Down the Shore (16 page)

“You knew the whole time,” Damien said.

“So?”

“Clare's dad's name is Michael, right? Don't bullshit me.”

“I always called him Mister.
”

“Yeah,” Damien said. “I bet you did.”

“Did your dad have money with him?”

“That's the stupidest thing you've ever asked me. Please don't insult my father like that.”

“What's this?” Jules asked.

“Nothing,” I said.

Damien had turned his attention to a couple who were making their way toward us through the crowd. We had cut them in the line outside, and I knew they were American without hearing them speak. The man—he was at least thirty—looked like he had just come from work, his thick pink tie pulled away from his thick neck under a pinstriped suit. He was nodding enthusiastically with the DJ's mix. The woman seemed older and wore pearls, a dark skirt, and a soft white sweater. She looked ready to apologize for whatever he had come over to say.

“Hey, I'm Adam,” he said, sticking out a hand. “Could you boys settle a little bet for us? That looked like Prince William who y'all were talking to, but my friend Anna says it's definitely not.”

“How did you get in here?” Damien asked.

“Whoa, you're American? Our clients brought us, but they pussed out and went home early. We work for Bear Stearns. Are you guys members or whatever?”

“Let me guess,” Damien said. “Sales and marketing.”

“Did we meet at the conference?”

“Let's go,” Anna said.

“Hang on a second. Was it?”

“Was it what?” Damien asked.

“Was that Prince William?”

“Well, it would be some coincidence if it wasn't, don't you think? He goes to school right up the road. Do you want to meet him? I'm sure he'd love to meet you guys.”

“I know that's not him,” Anna said, as Damien walked away. “Right?”

“He'll be here in a second,” I said. “Just ask.”

“Hey, how come you're all American?” Adam asked.

“We're not,” Jules said.

Jules seemed unimpressed by this, and I was starting to understand that he didn't share Damien's enthusiasm for theater or performance art, or whatever this was. He liked drugs and champagne and conversation; he tolerated this. I felt the same way, and wished that I could make him understand that somehow. Damien and Clare were threading their way back through the crowd. Clare balked at the sight of our new friends, who had their backs to him, but Damien pushed him forward. He was going to make Clare dance.

“Will, this is Adam and, I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name.”

“Anna.”

“Anna, this is Will.”

Anna seemed more interested in Damien than Clare.

“It's a pleasure,” Clare said.

I coughed over a laugh; Clare's accent was so good that I wondered if he had been practicing. I was amazed he had agreed to this, but it made sense—impersonating royalty was easier than lying to New York investment bankers about his last name. One was a game, the other was not.

“So do you come here a lot?” Adam asked. “Is this, like, a place where you hang out?”

“A bit,” Clare said.

He was cagey and uncomfortable, which was probably what they expected of royalty faced with tourists.

“So you're really Prince William? This might sound stupid, but do you have, like, ID or something?”

“Adam, Jesus,” Anna said.

“Do you think the prince of England has a fucking driver's license?” Damien asked. “He has a driver. Did you see that Benz outside?”

“Fine, fine, I believe you,” Adam said. “I was just fucking with you. Sorry if I came off like an asshole. Can I buy you all a shot or something?”

“Sure,” I said. “That'd be great.”

Damien kept inviting Jules to do the talking, Jules being a close approximation of English royalty, and Adam bought us shot after shot, which seemed to make the coke burn hotter.

“Hey, do you guys do any skiing over here?” Adam asked, shifting his weight back and forth, miming a mogul run. “I got some from our cab driver and we gotta kill it before we fly back.”

The bathrooms at the Opal, studio-sized rooms with locking doors and ample seating, were designed for this kind of thing. Adam offered us key bumps from a green plastic bag. Damien rubbed his finger along the inside edge and touched it to his tongue. He shook his head and slipped a hand inside his jacket pocket.

“I wouldn't do my laundry with that stuff,” he said. “Flush it. It's disgusting.”

Once Nick's envelopes were in rotation, Damien occupied a leather ottoman and Anna, after a few minutes, moved onto his lap. This would be her souvenir from Scotland: a one-night stand with a rich, handsome college kid. I imagined her rehashing it over brunch in Soho with a group of girlfriends, joking that she went all that way to fuck someone from New York. She laughed at something no one had said, and I looked from her face down to her lap, where one of Damien's hands was resting, the broad pads of his fingertips disappearing in the folds in the fabric between her legs. Adam was less stupid than he had seemed, and was determined to do as much of Damien's cocaine as possible. He was arguing with Jules about barrel length in shotguns used for sporting clays. Clare kept trying to catch Damien's eye. Whether he was desperate to explain himself or desperate for something else, I couldn't tell. I was too high to talk.

Finally, Anna said that she was ready to head back. She stood up and pulled Damien to his feet. Jules said he was going to pop by and see what his sculptor friend was up to. Adam followed him; Damien had left the coke with Jules. Clare caught me by the arm as I tried to leave.

“Hey,” he said.

His eyes were pointing in slightly different directions as he tried to focus on my face.

“I'm sorry about that thing with the card,” I said.

“Whatever, I don't give a fuck about that. I'm going home. I need cash for a cab.”

“Just take the car.”

“Damien's taking the car. I need cash. I'm out.”

“I'm out too.”

“How can you be out of cash? You haven't paid for anything all night. All week. You're lying.”

He was inching toward me, and I felt time slow to a jagged crawl. Clare grabbed at my front pocket where my wallet was visible against my thigh. His fingers snaked over the hem and found the leather of my billfold. I grabbed his wrist, but Clare wrenched free and tried again. A quick instinctual punch to the stomach dropped Clare to one knee.

“Fuck, I'm sorry,” I said, as I tried to help him up.

He started slapping at me as he staggered to his feet.

“Give me everything you have on you,” he hissed, almost crying now. “No one touches me.”

“Take it easy,” I said. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that.”

“You fucking owe me.”

“Owe you for what?”

“For everything. For all the shit I've paid for since we got here. I want my money, now.”

His voice was shrill, shattery, just shy of a full-blown shriek. My back was against the wall.

“Stop,” I said. “Stop it. Just relax, OK?”

Clare stuffed his hand in my pocket. I felt his fingers writhing against my thigh as he fought the fabric to pull my wallet free. He fished out fifteen pounds in cash, and flipped my wallet at the floor, where it flopped open on a bounce and landed in a split. I was braced for a hit. Instead, Clare pulled me to him. When his mouth smashed into mine, it felt like a flash grenade had detonated in my head. I was mostly gone while Clare's front teeth were grating against mine. He let me go as soon as I was all there again, as if that was something he could sense. I thought: What took so long? Clare wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and walked out the door.

I
was alone in my room, doing everything but my econ reading so that, eventually, I could sit down and crack my textbook with a clear head. My laundry was half folded when Clare knocked on my door. He seemed, or pretended to seem, confused by my standoffishness. I thought: So this is how it's going to be. Two nights before, in Edinburgh, with the car gone and no money for a cab of my own, I'd slept on a bench in Waverly Station so that I could take the first train back to Leuchars. I was still sore on my right side. I figured Clare had come by to apologize, but instead he told me that his parents had sent a car for him and had extended the invitation to me. Clare didn't name a town, but his parents were apparently a short drive from St. Andrews, hiding in plain sight, or not bothering to hide anymore. I could have said that I had work to do, that I was under the weather, wiped out—all true—and I could still hear the fear in my mother's voice when she'd called to warn me about Michael Savage. But instead I went along. It was Thanksgiving, Clare said, to my complete surprise. We'd be spending the night.

“Your folks don't give much notice,” I said, as the driver drifted into the fast lane on the A9, heading north. “Why are they in Scotland?”

Clare shrugged.

“Mind sharing?” he asked, touching a finger to his right nostril.

In preparation for my study session, I had dipped into Nick's gift, some of which was apparently still visible.

“Can we play the radio, sir?” I asked, hoping that the noise would mask the quick nasal intakes and the choppy dialogue that followed. I was working up a mound of powder on the end of my room key when the driver settled on an oldies station. The coke kept my eyes inside the car, and off the route we were taking. In case anybody asked me where the Savages were staying, I could tell them, honestly, that I had no idea.

The house was a broad-shouldered stone mansion, just under an hour from St. Andrews. The winding drive and oval-shaped car park looked like a river feeding off a lake of gravel. The car ground to a stop, and I found myself staring at the driver in the rearview mirror as the interior lights came on. I ducked to wipe my nose clean with my sleeve, and when I looked up, his eyes locked on mine again.

“Thanks for the lift,” I said.

The driver said nothing.

The front door of the house was open and, staring into the glow of the entryway, I imagined that something terrible had happened here, that we were about to discover the bodies of Clare's parents, blood soaked, cut down in the middle of a desperate, clawing escape. And then I saw Michael Savage standing in the darkness by a head-high hedge, his arms folded across his chest. He was looking out over the roof of the sedan into the woods that bordered the lawn.

“Tom, nice to see you,” he said. “Glad you could make it. Camille's a little under the weather. It's just us boys tonight. I was thinking we could head into town, find a turkey burger in the spirit of the holiday.”

“What's wrong with her?” Clare asked.

Michael shot his son a look.

“Thanks for having me,” I said.

“Thanks for coming. Throw your things inside and we'll get going.”

In the right-hand bay of a pristine two-car garage were two ATVs parked nose to tail, the molded plastic saddlebags and rifle cases covered in a fine spray of mud. The other bay held a silver Porsche 911 that looked like it had never seen rain. Clare folded the passenger seat forward so I could climb into the cubbyhole behind it. Michael redlined the engine before he put the car in gear, and drove exactly the speed limit on the narrow, kinky country road, refusing to slow down for curves, exhibiting the kind of precision and control they teach at weekend racing schools. Clare seemed used to this, bracing his body against the padding of the passenger-side racing seat as we flew toward wherever we were headed.

“You boys hungry?” Michael asked.

I had never been less hungry.

“We ate,” Clare said. “Before we left.”

“There's a band playing at a pub in town. They have grub if your appetites come back. Let's go hear some music.”

“That sounds great,” I said, thinking of a double vodka soda and a private bathroom stall. I was coming down, and wanted another bump the way a cut will itch as it heals, begging to be torn back open.

The town, two loose strings of shops facing a narrow road, sat beside a dark unbending river, its banks covered by naked trees rooted in mud. I could see my breath in the air, and the chemical aftertaste of the coke made it seem like exhaust instead of exhalation. A bouncer sat hunched on a stool outside the bar, statuesque, a cap over his eyes. He raised his head as we approached and waved us down a flight of stairs. We ducked into a long underground room, where a band was playing on a plywood platform at the end opposite the door. They were covering “Hey, Jealousy” by the Gin Blossoms while an overweight woman, her long blond hair streaked with electric blue, danced alone in front of them, swinging her hips and her head with her hands at her sides. We sat down by the stage. Michael hung his topcoat on the back of his chair, and tossed a ring of keys into a patch of light cast by the single candle on our table. I studied the teeth cut into the blanks, wondering which locks they fit. Michael turned to me, suddenly, nodded toward the band, and asked what I thought.

“They're good,” I shouted.

It was true, and he seemed eager for my approval, which I didn't understand. Michael slapped me on the shoulder. We were about the same size, I realized, picturing myself in his thin beige cashmere sweater and gingham dress shirt, which looked like something he might have worn to the office at some point. What would happen if I took his keys and walked away while he was busy talking into his son's ear? If I got into the car and drove? I knew from my valet parking days that Porsches have a heavy clutch, but I learned to drive stick on an '86 Ford Bronco, so I was used to that. I imagined Camille sitting up in bed back at the house, reading something in her native language. The sound of the garage door lurching upward as headlights swept across the bedroom wall. I climb the stairs and walk into the bedroom after letting myself in. She looks up with tired recognition, but no surprise in her expression. I'd seen enough of their life to feel fluent in it, ready to shift between situations as easily as the guitar player was changing chords on stage. I watched as he took the neck in hand and bent three strings up a full step, rising onto the balls of his feet with the sound.

By the time we piled back into the car, I had hit a patch of exhilarated clarity somewhere inside a third wind that felt like it could last for days. Michael put the windows down, and blasts of cold air wicked sweat off my face. My eyes were too dry and too tired to read the number on the mailbox as we turned down the drive, and my ears were still ringing from the music as Michael showed me to my room on the first floor. He paused in the doorway as I was unfastening my watch.

“Sleep tight,” he said, and laughed to himself as he shut the door.

I lay on top of the comforter in all my clothes, and was suddenly profoundly thirsty. The first floor of the house looked like it had been furnished all at once from a single showroom; the owners had managed to take an ancient home and make it feel like no one had ever lived there. As I walked into the kitchen, I noticed an over/under shotgun leaning in a corner near the door, the oldest-looking thing in sight, the bluing on the barrel worn thin from however many pairs of hands. I wondered what trouble Michael was expecting as I sucked down water from the big chrome arch of the kitchen faucet, too high to be frightened.

“How about a glass?” Michael said from the doorway, when I came up for air.

I nodded, wiping my mouth with my sleeve. Michael filled two glasses from a filter in the fridge, and we faced each other across a marble countertop, me on a high stool, him on his feet.

“How much coke do you have left?”

I stopped midswallow.

“You boys were lit when you got here, weren't you? A father can tell. Seriously, though, what's left?”

“Some,” I said. “Enough, I guess.”

“Do I need an engraved invitation?” he asked. “Or do you just not want to share?”

“You want some?”

“Do you think I'm kidding? Unless you're all partied out. No? Go ahead then, do the honors.”

Michael laid a prepaid phone like mine on the counter while I unfolded the paper packet and cut lines with my St. Andrews ID card. I realized he had been outside on a call.

“Do you drink with this stuff?” he asked as he rolled up a £100 note.

“It doesn't hurt.”

“I'm not asking if one drinks with this stuff. I'm asking if you do.”

I said I'd have a drink, and he dug into a temperature-controlled wine cabinet beneath the counter and withdrew a bottle. It was white Burgundy from Puligny-Montrachet, the faded yellow label marred by a neon orange sticker announcing that the wine had been purchased from a private collection. Michael turned his back to me and rummaged through a drawer until he found a corkscrew. Later, I looked up the bottle. The average price online was equal to a month's rent on my mother's house.

“How's school?” he asked, passing me a wineglass, and then leaning in to take a line.

“It's good. It's kind of an adjustment.”

“So's everything. How's my son holding up?”

“I think he likes it.”

“Do you actually believe that, or are you saying what you think I want to hear? Have people figured out who his daddy is yet?”

“A few people know.”

“He tried to hide it?”

I nodded, and Michael laughed.

“Are they pissed? Righteously indignant? What?”

“I don't think anybody cares that much.”

“The Brits are pretty laissez-faire about this stuff. They talk a lot of shit in the privacy of their homes, but outward moral outrage isn't their thing, from what I've seen. I think they think it's tacky.”

“No one's bothering him about it, if that's what you mean.”

“I'm not worried about that. That's something he needs to learn to deal with. But I am glad he has you to watch his back.”

I nodded to let him know that he was welcome, for whatever that was worth. I did a line, and then another, trying and failing to think of something conversationally benign. Michael had something else in mind.

“Your old man wasn't really in the picture, from what I understand,” he said.

“Not at all.”

“Do you know how lucky you are?”

“Sorry?”

“You probably never thought of it that way, but it's a blessing in disguise. Could be the key to your success. You know who my dad was?”

I shook my head.

“Exactly. There's this story he used to tell me: He's driving his 1961 Mustang from Cheyenne to Minot, North Dakota. Straight shot for seven hundred miles, maybe three other cars on the road the whole way. At some point dad hits black ice and goes into a skid. There's one telephone pole a hundred yards in front of him, and he's keeping an eye on it, not too worried, just waiting for the car to lose some steam. But he's not slowing down fast enough, so he starts spinning the wheel left and right, trying to stay clear of this pole, but eventually he realizes that he's headed straight for it, that there's nothing he can do. He can't fucking believe he's about to hit the only thing for miles. Wrecks the front end of the car. You know why he hit it?”

“I don't know. God's will?”

“He hit it because that's what he was looking at. That's what he used to tell me. One time I asked my mom about the time dad wrecked his Mustang. You know what she said? ‘Never happened.' It's not a story about driving. It's about hitting what you're looking at.”

“I'm not sure I get it.”

“Do you know how to ride a motorcycle?”

“Yes.”

“So how do you turn?”

“You lean.”

“Wrong. You look where you want the bike to go. Do you see what I'm getting at? When your dad's around, that's what you're looking at—whatever he is. That's why my dad told me that story. So I would stop looking at him. So I could be something bigger, something else. Then you spend your whole life building something, and your kid comes along and you realize that everything you've done is hanging over his head. When you've done a lot, it's a lot to look at. It's hard for kids to see around it when it's that big and in their faces all the time. Even if the money doesn't rot them from the inside, they need to be able to imagine something different. You want something better for your kids, but you hit what you're looking at, or something before it. Now look at you. There's nothing in your way. You aren't even thinking about what your mother does, because you've always known you're better than that. What's that look about? You've never heard that outside your head? Don't be ashamed of that. She wants that for you too. That's my point: you can do whatever you want. I was worried that I'd fucked things up for Clare, but I think this mess will be a real asset for him in a few years. It's the best thing that could have happened, actually. I'm out of the way now. He can be whatever he wants. So what are you trying to be?”

“Rich.”

“Keep going. Why?”

“I don't want my mom to have to work. I want problems that aren't money problems. I want a big house down the shore. I want a boat.”

“And then what?”

“What do you mean?”

“You make your money, you get all that shit, and then what? What do you think happens after that? There's not a right or a wrong answer. This won't be on the exam. I'm asking you because I don't remember what I thought when I was your age.”

“I don't know. Retire early? Raise a family? Play golf on days that end in
Y,
or whatever you said?”

“It's harder than you think. I don't mean getting there. That won't be very hard for you. I mean getting out. You hit this point where you've made more money than you can reasonably spend, and you've passed four or five of your personal I'll-retire-when goals, and you keep waking up and doing it anyway. Force of habit, I guess is what it's called. My first boss at Lehman used to get really sentimental about this, which is probably why he was still herding first-year analysts at forty-five. He used to talk about retirement ad nauseum, about getting a place on the Snake River and just catching trout. He'd tell us it's not normal to hoard in abstract figures. We're supposed to want enough to get us laid, to marry the girl we couldn't fuck in high school, to get more house than we can use, but that's it. To keep going is a perversion of a natural instinct, is what he used to say. Like a cancer. The whole time I knew he was wrong.”