“Crystal Geneville”

“Crystal floated into Henry Hall in modestly flared, bell-bottom jeans and a Moroccan-style, gauze-cotton blouse whose pliant material had not been prevented by the intervention of a frustrating brassiere from outlining the baked apples of her breasts, from the yielding tops of which emerged a walnut and a raisin on each side. She wore boots that gave one a first impression of a country girl until one noticed the footwear’s stylishly shaped vamps and softly elegant leather. Hippy-style, wire-rim glasses and casual falls of blond hair belied the implicit elegance of the girl. “Not again,” Skylar thought when he saw her, “here’s another embodiment of contradictions.” Indeed, he may have been on to something. Crystal flirted with her inner hippy but only with the support of a substantial monthly allowance from her father. Daddy painted erotic abstractions that had become sought-after symbols of arrival by a generation of the American nouveaux riches whose cocktail parties served up not merely vodka martinis but, more importantly, glimpses of paintings, sculpture, and furnishings intended to impress their friends. The cresting wave of Geneville’s reputation could have been overlaid perfectly with a graph of his rising prices. Having foreseen his daughter’s interest in Princeton, the artist had, two years earlier, hosted a benefit for the University which had raised a substantial sum. Such donations naturally brought smiles to the faces of Admissions Committee members.”