Pineapple Street(77)
“How long have you guys been seeing each other?” Cord asked Nate.
“Couple of months, I think.”
“I picked him up at the Cap Club.”
“No, I picked her up.” Nate nuzzled Shelby’s neck.
“Gross.” Olly frowned.
“You guys should come fishing with us tomorrow. Nate and I have been getting really lucky with stripers.”
“Any keepers?” Cord asked.
“A few.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket and tapped a little icon. “This is one of my projects. It’s an app where you can take a picture of your catch and it will identify the fish for you. Then you scan the length, and it tells you if it’s a keeper or if you need to throw it back.”
“Oh, I’ll download that.” Cord pulled his own phone out of his pocket, leaning over so that Shelby could help him find it in the store.
“Cord,” Olly said, “when, in Brooklyn Heights, do you plan to catch a keeper?”
“I mean, it wouldn’t be a daily thing,” Cord muttered.
“It’s okay, Cord.” Shelby laughed. “I’m always working on a million ideas. What should my next project be?”
“I actually do have an app idea,” Cord said, brightening. “I can’t stand those people who honk all the time. I want an app that tracks how much people honk, and then at the end of the day, when they are trying to fall asleep, their phone just blares a honking noise at them for the exact amount of time they honked.”
“Cord, I love you man, but who the fuck would put that on their own phone?” Nate asked.
“Okay, I have one,” Olly jumped in. “You put in the contact info for any girl you’re hooking up with and every Thursday night it automatically texts, ‘Hey beautiful, I was just thinking about you!’?”
“Yeah, I’m not making that app.” Shelby poked Olly on his shoulder.
“I know,” said Sasha. “An app where you point your phone at an avocado and it tells you if it’s stringy or brown inside.”
“I want one called Richup,” said Nate. “It goes through all your photos and adds in a Rolex and a horse.”
They all laughed and spent the next hour coming up with terrible ideas as Shelby gamely pretended to consider them. After a while Sasha needed to use the bathroom and Shelby led her inside, showing her the two staterooms, the galley, the dining room, the salon, and then finally the head. While the boat was at least fifteen years old, it was neat and well maintained, with shiny chrome and cherrywood details. It was truly a floating apartment.
Shelby made up snacks in the galley, Ritz Crackers with cubes of Vermont cheddar, a pile of grapes, and a plastic tray of Oreo cookies. She carried them out to the deck with a stack of paper napkins all bearing the name of the boat, The Searcher, in fancy gold foil. Around midnight Sasha yawned, and so she, Cord, and Olly said their goodbyes and left the lovebirds alone in their floating nest.
Olly gallantly offered to carry their trash and recycling to the bins by the parking lot, and together they made their way along the pier, talking quietly so as not to rouse anyone who might be sleeping in the neighboring boats.
“She’s a sweet girl,” Sasha murmured. “She seems to really like Nate.”
“Shocking, right?” Olly replied.
“I hope one of her projects works,” Sasha mused.
“She’ll be fine.”
“I mean, there are millions of apps published every year. It’s a long-shot career path.”
“Oh, these are just for fun. She’s basically been retired since she was thirty.” Olly chucked the trash into the bin.
“What do you mean, retired?” asked Sasha, confused.
“Shelby was employee seventy-three at Google. That’s millions in stocks.”
Sasha felt her jaw drop. Shelby was loaded, super-super-superrich. She started to laugh. “Oh, Nate,” she said, shaking her head. “He can just buy himself a Rolex and horse.”
TWENTY
Georgiana
When Georgiana was a teenager Truman Capote’s house was sold for a record-breaking $12.5 million to the founder of Rockstar Games. The house, a four-bay, five-story townhome on Willow Street between Pineapple and Orange, was sacred ground in the neighborhood. Capote had famously written both Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood while living there, he had lounged on the porch, he had published an autobiographical essay about the neighborhood, and given his friends tours of his place. Capote belonged to the fruit streets. When the maker of Grand Theft Auto slapped down his checkbook and took the keys to 70 Willow, the sound of collective pearl-clutching could be heard from the Promenade to Montague Street. The new owner applied for some permits: to put in a swimming pool, to strip the yellow paint, and to demolish the porch. It was a nightmare. Who, in Brooklyn Heights of all places, would trade Audrey Hepburn for that?
In the weeks following the terrible gender reveal party, Georgiana kept thinking about Capote’s house. The Landmarks Preservation Commission met with the new owner and together they came up with a plan. He could have his pool, but then he would return the home to its Greek Revival heritage, restoring the original facade, matching the historic brick, and using those deep Grand Theft Auto coffers to rejuvenate it to nineteenth-century glory. The owner would get to live there comfortably, but he could still honor the history and culture he inherited. In fact, he would make it better. Maybe that’s what Sasha was doing at Pineapple Street. Maybe Georgiana was just a pearl-clutching neighbor being a giant snob.