What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt

Author:Siri Hustvedt [Hustvedt, Siri]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-09-27T16:00:00+00:00

The following morning, I called Bill. I hesitated before I did it, but the incident had left me uneasy. For a sixteen-year-old, Mark seemed to have unbridled freedom, and I began to think that Bill and Violet were overly permissive. But it turned out that Bill hadn't known that Mark was in the city. He thought that he was arriving on the train from his mother's early that afternoon. Lucille was under the impression that he was spending the night with one of his classmates in Princeton. When Mark arrived that afternoon, Bill telephoned and asked me to come upstairs.

Mark stared at his knees while Bill and Violet questioned him about lying. He claimed it was all "a mix-up." He hadn't lied. He thought he was going over to Jake's house, but then Jake decided to go to New York to see a friend, and he went with him. Where was Jake last night, then? Bill wanted to know. Leo hadn't seen Jake in the hallway. Mark said that Jake had gone off with some other people. Bill told Mark that lying undermined trust and that he had to stop. Mark vehemently denied that he had lied. Everything he had said was true. Then Violet mentioned drugs.

"I'm not stupid," Mark said. "I know drugs screw you up. I saw a documentary on heroin once, and it really freaked me out. I'm just not into that."

"Teenie was high last night," I said, "and that pale fellow was shaking like a leaf."

"Just because Teenie's messed up doesn't mean I am." Mark looked directly at me. "Teddy shakes because it's part of his act. He's an artist."

"Teddy who?" Bill said.

"Teddy Giles, Dad. You must have heard of him. He does performances and sells these really cool sculptures. He's been written about in lots of magazines and everything."

When I looked at Bill, I thought I saw a flicker of recognition pass across his face, but he made no comment.

"How old is Giles?" I asked.

"Twentv-one," Mark said.

Violet said, "Why were you trying to get into Leo's apartment?"

"I wasn't!" Mark sounded desperate.

"I heard the lock turn, Mark," I said.

"No! That was Teddy. He didn't have a key. He turned the doorknob because he thought it was our apartment upstairs."

I looked Mark directly in the eyes and he looked back at me. "You didn't use my key last night?"

"No," he said. There was no hesitation in him.

"What did you want in our apartment, then?" Violet said. "You didn't come home until an hour ago."

"I wanted my camera to take pictures."

Bill rubbed his face. "For the rest of the month, you'll stay put while you're here."

Mark's jaw fell open in disbelief. "But what did I do?"

Bill sounded tired. "Listen, even if you hadn't lied to me and to your mother, you need to do your schoolwork. You'll never graduate if you don't start studying. Also," he said, "I want you to return Leo's key."

Mark stuck out his bottom lip and pouted. The expression on his soft young face

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