Nora came jogging over to them, her phone in her hand and her gauzy green shawl tossed over her arm. “Carver, please,” she said. “Please stop screaming. Now, what was that stuff about high school? Did Scott lead you into something when you were younger?”
“Oh, my God,” Carver exclaimed, his voice hoarse.
“He came from a strange home. Those people were like gypsies, they normalized a lot of odd things. Dotbraggedto me once that they started discussing sex with him when he was seven years old, as if that made them, what, enlightened? And he’s a sensitive boy, your father and I always thought he might have been preyed on by one of the weirdos that came through that house. Did he introduce you to something?”
Carver half-wept, half-laughed, tears streaming down his face. “What the fuck is wrong with you people,” he said. “We’re at a fucking lesbian wedding —”
“Stop swearing at your mother,” Doug said.
“We’re at a fucking lesbian wedding! How come it’s normal for them, but it must have been that Scott —” His breath caught, and he hiccuped. “Scott got molested, then molested me —?”
“It’s just unusual for teenagers to have gay sex,” Doug said, “without learning the mechanics somewhere. The mechanics aren’t intuitive, that’s all.”
“Especially for boys,” Nora said. “I’m not saying anyone wasmolested. I meant when he was a teenager, a man in his twenties may have taken advantage of him. It’s very common. It happened to Sally’s brother.”
“Please just kill me or something. I can’t have this conversation anymore.”
“This is not a normal way to react to anything,” she said.
“I don’t give a fuck. Just let me go.”
“Go where?” Doug said.
“Back to the city. Somewhere. I can’t be here anymore.”
“This is yourhome,” Nora said.
Carver let out a laugh of pure anguish, and his mother threw her hands in the air in exasperation. He missed Scott, he couldn’t understand now why he’d run from him, straight into the jaws of whatever this was.
“Carver,” Doug said, “either snap out of this hysteria or one of us is going to have to smack you.”
“I’ll hit you back,” he cried out, “you worthless fucks.”
“Excuseme?” Nora exclaimed.
“You heard me!”
“You are making ascene!This is your cousin’swedding!Calm yourself for her sake, please!”
“I don’t give a fuck,” Carver said, freshly furious. “I don’t. Fuck her. You let her get married. You paid for it.” He started working to tear himself free from Doug again, staggering backwards, dragging his dad along. Doug was a senior citizen now — it would only take one good feint and twist, one good ankle-breaking move. “You wouldn’t letmeget married.”
“Youaremarried!” Nora exclaimed.
Carver hit the panic button again, listened very closely to where the alarm sound originated from, then head faked his father before heaving himself in the opposite direction. He tore loose from Doug’s grip and sprinted toward his car. His parents resumed their anxious shouting.
Finally he saw the Maybach. He ran flat-out, ignoring the protests of his injured knee, then flung open the door and leapt into the car. He locked the doors, then began to pull out of thespot before his parents could box him in. They ran into view, yelling at him, but they were too late. Carver drove right by them, enjoying their wide-eyed, open-mouthed looks.
Carver pulled out of the country club’s driveway going about 15 miles per hour, and continued at that speed as he made the journey back to his parents’ house. He left the radio off and rolled the windows down, to better keep his wits about him. He did, in fact, not want a felony DUI. He didn’t even want to risk hitting a deer. He didn’t want to deal with anything else tonight, he just wanted to lock the door to his childhood bedroom and crawl into bed. He tried to blink as little as possible, but this only made his vision more blurry. As he rolled to a halt at a stop sign on the precipice of a particularly wealthy neighborhood, he took a moment to blink furiously, squeezing his eyelids together.
When Carver opened his eyes, he saw police lights in his rearview mirror. His stomach plummeted in sheer disbelief. It simply wasn’t possible, God could not be this cruel. For the first time in his life he wondered what it cost to bribe an American police officer. Whatever the number was, he probably didn’t have enough cash on him. No, this couldn’t be happening.
The lights persisted, though, so he pulled over onto the shoulder and turned the car off, then gripped the steering wheel with both hands and tried to make himself sober. The cop was probably pulling him over for driving too slowly — as far as he was aware he hadn’t broken any other traffic laws. He was bleary-eyed and smelled like alcohol, so he couldn’t deny drinking, but if called out he could call it a few small drinks. He could claim he was driving slowly out of an abundance of caution. He practiced saying “abundance of caution” out loud a few times. Jesus Christ, he sounded drunk. He was sayingcaussssshun. He was fucked.
Carver watched in his side mirror as the cop got out of his cruiser. He was burly and mustachioed. He swaggered up to the driver’s side door, then knocked on Carver’s window with two light raps of his knuckles.
Carver rolled the window down. “Officer,” he said.
“Hi there,” the cop said, smiling at him. “My name is Officer Rizzuto, can I get your license and registration?”
