“Well, you should really see some of the other houses,” she said, but her voice sounded unconvincing even to her.
“Lil,” Jackson said, “I had no idea.” He continued to wander around the room, touching various surfaces. “I would not put this on the tasteful end of the spectrum. You’ve got D’Amico in your eyes, babe.”
What she actually had in her eyes were the beginnings of anxious tears, and her annoyance at their looming arrival was mounting. He hadn’t even bullied her; she’d brought him here on her own recognizance. Why?
“You act like you’ve never met a rich person before,” she said. “Half the guys in your year at J school were trust-fund babies. You had no problem holing up at their houses in the Berkshires all winter long. I don’t remember that bothering you at all.”
“Not like this,” he murmured, not even wary of her tone. “You could play football in this kitchen.”
He crossed the room and put his hands to her waist, lifting her up onto the butcher block island. He kissed her and let his mouth slide lazily down to her chin, her jawbone, and then the most vulnerable parts of her neck, her throat.
“We should fuck on this,” he said.
“No,” Lily said. “Come on. Get off me. I told you they’ve got those cars parked down there, I still think they might have seen you.”
He pulled back and stared at her in mock outrage.
“As I’m pretty sure you remember,” he said, “I hid. I buried my face in your lap, I believe it was.”
“Whatever,” she said. “Still worried.”
“Come on,” he said to her, notching his thumbs to her hip bones. “You’ve seen some crazy things in this football-field kitchen. What were the craziest ones? You never share the really good stories, I can tell.”
She became conscious of her own breathing, of the air as it moved into her, filled her lungs.
“Nobody’s going to give away anything juicy in the kitchen around the hired help.”
He kissed her.
“Bullshit, Lily.”
“This one couple came in once, having a hissing fight,” she began. His fingers were kneading the skin just below the waistband of her jeans. “The husband was complaining that this was the last party for him, he was done, and she shrieked, ‘You’re the one who wanted to live in the People’s Republic of Connecticut!’”
“Mediocre,” Jackson said. “Not juicy, come on. I know worse stuff happens. The husbands come in and try to feel you up. People try to feel her up.”
“I don’t spy on them during their parties,” she said. “I’m not downstairs.”
He snorted into her hair.
“This one man came in here a few years ago, the summer,” she said. “I was down here making some food for Luke, he couldn’t sleep. This guy came in and sat down at the breakfast table before I could stop him, and started to cry.”
Jackson smiled. His hands flew up under her shirt.
“No,” she said, “he was kind of sad. He was. They were trying to build this new house and all the little old ladies of Greenwich were outraged and went to the planning and zoning commission.”
“Yes! The zoning commission of Greenwich. I love it.”
Her stomach was churning, no longer with simple desire, but she ignored it. It felt like her voice was keeping his hands in motion.
“They went to the Times and then he didn’t get to build his dream house anymore. He’d bought, like, eleven acres. And this was the following week, after the big article, and he was in here crying. He kept saying, ‘It was tasteful!’”
“And then he made a pass at you, I assume,” Jackson said.
The man had done no such thing. He’d had the look of a man who, on any other night, would have been a predator. But on that night he’d been battened down into submission by his own failures. He sat at the same table where the boys ate their morning cereal, his ruddy cheeks and veiny radish nose those of a man who’s well on his way to liver damage. And he’d looked so rumpled, so small. Lily knew it wasn’t that he’d been such a spectacular failure when he tried to take his rightful place alongside Bob and Isabel. It was just that being near them made it clear to him how far he would have remained, even in his monolithic eyesore, from someone they would ever respect, even take seriously. He had been promised, by some unuttered decree, that there was some final plateau he could reach, that he’d then be able to stand beside Bob D’Amico.
But he couldn’t feel large, not shaking Bob’s hand in the receiving line. It was easy to roll your eyes at Bob from afar, easy to refer to Weiss guys as thugs, not the smartest, not the most dapper. Harder to do when presented with the man himself.
Lily had wanted to tell this man something, that night, something about what she’d learned about how not to feel small in this house. But comforting him wasn’t her job, and besides it was annoying that he had broken down in front of her. Assumed she was nobody, underestimated her.
She’d found a security guy to wait with him outside while they brought his car around. She knew that this had been true, during her time in this house: that she had become more exacting, less willing to shield other people from their own exposed flaws. It was so easy, when you lived in it, to learn the behavior.
Isabel has never underestimated you, she thought now. She’s basically given you free license over the lives of her children for the past three months. And today you watched Madison get on a train and didn’t do anything because, what? You’re sick of seeing her mother ignore her? If her mother didn’t ignore her so much, you’d be out of a job.
“Come on,” Jackson said, still kissing her neck. “Tell me. The guy tried to feel you up?”
“Sure. Yes. What else would you expect. These people are awful, right? Is that what you want to hear? They’re clowns. All of them, equally.”
“Not clowns,” Jackson said. “But maybe criminals. You’re going to see this, Lil. Sooner or later.”
She pushed Jackson away from her and hopped down from the counter. She wanted to feel her feet on the floor. This was crazy, this whole idea. He needed to go.
“This is my fault,” she said, “I don’t blame you, but this is it. You got to come in and make fun of my job and roll your eyes at their house. I’m taking you back to the station, okay? You got what you came for.”
But he was already wandering into the pantry, crying out with glee. The longer he stayed in here, the bolder he seemed to get. He wasn’t whispering anymore. They had to leave. This was crazy; this was asking to be fired, begging for it.
And then, as if conjured by her fear, Bob walked into the kitchen.
He had on gray sweatpants and a blue hoodie, a sweatshirt she recognized from a past year’s firm retreat. He was wearing his glasses, so he couldn’t actually be going out for a jog, but otherwise he carried nothing, just his keys. He came into the room and then stopped.
“Lily,” he said, “hello.”
“Hi,” she said. “Can I get you something?”