Tony stared at him blankly.
“Those are wines, Tone.”
“Whatever. Who the hell is Norman Nate?”
“Tech guy. Had a big stake in Slapdish, and now he’s onto human intelligence enhancement, radical life extension, nanotech, and the like. They call him ‘the homeless billionaire’ because he doesn’t own a house, he just stays in luxury hotels around the world and lives out of his jet.”
“Jesus Christ. Don’t expect me to join you for any of that horseshit.”
“Tony, I’d never try to tear you away from your single-minded devotion to your own misery.”
They argued about which panels to attend. The jet lag was making Tony crankier than normal. They settled on “Capitalism: To Infinity and Beyond,” about the ongoing privatization of space, during which Tony fell asleep and later “The End Game for the Middle East,” in which the Saudi head of security painted a grim picture of the now two-and-a-half-decades-long state of war that stretched from Syria to Pakistan and had recently spilled into the kingdom. Though this year’s conference was supposed to have a focus on climate and water security, the capture of several Saudi oil fields in the northeast by radical Islamist groups was the only thing in the news. Bomb them, don’t bomb them—the usual debate, but oil was at stake again, so those nutty Muslims were going to get bombed. Marty’s panel featured him jawing with five other economists about development issues, and the usual conclusions were bandied about. Grow that pie bigger, get that rising tide to lift all those boats in the Global South. Tony fell asleep again.
That night he dialed Catherine in LA.
“What is this thing you’re at?” she asked. She sat on her bed, a mess of dirty-looking sheets and pillows. He could see a pink bra stuffed into the crease between bed and wall.
“From what I can tell it’s an excuse to go to tech billionaires’ blowout bacchanals.”
“Guessing that’s why you’re hiding in your hotel room?”
“My colleague wanted me to go to one of these parties with oxygen bars or hula-hoop go-go dancers or some such dogshit, but I thought I’d talk to my brats then read a book.”
His youngest looked thoughtful. “I didn’t think a human being could survive on so little fun, but you’re like an experiment, Dad. You should get your scientist friends to study you.”
She checked something to the right of the screen, no doubt her phone. She wore a pair of red shorts and a gray USC T-shirt, flaunting her school colors like all the undergrads did. She’d gained a little weight, and it hung under her chin, much the way it had with Gail, especially when she was pregnant with this very girl to whom he spoke. Tony let that painful thought come and gladly go.
“What do you want from Switzerland?” he asked.
“Duty-free booze?”
“How ’bout a Swiss Army knife.”
“I was just thinking I had to cut… something…” She looked around, faux-puzzled. “But it’s really small so it doesn’t require a real knife. Just a really small knife.”
“Har-har.” Tony smiled.
She didn’t look exactly like Gail. The round cheeks, yes, and the nose were similar, but of course she had lighter skin, an invasion of Tony’s freckles, a red hue to her hair, and bright champagne eyes. They had small bags under them now, but he wouldn’t ask if she was getting enough sleep. As she edged hesitatingly toward adulthood, he’d gotten hip to what annoyed her.
“Dad,” she said, picking at some half-scraped nail polish on her thumb. “I’m going to tell you something, but don’t freak out.” Of course, if one’s child opens a conversation with such a phrase, the gut tightens. “I’m taking this semester off. I already did all the registration stuff—or un-registration stuff, I guess. But look, I’m just so totally burned out. I’ve been working a lot at the restaurant—”
There was first relief that she wasn’t pregnant with some idiot’s baby, then annoyance, then regret at the annoyance.
“I told you I’ll send you more money if you need it.”
“No, it’s not the money.” She picked at the nail. “It was just like a hell semester last fall. I didn’t get into the business program. I’ve got a shit GPA. It’s a lot of stress at once, and I think it would be good if I just worked for a while and sort of recharged my batteries.”
Tony stared at the screen on his lap.
“I think that’s a goddamned awful idea,” he said.
“Daddy.” She said it in that way she had. That made her sound like a child again. He figured he would never stop getting surprising phone calls from her or about her. The accident in high school. To tell him she was staying in California after he got the job at Yale and was overseeing the move to New Haven. That she’d go to USC instead of Connecticut despite his lobbying. He’d taken the Yale job partially because he wanted to move them closer to Holly, to reunite the family at least in the same region. The harder he tried to get the three of them in similar zip codes, the more she resisted.
“I was so well aware,” she said, “that you would not like this. Trust me. That’s why I didn’t tell you. But you have to understand, I’m not Holly. I’m not naturally smart.”
He rolled his eyes. “That’s preposterous. You’re not motivated, Khaleesi. You just haven’t found something yet that makes you want to focus.”
“So that’s what I’m trying to do here! I was in my business communications class and I was like, ‘Wait, I could not give a shit less about this’—and please, please, please don’t do the name, Dad.”
Tony was about to get irritated with her, but he stayed himself. First, he knew if he had an argument with his younger daughter via laptop it would ruin his entire week. He’d probably go blank onstage the next day because he’d be feeling guilt over whatever he’d said to her that might not have been fair. Second, he saw hope in her “taking this semester off.” Maybe this was the first step in her moving to the East Coast.
“Tell you what,” he said. “Why don’t I buy you a plane ticket for next weekend? Holly was going to come up from the city anyway. If you’re not in school, you might as well come see us.”
She stared at her bedspread like an ashamed duckling but now her eyes traveled up to him.
“You promise this isn’t a rouse to get me there so you can yell at me?”
“I promise. You can tell me what you’re thinking of doing next. Maybe we can give you some ideas.”
“And you’ll tell Holly not to bitch me out? She lives to bitch me out, Dad.”
“Holly’s her own woman, Catherine,” he said. “But I’ll tell her to go easy.”
“What did you expect?” said Holly when he called her next. “Have you seen her Instagram? It looks like she’s drinking every night of the week. She has zero sense of responsibility.”
“Okay, okay,” said Tony. “I get it, kiddo. But look, you’ve got to play nice, okay? If you just start badgering her, she’ll get defensive. She’ll feel ganged up on.”
“So what am I supposed to do, Dad? Encourage her to drop out and become a full-time waitress?”
Holly sat at her kitchen table sipping from a mug, the string of a tea bag hanging like a graduation tassel. A spice rack affixed to the wall behind her and below it a shelf with a row of cookbooks. Her cat, an orange tabby, tried to hop up on her lap, and she told it, “Not now.”