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When I was in sixth grade at the Avoca School in Wilmette, Illinois a new girl from Maywood joined our class.  Her name was Barbara R. and she quickly became my … well everything.  My role model and my idol.

I was cuh-razy about her.  Everything she did, said, wore, thought, liked, ate, became what I wanted to do.

And besides falling madly in love with her, I adored the rest of her family.

She had a wonderful set of parents.  They were terrific.  Fun, great cooks, wonderful hosts, always laughing and/or cooking.  They really were – to me at least- the dream mom and dad right out of the television set. They hosted swim team dinners, football team banquets and pool parties. Their house was the constant epicenter of teenage fun for New Trier.

But best of all, Barbara had two handsome, popular older brothers who I worshipped from VERY afar.

John was the oldest.  Star of the New Trier football team, tall, dark and handsome and about four years older- and a thousand light years away from dorky twelve year old me.

And then there was Robert.

He was only one year ahead of us in school but I was in total awe of him.  Sarcastic, smart, dangerous, and way ahead of me in music (The Beach Boys, WVON, Jimmy Reed, Bo Diddley)  movies (The Birds, Psycho) just out of my league all together in sophistication.

I learned a lot from these guys just by watching and listening.  I was their kid sister’s ever-present nerdy, bookworm friend and they patronized me, teased, and ignored me in turns.

I practically lived at their house. And over the years, not only did I become an expert of all things “John and Robert,” but I knew all about their cool friends, as well.

John had one friend I heard about all the time.  Bobby S.  He was someone that the whole family admired. Rich, handsome, sophisticated, with an older brother named Larry- and a legendary house.

It was this house that I heard about all the time.  A gigantic mansion complete with ballroom, elevator, tennis courts, butler, cook, and a basement nicknamed “The Passion Pit” where sexy goings-on with the likes of Bunnies, cheerleaders and beauty queens were the order of the day.

To pre-teen me, this sounded like nothing less than the Playboy Mansion, and when I later heard that the father of these two boys was actually an investor in the Playboy Clubs, I had a hard time distinguishing between the two for glamour and savoir faire.

And when I finally espied the famous Bobby S. I was not disappointed.  He was a dreamboat on the order of Robert Wagner or Warren Beatty.  That handsome.

And best of all- to me at least- Bobby S. was Jewish.

The R.’s were not.  They were Scottish Presbyterians, I think.  And back in those days, W.A.S.P.s were not wont to praise or envy Jews about anything. The fact that they admired and welcomed both Bobby S. and me so willingly into their fold spoke volumes about how truly wonderful they were- to everyone.

But boys will be boys, and John and Robert use to tease me unmercifully about my crush on Bobby.  (Barbara had one too, so I was in good company.)

“Maybe one day he’ll take you to the Israel Bond Debutante Cotillion,” they’d howl.  Just the very thought of R.J. Wagner and Frankie from A Member of the Wedding did them in every time.

I really didn’t mind  It seemed absurd to me too.  It was like trying to imagine Cary Grant squiring me to the Avoca Fair.  Impossible to conjure up.

But time and fate stepped in, and a few years later, when I was not so scrawny and I had ditched the glasses, the pony tail, and the braces, I found myself one Fourth of July on a group date that began at Green Acres Country Club and ended at that very famous house I had heard so much about all these years,

Even though I had never been there before, I felt as if I knew every nook and cranny of the place- from its magisterial gates and long, impressive drive to the fabulous coach house complete with its own gas pump ala the Audrey Hepburn movie Sabrina.

Yep, there was the elevator, and I knew the ballroom was on the fourth floor.  It was too dark to see the famed tennis courts, but here we were all going down to “the Pit.”

Thanks to the R. family I knew everything I needed to know.

Except for one thing.

Larry and Bobby S. had an adorable little brother named Billy.

Somehow he had never been mentioned in all the R. brothers’ recaps and teasing.

I met him that night.

And five years and one week later…

Reader, I married him.

At 443.