was something else entirely. Why couldn’t my Mrs. Robinson look a little more like Anne Bancroft and a little less like Mel Brooks?

I let the silence linger for a few moments longer, and then I very politely declined the invitation.

To this day, I have no idea what the fuck was going on at that house. At first, I thought it was a swingers party, but there was a noticeable lack of conversations going on. The “high-caliber” men puttered around, mostly keeping to themselves. Maybe it was a Bilderberg-type hangout, where the ultra-wealthy convene to decide the fate of the world. Or, in this case, the fate of Burr Ridge. This could have just as easily been a cult.

Fuck! Did I miss out on joining a cult? That would have been awesome! I would rise through the ranks and then recruit you guys and take you for all your money. Fuck! FUUUCK!!!! I need to call Helen ASAP!