“Hey, Cassie,” the valet says when I shut off the car.
Surprised by the breezy greeting, I look up. The man at my door isn’t Anton, but he leans into the backseat in a gesture I’ve seen Anton make hundreds of times. He’s Anton and not Anton, a second exposure grafted onto a photograph. This Anton is wearing a suit, but he’s younger and seems amused I can’t place him.
Then it hits me. “Oh my God, Joey. You’re working here?”
“Joseph.” He lowers his voice three octaves. “I started a few weeks ago.”
“Excuse me, Joseph. Or should I say Mr. Rivera? Jesus, you sound just like your dad. You look like him, too.”
I haven’t seen Joey in at least five years. He has his father’s poise and finesse, but he’s taller, skinnier. Holding my tote bag, he escorts me through the lobby, but stops when we reach the elevator. Only Anton rides with me all the way upstairs. In fact, I’m likely the only resident for whom he makes the extra effort.
“Congratulations on the job,” I tell him.
“Part-time overnight valet. Still have to run packages during the day. My dad is such a hard ass.” He looks pleased with himself. “But it’s a job.”
He doesn’t ask about my brothers. Just says “Have a nice evening” and steps back. We both raise a hand as the doors close. Suddenly, I see a camera flash, like a strobe light, in the corner of my eye. My vision blurs. An afterimage burns on my retina. It’s me but in memory, years younger, almost sixteen. I’m walking past Nate’s bedroom, where he, Billy, and Joey are sitting on the floor, stoned. Nate shuffles a deck of cards. The TV blares. On the screen a naked woman spreads her legs. None of the boys are paying attention. Seeing them together, I get panicky. Joey works for his dad a few days a week. Occasionally, he stops by our house to get high with my brothers. They watch porn; rather, porn plays in the background.
Back in June, when I first spoke to Haggerty, I didn’t bring up Billy’s extracurricular activities. I wanted to present him as pure of heart, mind, and body. So, I didn’t mention that many elite runners （former elite runners） are habitual stoners. Athletes who compete at Billy’s level truly are machines. The mental and physical pressure is punishing in ways we civilians can’t conceive. Marijuana modulates heartrate and stabilizes mood swings. Billy vapes, which his coaches ignored when he was breaking records, but once Diana Holly came along, and he started winning less （never say losing）， they told him to buck up or get out. Ultimately, the weed doesn’t matter. It’s legal, and no worse than alcohol. So why describe him as a pothead whose habit got him booted off the team? As Eleanor says, why borrow trouble?
Same with pornography. For our generation, porn is easily accessible and always available, a utilitarian activity to blow off steam. It’s different for Eleanor and Lawrence, who weren’t raised on the internet. It would disturb them that Nate was eight the first time he saw a TripleX video. Billy was likely younger. （I was ten, but it was inadvertent. I clicked the wrong movie on Nate’s phone.） For my parents’ generation, porn is dirty. The men who watch it, sketchy. Nor would it occur to them that women watch voluntarily. My brothers and their friends, however, make no such judgments.
“Cassie!” In my memory, Nate calls to me, but I keep moving.
“Heading out!” I shout. I have nowhere to go but can’t be around Joey.
At this point, Marcus and I have been together for almost a year. By together, I mean he slips away every other week, and we go someplace we won’t be recognized. Typically, it’s late afternoon, and we ride the subway separately, all the way downtown to the Financial District. Then we meet in the back of a diner. Never the same one, naturally. We sit across from each other, order Diet Cokes and fries, and grind out my homework assignments. This is when I feel most like a couple. Two people in love, solving problems, flirting, showing off. Together, we tackle eye imagery in King Lear, algebra of polynomials, militarism of Mesopotamian city-states, the impact force of falling objects. “You know,” he says, “it wasn’t so long ago that I did all this.” But Marcus is older. It was ages ago, a whole different century. “Back then,” I tease him, “the world wasn’t even in color. It was still black-and-white.” Neither of us care about his age. Lots of times, I’m more mature.
And yet, despite our closeness, my dissatisfaction deepens and spreads. Marcus will kiss me and touch my breasts. That’s it. Full stop. I’m a virgin, which he knows, but I like to pretend otherwise. I flirt with older men when my parents entertain, especially when Marcus is there and can see me doing it. Older men, I quickly learn, are as hungry for my attention as I am for theirs. “Boys must fall all over you. They must follow you around like puppies.” Once, a very drunk man told me that at his age, seventy-two, an erection was a sacred event. “I view each one with awe.” I pretended to laugh. The man was repulsive. But Marcus is different. He keeps me at arm’s length. When he watches me, I feel indestructible, invincible. Then he turns the tables, which used to delight me. Now it frustrates me. He insists we can’t sleep together until I’m of age, which is seventeen in New York, even if the sex is consensual.
“What if I get parental approval? What if we go before a judge?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Cassie.”
I counter with sixteen and two months.
“Seventeen,” he tells me.
Sixteen and a half.
“Seventeen.”
I let Marcus say what he wants; we both know it’s just a matter of time. Like me, he’s a tease. “You picked me, Cassandra,” he whispers. “You picked me, groomed me, and broke me down. If we do have sex, it’s only because I have no choice.”
The tension is unbearable.
“No,” I whisper back. “You won’t have a choice.”
I want to feel his body against mine. Nothing can deter a willful teenage girl who burns with want. Luckily, Marcus is a mass of contradictions. An honorable man, engaged father, and devoted husband, but he also likes to court danger. One night, after weeks of cajoling, I convince him to take me out for drinks. We end up at a tiny bar in the Bronx, a sketchy hole in the wall, where we’re anonymous. When we walk in, not one person glances our way.
“See, Marcus?” I say. “Told you.”
I’m wearing a full face of makeup, red red lipstick. High heels. Fishnet stockings. A tight leather skirt. I dress slutty for Marcus, the way he likes women. In this way, he’s like a man from the nineteen fifties, which I find bewildering and sad. He talks a lot about fucking, he flirts like a dog. He sneaks porn on the sly. He’s hired hookers in the past. What about his wife? Does she like sex too? She does not, he says. New subject.
Marcus orders a beer. The bartender looks at me. “Dirty martini,” I say boldly, as if this is my usual. My stomach flips over, afraid he’ll refuse or demand my ID. “Sure,” he says.
I’m not sixteen yet, I want to shout, giddy from the deception.
Marcus thinks it’s funny too. “Guess there are no rules anymore.”
When my drink comes, I swallow it in one go.