Indecent

by Corinne Sullivan

“A guy. I met a guy that I like.”

  “Oh. Oh!” We’d never talked about boys before, my mom and I. I’d never talked about the boys in my class or commented on a male celebrity’s cuteness, had never even explicitly expressed a sexual preference before. Save for the one date I’d gone on the summer before with Robert from Lockport Federal Credit Union, she may have assumed that liking a guy had never even occurred to me. “When did this happen?”

  “A few months ago. Back in September.”

  “Well!” My mom scrambled, deciding what to ask, what could be asked. “Well!”

  I helped out. “His name is Adam.”

  “Okay.” She nodded several times. “Is he…? Where did you…?”

  “If it’s okay,” I said, interrupting, “I don’t really want to go into details, not yet. Would it be okay if maybe I just told you about him?”

  This stumped her. “Of course.”

  And so I did. I described him, from his dark hair to his skinny limbs, and talked about his sailing and his family and his bedroom and everything I could think of, everything I’d collected over the past few months. My mom didn’t ask questions; she just listened. She seemed to know that I had never spoken any of this out loud and that what I was saying needed to be said. How incredible it felt to talk, to purge. No one was there to contest a thing I said. Kip was mine to make into whatever I wanted him to be, whatever I needed him to be. It felt good, to be able to tell my mom something so normal.

  When I was finished, my mom smiled. “I hope we get to meet Adam some day.” Then she squinted, inspecting my face once more. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I promise,” I said, so embarrassed and relieved at once for finally getting to talk about Adam Kipling out loud that I nearly believed the lie myself.

  “Will you leave your skin alone?” she asked.

  “I’ll try,” I said, finding that lie even less convincing than the last.

  * * *

  Thanksgiving at Aunt Carol’s house made me uncomfortable, as most events involving extended family did. I didn’t know how to interact with Carol’s daughter, Anastasia, who was three years older and had muscular dystrophy. Carol’s husband, Fred, never made eye contact. My mom’s and Carol’s older brother, Steven, always showed up late and visibly drunk. Noni, my last living grandparent, stared at the football game on TV and refused to eat anything. There was always too much food. Knowing it would go to waste depressed me.

  The five of us arrived just as Carol was pulling the turkey from the oven. “Hello, hello!” she trilled, scooping all of us into hugs, even Alex. “Welcome, welcome.”

  Two cats sat on the counter, and a third batted at a dishtowel from the floor. Half-dead plants cluttered the windowsills and table. A stack of old newspapers sat in the corner. I glanced at Alex; his face was unreadable. I felt profound relief that Kip wasn’t there.

  “Anastasia will be so excited to see you girls,” said Carol. “Anastasia!”

  We listened for the squeaking wheels of Anastasia’s wheelchair, but none came. Carol shrugged and turned back to the turkey, humming. Her black zip-up was speckled with cat hair.

  “Make yourselves comfortable,” she said.

  We filed into the living room, where Fred, Noni, and Anastasia sat transfixed by a commercial for baked beans. We went around and gave out hugs, stiff embraces of people who only touched once a year. Then we filled in the empty seats and turned to the TV, grateful for its glow, its distraction. After another commercial, Fred spoke.

  “So you’re Joni’s new beau, huh?” He nodded to Alex, though his eyes were focused somewhere over Alex’s left shoulder.

  Joni nudged Alex, who was unaware he’d been addressed.

  “Huh? Oh yeah, I guess.”

  “He guesses?” Fred looked around at no one in particular and laughed, looking for someone to join in on the joke.

  “He is,” Joni said, patting Alex’s knee. “He’s too distracted by the turkey to know what he is.”

  Alex stared at the TV, impassive. I was beginning to suspect he was slow, or at least incredibly boring.

  “Well, welcome to the family, champ.” Fred grinned and sipped his beer. He turned his body in my direction. “What about you, Genie?”

  “What about me?”

  “Where’s your boyfriend?”

  Joni snorted.

  “Oh,” I said. “Oh, no, I don’t—”

  “Actually,” my mom chimed in from the loveseat in the corner, where she and my dad sat side by side in matching maroon sweaters. I turned to her in horror. “Actually, Imogene has a boyfriend, too.”

  My dad looked confused. “She does?”

  Joni narrowed her eyes at me. “You do?”

  Anastasia grunted in the corner.

  I felt caught in the act, like the time I’d been ironing a pair of dress pants in the basement laundry room and my dad walked in on me in my underwear. Attention was one of many things that seemed more favorable in theory. I’d rather be unnoticed forever than a victim of overexposure.

  “Who is he?” Fred pressed. “What’s his name?”

  “Since when do you have a boyfriend?” my dad wanted to know.

  “I—” I felt naked, panicked.

  “Leave her alone.” Noni didn’t turn from the TV as she said this, and her voice was surprisingly forceful.

  Fred argued. “Oh, c’mon, we’re just—”

  “Leave her alone.”

  “Fine.” Fred finished his beer, crushed it in his hand. “How about you tell us about that fancy school of yours, then?”

  “Who’s hungry?” called Carol from the kitchen.

  I stood too fast and felt light-headed, the TV suddenly too loud and the lights too bright and all of it, everyone and everything there, was suddenly unbearable.

  Dinner was better. We passed dishes, murmured compliments about the food. Anastasia was fed through her feeding tube, and Alex openly stared. Noni remained in front of the TV, the cheers and whistles of the game echoing down the hall. Eating trumped conversation. Just when we began to slow, our stomachs taut and angry for our abuse, Steven arrived, a welcome diversion in a stained T-shirt. The meal was passable, and for that we were all relieved.

  I imagined Kip’s Thanksgiving dinner. I imagined an enormous family, forty or fifty of them, all different ages, all beautiful. They’d all wear dresses and suit jackets and ties and take a family portrait on the grand staircase. The dinner would be catered. Everyone would drink wine.

  At one point I excused myself to the bathroom. First I checked my phone; he hadn’t texted me, and I was unsurprised and devastated anew. I thought to text him again—maybe he hadn’t received it the first time? Maybe he’d forgotten to respond and needed a nudge?—but even I knew when the boundary between persistent and pathetic was crossed.

  Then I checked my reflection in the mirror; my nose was a crusted mess, much worse than I imagined, and I wished I hadn’t looked. I thought, not for the first time but certainly the most seriously, that I needed to stop picking. It was clear to me and to everyone else around me that I was destroying my skin, but what no one could understand was the release I felt from my prodding and poking; it was too cathartic to feel destructive.

  * * *

  The weekend passed uneventfully. Joni and Alex walked along the Erie Canal, went out with Joni’s friends, lazed in front of the TV lying on top of each other like beached sea lions in a way I thought inappropriate, almost crude, to do in front of our parents. I resented them. It occurred to me that, even with Kip in my life, I couldn’t be happy for her, couldn’t be happy for anyone who was part of a pair. I wanted to be the only one. I wanted the joy of coupledom to be mine alone, the envy of all. As a result, I spent much of my time in my room. My resentment scared me in a way I wasn’t prepared to question.

  I thought about calling Jaylen and Stephanie, but knew I never would; I just liked the idea of seeing my old friends, of having old friends. I no longer knew Jaylen and Stephanie. I did
n’t even know the person I’d been when I was their friend—Had I been silly? Serious? Sarcastic? There was no “Classic Imogene,” no “That’s-so-Imogene”—I was amorphous, slipping in and out of personalities, changing characters mid-scene. I didn’t know what I’d been like as a child any more than I knew who I was then, and I could only imagine who I’d choose to become. The people around me were my gauge; I matched them, mirrored them. I was a smooth, pliable presence that everybody and nobody could love.

  Chapin sent me a picture of her socks the day after Thanksgiving, toe socks with little Santa Clauses on each toe. Miss you, she said. It felt good to know that, even if perhaps I wasn’t quite forgiven, I could still be missed.

  My mom came into my room Saturday afternoon as I lay in bed reading, inculpable and safe in an alternate world. “How would you like to go for a walk?” she said. “It’s beautiful outside.”

  The sun peeked between my drawn curtains, insistent and cruel. As usual, I wished it were raining. “No, thanks.”

  She sat on my bed. “You’ve barely left your room since you’ve been home.”

  I knew this was more accusation than observation. “I’m tired. This is my break.” I kept my book open before me, making clear this invasion wasn’t welcome.

  She squinted at me. “This Adam,” she said slowly, “does he treat you well?”

  “What?”

  “Adam. Is he nice to you?”

  Kip’s niceness had never occurred to me; it was as though she’d asked if Kip had allergies, or if he flossed regularly. “Yeah,” I said. And then, almost angrily, “Yeah, of course he is.”

  “Okay.” My mom raised her hands in a whoa-there gesture. “I just…” She trailed off, stood, headed towards the door. I felt immediately sad, panicked, wanted desperately for her to stay, but I didn’t say a word. At the door, she paused and turned back to me. “You know,” she said, “it’s not healthy, lying in bed all day.”

  I could have agreed, could have gone on that walk like she wanted. Instead, I said, “This is what I want to do.”

  She nodded. “Okay.” Then she closed my door behind her.

  * * *

  Joni volunteered to give me a ride to Vandenberg with her and Alex, and I surprised myself by accepting. My bags were heavy, and train travel was a pain. Perhaps, too, I felt guilty for how little time I’d spent with her over the holiday, how cruel I’d been to not join my mom on a walk, and I thought a few hours spent in the car with my sister might make up for it.

  We hugged our parents goodbye in the driveway, and my mom made me promise to take good care of myself, though it was hard to say what was best anymore. Alex perfunctorily offered me the passenger seat, but I declined. It was nice to stretch out in the back, where there was less pressure to contribute. The three of us talked a bit about the hairball Joni had discovered in Aunt Carol’s pasta salad, a bit about the new bird-watching binoculars Mom had gotten Dad for his birthday with extra-low-dispersion glass that neither of them could figure out how to use. I wished again that I had told them the story of the bird-watching field trip.

  Alex and I both dozed, and when I woke to the sound of Rabbit Foot’s “For Luna,” I thought I was still dreaming. I watched Joni in the rearview mirror, mouthing the words and nodding her head in time to the music.

  “You like Rabbit Foot?” I asked.

  She nodded, still keeping the beat. “Yeah, they’re pretty cool.”

  “A guy I’ve been hanging out with introduced them to me.”

  “Your boyfriend?”

  It was strange, having a conversation with the other person’s back turned, especially a conversation you never expected to have. Joni and I never talked about boys, not even about B.K., the rock-climbing instructor, though Joni’s relationship with him had materialized right in front of me. It wasn’t like she would have ever sought my advice on guys; she and I both knew I had none to give. “Yeah. Him.”

  She paused, waiting for me to continue. I felt cagey; Joni’s attention always felt pointed, malicious. When I’d emerged from the shower that morning to find her waiting outside the bathroom door, my hand flew to cover my nose so quickly I nearly dropped my towel. I waited for comment, but she merely asked, “Can I borrow your nail clippers? I can’t find mine.” If asked, I couldn’t have provided an instance where she’d been overtly cruel, but I anticipated nastiness nevertheless, imagined secret ill will. It was impossible to cite what only existed in my head.

  “It’s only been a few months,” I continued, trying to sound bored, unrehearsed. “He’s from Hingham. We’ve just been having fun, nothing serious.” I didn’t feel the same pleasure I had telling my mom about Kip; doubt had begun to fester in my mind, and it wasn’t just a product of the unanswered Thanksgiving text. The distance from Vandenberg, the reminder of how small and ordinary the life I’d come from was—all of it made my relationship with Kip feel like a cruel deception. It no longer seemed that Kip was mine to talk about; it no longer seemed that he had ever been mine at all.

  “You didn’t tell me about him.” Her voice was strange, almost sounding hurt.

  “It’s nothing serious,” I repeated. I didn’t know I was supposed to tell you, I wanted to say.

  Almost at the same time, we both glanced at Alex, who was still asleep. Joni met my eyes briefly in the rearview. “Will you tell me if it gets serious?” she asked.

  I didn’t know what to say; Joni was assuming a familiarity we’d never had, assuming the expectations of a relationship much closer than ours. It was disorienting and touching at the same time. I wondered, once more, if she imagined our sisterhood to be more than it was, or if my mind had made it less. “If you want me to.”

  Alex woke up then. “I gotta pee,” he said, oblivious. “Can we stop soon?”

  “Yes,” Joni said, and she looked at me again in the mirror, to let me know that she was answering us both.

  SEVENTEEN

  I’d checked his profile—as well as Betsy Kenyon’s—every day over Thanksgiving break. On Friday, Betsy posted an article entitled “Why Greenland Is an Island and Australia Is a Continent” on his page with the caption, Told you! On Sunday, he commented on her latest profile picture, which showed her at a baseball game: Yankees suck!!! There was no doubt they were talking, but the nature of their relationship had yet to be pinned down and was therefore mine to construe. Friends, I decided. Good friends. I felt relieved upon deciding this, even while I knew it was probably not true, even while I continued searching for evidence to refute my own theory. I wanted to be right, but wanted—perhaps even more—to be devastated. I wanted my relationship with Kip to end with dramatics, with glorious indignation, rather than have it crumple into something unrecognizable, something grotesque, and slowly deteriorate, leaving nothing in its wake. Because I’d finally conceded that there was no question anymore about it ending; it was now only a matter of when.

  Despite all this, I somehow knew I would hear from him again. No one can ever deny that I knew Kip, really knew him, better than he even knew himself probably.

  He waited until Friday.

  Early acceptances started appearing in mailboxes on the Monday after the boys arrived back on campus. Harvard was the first to make an appearance; I saw Duggar Robinson in the dining hall, brandishing his letter of acceptance above his head, hollering, “Harvard, motherfuckers, Harvard!” New sweatshirts and T-shirts boasting college names popped up around the quad, worn between classes or under button-ups to obey dress code. I heard about all the great upsets, like Cole Hokinson, a scholarship student in the top five percent of his class, being deferred by Dartmouth, while widely-known campus coke dealer Cody Hollander, whose grandfather had recently donated a dozen of his prized Monet prints to the Dartmouth art collection, was accepted. Around noon each day, the boys flooded the mailroom and filled the space with cursing or cheers. There I lingered each day before lunch, waiting for him to come, until the Yale letters arrived on Friday.

  I never saw him pick up
his letter. But when he texted me Friday night—Come over!—I felt certain I knew what his letter had said.

  * * *

  I hadn’t seen him in almost two weeks, since Homecoming Weekend. He opened the door after I’d barely knocked; I’d just touched my knuckles to the door, really. He’d gotten a haircut over break, his dark floppy hair sliced above his ears in an awkward, freshly shorn way. It looked terrible, and I pretended not to notice.

  “Hi, sweetheart,” he said, grinning goofily.

  “Hi,” I said, less certain.

  He pinned me against the door, shutting it, and kissed me with sloppy aggression. “You’re so sexy,” he murmured between kisses. I knew then that he wasn’t sober. When he tried to pick me up—a move already made difficult by his scrawny arms—and stumbled, knocking my head against the door, I stopped him.

  “C’mon. Let’s go to the bed.”

  I took his hand, and he followed. On his bed lay a thick envelope stamped with the Yale crest, addressed to Adam Kipling.

  “Kip!” I dropped his hand, picked up the envelope. “Did you open it? Did you get in?”

  He took the envelope from my hand and tossed it to the floor. It fell with a heavy thud. He pushed me to the bed and continued to kiss me. I pulled back.

  “You got into Yale, Kip! Aren’t you excited?”

  He tugged my body onto the bed and straddled me on his knees. He looked down at me, his face drawn and slack, the face of someone sleeping, or dead. “Of course I got into Yale,” he said. “I was always going to get into Yale.”

  “Right,” I said. The Oratorical Champion, the Yale Legacy. For the first time, though it was only for a moment, I hated him.

  We continued kissing, but the mood had shifted. He seemed frustrated, peevish. He grunted as he tugged down my pants, stabbed two fingers inside me with unexpected urgency.

  “Ow,” I said, more to myself than him.

  He pulled off his own clothes, though my shirt was still on and my pants and underwear were crumpled around my knees, as though I was sitting on the toilet. Once naked, his issue became clear: his penis hung flaccid and unresponsive, dangling like bait.