CHAPTER ELEVEN #2
“You know I’m the one who wanted it,” Scott whispered back, feeling hot across his entire body now. “I asked you. You dumped me.”
“I didn’t fucking dump you. You gave me an ultimatum.”
“No, you made your choice. What, I was gonna live under your bed at Duke?”
“Was I going to live under your bed at your flophouse?” Carver hissed.
“I was thinking we’d both get jobs!”
“What kind of job was I gonna get with no college education?”
“They have colleges out there!”
“Out-of-state tuition until I established residency, my parents would have figured out what was going on and cut me off —”
“— you don’t know that —”
“— as if you’d have wanted to compromise anyway, as if you’d have wanted me to have a normal college student life while you were busking, as if you’d want me going home for Thanksgiving and living a double life and hiding you —”
Scott scrubbed his hand down his face. “We’ve already had this argument, we had this argument eighteen years ago. I don’t want to go through this again.”
“I don’t want to either!”
“And we’re having it for the same reason, do you get that?”
“What reason?”
“Because I was inside you last night,” he hissed, fed up and stung. “And you don’t want to believe it meant what it meant, you didn’t last time either —”
“— oh, please —”
“— but we’re not kids anymore, alright? Now you have plenty of other fucks to compare me to, so can you still look me in the eye and tell me we don’t have something real?”
Carver didn’t look him in the eye. He finished his drink, then tapped his Amex on the bar like an asshole.
The bartender came back over, raising her eyebrows at them again, hugely this time. Great, she’d overheard them. “Another vodka soda?”
“Yep,” Carver said.
She walked away again.
“This is a crazy way to be drinking, just so you’re aware,” Scott said. “And I don’t even think you wanted the better vodka, honestly. I think you wanted to hide out down here so people wouldn’t see you drinking like this.”
“You’re half right,” Carver snapped. “I came down here because I wanted everyone to leave me the fuck alone for five seconds.”
“Including me?”
“No,” Carver said, surprising him. “I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to see you. But then I see you and you make me fucking crazy.”
“Because I know you.”
“Because you’re so convinced you know me!” he hissed. “Based on what? I haven’t seen you in eighteen years!”
“I don’t care,” Scott said, shaking his head. “I don’t care, man. I saw your soul. I know who you are.”
“What I am is a piece of shit.”
“I don’t think that.”
“You have bad taste. No, actually, you have this romanticized idea of me because I was your first good fuck and then we split up and you wrote all these bullshit songs about how you’re Juliet in the tomb.”
Scott winced. “You listened to that one?”
The bartender came back again, handed Carver his drink and speed-walked back down to her spot at the end of the bar. This time Carver only drank a third of it in one sip, as if compromising. It pained Scott to look at him right now. It was like he was at the bottom of a well.
“They aren’t bullshit songs,” he said softly. “I’m not saying they’re good, I was twenty, but I meant them. I never romanticized you, I know who you are.”
Carver breathed out a laugh. There was a little bit of a twinkle in his eye, a little bit of warmth in the laugh, and this gave Scott the faith to keep going.
“I’m serious,” he said. “I probably wouldn’t like you if I met you on the street today, I have no problem admitting that. But I see you in a different way.”
Carver absorbed this in silence, his gaze lowered, his lashes fanned low.
“And I always have,” Scott said, feeling irrationally tender toward him. “And I think you know that.”
“I don’t know about that,” he muttered. “I don’t know what I know.”
“Yeah. I know that about you too. Look, I’m not gonna push it further right now, I’ll leave it there. I just wanted to say that.”
Carver nodded and sipped his drink again. “Okay.”
“And if you want to talk more, I’m around. You come find me.”
“Okay.”
Scott nodded and walked away from him toward the stairwell, letting out a ragged exhale. He noticed the couple in the corner was still making out, still in their own world.
When Carver emerged from the underworld and rejoined the party upstairs, Lillian found him and seized his arm.
“Good timing,” she said. “Marcus just texted me, they’re about to call.”
“Okay,” Carver said, attempting to mask his complete disinterest.
“You were gone forever, did you even get me that martini I asked for?”
“Shit, no, sorry.”
“It’s fine, I got my own.”
Lillian guided him through the joyful crowd back over to their table, which was now deserted.
His siblings, niece and nephew were all on the dance floor now.
Carver was seized by an uncharacteristic maudlin, much like whatever had driven him to tears earlier.
He would like to go be carefree and happy with his family.
He was tired of feeling like this was impossible. Wasn’t there a way?
He’d ordered a fourth vodka soda for the road, and he raised it automatically to his mouth. As the cold glass touched his lips he realized the gesture had been automatic and lowered it, feeling caught.
Lillian’s phone rang in her hand, and she looked at it. “That’s Credit Suisse,” she said.
“Oh yeah? Do they have some toxic CDOs they’d like to offload?”
“Carver,” Lillian scoffed, like he was being a dipshit. She walked away and raised her phone to her ear.
Carver set his drink down and stood with his fingertips pressed to the edge of the table, swaying a little.
Thank God, he was finally entering a state of real drunkenness.
He stared down at a sea of garnet napkins, small plates containing forks and the remains of cake, and half-empty sweating water glasses.
It took him a moment to realize his own phone was vibrating in his pocket.
He dug it out and looked at the screen. Marcus was calling him.
Carver picked up. “Hey there.”
“Hey, Carv, how’s it going?”
“Good, good.”
“How’s the wedding?”
Carver looked around. “Stupendous,” he said.
“Great,” Marcus said, with zero genuine interest. “I was trying to reach Lillian, but it went to voicemail. Are you guys together?”
Carver glanced over at his wife, who was standing in the corner next to a very tall softbox light the wedding photographer had erected, talking animatedly into the phone. “She’s on with Credit Suisse.”
“Gotcha. Listen, I’m glad you guys have been developing them as an alternative, but if you want to go ahead and just meet DB’s higher equity requirement, you’re good to go on that. We just approved your request.”
Carver continued to watch Lillian. She was beautiful, loose-limbed, smiling. Her movements and expressions flowed with total ease. Suddenly he fully understood for the first time that this person had never once consciously doubted herself.
The idea filled him with anger. It came on with vicious abruptness, like the urge to vomit, and when the anger passed it left behind a sense of total alienation. Was she not human? What creature could live without doubt?
“Good to hear,” he said.
“So, once you guys talk, just let us kn —”
“We’ll take the equity,” Carver interrupted. “We’ll keep Deutsche Bank in place as originally planned.”
“Oh, gotcha. You don’t want to hear what Credit Suisse has to say?”
“No. They were always a backup.”
“Gotcha,” Marcus repeated. “I got a different impression from Lillian when we spoke last.”
“We’ve talked since then,” Carver said, his voice hard. “We decided it isn’t worth it, this late in the game.”
“Yeah, this certainly is the simpler way to handle things. But I think Lillian was worried about the rest of your deal pipeline, and your dry powder?”
“We’ll work it out.”
“Well, if you’re sure,” Marcus said cheerfully. He clearly believed Carver, he wouldn’t expect him to backstab his wife. Not because he thought better of him, but because Lillian wasn’t a person to fuck with. “Let’s get this done, then. We’ll close the loop on our side.”
“Sounds good. Thanks again for getting everyone together on a Saturday.”
Marcus laughed. “No need to thank us, we know what business we’re in.”
“I think it’s worth it to maintain the niceties anyway.”
“Sure, yeah, you’re right. So, to that end, thanks for taking this call at a family wedding.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Have a good rest of your evening.”
“You too,” Carver said, and hung up.
He sat down, feeling a strange relief that manifested as a warm full-body tingle. He leaned back in his chair and sipped his vodka soda, watching his wife, nurturing an almost perverse delight at having defied her.
Finally Lillian got off the phone and came back over to him. “They’re in,” she said, sitting down beside him. “They’re willing to take it all on, they promised they could have everything in place by Monday.”
“No need, honey,” Carver said with a smile. “We got the equity.”
Lillian looked at him funny. “What do you mean?”
“Marcus just called and said we’re good to go. So I gave him the go-ahead.”
She went still, then laughed. “Excuse me?”
“I told him we’re good to go. I don’t want to fight DB on this.”
Lillian’s eyes narrowed and hardened. She nodded as if contemplating what he’d said, then turned to face him, placing an arm over the back of his chair and crossing her legs.
“Since when do you go behind my back and blow up my deals?” she said in a silky voice.
“Since tonight,” Carver said. She was trying to frighten him, but it wasn’t working.
“What the fuck, Carver. We’re co-equals, we don’t make unilateral decisions. What’s wrong with you, what’s gotten into you?”
He knew what had gotten into him: Scott. “We’re at a wedding,” he said. “I didn’t want to keep dealing with this. I wanted to enjoy my weekend.”