Familiarity and Change

Rio’s family home in Dutchess County, about ninety minutes north of New York City, was enormous. Classifying it as a “home” is probably an understatement. If the market value of a house is twenty-four million, it must technically be considered a mansion. Victor Vaillancourt spared no expense when building the house in Mill Creek for his beautiful bride. He was a big believer in families, partly because he had lost his. As the adoptive father of Dak and Rio, he made them an offer they couldn’t refuse upon graduation from their respective colleges. He remodeled the entire second floor into two separate palatial suites. Rio’s was on the east side and housed her and her four dogs: Rhett the Siberian husky, Scarlett the Irish setter, Ashley the golden retriever and Melanie the bichon fris`e. Clearly, she was obsessed with the movieGone with the Wind, which she had viewed in Victor’s immense media room fourteen times over the years. These days, as she often heard from her bandmate Jordan Wilmont, the movie was considered by some to be politically incorrect. Rio, however, felt that history was a collage of good, bad, ugly, beautiful, virtuous and shameful things. One could not pick and choose which elements to retain and which to expunge. They were all there to remind people of how far the country had come and provide a cautionary tale of mistakes that must be avoided. It was what it was, warts and all.

Rio’s traditional apartment was elegantly done in whites and creams, with pretty much coordinating dog hair since Scarlett wasn’t a couch sitter. No matter how often the maids vacuumed, four dogs did a lot of shedding. Dak’s west side suite had a modern flair with blues and grays. He shared his quarters with Zane, a black German shepherd and Zelda, a white German shepherd. You guessed it. Dak named his dogs after Zane Grey and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife. Both Rio and Dak had separate entrances to their respective apartments in the rear of the house. Rio, however, generally preferred to enter through the front door if it was late enough and she didn’t think she would disturb her mother and stepfather. Downstairs, Victor and Mireille had private quarters in the rear of the house beyond all the formal rooms, which included a massive living room, dining room, conservatory, library, study, media room and even a grand ballroom for large parties. Servants had separate cottages on the oth