“They know I’m smart,” Carver said. “Being smart doesn’t always help.”
“Sometimes it makes people nervous,” Lillian said. “It’s evolutionary. A smart person can figure out how to trick you and kill you. We look like predators to them.”
Carver was quiet after that. Lillian didn’t mind people seeing her that way — she knew what she was and was comfortable in it. Sometimes this made him seethe at her with hot, roiling jealousy.
He took a Xanax. It was just kicking in as they rolled into the circular driveway of his parents’ five-bedroom white colonial. The house was worth around two million today, though they’d bought it for just under 200k. When he was a kid, Carver thought it was a palace; today he could buy it off them in cash, many times over. After he parked the car behind a line of four others, he took a minute to fix his hair in the rearview mirror.
Lillian watched him do this, clearly in no hurry. “Ready?” she said, producing the bottle of Screaming Eagle wine he’d picked out for this visit.
Carver nodded, got out and retrieved their luggage so he could roll it up the driveway’s fan-patterned pavement, which was slick at its edges from the sprinklers that watered the low hedges and flowering catalpa trees. Lillian strode out ahead of him, not waiting. He was happy to let her reach the door first. He could tell by curtain movement in the living room windows that their arrival had been observed.
Indeed, a second after Lillian’s knuckles struck the door, it opened to reveal his mother and her golden retriever, who she held by the collar as he barked. Lillian ignored the dog and hugged his mother. “Hi, Nora.”
“Hi, Lillian, great to see you.” Nora turned to Carver as Lillian walked past her into the house. The dog chased after Lillian. “Hi, Carver, honey.”
“Hey,” Carver said.
His mother swept her appraisive pale green eyes up and down him like a police flashlight. This, at least, he knew not to take personally. They had the same eyes and looked at people the same way. They looked largely alike, in fact, while his siblings took after their dad.
“You’re thin,” she said. Again, they were thin in the same way, it just wasn’t the way men his age were supposed to be thin. In the Financial District his build was allowed, as everyonewas addicted to cocaine and Equinox, but in the hamlets of Westchester County a thirty-six-year-old man was supposed to be thickening in the gut, arms and shoulders — putting together a golf body.
“Yeah.” Carver fidgeted before coming in for a hug. The hug was basically just them squeezing each other by the biceps. “How are you, Mom?”
“I’m good!” Nora said breezily. “I’m good. We’re all just sitting around catching up.”
“Who’s here?”
“Oh, a bunch of people.” She led him inside. He could hear the bunch of people now — it was loud in the living room, with bursts of laughter every few moments. He stowed their rolling suitcases in the corner of the foyer, in lieu of instructions. “It’s no vacancy, we even have someone in the pool house.”
“Who?”
Nora didn’t respond, instead pulling open the French doors that led from the hallway into the American Craftsman-style living room. Carver followed her, and saw an array of mostly blonde heads looking up at him from sofas and chairs like meerkats. He saw his sister Conway, his brother’s wife, Maggie, and their two children, his mother, his father, his wife, Letty’s younger sister Priscilla, and finally, Scott McCaffrey.
Scott was not blonde. His wavy hair was a rich, warm brown, like the ears of a springer spaniel, and long enough to reach his shoulders. Unlike any of the Novack men he wore facial hair, a short scruffy beard. He was dressed like he painted houses for a living — actually, he was dressed like he wanted you to think he painted houses for a living. The clothes were slightly too nice and artfully disreputable. This pretentious prick. Carver knew that continually, in the back of his minds’ eye, Scott was imagining himself giving a speech at the Grammys. This was somethingeveryone had recently managed to forget about artists: how fucking vain they were.
And Scott was not only vain, he was smiling. He was smiling at Carver like he knew exactly who he was and like eighteen years had not passed.
CHAPTER TWO
Carver’s heart spasmed and became molten. Through the benevolence of Xanax he managed to not react at all. “Who let you in here?” he said, smiling like eighteen years had absolutely passed so thanks but no thanks, pal.
“Your lovely parents,” Scott said, leaning back in the armchair he was perched in. Carver made his way into the living room and sat beside his sister-in-law Maggie, who smiled at him with warm disinterest.
“The hotels around here are so expensive,” Nora said. “And his parents are down in Florida now.”
“They couldn’t send you some cash for a hotel, Scott?” Carver said.
Scott’s smile widened and woodened. “Don’t worry, Carv, I didn’t take your bedroom.”
“Pool house?”
“Right. So I don’t bother you guys with guitar noise.” Scott always saidguitarormotorcyclelike he expected underwear to hit the floor the second the sound escaped his lips.
Carver sat back, too, with his wrist on the edge of the armrest so everyone could see his Rolex where his sleeve rode up.
“He’s playing some live music at the wedding,” Nora said, sounding pleased. Carver’s parents got a real kick out of Scott’s music, for some reason. “For no charge, isn’t that kind?”
“I promised her that I’d do this, like, twenty years ago,” Scott said. “And she did not forget.”
