“Where were you this winter?” he asked.
“Tennessee for a while, in Nashville, and then down to this jamboree thing,” they said. “It’s on an island. It’s crazy. Everybody’s queer or trans. Then I was in New Mexico for a few months.”
“Doin’ what?”
“Hangin’ out. I went on a spirit quest.”
“In the desert?” Rome asked.
“Yeah. I took peyote. I saw an angel with a black face. I thought it was a sign.”
“But it wasn’t?”
“No,” Okie said. “I asked it.”
“What did it say?”
“It said, ‘Fuck you. I’m just a black angel. There’s black angels too, you know.’ ”
Okie went into their tent. Rome could hear them moving around. In their absence, he looked at the campsite, at the kids. At one time he’d known them all. He’d known their names, and stories, and where they were from, and how it was they’d come to him. But that was years ago, with Kathy, who took the time to get to know people. She was cool like that, or had used to be. Now when Rome looked at the kids, he saw compensated strangers. Except for Okie and a few others, he didn’t know their names. He kept them straight in other ways. There was the kid with the one-eyed dog; the boy who never wore shoes; the girl with earlobes that hung down to her shoulders like loops of taffy. The new kid sat Indian-style near the fire. He wore a fedora with the feather of a hawk in the band. He gnawed an ear of corn. He was either choosing to sit alone or was being shunned. Aside from the kid’s hat — which was stupid, plain stupid — Rome didn’t see the problem.
Okie crawled out of the tent with papers and a small bud in their hand. They sat down next to Rome. They broke the bud apart and rolled.
“Is that the Silverlight?” he asked. It was his design. The strain was mellow, for the body. Monarch said it hit her in the third eye.
“Yep,” Okie said. “Brian said it was cool. He put it down in the book.”
Okie lit the joint. They took a small hit to check the draw. They waited a second, then took another, bigger hit. Okie passed the joint to Rome. As he exhaled, they asked him how his day was.
“Kinda fucked up,” Rome said. “Kathy called.”
“That explains it,” Okie said.
“Explains what?”
“Why you look so sad,” Okie said. “A ghost called. The ghost called.”
“I did feel sick,” Rome said. “Like in my stomach.”
“Yeah, man,” Okie said. “That’s exes. They’re like the dead, except they can call you on the phone. My mom can’t do that. My dad can’t. You know why? Because they’re dead. They can’t call me up just to see how I am.”
Hitting the joint again, Rome remembered: it had been the both of them; Nantucket; a freak storm; the maid and the harbormaster crouched in the playroom, consoling; the fortune had been left to a blue-blooded grandmother who wouldn’t acknowledge them.
“What did she want? Can I ask you?”
“Money.”
“Ouch,” Okie said. “You still love her?”
Rome shrugged his shoulders.
“Jesus, man. Really?” Okie said. “That woman is a force of nature.”
“She really is,” Rome said.
“But I always liked her.”
Rome passed the joint to Okie.
“Me too,” he said. “When we were together, Kathy never asked me for money. I’d give it to her, but she never asked me. She said it made her feel kept. She had a chip on her shoulder. It was the size of a planet.”
“I get that,” Okie said. “That makes all sorts of sense to me.”
“Now she calls.”
“She must be desperate,” Okie said. They passed the joint back to him and picked up their knife again. “You remember desperate? It’s a terrible place.”
“I remember.”
“But not really,” Okie said. “No offense, but not really. That’s not how money works. It doesn’t help you remember. Not the desperation. Not the fear. Not in this world.”
“I’ve been desperate,” Rome said.
“I’m sure you have been,” Okie said. “But you don’t remember.”
“Sure I do,” he said.
“No you don’t,” Okie said. “Once you’ve got the money, you know? It’s not your fault. Once you have it, certain receptors, they get clicked off. It’s just the way it goes. It’s just how it is.”
Rome hadn’t come by to argue, and he didn’t need a lesson in sympathy, or whatever it was Okie thought they were talking about. If he wanted to, he could tell them his own little sob story. A description of his own father would make them happy theirs was dead. He could say, “I remember desperation, you little asshole. I remember crackers for dinner, and hiding in a closet whenever he came home.” But Rome wouldn’t do that. He couldn’t. The gentleness people required so much of depended entirely on his not being cruel. He tried to live this way, but would forget from time to time. It was a battle.
“What’s the issue over here?” He nodded at the kid with the feather in his hat.
“He gets drunk and weird,” Okie said.
Rome got that. That made all sorts of sense to him. “Does he need to go?”
Okie looked up from their knife. They eyed the kid.
“No,” they said. “I don’t think so. I told him if he looks at me again I’m gonna cut his balls off.”
An hour later Rome sat in his living room. Across from him, on the other, lumpier couch, was this guy, this husband of hers, this Ted. Rome looked at his phone. Following Duhursts, Brian had texted earlier, and then, right that second, On mountain road. Rome finished repacking the bong. He sent the letter K.
“What makes you any different?” he asked. “Your company?”
“A fair question,” Ted said. He was so, so, so-so high, and it was pretty clear this Rome person didn’t care for him. But who knew, really? Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t. Ted was so paranoid he couldn’t trust himself. One thing was certain: there was zero chance they were going to “be New England together,” as Kathy had suggested. This was actually impossible — because they weren’t from the same New England. Ted’s parents lived in Woodstock, Vermont, on the same road where Michael J. Fox kept a house. He’d attended Phillips Exeter, and not on scholarship. He’d skied! He’d skied all the time! That was the New England Ted belonged to. This Rome guy was from another one. It was written all over his sexily creased face. Enormous pickup trucks splattered with mud had rumbled through his childhood. Drunk uncles had thrown horseshoes at the pig roast. He clearly knew how to change his own oil. All that frightening reticence! Ted thought. How would he get his money?
“We’re way better,” Ted said. “I think that’s the main thing.” As soon as he’d said it — he’d said nothing! he couldn’t think! why was he yelling?!? was he?!? — he wanted to crawl under the couch and hide there until morning.
At that moment, as if to rescue him, the most beautiful woman in the entire world walked into the living room. She held a glass of water in each hand and had long dark hair, like Pocahontas. She was Pocahontas. She set the waters down on the coffee table, smiled at Ted, and then disappeared.
“Who was that?”
“Monarch,” Rome said.
“Oh, yeah,” Ted said. “Monarch. Right.”
Shit, Rome thought. Ted was stoned out of his mind. The poor idiot didn’t know what was going on. Rome wanted to help — he’d made up his mind to help — but they had to talk terms at some point. No matter how you looked at it, it was a lot of money. What would come back to him? How would percentages work? When would he get to see her again? Beyond logistics, Rome couldn’t launch Ted back into the world like this. He’d crash his car maybe, or get pulled over. Rome asked himself (he was high too — the Silverlight was headier than expected), did he like Ted? And the answer was no. He did not like Ted. He hated Ted’s guts. He wanted to smash Ted’s well-bred face in. But Rome got it. The guy was sort of sweet. He was nice. Good for her and all that shit. In any case, nice guy or not, Rome had to get this thing over with. The Duhursts were coming.