“I had a question for you. You know, we have the benefit next month, and we’re looking to increase our pool of individual donors and family foundations.”
“Absolutely. I have already been in touch with the venue and I’m working closely with Gabrielle to arrange our guest list for the event.”
“If I recall from your résumé, you went to the Henry Street School here in Brooklyn, right?”
“Yes, I did.” Why was the founder looking at her résumé? Obviously, someone had mentioned it to him.
“I was reading the Times recently, and I saw that an alumnus of Henry Street named Curtis McCoy was doing lots of charitable giving. It seems his goals align with our work here, and so I was wondering if you could reach out to him about the benefit.”
It was the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, whereby once you noticed something new you saw it all over the place. Had Curtis McCoy always been bumping around the periphery of her life and she’d just never noticed? Because he was suddenly impossible to avoid. When Georgiana was in middle school a friend had pointed out the castle in The Little Mermaid that looked exactly like a penis, drawn in by some bored illustrator. Once she saw the thing she could never stop seeing it. It had been there the whole time, right under her nose, and she’d been completely oblivious. She felt the same way about Curtis.
“I do know Curtis,” Georgiana admitted. “Not well, but we were classmates.”
“Oh, terrific,” Peter Perthman smiled. “I’ll send you a letter to forward him. And I hope you’ll introduce me next month! You’re such an asset, Georgiana. You’ve really distinguished yourself in your short time here.” And with that he bowed his head and swept out of the maid’s room, leaving Georgiana to sink back to the floor with her boxes.
* * *
—
She forwarded the invitation to Curtis with the absolute minimum amount of eagerness. Peter （or his assistant） had crafted an elegant letter of introduction, framing the work of the organization and highlighting the recent loss of three colleagues in Pakistan. Of course, this was a country where civilians had a great deal of mistrust of America. While the letter didn’t expressly say “the drones your family made were used to kill people in thousands of strikes on northwest Pakistan so you should give us money to teach the survivors to care for themselves,” it basically did. Georgiana pulled Curtis’s personal email address off the invitation to the Russian dance hall birthday party and wrote only the briefest note at the top: “My boss asked me to send this along. Hope you are well.” An hour later Curtis replied.
If I come to this fundraiser are you going to try to kiss me?
Georgiana reeled back from her computer monitor as if splashed by cold water. She quickly shot back a reply. “This is my work email.”
An answer appeared right away. “Oh, okay. Is there a theme for this party? Is it Third World Chic?”
Georgiana snorted. What an asshole. “You don’t have to come. I’ll just tell my boss you’re too busy being a philanthropist.”
“Are you stalking me? Reading all my press?”
“It was the Style section. It’s like you placed the article purely to appeal to women. Truly there must be easier ways to get a date. Did the photographer ask you to glower at the camera, or did he say you should just smolder?”
“It sounds like you spent a lot of time looking at it.”
“Apparently it’s my job to liaise with the anticapitalist youth.”
“Well, I’m happy to liaise. I’ll be there next month. Do let me know if I can borrow your mom’s sunglasses.”
* * *
“Whoa, Curtis McCoy with the witty email banter,” Lena laughed. They were at an Italian restaurant on Atlantic and Lena and Kristin huddled over Georgiana’s phone.
“Does he have a girlfriend?” Georgiana asked.
“I have no idea. Are you interested?”
“No! I’m just trying to figure out if everyone thinks he’s a dirtbag or if someone sees a human in there.”
“A dirtbag who is giving away a hundred million dollars in the name of peace. What an a-hole.”
“I mean, it is a mindfuck, right?” Georgiana asked. “It’s like he’s either a total jerk or a saint, and I just can’t figure out which it is.”
“Terrible people can do good things,” Kristin mused. “Like, even Bin Laden loved his grandchildren.”
“Super helpful insight. Thank you.”
“Look at the guys I work with,” Kristin continued. “You have all these men in tech who have big dreams about creating a utopian society but instead have enabled more hate than previously imagined, mostly for money.”
“It can also work the other way, right? Like Angelina Jolie? Wears Billy Bob Thornton’s blood in a necklace and does lots of drugs but then grows up and becomes a Goodwill Ambassador? That’s what Curtis is doing, right? Trying to grow up?” asked Lena.
“So Curtis is Angelina Jolie. Cool, cool. I get it now.” Georgiana laughed. It wasn’t the same thing, but there was a nugget of truth there. He wasn’t responsible for his family’s sins. He wasn’t even necessarily responsible for what he had believed in high school. People could change. People could evolve. Who was she to hold him to some strict moral standard? Everything she had believed about herself had gone out the window when she fell in love with Brady. Good people did fucked-up things.
* * *
When she told her sister, Darley, that she had invited Curtis McCoy to the benefit, Darley grabbed Georgiana’s arm and howled laughing. “Who’s the Gold Digger now?” she cackled. They were playing tennis at the Casino and Georgiana died a little inside that everyone at the club would think she was a social climber.
“Shut up.” She glared at her sister.
“What are you two fighting about?” Cord and their mother let themselves onto the court and handed Georgiana a can of balls to pop.
“Georgiana’s going on a date with Curtis McCoy!” Darley squealed.
“Oh, I set them up,” her mother said, pleased, and smoothed her hands over her hips. She had terrific legs and it sometimes seemed like she played tennis purely for the skirts.
“What? No, you didn’t, Mom!”
“Well, I gave you the article about him and told you to be in touch.”
“Who is Curtis McCoy?” Cord asked.
“He’s that billionaire kid giving away all his money, the one whose dad owns Taconic,” Darley said.
“He’s not a billionaire,” Georgiana muttered.
“Not if he gives it all away,” trilled Tilda.
“Oh, I read about him.” Cord cocked his head. “Seemed like kind of a Bernie Bro.”
“He’s not a Bernie Bro.” Georgiana peeled back the lid of the balls and stuffed three under her skirt. “He inherited millions of dollars made from selling Tomahawk missiles that killed Syrians and rather than spend his days on a yacht he decided to try to make the world better. It hardly makes him a ridiculous person.”
“But he does still have a yacht, right?” Tilda asked. “I can check in the Social Register summer edition.”