“Well, I guess I don’t feel great.”
“Try to feel better. We didn’t bring you here to feel bad.”
“Right,” he says, privately amused.
He remembers his first jet lag. The phrase was so odd, and the sensation was sinister. It was profoundly different from being tired. Someone was dragging him down through the bathtub, through the hotel-room floor, and the hotel rooms below him, through the London sidewalk, through the hotel’s basement, into hell. He was six. His father instructed the nanny to keep him awake all day, no matter what, or the trip would be ruined. “It’s crucial,” Alex said. The nanny nodded, and so ensued her ridiculous day of dragging the boy through Harrods, putting candy in his mouth, buying him a tartan scarf and tying it around his neck while he stared drunkenly at her, walking him through parks, patting his face in a way that wasn’t friendly.
Jamey butters his croissant. “You must have known Elise didn’t have a passport.”
Wide-eyed. “I thought that might be the first thing you’d do for her upon getting married,” Tory retorts. “Loved finding out in the paper that my son is married, by the way.”
“She did think Elise would have a passport!” says Annie. “Your mother really believed Elise was coming and would be with us today.”
It’s hard not to love Annie—she accepts everything, except cruelty to animals and nuclear war. She soothes, chiming and making music of conversations. Her face is like a plate or a clock—no mystery but very useful. She can lie without knowing it.
“Annie, come on,” Jamey says gently.
Elise goes to the Passport Office on Hudson Street. She arrives early, and stands in line for three hours.
Finally a weary man with a ponytail hands her the booklet. “Check to make sure it’s your correct identity.”
She looks angry in the square photo, chin up and eyes narrowed, the white fur shoulders tapering into the unseen, the gold E glimmering on her sternum. She likes it.
At home she looks at the blank pages, turning them, one after another.
Coming back to the villa after strolling unbloomed gardens, Tory and Jamey have the Big Conversation.
“Baby,” Tory begins. “I just don’t want you to make the mistakes I made.”
“Which of your mistakes do you mean?”
“You should get what’s yours. You’re a Hyde.”
“But you hate them. Why would you want me to take their money?”
“Because I hate them! What, do you think it’s dirty?” she asks facetiously. “Money is what you do with it. It has no inherent character, James.”
Sitting on a chair upholstered with black damask, Jamey traces patterns in the silk with one finger, and he doesn’t hide his boredom.
“When I demanded my share, they called me a gold-digging whore. They claimed they wanted custody for your sake. And then did nothing to raise you.”
“I did somehow get raised, though,” he points out.
“They just didn’t want to lose the game.”
“I wish it was a game.”
“They’ve mastered the art of looking like the good guys,” Tory continues, not listening to him. “They know how to cover their tracks, boy.” She lights another cigarette.
“But I don’t care anymore.”
“Come on. You can’t flick off emotions like a light switch.” Tory tells him about the detective the Hydes hired during the divorce. “He got pictures of me in private bathrooms in private houses. They’re shameless.”
“I’m aware of that,” he says softly.
“And you will never get away from them,” she warns, seething.
“Tory—”
Suddenly she starts to cry, eyeliner running like watery paint. “Leave me alone, Jamey. Go.”
Jamey looks around, and remembers again that he’s in France.
That she commandeered him here.
And now she wants to be alone.
Denise calls to Elise’s window. The late afternoon is murky, and her mother’s pale face looks up from the street. Elise takes the stairs, barefoot, opens the door and rocks her, won’t let go.
“Shit, girl, wow, good to see you too.” Denise cackles, snapping gum.
Elise sees her mom did her makeup, eyebrows drawn, rouge on the monster cheeks.
“Thank you for coming,” Elise says.
Upstairs, Elise offers tea.
“What’s with the tea?” Denise asks contemptuously and lovingly.
“It’s from England,” Elise jokes.
They sit at the table, under the frilly, opaque light full of dead flies.
“When’s the due date?” Denise asks.
“November something?”
Denise takes her daughter’s manlike hands, looks into her eyes. “I love you. I am so fucking happy for you. This baby is blessed. Hear me? This baby is loved.”
From his window, Jamey overhears them on the dusky patio by the heated pool.
“Let’s be real, sugar,” Annie says. “It’s better than shooting horse and fucking men and getting gay cancer.”
Annie holds a gold tube of mascara and pulls a bunny face as she applies it in the mirror of a compact. Opium perfume amplifies the electric blue of her St. John dress.
“He’s not just kissing his inheritance goodbye—he’s choosing this worthless girl….” Tory is frantic.
“But—didn’t you think there was something between them?” Annie speculates.
“He just picked her to piss everyone off.”
Annie’s family villa is like a colony on the moon. The exoskeleton of the house is Proven?al, and the inside is Texan. There’s horse magazines, sheets from Neiman Marcus, and a certain hay and oil and Mercedes-leather smell to the air. A vague sense that people might come down the stairs at any moment dressed in tuxes and gowns for museum balls in Dallas.
Instead, British expats named Evelyn and Rhys, in equestrian outfits not meant for actual riding, arrive for dinner. Jamey says hello and eats in silence. He wants to be cruel when they ask about his mom’s sweet birthday surprise for him, but he’ll look spoiled, so he blandly smiles and bites his tongue.
By dessert—a Meyer lemon cake—Tory’s had it. “Feel free to retreat to your room,” she says icily to her son.
“No thanks!” he says, being friendly now. “I’m happy right here.”
In the morning, she’s got a masque on her face, and drinks fresh grapefruit juice.
“That was some attitude,” she says. “Ruined my night.”
Jamey looks at his mother. “I could hardly give a fuck,” he says cheerfully.
Tory gasps. “You can’t talk to me that way! I love you.”
Elise serves chicken with tall glasses of Diet Coke.
“It’s weird you live here,” Denise says with her mouth full, looking around the kitchen.
“Why?”
Denise laughs. “I don’t know,” she says earnestly. “It’s my little girl’s house. In New York City.”
“And here you are, eating chicken at my table.”
“Still don’t understand why he’s not here, taking care of you right now.”