Chapter 15
Two days later, I was back in my apartment doing something even more nerve-racking than my Olympic drama: talking to my mom.
She’d left texts and voicemails, but I hadn’t answered, blaming the long flight from Japan, the time change, jet lag, whatever let me off the hook.
So far, the media had concentrated on the poisoning of Miles Hespers and, even more, the murder of a Copenhagen banking billionaire by a Swiss jeweler who trafficked in black market gems. Any reports on Sky Collier’s flameout had been secondary, with the gunplay held responsible.
The real Sky had been unharmed but locked in an Olympic Village supply closet, bound and gagged.
He’d been unavailable for comment because, as Reggie had told me, “He doesn’t want to complicate things and he’s glad to be alive.
He’s a smart kid and this way he won’t have to explain his unusual diving technique. ”
Reggie had been in touch with Elki and Arne, who were in shock over their father’s death but, at least in Arne’s case, not surprised.
“Henrik had been associating with very bad people,” said Reggie, “and that’s what can happen.
Arne thinks Elki will be okay, especially with Henrik gone, but it’s a lot to take in. ”
Miles was, thank God, on the mend. The fast-acting poison had most likely been slipped into his breakfast, by someone who’d snuck into the cafeteria kitchen.
At the Tokyo hospital, doctors had pumped his stomach, and his fever had broken in time for him to return on a plane with his husband Terry and the rest of us.
Any further diving events had been canceled, and Miles was crushed at not being able to compete but told me, “What I really want is for the Tuxes to find the pigs who did this. That’s my gold medal. ”
Stangler, once he’d regained consciousness, had told the Tokyo police he’d been waylaid by a masked assailant during the transfer of a legitimately purchased item.
He refused to admit that he’d shot Henrik, but would most likely take a plea deal because the evidence was so strong.
This battery of leads, crimes, and suspects was already bewildering me, so I obeyed Reggie’s advice to rebuild my domestic life. I called my mom back.
“Was that you?” she asked, without even saying hello. “On the diving board? Daddy thinks it is, and your brother’s printed out a still image, but there aren’t any close-ups. But while we were watching I said, ‘That looks like Andy,’ but we all laughed because…”
“Because I’m not an Olympic athlete. A lot of people think it’s me, which is hilarious, but come on. What would I be doing in Tokyo, let alone on the high dive?”
“Andrew…”
I didn’t like lying to my mom, especially because she can always see through me, so I went vague.
“Yeah?”
“Is there something you’d like to tell me?”
“Um—I’m gay?”
“Hold on, let me tell your father. Because he’s deaf, dumb, and blind.”
If I was going to stay with the Tuxes, I owed my parents at least a synopsis.
This would explain my absences, but even more, it would curtail an extensive blank space in my relationship with my family.
I was also secretly proud of at least portions of what I’d been up to, and excited, and even eager to demonstrate that I wasn’t a total fuckup at everything.
“Mom, what if we all have dinner?”
“I would love that. I’ll make brownies. From a mix, but you can tell that to your therapist. How about Tuesday night?”
“That sounds good.”
“We can ask your brother, oh, and we’d already set Tuesday for a thing with your cousin Jenn and her fiancée, so we’ll make it a party. And Jenn is expecting you at her wedding. I RSVP’d for you, since your fingers must be broken. She and Brayden will be thrilled to see you.”
Jenn (her spelling) is thirty-two and the daughter of my beloved aunt Libby, my mother’s older sister (“Just a smidge older,” as Libby would insist).
Jenn’s a dermatologist with a booming practice on the Upper East Side, but more significantly, she’s what she calls a “skinfluencer,” with 1.
2 million followers on Instagram, more on TikTok, and 4.
7 million for her YouTube videos, where she expounds on twelve-part skincare routines (“Proper cleansing is only a beginning”), invites fans to take video tours of her “product closet” and her place in East Hampton (“I’ve completely rethought my outdoor kitchen”), and critiques extreme close-ups of celebrities’ complexions (“Scarlett Johansson is pure albaster, I could spread her skin on twelve-grain toast and serve it to guests”).
Jenn’s never had any problems with self-esteem.
When I was seven years old, the teenage Jenn had stared at me and said, “If you ever want a man to enjoy touching you, I’d advise swearing by a light, greaseless moisturizer.
” As I grew up, she’d freely spout tips on everything from my acting ambitions (“Just get the upper bridge of your nose thinned, if you want to play romantic leads”) to my dating life (“I would introduce you to my trainer, who’s this drop-dead Australian with his own line of exfoliants, but I’m not sure you’re ready”) and her philosophy of life (“I’m an alpha and I’m not ashamed to say it.
But I’ve experienced discrimination—this woman in St. Barts, at the Four Seasons we were staying in, she looked at me and I could tell she was thinking, Oh please, another beautiful blond viral superstar—yawn”).
Jenn means well, and she once came to see me in a play and said, “I liked it. You were much better than I expected.” She’d started dating Dr. Brayden Kembling two years ago, after meeting him on a dating app where she’d bought a $10,000 yearly membership guaranteeing access to young physicians in the fields of “wellness, self-care, and personal excellence.” My mom had told me, confidentially, “It’s like a matchmaking thing for people who want to coordinate their tennis outfits with their teeth.
” I’d only met Brayden a few times. He’s a cosmetic surgeon in his thirties, but he’s ageless, like he could be a fetus or a perfectly preserved twelve-thousand-year-old mummy.
I’m not sure if he operates on himself or tinkers with the latest formulations of Botox and fillers, but his face is mannequin-square and waxily smooth, with strenuously sculpted eyebrows.
He’s technically very handsome, but Brock took one look at Brayden’s website photo and said, “He’s a hundred percent polymer.
He was made in a lab from stem cells and fiberglass.
” But, all in all, I love Jenn, and Brayden makes her happy.
Their wedding had been in the works for months, and while I was on the guest list, and receiving a weekly newsletter from a firm called Eventfully Yours, I’d been too intimidated to respond to the evite right away.
It was not only that Jenn was so successful and she’d lassoed a spookily sanded guy, but I’d also been factoring in my brother Ben, who is thirty-four.
He’s a great guy who saves kids’ lives as a pediatric surgeon, and his wife Samira is a gastroenterologist who has treated both my parents and healed their ulcers and blockages.
They volunteer for six weeks every year at Doctors Without Borders, spelling each other in minding their two children.
They’re more grounded and less shiny than Jenn and Brayden, and very much in love.
So I’d be having dinner with my parents and four physicians, all of whom regard me as a stray labradoodle or dachshund-schnauzer mix, meaning probably not housebroken and due for a flea collar.
Or maybe I’m being paranoid. I’m the youngest in this crowd, but also the only member lacking a doctorate (Samira’s parents are MDs, too, and on staff at Mt.
Sinai). My parents are scrupulous about never comparing me to what my dad refers to as “our own little intensive care unit,” but I’m prickly about the discrepancies in salaries, homeownership, and an overall maturity tote board.
If I was going to hold my own, and share hints of my Tuxedo Society credentials, backup would be helpful.
Someone who’d not only attest to the truth of my narrative, but enhance my romantic ranking.
In short, I had to bring a fake boyfriend who’d make me look good in such illustrious company, maybe someone who’d pioneered a crucial vaccine while directing deeply personal movies that open the Cannes Film Festival but still reach a mass audience.
I couldn’t ask Brock because my family had met him and wouldn’t buy that we’d fallen for each other overnight; Brock is Jenn’s personal shopper at the store she calls “Ralph,” and she’s dubbed Brock “America’s Top Gentile.
” My exes were long gone, and Edwin wasn’t on the roster, no matter how much I longed to introduce him by saying, “Everyone, this is Dr. Huron, who’s brought a cardboard box of home-baked pastries that can level the house.
” I’m still preoccupied with Edwin, but asking him to step in, as a placeholder boyfriend, would become psychologically dodgy, piling too many layers onto our already complicated and tenuous attraction.
Luc, even if I could GPS him, wasn’t a contender, since I couldn’t very well declare, “Mom, Dad, this is my technically murdered French fuck buddy, who, if the police burst in, doesn’t exist.”