Family Pictures (13 page)

“What?”

“Remember Jackson? You thought he was cute when he was here a couple of weeks ago? On iChat? He’s coming over later and he can’t wait to meet you! He thought you were adorable!”

“Oh my God! He was so hot!” Claudia squeals as Eve laughs. “And what about Eve? Any other cute boys?”

“Just you wait,” laughs Olivia. “We are going to have a seriously good time. Get here as quickly as you can!” She rings off, leaving Eve and Claudia looking at each other blankly.

“Cabs?” Claudia asks.

Eve looks around, finally grabbing Claudia’s arm and leading her purposefully toward the
TAXI
sign.

19

Eve

Eve, so outgoing and confident in so many situations, finds herself overawed by the opulence of this world. She has never thought of herself as insecure, has never had the experience of feeling intimidated, but the world from which she comes is small, and familiar, and comfortable.

This—this quiet elegance, uniformed doorman holding doors open for tiny women in fur coats, their faces taut and shiny, their lips large and glossy, the only sign of their advanced age being their stoop and slow, unsteady walk—is as alien to her as another planet.

This mahogany foyer with its glistening crystal chandeliers, vases of heady lilac, crinkly tulips, springy curly willow on every polished tabletop—this is nothing Eve has ever experienced.

The doorman rings Olivia for approval as the girls stand, wide-eyed, before him.

“John!” barks a muffled voice behind them. “John! Get the door!” Another plastic old lady, her sour expression mostly hidden by huge black sunglasses despite the sun having set hours before, bangs on the glass with her clutch as three miniature dachshunds scratch at the door.

The doorman drops the phone, running to the door, taking the woman’s shopping bags and holding the door as she sails past without a thank-you.

“Take the dogs upstairs,” she barks, holding out the leash as she unbuttons her coat.

Claudia bends down and holds a hand out for the dogs to sniff. “Aw. They’re so cute!” she coos, looking up at the woman. “How old are they?”

The woman says nothing, just continues unbuttoning her coat as Claudia catches Eve’s eye. Did she not hear?

“Um? I asked how old your dogs are?” Claudia tries again as the woman stops, looks directly at Claudia, appraisingly, almost opens her mouth as if she is about to say something, then pulls the leash saying, “Come!” before disappearing slowly round the corner.

“Did that just happen?” Claudia, beet red, turns to Eve. “Did I say something wrong?”

The doorman makes a face, then leans over, dropping his voice to a whisper. “She’s one of the meanest people in the building. Don’t take it personally. She’s horrible to everyone. I’m sorry. Let me get back to phoning Miss Forsyth now.”

Seconds later, they are being shown to the elevator, the doorman drawing two packets of M&M’s out of his pocket and pressing them into their hands with a wink as the elevator doors slide silently closed.

Claudia looks at Eve, her mouth dropping open. “Is this for real?”

“No.” Eve shakes her head firmly. “It’s not. We were joking about it being like
Gossip Girl,
but it is! Except it’s kind of awful. I have no idea how we got here, but I’m pretty sure I want to get out. Claudia? Did you not realize that Olivia must be shockingly rich?”

Claudia looks puzzled before explaining that you couldn’t tell anything about anyone at camp. They all wore uniforms, no jewelry was allowed, and they spent their time going out in canoes and putting on plays.

“But surely you could tell?” Eve asked.

“Eve, we were so young. And it wasn’t a rich-kid camp, that was the whole thing. There are other camps that are like country clubs, but you’ve seen the pictures. This was as basic as it gets. We didn’t even have electricity!”

“I guess I just didn’t expect you to be this surprised.”

“I guess I didn’t expect her to be so rich.”

“Maybe the apartment’s normal?” Eve says doubtfully. “Maybe all the money went into the lobby.”

“Right.” Claudia nods sarcastically as Eve shoves her, just as the elevator whispers to a halt, the doors sliding open, not into a corridor or hallway, but directly into a private foyer.

“Very normal,” Eve whispers, taking in the faded Persian rug over rich parquet floors; books and orchids anchoring a round walnut table in the center of the room; brass picture lights illuminating vast abstracts, including, recognizably, some of the greats.

Determining to take it in stride, Eve nonetheless can’t help but move closer to a beautiful study of a group of women. Stepping closer, she is not surprised to see Picasso’s signature in the far right corner, her respectful appreciation broken suddenly by a shout of excitement as a whir of white comes barreling into the foyer.

“Clauds!” Olivia, blond hair flying, wrapped in white cashmere, flings her arms around Claudia, both of them spinning round and jumping up and down.

Other girls follow, two of them doing the same thing; the others, Eve included, standing back awkwardly as the four girls squeal excitedly, stopping only to talk at the same time, everyone stopping and laughing, Olivia finally blinking and wiping a tear from her eye.

“You made me cry!” she laughs. “I’m so happy, I’m crying! Girls?” She turns to the two girls standing apart. “This is Clauds! I can’t believe we’re all together again! Oh my God! I’m so rude! Eve! You’re even prettier in real life! And you’re so skinny! I’m so jealous!” And with no awkwardness whatsoever, Olivia gives Eve a big hug, setting all her anxieties to rest.

By the time the introductions have been made all round, Eve thinks she’s going to be absolutely fine.

*   *   *

“Where is your mom?” Eve pauses in the doorway of the den as the others squeeze past her, collapsing back on the huge sectional,
The Notebook
playing on the giant flat-screen TV above the fireplace, bowls of popcorn and candy wrappers littering the antique Indian coffee table. “We should go say hi to her, shouldn’t we?”

“We might see her later,” Olivia says. “I think she’s out. She had some meeting earlier, but I don’t know if she got home yet. Don’t worry about it. She’s cool.”

“Eve, right?” A tall blond girl appears in the doorway, Grace, the girl from iChat the other night. She is even more gorgeous in the flesh—freckles dusted over her nose in a perfect sprinkle, the perfect touch of sexy huskiness to her voice, bronzed athletic legs that go on forever, but there is an openness and friendliness to her that is instantly appealing. “I’m so happy you came!” She throws her arms around Eve in a hug.

Eve blushes and grins, knowing she and Grace will be friends.

“I am so happy you made it,” Grace says again, stepping back.

“As long as my dad doesn’t find out, we’re good. My mom’s cool with pretty much everything.”

Grace groans. “Mine is the opposite. She had to phone Olivia’s mom last week and set out her expectations. I was so embarrassed.”

Olivia barks with laughter. “My mom was convincing, right? Did she do her Betty Crocker impersonation on the phone?” She sighs as Grace nods. “The one thing my mom’s really good at is pretending. For years, I thought she was actually interested in us, but no! She was just pretending!” The others laugh, but Eve sees a glimmer of pain in Olivia’s eyes, and keeps quiet.

*   *   *

Hours later, the girls are drinking, getting stoned, texting, with a stream of horror movies playing on the giant TV screen. Grace and Eve are the only two who have quietly abstained, at one point taking themselves into the kitchen to make brownies for the other girls, just to get away from the smoke-filled room.

When they come back, bringing a tray of fresh brownies, the rest of the girls jump up with a loud cheer and fling their arms around them, digging their fingers into the still hot cake.

“How do you guys even know how to do this?” Olivia giggles. “I will love you forever for this. I can’t believe we even had brownie mix here. My mom’s on a constant diet—we’re never allowed any of that shit here.”

“You didn’t,” Eve laughs. “I made it from scratch.”

“Oh. My. God!” The girls all shriek. “How?”

Eve and Grace look at each other with a disdainful shake of their heads. “New York City girls,” they say. “They’re all the same,” and then they laugh.

“So what have we missed?” Grace sits on the sofa, relieved that the smoke has cleared somewhat.

“We were just discussing Allegra’s blow job technique.” One of the other girls smiles. “We were going to get a lesson from her.”

“No way!” shrieks Allegra, mock-embarrassed.

“Oh, come on!” says Olivia. “You can’t give six in a night, win the title, and not pass on your techniques. That’s just not fair.”

“You gave
six blow jobs
?” Grace is the only one able to verbalize her shock. “To different guys? In one night?”

“It was a dare,” Allegra smirks. “I had to. Come on. I blew it out of the water.”

*   *   *

Eve had heard of other girls doing this, but up until now had thought it was one of those apocryphal myths.

“O-kay.” Grace covers up a fleeting look of disgust with a shake of her head. “I guess I just don’t get it.” She turns to Claudia and Eve with a shrug. “I’ve been with my boyfriend for almost two years. I just don’t get why anyone would give multiple blow jobs. I’m not saying it’s bad,” she says quickly, “it’s just, what’s in it for
you
? I mean, yes, I get that you’re getting a power kick, but you’re not getting pleasure out of it, right? And aren’t you worried about getting a reputation?”

Allegra flicks her long black hair over to the other shoulder with an insouciant shrug. “It’s just a blow job. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s not like we’re doing anything intimate.”

“It’s. Oral. Sex.” Grace persists, speaking slowly. “It is intimate. It
should
mean something.”

“Grace, it is different for you,” Olivia quickly intervenes, “because you’re in a long-term relationship. The rest of us are just having fun, and this was a dare. She’s not a slut or anything.”

“Right,” says one of the others. “The boys were judging who gave the best blow job. It wasn’t just Allegra.”

“Did
you
do it?” Claudia turns to her as she looks embarrassed and shakes her head.

“None of us did,” Olivia says quickly. “It was between Allegra and these two other girls.”

“How does that even work?” Claudia asks, enthralled not so much by the blow jobs, but by how sophisticated these girls seem, how mature, how cool by comparison.

“It was, like, one minute each, right?”

Allegra nods, either not knowing or not caring that her behavior is in any way shocking. “It doesn’t even really count. We just went down the line, and at the end, they gave their scores. And I won,” she says lightly.

“Blow Job Queen?” There is a hint of sarcasm in Grace’s voice. She and Eve make eye contact for a split second, registering the incredulous expressions on each other’s face.

“She was good, I’m telling you. We watched! So now she’s giving us lessons,” Olivia laughs. “I’m so scared my technique is bad, and that’s the one thing guaranteed to turn you into a social outcast. It really doesn’t mean anything, though. I know it sounds weird to you, but it’s not weird if you live here.”

“Plus our school is really open-minded.” Allegra nods. “We’re all experimenting.”

“Not everyone,” Olivia says with a mean smile, “just you and Mila.”

“Oh my
God
!” shouts Allegra. “You are so not supposed to know about that!” But she’s laughing as one of the girls, clearly Mila, purrs and rubs her butt.

“Oh man. Get off! I can’t believe you told them!” Allegra pushes Mila’s hand away and sits back down, but she’s smiling.

“Why not? They’re my best friends. Of course I’m going to tell them. Don’t worry. I told them it was good.”

“She did,” Olivia confirms. “She said it was weird, but really good.” Pride combined with relief. Eve, from across the room watches Allegra relax, repelled and compelled by the dynamic in this room. It is captivating. Or would be, if only she were behind a wall, and not stuck, right here, in the middle of it all.

There is no doubt in Eve’s mind that, as an anthropological study, tonight is priceless. She just wishes it were only tonight, not the entire weekend, with no adult to impose a limit, no one to tell them what they can and can’t do, these girls who will do anything in order to feel something.

At once older and younger than the girls in this room, Eve does not dole out blow jobs like hugs, has not, in fact, done anything other than make out with boys, and had a couple feel her up, which didn’t do anything for her other than make her worry that perhaps she was a lesbian.

She feels bizarrely unsophisticated in this room of sexually knowledgeable New York teenagers, who talk about sex as if it is nothing, who have everything but seem nothing other than bored.

She is shocked, fascinated, concerned. How can these girls treat themselves like this? How can they degrade themselves by performing oral sex in front of an audience?

Or is she the freak? Is there something wrong with
her
? She has always been praised for her maturity, her wisdom, but perhaps there’s something wrong with her? She doesn’t have any inclination to do the things the others are doing, preferring, quite honestly, to go to someone’s house, or better, have a couple of close friends over, and talk. She is happy to be with her parents, occasionally finding them embarrassing or irritating or unreasonable, but mostly, until recently, she seemed to be going through adolescence with few pitfalls.

Until she stopped eating, started bingeing, purging. She is able, at times, to pretend to be Eve, but most of the time she feels like a shadow of herself. It feels like she is swimming underwater. She can see the people she loves, but she can’t quite reach them. She can’t quite remember what it is to be happy, and she isn’t sure how she got here, or how she can get back.

Every morning she wakes up and tells herself today is going to be a new normal. She isn’t going to throw up today. She is going to eat like a normal person. She isn’t going to walk around consumed with shame and hatred, but it lasts, has only ever lasted, an hour or so.