“And now a decade on, the finances are a mess again,” Nora said.
“Well, that’s what I’m saying.”
“We like our yacht club,” Lillian said, glancing across the backseat at Carver.
“Well, of course, NYYC is the big kahuna,” Nora said. “How did you two get in, were you referred? I know you don’t race much. Or at all.”
Carver roused from his hot-eyed modafinil stupor and said, “Lillian could get in anywhere.”
“When we applied, I did tell them that I raced in college and might pick it up again,” Lillian said. “But, yeah, it’s because of my family. Whenever I go somewhere like that, I realize I know everyone, and then they let me in because they already know me.”
“That’s nice,” Nora said, with faint longing.
“It’s not very American, I guess,” Lillian admitted. “But it benefits me enormously.”
Nora turned and grinned at her. “Can you get rid of Gary Dodd?”
Lillian laughed. “In two phone calls, but only if you want him dead.”
“No, no, that’s alright.”
Once they arrived at the club, it became obvious that Carver and Lillian were extraneous to this mission. They reunited with Letty (who was inexplicably happy to see Carver, and hugged him) and she introduced them to Sana, a pretty tomboyish waif in glasses who surprised Carver by being apparently Middle Eastern. Hehad never thought of his parents as cross-burning bigots, but them helping to bankroll an interracial lesbian wedding would have been unthinkable twenty years ago, or even ten. There was a time in his childhood when it was a big deal that multiple Jewish families had joined this very country club. It was hard to tell exactly what had changed, other than everything all at once. He felt unmoored from basic truths, and floated around the room like a balloon while his family and the country club staff talked about weather forecasts and china rentals. Lillian seemed to be having a good time for no particular reason, all sunglasses and hair and teeth, pulling the conversational load for both of them.
In a far corner of the high-ceilinged, numerously-windowed and therefore drafty reception hall, Scott stood on a small raised stage setting up amps and other equipment while conversing with a teenager in a dark green Bitterfeld Country Club staff shirt. Scott occasionally looked over at them, but avoided looking at Carver, which was irritating.
He did want Scott to think of him as attractive, he was aware of that much, but he desperately wanted to believe it was for the same reason that he wanted Scott to think of him as successful, happy, fit, well-groomed, drowning in money, drowning in pussy, drowning in Armani, Botox, pills, drowning in modafinil sweat, just drowning, drowning, Scott look at me I’m drowning. In my Armani.
Back inside the conversation he was ostensibly a part of, Sana was explaining her job to Doug. Carver immediately grasped from context that she was a biomedical engineer (his dilettante interest in medicine had driven him to the healthcare division at Blackbrick PE, while Lillian arrived via interest in all the money to be harvested from aging boomers) but his father was mentally trapped in the first Clinton administration and hadassumed she was a software engineer due solely to how much software she used.
“Well, I don’t write any of it,” Sana explained. “Sometimes I write small programs for specific tasks, that’s all.”
Doug looked genuinely fascinated. “But you only make ninety a year?” he said, and caught a reproachful look from Nora for the crime of being specific about money.
“There’s less money in it than people think, actually,” Sana said. “A lot of what I work on might take a decade or more to come to market.”
“What about VC or PE money?” Lillian said. “Carver and I have biomedical startups in our portfolio.”
“There is that,” Sana said, nodding. “But — no offense — a lot of that money rushes into the sexy companies that work on stuff like life extension therapies and neural interfaces. We’re focused more on regenerative medicine. It can be hard to get investors interested in treating blindness when they aren’t blind and don’t want to imagine being blind.” She shrugged. “I might be talking out of my ass, though, I’m not in fundraising or sales. I look at my computer all day.”
“No, I think you’re right,” Lillian said, tossing her hair. “Now that I think about it, that is a lot of what we’re invested in — neural interfaces and life extension.Andcuring fat people.”
Carver rushed to edit her: “Obesity. Curing obesity.”
The thoughtful silence that followed this gave the patient, neglected wedding coordinator the opportunity to pipe up: “Should we go take a walk around the grounds?”
Letty, who had been exchanging an amused look with Sana that was clearly about Lillian, said, “Sure.”
They all started heading for the door that led outside to the green expanses of the club’s bridle paths and golf course. Scott, fingering a dirty little riff on his guitar, looked up as they passed and said, “Could I grab Carver, actually?”
Everyone paused. No, no, they were so close to the door! Don’t listen to him, he’s dressed like a Foo Fighter, he’s not a real person.
“Grab me?” Carver said, coming to an unhappy stop.
“Yeah, I need to check the levels with someone on bass while I’m on guitar. I’m gonna have my buddy Johnny on bass and keys on the actual day, but he gets in tomorrow.”
The chemistry of the group changed; now Carver was no longer in it. Now he was a tonsil stone that needed to be ejected before they could go on about their business, and he felt their confused impatience increase by a logarithm as he remained motionless.
“Yeah, coming,” Carver said, and climbed onto the stage. Scott offered him a hand up, but he didn’t use it.
