He always thought he was in this for the money, and the money had thrilled him at first, but he was going numb to it. The more it piled up, the more it piled up, and in the last few years their resources had reached a self-sustaining pitch — it could go on multiplying forever with little to no input from them.
Carver rose unsteadily from the bed, then leaned on it with one hand when his vision went black.
“You okay?” Lillian said as she got into the bed with a jar of La Mer body cream.
“Yeah. I should have had dinner.”
“Didn’t you have some of the chicken Emilio made?”
“I didn’t want any. I had a protein bar.”
“Oh, Carver, don’t prove your yokel family right,” Lillian sighed, rubbing lotion into her left calf.
Carver’s head cleared and he straightened up. “In what sense?”
“Don’t perform the behaviors of an anorexic.”
“I don’t,” Carver snapped. “And my family aren’t yokels, Jesus. This is a two million dollar house.”
“Sorry,” Lillian recited. “You know you say worse about them.”
“You say terrible things aboutyourfamily.”
Lillian was from one of those diminished and creepy old-money families whose remaining holdings were tied up in immoral investments and bolstered by insider trading. She had grown up on yachts and in boarding schools, and it seemed like half of her family had been maimed or died in unusual ways. Her great-uncle was gored to death by a rhino on a trophy-hunting expedition, her father made paraplegic by a polo accident, her sister had died in a twin-engine plane crash, et cetera. None of this bothered her much. Her father was addicted to prostitutes,so better for everyone that his genitals no longer worked; her sister had tried to kill her several times when they were children, so good riddance; and her great-uncle was continually testing the limits of the world’s laws against human slavery. Lillian told him all of this on their first date while they were waiting for their salads.
“Yeah, but all those things are true,” she said, looking confused. “And it’s true that your family are yokels, darling. I don’t mean to say that they’re poor, I know they’re upper middle class. And I really do like them. But most of their concerns are prosaic.”
“Well, your family are a bunch of sinister lunatics and parasites.”
“Right,” Lillian agreed.
Carver moved toward the bathroom. “And what happened to the motto? You can always be thinner, look better?”
“That’s more of a vision board quote than gospel, baby. You’re already lean, you don’t need to be cutting. Why do you think your times have sucked lately?”
“I’m not in training right now.”
“Still, when’s the last time you hit a PR?”
She knew right where to sting him. “Maybe I’m just getting old,” he snapped.
Lillian rolled her eyes. “Don’t play dumb.”
“I’m not playing, okay? I’m gonna deal with Lloyd and get ready for bed.”
“Good,” she said, giving him a twinkly smile and a little wave.
Carver shut the bathroom door behind him and bent over the sink to splash his face with water, pressing his fingers against his upper eyelids and massaging those muscles around his orbital bones which seemed to stay perpetually tense and sore.
He’d noticed the same things Lillian had, though he also irrationally believed that the thinner he got the faster he couldrun. He knew he was teetering near the weight he’d been in high school, saved only by the lean muscle he’d put on since then. But the basic motions of life had been difficult lately, and eating felt like a drag force — another chore, another box to check, another humiliating submission. Hunger was liberating. He didn’t appreciate people trying to steal it from him.
Carver brushed his teeth with his toothbrush and toothpaste that lived in this bathroom, then dried his hands and called Lloyd. He put the phone to his ear and stared through the bathroom window at the vast dark expanse of his parents’ backyard while the line rang.
“Yello,” Lloyd said, all friendly.
“Hey, man. Sorry to call so late.”
“No problem — everything alright?”
