Indecent

by Corinne Sullivan

  “You could be arrested.”

  “I won’t be. He’s seventeen. That’s legal in New York.”

  He blinked at me, uncomprehending. Then he left the car and went into the house. I followed him, my bags in tow.

  My parents talked late into the night. I didn’t listen to them; I didn’t want to hear what they were saying. I played the Rabbit Foot album instead. Between each song, I went back to “For Luna” and played it again.

  Mr. Kipling dropped the charges. He didn’t want to make trouble; he didn’t want to taint his son’s future. A proud Vandenberg alum himself, he also didn’t want to discredit the school with a scandal. My record was wiped clean.

  “Isn’t that wonderful news?” my mom asked. She’d gone from stony anger to helpless enthusiasm; my catatonic state was beginning to frighten her.

  “Sure,” I said.

  A few days later, I read online that the Marshall Huffman Library would be expanded and renamed the Kipling Library. It would have a new branch for Chemistry, Earth, and Space Sciences, set to open in the fall of next year.

  My dad wouldn’t look me in the eye. My hair had become so greasy I could slick it up on top of my head, stand it up straight like a troll doll’s. After five days of this, my mom finally marched into my bedroom and threw open the curtains.

  “It’s over,” she said.

  I blinked stupidly at the light.

  “No more of this. It’s time to get up.”

  I looked at her, and she looked back at me. I never had to tell her that Frank Kipling’s son was Adam, the guy I’d told her about, the guy I’d loved, the guy who had broken my heart. She always just knew. I slid one foot to the ground, and then the other. I wore only a T-shirt and underwear, no shorts, but I wasn’t embarrassed. I had no pride left. “I’m up,” I said.

  She nodded. “That’s a start.”

  TWENTY

  That was yesterday. I had showered, I had dressed, and I had gone downstairs to have breakfast with my parents. My mom had even taken me to the mall so I could begin my Christmas shopping. I’d spotted my old friend Stephanie and her twenty-eight-year-old boyfriend in the food court eating Chinese food, and I didn’t say hello. “You’re being silly,” my mom told me. “Why can’t you just say hi?” I couldn’t explain that no “hello” could circumvent the time that had passed between the summer before college—when we’d last seen each other—and now. Stephanie didn’t know the Imogene I was now.

  I’m not sure I know who she is either.

  From my bedroom now I can hear my parents in the kitchen, their voices soft. I imagine I have another two hours until I’m forced to shower and dress and “participate,” as my mom says. The joy of having retired parents—it seems I’ll never be alone again.

  Since my first night back, we haven’t talked about the reason I’m here, the reason I’ve returned home. When necessary, it’s referred to as “the incident”—and Kip “the student”—but rarely is it necessary. They avoid the topic, and I do, too. My sexuality, my desires, my perversion—these are things we cannot touch under any circumstance if we are to continue our relationship as parents and child. It is all too cringe-inducing, too intimate. Largely, my parents have acted as though I never left Lockport, a narrative I’m starting to believe myself.

  Jangling keys, the opening and closing of the closet door in the hallway—it seems my parents are getting ready to go somewhere. I listen closely to see if I can discern where. Steps approach the bottom of the staircase. I brace myself, waiting for a voice to call up to me. It doesn’t come; the steps pass. The car starts up and drives away. Rather than the relief I expected to feel upon finally being left alone, I start to cry. My parents no longer care whether I wake today or not. I decide that the only thing worse than constant surveillance is to be forgotten. Maybe they’ve forgotten I’m home; maybe they think the past week has just been a horrible nightmare. I feel bad for myself a minute or two before I find my resolve. It’s over, I tell myself. No more of this. I push aside my covers and get out of bed.

  Some mornings are better than others—this is a good morning. French toast, I decide. I make four slices, drown them in syrup, and sit cross-legged with my plate in front of the TV. I eat with my hands. I laugh out loud at the TV, something I’ve never done before. Outside, it begins to snow. For a horrible moment, I imagine my parents getting into a car accident, sliding off the road and crunching their car into a tree. They’d both die instantly, painlessly. I’d get the house and everything in it. I could sit here for the rest of my life, licking syrup off my hands and laughing along with the canned laughter of the TV audience. I languish in that fantasy longer than I should.

  They return in the afternoon with Joni, who is home for winter break. The three of them are laughing as they come through the door, Joni telling the end of some story about school. I have no idea if she knows. I peek my head around the doorframe.

  “You’re awake,” my mom says, surprised.

  I wave. “Hi.”

  Joni drops her bag and stares at me. She knows. Oh Christ, she knows.

  “Why don’t you get dressed?” my mom says, not unkindly.

  “Why?”

  “You just should,” she says. My dad stands behind her, saying nothing.

  It is only when I return to my bedroom that I realize I am wearing a T-shirt and underwear, still no shorts. The pan and bowl and spatula I used to make the French toast are still sitting in the kitchen sink, my syrupy plate on the living room floor. I look in the mirror. My face is waxy, sunken, horrifying. I didn’t even think to apply makeup before leaving my room. I sink to the floor and sob. I think it would be best if I were never to leave my bedroom again.

  * * *

  In the past week, I have received two text messages—one from Chapin, one from Raj. Chapin sent me a picture of the boys exiting Morris Chapel after the Christmas mass, their arms raised in celebration for the beginning of Christmas break. I scanned the tiny pixelated picture for his—Kip’s—face, wondering if there was a greater reason for her having sent it, but I could not find him. A few days later, she sent me a smiley face. I replied to ask about her plans for winter break, but I haven’t heard back from her. Perhaps the expiration date of our friendship has come sooner than I’d expected. I wondered if she had forgotten about our ski trip.

  Raj simply asked if I was doing okay. I said that I was. He asked if I was sure. I said that I was. He reminded me that he was moving into my bedroom next semester. I said that I hoped he liked it.

  I checked my old Vandenberg email inbox—to make sure there were no follow-up messages from Ms. McNally-Barnes or Dean Harvey, I lied to myself—and discovered an email from Clarence Howell, sent the day after the disciplinary hearing. I’m sorry, it said. I shouldn’t have followed you, and I shouldn’t have told on you. But it didn’t even feel like I was turning you in, because the you I knew wouldn’t do what you did, and I realize now that I don’t really know who you are. I wish I had known, but then again, maybe I would have liked who I thought you were better. His words stung because they were true; he liked the Imogene he’d crafted in his mind more than he would have liked the real me. After the hearing, after my resentment had faded, it occurred to me that I had betrayed Clarence, too. I’d made him believe I was his friend, that he wasn’t the only one who was underprepared and out of place at Vandenberg, and then I had abandoned him the moment I felt I belonged. And if I was honest with myself, I knew I’d led him on romantically as well; I could pretend that I didn’t mean to, but I did. I loved to be loved, and I never once thought that someone could get hurt besides me.

  Neither Raj nor Chapin—and obviously not Clarence—mentioned anything about Kip. I knew better than to ask. I wanted to more than anything—I wanted a report of a sighting, a picture, a rumor, any sort of evidence that he was still alive and well and hadn’t vanished from existence—but still I didn’t ask. I checked his profile page instead. Every day, twice a day, I took an intimate look into a li
fe I was no longer a part of.

  The last day before winter break, he’d updated his status: Halfway done with senior year, baby!!! A few days later, Betsy Kenyon posted several pictures: Kip struggling to pick up a piece of sushi with chopsticks; Kip caught off guard, laughing with his head thrown back; the two of them in front of the Rockefeller tree, their faces pressed together. Soon after that, Park posted an article on Kip’s page. I clicked on the link. It was a list: “The Hottest Teachers Caught Sleeping with Students.” I stared at the screen a moment, perplexed, before I began to laugh, my teeth chattering uncontrollably. I was remembered. I was here, I was acknowledged, on Kip’s profile page. I kept checking back throughout the day to see if Kip had commented on the article, but by that night the article had disappeared. I guess Kip knew better than to keep any trace of me around.

  I did an online search later—“Imogene apprentice Vandenberg.” No results. I was gone.

  I know I will never hear from Kip again. I spend a lot of time thinking of things I’ll say to him if I could. Sometimes they’re jokes; after the renaming of the library was announced, I thought to say, Immortalized forever in the library. Could you think of a greater honor? When Rabbit Foot’s first single began to play on the radio, I thought, They’ve gone mainstream. How could they? But largely the things I want to say are angry, resentful, pitiful. Sometimes, I hate you and your stupid little prick. Sometimes, You have no idea what you’ve done to me. But I never send them. The person I want to send these messages to doesn’t exist, at least not as I imagine him. I delete his number from my phone, and all of our messages, too—a decision that I regret immediately and agonizingly but that I know, ultimately, will be for the best.

  The last time I ever look at his profile page, there’s a new status update: I love dick in my butt!!! I recognize, of course, that he’s been hacked—he’d accidentally stayed logged on to a friend’s computer, or left his laptop open and unattended, and someone had posted this as a joke. But strangely, it doesn’t matter to me who wrote it or why. For the first time, I feel embarrassed by my relationship with Kip, embarrassed that I’d imagined him better than this, capable of more than his years could even allow. It’s as though the curtain has been drawn back, the trench coat opened to reveal a child standing on his friend’s shoulders.

  I don’t fault him for this deception. Adam still has many more years of growing up to do. But me? My time is up. I am not a child anymore.

  * * *

  I listen to the three of them downstairs, my parents and Joni. The sink turns on, and I hear the scratchy sound of a scrub brush against a pan. My mom is doing my dishes. She is cleaning up my mess. Shame roils through me. I sink onto my bed and listen.

  They are talking about the garden my dad is planning outside, my mom’s recent joint pain, Alex the Canadian, whom I’m surprised to learn my sister is still seeing. Never before had I considered any of her relationships legitimate; she had just turned eighteen, hadn’t she? How could she possibly know what she wanted? To me, her relationships were postured, semblances of real intimacy, nothing more than indulgent experiments in claiming another person as her own. But perhaps it was no longer a performance, no longer just the fleeting thrill of holding hands and touching lips. Perhaps my sister had found love before me.

  I wait for the subject to turn to me. They have to talk about me eventually; how could they not talk about me? I am the pitiable, the shamed. They have to decide what they’re going to do about me. They have to wonder how they can help. But my name isn’t mentioned. It is as though I do not exist, as though I do not merit any sort of acknowledgment. Before, I had dreaded that, the being discussed. I imagined talk of medications, of mental facilities—therapy is not a question; I will surely be returning to therapy. But now that it doesn’t come, I feel even more pathetic. I am a problem too unpleasant to contend with. Or, worse, they don’t even realize how big of a fucking mess that I am.

  It occurs to me for the first time that it is not disinterest or a lack of understanding that keeps my family from knowing me. It is me who has never let them in. It is me who has barely stepped out of my own head.

  I cry. I have cried so much in the past couple of months that is a wonder I have anything left, but I do. I cry, and when I hear no acknowledgment of my crying downstairs, I cry even harder. Can they hear me? Can they even fucking hear me?

  “Can you hear me?” I scream it at my closed bedroom door. There is no response. I cross the room, vision blurred, and pull open the door so quickly it slams against the opposite wall.

  “Can you hear me?” I yell again. I stomp down the stairs into the kitchen. The three of them sit at the table, and they all turn to look at me.

  “Imogene, are you crying?” My mom stands. “What’s wrong?”

  Her face, an unfamiliar hardened mask for the past week, is concerned, kind, and I collapse into her arms. She sits again, and I curl up in her lap as I haven’t done since I was a kid. I’m probably hurting her; I’m probably too big for this. But her arms are wrapped around me, and it feels too good to let go. I feel a hand on my back—my dad’s. And then there is another in my hair—Joni.

  “I don’t want to be alone,” I sob.

  “Imogene.” My mom says this softly, sadly, into my ear.

  “I don’t want to be alone, I don’t want to be alone.” It is a realization so profound, so suddenly and intensely true, that I cannot help but say it again and again. “I don’t want to be alone.”

  “Imogene.” My mom’s breath is warm and wet on my ear. “You’re not alone. You’re not, you’re not.”

  She holds me until the pain subsides—not entirely, but at least a little bit.

  * * *

  I don’t know when it will stop hurting. I don’t know what I will do tomorrow, much less a month from now, or for the rest of my life. It feels good to know for certain, at least, that I don’t want to teach. I look at job boards online sometimes before bed. I haven’t found anything that excites me yet, but I am amazed by how much is out there. Two days ago, when my mom sent me to the store for milk—a transparent attempt to get me out of the house—and I was driving through town listening to “For Luna,” suddenly, unexpectedly, I couldn’t recall Kip’s face. I could see eyes, a nose, a chin, but I couldn’t quite fit it all together. My brain reeled, and I pulled over to the side of the road. I rested my forehead on the steering wheel and tried to concentrate. My head hurt from the effort. It was no use—I could not see his face.

  I would be able to go home later and pull up an image of him, but in that moment I could not remember what Adam Kipling looked like. In the same way that I can’t really remember what my old friends Stephanie’s and Jaylen’s voices sound like anymore, or the scent of the perfume my roommate Darby used to wear, or what it felt like to have Zeke Maloney inside of me, Adam Kipling has started to become a part of my accumulated unconsciousness.

  I’d pounded the steering wheel with frustration, wondering how I could possibly forget his face, how it was possible that someone who once felt so important could already be gone. But now I wonder if it had ever really been about Adam Kipling. Perhaps it was never really about Adam Kipling at all.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CORINNE SULLIVAN studied English with a creative writing concentration at Boston College, where she graduated in 2014. She then received her MFA in fiction from Sarah Lawrence College in 2016. Her stories have appeared in Night Train, Knee-Jerk, and Pithead Chapel, among other publications. Indecent is her debut novel.

  Visit Corinne Sullivan at www.facebook.com/CorinneSullivanBooks and on Twitter at @Corinnzo. You can sign up for email updates here.

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  About the Author

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  INDECENT. Copyright © 2018 by Corinne Sullivan. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.wednesdaybooks.com

  www.stmartins.com

  Cover design and illustration by Olga Grlic

  The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 978-1-250-14707-3 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-250-14709-7 (ebook)

  eISBN 9781250147097

  Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.

  First Edition: March 2018