“But I love our elopement photos,” Sana said. “And we couldn’t have gotten married at the sunken forest any other way. We weren’t going to stuff a hundred people on a ferry.”
Scott handed Sana the joint and lighter, and she started it, then exhaled smoke in Letty’s face. Letty stuck her tongue out like a dog and put up two fingers to accept the joint’s passage. Scott pushed a ramekin into the center of the table so they could all ash into it.
“Carverisjoining us, by the way,” Letty said, blowing out her own smoke. “Or he said he was going to.”
Scott wanted to not care so pretended he didn’t, nodding nonchalantly.
“When I left he was talking to his wife about work stuff.”
“Okay,” Sana said, putting both hands up and letting out a nervous giggle it seemed like she’d been holding in. “I have a lot to say.”
“God, I know.” Letty leaned across the table to pass the joint to Scott. “I have a lot to say and yet I also have no idea what to say.”
“Carver reminds me of — okay, this might be too fucked up, since he’s your cousin,” Sana said to Letty.
Letty laid a hand on her knee. “Speak your truth, sweetheart.”
Scott exhaled smoke and passed the dwindling joint to Sana, who hit it before glancing behind them at the patio door and saying in a lowered voice, “He reminds me of — so, Scott, I went to T.J., which is this crazy competitive magnet school —”
Scott and Letty both automatically responded to this with polite applause.
“Shut up,” Sana said, laughing and ashing the joint with a lazily elegant finger tap. “I’m only saying that to get across, like, it’s a high-pressure environment. And Carver reminds me of the kids there who we used to joke were suicide risks.”
“Woof,” Letty said.
“To be clear, none ofthosekids ever killed themselves,” Sana added. “It was the ones you didn’t expect who did. But they did have nervous breakdowns sometimes.”
“I could see Carver having a nervous breakdown,” Letty said quietly, hitting the joint. “I think he’sbeenhaving a nervous breakdown.”
“Since when?” Scott said.
She shrugged. “Since he was born.”
“What’s the issue?” Sana said.
“His parents!” Letty exclaimed, hitting the joint again, then glancing back at the door with a paranoid expression.
“Letty, I’ll warn you guys if anyone’s on their way out,” Scott said, laughing. “I have a visual.”
“Thank you. It’s his parents. Like, Chip and Connie, God bless them, they’re kind of hard-headed. They need someone kicking them in the ass. Carver kicks his own ass, that’s just who he is, but his parents are even harder on him than the other two. It’s like because he tried harder, they felt like they could pushhim more, or something? I think it’s just slowly paralyzed him. I mean, he’s different, right?” She nodded to Scott. “When’s the last time you saw him?”
Scott cleared his throat, then shrugged. “I, uh — in person? I saw him, like, across the room at our fifteen-year high school reunion. And he texted me after Bull Fight charted. But until this weekend, I hadn’t spoken to him since I left for California.”
“Eighteen years,” Letty said to Sana, who made her mouth an O and said, “Whoa. After being high school sweethearts?”
“I wouldn’t — I don’t know, man,” Scott protested, as spiky adrenaline disturbed the nice crossfaded state he’d been enjoying. “I don’t know if that’s how he — if that’s the phrase I’d use.”
“Well, regardless, that’s a long time to go,” Sana said. “I mean, people change a lot in their twenties. And Ava was just telling me that private equity is a really ruthless business, you have to tear companies apart and trample your colleagues. Maybe his job has just sucked something out of him.”
Scott somehow hadn’t fully considered this possibility, and was dismayed to.
“But it’s like he has changed and he hasn’t,” Letty said. “I can tell he’s still the guy I remember from when we were kids, but it’s like his portrait in the attic is disintegrating. He should have hadmyparents. I mean, my mom has always doted on him. And they’re cooler about gay people. I was honestly shocked when his parents offered to help pay for our wedding, but I think they have less of a problem with lesbians, and Aunt Nora thinks my parents are bad with money.” She paused. “‘Cause they are.”
“So, wait, is hegaygay?” Sana said, glancing between the two of them. “What about the wife?”
Scott blew out air, shrugging.
“The wife is three joints worth of discussion unto herself,” Letty said, laughing. “The uber-WASP. Actually, I think her people are Swedish or something. Hallsten?”
