Age of Consent

by Amanda Brainerd

  “Fucker,” Eve said. “Sandy finished the Froot Loops. God, you’re lucky you’re an only child.” She poured herself a bowl of Corn Pops, and India wrinkled her nose at the thick, sugary smell.

  They sat at the kitchen table, Eve shoving spoonfuls of cereal into her mouth. A drop of milk spattered on the table. India regarded it, but reminded herself that it wasn’t her house.

  “So? How’s life?” Eve said.

  If that was what you could call it. “I have a new apartment,” India said, moving her mother’s handbag away from the spilled milk. “On the West Side.”

  “Whoa!” Eve said, through a mouthful. She swallowed. “That’s pretty radical. I thought you needed a permission slip to even visit. Where?”

  “Fifty-fifth between Tenth and Eleventh.”

  Eve gaped.

  “I’m subletting from a friend,” India explained. “I actually like the place. Come see it.”

  Eve gestured around with her spoon. “I’m incarcerated, in case you hadn’t figured it out. Nurse Ratched will be thrilled to see you.” She shoved another mouthful of Corn Pops in her mouth. “I can’t imagine your dad living in Hell’s Kitchen!”

  India sighed. “I’m alone. We were robbed.”

  “On Fifth Avenue!”

  India nodded. They had been overly confident about the security at 984 Fifth. Who would imagine burglars getting past the several doormen on a Saturday afternoon? The housekeeper had been the only one home, thank goodness.

  “Did they take everything?”

  India shook her head. She couldn’t bring herself to tell Eve that after Kiki’s death her father ran through what Kiki had left him, then had sold most of her mother’s jewelry to buy drugs. India had hidden the pearls, but the rest was already gone. “They took my mother’s wallet.”

  Eve looked confused.

  “I know,” India said. “She’s dead. She doesn’t need it anymore.”

  “But,” Eve said, “you have all of her stuff besides that still, right?”

  “Her wallet was the object that she touched every single day. Of all her things, even her pillbox hat, it was the one that I really cared about.”

  Eve put her hand on her friend’s arm. India had to admit her touch was warm, comforting, even. What did she have left now except her friends and her horse?

  “I’m so sorry, India.”

  India shrugged. “I try to tell myself it was just a piece of leather.”

  “How’s school?” Eve changed the subject.

  “I’m not in school,” India said.

  “What? What are you doing?”

  “Figuring things out,” India said. She didn’t want to talk about it, and wondered for a moment if she should have come prepared with a story, but Eve was her closest friend. India couldn’t bear to lie to her. “After the burglary my father and his girlfriend sold the apartment without telling me. They moved to Palm Beach and I wasn’t invited. They just left, and the next day the broker opened the door and told me someone else was moving in. Daddy doesn’t know where I’m living, and I moved my inheritance to a new account. Otherwise he’ll try to take it. Please, Eve, don’t tell anyone. Keep my secret.”

  Eve nodded. “I will, I promise.”

  * * *

  —

  India left the Straus apartment and walked to the Metropolitan Museum. Clipping the button to the lapel of the mink, she wandered through the Greek and Roman galleries toward her grandmother’s amphora. “Attributed to the Berlin Painter. Generous Gift of Charles and Genevieve Kristoff.” India remembered her grandparents’ apartment on Seventy-second and Park, the spotlit front hall, the scents of mothballs and her grandmother’s Shalimar perfume. Now India gazed at the painted musician holding his lyre, his head thrown back to the sky. The angle of his neck had always seemed both gay and macabre.

  She headed for the Saint Laurent exhibit. The burglars at her father’s had had no idea of the worth of her mother’s couture, or else the gowns had been too bulky to steal.

  A sixties Mondrian print dress, a theatrical ostrich cape, a fabulous red and black lace evening gown with chiffon and marabou jacket. 1980. Her mother would have been thirty-five if she had lived. India moved farther along, toward a silk ruffled taffeta gown she recalled seeing at Yves’s studio on the Avenue Marceau. She recalled the bolts of colorful fabric stacked on white shelves, the designer’s sketches strewn across his lacquer desk. Her mother had told the designer that the dress made her look like a cupcake. 1977. The winter before Kiki died.

  Her mother had spent long afternoons in the hotel suite with its velvety gold carpet, the damask curtains drawn to block out the light of the Place Vendôme. They had seen the real column the next summer in Rome.

  “India?” a throaty voice broke her reverie.

  “Hi, Mrs. Bradley.”

  “That was my mother-in-law. Call me Barbara,” the woman chuckled, pulling India into a patchouli-scented embrace. India tried not to stiffen.

  “What brings you to this neck of the woods?”

  India gestured to the mannequins.

  Barbara sighed. “Ah, yes, our materialistic zeitgeist.”

  India knew exactly what she meant.

  “Come,” Barbara said, taking India’s arm and leading her out of the exhibit and into another gallery. They stopped before a painting of fields. “Look at those clouds, those miraculous clouds.” India read the label. Jacob van Ruisdael. “He was from a family of painters. The craft was in his blood,” Barbara said. “We can learn so much from Ruisdael’s clouds.” As they strolled toward a Rembrandt self-portrait Barbara explained how after RISD she and a few other painters had been looking at artists who had fallen out of favor: Reni, Murillo, and Cabanel. The academic aesthetic had enthralled them, and, though out of fashion, their work had laid the foundations for Barbara’s technique. “New Masters” was just a marketing term coined by Margot Moore, the savvy gallerist adept at detecting undercurrents. Barbara’s paintings were now in high demand. Even so, Barbara added, “New Masters” was a bullshit label.

  * * *

  • • • • • • •

  That evening, Eve sat down at her parents’ dining room table and stared at the pink slabs of lamb. Usually it was one of her favorite meals, but these days she had no appetite.

  Her father rang a little silver bell.

  “Patsy, could you open the Margaux that’s on the bar?” Frederick called to the maid’s retreating back.

  “Which one is that?” Patsy asked, turning around. She winked at Eve who gave her a weak smile.

  “How was the Met?” her mother asked, slicing her meat savagely into tiny shreds.

  Eve shook her head. “I was too tired to go.” She reached for the mint jelly.

  “I see,” her mother said, pushing her massacred meat under a raft of potatoes. Eve thought about the fancy meat market on Lexington, where you got a ticket and waited for them to call your number. The butcher was beefy and red-faced but he was sweet on Deirdre, always saving her the best cuts.

  They ate in silence. For a moment Eve wished that Sandy was here, but he was at a sleepover. How could she ever be part of this adult world? Despite how horrible India’s father was, she envied her friend living on her own, not needing to answer to any of them. Teachers, parents, all in league with one another, watching Eve thrash around like that shark on the carpet. It was a cult. She would not join it, she vowed, forcing the soft meat down her throat.

  “What are your friends doing for the holidays?” Frederick asked, shaking the bell again.

  “Too bad we had to cancel our plans,” Deirdre said.

  “Sorry”—Patsy poked her head in from the kitchen—“I’m having trouble with the cork.”

  “It’s an old one, I’ll give it a try,” Frederick replied. He rose and headed through the swinging door.

 
; The moment he was gone Deirdre leaned over and grabbed Eve’s wrist.

  “Stay away from Justine.”

  “Ouch!”

  Deirdre dug her claws in farther. “You want to end up like this?”

  “Like what?”

  “I didn’t start out at Tufts.”

  “What?” Eve squeaked. She had no idea her mother’s skinny fingers were this strong.

  “I went to Pine Manor first.”

  “Pine Mattress?”

  “I was much smarter than those girls. So are you, and you know it. Get out there. Be an important part of the world. Be something. Don’t end up like your mother, dependent on a man for every bite you eat.”

  Jesus, Pine Manor wasn’t even a real college. It was a finishing school for girls being groomed to be wives of rich men. How could her mother, seemingly erudite and discerning, have gone there? And how had she only admitted this now, years later?

  Frederick walked back into the dining room carrying the bottle. Deirdre dropped Eve’s arm.

  “What’s going on?” asked Frederick.

  Neither of them said a word.

  The silence continued. What if Eve simply asked to go back to Beaverton in January? Eve remembered who her parents were. Even if they thought it was a good idea, they would deny her, just to teach her a lesson.

  “I had a very pleasant chat with Justine’s mother,” Deirdre said.

  Eve almost choked. “You called her?”

  “I said I would, didn’t I?” Deirdre wiped a smear of lipstick off her wineglass.

  Eve squinted at her mother. Was she making this up?

  Deirdre set down her glass. “Eve,” she sighed, in that you-never-learn way that drove Eve up the wall. “Think what you will, but as your mother I have responsibilities. They may not always be welcome, but I have to fulfill them to the best of my ability.”

  Eve stared.

  Deirdre waved a hand in the air. “We both know none of this would have happened if Justine weren’t in the picture. I can’t choose your friends, but I can prevent you from fraternizing with the bad ones. I’m not going to stand on the sidelines and watch as you go down the tubes!”

  * * *

  • • • • • • •

  Justine woke before dawn, emerging gradually from a dream. Stanley had been dancing in the Skeets, which, in the landscape of her mind, had become a glassy, frozen pond. He was holding his boom box aloft and gliding across the glossy surface. When Justine joined him, they skated in synchrony, before they found themselves passing over Clay, who was floating just beneath the surface, staring at them with milky eyes.

  Sitting up abruptly, Justine felt sick. She tried to get the vision of Clay under ice out of her mind. What had that meant?

  In the dim light, she noticed that Tierney’s desk drawer was ajar, could just see the makeup bag through the crack. Peeking down, she saw Tierney on her side, mouth open, eyes closed.

  Justine crept down from the upper bunk. A creaking rail made her freeze for a moment but Tierney slept on. It took her several moments to pry open the desk drawer without making any noise. Heart pounding, she unzipped the bag, examined several orange vials of pills. Ranitidine. Diazepam. Acyclovir.

  Tierney’s bed creaked and Justine whipped around. But Tierney had merely shifted to her back. Justine rezipped the makeup bag and returned the drawer to its former half-closed state.

  Tierney’s eyes flew open. “Can’t you be quiet?” she hissed, looking like an expensive doll under the patchwork quilt. “And by the way, I knew it wasn’t true.”

  “What wasn’t?”

  “That you’re dating Clay. I didn’t believe Jackie for a second.”

  Justine leaned down. “Jackie was telling the truth,” she whispered back.

  “Then it’s only because he knows you’re an easy lay. Now go away, your breath stinks.” Tierney turned to face the wall.

  * * *

  —

  Justine ate her Lucky Charms while Stanley and David argued about which Brian Eno song was the best distillation of his work. Had David talked to Eve? She was anxious for a report. If Justine did, by some miracle, get money from her parents and make it into the city, would she see Eve at the party?

  Maybe Eve’s parents wouldn’t even let her go to Clay’s. Then Justine would just have to contrive a way to see her.

  The fields looked like yellow tundra under an ice-blue sky. Clay, Stanley, and Bruce all lived in Crawford, a large brick building where you got your own room. Psycho singles, kids called them.

  Billy Comerford slouched in the common room watching a basketball game.

  “Hey, Gypsy,” he said.

  “Which room is Clay’s?”

  “Gonna strip?”

  She gave him the finger.

  Billy let out a snort. She waited.

  “205.”

  She knocked. No response. She knocked again, louder.

  She was just about to leave when Clay answered the door, shirt unbuttoned.

  He glanced up and down the hall, then pulled her through the door. She kissed him. He hadn’t brushed his teeth. She didn’t care.

  “What are you doing here?” he whispered.

  “Have you spoken to Eve?” she asked.

  “Nope.”

  She kissed him again.

  “Let’s get breakfast,” he murmured.

  “Hmm?” she said, moving closer. “Can’t we . . .”

  They kissed more.

  She looked up at him. “What are we going to do about each other?”

  Clay pushed her hair off her face. “We have all the time in the world.”

  All the time in the world, she thought, looking around. Clothes and books were everywhere, the bed unmade, an untucked bottom sheet revealing a striped mattress. The walls were bare, except for a poster of the Nike of Samothrace.

  “I love that sculpture.”

  “Got it in Paris.”

  Amazing that the sculpture looked about to take flight, even without arms.

  “Who’d you go to Paris with?” she asked.

  “Barbara.”

  “Just the two of you?”

  “And this Italian guy. A painter friend of hers. They watercolored all over the place while I went to the cemetery where Jim Morrison’s buried.”

  Justine imagined Clay contemplating a tombstone in the dusty silence. The chill of that image reminded her of the frozen Clay of her dream. What she wouldn’t give to have been in Paris with him.

  TWENTY-ONE

  New Year’s approached and Eve’s prison sentence still hadn’t been lifted. She remained on house arrest except to visit “approved cultural institutions,” which still only included the Met, the Frick, and the Modern. To think, the Strauses lived in the cultural capital of the universe and, in their eyes, only three museums passed muster? Her parents were art collectors—what about all those galleries from which they purchased art? Eager to break out of jail, Eve concocted a plan. She would tell her parents she wanted a summer job in a gallery—SoHo was practically at the other end of the city.

  At first, they were surprised. Then, to Eve’s satisfaction, they became encouraging. Deirdre even offered to take her to SoHo herself the following day to meet and network with some of the dealers. Perhaps their shamed daughter’s life would go on after all. Improve, even. Finally they might stop acting like Eve was dying of an incurable illness.

  The plan was brilliant and might even provide an opportunity to see one of her friends. Eve was desperate for company, and as it was school break, she might contrive to bump into Clay or India. Her mother would have no choice but to let her talk to them, at least. She called India immediately after supper.

  India, ever loyal, agreed to “bump into” Eve in Margot Moore’s gallery the following day, and to bring Clay with her. I
t was a safe bet that Eve and her mother might linger in the gallery. Deirdre was dying for a Massimo Sforza painting and would seize the opportunity to chat up Margot, his dealer.

  Eve kissed the receiver as she hung up.

  * * *

  • • • • • • •

  Rain pounded on the windows of the Rubin house, threatening to freeze and turn to sleet. Miles stood up from the table and ambled over to stir the fire. Leftover pizza from Sally’s sat on the dining room table, with an open bottle of white wine and a terra-cotta pot of paperwhites. In Justine’s opinion, the scent of those flowers always fluctuated between sweet and putrid. She lounged on the tattered chaise, smoking cigarettes and reading mystery novels.

  “Can I go to the city for a New Year’s party?” she asked.

  “Whose fete?” Cressida asked from behind a copy of Madame Bovary.

  “Clay Bradley’s.”

  Cressida put down the book.

  “As in the Bradley Arts Center?”

  Justine did not flinch. She was a private-school kid now, going out with a wealthy, good-looking boy. Her mother’s excitement was a reminder that this was not normal, but fuck it, she would pretend it was.

  “Is his mother that artist Barbara Bradley?” Cressida persisted.

  Justine rolled her eyes.

  “Which Barbara, dear?” Miles asked his wife, leaning the poker on the massive stone fireplace.

  “Remember, the one who paints those violent Bible scenes?”

  “So, can I?” Only a week into Christmas break and Justine was already going bonkers. Three Agatha Christie novels in, and she was about to start a fourth.

  “Where were you thinking of staying?” Cressida asked.

  Justine extended her woolly socks toward the flames. I guess not with Eve, she thought. Eve was incarcerated.

  “What about chez Gretchen?” Cressida suggested.