—ROBERT BRANSFIELD, M.D.

  In the fall of 2003, I received a call out of the blue from MTV. Some people there had read the New York magazine article about Proud and my role on the film as producer. The call was intriguing. They wanted me to come in and talk about some ideas. They set a meeting in their offices in the Viacom building in Times Square for October 31, 2002.

  Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays, and as far as I was concerned, everybody should dress up in some sort of costume. (I was still so childlike in many ways!) My friend Kate and I decided to dress as a pair of angels. She was going to be the naughty angel and I was going to be the good one. I wore a white Dolce & Gabbana blazer with sharp shoulders, a flared, white canvas skirt with bustier, and brown crocodile stiletto high heels.… Okay, so maybe I was the nice but naughty angel. I also wore glitter on my face and angel wings. I thought I looked pretty cool.

  I took a taxi to Times Square, climbed out, but then struggled to find the entrance of the Viacom building. For a little bit I wandered around Times Square in my angel outfit. Getting confused and lost had become an unwanted pastime, as my brain was not able to coordinate things very well, especially when it came to new places. You know those senile old ladies who walk around in shower caps in the middle of a grocery store? Yup. That’s a safe comparison to what I was like. (When I wasn’t in the middle of a Lyme flare-up, I was pretty good at directions and getting places.) I was not being treated for any of this brain fog. At this point, I had no perspective on how or why I was deteriorating so rapidly. I formed a kind of acceptance around the fact that I was unable to function normally both physically and mentally. I also hid it from people the best I could, and acted my way out of it. I didn’t want people’s pity, I wanted answers and solutions that were apparently impossible to attain. I do remember being in tears a few times during high school with excruciating joint pain. The principal in my school was supportive and helpful in trying to offer solutions to these ailments. She recommended doctors and allowed me to leave in the middle of the day if I had a migraine or to see a doctor who ultimately would not do anything for me anyway.

  I finally figured out how to get in the Viacom building and walked inside, where I saw a very tall escalator. It seemed to climb to the clouds. At the top of it, a woman with chin-length light red hair, a milky complexion, and a warm smile waited for me. She introduced herself as Wendy. Wendy was just as warm as her smile. I remember thinking that she must be from the Midwest. She led me to an office that was filled with lots of toys, like Beanie Babies, stickers, and other random items.

  There were also two other people in Wendy’s office, but I was so nervous and fascinated with the crazy explosion of colors and stuffed animals everywhere that at first I failed to take notice of them. Once we were introduced, everybody was very nice. They asked me about Abby’s Song, about Proud, and about the television show on Nantucket. “You’re so young,” one said. “You’re so interesting,” added the other. “You have such a great personality.” And then Wendy said, “You’d be great as a VJ for us.” VJ stood for video jockey, the on-air talent who hosted the music shows. It was a big deal.

  At this point, any other seventeen-year-old kid would have been thrilled. But I pictured myself with a microphone, talking about celebrities I knew nothing about, and I said, “I don’t really think that’s for me.”

  I know I’m running the risk of sounding egotistical, but I just didn’t think being a VJ was very meaningful. I didn’t feel it at all. My reaction to the offer drew some semi-stunned expressions. There were a lot of open mouths in the room. Along with being ballsy, I’m also the consummate people-pleaser and there are moments when the combination of those two character traits is creatively combustible.

  So I said in a kind of open-ended way, “I’d be interested in helping you guys create a show.” I half-expected my statement to land with the thud of a September issue of Vogue. Instead, it piqued their interest.

  “What kind of show did you have in mind?” they asked.

  At the time, I was at my zenith of social awareness. I was deeply concerned about changing the world. I was into my throwback hippy phase. I often wore my dad’s old cargo pants, smoked pot, and listened to Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Led Zeppelin. The persona I’d developed was as far away from my preppy upbringing in Greenwich, Connecticut, as I could get.

  I was also in a full medical, spiritual, and creative counterattack against the mysterious illness that caused me so much grief and pain. I remember not sitting down much in Wendy’s office because my hip joints were in a constant state of inflammation. In the fall, with all of the mold in the air, my autoimmune symptoms flared up. In Lyme patients, mycotoxins, or mold, can cause coughing, wheezing, memory loss, confusion, brain fog, and cognitive impairment bind.9 In the middle of the meeting, due to my joint pain, I walked to a window that overlooked Times Square. They must have thought I had some chutzpah. Who walks around someone’s office during a meeting? In a full-blown angel costume? What kid turns down a VJ offer from MTV? Who comes to a business meeting dressed like Adam Lambert in the afterlife?

  But I could see they were intrigued. They asked me to come up with some ideas for a show, and I think they expected me to go home and return two weeks later. Instead, ideas flowed out of me like mudslides during El Niño. I was relaxed. Fearless. Inspired. I didn’t need MTV, I thought. But maybe from their perspective I was a glimpse into teenagehood, which was their main demographic. This burst of creativity and flurry of brainstorming led to a more focused idea.

  I thought the lives of private school kids in New York were really interesting—or very unusual. We’re like mini-adults, I said; we go to all these fancy stores, restaurants, and clubs and we are very, very independent. Wouldn’t it be interesting if we showed all of these kids acting like adults, doing fancy adult things, and living this fast-paced life while also dealing with normal high school issues? Issues like who you were going to take to the prom, what you were going to do after you graduate, how you were going to get through the SATs.

  In spite of our independence and privilege, I said, we were also dealing with issues such as neglect from parents, being raised essentially by nannies, suffering from prescription drug addiction, eating disorders, and intense emotional turmoil. Some kids who went to those beautiful schools were living totally unhappy existences.

  What made it worse, I told them, was that no one took us seriously. I was so tired of people having preconceived notions: “Oh, you have all this stuff and live this amazing life,” they would say. “How could you ever be unhappy?” What they didn’t know was that behind those closed doors were some of the most painful and lonely realities. I wanted people to stop criticizing these kids so harshly. Were some of them spoiled? Yes, but being spoiled doesn’t stop kids from having very dark lives and, in fact, privilege sometimes makes them even darker.

  I told the MTV reps I wanted people to stop judging the book by its cover and instead go deep into the pages. What I didn’t tell them, and what I would never tell them, was that my own pages contained a private torment. I was sick much of the time and had seen countless doctors. What made it worse was that no one could tell me what was causing my pain, which made many doubt I even had any. My parents were separated and I was still intensely grieving Uncle Billy’s death. These were the issues that fired my motivation.

  I knew I couldn’t create a show on MTV focusing on the fact that one in fifty American kids were homeless and starving.10 So I said, “The kids in the privileged one percent yearn for their mom and dad to pick them up after school. They long to have breakfast and dinner with their families.”

  In the office, heads nodded as if they were rocking out to Jefferson Starship. I was on a roll.

  “Maybe we could also have a camera crew follow a bunch of kids in some rural town in the Midwest,” I said, “and see how the two groups compare and contrast, to show the parallel story lines.” That was a naïve moment. I don’t think MTV was in the stereotype-breaking business, or that they gave a hoot about the private torment of rich kids or poor ones in rural America. But I think they saw the possibility of a hit show.

  Not too long before, two very successful movies, Clueless and Cruel Intentions, had played on spoiled rich kids themes. I can see now that MTV had no desire to go any deeper into the issues behind that kind of glitz and glamour. But they liked my name, and the fact that I brought more than an idea and a Chanel bag to the table.

  They didn’t say any of that to me, of course. What they said was: “We love the idea! Can you please write a treatment for us?”

  “Be glad to,” I said, and they set up a meeting for the end of the following week.

  When I walked from the office I could have flown with my angel wings. Not even the fact that I had real difficulty stringing a coherent sentence together, let alone not knowing what the hell a treatment was, could take the air from beneath me. I’d find a way. I knew from my experience with Abby’s Song, Proud, and At Home with Ally Hilfiger that I’d be able to pull it off.

  As soon as I took the escalator down to the street, I called a close high school friend. Jaime Gleicher was a great actor and very smart. I knew she could write the treatment, whatever it was. I knew she was the perfect one to help me. I then drove home to Connecticut. I had a tradition of taking my youngest sister, Kathleen, trick-or-treating in Greenwich and Bedford, so I wanted to get back on time.

  I met Jaime at Fred’s for lunch the next day. Middle-aged women with facelifts surrounded us, some carrying the same Prada bag and wearing fur vests that they slung over the backs of the wooden chairs. Fred’s is on the ninth floor of the Barneys store on Madison Avenue and is sort of a ladies-who-lunch, power-tie kind of restaurant with an insanely good chopped salad. I’d told Jaime about the MTV meeting and the treatment they wanted me to write (somehow I figured out what a treatment was), and she was very turned on by the whole concept. Jaime and I were interested in the same issues. We were aligned in that way. Often we had philosophical, spiritual, and intellectual conversations. I really liked her company.

  At lunch we were supercharged. Ideas flew across the table. Jaime furiously took notes. Although I was excited, I felt insecure about not being able to recall words, not being able to explain things well. Thank God for Jaime. I was deep into Lyme brain. I was ashamed even to tell Jaime that I felt so inadequate. I just said she was a better writer than I was and could describe the concept better on the page.

  I can’t remember when we began to write, but I do remember standing behind Jaime as her fingers flashed across the keyboard. The pitch was centered around Upper East and Upper West Side privileged kids and the real issues that existed behind their closed doors. We wanted to highlight normal teenage issues that every other kid in America and in the world was facing, but with New York City as the backdrop. We came up with rough ideas for some of the episodes.

  The next week, Jaime and I went back into the Viacom building to meet with Wendy and the other MTV people. The tenor of the meeting had changed somewhat from the first one. Things were a little more businesslike and serious. They were still nice, but right away they started firing questions: “Where do these kids shop?” “Where do they go at night?” “How do they get into clubs?” When I told them that they’d either know the bouncer or have a fake ID, you’d think I’d just handed them Madonna’s teenage diaries.

  Truth of it was, I wasn’t as savvy as I seemed.

  About a month later, on Thanksgiving eve, I went with my friend Kate to a hole-in-the-wall Irish bar in Katonah, New York, a bar as far from Manhattan’s trendy Meatpacking District, now known for its clubs and boutiques, as you could get. I had just acquired a killer fake ID from the back of a cheap clothing store in Greenwich Village, but the name I used was Alexandria Cirona. I thought I would remember my mother’s maiden name better than something I made up, what with my Lyme-y brain and all. Our IDs worked like a charm and the bouncer let us in. (Truth be told, I think they let anyone in who could see over the bar.)

  Inside the place was dark, crowded, and a little seedy—perfect for a seventeen-year-old. We sat at one of those high, circular tables right in the middle of the room. There we met one of Kate’s friends, who went to the bar to get us all rum-and-Cokes (rum-and-Coke was my first drink ever; I’d had it on Mustique), but before I even had a chance to take my first sip in came the cops. “Are they looking for someone?” I asked Kate. I was so naïve.

  Along with being a big party night for kids, Thanksgiving eve is also a big night for police to check on underage drinking. When they came to our table and asked for IDs, I don’t know what was racing faster, my heart or my head. I didn’t know whether to show them the fake ID or my real one. Of course I couldn’t remember what name I used after all, and I also knew I couldn’t lie. I just can’t.

  It didn’t matter which ID I showed. The cops immediately knew we were underage and a female cop asked us to step outside. It was freezing cold and I was wearing a puffy vest and a sweatshirt. I thought they were just going to give us a ticket and tell us not to go back into the bar. When they told us to get in the back of the cop car I blurted out, “Wait, what?” I really didn’t understand the intensity of the situation.

  I remember nervously giggling. I was taking acting class and decided I could use the experience as some kind of tool, so I might as well just get all I could out of it. Kate was an actress, and she felt the same way. When the cop car pulled around to the front of the bar, I cheekily asked if they were going to put handcuffs on us.

  “We weren’t going to, but if you want them…”

  “Yes! We want them! We want our heads held when we duck into the car, everything!” It was as though I was ordering the deluxe package at an amusement park. The officer even thought it was funny and was laughing as he slapped the cuffs on me. Well, “slapped” might not be the proper verb. The cuffs were so loose we could pull our hands out of them. In the back of the cop car I inquired about our Miranda rights and was assured we’d get the full treatment down at the station house.

  When we got to the station there were two fellows from the same bar in a separate cell who looked miserable, as if they were coming down from their buzzes and just bummed the fuck out. Kate and I hadn’t even sipped the first drink we had ordered, and we were excited like two giddy idiots. When I posed for my mug shot I asked if my hair looked good. I helped the cop fingerprint me and made friends with the other officers.

  I had a moment of terror, however, when I saw them going through my bag. I thought they might find a half-smoked joint, a nugget of weed, or rolling papers. They didn’t, but they did find my fake ID. When they booked us, they put down “Felony D” on the form. “Oh my God!” I exclaimed. “I’m a felon!”

  The female officer put Kate and me in separate cells and offered us water, blankets, and ham sandwiches. “Water would be terrific,” I said as if I were ordering a cappuccino. Then I lay down on the bench and took a nap. We had to wait for the judge to get out of bed and to the courtroom.

  When he arrived, the cop attached Kate, the two bummed-out boys, and me in ankle cuffs and marched us like a chain gang into court. I felt like a badass rebel living the nitty-gritty. The judge was really grumpy and made us feel bad by saying, “You should be ashamed of yourselves! How do you think your parents are going to feel?” One of the nice policemen, however, gave us a ride back to our car.

  The next day, for Thanksgiving, my family went to Nonnie’s in Elmira. When I saw the look of shame and disappointment on my father’s face I felt guilty, however, so I retreated onto Nonnie’s couch and curled up to sleep. The worst of it was letting my parents down in the middle of all of their troubles. Later on, a defense attorney who was from the same hometown as my father managed to have the charges reduced and the record sealed.

  Though Jaime and I were acting savvy in the MTV office, and all the television execs were very excited about the prospects of the show, I was worried. All I could think about was that the cool clubs where wealthy kids hung out were not going to allow cameras to record them serving underage kids. They would have been shut down, and I would have been partially responsible for ruining people’s livelihoods. I thought, No way is this whole thing is going to pan out. It’s impossible. But while I was thinking that, the MTV reps were saying, “We want you to shoot a pilot. Get some people together you can follow to a club, and highlight the lives that are more unusual.”

  My head was spinning trying to think of whom I could ask to film. I was already sorting out different locations that would depict this glamorous life in the best possible way, while showing the real issues that were happening. How can I get places to let us film in them? Will my friends’ parents even allow their kids to take part in such a thing? How many camera crews? What is the budget? How many kids will we need to wrangle? How many guys? Girls? Do they have to know each other? Well, probably, because we’ll need some dynamic drama.

  Spinning, I tell you.

  We started calling all the people we thought would be a good fit for the show. Finding them wasn’t difficult at all; the Professional Children’s School was full of privileged Upper East and Upper West Side kids, most of whom wanted to be actors. It was the perfect talent pool. I remember calling one guy who had a sexy, bad-boy, drinks-martinis-in-the-middle-of-the-day vibe, exactly like the Ryan Philippe character in Cruel Intentions. Pretty quickly, three or four kids from PCS agreed to be filmed for the pilot. When we arranged for a camera crew we were set, except for one small problem. The night before we were going to shoot, our on-air talent began to bail, one right after another, until we had no one. The excuses ran from “I can’t go because I have an audition” to “I have to go to the country house with my mom.”