India stood in the doorway, looking smaller than Justine remembered. Her dark hair was in a smooth ponytail, her shirt neatly pressed. Justine felt flustered and sweaty in comparison.
India refastened the door behind them.
“Who’s there?” a voice trilled. A man walked in, wrapped in flame-colored silk. He had carefully exposed one shoulder and his black chest hair curled above the vibrant material; a red dot had been painted between his eyes, and he wore a pink Jackie-style pillbox hat. “Namaste,” he said to Justine, placing his hands together in prayer.
“Dino, what are you wearing?” India demanded.
“It’s called a sari, darling. In the country you’re named after, women wear these to stay cool,” he replied, fanning himself.
“You know what I mean,” India insisted.
Dino touched the hat. “This little thing?”
India stamped her foot. “That was my mother’s! You’re getting Brylcreem all over it!”
“Don’t be so old-fashioned, darling,” Dino said. “Nobody has used Brylcreem in years.” He handed her the hat, removing bobby pins from his lustrous locks. “A girl could work up a sweat trying to introduce you to modern inventions like pantyhose and condoms. Refreshment?” he asked Justine, touching the handle of an ancient refrigerator.
“That thing works?” Justine gaped.
“Perfectly. They don’t make them like that anymore,” said India, grimly wiping the rim of the hat with a paper towel.
Dino offered Justine a beer.
“It’s barely lunchtime,” India frowned.
He placed his hand on his hip, like a mannequin in a dress shop. “It’s always five o’clock somewhere. Wait! We have champagne.” He shoved the beer back into the fridge and began rummaging around, his bright orange rear held aloft. Finally emerging with a bottle, Dino popped the cork and filled three glasses. “To your arrival,” he said, winking at Justine.
The summer had begun.
* * *
• • • • • • •
Eve lay on her bed listening to the soft hum of the air conditioner and the vague sounds of traffic outside on Park Avenue. Her mother was out, her father at work, her brother at camp.
It was when she was alone that the full shame of her fall from grace descended on her, pressing her down like a heavy weight. Eve felt it spread through her now like icy liquid. Expelled from boarding school. Her chances at college ruined, her record tainted forever and ever. She would have to tell her boyfriends, her husband, her children.
These were dark times in the Straus household. And Eve had had to beg to be readmitted to Beaverton.
Forced to sit before a council of teachers, interviewed. Why should we let you back here, why should we be convinced that you have mended your ways? How do we know that there will be no further infractions, and on and on. And to think, Eve had been first in her class before she left to go to Griswold. Maybe they hadn’t forgiven her for leaving, for trading up.
Eve wondered what Mr. Winkler was doing right now.
She reread the letter she had received yesterday.
WORMLEY, 14 JUNE 1984
Dear Eve,
I hope this letter finds you well. It’s blazing hot in Connecticut, I can only imagine how infernal it must be in New York.
English class was successful despite your absence. I always enjoy teaching Romeo and Juliet—it is often the first Shakespeare play my students read. I regret missing the opportunity to teach it to you.
What are you reading these days? I just finished Eco’s The Name of the Rose. Truly brilliant—you’d like it.
What are your summer plans? I teach a survey course in the summer program—it’s not too onerous and leaves me plenty of free time. Perhaps you would enjoy a break from the city one weekend? You could take the train up to New Haven and we could have lunch and see the Yale Art Museum. I am a big fan of the building, I’d love to show it to you.
Let me know, and I look forward to hearing from you.
My best,
Bob Winkler
Visit? It would be hard to make an excuse to travel, unless she and Justine said they were going to visit Justine’s parents.
If they were just walking around New Haven, she and the Wanker wouldn’t have a chance to do much. Eve wasn’t sure she wanted to see him if they couldn’t finally wrap up loose ends.
A car honked below and Eve rolled on her side to face the wall. She often imagined what having sex with him would be like, especially after that evening last January when he did that to her on the sofa. Eve still couldn’t believe it had actually happened.
The phone rang.
Patsy would answer it.
But it kept ringing. Eve jumped off of her bed and hurried down the hallway, past the sailor-boy photo of Sandy, through the limestone foyer, and into the library. The ringing stopped.
Eve stared at the phone. It did not ring again. She picked it up and dialed India.
* * *
• • • • • • •
India answered the phone.
“Hello? Oh, hi, Eve. Yes, she just got here. Yes, it’s absolutely boiling.”
Justine sipped her champagne. It would be an even better summer if she had more than thirty-five dollars in her pocket.
“We’re celebrating,” India continued. “No, just André. They can’t tell the difference. She’s right here.” India handed Justine the receiver.
“How’s the pad?” Eve asked.
“Haven’t made it past the kitchen.” Justine looked around. The narrow room had one window that opened onto an alley of blackened brick. Dirty dishes sat in the sink under a rusted tin ceiling. A colander over the bare bulb served as a shade.
“Don’t you love Dino? When do you start work?”
“Not till Tuesday,” Justine replied.
“Meet us for lunch Monday?”
Justine wondered who “us” was, sipping her André.
“My treat,” Eve added.
Her friend was clairvoyant. “Okay, bat time?”
“Nobody eats lunch earlier than one. Get directions from Dino, India’s never been below Forty-second Street. Ciao!”
* * *
—
Justine’s room was high-ceilinged, yet barely large enough to contain the futon that sagged under the window. A poster of a lurching Janis Joplin was pinned to the wall. No wonder what’s his name Reynolds was in rehab.
She eyed the stains on the futon, pulled a bedspread out of her suitcase, and threw it over them. Placing Henry on the pillow, Justine lay down under the cracked ceiling and clasped her hands behind her head.
It was incredible that she was actually here, in the city, for the whole summer. Justine thought about the conversation with her parents in May. Cressida suggested she work at her friend Flavia’s gallery in Woodstock. Flavia had discovered a lot of prominent artists, a few of whom had hightailed it to Margot Moore’s in the city—coincidentally, the very gallery where Eve was interning this summer. Now Flavia mostly sold paintings of Hendrix on black velvet.
“I can’t stay here, I’m totally claustro,” Justine had said.
Her mother had turned to Miles with a knowing look. “I was waiting for this to happen.”
Miles had lowered the play he was reading and moved his gaze from Cressida to Justine.
“It’s that Clayton Bradley,” Cressida added.
Justine groaned.
“What, aren’t you still going with him?”
Nobody had said “going with” since the fifties. We’re in love, Justine might have told them, but her feelings were none of their business.
Yes, and Clay was working at a bank in the city.
Cressida had replied, “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Smile, Fortune, and turn thy wheel.”
“‘Fortune, good night
. Smile once more,’” Miles corrected.
And fortune had smiled on Justine. Cressida had made a call to her friend Gretchen Lermontov, and, miracle of miracles, the loony Russian woman needed help in her prop warehouse in Chelsea. Justine envisioned potted palms, marble busts, and suits of armor.
She examined the funny cracks in her new bedroom’s ceiling, the curl of peeling paint. Maybe, finally, she and Clay would have sex on this futon, and while he was on top of her she’d look over his pale shoulder and have this same view.
Justine hopped up and went back to the living room.
India was sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table, rolling a joint. Opposite her, a battered upright piano stood along a wall, and several garment racks lined the other.
“What’s all that?” Justine asked as she grabbed a pillow and sat down.
“Most of it was my mother’s. Some of it’s Dino’s new line.”
India lit the joint.
“Eve said he worked at a hotel.”
“He makes clothes at night.” She offered Justine the joint, but Justine shook her head.
Justine stood up and wandered over to the garment rack. There were ruffled blouses and swingy skirts and a pink suit she recognized as Chanel. There were a few floor-length gowns that looked itchy. Farther along was a jumpsuit of fake leopard fur with a gold lamé sash, a pair of suede overalls with silver buckles.
India tapped the joint on the ashtray and inclined her head toward Dino’s closed door. “Thank God for cocaine,” she said. “He’d never be able to do it otherwise.”
“Where does he get the money?”
India drew herself up primly. “Dino pays his rent, and he doesn’t bring strange people home, so I don’t have a reason to pry.” She took a long drag as her eyes closed.
A breeze swept in.
“Fuck, it’s going to pour,” Justine said, glancing at the sky.
India exhaled a pungent cloud. “We need it. To cool things off.”
Justine’s stomach growled. Breakfast had been a long time ago. “Is there anything to eat?”
But India was meditating. Justine went into the kitchen and opened the cabinet: spaghetti, Kraft Parmesan, and a few half bottles of Mouton Cadet. Justine filled a pot with water and glanced at the clock. 8:45 p.m. She set the pot on the dirty stove and was about to call her parents when the phone rang.
“Hello?”
“It’s Clay. How are you?”
Happiness filled her. “Great. You?”
“Working.”
“Did you know the Reynolds guy?” she asked.
“Foster? Sure. We all grew up together.”
Justine was getting sick of everyone knowing everyone from childhood. She twirled the phone cord around her wrist. “Come over, I’m cooking.”
“I’m going to be at the office really late. Can I call you tomorrow?”
“It’s Saturday!” she said, untwirling it. And he had said all he was doing was Xeroxing.
“I know, but I have stuff to get done.” He was silent for a moment. “Jus?”
“What?”
“Miss you,” Clay said, and hung up.
Justine replaced the receiver and pressed her forehead into the wall next to the phone. How could she wait another day to see him? It had been weeks—one more day shouldn’t make a difference. But working on a weekend?
She started to clean the pile of dishes in the sink. They were mismatched, some were fragile and encrusted with gold, others swiped from Howard Johnson’s. Justine set them in a drying rack, uncorked the wine, and poured herself a glass.
When the pasta was drained, Justine dished out three plates and carried them to the living room. Dino was lounging on a cushion, wearing tiny shorts. His legs were dark with hair. India was smoking another joint and the humid air was thick with smoke. Dressed to Kill had just started on the TV. They ate in silence.
“Can I finish that?” Dino asked India, who hadn’t touched her pasta.
She handed him the plate.
“Honey, you need to eat,” he said, poking India’s scrawny arm.
“Shh, this is the elevator scene,” she replied.
“Angie’s so fabulous,” Dino said through a mouthful.
Justine didn’t get it; the actress was tacky and gave her the creeps.
When the movie ended, India switched the channel, sat back, and lit another joint. She smoked them like cigarettes.
“I’m going to bed,” Justine said, getting up.
“But this is Midnight Blue,” Dino protested.
She’d never seen the show but was exhausted by the journey and the newness and excitement of it all.
As Justine shut her door, lightning crackled and illuminated the room like a strobe. One Mississippi. Two. The floor shook with the baritone of thunder. She heard a shriek from the television. She lay down with Henry and closed her eyes, inhaling the familiar smell of his tufted belly. It was still hard to believe that she was in an apartment, in New York, by herself.
Rain erupted from the sky and spattered the window like beads from a broken necklace. Lightning again. Justine sat up. Her window was open, and raindrops were splashing over the sill. On her knees, she pulled it shut, watching the columns of rain against the streetlights. Water sloshed through the gutters, carrying trash, which bobbed like toy boats, into the sewers, and off to sea.
TWO
Monday morning Eve took the subway to her first day at Margot’s gallery.
She felt slightly sick. To celebrate her first day as a “working woman,” Patsy had force-fed her eggs and bacon, like one of those ducks in France they stuff until they explode into foie gras. By the time she climbed up the steps at Spring Street, Eve felt like vomiting it all onto the sidewalk. An artistic statement of her own.
The gallery air-conditioning was set to an arctic temperature, and Eve stopped at the front desk to introduce herself. The guy behind the desk with sculpted hair studiously ignored her.
“Eve Straus,” she said, “for Margot.”
He put his book down, then picked up the phone and spoke in a library voice. He hung up and pointed toward the back.
Eve walked through the gallery, passing small abstract paintings by Carolyn Heller. She wasn’t a fan of her work, but the summer was reserved for painters low on a gallery’s list. September was reserved for the A-listers like Massimo Sforza. Eve couldn’t wait to work on his show.
In a separate room at the rear of the building, a young man sat at a long table concentrating on papers. He wore khaki pants and a blue Oxford. Margot Moore sat next to him, one elbow on the table, in a tight red sleeveless dress and high suede heels. Thick dark hair curled in her armpits.
“Good morning,” Eve said, staring.
“Greetings,” Margot said briskly, standing up.
Eve would have to train herself not to look.
The man nodded in her direction. Margot didn’t bother to introduce him.
“Let’s get started. What do we do here?” Margot demanded.
“Represent artists?” Eve quavered.
“We sell.” Margot tapped her heel on the floor. “Other galleries are run by brats with trust funds, donations, and dishonesty.” There was lipstick on one of her front teeth. “This is a business.”
Eve nodded. Everyone here knew that Eve’s parents had gotten her this job. What was Margot trying to say?
“Where’s your Rolodex?”
“Uh, I don’t have one.”
“What?” Margot barked. “Nobody works here without personal contacts. Take your mother’s off her desk, for heaven’s sake. Raymond!” She clapped her hands. “Show her a few of yours.” Margot stalked into the back, high heels jabbing the floor.
So, Eve thought, I’m a conduit to my parents’ rich friends. No wonder Margot didn’t care that Eve
had been expelled.
“Isn’t she amazing?” Raymond breathed. He was biracial, stylish, and handsome.
“What’s the story with the underarm hair?” Eve asked.
“She makes us braid it.” Raymond laughed. “Here”—he slid his contacts toward her—“all yours.”
“Thanks,” Eve said, shivering in the chair. “So, what are we supposed to do?”
“We pick up the phone, we call people, we sell them art,” Raymond explained. Eve glanced around, feeling instantly intimidated. They would hear every word she said in the open room. Maybe working here was a big mistake. She should have tried to sell clothes at Charivari instead.
“Don’t let Margot fool you,” Raymond warned. “She acts like she’s all business, but that woman lives and breathes art. How old are you anyway?”
“Almost sixteen,” Eve replied.
“Bullshit.”
“No, really! I’m going into eleventh grade.”
“You’re just a kid! Margot’s going to eat you like a baby bunny.”
Eve pointed to the phone. “Show me how.”
Raymond smiled and sat down at the desk. He flipped through the cards, picked up the phone, and dialed.
“Hello, may I please speak to Mrs. Theodoracopulos? Raymond Rathbone from the Margot Moore gallery.” Eve thought she heard a slight accent. The Midwest? “Mrs. Theo? Hi, darling, it’s Raymond! Fabulous, fabulous. Yes, of course, it’s reserved for you. Has been for months.”
She could never be that smooth, Eve thought, watching in awe. “Oh, of course, he called me about it but you know I’d never sell it to that crook. You’d better come today. There really is not a moment to spare.” Raymond waved an elegant hand in the air. “I could meet you at the gallery; you know his studio address is top secret. Perfect! See you then. Ciao ciao, darling.”
Raymond hung up. “See? Easy.”
She did not see. “What’s she buying?”
“A brand-new Massimo Sforza.”
Age of Consent Page 18
