All Adults Here(77)

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    It was right after his college graduation. Elliot had wanted to take the LSATs right away, as quickly as possible before all the information from all his classes slipped out his ears at night while he slept. After being away at school, it felt good to be back in his room in the Big House. Some of Elliot’s friends had real jobs already, either with their family businesses or with consulting firms in Manhattan and Boston. Elliot had asked his father for a job at his law firm, but Russell didn’t think it was a good idea, for slightly foggy reasons. He wanted Elliot to get a job somewhere else first. He could work for him down the road, he said. After law school. After working for someone else. As if those things were easier to do than to work for your father.

His scores were just south of mediocre. They weren’t so bad that Elliot seemed illiterate, or to have filled something out incorrectly, but bad enough that he wouldn’t be able to get into a reputable program. And if you could only get into a fourth-tier law school, who would hire you, anyway? Elliot had a summer job lined up at Valley Construction. He could take the test again in the fall.

The days were hot and long, and Elliot slept like the dead, his tired body crashing into bed, sometimes still in his clothes, and not moving for ten hours. Twelve on the weekends. By the time he stumbled down the stairs in his boxer shorts and T-shirt, his parents were already on lunch.

When there was a breeze, Astrid and Russell ate outside at the small wrought iron table. Russell didn’t wear suits on the weekend, but he still never looked quite relaxed, the way that other dads did. He wore collared shirts and ironed his pants. Russell thought denim was made for children and cowboys. Even though he was warmer than his wife, far more likely to crack a joke, or to give a quick bicep squeeze, in some ways he was just like Astrid—precise and clear. Elliot opened the fridge, and the cold air felt good, so good that he leaned forward, pressing his nose against a carton of orange juice. He felt like he had a hangover, but from physical labor instead of alcohol. The house was completely silent—no Wesley Drewes, none of the Steely Dan that Russell played when Astrid wasn’t home. Elliot took the orange juice out of the fridge, shut the door and leaned against it. He tipped the triangular spout into his mouth and drank straight from the carton, long, slow glugs. Outside, his father laughed.

Later, that laugh would hurt more and more, once he knew what would follow, but in the moment, on that one, sunny afternoon, Elliot laughed to himself in response. His father’s laugh was goofy; higher pitched than his speaking voice, a genuine giggle. Elliot held the carton against his chest and moved closer to the open door to the garden. He stayed out of sight. Porter was somewhere else—if she’d been home, she would have been making a racket, talking on the phone, or eating handfuls of potato chips, sitting in between her parents, egging them both on. He was the only child home, and he wanted to know what his parents were saying.

“Oh, come on,” Russell said. “You don’t mean that.”

“I’m sorry to say that I do!” Astrid said. “I don’t want to believe it. But I do. I think he’s skated by. He skated through school, barely graduated from college. And now he thinks he’s going to be a lawyer, just because you are? I’m sorry. We aren’t doing him any favors by flattering him into believing that’s going to happen.” Her fork clinked against her plate. Elliot turned his face away, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave the kitchen. His mother went on. “I just think he’s not cut out for the business world. He should open a yogurt shop, I don’t know.”

“Yogurt!” Russell boomed back. Elliot’s breath started to move around his body again—his father was going to defend him, of course he was. “Yogurt’s passé. Maybe he’ll stay in construction! Build some glittering mansions on the hill!”

“Hmm. We’ll see. Maybe if someone else tells him where to put the beams. Not everyone can be the boss, Rusty.”

Elliot heard the sound of one of their chairs scraping against the stone patio, and he set the orange juice on the counter and padded quickly out of the kitchen and back up the stairs, where he stayed for the rest of the day.



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“Who were you meeting over there now?” Birdie asked.

The corners of Elliot’s mouth turned south. “He makes ice cream. He lives in New Paltz. I don’t know. He could only pay half as much as some of the other people who’ve approached me. I don’t know. His wife does spin class with Wendy. I don’t know how he found out that I owned the building.”

“So he’s a local and has community ties and also makes ice cream,” August said.

“Listen, it’s a business decision,” Elliot said. “It has to be about business.”

“You just said business like sixteen times,” Cecelia said. “No offense.” She thought about the glossy folder and felt more like a local than she ever had before. Astrid was not going to like this, and Elliot knew it. Cecelia willed herself to be brave, but no one liked tattletales. “I’m sure it’ll be beautiful.”

Elliot looked at her, his eyes wide. Cecelia turned her face back toward her lap.

Elliot took two giant bites of pizza and then leaned against the wall. He exhaled. “Well, Birdie, I should tell you. I did get approached by Beauty Bar. I don’t think they cut hair, but they do blow-drying. And sell makeup.”