Age of Consent

by Amanda Brainerd

  * * *

  • • • • • • •

  Justine was alone at the smoker, reading Rilke. She had hoped to run into Bruce again but had had no luck. Maybe he ate in the dining hall at Hill House, where only juniors and seniors could go? She hadn’t seen him on Upper campus since that first night. Had he gone there only once, to scope out the new girls? He had found Tierney, that was for certain, although she probably already knew him. Tierney seemed to know everyone.

  The sky was turning indigo. Floodlights illuminated the playing fields in a chemical green, and Justine felt crampy. She had run out of tampons and was almost out of money. To top it off, she was down to her last cigarette.

  It infuriated Justine how irresponsible her parents were with “the evil green stuff.” It wasn’t as if Miles didn’t have a job, as if Cressida hadn’t just finished the living room of her friend Gretchen’s town house. Yes, the Cassandra Theater was small and regional, but it was highly respected, with a reputation for premiering plays before they went to New York. It even gave them health insurance.

  What were her parents doing with their cash? Justine suspected them of nothing but a childlike inability to hold on to it. It was depressing. Cressida was always hunting for things in the house she could sell, and had even tried to pawn one of Justine’s prized possessions, a first edition of The Wind in the Willows. When her grandfather died, he’d left the family a sum adequate to pay off their debts. What did Cressida decide to do with it? She bought a barn. Justine knew they could not afford two houses. All through elementary school she remembered the phone ringing and Cressida ordering her not to answer it, usually toward the middle of the month. It was a miracle that the Rubins had gotten their act together to fill out the paperwork for Justine’s scholarship at all.

  Nobody here would understand. Well, maybe Stanley, but she had a feeling his story was so grim that peering into it would be like staring into the abyss. What would it be like to be Clay, and have your parents donate a whole building? Then there was Eve, rolling Parisian cigarettes in a leather jacket. Justine pulled her ragged flannel shirt around her ribs. She wasn’t like any of them. Tierney had sniffed her out in a heartbeat, judging Justine as several castes below and not giving her a second thought. Justine didn’t think Eve judged her, but then Justine had been careful not to let Eve know the reality of her family situation. Eve would never understand what it meant to worry about money. After a few more drags, Justine stood up, ground out her last cigarette, and headed back to Claverly.

  Tierney and her friends were sitting on the bed eating Doritos. That Kitty girl from dinner was there, and a stout, dark-haired girl with a jaw so massive, Justine thought, it could be put on display in the Museum of Natural History.

  Cat Stevens sang on the turntable.

  “Kitty, Jackie, my roommate.”

  “We’ve met,” Kitty said through a mouthful.

  “Justine Rubin,” she said to the other.

  “Jackie Borden.”

  Were those actually whales on her turtleneck?

  “Rubin”—Jackie paused—“like the sandwich?”

  For a fleeting moment, Justine thought of making something up but didn’t have the energy. “It’s Polish.” She threw her bag on her desk with a thud. “Can I borrow a tampon?”

  “You didn’t bring any?” Tierney asked, the green eyes sweeping across Justine like searchlights.

  “I use pads,” Jackie said. “But I’m a virgin and you’re probably not.”

  “I can always tell who isn’t,” Kitty said.

  “Makeup bag.” Tierney pointed to her desk. Justine picked up the floral bag and started to unzip it.

  Tierney leapt up and yanked it out of her hand. “Rule numero uno, don’t touch my stuff.” She turned away and rummaged through it, then handed Justine a tampon. “You owe me.”

  * * *

  —

  When Justine went back to the room, the three girls were heading out.

  “Where are you guys going?”

  “Where are we going?”

  Justine looked at them blankly.

  “Pep rally, as in football kickoff?” Jackie flared her nostrils like a bull.

  “I’ll pass.”

  “Is that a Polish joke?” Giggling, they headed down the hall.

  She stood there for a moment, wondering if she should let herself eat the rest of their precious Doritos.

  Something hit the window.

  Then again; the faint clink of a pebble.

  She pushed open the sash and saw Bruce standing below under a streetlamp. His handsome face shone in the lamplight. He gestured that he was coming up and headed to the door.

  She ran to the mirror, sniffed her underarms, fluffed her hair, and pulled off her dirty flannel shirt. She had on a tank top underneath.

  Bruce opened the door.

  “Don’t you knock?” she asked, turning around.

  “You look so hot,” he said, staring. So did he, but he probably knew it.

  “Dorito?”

  “I brought something better,” he said, opening his hand to reveal a plastic bag bulging with green buds. “Where’s your bong?”

  He knew she had one! “It’s hidden,” she said, pulling it from behind a Webster’s dictionary on the shelf. It was long, and pink. She’d bought it in a head shop in Woodstock.

  “Bruce, meet Shirley, Shirley, Bruce.”

  “Nice to meet you. Can you fill her up?”

  She draped her flannel shirt over the bong and tiptoed into the bathroom. Nobody was around—they were all at the pep rally. She glanced in the mirror. Her tank was just slightly, perfectly, transparent, her eyes large and blue.

  “Why aren’t you down at the football field?” she asked as she set the bong on the desk.

  “I wanted to see you.”

  “How’d you know I wouldn’t go?”

  “Psychic.” He moved closer. His hair was like sunlight; he could ride a chariot across the sky.

  “I need two towels,” he said.

  Justine grabbed one from the back of a chair, another from a pile on the bureau.

  Bruce bundled one into a jelly roll and put it over the crack under the door, then rolled up the other and handed it to her.

  “I’ll handle the first toke,” he said, lighting the bong and taking a deep drag, the smoke gargling up Shirley’s throat. He blew the smoke into the towel.

  “Don’t geek,” he warned. She inhaled as much smoke as she could, it seared her lungs. Her eyes teared up, and she exhaled into the towel as well.

  Bruce lit another bowl, sucked it to ashes, and set the bong on the desk.

  “It reeks in here,” she whispered, already wasted.

  “Paranoia, the destroyer.” His eyes were slitty and bloodshot. Red, white, and blue.

  “Shit,” she said, grabbing the back of the chair so she didn’t fall down the rabbit hole.

  He pulled her toward him. “God, you’re beautiful,” he said, and kissed her. She could taste the pot on his tongue.

  He had a hint of stubble on his chin, like a grown man. And he’d said she was beautiful. They swayed like palms, and tumbled onto Tierney’s patchwork quilt, the bag of Doritos crunching beneath them. She felt a stuffed animal under her shoulder. They were going to shred Tierney’s precious heirloom coverlet. Bruce moved on top of her, kissing her neck, her ear. He tugged at the button on her jeans.

  “I have my period,” she said, sitting up slightly.

  “So?” He unzipped her fly. Little pink roses decorated her undies.

  She thought she heard voices in the hallway. Maybe she didn’t care. Bruce started pulling down her pants. His fingers pushed into her panties. Her hand went to undo his buckle.

  The door opened and light spilled in from the hall.

  “What’s going on?” Tierney de
manded.

  Justine pulled on her jeans, jumped up too fast, and steadied herself on the bunk bed against the head rush.

  “Get off Sally Rabbit!”

  “Who’s in there?” Jackie’s voice rang out. She looked at Justine and then pointed at the bong. “Are you insane?”

  “Get him out of here, and get that, that thing out of here before you get me kicked out of this school!” Tierney shrieked. Bruce stood up and smoothed his hair.

  “Hi, Bruce.” Jackie flushed. He stared at her, squinting. “Jackie Borden, first boat.”

  “Nice whales, Jackie. Worthington, impressive hostess skills. Next time I’m visiting your roommate, maybe you’ll be polite.” He patted Justine’s ass on his way out the door.

  Tierney’s face was hot and twisted. “If you got bodily fluids on my quilt,” she warned, “you’re dead.”

  “What are you going to do about it?” Justine shot back. “Club me to death with your Barbie?” She pushed past Tierney and her friends and headed downstairs into the common room, leaving Shirley on the bureau in all her pink, plastic glory.

  SIX

  The leaves on the maples were turning a brilliant yellow, fluttering like a hundred thousand goldfinches. Justine had to admit that autumn at Griswold was gorgeous, and a vast improvement over the sad gingkoes of New Haven. Under the canopy of leaves, she entered a surge of students on the path and fought her way upstream. She hadn’t seen Bruce since Friday, now it was already Wednesday . . . and all of a sudden there he was, walking in her direction.

  Bruce high-fived her as he passed, and Justine glanced around, hoping someone had noticed. But the robots marched on.

  Bruce might end up her boyfriend, Justine told herself, for maybe the tenth time that morning.

  She was dying to tell Eve about his visit, but what if nothing more ever happened? She’d look so pathetic.

  * * *

  —

  That evening Justine ate supper quickly. There was a big test on the Battle of Hastings tomorrow. She scanned the dining hall. Bruce was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Eve. Justine rose and hurried back to her room through an icy drizzle.

  Tierney and Jackie were on the lower bunk poring over the history book.

  “Hi,” she said.

  They did not respond.

  “What did you do with my bong?”

  They ignored her.

  Justine stared at them, but they continued to pretend she did not exist. She felt a desire to throw something. Instead, she picked up her schoolbag and headed back into the rain.

  Bitches.

  Anger coursed through her like fire, despite the freezing rivulets of water running down her neck. She trudged up the wet steps of the library, where a bronze statue of Eliot Haverlock stood at the top. The poor sucker had been sculpted wearing a toga and holding a scroll, and now some student had put a baseball cap on his head. So much for his million-dollar donation. His legacy was a half-naked statue, used for silly jokes.

  The vaulted reading room was quiet. Low lamps with green shades glowed along oak tables, and rows of bookshelves receded into the darkness. Justine sat down, quietly unpacking her textbook. She caught a sudden movement in her peripheral vision. Down an aisle, she saw Bruce. He was talking to Clay, Clay resting his hand on Bruce’s shoulder and leaning in. Bruce gave Clay a soft punch in the shoulder. They looked up, noticed her, and approached her table.

  “What are you doing here?” Bruce asked. A girl across the table stared at him. But, then, everybody stared at him.

  “Homework,” she said, keeping her voice low and tossing her hair out of her face.

  Bruce’s smile was like light in the dim library. “You know Clay?”

  She nodded.

  “We were discussing crew,” Clay said, twirling a pencil in his delicate fingers. Justine racked her brain for something to say but she didn’t know the first thing about the sport.

  “Rowing is incredible,” Clay added, the pencil flying out of his hand and skittering under a bookshelf. Was he nervous too?

  “How’s Jackie?”

  “Which one’s she again?” Bruce asked.

  “Cap’n Crunch,” Clay reminded him.

  “Right, the big girl. We also call her the jaws of death.”

  Justine giggled. She couldn’t help it, she felt like she was floating up toward the brass chandeliers.

  “Sssh!” the girl across from them hissed.

  “Follow me,” Bruce said.

  “Since when do you tell me what to do?” Justine asked.

  His expression was that of a wolf assessing a bunny.

  “Ask her about fall break,” Clay said, hitching his book bag higher on his shoulder and heading off.

  “He’s throwing a major party at his mom’s in the city,” Bruce explained. “You’re invited.”

  “Jesus!” the girl said and snapped her books closed.

  “Stay put, sugar puss, we’re leaving,” Bruce said.

  Justine started shoving her things in her bag. A party in the city? Justine imagined girls in short dresses and boys in ties. Gin and tonics, cut-glass ashtrays, antique tables. Please God, find a way for me to go, she prayed.

  Bruce was leafing through the copy of the Marquis de Sade.

  “A little light reading?” he asked, sauntering away with the book.

  “Give it back!”

  “‘Justine,’” Bruce stopped and read, “or a tale of virtue justly punished?” He handed it to her.

  “It’s by the guy who invented S and M,” she said, trying to look him straight in the eye. His cheekbones glowed in the light. He truly was the most beautiful boy ever. “St-Stanley lent it to me.”

  “Who’s that?” They walked to the end of the room.

  “Glasgow, the tall guy with the boom box?”

  “The homo?”

  She winced at the word, but Bruce’s tone was more matter-of-fact than cruel. She followed him down the hall, past doors to darkened offices.

  Justine imagined going to the party in New York with Bruce, his arm around her as they stepped off an elevator into an apartment with black-and-white marble floors and doors to a terrace overlooking the skyline. Eve would have lent her a dress and she’d have done her hair and . . . Justine imagined Tierney’s expression of envious surprise.

  Bruce stopped at a door labeled JANITORIAL, opened it, and pulled her inside.

  Orange light filtered through the transom, the room smelled of disinfectant and damp mop. Bruce kicked a bucket out of the way and kissed her. He slipped a hand under her shirt. Justine felt her stomach flip over. She wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders and pulled him closer.

  “You have such great tits,” he murmured. “Anyone ever tell you they’re perfect handfuls?”

  They had, but she didn’t tell him that. Bruce took her hand and pressed it on his jeans. She pressed back.

  Footsteps in the hall and a light knock.

  “Guys, ten minutes.” It was Clay.

  They were quiet until the footsteps receded.

  “How’d he know we were in here?” she whispered.

  “He knows how much I like you.”

  She unbuckled his belt, unzipped his fly, and began to move her hand up and down. His hand closed around hers, squeezing her fingers. Bruce was breathing hard. He had stopped kissing her.

  Bruce groaned and ejaculated. He wiped his palm on a towel hanging from a mop.

  “Not bad, Rubin.”

  “I didn’t need your help,” she replied, trying to keep the bitterness from her voice.

  “Of course you didn’t,” he said. He tucked his hand under her chin and looked at her. “I know you have all sorts of skills. Next time I’ll take my sweet time with you.”

  He opened the door as she pulled down her shirt.

  �
�Ladies first.”

  Next time. Justine smiled to herself. Bruce Underwood wanted a next time.

  * * *

  —

  As she lay in bed listening to Tierney’s soft breathing, Justine wanted to think about Bruce but instead her mind filled with memories of Gerald Sweeney. Gerald had been the artistic director of her father’s theater. Thirty-three years old, a charismatic man with a sweep of reddish hair, golden brown eyes, and strong hands. She used to love the ginger hairs on the backs of his fingers. He wore an ascot, in an ironic sexy sixties way, and read Tennessee Williams.

  Gerald’s pursuit of Justine had started off innocently enough when she was thirteen. He gave her that first edition of Wind in the Willows; root-beer candy sticks (somehow, he knew they were her favorite); a black velvet box with a bear that danced to “Fly Me to the Moon” when you opened it. In the beginning, Gerald would take her out in the afternoons to a hotel in New Haven that served British tea and scones. Justine felt wonderfully grown-up, ordering jasmine tea, swirling the floral liquid with a silver teaspoon. Her mother had done an elaborate braid in Justine’s hair, fussed over her outfit, and even allowed Justine to wear her grandmother’s heart locket and silk scarf. It still smelled of French perfume.

  Gerald described plays she had never seen. The sets and backstage dramas, the funny snafus. He cracked open the world for her like a candy egg. Justine knew he was flirting, and she liked it. She felt like a girl in a foreign film. When he kissed her for the first time, his tongue in her mouth had been a surprise, like a large hunk of steak. At fourteen, he deflowered her on the stage of her father’s theater, in Desdemona’s bed. It hurt, but Gerald took it slowly. After all, he had waited so long. She bled, which frightened her, but Gerald laughed and said Desdemona would be stabbed on those satin sheets anyway. It all felt like it was happening to someone else, as if Justine were floating under the canopy watching him make love to her from above.

  But a few weeks later Gerald showed up an hour late for their movie date. Justine stood in front of the theater, the cold of the damp April Sunday seeping through her clothes. When she saw Gerald hurrying down the street, she felt a wave of relief. He apologized, an appointment had run late. But his eyes refused to meet hers.