by Nadia Gordon
The first room she went in was as posh as any swank hotel room she’d ever seen. The shower was big enough for four people and made of little one-inch tiles that faded from sandy brown at the bottom to rose to pearlescent to luminous white toward the top, like dip-dyed fabric. After a long shower, she put back on the clothes she’d arrived in, with one annoying exception. She’d forgotten to ask Cynthia about the bra and underwear she’d left in the bathroom upstairs. They were probably in the laundry, wherever that was. The bottoms of her swimsuit were still wet and she resolved to go without. Womankind had survived millennia without panties. And men went regimental all the time. Wade Skord, vintner on the mount, had never worn a pair of skivvies in his life and proudly said so to anyone who noticed. Still, Sunny went up to dinner feeling half naked because she was half naked.
Upstairs, Anna sat in the living room wearing the white dress and sandals Sunny had seen in the closet earlier. The skin of her arms and legs glowed with the day’s sun, and her face wore a tranquil expression. A slender oval of gold sat on the ring finger of her right hand. A matching necklace with a thin gold disk lay on her chest. She looked like the queen of an empire.
* * *
“Intellectual property is the next big land grab,” said Oliver, holding his wineglass like a trophy. “We’ve consumed all the real estate. Now it’s time to colonize the estates of the imagination. The Information Age isn’t about facts. It’s about perception. Perception is reality. The next wave of wealth is going to be made from intellectual property—attitudes, ideas, instructions, code—and the wars waged to protect it.”
“What does that mean?” said Anna. “I never know what you’re talking about.”
“Code is the new gold. DNA, encryption, genetic engineering, software. It’s all code. Instructions for making a hidden world function. That’s the next Gold Rush. That’s why video gaming is so huge now. Code. Finding the secrets that keep the game advancing. In the not-so-distant future, ideas are literally going to shape reality. Real life will be nothing more than where you plug your game in.”
Dinner was over, the plates cleared. Oliver had pulled a few of his favorites from his wine collection, but no one could taste anything anymore.
“Even the old-school guys selling tangible products will have their paradigm rewritten in the context of intellectual property. It’s the unintended consequence of globalization. In a global marketplace, brand is everything because you have no other context for a product. Look at a brand like Mouton Rothschild. They’re not selling wine, they’re selling the idea of France, wealth, art, Grand Prix, beautiful women. The wine itself may or may not be the best value for the money. It doesn’t matter. The perception of the product is the actual value proposition. And in a world where perception is largely dictated by the Web, what gets posted has a tangible and sometimes tremendous effect on the value of your product. So you’ve got all these companies leaving their most valuable asset out in the parking lot with the keys in the ignition. All I have to do is set up a Web site saying Mouton Rothschild is actually just a lot of rotten grapes. The bloggers pick it up, mainstream media covers the blogs, and the share price takes a hit. Next thing you know, sales are down and the competition is moving in. We’ve known this for a while. Now we need to figure out what to do about it.”
“You’re talking about work,” said his sister. “You promised you weren’t going to talk about work tonight.”
“Somebody better change the subject or we’ll be in the office writing press releases all night,” said Keith.
Oliver ignored them and his voice grew louder. “We all thought the Internet had settled down into this nicely indexed tool designed to turn loose the inner librarian. Wrong. This has been the calm before a storm that’s going to reorganize the global economy before half the people know what’s hit them. It’s going to be fucking Armageddon, and TR Enterprises Ltd. is going to be driving the flaming chariot that rips the sky apart.”
Silence followed and Cynthia stood up. “We have chocolate torte for dessert. Anyone?”
Oliver smiled and seemed to forget all he’d been saying so passionately. He turned to Sunny. “Cynthia is the best pastry chef in the valley, hands down. Her chocolate torte is second only to my personal favorite, lemon meringue pie. You didn’t happen to whip up one of those, did you, Cynthia?”
Cynthia smiled and shook her head. “Not tonight. But I’ll see what I can do.”
* * *
They stayed a long time at the table under the stars and wisteria. After his pronouncements about the future of the global economy, Oliver didn’t say much more and eventually excused himself to attend to some urgent matter from his cell phone. Franco told stories about his childhood in Sicily, and Keith countered with his about growing up poor in Barbados. Finally the air cooled enough to drive them indoors and Oliver returned to pour cognac and port. Keith’s girlfriend arrived dressed in capri jeans, sandals with four-inch heels, and a lacey camisole. She came from Guam and looked like one of Gauguin’s Tahitian subjects. Her name was Marissa Lin. She gave Keith a kiss and went to Anna’s side, holding her hand and snuggling up to her the way some girlfriends do. Sunny had taken the comfortable chair, slightly distant from the others, and put her bare feet on the ottoman. Keith sat down on the edge of the ottoman and took up one of her feet, which he began to massage.
“You look tired.”
“A little. I got too much sun.” Sunny watched him rub her foot as though in a dream. She should stop him, but it felt too good.
“You look good with some color on that skin.”
“Thank you. What time is it?”
“It’s early.”
“Is it?”
“Relatively,” he said, switching feet.
Across the living room, Anna, Jordan, and Marissa were arranged like a liquor ad on the sofa, all legs, heels, and cocktail glasses. They were undeniably beautiful, each in a different way, though all with dark hair. Anna was tall, with golden skin and green eyes. Jordan was voluptuous, made up, and sexy in a Hollywood way. Next to them, Keith Lachlan’s girlfriend, Marissa, looked even more petite and delicate than she was. Nestled in among them was Oliver Seth, handsome in a boyish way, looking exactly like a man enjoying the hard-earned realization of his childhood fantasies.
Keith returned her foot to the ottoman and stood up. “Can I get you a drink?”
“I think I’m good for now.”
“You need a bump?”
“A bump?”
“A pick-me-up.”
“What do you have in mind?”
He gave her a knowing smile. “You like coke?”
“Lowercase C?” She shook her head. “Afraid not. Not my thing. Sensitive nose.”
“You’re kidding. Aren’t you in the restaurant business? I thought foodies lived on blow.”
“I’m more the double espresso type.”
“Good for you.” He went to join Oliver and the girls and Sunny left to prowl the house. She found Franco Bertinotti looking through the glass at the wine collection. He’d changed out of his black trunks into jeans and a linen shirt.
“This bastard really knows how to buy wine,” he said. “If somebody has to be as rich as Seth, I’m glad it’s him. At least he knows what to do with it.”
“Do you know how he made his money?”
“The usual way. Rob, pillage, and plunder.”
“Seriously.”
“My dear, I am being serious. No one achieves the rapturous decadence of your current surroundings without a great deal of compromise, on everyone’s part.”
* * *
Sunny followed the faint sound of talk punctuated by laughter. Franco, whom she’d been talking with for the past half hour, had gone to bed. The others had vanished. Now she tracked them to the double doors off the lounge with the red neon. Outside, a fire was burning in the fireplace next to the hot tub. From the doorway, she couldn’t see who was in the water, just outlines against firelight.
“Sun
ny! Come in. We’re getting warm,” said Anna.
“No bathing suits allowed,” said Keith. Someone giggled.
“Hush! It’s dark, anyway,” said Anna. “We won’t peek.”
“Don’t stay out in the cold, McCoskey,” said Oliver. “There’s plenty of room.”
“We’ll make room,” said Keith. Again a feminine giggle, presumably from Keith’s girlfriend, Marissa.
Sunny hesitated. Having grown up in Northern California, she’d seen a fair number of hot tubs and bare bottoms. The fireplace and the water certainly looked nice. And the only men seemed to be Keith and Oliver, both of whom would be kept in check by their girlfriends.
“Back in a minute.”
She left her clothes on the bed in the first room she came to, then took a towel from the bathroom and wrapped it around herself. No one took any notice when she stepped out onto the patio. She draped her towel over the rock wall by the fireplace and found an open spot in the tub, mortifyingly aware of the bare elements on display by the murky glow of underwater lights until she could take cover in the froth. Oliver, soaking opposite, broke hot-tub etiquette and stared openly, watching her lean over and step into the water. Jordan, breasts buoyant as tub toys, sat next to him with a thick twist of dark hair clipped high on her head.
“You must work out,” said Oliver. “I was watching you swim earlier. You have great muscle definition.”
“Thanks for noticing,” she said, hoping he would catch the sarcasm.
She sank into the hot water and leaned her head back. Even with the glow of the lights under the water, the stars stood out in the black overhead. She closed her eyes. The water felt wonderful. When she looked up, Keith and his girlfriend had their heads together, whispering and laughing softly. Marissa had delicate features except for rather full lips that the dim light accentuated. Her delicate hands touched Keith’s head while they talked. Across from them, Anna, Oliver, and Jordan were discussing whether there was anything useful to be gained by reading newspapers. Oliver thought not, and Anna accused him of hypocrisy, since he read several daily. The only people missing were Franco, who was in bed already, Troy, and Oliver’s sister, Molly, and her boyfriend, Jared.
Sunny closed her eyes again, and when she next opened them, she saw that Keith had pulled Marissa onto his lap and was kissing her. Not a playful kiss. Mouths were open, heads were tilted, and, there it was, the hand moving to cup a bare breast. She looked away. Across from her, Anna was nibbling Oliver’s neck. Someone’s toes came to rest on Sunny’s calf. While she’d been soaking up the night air, some silent signal had been given, some gate lowered, flag waved, light changed from red to green. Now Jordan was taking a turn kissing Keith while Marissa sucked on her ear. The girl from Guam locked eyes with Sunny and smiled, Jordan’s earlobe clamped between white teeth.
None of this should have been a surprise, and yet Sunny was surprised. This wasn’t exactly hippie heaven. Was everyone on some drug she forgot to take? Suddenly she felt extremely naive. There had been plenty of hints as to what was to come. Was that the real reason Anna had wanted her to stay? Was all that talk about trouble with Oliver just a ruse to make sure she hung around until the fireworks started? No, of course not, thought Sunny. In Anna’s world, anything could happen. She could decide her boyfriend was some kind of monster, then take him to bed with a friend, or two, or three. What would it be like to live in that world? Anna’s fingers took her hand underwater and Sunny decided not to find out. She pulled herself out of the water and grabbed a towel.
Inside, she found the bedroom where she’d left her clothes and opened the door, revealing a shadowy tableau of acrobatic flesh. She closed the door. Jared Bollinger had a well-toned backside and muscular shoulders. Also, Molly Seth kept her bra on during sex. Sunny thought with a pang of her lovely blue tunic and the new skirt she’d left on the bed, now almost certainly under siege. Apparently everyone was going to get some action tonight but her, including her clothes. She stood outside the closed door, barefoot and dripping in her towel. This was exactly what she deserved for hanging around this place all day. Now what was she supposed to do? Drive home in a towel? She should have known. She did know. This was precisely the sort of predicament any association with Anna Wilson was bound to produce. She was lucky she wasn’t in jail.
Sunny trudged downstairs to the bedroom where she’d showered earlier. All was silence except for the thump of house music from upstairs. She rinsed off in the shower and turned down the bed. The decor offered plenty of understated luxury, but the room was otherwise empty. Nothing to read. No radio, no television. Her cell phone was out by the pool. And now she didn’t even have any clothes. And she’d passed up a golden opportunity to become a swinger. Rivka was going to have a good laugh when she told her. She looked around at the mostly bare room. There was too much alcohol and not enough reading material in this house. Her beach bag was here, but there was nothing much in it unless she wanted to read the label on a tin of Altoids, which she did, only to find the room lurched and heaved like a rowboat at sea. Thoroughly sauced. Far too sauced to drive home. Thanks to her own doing, she was a prisoner of Oliver Seth’s country house until morning.
French doors at one end of the room opened onto a tiny patio enclosed by a low hedge. She closed the curtains and hunted for her watch in her beach bag. One-fifteen. She put it on the nightstand, lay back on one of the pristine pillows, reflected that she was probably the first to have done so, and fell asleep.
* * *
Sunny woke up suddenly, not sure why, listening. The muffled sound of loud voices came from upstairs. A door slammed, then slammed again. More raised voices. One high, one low. Sunny went to the door and stuck her head out into the hallway, where the house seemed perfectly silent. She went back inside, pulled open the curtains, and opened one of the French doors. The voices sounded like they were just a few feet away. The master bedroom Anna and Oliver slept in would be almost directly above hers. Anna was saying, “I can’t believe I trusted you,” over and over. Finally she shrieked the words one at a time.
“Keep your voice down. We have guests,” said Oliver.
“I don’t care who hears me.”
“I do. If you want to make a scene, do it somewhere else. I won’t have a hysterical display in my house.”
“If you think I’m going to keep quiet about this, you’re crazy. I forwarded copies of those e-mails to myself and I intend to share them. I don’t see why your precious ex-girlfriend, for one, shouldn’t know what you’re up to.”
“Are you threatening me? You may want to take a moment to consider who you’re dealing with.”
“Even the all-powerful Oliver Seth can’t control everything,” said Anna. “You can’t control me. I’ll do whatever the hell I want, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Anna, be serious.” His voice was forceful but calm. “There’s plenty I can do about it. You have no idea. Among other options, I could sue you for invasion of privacy and extortion. Do you have money—not counting my credit card, of course—to defend yourself?”
“This is what I think of you and your credit card and your sleazy lawyers.” There was a thump and a crash, then silence.
“Invasion of privacy, extortion, and willful destruction of private property. That piece was worth more than you’ve made in your lifetime.”
“Get away from me.”
“You need to calm down,” said Oliver, adopting a soothing voice. “This is all getting way out of control. You’re tired, you’ve had too much to drink. You’ll see, in the morning it will all make sense.”
“I’m not tired and I’m not drunk and if you touch me I will scream loud enough to wake everyone in this house. You think I’m going to just walk away? I’m not. You’re sick. I can’t believe I fell for your lies again.”
It sounded like someone fell or kicked over a piece of furniture. Oliver said, “Anna, don’t make me call the police.”
Anna was crying. “Just leave me a
lone.”
After that, the voices got quiet. She could hear them talking to each other, but it was too soft to make out the words. Sunny pushed the door closed and pulled the heavy curtains together. She went to the door to the hall, then came back and sat down on the edge of the bed. Was she supposed to go up there? And break up a fight? Was Oliver really dangerous? Anna said she had invited her over because she needed help. What was Sunny supposed to do, run upstairs like a one-woman SWAT team and save the day? Wearing what, a bikini? Or perhaps a towel would be more intimidating. She tried to remember Anna’s exact words. She said that last night after she discovered the surveillance cameras she had imagined all kinds of things, “even that he might be dangerous.”
What exactly was going on in this house? Last night Anna discovered the Peeping Tom stuff and confronted Oliver. He said she was overreacting. This morning Anna saw Sunny’s name in the paper and called her for help. Tonight she was kissing Oliver in the hot tub as if nothing was wrong, and now this. Was she afraid of her boyfriend or not? Was this all just the drama of people with too much time on their hands, or was Anna in a deeply manipulative relationship? How much of a hold did Oliver have on her? He certainly sounded angry just now, but Anna was the one smashing things. He didn’t sound out of control. Could certain men become violent without losing control?
Upstairs, they were arguing again. Sunny paced, unable to hear the conversation or shut it out. She wondered if she should go up there and see what was going on. But how could she? In addition to not wanting to interfere, it was hardly her place. Anna was a grown woman who could take care of herself. As long as their quarrel sounded like any other heated argument between ill-suited lovers, it was none of her business. Unpleasant for everyone involved, yes. But Anna could and should handle her own unpleasantness on her own. For all Sunny knew, this was how their relationship worked. With that decision, she went back to bed and quickly fell heavily asleep.
