Author: E. Lockhart
Category: Literature
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/e-lockhart/page,17,39170-genuine_fraud.html
Gil Sokoloff didn’t get up as Patti led Jule into the room. He was only in his fifties, but pain lines creased the sides of his mouth, and the flesh of his neck hung baggy. The shape of his face was Eastern European, and he had a thick mass of curly gray hair. He wore sweatpants and a gray T-shirt. His cheeks and nose were speckled with broken blood vessels. He leaned forward slowly, as if moving hurt him, and shook Jule’s hand, then introduced two tubby white dogs: Snowball and Snowman. He introduced Imogen’s three cats, too.
They went straight in to dinner in a formal dining room, Gil shuffling and Patti walking slowly next to him. The cook brought out bowls and platters, then left them alone. They ate tiny lamb chops and a mushroom risotto. Gil asked for his oxygen tank halfway through the meal.
During the cheese course, they talked about the dogs, which were new. “They’ve ruined our lives,” said Patti. “They poo constantly. Gil lets them do it on the deck. Can you believe that? I walk out there in the morning and there’s a stinky dog poo.”
“They whine to go out there before you’re up,” said Gil, unrepentant. He moved the oxygen mask to the side so he could talk. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Then we have to spray it with bleach cleaner. There are little bleach spots all over the wood,” said Patti. “It’s foul. Still, that’s what you do when you love an animal. You let them poo on your deck, I suppose.”
“Imogen was always bringing home stray cats,” said Gil. “It was another kitten every couple months, in high school.”
“Some of them didn’t make it,” said Patti. “She would find them on the street and they had kitty bronchitis or some other plague. They would die a tiny sad death, and Immie would burst her heart every time. Then she went to Vassar and we were left with these guys.” Patti stroked a cat that was wandering under the dinner table. “Nothing but trouble, and proud of it.”
Like any Greenbriar “old girl,” Patti had stories of her school days. “We had to wear stockings or knee socks with our uniforms, year-round,” she said. “And come summer, we were so uncomfortable. In high school—this was in the late seventies—some of us went without underwear, just to stay cool. Knee socks with no underwear!” She patted Jule’s shoulder. “You and Immie were lucky the uniforms changed. Did you do music at Greenbriar? You sounded so passionate about Gershwin the other day.”
“A little.”
“Do you remember the winter concert?”
“Sure.”
“I can just see you and Imogen, standing together. You were the tiniest girls in the ninth grade. You all sang carols, and the Caraway girl had the solo. Do you remember?”
“Of course.”
“They lit the ballroom up for the holidays, with the tree in that one corner. They had a menorah, too, of course, but they didn’t really mean it,” said Patti. “Oh, damn. I’m going to get teary, thinking about Immie in that blue velvet dress. I bought her a holiday dress for that concert, royal blue with darts down the front.”
“Immie rescued me on my first day at Greenbriar,” said Jule. “Someone knocked into me in the cafeteria line, and spaghetti sauce splashed all over my shirt. There I stood, looking at all those glossy girls in clean clothes. Everyone knew each other from the lower school already.” The story flowed easily. Patti and Gil were good listeners. “How could I sit down at anyone’s table when I had sauce, like blood, all over me?”
“Oh, sweet potato.”
“Immie came striding over. She took my tray out of my hands. She introduced me to all her friends and pretended she couldn’t see the mess all over my shirt, so they pretended they couldn’t see it, either. And that was that,” said Jule. “She was one of my favorite people, but we never kept up after I moved away.”
Later, in the living room, Gil settled into the couch with his oxygen tubes in his nose. Patti brought out a thick photo album made of gilded paper. “You’ll let me show you pictures, won’t you?”
They looked through old photographs. Jule found Imogen exceptionally pretty—short and a little impish. She had light hair and fat dimpled cheeks that later became high cheekbones. In many of the pictures she was displayed in front of some attractive destination. “We went to Paris,” Patti said, or “We visited a farm,” or “That’s the oldest carousel in America.” Immie wore twirly skirts and stripy leggings. Her hair was long in most pictures, and a little wild. In later pictures, she had braces on her teeth.
“She never had any adopted friends after you left Greenbriar,” said Patti. “I always felt we failed her that way.” Patti leaned forward. “Did you have that? A community of families like yours?”
Jule took a deep breath. “I didn’t have that.”
“Do you feel your parents failed you?” asked Patti.
“Yes,” said Jule. “My parents did fail me.”
“I think so often that I should have raised Immie differently. Done more. Talked more about the difficult things.” Patti rambled on, but Jule didn’t hear her.
Julietta’s parents had died when she was eight. Her mother passed away from a long and gruesome illness. Shortly afterward, her father bled himself out, naked in a bathtub.
Julietta had been raised by another person, that aunt, in a home that was not a home.
No. She would not think about it anymore. She was erasing it now.
She was writing a new story for herself, an origin story. In this version, the living room was trashed. In the dark of night. Yes, that was it. The story wasn’t finished yet, but she ran it through as well as she could. She saw her parents in the circle of light created by the streetlamp, dead in the grass with the blood pooling black beneath them.
“We need to get to the point,” said Gil, wheezing. “The girl doesn’t have all night.”
Patti nodded. “What I haven’t told you, and why we asked you here, is that Imogen dropped out of Vassar after first term.”
“We think she got in with party people,” said Gil. “She didn’t work up to her potential in her classes.”
“Well, she never did love school,” said Patti. “Not the way you obviously love Stanford, Jule. Anyway, she left Vassar without even telling us, and it was a month before she even got in touch. We were so worried.”
“You were so worried,” said Gil. He leaned forward. “I was just angry. Imogen is irresponsible. She loses her phone or forgets to turn it on. She’s not good with calling, texting, any of that.”
“It turns out she went to Martha’s Vineyard,” said Patti. “We used to go there all the time as a family, and she ran away there, apparently. She told us she rented a place, but she didn’t give us an address, or even a town.”
“Why don’t you go see her?” asked Jule.
“I can’t go anywhere,” said Gil.
“He has kidney dialysis every other day. It’s exhausting. And he has to have procedures,” said Patti.
“All my insides are coming out soon,” said Gil. “I’m going to be carrying them around in a bag.”
Patti bent and kissed him on the cheek. “So we had the idea that maybe you’d like to go over, Jule. To the Vineyard. We thought of hiring a detective—”
“You thought about it,” said Gil. “A ridiculous idea.”
“We did ask some college friends of hers, but they didn’t want to interfere,” said Patti.
“What do you want me to do?” Jule asked.
“Make sure she’s okay. Don’t tell her we sent you, but text us so we know how things are going,” said Patti. “Try to convince her to come home.”
“You’re not working this summer, are you?” asked Gil. “No internship, nothing like that?”
“No,” said Jule. “I don’t have a job.”
“Naturally we’ll pay your expenses to the Vineyard,” said Gil. “We can give you gift cards for a couple thousand dollars, and we’ll pay for a hotel.”
The Sokoloffs were so trusting. So kind. So stupid. The cats, the dogs who pooped on the deck, Gil’s oxygen tank, the albums full of pictures, t
he worry about Imogen, the interference, even; the clutter, the lamb chops, the chatty way they talked, everything was wonderful.
“I’d be glad to help you out,” Jule told them.
—
Jule took the subway back to her apartment. She opened her computer, did a search, and ordered a red Stanford University T-shirt.
When it arrived a couple of days later, she yanked the neck until it was loose and sprayed the bottom edge with bleach cleaner to make a stain.
She washed it repeatedly until it was soft and seemed old.
STILL THE SECOND WEEK OF JUNE, 2016
NEW YORK CITY
One day before dinner at Patti’s, Jule stood on a street in upper Manhattan, holding an address on a scrap of paper. It was ten a.m. She wore a flattering black cotton dress with a square neckline. Her heels were black, too, with a sling back and a sharply pointed toe. They were too small for her. She had a pair of running shoes in her bag. She had made up her face in a style she thought of as college girl. Her hair was in a bun.
The Greenbriar School occupied a number of renovated mansions along Fifth Avenue at Eighty-Second Street. The stone facade of the upper school, where Jule was to work, stood five stories high. A curving set of steps led to statues by the entrance. Big double doors. It looked like a place where you could get a highly unusual education.
“Event is in the ballroom,” said the guard as Jule went in. “Staircase on your right to the second floor.”
The entryway had marble floors. A sign to the left read MAIN OFFICE, and a corkboard next to it listed the graduating seniors’ college destinations: Yale, Penn, Harvard, Brown, Williams, Princeton, Swarthmore, Dartmouth, Stanford. They seemed like fictional locations to Jule. It was strange to see them written down like a poem, each name on its own line, and each word speaking an immensity.
At the top of the stairs, the hall opened into a ballroom. A commanding woman in a red jacket came forward with a hand outstretched. “Catering? Welcome to Greenbriar,” she said. “So glad you could help us today. I’m Mary Alice McIntosh, the fund-raising chair.”
“Good to meet you. I’m Lita Kruschala.”
“Greenbriar was a pioneer in education for women beginning in 1926,” McIntosh said. “We occupy three beaux arts mansions that were originally private homes. The buildings are landmarked, and our donors today are philanthropists and supporters of education for girls.”
“It’s an all-girls school?”
McIntosh handed Jule a ruffled black apron. “Studies show that in single-sex schools, girls take more nontraditional courses like advanced science. They worry less about how they look, they’re more competitive, and they have higher self-esteem.” She recited it like a speech she had given a thousand times. “Today we expect a hundred guests here for music and passed hors d’oeuvres. Then a sit-down lunch upstairs in the parlors on the third floor.” McIntosh walked Jule into the ballroom, where tall tables were being covered with white cloths. “The girls come here for assembly on Mondays and Fridays, and in the middle of the week we use it for yoga and visiting speakers.”
Oil paintings decorated the walls of the ballroom. There was a strong smell of furniture polish. Three chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and a grand piano stood in one corner. It was hard to believe people went to school here.
McIntosh pointed Jule to the catering supervisor, and Jule gave Lita’s name. She fastened the apron over her dress. The supervisor set her to folding napkins, but as soon as he turned his back, Jule went across the hall and peeked into a classroom.
It was lined with books. There was a Smartboard against one wall and a row of computers against another, but the center of the room felt old. There was a rich red rug on the floor. Heavy chairs circled a wide old table. On the chalkboard, the teacher had written:
Free write, 10 minutes:
“The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.”
—Charles Du Bos
Jule touched the edge of the table. She would sit at that seat, there, she decided. That would be her regular place, with her back to the light from the window and her eye on the door. She’d argue over the Du Bos quote with the other students. The teacher, a woman in black, would loom over them, not threatening but inspiring. She’d push them to excel. She’d believe that her girls were the future.
There was a cough. The catering supervisor stood in the room with Jule. He pointed at the door. Jule followed him back to the pile of napkins and began to fold.
A pianist arrived in the ballroom, bustling. He was scrawny, freckly-white, and redheaded. His wrists stuck too far out of his jacket. He unpacked sheet music, checked his phone for a minute or two, and then began to play. The music was punchy and somehow classy. It made the room feel bright, as if the party had already started. When she finished the napkins, Jule walked over. “What’s the song?”
“Gershwin,” the pianist said with disdain. “It’s an all-Gershwin luncheon. People with money love Gershwin.”
“You don’t?”
He shrugged while still playing. “It pays the rent.”
“I thought people who played grand pianos already had money.”
“We have debt, usually.”
“So who’s Gershwin?”
“Who was Gershwin?” The pianist stopped what he was playing and started something new. Jule watched his hands run over the keyboard and recognized the song. Summertime, and the livin’ is easy.
“I know that one,” she said. “He’s dead?”
“Long ago. He was from the twenties and thirties. He was a first-gen immigrant; his dad was a shoemaker. He came up through the Yiddish theater scene and started out writing poppy jazz songs for quick money, then did music for the movies. Then, later, classical and opera. So he ended up high-class, but he came from nothing.”
How amazing to be able to play an instrument, Jule thought. Whatever happened to you, whatever else went on in your life, you could look down at your hands and think, I play the piano. You’d always know that about yourself.
It was like being able to fight, she realized. And being able to change accents. They were powers that lived in your body. They would never leave you, no matter how you looked, no matter who loved or didn’t love you.
An hour later, the catering supervisor tapped Jule on the shoulder. “You have cocktail sauce on you, Lita,” he said. “Sour cream, too. Go fix yourself up and I’ll give you another apron.”
Jule looked down. She took off the apron and handed it over.
There was someone using the bathroom nearest the ballroom, so Jule climbed the stone staircase to the third floor. She glimpsed a pair of elegant parlors. The tables were decorated with bursts of pink flowers. Guests shook hands and suffered introductions.
The women’s room had a lounge. It was papered in green and gold and had a small, ornate couch inside. Jule walked through and opened the door to the toilet. There, she took Lita’s shoes off. Her feet were swollen at the toes and bleeding at the heels. She blotted them with a wet paper towel. Then she wiped at the dress until it was clean.
She stepped back into the lounge barefoot to find a woman in her fifties sitting on the couch. The woman was pretty in an upper-Manhattan way: tan skin with careful rouge and dyed brown hair. She wore a green silk dress that made her seem as if she belonged on that green velvet couch with that green-and-gold wallpaper. She had bare legs and was applying bandages to her blistered toes. A pair of strappy heels lay on the floor.
“The heat makes my feet swell,” the woman said, “and then there’s no end to the suffering. Am I right?”
Jule answered in an accent that matched the woman’s: general American. “Can you spare a Band-Aid?”
“I have a whole box,” the woman replied. She dug into a large handbag and produced it. “I came prepared.” Her finger- and toenails were polished a shade of pale pink.
“Thank you.” Jule sat down beside her and doctored her own feet.
>
“You don’t remember me, do you?” said the woman.
“I—”
“Don’t worry. I remember you. You and my daughter Immie always looked like two peas in a pod, in your uniforms. Both so petite, and with those cute freckles across the nose.”
Jule blinked.
The woman smiled. “I’m Imogen Sokoloff’s mother, sweet potato. Call me Patti. You came to Imogen’s birthday party freshman year, remember? The sleepover where we made cake pops. And you and Immie used to go shopping down in SoHo. Oh, do you remember, we took you to Coppelia at American Ballet Theatre?”
“Of course,” said Jule. “I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you right away.”
“No worries,” said Patti. “I’ve forgotten your name, I have to tell you, though I never forget a face. And you had that fun blue hair.”
“It’s Jule.”
“Of course. It was so cool that you and Immie were such friends, that first year of high school. After you left, she went around with these kids from Dalton. I never liked them half as well. There are only a few recent grads here at the benefit, I think. Maybe no one you know? It’s all old girls like me.”
“They sent me the invitation and I came for the Gershwin,” said Jule. “And to see the place after being away.”
“How great that you appreciate Gershwin,” said Patti. “In my teens I was all punk rock, and in my twenties it was Madonna and whoever. Where are you in college?”
A beat. A choice. Jule threw her Band-Aid wrappers in the trash.
“Stanford,” she answered. “But I’m not sure I’m going back in the fall.” She rolled her eyes comically. “I’m in a war with the financial aid office.” Everything she told Patti felt delicious in her mouth, like melting caramel.
“That’s unpleasant,” said Patti. “I thought they had great financial aid there.”
“They do, generally,” said Jule. “But not for me.”
Patti looked at Jule seriously. “I think it will work out. Looking at you, I can tell you’re not going to let any doors shut in your face. Listen, do you have a summer job, an internship, something like that?”