Since Carver was high, and the son of lawyers, this Latin phrase made a bunch of others run through his head like lyrics. Postmortem. Ad litem. Ex parte. Pro forma. Contra legem. Mens rea. Mens rea, indeed.
He wished Scott would tip his hand. He couldn’t tell what he was thinking, only that he was slightly agitated. It was entirely possible that Scott was turned off by the person he now was and only kept bothering him out of this desire for finality.
“I mean, I’d like to hear what you thought about all that,” Carver said honestly. “I’m curious.”
Scott exhaled smoke. “You don’t listen to my music at all, huh?”
Carver’s heart dropped. “Is that a joke?”
“No, not a joke. It’s in a few songs, if you know what you’re looking for. I mean, I don’t sayhe…”
What a fucking nightmare. His business was out there and he’d been turned into a woman. “I’m not gonna sit here with Spotify open for an hour,” he said, then glanced at the house to make sure none of the first floor lights were still on. “Let’s go to the pool house.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Scott studied him some more with his eyes narrowed, then scraped his chair back and rose to his feet, tall. Carver got up too. Wordlessly they began following each other through the grass to the stately little construction on the hill which faced the house from the other side of the covered pool, the yellow lights inside it glowing through the many-windowed doors. Flanking it from either side, abutting the narrow ends of the pool like bookends, were two elegant cedar cabanas.
The pool was the crown jewel of Nora’s renovative achievements, funded with money she inherited from her grandparents, the ground broken on the project exactly two weeks after probate had concluded. At that point they were ahead on the mortgage and the kids all had healthy college funds, so Nora had been unusually reckless and spared no expense. It was her dream, her oasis, her place to sunbathe while reading grotesque mystery novels starring detectives and medical examiners. She wanted it to have all the grandeur of the pool fromThe Philadelphia Storyor the one at the Dumbarton Oaks estate, where she’d spent many happy hours studying when she was at Georgetown Law.
She got her wish, and the kids loved it too. They had one of the best pools in the school. After Chip threw two disastrous house parties, both of which their parents found out about, all three of them were afraid to host anything big — but a pool hang was a different story. From 1994 to 2007, they were the First Family of pool hangs.
Scott pulled open the doors to the pool house and stepped aside for Carver in a gentlemanly way. Carver entered and looked around. Like most fixtures of his childhood, this place remained largely the same as he remembered it. There was the kitchenette with its breakfast bar and wet bar, and the living room with its long navy sectional and entertainment center. Thesectional’s chaise was made up with sheets and a blanket, and two of Scott’s guitars rested on stands in the corner, one acoustic and one electric. The interior design trends of the early 90s were alive in the warm ambient lighting from chunky table lamps, the soft curves of the furniture, the overstuffed couch. The TV was new, skinny and large, but surrounding it in the cedar entertainment center were Playstations 1 and 2 as well as a VCR machine.
Even though the pool had been closed all off-season, the air in here still held the faint smells of its chemicals, which to Carver was the smell of summer. He was momentarily transported by sense memory.
“Proust’s Playstations,” he said to Scott, who was over at the wet bar filling a highball glass with water.
Scott glanced up at him, then looked at the entertainment center. “You guys read Proust at Duke?”
“No, it was recreational,” Carver said. “And I skimmed. Where’dyouread Proust?”
“I didn’t, I watched The Sopranos.”
Carver laughed. “Can you bring me some water too?”
“Sure.”
Carver sat down on the couch and recognized his inebriation in how comfortable it felt. The pool house was twirling and sparkling around him. There was a mirror on the wall to his left, and he gave himself a quick assessment before Scott came over with the waters and put one in his hand.
“Thanks,” he said.
“We could play some Gran Turismo,” Scott said, indicating the TV.
Carver sipped his water. “Does that TV do Spotify? Maybe put on some music.”
Scott leaned forward to grab the remote from the glass and cedar coffee table. All here was cedar. Nora did not like to mix her woods. “What kind?”
“Inoffensive.”
“Chill jazz?”
“Sure.”
Scott opened up Spotify and put on some Paul Desmond. Carver leaned back against the couch, feeling good. He wished he could live in this moment forever, swimming eternally in the warm hope of getting his rocks off. Once Scott started talking, his own mood would turn, he knew this. Scott did not look as mellow as Carver felt. He was grappling with complex and unhappy thoughts.
Carver stared at Scott’s thigh, hidden under his jeans, a mere six inches away. As Scott leaned forward to put the remote back, Carver watched his quadriceps flex. Scott had the lean sinew of a guy who didn’t go to the gym but who lugged a lot of heavy shit back and forth and spent a lot of time on his feet. This was way more attractive to Carver than the cut, steroidal musculature that had become the fad among the males of FiDi.
