Exposure Read online

  “Who needs this?” she said. “We can get GEDs in New York.”

  Anthony gave an exaggerated serious nod. “Right, sure, the NYU admissions office won’t see any difference.”

  “They shouldn’t,” she said. “If only we could stay there, after evaluations.” They both had to audition as part of their application to NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. They’d set their appointments for the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, when they would be traveling to Manhattan with the Drama Guild. It was a chaperoned trip, but because they were seniors, they had blocks of free time to shop or roam or, as the case might be, fit in a morning at NYU. Anthony hadn’t needed to hide his plan from his mother, and Amelia envied this. What good were all the privileges she’d grown up with when none allowed her to be genuine at home? How good it would be to live every day honestly.

  “Seven months till graduation,” Anthony said. “We can make it. Then nobody can bitch at us about being irresponsible or ruining our futures.”

  “You don’t know my dad.”

  She had told Anthony all about him, of course, and Anthony had met him, briefly, a time or two, but she wondered if he thought she exaggerated. Harlan Wilkes the businessman, the offspring of Robeson County trailer-trash teenagers, a man who had pulled his own bootstraps up so high that no one in central North Carolina could think of imported automobiles without also thinking of his name, was known as bighearted and generous, fair and honest in all his dealings. And he was those things. He was also implacable, at least when it came to setting boundaries and providing guidance to his one dear, indulged, protected child. He fully expected Amelia to sail the course he’d charted for her. For the majority of her life, she’d let him expect it; despite her dreams, she had expected it of herself. Until Anthony.

  Anthony said, “Well, okay, you’re ruining his future either way. But let’s make sure we don’t ruin yours.”

  “Or yours.”

  Amelia imagined them headlining together at the Gershwin Theatre to a capacity crowd. Anthony was not the strongest tenor as Broadway tenors went, but what his voice didn’t do he made up for with stage presence. He was a panther, lithe, sleek, sloe-eyed. In her view—a rose-tinted view, by any adult’s standards—he would have no difficulty bewitching casting directors and audiences such that their ears would be persuaded to adore both his voice and him, much the way her mother’s had been when watching Pierce Brosnan in the film version of Mamma Mia!

  Anthony said, “Seven months.”

  “Two hundred and ten days.”

  “Give or take. Come on, let’s get this one over with.”

  During second period, the entire Upper School attended character assembly in the auditorium. This month’s trait was Trustworthiness. Amelia paid little attention to the serious, brittle-looking woman standing at the podium onstage, lecturing them on the value of trust. Who among them hadn’t sat through this presentation multiple times before? More important to Amelia was her forgotten laptop, which, in her dreamy morning state, she’d left on the kitchen counter. She needed it for her fifth-period Earth Science presentation, a PowerPoint project that had taken her three weeks to construct. She texted her mother, asking her to drop the computer by the school ASAP, then sat there forming sign-language letters with her left hand, photographing them with her cellphone, and sending each picture to Anthony. She spelled out Y-A-W-N, and then K-I-S-S, while around her many of the other students were behaving similarly, texting complaints or jokes or making plans for where to go for lunch. No, they were not supposed to use their cellphones or any electronic devices during school hours, but they knew they could get away with it during assembly if they gave the appearance of paying attention. Even some of the teachers took out their devices to check email or keep up with the news. The stricter teachers would confiscate electronics used during class, and the school’s policy was to hold all confiscated items until the end of the term. The school had received so many complaints, though, from parents who depended on having continual access to their children, that the policy went unenforced; devices, if taken at all, were returned at the end of the day.

  Anthony wrote in reply: “—es,” and Amelia smiled. Kisses. On the heels of his reply came her mother’s: Hi. I’m in durham for a meeting. Will try to get it to you by lunch ok? Amelia wrote back, K, thx. The girl on Amelia’s right, Bella Giordano, nudged her and hissed, “Braddock.” The Upper School’s headmaster was coming down the aisle behind them. Amelia wondered whether Anthony was right in thinking there was something romantic going on between Braddock and his mother. That, she thought, would be weird, but also nice; they’d make a perfect pair. Like herself and Anthony. Meant to be. Amelia pressed her phone between her palms and sighed. Seven months, she thought. Two hundred and ten days, give or take.

  The waiting—for graduation, but more than that, for The Future—was exhausting. Every day was like treading water while waiting for a ship she could barely see on the horizon. Time passed so slowly that Amelia would swear the Earth had quit rotating—possibly at her father’s request. Hardly a day went by when Harlan Wilkes didn’t lament that Next year at this time, you’ll be waking up in a Duke dorm room, which he didn’t know wouldn’t happen even if she did get in, or, It’s going to be way too quiet without you here, despite her spending almost no time at home already, and his rarely being there when she did.

  He wanted Amelia to be ten again, his adoring, adorable princess waving from atop the backseat of a Mercedes convertible as they inched through downtown Raleigh in the Christmas parade. He missed the preteen who’d been his steadfast companion in the “stable,” helping him wash and wax whichever roadster they would take out for a drive that day. There were Bugattis, Triumphs, an Austin Healey, a Bentley, a Morgan, and a 1947 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith, which he would drive only early in the morning on days when the roads were dry and there was no wind. Though Amelia had no genuine interest in the cars themselves, she’d loved listening to her father’s stories of his childhood, of how poor he’d been, of how he’d dreamt of one day being rich enough to buy a brand-new Chevy truck. “And now look at us,” he’d say, polishing the Wraith’s black fender into a mirror that reflected his satisfaction and her proud grin. He had been the only man in her world then.

  The phrase “Daddy’s Girl” had been inspired by daughters like Amelia, who couldn’t know that by simply growing up they were bound to break their fathers’ hearts. Had Amelia known that a tough man could be fragile, too, she might have taken even more care to protect him.

  3

  HAT MONDAY, EIGHTY-SEVEN MINUTES BEFORE HE WOULD call the police, Harlan Wilkes left the office at eleven, planning to work from home for a while and then, if the weather held, get over to the driving range and try to get rid of the hook that, lately, was putting his score over ninety every time he played. Sheri would probably be out, as usual. He didn’t keep track of her schedule, which was packed with activities ranging from fitness classes to volunteer work at Amelia’s school, for their church, at the county animal shelter, and for the Red Cross. Harlan was as proud of Sheri, who’d come from the kind of Southern family he wished he’d had, as he was of his thoughtful, accomplished daughter. A lot of men’s wives passed their days spending the money the men had worked so hard to make. Not Sheri. She’d been a decorator when he met her—hired her, actually, to turn his first house into something that looked like a home. She had a great work ethic. After Amelia was born, Sheri made a career of managing Amelia’s life—playdates and school and camp and lessons and the like. Now that Amelia had shown that she was as capable as her parents and could manage her schedule admirably, Sheri found ways to give her time to others in need.

  Harlan doted on his girls. Everyone said so, and he liked that they did. He was proud that he had, through a lot of hard work, long hours, and, early on, some amount of ass-kissing, gotten himself to a place in life where he could dote—on Amelia, on Sheri, even on their dog, a golden Lab named Buttercup. Buttercup was getting white around the
eyes and muzzle, and a rabbit’s presence no longer provoked her to do more than stand up. Still, he regularly gave her the choicest table scraps, and took her to work with him on days when he wouldn’t be cutting out early. She was his best girl, in the simple and uncomplicated way that only a dog could be.

  Everyone said, too, that Amelia and Harlan were a lot alike, in looks if not in talents. He was tall, as was Amelia, and both had dark hair with red tones that, in the sun, shone like the cherry wine Harlan had stolen from the Stop-n-Shop when he was a kid. Both had aquiline noses and expressive eyebrows, and light blue eyes that in Amelia’s case were flecked with gold. Harlan’s jaw was more angular, and his forehead was growing as his silvering hairline crept upward, but there was no mistaking whose child she was. Amelia looked so much like Harlan that Sheri often told the joke, “What did the blonde say when she found out she was pregnant? ‘Oh, gosh, I hope it’s mine!’ ”

  Amelia looked like Harlan, but he always said she was like her mother in temperament: kind, generous, and forgiving of people’s faults. Too nice at times, he thought, but he couldn’t complain when he’d so often been the beneficiary of that attribute. Unlike Amelia, Harlan couldn’t sing, and outside of the shower he didn’t attempt to. Neither could he dance well, and he was no actor, that was certain. But his wife said he had the physique of a god—a minor god, she used to tease, in the days when the ideal male specimens were men like Stallone and Schwarzenegger. Amelia’s physique, she said, was an angel’s.

  That Amelia was seventeen was the single thing that troubled Harlan, who was otherwise the happy master of his import-auto sales universe—six franchises now: Honda, Maserati, Toyota, Rolls/Bentley, Mercedes/VW, BMW, and still growing. Seventeen was worse than any of the previous -teens, being so close to the age when the law said she could make all her own decisions and take care of herself. This seemed to him a ridiculous idea. At eighteen, she’d need him looking out for her more than ever. It was lucky, he thought, that she understood this already. She listened to his advice, followed his rules, and thanked him for the trouble he took in making sure she had everything she needed (and most of what she wanted) in life.

  His employees—from sales managers down to detailers, and every job in between—admired the relationship he and his daughter had. From what he’d heard, a lot of their kids were lazy or spoiled, willful, mouthy, and sometimes troublesome. Harlan knew of two who’d been busted for drug possession, a few who’d been charged with DWI, one who’d gotten pregnant at fifteen—a classmate of Amelia’s, who had twins and refused to give them up. The father had been twenty at the time, and had been arrested for statutory rape. Harlan shook his head, thinking of it. What an ugly mess all that had been. Amelia had her moments—Girls, people often said with that telltale headshake, they’re prone to drama, and sure Amelia sometimes was, too. Even so, even though she could be stubborn at times, he thanked God every day for his good fortune.

  Harlan pulled into the driveway and parked under what their home builder had called a porte cochère, a sort of pass-through, bridgelike structure that divided the front yard from the courtyard, where the driveway continued on and branched into two. The structure itself was part of the house; “the bridge room,” then-six-year-old Amelia had named it, upon seeing the house framed up. She’d been delighted that it led from the bedrooms wing to her playroom. They’d had both bridge and playroom done with long, arcing stretches of windows, and got a designer to make it all look like an old stone castle inside, complete with gas “torches,” and cobblestone in the walkways. Amelia’s wide-eyed surprise and delight when he brought her to the just-finished house and led her to that space had just about done him in. At bedtime that night, he’d put his head against Sheri’s shoulder and cried. In all of the forty-seven years he’d lived up till then, he had never been as grateful to a God who had first made him a skinny fleabag of a kid, effectively orphaned by ignorant, good-time, teenaged parents, but then outfitted him with the grit and the wit to become such a man as the one who could do this for his own child.

  Now he climbed out of his Maserati GranCabrio, and smiled at the resounding thump the door made when it shut. The last couple of years had been tough for high-end sales, but this car, well, this one got deep-pocketed corporate execs excited, eager to jumpstart the economic recovery and look awfully good doing it. A family car, Maserati’s first true four-seater. He drove it just so he could turn those prospective buyers’ heads, get them looking for the showroom.

  “Heh,” Harlan chuckled, patting the car’s hood. “A little better’n that piece o’shit Cutlass.” His first car, bought with the first two hundred dollars he’d made, dealing pot. Amelia didn’t know that part of his story; almost no one did. Building his empire by first selling marijuana to his shiftless teenaged friends was information best kept to himself.

  Buttercup greeted him in the back foyer. He squatted down to scratch her ears, and gave her a kiss on the muzzle. Then he dropped his keys on the counter, next to Amelia’s laptop—one of those amazing lightweight Macs, thin as a notepad. They’d bought it to help minimize the weight she had to haul around in her book bag. Sheri read some old Richard Russo novel where the teenaged daughter was overwhelmed by a too-heavy bag, and had gotten concerned for Amelia. Harlan wasn’t much of a reader himself, but Sheri took a lot from books, and he admired that about her. As for the Mac, well, it was a slick piece of technology, and Harlan was all for that.

  He grabbed a bottle of cold beer and took Buttercup outside, into the backyard. The maples, oaks, hickories, and sweetgums on and surrounding his two acres were in full November color. The beeches, always lagging, were just beginning to turn. What a difference between the seasons here and up in leaf-naked Ohio, where he’d just spent a week touring Honda plants. Truth told, he hated being away for such a long stretch. Oh, Sheri did fine without him. Amelia too. If he had to admit it, he’d say he was the one who got lonely and morose when he was away on business. Being away deprived him of his moorings. In a rental car, or on the sidewalk of some random city, he was just some random guy. He was, too easily, that mongrel kid who’d lived in a busted-up trailer, eating stale Cap’n Crunch and wondering when his parents would get sober and wander back home.

  His cellphone rang and he answered, “Wilkes here.”

  “Mr. Wilkes, this is Parker Finch. How’re y’all doing today?”

  “Parker, my boy!” Harlan had been expecting the call. “Whattya have for me?”

  “Well, I’m pleased to say that we’re gonna be able to come through on the loan. With the securities you’ve pledged, the board is more than happy to front you the cash.”

  Harlan grinned. The country-and-western nightclub in which he was buying a stake was a dream that had its roots in his earliest days selling cars. Back then, after long hours spent selling nothing to nobody and despairing that he’d never get his business off the ground, he’d go knock back a few beers at a little country tavern run by a guy named Clem Carroll. Clem and Harlan passed the time talking about the nightclub Clem meant to open someday. They’d lost touch for a time, and then two years ago Clem walked into Wilkes Toyota to buy a Tundra, and to see whether Harlan had a taste for a beer and a go at co-ownership of that nightclub. Harlan had proposed that when Clem got up 70 percent of what he’d need for start-up, Harlan would front the rest. Now, that time had come.

  Harlan asked Parker, “You do own a pair o’ boots, don’t you?”

  Parker said, “You let me know when that club’s open for business, and I’ll show up wearin’ them.”

  “Fair enough.” And by that time, July most likely, Harlan would be ready to introduce Parker to Amelia. With Parker working out of the bank’s Chapel Hill office and Amelia not too far away at Duke, they’d have a just-right arrangement for casual dating that, in due time, might well lead to the boy becoming kin. Harlan liked this idea a lot; Parker was exactly the kind of guy who would keep Amelia living the life she was accustomed to, the life she deserved. He was the kin
d of guy to keep Amelia from ending up the way Harlan’s mother had.

  After he got off the phone, Harlan put his fingers to his mouth and whistled the dog in. “C’mon,” he said when she came trotting back. “Let’s get us some lunch.”

  Inside, he took out a tub of potato salad, Sheri’s special red-skin recipe, and sat down at the counter bar. With nothing more than curiosity motivating him, he opened Amelia’s computer. A box appeared in the center of an otherwise black screen, awaiting a password. Of course she’d have the thing secured; if she forgot it at school or left it at a friend’s house, she couldn’t have other people messing up her files and such. He tipped the screen forward, almost closed it, and then pushed it up again.

  B-U-T-T-E-R-C-U-P, he typed. Amelia loved the dog like the sister she never got, though not for lack of him and Sheri trying. Sheri had carried three more babies to near twenty weeks and had almost bled to death miscarrying the third, so the doctor said that was it, and tied her tubes.

  Nope, Buttercup wasn’t the password.

  Thinking of Amelia’s sense of humor, Harlan tried P-A-S-S-W-O-R-D. Not that either.

  He rubbed his mouth, took a swig of beer, then tried C-U-R-R-I-T-U-C-K, the street on which their beach house was located, down on Bald Head Island. Amelia loved that house, could hardly wait for the day each year when they trundled out of here for the summer—or, that was how it had used to be. This past summer she’d gone grudgingly, then moped around for days before settling in to the routine of island life. Harlan had been worried, but Sheri told him to let her be. “She’s seventeen. It’s lonely here. Dull, compared to her usual schedule and school. Her friends are her life.”