Authors: Daphne Uviller
James grunted. “Bitch moves in, tells me she’s gotta brother who’s gotta oil company can gimme a discount. I think, that’s great, I could save the Zuckermans some dough. They’re nice people, that family, you know? I try to do right by ‘em. They been good to me.”
I nodded, speechless.
“Shit and the next thing you know, her fuckin’ ‘brother — who ain’t her fuckin’ brother, by the way—has me takin’ delivery on envelopes fulla cash, and before I know what the fuck is goin’ on, he tells me I been holdin’ drug money and if I don’t build this fuckin’ staircase and take pictures of the shit goin’ on upstairs, he’s gonna set me up to take the fall for this drug money. He’s got fingerprints, photos, conversations, all that shit. Shit,” he concluded, hunching over and drumming on the table with his palms.
“James,” Gregory continued in the same placating voice, “what were the test tubes for? Roxana said you made her turn over the condoms to her. Were the tubes full of semen?”
But the winds of James’s mind shifted and he sat up straight again, smacking the table, as jovial and carefree as any inebriated member of the mother country’s leather- chair class.
“I do aim to look out for those less fortunate than I,” he boasted. “It’s a brilliant plan. Absoluuuutely brilliant.”
“A plan?” Gregory asked.
“A sperm bank for the poor.”
I covered my mouth with my hand. Gregory coughed.
“A sperm bank for the poor?”
“You know, there’s all this infertility in the world.” James gestured expansively.
“There is?”
“You
know, darling, one always reads about these women who are forty and want a baby and can’t have one. Well, what about the poor welfare mothers who want a baby and can’t have one? I decided,” he leaned forward, his eyes dancing, “to create a sperm bank for poor women, so that something good would come out of this whole nasty mess.”
Gregory jumped at British James’s slip.
“Whole nasty mess. You acknowledge you had dealings with Alonzo Pelarose and Roxana Boureau?”
James’s eyes clouded over again.
“Fuck, yeah. At first I thought, shit, if they’re draggin’ me down, I’ll go all the way down, since there’s no turning back unless I wanna wind up dead. I’ll sell sperm samples to dick-heads accused of rape, give ‘em some other shithead’s DNA, to get themselves off the hook. They’re all scumbags anyway. I figured that would sell for a whole lot and then I could just move to Tahiti or wherever the fuck, and get away from the whole goddamn Pelarose family. But then, you know, shit, there wasn’t any way to, you know, get the sperm onto raped women and shit. So …”
I let forth an awful, choking sound. Gregory clasped his hands together and bounced them against his chin. In a quiet and twisted way, I felt close to him—our first adventure together, side by side.
“But Roxana,” I tried again. “She loves you. She was going to keep running the … the business so they wouldn’t hurt you in here. Was she lying to protect herself or are you two really in love?”
“Ah, Zephyr,” James said, smiling into what distance there was inside a prison common room. “I did once love a woman named Roxana. And she really did love me. But she broke my heart and now …” James turned to look straight at me and, for a brief moment, there was clarity in those blue eyes. “Now, I am alone.” He sniffed melodramatically. “I’m awfully tired, love. I think I need a bit of a kip just now.” He raised his arms and summoned the guard as if he were his footman. He stood and put his wrists behind his back.
“Don’t you worry about your uncle James, Zephyr dear. I’ve a call in to Her Majesty. No worries, no worries …”
H
OT, STAGNANT AIR LEFT THE LANTERNS ON SOHO HOUSE’S
rooftop hanging limp and motionless from their bamboo rafters. Candles did not glide around the pool on their lily pads like flickering water sprites, but instead bumped around lifelessly in one corner, near a drain. My silky but not silk dress, whose retro browns and greens had compelled my mother to reminisce about
her
mother’s plastic- covered couch, was not flowing around my legs, but clinging stickily to them instead. Every few minutes, I had to extricate the fabric from where it bunched up in my crotch.
I’d never been happier in my life.
“But did you really believe he would have done that pre sentation in a jester hat?” Tag asked Abigail, pressing her sweating mojito glass against her forehead.
“Tag,” Abigail murmured, her dark eyes growing wide as she watched Dover Carter and my brother trade slaps on the back by the far side of the pool, “I don’t think you’re allowed to criticize a movie at the party for it.”
Abigail had taken the red- eye the night before, having dug up a conference on Aramaic texts that, she convinced the university, was essential for her to attend. Conveniently, the conference coincided with my brother’s film premiere party.
“Critique, not criticize. I’m critiquing, and this is exactly where I should be doing it. Everything we talk about tonight should be
Boardroom.
Good, bad,
Boardroom!”
Tag had returned from Spain a week after Alonzo Pelarose had been arrested and remanded without bail and, to my continuing delight, she was still upset that she’d missed all the excitement. Jealous that I’d had an honest- to- God whorehouse upstairs from me, an FBI/NYPD command center across the hall, and had scored an undercover cop for a boyfriend, to boot.
“Tell me again about the photos,” she insisted, adjusting her repurposed wedding dress over her thigh so that it covered the fresh gash she’d sustained in an Andalusian fishing village.
“Oh, enough.” Mercedes gestured for Tag to move over, then squeezed in next to her on the lounge chair. “Zeph actually had something happen to her that was more interesting than something that happened to you. Get over it.” She shot her arm out and grabbed a drink the bartenders were calling a French 69 off a passing tray. “How does it feel to be at a party you’re actually invited to?”
Tag shrugged and I kicked her from the lounge chair I was sharing with Abigail.
“Come on, admit it. It’s pretty relaxing not being hunted by angry royalty.”
“If you had just
called
me, I would happily have hopped on the next flight to talk to the investigators,” Tag persisted.
Abigail was still staring at Gideon and Dover, who were now deep in conversation. “So, what, is Dover Carter going to star in Gid’s next movie or something?” she asked Mercedes incredulously.
Mercedes shrugged, exuding an air of wifely propriety. “Depends what Gideon’s offering.”
I gave a disgusted grunt. Until two hours ago, my brother, newly minted winner of the audience award at the Tribeca Film Festival, had been pretending indifference to my connection to Hollywood’s top earner. It was now apparent that Gideon was as susceptible to Dover’s sincerity as the rest of us.
I was still unmoored after spending three weeks watching my slacker brother be treated like a respectable adult. I loved him—I really did—and I was happy for him—I really was—but his transformation in the eyes of others was a mystery to me. I had trouble picturing my brother on a set, being organized, telling other people what to do, and, most troubling, picturing people actually doing what he told them.
On the other hand, in just a few months, if all went well, I’d have less reason to be jealous of him.
“So where’s Gregory, the Jewish cop?” Abigail asked. “Not yet in my two months on JDate have I ever …” She shook her head. “Did I tell you about the guy I dated last week, the one who borrowed his mother’s car?”
“Just because a guy can’t afford his own car …” I chastised her.
“Oh, I don’t care that he borrowed her car. I care that her car still has a ‘Baby on Board’ sticker. Hey,” she added suddenly, pulling her iPhone out of the freebie tote bag she’d received at her conference that morning. (None of the SGs had been able to persuade her that a canvas bag bearing a language society logo was not a party- appropriate accessory.) “Did I ever show you what Darren Schwartz texted me after you guys turned your guns on him?” She tapped the screen and handed the phone to Mercedes, who passed it to me and pressed her palms to her eyes.
“Ab, can I get the # of your skinny blond shiksa? Hot. xtra hot.”
Mercedes handed Abigail her glass. “Drink. Just keep drinking.”
“So where
is
the Jewish cop, Zephyr?” Tag asked me.
I hesitated. “He’ll be here any minute. He got held up with work.”
“It’s Saturday,” Mercedes said suspiciously.
“It’s … he … he wanted to be there when they picked up some of the other Pelarose family members,” I admitted.
“So he’s at a crime scene,” Tag said sharply.
“It’s not the same as Hayden,” I protested.
“How is it not the same?” Mercedes shot back, her dreds popping accusingly around her face.
“Because …” I groped for a way to make them understand. And then I saw the mop of brown hair looming above the crowd, the angular, beautiful face looking around expectantly—looking for me. “Because he’s here.”
I started to wave to him, and then froze.
“And so is Hayden.” I hid my face in Abigail’s neck.
Mercedes and Tag jerked around so fast they knocked heads, but didn’t utter so much as a whimper. Abigail landed an elbow in my ribs as she whipped her feet to the ground.
“Where?
Where?”
“Is it the guy with the unbuttoned shirt or the one with the goatee?”
“Did you
invite
him, you moron?”
I rubbed my side and scowled at them.
“The redhead at eight o’clock. Of course I didn’t
invite
him,” I snapped, feeling my pulse pick up speed.
They swiveled their heads in unison.
“Oh my God,” said Abigail.
“Wow,” Mercedes agreed.
Tag nodded, pursing her lips in concession. “Hot. Very hot. I see why you went apeshit.”
I gaped at them. “Are you kidding me? This is not what I need,” I hissed as Gregory approached.
“Hi,” he said, nervously eyeing the tangle of eight legs in two chairs. He had admitted to me a few nights earlier that the whole Sterling Girl concept made him extremely nervous.
“Hey.” I aligned my head so that Gregory’s body blocked me from Hayden’s line of vision. I tilted my face up for a kiss, while surreptitiously kicking Tag and Mercedes so they’d turn back to us. “I’m so glad you’re here,” I said, trying to sound like I meant it. I did mean it in general. I just wish he hadn’t been in that particular square foot of Soho House’s roof at that particular moment.
“I just saw Lucy and her boyfriend. She’s looking for you,” he said, unaware of the bomb he was exploding.
“Hi, I’m Abigail. Boyfriend?” Abigail said, flashing her palm in a shorthand wave. Tag and Mercedes finally turned around to study Gregory, who took a step back.
“Nice to meet you. I… I don’t know. Not her boyfriend?” he said, looking to me for help.
“Did Lucy use the word ‘boyfriend’ when she introduced him, or are you using the word ‘boyfriend’?” I asked soothingly.
“I can’t remember,” he said, looking distressed.
Ever since Lucy had met Leonard at Three Lives bookstore the Sunday after I’d caught him in possession of her defaced ten- dollar bill, she’d dropped the idea of a death party. We took this as a sign that things were going well, but we didn’t know Leonard had graduated to Boyfriend. There were many qualifications for this appellation, according to Lucy, including each person having memorized the other one’s phone number, seeing each other two to three nights a
week for a minimum of four weeks, and knowing middle names.
“Hey, it’s the exterminator,” Hayden drawled, appearing next to us.
I held my breath.
“She’s mine, by God, and if I so much as see your monstrous visage east of Passaic, so help me, I’ll slay thee!” Cling, clang, thwoop! Swords flying, chests heaving, bodices ripping!
Gregory crossed his arms and nodded curtly at Hayden. I let out my breath, just the teensiest bit disappointed.
“What are you doing here?” I asked Hayden, acutely aware of Gregory’s eyes shooting daggers at me.
He flashed his press pass and shrugged. “It’s like a universal ticket to anything. We were at the festival.”
My goose bumps would never ever
ever
be immune to Hayden’s voice.
“We?” I asked, and regretted it instantly. Gregory took a step away from me.
Tag shook her head and Mercedes put her hand over her eyes. Abigail snorted.
“I’m Nanda.” A tiny, slender Indian woman with perfect skin and a diamond in her nose came charging at us, and proffered a handshake twice her size. She studied each of us quickly, trying to mask suspicion with false enthusiasm. “Friends of yours, honey?” she asked, and as she got around to greeting me, I noticed the wedding ring on her left hand. I heard my friends suck in their breath in unison.
I dug my nails into Abigail’s knee.
“Are you Hayden’s wife?” Mercedes asked breezily as I felt my legs go hollow.
Nanda nodded, and squinted at me, squeezing my hand harder. I tried to look innocent. Hayden just tilted his glass to his lips. I glanced over at Gregory, who watched me balefully
“Glad you came,” I said in what I hoped was an even voice. “We’re all really proud of my brother,” I said, childishly asserting my legitimacy at the party.
I extracted my hand and met her piercing gaze. I suddenly felt sorry for her. Hayden’s wife. What an awful thing to be.
“Mazel tov,” Abigail said dryly. “When’s the honeymoon?”
Nanda looked confused and even Hayden started to contort his lips into odd shapes.
“Our honeymoon?” Nanda said. “We went to Hawaii. Last summer. Are you looking for a place to go?”
A year. They’d already been married for a year. That meant they’d tied the knot less than a year after he and I met. That meant that a month ago I’d nearly had sex with a married man. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to purge the memory.
“Zephy! Taggy! Mercy! Abby!” crowed Lucy, pulling my jury- duty catch behind her.
“Oh, no,” Tag muttered into her glass. “She’s at Defcon Five.”