Genuine Fraud(49)

Immie showed Jule to a room on the second floor. It had a huge bed and flowing white curtains—and, oddly, a small antique rocking horse and a collection of old weather vanes arranged on a large wooden desk. Jule slept the deep sleep that comes of long days in the sun.

—

The next morning, Forrest sulkily drove her to the hotel to collect her things. When Jule walked in again with her suitcase, she saw that Immie had put four vases of flowers in the room. Four. She also left books on the bedside table: Vanity Fair by Thackeray and Great Expectations by Dickens, plus The Insider’s Guide to Martha’s Vineyard.

Thus began a series of days that blurred one into the other. Immie’s people, temporary and literary friends of the week, acquired on the beach or at the flea market, cycled through the house. They swam in the pool and helped with cookouts and laughed hysterically, clutching their chests. They were uniformly young: good-looking, effete boys and equally good-looking, loud girls. Most of them were funny and nonathletic, chatty and rather alcoholic, college kids or art students. Beyond that, they were of many backgrounds and sexual orientations. Imogen was a New York City child: open-minded in a way Jule had seen only on television, apparently utterly confident in her own desirability as a friend and hostess.

Jule took a day or two to adjust but soon found herself comfortable. She charmed the temporary people with stories of Greenbriar, Stanford, and, to a lesser extent, Chicago. She argued with them cheerfully when they wanted to argue. She flirted with them and forgot their names and let them know that she’d forgotten their names, because the forgetting made them admire her and want her to remember. At first, she texted Patti Sokoloff pictures and wrote chatty, hopeful emails, but it wasn’t long before Jule ignored Patti just as Imogen did.

Immie made her feel wanted. The novel joy of it filled Jule’s days.





One day, when she’d been living there two weeks, Jule found herself alone for the first time. Forrest and Immie had gone on a lunch date. There was a new restaurant Immie wanted to try.

Jule ate leftovers in front of the television and then went upstairs. She stood at the door of Immie’s bedroom for a moment, looking in.

The bed was made. The table held books, a jar of hand cream, Forrest’s eyeglass case, and an empty charger. Jule stepped in and opened a perfume bottle, put some on, and rubbed her wrists together.

In the closet hung a dress Imogen wore often. It was a dark green maxi, thin cotton, with a deep V in the front that made it impossible to wear a bra. Immie was flat-chested, so it didn’t matter.

Without thinking, Jule pulled off her running shorts and then her bleached, frayed Stanford T-shirt. Then her bra.

She pulled Immie’s dress over her head. She found a pair of sandals. Immie’s collection of rings, eight of them in animal shapes, were on top of the dresser.

A full-length mirror in a wide silver frame leaned against one wall. Jule turned and squinted at herself. Her hair was in a ponytail, but other than that, in the low light of the room, she looked like Imogen. Mostly.

So this was what it felt like. To sit on Imogen’s bed. To wear Imogen’s fragrance and Imogen’s rings.

Immie lay in this bed at night, next to Forrest, but he was replaceable. Immie put this cream on her hands, marked her reading with that bookmark. In the mornings, she opened her eyes and saw these blue-green sheets and that painting of the sea. This was what it felt like to know that this enormous house was hers, to never worry about money or survival, to feel loved by Gil and Patti.

To be so effortlessly, beautifully dressed.

—

“Excuse me?”

Immie stood in the doorway. She was wearing jean shorts and Forrest’s hoodie. Her lips shone with a red gloss she didn’t usually wear. She didn’t look much like the Imogen in Jule’s mind.

Shame washed through Jule’s body, but she smiled. “I figured it would be okay,” she said. “I needed a dress. This guy called, last minute.”

“What guy?”

“The guy from Oak Bluffs, the one I talked to when I rode the carousel.”

“When was that?”

“He texted just now and said did I want to meet him at the sculpture garden in half an hour.”

“Whatever,” said Immie. “Will you please get out of my clothes?”

Jule’s face felt hot. “I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“Are you going to change?”

Jule pulled the top of Immie’s green dress down and picked her bra up off the floor.

“Are those my rings, too?” said Immie.

“Yes.” There was no pretending otherwise.

“Why would you wear my clothes?”

Jule stepped out of the dress and hung it back on the hanger. She put on the rest of her own clothes and replaced the rings on the dresser.

“I don’t think you do have a guy waiting at the sculpture garden,” said Immie.

“Think what you want to.”

“What’s going on?”

“I’m sorry I wore your clothes, and I won’t do it again. Okay?”

“Okay.” Imogen watched as Jule put the sandals in the closet and laced up her running shoes. “I have a question,” she said as Jule made to walk past her into the hall.

Jule’s face still burned. She didn’t want to talk.