“I’m so sorry. Was she our age?”
“A few years older, but yeah, really young. It was her first time going along to see a project, and she was so excited. She was really smart, she worked all the time, and she was just going to be somebody, you know?”
“I do. It’s terrible.” Curtis paused and in the silence he looked around. “I heard they opened the first floor of the museum to guests. Do you want to take a walk?”
“That would be great,” Georgiana said. The DJ was playing, and her coworkers were dancing with their spouses in the colorful lights. They walked along the glass corridor where murals from the 1980s stretched to the ceiling. “Was that your mom at your table?”
“It was. She was in town, so I convinced her to come along.”
“I wondered if you got along with your parents or if they were upset with you.”
“My mother is more understanding than my father,” Cutis admitted sheepishly.
“I’m sorry.” They stopped in front of a twenty-foot red mural, the paint thick and bumpy.
“He’s really proud of what he’s done at Taconic. He doesn’t see it the way I do. He sees defense as patriotic. He feels like our family has made an important contribution, like we’re a military family, almost.”
“Is he more angry about you giving away your money or about you undermining Taconic?”
“He thinks I’m virtue-signaling. He keeps calling me A.O.C. and Comrade Stalin and insisting I’ll regret this when I have kids one day.”
“He thinks you’ll wish you could give your kids a bigger inheritance?” Georgiana asked.
“Yeah, he’s part of that generation that thinks financial stability is the greatest gift you can give your family.” He tipped his head, indicating that he was ready to move on to the next mural.
“I think there’s a difference between stability and obscene wealth,” Georgiana ventured.
“There’s a big difference. Income inequality is the most shameful issue of our time. I’m worried that my kids will look back and see a country that completely abandoned morality, that let people die of hunger while the wealthy took tax breaks.”
“Warren Buffett says he doesn’t believe in dynastic wealth, doesn’t believe your life should be determined by your membership in ‘the lucky sperm club.’？” Georgiana blushed slightly at the word “sperm.”
Curtis laughed. “Did you know that between Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos, those three individuals hold more wealth than the entire bottom half of the population?”
“Is that true?” she asked.
They stopped in front of a mural of two enormous breasts, and they both pretended to study it briefly before moving on to the next. Art was so awkward.
“Have you always disagreed with your father’s politics?”
“No.” Curtis shook his head. “I sort of started to read beyond The Wall Street Journal in high school, but I didn’t fully engage with my own complicity until college. I think we were sort of raised in a bubble.” He looked at her questioningly.
“It’s sometimes hard to get out of that bubble,” she agreed, thinking about her tiny corner of Brooklyn Heights. If she sneezed loudly enough in her living room, her parents could probably bless her from their bedroom on Orange Street.
“Seems like you’re pushing out of your bubble,” Curtis said, and Georgiana felt flattered and then embarrassed at how much she seemed to want his approval. They wandered back to the dance area and Georgiana saw her team starting to collect the envelopes from the tables.
“I should get back to work.”
“Hey.” Curtis caught her arm. “Are you seeing anyone?”
“No, are you?” She smiled.
“No, but I thought maybe that guy? When I ran into you? After that party?” Georgiana appreciated the great pains he was taking to avoid saying, “That morning I saw you staggering down the street looking like you’d been huffing glue after you tried to lick my molars.”
“That was my brother, Cord.”
Curtis said he’d write her to set up a night for dinner and she felt a glittery happiness that carried her through the cleanup from the party, but when she got home and opened her medicine cabinet, she found a note from Brady behind her mouthwash that read “Free nose jobs for debutantes!”
Holding the folded slip of paper, Georgiana remembered the photos of Brady and Meg. She saw him standing by the plane with his backpack, hours away from the crash. He had died and his body had turned to ash, and yet Georgiana was still here, alive and dressing in stupid designer clothing, flirting at a museum gala, pretending to be a good person when she knew that she was a liar.
FIFTEEN
Darley
Tilda was throwing Cord and Sasha a gender reveal luncheon and the theme was “Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.” She had transformed the Orange Street apartment into a psychedelic wonderland, with teacups stacked in alarming towers, a candelabra with pocket watches hanging from the arms, playing cards fanned around the base, and porcelain rabbits peeking out from the floral arrangements. Frankly, the whole thing made Darley feel like the time she took too many mushrooms in Amsterdam and threw up in a canal. But she dragged Malcolm along to be a good sport and even wore a feathered fascinator she had from an old Kentucky Derby party.
“Welcome to Wonderland!” Tilda said dramatically as she threw open the door. She was wearing a hat so big it was touching the hallway on either side, and she applauded appreciatively at Darley’s outfit before handing Malcolm a black top hat with playing cards sewn in the brim. “Everyone’s wearing a mad hat! Now pick a drink. If you think the baby is going to be a girl have a Pink Lady, if you think it’s a boy have a Blue Arrow.”
“What’s a Blue Arrow?” Malcolm whispered to Darley.
“Blue cura?ao and gin. Avoid,” Darley whispered back.
Cord and Sasha were already there, Cord wolfing down heart-and spade-shaped tea sandwiches and Sasha looking flushed and pretty in a flower crown.
“I love your headpiece,” Darley complimented her, kissing Sasha hello.
“Oh, your mother had it made for me. She came over yesterday to see what outfit I was planning to make sure it would go.”
“Of course she did,” Darley said and laughed.
The table was teeming with food: cucumber and cream cheese on pillowy white bread, chicken salad with grapes, egg and watercress, each plate with a little tag that read “EAT ME.” The cocktail table had similar tags reading “DRINK ME.”
“Oh my God, ‘Eat me’？” Darley scrunched her nose.
“Really classy, Dar,” Cord grinned. “This is a family party.”
“So, is it a boy or a girl? You can tell me, I won’t tell anyone,” Darley wheedled.
“We don’t actually know,” Sasha said. “We had the doctor write it on a piece of paper, and your mother gave it to her caterer. When we cut the cake it’ll be either pink or blue inside.”
“Wow, that’s cheesy,” interrupted Georgiana, walking up and popping a cherry tomato in her mouth.
Sasha laughed tightly. “It wasn’t our idea.”