Pineapple Street(62)
“Are you stalking me? Reading all my press?”
“It was the Style section. It’s like you placed the article purely to appeal to women. Truly there must be easier ways to get a date. Did the photographer ask you to glower at the camera, or did he say you should just smolder?”
“It sounds like you spent a lot of time looking at it.”
“Apparently it’s my job to liaise with the anticapitalist youth.”
“Well, I’m happy to liaise. I’ll be there next month. Do let me know if I can borrow your mom’s sunglasses.”
* * *
“Whoa, Curtis McCoy with the witty email banter,” Lena laughed. They were at an Italian restaurant on Atlantic and Lena and Kristin huddled over Georgiana’s phone.
“Does he have a girlfriend?” Georgiana asked.
“I have no idea. Are you interested?”
“No! I’m just trying to figure out if everyone thinks he’s a dirtbag or if someone sees a human in there.”
“A dirtbag who is giving away a hundred million dollars in the name of peace. What an a-hole.”
“I mean, it is a mindfuck, right?” Georgiana asked. “It’s like he’s either a total jerk or a saint, and I just can’t figure out which it is.”
“Terrible people can do good things,” Kristin mused. “Like, even Bin Laden loved his grandchildren.”
“Super helpful insight. Thank you.”
“Look at the guys I work with,” Kristin continued. “You have all these men in tech who have big dreams about creating a utopian society but instead have enabled more hate than previously imagined, mostly for money.”
“It can also work the other way, right? Like Angelina Jolie? Wears Billy Bob Thornton’s blood in a necklace and does lots of drugs but then grows up and becomes a Goodwill Ambassador? That’s what Curtis is doing, right? Trying to grow up?” asked Lena.
“So Curtis is Angelina Jolie. Cool, cool. I get it now.” Georgiana laughed. It wasn’t the same thing, but there was a nugget of truth there. He wasn’t responsible for his family’s sins. He wasn’t even necessarily responsible for what he had believed in high school. People could change. People could evolve. Who was she to hold him to some strict moral standard? Everything she had believed about herself had gone out the window when she fell in love with Brady. Good people did fucked-up things.
* * *
When she told her sister, Darley, that she had invited Curtis McCoy to the benefit, Darley grabbed Georgiana’s arm and howled laughing. “Who’s the Gold Digger now?” she cackled. They were playing tennis at the Casino and Georgiana died a little inside that everyone at the club would think she was a social climber.
“Shut up.” She glared at her sister.
“What are you two fighting about?” Cord and their mother let themselves onto the court and handed Georgiana a can of balls to pop.
“Georgiana’s going on a date with Curtis McCoy!” Darley squealed.
“Oh, I set them up,” her mother said, pleased, and smoothed her hands over her hips. She had terrific legs and it sometimes seemed like she played tennis purely for the skirts.
“What? No, you didn’t, Mom!”
“Well, I gave you the article about him and told you to be in touch.”
“Who is Curtis McCoy?” Cord asked.
“He’s that billionaire kid giving away all his money, the one whose dad owns Taconic,” Darley said.
“He’s not a billionaire,” Georgiana muttered.
“Not if he gives it all away,” trilled Tilda.
“Oh, I read about him.” Cord cocked his head. “Seemed like kind of a Bernie Bro.”
“He’s not a Bernie Bro.” Georgiana peeled back the lid of the balls and stuffed three under her skirt. “He inherited millions of dollars made from selling Tomahawk missiles that killed Syrians and rather than spend his days on a yacht he decided to try to make the world better. It hardly makes him a ridiculous person.”
“But he does still have a yacht, right?” Tilda asked. “I can check in the Social Register summer edition.”
“That is not the point, Mom.” Georgiana rolled her eyes. “Can we please play tennis?”
They always played doubles the same way, Georgiana and Darley against Cord and their mother. It was annoying, but Cord was stronger and faster than either of his sisters and so he made up for the fact that Tilda was not quite as nimble as she once was. Darley was strong if slightly erratic, and alongside Georgiana the teams worked out evenly. Although their father was a decent player himself, he and Tilda never played together—they always ended up fighting and so had decided at some point in the nineties to preserve their marriage and keep their tennis lives separate.
Georgiana was often amazed by the variety of experiences the word “marriage” encompassed. Her parents lived together, they slept in the same room, but for all their physical proximity they seemed to live separate existences. They had completely different interests, different friends, they read different books and watched different movies. While they went on vacation together, they spent their days apart, Tilda shopping, getting manicures, and exercising, Chip reading the paper, golfing, and drinking with his friends. Darley and Malcolm were the exact opposite. They were apart more than they were together, but they talked all day, they agreed on nearly everything, they sometimes sat in bed on entirely different continents and ate identical takeout and watched movies together. It almost irked Georgiana how loyal Darley was to Malcolm. She sometimes wished that Darley would just find fault with her husband, would hate the way he brushed his teeth, the way he pursed his lips when he read. But their marriage was an egg, a yolk and a white, all surrounded by shell. Darley may have played family tennis as a Stockton, but Georgiana was beginning to suspect that in her heart of hearts Darley was becoming a Kim, leaving Georgiana all alone.