Obviously, Chad said, and Ms. English had given him a pointed look. Did she think he was a thief? He hadn’t told her how he’d “messed up,” so it was possible she thought he’d stolen something.
That was practically the only thing he hadn’t done.
When Chad pulls into his driveway, he sees his friend Jasper’s Porsche Cayenne parked there, and Jasper, Bryce, and Eric are standing on the front porch.
Chad aims the air-conditioning vents straight at his face and wishes he could disappear.
“Where you been, bruh, snapping you all day, we finally decided to storm the castle but your sister said you weren’t home, and when we asked her where you were, she said she hoped you were bleeding in a ditch.”
“Ouch,” Chad says, though this comes as no surprise. Leith hates him now.
“She’s cold,” Bryce says.
“And yet so hot,” Eric says.
Chad doesn’t have the energy to flip Eric off for that. He’s more concerned about the sweet green miasma hanging in the air above his friends.
“You guys smoked up on my porch?”
“We were waiting for you, man. We’re hitting the brewery. You have to come.”
“I can’t.”
“Whaaaaa?” Eric says. “Band is back together, bruh, come on. Didn’t you miss us?”
The answer is no. Chad is still friends with these guys—the young princes of Greenwich, Connecticut; Mission Hills, Kansas; and Fisher Island, Florida—only because of their shared past. They threw sand at one another on Children’s Beach, sneaked into R-rated movies at the Dreamland Theater, showed up late to steak night at the Sankaty Head Golf Club with their oxfords half untucked and their eyes bloodshot because they’d smoked out of an apple pipe at Altar Rock. But thanks to his friendship with Paddy, Chad has gained a modicum of self-awareness. He realizes that the Chad stereotype—passing out in public （like Jasper in front of the Gazebo on Figawi weekend） or stranding a car on the beach （like Eric in his father’s Mercedes at Fisherman’s）—is not only privileged and elitist but also ridiculous and pathetic.
What do you call a group of Chads? An inheritance.
However, this self-awareness, of which Chad is secretly proud, was tragically lacking on May 22.
Chad is amazed these guys haven’t heard what happened back in Radnor; he half expected his sister, Leith, to spill the beans, even though their parents swore both children to silence “for the sake of the family name.” Still, Chad knows that gossip flows fast along tributaries slicked by money and privilege. How did news of the party not reach these three?
Or maybe it did, and they just don’t care.
The brewery sounds like fun. They can have a couple of cold Whale’s Tales, get some lobster sliders from the food trucks, check out girls, listen to live music, pet other people’s golden retrievers. （No, Chad thinks, no dogs.）
He’ll go for an hour, he thinks, to appease them.
But then he recalls how an hour or two at the brewery can easily turn into drinks at the Gazebo, which will then become the four of them lined up in the front row of the Chicken Box, pumping their fists in the air to some cover band singing Coldplay before spilling out onto Dave Street and puking out the back of a cab.
Chad needs to be at work bright and early tomorrow. He will not show up hungover.
“Good seeing you guys,” Chad says.
“Man, what’s going on?” Bryce says. “You didn’t open a single snap all day and now you won’t go out with us?”
Chad knows his behavior must seem strange. He’s never been the ringleader of this group—that has always been Jasper—but in summers past, he’s gone along for a good time.
“Where were you all day?” Jasper asks.
“I…” Chad says. He could tell these guys he got a job, but there would be follow-up questions like “Where?” and “Why?” Chad is supposed to be having one last summer of carefree leisure before starting at his father’s venture-capital firm, the Brandywine Group, in September. How can Chad explain that not only is he working this summer, he’s a chambermaid? He spent today in rubber gloves, learning about disinfectants. “Maybe I’ll meet you guys later.” He reaches for the doorknob so there can be no mistake: he’s not going anywhere with them.
Eric cracks a big, high smile. “Chad must have himself a lady friend. Look at his ’fit—did he even come home last night?”
Jasper and Bryce start catcalling—“Bros before hos, man, but no worries, we’re gonna dip”; “We’ll hit you up later”—as Chad slips into the cool air of the foyer and closes the door behind him. Leith is coming down the stairs; she flips him off and heads for the kitchen without a word. His sister has recently earned her doctorate in the silent treatment, which hurts because they used to be friends.