Tristan, Petra, and a DJ named Blake are at the table when I sit down. (No, I don’t know why a DJ is on a writing retreat. Yes, I asked.) Blake and Petra are debating religion—Scientology and Catholicism, respectively. I tune them out while I nudge an oyster onto my plate and stare it down.
“You squeeze the lemon juice on top,” Tristan says.
“Yeah, I know.”
“You looked confused.”
“I wasn’t.”
He waves his white napkin and exchanges a look with Blake. “Forgive me, I didn’t mean to mansplain.”
They laugh while Petra rolls her eyes. “Ignore them,” she says as she takes a hit off her vape. There’s an untouched lobster roll on her plate. My stomach growls. She tips her headback to blow blueberry-scented vapor into the sky before looking at me. “West said you’re a writer?”
“She wrote the book that that movie is based on,” Tristan says.
“No, no, don’t waste your words,” Petra drawls.
“What’s it called?Fire and Flame and Third Cliché Here?”
“Don’t be rude,” Petra says, the corner of her mouth curling up. “She’s my guest.”
“Actually, I’m here with West,” I say. I can’t help myself. The lie is worth the puckered confusion on Petra’s face.
“You know Emerson?” Tristan asks, appearing genuinely interested in me for the first time all week.
“Since college.”
“Is itTorched?” Blake’s staring at his phone. He missed the change of subject.
“Ooooh. Cinematic!” Tristan says.
Blake angles his phone so they can watch the trailer together. I sit opposite, watching them watch. Petra elbows Tristan in the side when he laughs at the dramatic climax.
“Cute!” Petra croons when it’s over.
“If I was in it for the money, I’d write something like that,” Tristan says. “Like taking candy from a baby.”
I care too little of his opinion to be upset by it. “I bet it’s easy not to be in it for the money when your parents own this house.”
Scientologist-slash-DJ Blake laughs so hard that sauvignon blanc squirts out his nose as West emerges from the house with damp hair and bare feet.
“I don’t think your friend Mars likes us,” Tristan says, and drains his glass. “We have too muchprivilege.”
“Don’t be an asshole,” West says.
Tristan turns to Petra. “Is ‘privilege’ the buzzword of the day? The insult that’s supposed to hurt us the most?”
“We should record that for the podcast,” Petra says.
“Now?”
“Now.”
“Don’t come inside for an hour,” she warns me and West. “Ambient noise will ruin the recording.” She, Tristan, and DJ Blake take their smoke and their post-woke, wannabe-edgelord humor inside the six-thousand-square-foot Martha’s Vineyard beachfront mansion.
“They get off on shocking people,” West says apologetically.
“I can tell.”
