“Yeah. I want it.”
“Okay.” Nora looked at him like she wanted to stroke his hair, but she didn’t.
Carver stared at the photo until his vision blurred. “How do you think your mom would have reacted,” he said, “if she knew you had a secret love child with a Jewish guy?”
Nora snorted. “She would have been horrified. She would have tanned my hide.”
“Well, you got away with it.”
Nora acted like she hadn’t heard this and patted him on the back. “I’m going to make some tea, do you want some?”
“No, I think I’m gonna lie down for a bit.”
“Okay. I’ll let you be.”
Nora crept out of his room and pulled the door shut behind her. Carver went and lay down on his bed, holding the photo to his chest, watching shadows move across the vaulted ceiling.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Scott knew early on that it would probably be a bad idea to go back to the Novacks’ house at all that night.
He’d dawdled on the golf course to watch the comet for another minute or two, but as he made his way back, he’d heard shouting near the club house and had spotted what looked like the small, shadowy figures of Carver and his parents acting out some wacky Benny Hill routine which ended with Carver sprinting toward the parking lot. Whatever this was, it didn’t seem to bode well, but he did his best to remain optimistic. Carver was a grown man. He could fight his own battles. It would be untoward of Scott to worry too much, especially after he said all of that quite frankly wacky shit. He was not being cool at all. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d acted this uncool.
Once inside, he took his seat at the table where Letty had parked all of her high school friends and tried to have a normal time catching up with them. He ended up introducing them to Johnny, who hit it off with the group as well as Scott expected and took a lot of the conversational burden off of him, which ruled. This went as planned for about half an hour until Conway interrupted and asked to speak with him in private.
He said sure and followed her out onto the balcony with mounting dread.
“Before I ask you anything, I need you to know, Idon’twant gory details,” Conway said once they were outside, raising one manicured hand to punctuate this with an emphatic gesture. “I’m just trying to get tonight’s narrative straight.”
“Uh, okay,” Scott said.
“I asked Lillian where Carver went, and she told me that she confronted you guys about hooking up last night?” Conway raised her eyebrows hugely.
Through the glass he could see Lillian on the dance floor, tearing it up cocaineishly to a Pitbull song with a pair of married tattoo artists who were friends with the brides. “Yeah. Correct.”
“Okay, fantastic.” She clearly did not find this fantastic. “And then Chip texted me that he got Carver home and everything was okay, he was fine.” Conway paused. “I had no reason to not think Carver was fine? So Chip just got back here, and I asked him what happened, and he said Carver had a blow-up with our parents and then bolted, but he was being really evasive and he said he doesn’t know what exactly the blow-up was about. And Lillian said she doesn’t know shit about dick. So what happened?”
Blow-up with his parents. So Scott was probably fucked. Maybe as soon as they all left the balcony, Lillian had marched over to Doug and Nora and told them everything.
“I honestly don’t know either,” Scott said, trying to look unconcerned. “Not about that part, sorry. I mean, I did see him, like, trying to run away from your parents.”
“When? Where?”
“When I was coming off the golf course. They were up by the club house.”
“Why the golf course?”
“Carver ran out there and I went and got him. After the Lillian stuff.”
“Okay. Are they splitting up?”
Scott hesitated. “I…”
“Hope so?” she supplied.
“No, no. I don’t know. No clue.”
Conway shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Scott, this is so unhelpful.”
