The Jetsetters Page 9

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  WHEN SHE MOVED TO Los Angeles, Lee had thought she was free. But even on the other side of the country, she had felt responsible for Charlotte. And now here she was: surrounded by her family on a cruise ship, watching as the mandatory safety briefing morphed into a dance show.

  “There’s no such thing as too much fun!” crowed Cord, approaching and handing her a blue drink. Lee felt tears welling. Cord, her little brother. She wanted to bury her face in his chest and tell him everything. But she didn’t know how to talk about failure. She didn’t know how to ask for help.

  “Hey,” said Cord, who must have seen something in her face. “Are you okay?”

  There had been a time when Cord would call Lee late at night, drunk and wanting to talk. She’d pour wine, settle herself into a chair by her bay window, and they’d commiserate, chatting for hours about not much at all. When had the calls stopped? Lee had been so caught up in her own life that she couldn’t even remember. He’d told her, during one of the last calls, that his own drinking was scaring him. Lee had written it off—weren’t they all too hard on themselves? “Of course I’m okay,” said Lee. “Why?”

  “You look sad,” said Cord.

  Lee bristled, immediately on the defensive. “And you look drunk,” she said.

  He stepped back as if he’d been slapped. They were always so hard on each other: Lee realized immediately that she’d hurt him. It came naturally—it was the way they’d always interacted. Lee burned a path forward, leaving Cord and Regan to follow in her scorched wake. She was the one with the torch.

  Cord swayed on his feet. Lee had thought that by not caring, she would be safe. But what if she had stayed in the dining room, after Winston had left? What if she had squeezed Charlotte’s hand back?

  “I’m sorry,” said Lee. “I’m so sorry, Cord.”

  Cord looked young, scattered lights from a disco ball illuminating his face. “I am drunk,” he said. “I can’t seem to stop. And you know what else? I’m gay.” He looked down, seemed unable to meet her eyes. Did he really think she’d spurn him? Lee’s insides melted. Her little brother was vulnerable, open in a way that Lee would never allow herself to be. Even now, she wanted to shut this communication down, to walk away.

  “I love you,” said Lee. Of course, they all knew he was gay. The only weird part was that he hadn’t told them. They saw each other so rarely, was how Lee had explained it to herself.

  “I need to tell Mom,” said Cord.

  Here it was—the space to tell someone how lost she felt, how alone. A way to reach back through time and gather him close. Maybe the answer had always been in that dining room—that together, they would be okay.

  Lee and Cord stared at each other. Lee felt dizzy, the edges of her vision growing black. She was very warm. She shook her head, unable to speak. But Cord remained still, believing in Lee more than she believed in herself, trusting she had something to offer him.

  IT WAS TIME FOR the captain’s toast. Charlotte and her family stood in the Atrio, a three-story, mall-like space, staring at an enormous cylindrical screen, onto which moving images were projected, creating a column of color that tapered to a bar on the bottom floor, where adorable youngsters tossed cocktail shakers. The captain and his entourage—what were they called? Mates?—appeared on one of the Atrio staircases, illuminated by a spotlight.

  The column, which had seemed filled with aquarium water and giant, multicolored fish when they arrived, began throbbing with light and images of corks popping from champagne bottles. It was bewitching, thought Charlotte, she’d give it that. If she had a giant pulsating column in her living room, maybe she’d be more easily distracted from her loneliness and decrepitude.

  “Is it beautiful or tacky?” Charlotte wondered aloud.

  “I think it’s awesome,” said Matt.

  Charlotte surveyed him, the genial way he took in the insane Atrio. Matt reached for Regan’s hand and Charlotte felt wistful.

  It wasn’t that she wished she were married, and certainly not to a man like Matt. He’d been a part of the family for so long that she almost considered Matt her own son, but while he was dull—a good match for Regan—Charlotte preferred a bit of spice. Matt was a bland pudding, and what Charlotte craved was a metaphorical hot jalapeño!

  She longed to feel a man’s erection pressing against the small of her back, hot breath at the nape of her neck. She wanted to feel skin against her skin. Charlotte blushed.

  “Welcome,” said the captain into a microphone, “to the Splendido Marveloso!” He wore a white suit and cap like Paros, her handsome porter, but the captain’s chest was covered with ribbons. “There is a very special moment to happen at now.”

  A portly couple made their way past the elegant crew. The room quieted down, and the man fell to one knee. He spoke and the woman jumped up and down. “He says, Will she be his wife? and she says, Yes, why not?” said the captain.

  The Atrio erupted in cheers, the column aswirl with gyrating triangles.

  Charlotte sighed. Her own marriage proposal had been a dud. Back in Paris for her father’s funeral, Charlotte had crossed paths with Winston, and after a week he had proposed, sliding a jeweler’s box across a café table, saying, “I guess we belong together after all.” Charlotte had opened the box and put on the ring, filled not with hope, but with resignation. She was tarnished goods, and this was all she could expect.

  CORD WAS VERY DRUNK at dinner. Charlotte was disturbed. He kept repeating himself and saying, “Am I right or am I right?” Charlotte herself had never had a problem just stopping after a few glasses of wine. It was a matter of free will! But clearly some people couldn’t keep it under control. Winston, for one.

  Was it alcoholism that had changed Winston from the mild-mannered gentleman she’d first met in Paris into the cruel person he’d become, or had booze been a salve to him? Charlotte didn’t know. She tried to believe that Winston’s depression hadn’t been her fault, and sometimes she succeeded.

  Charlotte hurried through her “Marvelous Mediterranean meze platter” and declined dessert, wanting to return to her small, safe cabin and change into her nightgown.

  “Mom! You’ve got to have a tiramisu!” protested Lee. “It’s free,” she hissed.

  “Tiramisu for me and for you,” said Cord. “Am I right or am I right?” His words were somehow both slurred and overenunciated. The way he was speaking reminded Charlotte so much of Winston that she was shaking as she touched the corners of her mouth with her napkin.

  “In fact,” said Charlotte, “you’re wrong. I’m going to bed. Good night!” Cord barely glanced up. He was topping off everyone’s wineglasses with great care, seemingly checking the levels to make sure they were even, then refilling his own glass to the brim.

  “Good night, Mom,” said Regan. “Love you.”

  “Oh,” said Charlotte, touched. “Well, I love you, too.” For a moment, she considered staying for dessert.

  “See you in the morning for towel-animal lessons in the Aqua Zone,” said Lee.

  “Wait, what?” said Regan.

  “You heard me,” said Lee, raising an eyebrow. “I said towel-animal lessons.”

  Charlotte’s children began giggling. Were they making fun of the cruise—of Charlotte? She blinked, trying not to be upset. She stood.

  “I think it sounds fun,” said Regan, grabbing a roll from the basket.

  “Sure you do, hon,” said Matt, patting Regan’s hand. Lee and Matt laughed. Now it seemed they were being mean to Regan, who looked down at her butter plate.

  “Who likes grappa around here?” said Cord, motioning to their waiter.

  Charlotte turned to leave. Only Matt was kind enough to call after her, “Charlotte? Can you find your way back to the cabin? Do you need help?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, waving wit
h forced gaiety and exiting the restaurant. She probably did need help, but was too embarrassed to admit it. Confronted with wide staircases and dazzling lights, Charlotte continued walking straight, but soon found herself completely lost inside an empty discotheque. She watched tiny rectangles of light move across the floor, trying to wrest her thoughts from Cord. It was unbearable to think that he was following his father’s path. Charlotte almost turned back, believing she owed her son, or could help him in some way. Put him to bed. Scratch his back as she’d once done.

  He used to come into her room, late at night. Next to snoring Winston and later alone, Charlotte would feel someone needing her—a mother’s instinct—and she’d open her eyes to see Cord. He never shook her or made a sound, just sat cross-legged on the floor next to her side of the bed until she woke. He looked up at her, his pupils wide in the dark. His skinny legs in pajamas, his thick eyelashes. “I’m sorry, Mom,” he’d whisper.

  “Shhh,” Charlotte would reply. She’d take him by the hand and lead him back to his room, settling him in, scratching his back, hoping he would fall asleep. He never did. When, finally, she’d stop scratching, holding her breath, he’d turn his head and open those fathomless eyes again.

  He dared to say it only once: “Can you just stay?”

  “Oh, no, honey,” she’d replied quickly, instinctively. He never asked again. After a few more strokes along his back with her fingernails, she’d leave him in the dark to return to her own bed, where she lay awake until dawn, missing him—his warm body, his sweet, even breaths.

  Why hadn’t she stayed? It had seemed improper, or slovenly, or something. Weak. She’d been taught to remain solitary. Charlotte was proud of her ability to ignore and rise above her desires. Louisa had never stayed in Charlotte’s bed, and that was for sure! But maybe, if she’d snuggled underneath Cord’s navy comforter, Charlotte might have found a way back to the deep sleep she’d once had next to her nanny, Aimée. But she thought she was supposed to sleep in her own bed. Charlotte wasn’t one to be needy, to burrow next to a child for comfort.

  Now, Charlotte wanted to return to Cord, to take him by the hand and lead him back to his room, to tuck him in with a glass of water and two Advil on his bedside table. She would press her lips to his temple.

  She did not turn back. Charlotte soldiered on, braving staircases (both crystal and non), elevators, passageways, room numbers that seemed to shape-shift as she passed them. At one point, deep within the ship, Charlotte opened a metal door to see men laundering sheets in clothes washers as big as cars. She stood, wobbly and blinking in the bright light, and watched as the men fed bedclothes into a machine and then gathered them when they spooled out, perfectly pressed. The room was uncomfortably warm and smelled of bleach and metal.

  Finally, the elevator came and whisked her back up into the passenger area, which Charlotte never understood how she’d escaped in the first place. Again, she plodded down corridors—identical, dim, smelling of disinfectant and French fries. It seemed she was the only one on the ship. And then an apparition: her porter, Paros. He stood at the end of a long hallway. Was he real, or just a dream? “Mrs. Perkins?” said Paros.

  She wanted to run toward him. To crash into him. To wrap her arms around him, allow him to lift her up, carry her soundlessly across the miles of carpet to her stateroom. There, they would order tiramisu and feed it to each other from long-handled spoons. He would hold her; she would allow herself to stay.

  Charlotte had spent so long denying her desires—not just sexual ones, but her longing to give voice to the desirous woman inside her. She plodded through her days—mass, grocery, dinner, bed—as if sleepwalking. If she acknowledged the flame of her need, Charlotte feared it would consume her.

  “Mrs. Perkins,” said Paros, “is that you?”

  CORD ROLLED OVER, HIS eyes hot coals in his head, his mouth a desert. One and a half years of sobriety, gone. He grabbed his iPhone from his bedside table and reset his Sobriety Calculator to zero. No, he told himself, to one. Day One, again.

  His last Day One had been the morning after his 3rd Eyez visit, the trip that would determine his fate. If 3rd Eyez was a hit, he’d be wealthy and revered. If it tanked, he was ruined. Ruined and alone, said the lonely voice. It was always loudest after a binge, so forceful and authoritative that it was hard for Cord to tamp it down, to quiet it with logic. Ruined and alone, it repeated gloomily.

  Cord had graduated from Princeton in 2001, at the end of the Internet boom. NYC Ventures, founded in 1998 by two members of Cord’s eating club, Tiger Inn, was still flush with funds and Cord happily joined the firm, settling into an Upper West Side apartment where he bought furniture online and pretended to be straight (booze helped). It was all downhill from 2001 for VC in general and NYC Ventures in specific, but Cord still clung to his job even as the firm dwindled and his former buddies treated him with kid gloves after he was spotted at a gay pride parade. “Cord, are you gay?” asked Hammersmith over drinks at Dorian’s.

  Jacoby and Wyatt waited for Cord’s response.

  Cord, his gut seizing, nodded.

  “Never would have thunk it,” said Jacoby. He shrugged.

  And furthermore, as Charlotte would say.

  By hook or by crook, they’d kept NYC Ventures alive. In 2014, with only six employees left, they had raised a smallish fund. “We’re looking for a game changer,” said Jacoby (now balding, with three kids and an ex-wife in Rye).

  Back at Princeton, one of Cord’s best friends had been Georgie, a whippet-thin, pasty-faced girl from Florida. They’d bonded over late nights in the library, an unlikely duo: the closeted frat boy and the painfully shy genius. But they both loved nineties rap, microwave popcorn, and each other.

  Georgie had dropped out of medical school after creating some complicated surgical instrument and cashing in. Lately, she’d been emailing Cord that she’d created a VR product that could “hijack your mind.” Unlike the dumb headsets and battery packs everyone was messing around with, Georgie said her product, 3rd Eyez, could override the brain’s ability to distinguish between real and virtual. It had something to do with lasers aimed at your eyeballs. “Seriously,” said Georgie. “I can convince your brain that any world I make is real. And if we make the worlds fun enough, nobody’s going to want to come out. The real world is old news at this point.”

  Terrifying implications aside, Cord saw dollar signs: videogames, teleconferencing, films…the hope of replacing all screens. 3rd Eyez did sound like it was making, as Georgie’s marketing guys called it, “a disruption machine.”

  Because he was a friend of Georgie’s, and because 3rd Eyez needed someone to lead their Series-A-round financing, Cord had been invited to Orlando to see the prototype. When Georgie got the flu and couldn’t join her team in showing the product to Cord, Cord had given himself permission to empty his Sheraton hotel minibar. By the time he’d met the team for dinner at a steak joint, then added a few martinis to his bloodstream, Cord was flying high. He remembered sitting in the back of an engineer’s car. There was a warehouse, a parking lot steaming with heat, a cooler of beers to enjoy while they checked out the machine.

  Were there wires attached to his head? Electrodes? Cord remembered something about jungle animals coming to life in 3rd Eyez’s conference room. An elephant? And then Michael Jordan and Babe Ruth hanging out, interacting with them. Something like walking through a Norwegian forest, touching icicles…

  Then blackness. Cord woke up in a cold sweat at 3:24 A.M. in his Sheraton room, filled with nausea and the familiar crush of impending doom. He didn’t remember the phone call he’d made, telling his NYC Ventures team to invest every last cent in 3rd Eyez. He didn’t remember insisting this was it, the answer to their prayers. I trust you, motherfucker!!! Wyatt had texted at some point.

  By the time Cord was sitting in a hastily located AA meeting, clutching a Styrofoam cup of coffee, s
haking with regret and grief, the money had been wired. NYC Ventures led the Series A round, catapulting 3rd Eyez to viability.

  They would find out within days that Cord had signed papers ensuring that 3rd Eyez didn’t have to show anyone the product until the IPO. Cord had given them enough money to operate in secrecy.

  “Man,” said Jacoby, clapping Cord on the back when he returned to the office, “I just can’t wait to see it.”

  Cord didn’t say, Neither can I.

  * * *

  —

  AND HERE HE WAS again. A new Day One. Why couldn’t he stay sober? Why? Giovanni had known only sober Cord, Cord in Recovery. Gio had even once said, “You can have a bit of good wine once in a while, right?”

  Cord held his head in his hands. Fear filled him. Dread pulsed inside his stomach. He was going to keep drinking, and he was going to lose Giovanni. Whatever he’d inherited from his father was going to kill him. He might as well stop fighting, open the minibar, and imbibe. He’d already checked out the selection: small bottles of everything from vodka to Malbec. Cord let the possibility of giving in fill him with shameful joy.

  It wasn’t as if he didn’t know that the choice was real and quite possibly final. He could abandon himself to the booze or he could keep trying to stay true, to feel both the pain and the glory of ordinary, beautiful life. Cord stared at the tiny refrigerator.

  WHEN REGAN WOKE, SHE was alone in bed. Matt was sitting on the balcony, head bent over his phone. Regan’s dreams had been harrowing. Inside them, she’d been back at the Come On Inn with Mr. Ragdale, her high school art teacher. He’d convinced her they were meant for each other. Or maybe she’d convinced herself.

  The sour sheets, the smell of cheap cleaning fluids. Regan had known as the days wore on that running away with Alphonso had been a mistake. But she couldn’t call Charlotte. Feeling as if she were soiled beyond redemption, Regan had called her sister’s ex-boyfriend instead. And Matt had come for her, riding all the way to Statesboro on his motorcycle, banging on the flimsy motel door, confronting Mr. Ragdale, even poking him in the chest with an index finger, gathering Regan and her duffel bag of belongings.