Exposure Read online

  The studio door opened and Anthony appeared. He strolled in, nodding to the other students as he crossed the room toward the windows. Kim admired the ease with which her son moved through space, the liquidity of him. A young Antonio Banderas, that’s who he reminded her of, his nose just hawkish enough to be interesting without overpowering his face, his long-fingered hands grown substantial and capable, well suited to the work he was doing for Habitat for Humanity. He was a sight on the soccer field, all boundless, gravity-defying energy. She wouldn’t call him an egoless player—was there such a thing among teenage boys? But he was a responsible one, conscious of his teammates and the big picture.

  Even so, Kim knew from long experience that every teen was, potentially, a hormonal catastrophe waiting to happen. She was forever counseling her female students who, because of her role in their lives—not simply as teacher, but teacher of creative and romantic arts, subjects they responded so well to—turned to her with their laments and confessions. Those teenaged girls, whose Ithaca counterparts she had happily hired to babysit for Anthony when he was younger, were now the sorts of girls she would be willing to pay to stay away from him. They had social networking pages and blogs that were plastered with provocative pictures—of themselves, of their friends—that looked like ads offering sexual services. They flirted with boys by texting photos of themselves in their bikinis or bras. Rose Ellen had been bringing snacks to her son Mark and his friends one day and had found the bunch of them—three girls, two boys—playing pool half-naked! Kim wondered whether some hidden additive in the juice boxes she and every mother she knew had supplied to their children could have diluted kids’ sense of propriety, removed their inhibitions.

  She’d had no such embarrassments with Anthony, though that might owe more to luck than to his innocence. He’d had plenty of girlfriends, and plenty of opportunities to fool around. You couldn’t supervise a teenager the way you did a younger kid; they had friends with cars, they had latchkey friends, they had cars themselves. And even when they were home, even when you thought you knew what was going on, they might at any moment be peeling off their shirts and bras for a racy game of pool. Or worse.

  At fourteen, Anthony had said he was going to “save himself for Miss Right,” and no doubt he meant it—inasmuch as any fourteen-year-old could forecast his or her future. But Kim was not about to put any money on it. Before he began dating Amelia, whenever she’d observed a girl getting enough of his attention to raise the “Miss Right” question in her mind, he’d move on to someone else. The relief she felt each time was unsettling; her long-held attitudes about teens and sex—that sex was a healthy and necessary part of their development—should not defy her when it came to her own child.

  Now that he’d fallen in love with beautiful, serene, steadfast Amelia, he was sunk as surely as if he had jumped into a river with a boulder tied to his leg. It hardly mattered whether or not they’d had sex yet; even Kim could see that sex was, if not beside the point, only one facet of a complex, surprisingly genuine love. She’d been infatuated with Santos for a time, but she had never loved a man with wholehearted abandon, with the rapturous blindness that seems possible only for the young. No one had ever adored her without reserve, planned his life so that it would braid with hers, not simply coexist. What must that feel like?

  As a mother, Kim wanted to be skeptical of teen love, to warn Anthony not to put too much of himself into a romance that was unlikely to last into adulthood. As a woman with a heart that yearned for its match as strongly as anyone’s did, who found beauty and solace and inspiration in the ways artists throughout the ages rendered love in words and paint and stone, she had to admit that if there was such a thing as true love, it wouldn’t know boundaries. If there was such a thing as true love, these two epitomized it.

  Kim watched Anthony and expected to see Amelia appear behind him; they always had lunch together. She would pass them, now and then, in the cafeteria with their friends, a gaggle of kids so bright with promise, William had joked, that the lunch ladies were demanding he supply them with protective sunglasses. He saw the kids as proof that his efforts to make Ravenswood a model for prep-school achievement were succeeding. Kim knew that when William watched them laughing and horsing around, they appeared to be nothing more than eight or ten teens poised on the brink of adulthood, a precious few months away from springing themselves off the edge of the nest and into the world to do him and Ravenswood and their parents proud. As with the rest of the faculty, William wasn’t aware of Anthony and Amelia as a subset. Though Kim would have enjoyed his knowing, enjoyed being able to talk about it all with him, she kept their secret in order to protect the kids and William both.

  Anthony dropped his book bag on the windowsill. Kim said, “I thought you said you were going out for lunch today.”

  “I was,” he said, taking one of her carrot sticks.

  “Where’s Amelia?”

  “She forgot her computer and had to go home to get it. Her mom was supposed to bring it, but she got held up. In traffic,” he added, a joking reference to the way a few of their Ithaca friends still warned them, quite soberly, that “Raleigh-Durham has some rough areas. You need to watch yourselves.” Judgment that was based on rumor, on misinformation, yet dispensed authoritatively as fact.

  “I gathered,” Kim said, smiling. She reached out to ruffle his hair, and he let her. Not only that, he sat down beside her and draped his arm over her shoulders, completely unconcerned about how the other kids might see him. What teenager hugged his teacher-mother in front of other teens? Kim was suffused with pleasure and tenderness, and the thought, which would soon be tested, of how incredibly lucky she was.

  5

  EY, WINTER,” ROB CALLOWAY GREETED ANTHONY IN THE Ravenswood hallway as the two of them arrived at their lockers before fourth period.

  “Hey,” Anthony said, tucking his phone into his pocket. He’d texted Amelia three times and tried calling her twice, and gotten no response. Probably her battery had gone dead, or she’d left her phone at home while getting her laptop, something along that line. Probably she would appear here in the hallway at any moment, wearing a sweet, apologetic smile above her gray cashmere cardigan and pleated navy skirt, ordinary clothes that on her may as well have been woven by fairies. To Anthony, the simple fact of Amelia, her very existence, was proof that there was magic in the world.

  He might even say so out loud, except that they were keeping their relationship under wraps for now. But if he did rhapsodize on Amelia’s magical qualities, no doubt his loser classmates would say he was a sucker, dweeb, homo (which wouldn’t make sense, but they wouldn’t worry about the incongruity). He’d forgive the soulless bastards, and, as if he were the praying kind, offer up a prayer for their improvement. The world needed less cynicism, more love. Love was the answer. Love made the world go ’round. Love was all you needed. Love, actually, was all around.

  He opened his locker and pulled out his AP Calculus textbook; not much love there. As competent as he was in math, he hated it. How were imaginary numbers relevant to writing plays, which he was getting better at, or performing in them, which he did pretty well already, or to any aspect of a play’s production: direction, interpretation, set design—all things he’d be studying while earning his degree at NYU? Imaginary people, though, he could get into that. He imagined a kind of calculus for drama, exercises that involved putting characters into all kinds of theoretical situations in order to solve, or at least explore, the complex problems of the world. As with solutions in higher math, successful drama resulted from a kind of alchemy—in this case of script, direction, and acting that, when it was done right, was transformational, for the actors and the audience both. He couldn’t wait for the time when he and Amelia would be immersed in that kind of problem-solving.

  “Ready for the quiz?” he asked Rob.

  Rob shook his head and grinned. “Not really. Peyton’s parents were gone this weekend, so, you know, we decided the time was right
to do the deed. More than once,” he added with a short laugh, as if this fact surprised him. His ears reddened and he gave his full attention to carefully working his combination lock. “Didn’t really think about studying.”

  “O-kay,” Anthony said. “Yeah, I can see that.”

  He liked Rob. Unlike some of their rich-kid classmates, Rob seemed pretty real, despite his new Mazda RX-8 and his family’s season tickets to Carolina Panthers games, and the so-called Calloway Compound (thirty acres, with a twelve-thousand-foot house, a pool, hot tub, stables, riding ring, and dirt-bike track), and Rob’s mother’s constant presence in the Ravenswood student services office, where she was a dedicated volunteer. Rob and Peyton weren’t just a weekend thing. They’d been dating since school started at the end of August. Peyton, he knew, was already browsing the jewelry store cases, eyeing diamond engagement rings, and thinking about china patterns. Amelia was trying to get Peyton’s head out of the clouds, encourage her to expand her horizons wider than marriage and babies, do something with her Ravenswood college-prep education—at least until Rob knew for sure that he wanted to follow in his investment-broker father’s footsteps. Peyton, though, was “very traditional,” as she put it, happy to become the same sort of woman her mother was—and Amelia’s was, for that matter.

  Anthony knew that when it came to being a macho asshole, wealth wasn’t really to blame. You could find the same kind of demeaning attitudes in guys who were growing up with next to nothing. Rednecks, which there’d been plenty of at his old high school. Gangstas. Religious fundamentalists of every kind. It was about culture. Values. His mother and her friends talked about this stuff all the time. For whatever reasons, too many guys sidelined females, sexualizing them or dismissing them or both, mistakes he would never make with Amelia.

  Not only was she possibly the most beautiful woman yet created by the gods, but she spent her time and energy on things that mattered. His mom had pegged her when she said, “Amelia’s the least frivolous girl I’ve ever met.” Sure, she wore the popular labels and drove a new BMW and had a debit card that her dad kept stocked so that she never had to worry about being able to pay for lunch or put gas in her car. The thing was, she was ready—no, she was eager—to give all that up for what really mattered to her. To them.

  Rob shut his locker. “Did you study? I’ll just sit behind you and look over your shoulder.”

  “Actually, I worked all weekend,” Anthony said, which was not a lie, but which also had not kept him from studying. Business at record stores like the one he worked in was growing ever-slower, now that most kids got their music online. Their customers tended to be middle-aged music lovers who either preferred old technologies or were avoiding new ones, and they tended to shop primarily on Saturday mornings and Sunday afternoons.

  Not that he’d tell Rob (let him earn the grade he deserved), but Anthony had managed to both study and make a new playlist for Amelia, a compilation of songs from Coldplay, The National, Paramore, Owl City, and a couple from a band called The xx, who he’d discovered thanks to Rolling Stone. His manager said the band was “just another group of London punks,” which only made Anthony like them better.

  He told Rob, “Maybe Rickman will go easy on us.”

  “Not likely.” Rob smirked and said, “He’s the one who really needs to get laid.”

  Anthony shut his locker and looked down the hallway once more before heading for class. Still no Amelia. He said, “True that.”

  “What’s your excuse, Winter? Is Amelia really saving it for marriage? Or wait, don’t tell me—you’re practicing to be a priest. Father Anthony,” Rob said, laughing. “I can totally see it. You’ve got that whole cool, caring guy thing down.”

  “Actually,” Anthony said with a sad shrug, “it’s because Peyton’s already got a man.” Deferring questions about his sexual status with humor, as he usually did, kept the vultures from circling.

  “You bet she does.” Rob grinned at him. “Well, I’m sure you and your right hand—or is it your left?—will be very happy together until your luck changes.”

  Anthony held out his right hand as though to shake Rob’s and said, “Honored to be in the company of an expert.”

  “Not anymore, man. I got it now. I got the real thing.”

  The real thing: this was supposed to mean “love.” But no question, there was also the physical aspect to be considered.

  All Anthony had known about Amelia before he met her was that her reputation was clean—too clean, as far as a lot of the guys were concerned, but that didn’t mean she was what some of them claimed: frigid. Lesbian. Secretly engaged to an older, wealthy guy none of their classmates had ever seen but could easily imagine existed. It had to be one of these things, they said, because otherwise wouldn’t she flirt, tease them, taunt them the way the other good-looking girls did? She wouldn’t be so standoffish if she were normal. No, none of them had ever asked her out or tried to get a real answer to the mystery, because why put yourself out there like that, just to get shot down? There were so many easier fish to catch.

  Before long, though, Anthony came to see Amelia as being in a class of her own. She represented the difference between general and specific. He’d always found girls generally appealing. He generally enjoyed girls’ company. But Amelia had looked at him from across the stage, blue velvet curtains hanging behind her, stage lights illuminating her auburn hair, and a jolt of something—call it electricity, call it whatever you liked—went through him and he’d literally stopped breathing. What he’d wanted to do was drop to his knees. What he’d done instead was turn to Ms. Fitz and say, “There’s my Rosalind.”

  Ms. Fitz looked to where he pointed, then back at Anthony. Her thin eyebrows rose and her painted lips parted, but they did so strangely, as if she weren’t in charge of her expressions. “So it is,” she said.

  “But, Ms. Fitz,” Chris Harrington had complained, “you said you were thinking of me for Orlando.”

  Ms. Fitz blinked at the boy. Once. Two times. “Yes, well, there’s nothing to be done about that. You’ll be a fine Oliver.”

  That was just the way the universe worked when Amelia was around.

  Undeniable. This was the word Anthony felt best characterized his relationship with Amelia. It was that, and she was that.

  The physical aspect: their first kisses had been tentative, almost chaste, him following her lead so that he wouldn’t come on too strong and scare her off. Unlike other girls he’d known and encouraged, she didn’t press herself against him, not flirtatiously, and not purposefully. She trembled the first time he moved his hand from her shoulder and ran it along the side of her breast to her waist.

  The first time he kissed her deeply, with his hands wrapped in her hair and his hips grazing hers, making his desire for her obvious to both of them, she’d gasped. Actually gasped. He hadn’t expected that.

  “Sorry,” he’d said, quickly pulling back.

  “No, it’s okay.” Her face was red, her eyes wide—but she was smiling. Not frigid. Not gay. Not unavailable. Just inexperienced.

  A few weeks later, after an As You Like It rehearsal, they’d stood together in the parking lot, sodium lights buzzing overhead, talking about how she wished she could date him openly. Her father wasn’t a bad guy, she said. He worried about her, is all. She’d had some troubles when she was younger, and he was protective.

  “Trouble?” he asked, his imagination answering the question with obsessive boyfriend, abusive boyfriend, secret drug abuse, bulimia—

  “A problem. A … a defect, you could say.” Avoiding his eyes, she told him that she’d had a stutter for years. There’d been therapies, she said, and lots of evaluations by various shrinks. When she looked at him again, she seemed to be wincing in anticipation of his response.

  “You obviously beat it,” he said. “That’s impressive.”

  “Yeah?” She brightened. “Thanks. I used to think I was, I don’t know, a freak. I don’t talk about it. A few friends know.�
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  “I won’t mention it, if you—”

  “No, I’d appreciate it if you don’t. Keeping it hidden from everyone was good practice, I guess, for this.” She smiled and gestured to indicate the two of them.

  “And while I’m confessing things?” she added. “You should know … I wanted you to know that I’m still a virgin, so …” She shrugged, letting her words trail off.

  “I figured. It’s fine. It’s good. What’s the rush, right?”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “Since confession seems to be a theme here … I’ll confess that I really like the idea of maybe getting to be your first.”

  What followed over the next few months were stolen minutes spent making out behind her father’s roadster garage, the “stables,” on frosty nights; late-night text messages when they should have been asleep; emails she’d painstakingly composed between rehearsals or lessons—she wanted to be clear that her desire for him was so much more than lust. Other kids rutted for recreation, just one more bit of fun on a night filled with easily accessed booze and party drugs. That was not her wish at all, not her style, and she was adamant that he know it, that he not lump her in with the group of privileged kids who too often substituted cash for good judgment and good morals.

  Anthony was more than ready to go further than the heated kissing and touching, but Amelia wanted to wait until the end of the school year, when their schedules eased up and the weather would be warm. Late June looked ideal, given their obligations, and her monthly cycle, and the fact of her leaving July second to spend eight weeks at her beach house. “Is it lame that I want it to be really special?” she’d asked.