As I pull past the series of luxury cars perfectly arranged in a semi-circle at the main entrance of the drive, a crisp and dutiful valet approaches my car with a practiced but genuine smile. He’s no stranger to what I’m about to do and I pretend not to notice him quickly scan over the condition of my vehicle. It’s mechanically sound but cosmetically challenged with blistered paint fading off the hood, two large cracks in each sunroof, a busted out fog light and tires so dangerously worn that the metal wires are showing.

*It’s a Land Rover, Caitlin, calm down…*

I notice his eyes briefly flicker with the recognition that my aging and I’m SUV is a bit out of character from what he’s accustomed to but then his eyes lock on me, your average middle-aged blonde at the wheel and he immediately resumes his professional indifference.

*Thank you,* I quietly tell him with my mind as I roll down the window.

“Are you a member?” He asks, clearly well aware of the answer.

*Nope* my eyes smile back as my mouth responds with a well-rehearsed lie, “Yes, 3547.”

“Alright,” and he promptly opens my door.

Handing over my single dirty key fob with all the microchip buttons exposed and no key ring attached, I casually mention not to worry about locking it as a subtle hint toward the inevitable realization that it doesn’t lock.

Encouraged by the subtle understanding of this complicit valet guy who is politely allowing me to get away with my lie, I bravely step out of the car as routinely as possible to feign a sense of belonging only for my newly found confidence to shatter immediately upon noticing the pristine condition of the two women on my left.  They were perfect and stylish and polished and clean.

*Don’t rich people ever dirty?* I ask myself to the air.

Unconsciously I start to smooth down and adjust my expensive new dress that now suddenly feels cheap and completely inadequate. so I pick up the pace to get through this self-imposed humiliation ritual as quickly as possible. I enter the grand facade of the lobby on a mission, unimpressed and deliberately make eye contact with no one under the pretense that it might help me fit in, go unnoticed or both.
*This is what you get for having rich friends* I scold myself.

After a few detours around dining rooms and an awkward u-turn at the entrance of a private event filled with what appeared to be a single large Persian family surrounded by shopping bags, I shuffle my way down the carpeted stairs, through the glass-paneled doors and emerge like a successful prison break into a luscious green courtyard where they’re draping fabric from 30 feet in the air in preparation for some sort of opulent wedding later in the evening.

It’s in this moment of new felt freedom and pure anonymity that I’m surrounded by enough blue-collar workers to pause and send off a text to my friend to announce that I made it through hell and had successfully snuck into heaven – ‘Your membership is going to get flagged because of me, but I’m here. Send one of the kids to come let me into the pool.’