Class(16)

“I’m happy to help,” said Clay, again cutting her off and also sounding the tiniest bit impatient.

Or was Karen overinterpreting? “Thank you so much, Clay,” she said, relieved to have gotten the ask part of the conversation over with, even as she wished she’d waited.

“It’s my pleasure,” said Clay. Then he narrowed his eyes at her, smiled, and said, “It’s good to see you, Karen Kipple from College.”

“It’s good to see you too!” said Karen, deciding that, in all likelihood, he was just feeling nostalgic for his Sigma Chi days and mistakenly thinking she’d been a part of them.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” he went on while fishing an olive pit out of his mouth, “but you’re one of the few people I know who looks better than they did when we were young.”

“Oh, thanks!” she said, not sure whether to be flattered or hurt. It struck her as the ultimate left-handed compliment. “Was I really ugly then?”

“Not at all, but you wore some kind of ring thingy in your nose, which I hope you don’t mind me saying I’m glad to see gone.”

“Why would I mind?” Karen said. Though, in truth, she did mind. The hole had eventually become infected, and she’d had to let it close up. But there had been a time and place when that tiny gold ring had made her feel subversive, which was the attribute to which everyone in Karen’s social circle had aspired back then.

“You also had a baby face, and now you’re kind of chiseled and hot,” said Clay.

“Tell that to my husband!” Karen laughed, shocked by the direction in which the conversation had turned.

“Tell me his name, and I will.”

“It’s Matt. He’s a great guy. But you know how it goes after you’ve been married for a while. People basically stop seeing each other.” Was she being disloyal? “I could seriously be wearing two different shoes, and I don’t think he’d notice.” What Karen didn’t tell Clay was that one of the things that had initially attracted her to Matt was his self-reliance—a reliance so evolved that it sometimes bordered on benign neglect of the people around him. Matt didn’t seem to need or want anyone’s help, and that realization had come as a huge relief to Karen—at least in the early days of their marriage.

Clay took a sip of his sparkling water and wiped his mouth. Then he looked straight at her—straight through her, it seemed to Karen—and said, “I’d notice.”

Was Clay Phipps just one of those people who used flattery the way others used humor—to put others at ease? Or was he flirting with her? Was that even possible? And if he was, why? “Is that right?” was all Karen could think to say back. It had been so long since she’d been complimented on her appearance that she’d forgotten how gratifying it was. With her mop of unruly hair, small breasts, and proportionally wide hips, she’d never conformed to any American ideal of femininity. But there had been a very brief window in her midtwenties—after she’d finally slimmed down, thanks to a strict if unhealthy diet of salads and nonfat frozen yogurt, and learned how to defrizz her hair—when she’d attracted a certain amount of attention from the opposite sex, which she’d rewarded with short-term flings. At its most intoxicating, being a sex object had felt like an escape route from the mundane and from the burden of her upbringing. At its worst, it had felt like a full-time job. There had been endless hairs to pluck, StairMasters to master, scales to stand on and lament the previous evening’s caloric intake, and lotions and potions to rub in and rinse off again. But to have experienced even a taste of the strange kind of power that accompanied youthful beauty was, to some extent, to mourn its passing for the rest of your life.

Karen and Clay filled the rest of the hour with discussions of long-lost friends from college—mostly his fraternity brothers, the majority of whom Karen barely recalled but, for Clay’s benefit and, by extension, the benefit of Hungry Kids, pretended to have vivid memories of…

“I assume you remember Scooter, my roommate in the house—the dickhead with the American flag bong?”

“Of course I remember!”

“Well, after Lehman folded and his marriage blew up, the guy hightailed it to Tortola for a breather and apparently never left. Rumor has it he now rides around in a fucking pizza boat, if you can believe it, offering pepperoni slices to passing yachtsmen.”

“You’re kidding.”

All of the old brothers apparently worked in tech or finance, or used to do so until their midlife crises, and were about to remarry or were busy disentangling themselves from their old marriages and going through messy divorces. When the bill came, Clay reached into his coat pocket and Karen didn’t bother objecting. After laying out his Am Ex black card on the tray, he pulled a rumpled paper check out of his pocket with the name of his family’s LLC at the top. “How much does Starving Children or whatever it’s called need?” he said. “Sorry—I’m terrible with names. Though I’d never forget yours.”

“It’s Hungry Kids,” said Karen, embarrassed and also surprised he was opening his wallet this quickly. It usually took a few weeks to get money out of anyone. At the very least, there were accounting teams to consult. Besides, who carried around paper checks anymore? “But—oh my God, Clay, you don’t have to do it right here! I mean, unless you want to…”