The Goldfinch

Chapter 5 | Part 17

BORIS LIKED XANDRA A lot better than I did: leaping forward to open doors for her, saying he liked her new haircut, offering to carry things. I'd teased him about her ever since I'd caught him looking down her top when she leaned to reach her cell phone on the kitchen counter.
"God, she's hot," said Boris, once we were up in my room. "Think your dad would mind?"
"Probably wouldn't notice."
"No, serious, what do you think your dad would do to me?" "If what?"
"If me and Xandra."
"I dunno, probably call the police."
He snorted, derisively. "What for?"

"Not you. Her. Statutory rape."
"I wish."
"Go on and fuck her if you want," I said. "I don't care if she goes to
jail."
Boris rolled over on his stomach and looked at me slyly. "She takes
cocaine, do you know that?" "What?"
"Cocaine." He mimed sniffing.
"You're kidding," I said, and then, when he smirked at me: "How can you tell?"
"I just know. From the way she talks. Also she's grinding her teeth. Watch her sometime."
I didn't know what to watch for. But then one afternoon we came in when my dad wasn't home and saw her straightening up from the coffee table with a sniff, holding her hair behind her neck with one hand. When she threw her head back, and her eyes landed on us, there was a moment where nobody said anything and then she turned away as if we weren't there.
We kept walking, up the stairs to my room. Though I'd never seen anybody snorting drugs before, it was clear even to me what she was doing.
"God, sexy," said Boris, after I shut the door. "Wonder where she keeps it?"
"Dunno," I said, flopping down on my bed. Xandra was just leaving; I could hear her car in the driveway.
"Think she'll give us some?"
"She might give you some."
Boris sank down to sit on the floor by the bed, with his knee up and his
back against the wall. "Do you think she's selling it?"
"No way," I said, after a slight, disbelieving pause. "You think?"
"Ha! Good for you, if she is."
"How's that?"
"Cash around the house!"
"Fat lot of good that does me."
He swung his shrewd, appraising gaze over to me. "Who pays the bills
here, Potter?" he said.

"Huh." It was the first time that this question, which I immediately recognized as of great practical importance, had even occurred to me. "I don't know. My dad, I think. Though Xandra puts in some too."
"And where does he get it? His moneys?"
"No clue," I said. "He talks to people on the telephone and then he leaves the house."
"Any checkbooks lying around? Any cash?"
"No. Never. Chips, sometimes."
"As good as cash," Boris said swiftly, spitting a bitten-off thumbnail
on the floor.
"Right. Except you can't cash them in the casino if you're under
eighteen."
Boris chortled. "Come on. We figure out something, if we have to. We
dress you up in that poncy school jacket with the coat of arms, send you to the window, 'Excuse me, miss—' "
I rolled over and punched him hard, in the arm. "Fuck you," I said, stung by his drawling, snobbish rendering of my voice.
"Can't be talking like that, Potter," said Boris gleefully, rubbing his arm. "They won't give you a fucking cent. All I'm saying is, I know where my dad's checkbook is, and if there's an emergency—" he held out his open palms—"right?"
"Right."
"I mean, if I have to write bad check, I write bad check," said Boris philosophically. "Good to know I can. I'm not saying, break in their room and go through their things, but still, good idea to keep your eye open, yes?"