CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Like garden leave, sort of,” Lillian said while cracking a crab open.
She warned him that he should start contacting lawyers as soon as he could because she would be, and then they parted on good terms, shaking hands again.
Lillian wanted to get back to the city that same night, so Carver turned the Maybach over to her, but asked if she could first give him a ride to the French restaurant down the street where Scott was finishing up dinner with Letty and Sana.
Lillian rolled her eyes at him for asking and called him impudent, but gave him the ride anyway, dropping him off at the edge of the parking lot.
“So I’ll see you in a week,” she said. “Don’t forget to get a lawyer in the meantime.”
Carver closed the passenger side door but leaned back in through the open window and smiled at her.
She looked lovely in the low blue light; now that it was over, he felt fully free to appreciate her from an aesthetic standpoint.
“You’re going to conflict out all the good ones, I already know this. ”
“Yeah, which is why I’m telling you to hurry up and get one before I do that. Come on. You have to make this a little fun for me. Don’t make me take that yacht away from you.”
“Lil, why take the yacht? You don’t even like the yacht. You’re always saying a real boat needs a sail, you don’t like the wood I picked for the bedrooms, you don’t like how I did the kitchen —”
“That’s the game, Carver,” Lillian said, rolling her eyes. “I’d take it because you want it. Don’t tell me your brain is already going, are you going to show up at the office next week wearing a poncho and playing the bongos?”
“Okay, okay. I’ll call lawyers tomorrow.”
“Good boy. Now get off the car so I can get the fuck out of this place.”
“Aye aye,” Carver said, blowing her a kiss and straightening up.
Lillian blew it back and drove away, peeling out of the parking lot. Carver watched her tail lights disappear down the coast, heading back in the direction of the city, then turned and made his way to the restaurant.
Scott had texted him only fifteen minutes ago sounds good, we’re wrapping up here, so Carver expected to have to loiter for a bit, but as he approached the entrance he saw Scott, Letty and Sana standing off to the side, chatting.
Sana was holding a foil swan, something Carver hadn’t seen in ages.
In many ways this restaurant was trapped in the nineties: their Parisian menu hadn’t changed since he was a kid, nor had their signage, decor or landscaping.
The three noticed him walking up and greeted him warmly. Carver smiled, then sidled up awkwardly next to Scott, dividing the group into its natural couples but not standing closer to him than he currently felt allowed to.
“How was dinner?” he said.
“Very good,” Letty said. She was dressed like her regular self, in jeans and a leather jacket. “Their bread is always incredible.”
“It’s literally just bread in here,” Sana said, lifting the swan. The henna on her hands was starting to fade.
From behind them, a woman’s voice said, “Carver?”
Carver turned and saw two of his parents’ yacht club friends, Tim and Donna Wise, strolling toward them through the parking lot.
They were relatively nondescript people who he only recognized thanks to Donna’s bright copper hair and Tim’s constant habit of wearing a polo and a sports coat with khakis.
He put on his good son smile and waved to them, and they smiled back and stopped to chat.
“And Violet!” Donna said, and Letty waved, wearing her good daughter smile. “So nice to see you guys. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Neither of you come down to the club much anymore.”
“No, not anymore,” Carver said. He felt the faint impulse to add, ‘My wife and I are members of NYYC, actually,’ but what did it matter?
Donna and Tim would be impressed, of course, but who gave a rat’s tiny ass about these people?
And what wife, anyway? Instead, he said, “This is Violet’s wife Sana, they just got married yesterday. ”
“Oh!” Tim said, his eyebrows jumping. “Right. Over at BCC. I saw something about that on Nora’s Facebook.”
Donna glanced around the group as if looking for help with how to react. “Was it a nice wedding?”
“It was lovely,” Sana said. Her tone was so genuinely warm and happy that it seemed to put Tim and Donna at ease. Letty smiled at her.
“And this is Scott McCaffrey, I don’t know if you’d remember each other,” Carver said. Scott, who was being quiet so far tonight, nodded and smiled.
“Dot’s son!” Donna said, smiling at Scott. “Yes, we remember. Your mother is a riot. She has this very funny story about getting caught skinny dipping in the Sound.”
“Sounds like her,” Scott said, with a sort of resigned yet loving embarrassment.
“Well,” Tim said, clapping his hands together, “lovely to see you kids. We’re already a little late for our reservation, so —”
Everyone rushed to make polite ‘nice to see you nice to meet you’ noises, and the two walked off toward the restaurant’s revolving door.
“So,” Letty said, sliding her hands into her pockets. “How’s… uh…”
Sana glanced between Scott and Carver, her dark eyes widening.
“How’s it going?” Letty finally said lamely.
“Fine,” Carver said. “Good. I’m getting divorced.”
Next to him, Scott shifted his weight restlessly. Letty said, “Oh, okay,” her eyes widening as well. “That’s already settled, then?”
Carver laughed. “It’s in motion.”
She pretended to check her watch, and he laughed harder and said, “Fuck you.”
“And your wife was… okay with this?” Sana said.
“No, but she understands the situation,” Carver said. “She didn’t want to keep me if I didn’t want to be kept.”
“Remarkably mature of her,” Letty said.
“One of the benefits of marrying someone without normal emotions.”
Letty lifted the sunglasses in her hand and tapped one of the legs against her bottom teeth as if thinking, then smiled. “So do you know what her deal is, psychologically?”
“No, that’s above my pay grade.”
“God, I’d love to know,” Letty said. “I want to go back to school for psychology just to figure her ass out.”
Sana shrugged. “I found her charming.”
“Well, that’s the thing, they can be very charming.”
“Are you saying she’s a sociopath?”
“Something in the neighborhood, I think,” Letty said.
“Baby,” Sana chided, as if this were rude to say in front of Carver.
“Nah, I don’t really disagree,” he said. “Not even in a bad way, it just is what it is. I’ve seen her do stuff I’d never do.”
Letty used the sunglasses to point at him, raising her eyebrows meaningfully. Next to Carver, Scott kept shifting his weight and fiddling with the zipper on his jacket.
“Want to go talk?” Carver said, turning to him.
Scott looked taken aback, even though this was the whole reason they’d met up. “Yeah,” he said, nodding.
“Okay.” Carver turned back to Letty and Sana. “Congratulations again. Beautiful wedding. You guys are doing the honeymoon soon?”
“We are,” Sana said, beaming. “We leave for Paris tomorrow.”
“You want a seat upgrade for the flight?”
“It’s okay, my dad got there first,” Sana assured him. “He’s a points guy.”
“First class, baby,” Letty said. “Alright, we’ll get out of here and let you guys talk, before Scott fidgets a hole in the ground.”
Scott, who was tapping his foot, immediately stopped. “I’m not fidgeting,” he said. “I just ate too much, I’m metabolizing.”
“Uh-huh,” Letty said, bringing Carver in for a hug. “Love you, dude, good to see you. You gonna stop avoiding all of us now?”
“I literally just told your mom I’m gonna try to make it out here more often.”
“Good, yeah, talk to her. Don’t talk to your mom. Just drive right by your parents’ house, maybe honk a hello to be polite.”
Carver, surprised, drew back from her. “So she filled you in, then, I’m guessing?”
Letty nodded in a restrained, almost masculine way. “Your mom gave ours the okay, apparently.”
“Shit, alright.”
“I think she thought my mom might tell us either way, and this way she at least knows we know.”
“Makes sense,” Carver said. “And?”
Larry shrugged. “I have to say, I wasn’t completely surprised. Well, I was and I wasn’t.”
“Same here.”
Sana looked like she was doing her best not to wear any particular facial expression.
“Do you know?” Carver said to her, with a lurch of nerves.
Sana flashed her teeth in a winning smile. “Know what?”
“Okay, alright,” he said, bringing her in for a hug too. “Welcome to the family, officially. Please ignore the precedent set by your wife and avoid spreading this around.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she insisted.
“Good, just like that.”
From behind her, Letty shot Carver an apologetic grimace, and he shook his head to both reprimand her and tell her not to worry about it.
Scott hugged them both goodbye, then, and he and Carver both wished them safe travels and smooth sailing. They watched them head to their car, then Carver said to Scott, “Let’s go sit by the water.”
“After you,” Scott said, and Carver led him around the restaurant and through the grass toward the edge of the dark water, to a tree-shaded knoll overlooking the marina. From here they could see a wide swath of the sound and dozens of docked boats bobbing in its dark water.
Carver sat down in the grass, and Scott followed suit, eyeing him.
“What,” Carver said.
“I never see you all loose like this,” Scott said. “At least not with other people.”
“Yeah. I feel weird,” he admitted. “It’s like being on drugs without the drugs.”
“I think that’s just being relaxed.”
“Is that it? No wonder you’ve all been telling me to relax my whole life.”
Scott laughed.
“I do worry that it’s just endorphins,” Carver admitted. “Like after I finish a race. Or my brain’s trying to protect me from really feeling something, and in a couple months I’ll snap.”
“You should probably —” Scott cut himself off.
“What, go to therapy?”
“Well, maybe.”
“My sister said the same thing. So you think I am gonna snap?”