“Your eyes are big and you smell like fear.”
“Babe, we’ve talked about this.”
She rolled her eyes. “You smell likeflop sweat, sorry.”
“Well, I’m fine.” Carver went to the dresser that he had unpacked their luggage into that morning and retrieved a fresh shirt.
“I’ve been wondering something,” she said, as he buttoned it up.
“Shoot,” he said.
“Did you and this Scott guy hook up in high school, or something?”
Carver wheeled around in utter gut-jerking horror. Lillian looked innocently up at him from the bed, lounging in a slant of afternoon sun, her aristocratic face in calm repose.
“Why would you ask me that?” he said.
“Because you’ve been a little strange around him,” she said. “You tense up when he talks to you. I’m just curious.” She grinned. “I know we don’t really discuss it, but it’s not like I don’t know you like boys.”
“Honey,” Carver spluttered, his heart jackhammering.
“Ugh, don’t be weird about it, Carver. I don’t care who you fucked a billion years ago here in Golf World. I just thoughtit was funny, considering how differently you two have clearly turned out.”
Carver leaned against the dresser, speechless.
“Actually, it’s kind of hot to imagine you kissing,” she continued without a care in the world. “With a shave and a haircut he’d be pretty good-looking, don’t you think?”
“No!”
“Aww,” Lillian said, looking back at her phone. “Whatever, fine. But we haven’t had a threesome inforever. When was the last time? With that French woman on that trip to Gstaad?”
Carver did not bother to point out that 1) this “trip to Gstaad” was their honeymoon and 2) calling it a “threesome” was a stretch, as it had mostly involved Lillian and the woman having slobbery makeouts and giggling to each other in French while Carver laid nearby, seasick and impotent from extreme drunkenness. The French woman, he remembered, kept calling him ‘Cleaver’.
“I’m going to the wine store,” he said, fumbling for the doorknob. “I’ll see you in a bit. Maybe ask my mom if she needs help with anything.”
“Yeah, sure, once I’m done here,” Lillian said, flapping her hand at him like he was an especially chatty chambermaid.
Carver pulled the door firmly shut, yanking the doorknob toward himself like he could trap all fucked-up shit inside that room forever, then went back down the hall and knocked on his parents’ door again. His dad came out a second later, smelling of cologne. He examined Carver with his typical dispassion and said, “Shall we?”
“Lead the way,” Carver said, gesturing toward the staircase and falling in step behind him.
It was always excruciating for Carver and Doug to try to makeconversation when alone, but it was worst in the car, when they had nothing to mutually focus on. Today they barely even tried, which Carver was grateful for. He filled the drive’s fifteen minutes by checking his email and Slack channels until he’d bled them dry, then stared at the dashboard the rest of the way.
As they were looking for a parking spot, Doug cleared his throat and said, “So.”
Carver looked over at him, suddenly irrationally afraid that the Silver Fox had sold him out. So… my golf buddy put his fingers in you, son? Yes, Dad, he did, and are you going around telling people that I’m a basket case?
“Lillian mentioned you two were looking at real estate out this way,” Doug said.
“Oh,” Carver said, relaxing. “Yeah. As an investment, yeah. A rental or an AirBnb.”
“Uh-huh. Not to move out here?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“So if you had kids, you’d, uh —” Doug broke off for a moment as he parallel parked with smooth precision. “You wouldn’t raise them in thecity, would you?”
Carver tried to picture his children. He could only picture miniature versions of Lillian, whether male or female. “Uh. I don’t know,” he said.
