Elin Hilderbrand - The Island

In Lula’s third year, the coffees at the White Dog turned into dinners at places like Susanna Foo and Morimoto. People whispered that this was unethical (there wasn’t a single whisper that didn’t make it, eventually, to India’s ear). But there was nothing unethical about the dinners. Lula and India were friends, with a shared taste for exotic food and exquisite wine. Always, they split the bill.

And then, one night, India offered to entertain Lula at home. She would cook. Lula borrowed somebody’s car and drove out to India’s heavily wooded suburb. Lula, the city mouse, seemed intimidated by the Main Line. It was so old and storied. So Waspy. Nothing like the city, she said. She could work the city. But covered bridges and massive estates, country clubs with gates, and hundred-year-old trees-these put her out.

Just look at this house, Lula said.

She was referring to the fact that it was built from stones that had been dredged out of the Delaware River in the eighteenth century. The foyer had a vaulted ceiling and a brick floor. It seemed imposing to Lula, who lived in an apartment that was modern and minimalist.

India invited Lula into the kitchen, a massive, magnificent room with marble countertops, an acre of butcher block, gleaming copper cookware, walnut cabinets whose fixtures had been smoothed with use. When the boys were still at home, and when Bill was working, India’s only job had been to keep things happy and humming. She had cooked large, elaborate meals, doubling and tripling recipes to meet the boys’ appetites. She told Tallulah this. She said, “And now, I hardly ever use it. So I’m glad you’re here.”

Lula kissed India flush on the mouth, which took India by surprise but didn’t alarm her. Lula had brought her a pink gerbera daisy in a pot wrapped in pink foil, a very un-Lula-like present, but Lula said, “The suburbs, I just wasn’t sure.” She had also brought two skinny joints in a sandwich bag. “One for now,” she said. “One for later, in case you can’t sleep.”

India poured wine; they lit up the first joint. It had been a while since India had smoked dope, and she had certainly never smoked with a student. But she was lulled by the safety of her own kitchen, and the dope was good. India got very high; any qualms she had floated to the ceiling with the smoke. She stirred the pasta sauce on the stove. Lula asked if she might have a peek at the rest of the house. India felt a stab of some old, forgotten jealousy. This was, after all, Bill Bishop’s house, and out back was Bill’s studio. Lula would want to see it; that was, quite possibly, the reason she’d agreed to come at all.

“You can look around,” India said. “But I am not giving a tour. I don’t mean to be rude, but I find pointing out all of Bill’s objets tiresome.”

“Yes,” Lula said. “I’ll bet.”

She poked around anyway. She opened the back door, activating the motion-detector lights, and slipped across the back lawn to Bill’s studio, which was locked. Lula hurried back into the house, and India decided not to say anything.

They had a lovely dinner: A salad of greens, figs, toasted pine nuts, and herbed goat cheese, tossed with India’s famous vinaigrette. Fettuccine with truffle butter, cream, and pecorino cheese. Homemade bread.

“Homemade bread? ” Lula said. She was stuffing her face with food, the way India had never seen her do in public. It was the pot, maybe. Or she felt at ease here. Or she was simply hungry: Like all workaholic insomniacs, Lula barely ate. She lived on coffee and cigarettes and nibbled at sad, shriveled pieces of cheese naan. Now, Lula slathered the homemade bread with butter. India was delighted.

Over dessert-a plum crumble with amaretto ice cream-Lula told India that the female nudes were no accident. They had been born out of a discovery she had made a year earlier: the sexual discovery of women.

“You mean,” India said, “you’re a lesbian?”

“Bisexual,” Lula said. “I’ve been with too many men to consider myself a lesbian. I like men, but I’m done with them sexually, for the time being.”

“Are you?” India said.

“I’m into women,” Lula said.

“Is there anyone special?” India asked.

“No,” Lula said. “Not really. Do you ever think about women?”

“No,” India said. “Never.” When she said this, she felt immature, provincial.

“Let me ask you another question,” Lula said. She had devoured her dessert and was pressing the tines of her fork against the remaining crumbs. “Would you ever consider modeling for me?”

India had smoked the second joint late that night, blowing the smoke out her open bedroom window. Insomnia, her own personal Satan, had her by the neck. Her mind was a bloodred room, alarms sounding. She had known, the second she agreed to model for Lula, that she wouldn’t be able to sleep. She feared she would never sleep again.

Initially, she had turned Lula down. No, heavens, no, there is nothing about my body that deserves to be reproduced in any medium.

Lula had been persistent. I’m trying to get at something inside the body. To show inner strength, resilience. Surely you’ve picked up on that?

Yes, India had picked up on it. It was what made the nudes distinctive. You looked at Lula’s figures and saw the iron and the elasticity.

Who have you used before? India asked.

Lula shrugged. The sylphs from the stable. She meant the aspiring actresses and waitresses who got paid thirty dollars an hour to pose for PAFA students. Also, a friend of mine from over the summer. And once, a black high school girl I picked up off the street.

Jesus, India thought. Lula was out there, inviting lawsuits. And yet, India had seen the studies of the black teenager and found them brilliant.

No one can know, India said. No one can know I’m doing it and no one can know it’s me when they see the paintings. You can imagine the imbroglio that would ensue?

I can imagine, Lula said.

So, India said, feeling both honored and supremely uncomfortable. Feeling, in fact, like she was being propositioned. This was a chance to be a part of something new and alive. There was no doubt in India’s mind that Lula was going to become a major artist of the new millennium-as big someday as Rothko himself, or Pollock, or O’Keeffe-and how could India, mere mortal that she was, give up the opportunity to be a part of that? India did possess inner strength and she did possess resilience and she was sinfully proud of both. She was a phoenix, risen from the ashes. She should be painted! If not her, then whom? Lula might ask Ainslie next, or Spencer Frost’s sultry wife, Aversa. India would have been offered her chance and blown it. So she said yes. She would pose.

Lula had left the house shortly after getting the answer she was looking for, taking with her a generous piece of plum crumble on a paper plate sealed with Saran Wrap. Lula was drunk and high and driving a borrowed car on unfamiliar, winding roads; it was unethical, indeed criminal, to send her home. India should have invited Lula to spend the night. You can follow me in tomorrow morning. But India’s sense of decorum told her to get the girl out of the house before any other boundaries were crossed.

India smoked the joint, which led her downstairs to the kitchen to finish both the plum crumble and the amaretto ice cream. She fell asleep around five and awoke at seven with her teeth unbrushed and a vague sense of shame in her heart.

At the picnic table, India polished off the second glass of wine. It was quarter to four and she was still alone. It was a gift, she supposed, to have time to think about the letter, and about Lula, without other people around. If Birdie were here, she would want to know who the letter was from and what it said. India’s head was floating. It was a singular experience, getting drunk on a sunny afternoon. She had reached the point where she either had to rein herself in-figure out how to work the ancient French press and make herself a cup of coffee-or keep going with wine. What the hell, she thought. She was on Tuckernuck, where nothing was expected of her.