Treasure Island!!! by Sara Levine Page A

in secrecy indicated that he already knew as much.
    He answered my objections in the blustery pseudo-sophisticated way you’d expect. A matter of privacy, not secrecy. Two consensual adults. An unexpected and noisy bit of sunshine in his quiet not to say cloudy life. Once I took a moment to collect myself and understand the facts, I might even discover I wanted to apologize for my intrusion. I imagine this is how he spoke to the delinquent adolescents­ he met in his office: reasonable, slightly disappointed, even-handed, with a note of self-pity, convincing you that he was the wronged party.
    â€œMr. Tatum, are your hands shaking right now because you’re nervous, or because you’re old?”
    He withdrew his hands, in surprise, and folded them in his lap. “My dear, I do think you’re over-reacting. Your sister isn’t underage.”
    â€œNo, but she’s under-used. She’s never had a boyfriend. Has she told you that?”
    He smiled indulgently and tsk-tsked me. “You always
were
the provocative one.”
    â€œI was the good-looking one, if you want to know the truth, and I don’t like your thinking you can mess around with Adrianna just because she’s the ugly duckling.”
    He looked taken aback. “You underestimate your sister, surely. She is anything but ugly.” He rose to indicate our interview was over. “I think you should have the rest of this conversation with Adrianna.”
    â€œFine. But I don’t have a way home.”
    â€œHow did you get here?”
    And then that old embarrassing conversation. You didn’t drive? No, didn’t drive. Don’t you drive? Well, yes, can drive, but don’t have a car. No car? Well, phobic about driving. “All right,” he said icily. “I’ll drive you home.”
    That was a fun ride.
    Â 

CHAPTER 15

    Â 
    A drianna didn’t talk to me for two weeks. In the absence of her explanations, I began to consider her “love affair” in new lights. Maybe, I reasoned, she was sitting on his face for monetary reasons. Maybe she let him do things to her in exchange for cash, with a long-term plan to pay off her credit card debt and move out of our parents’ house. And yet, however hard I tried to imagine Adrianna as a player—someone who would trade sexual favors for cash—I stumbled on her basic goodness. She had spoken of love as a flower that might be crushed underfoot. More likely she thought she loved Mr. Tatum and was oblivious to how large a role his financial steadiness played in the attraction. I once used the term “Sugar Daddy” in her presence and she missed my meaning entirely, recalling instead, with childish enthusiasm, the milk caramel lollipop of the same name.
    Still I needed to understand the contours of this affair. How long had she been seeing Mr. Tatum? Was she seeing only him or might there be other old unattractive men involved? To answer these questions I ventured into her room when she was at work. I was looking for a diary; instead I found a batch of letters. Pathetic things! She had wrapped them up in a gold ribbon from a chocolate box and hidden them under her mattress. Reader, you can imagine what an old man writes a young woman when he thinks nobody else is going to read the dreck.
Last night was unforgettable
(and then tedious quasi-poetic, quasi-porno reminders of what he couldn’t forget). Foreign-language endearments:
mi muñeca
,
mon petit canard en plastique
. Places he wanted to take her, show her, touch her, et cetera. His penmanship was all right, but he probably wrote the letters wearing his best bifocals. Was it my imagination, or did the very pages smell of milk of magnesia, glycerine soap? Adrianna hadn’t arranged the letters in chronological order, but gradually I began to make out an emotional pattern. On the left hand of the desk, I placed the booty letters: Thank you for last night, You are so