by Sadie Hayes
“Well, I’m sure he didn’t…” Amelia trailed off. She had a habit of defending Adam no matter what her brother’s actions were, but at this moment she didn’t feel like incurring the wrath of Patty Hawkins.
“Now Rob knows that Rebecca may or may not have hooked up with Mitch.”
“I really think my English professor is going to fail me.” Amelia wanted desperately to change the subject.
“Please, Amelia. You are, like, the smartest person at this school. You couldn’t fail if you tried.” Patty slipped into her silk bathrobe and shower shoes. “But, my God, Amelia, at least change clothes!”
“You’re right, you’re right.” Amelia laughed. “Oh, I’m just so close on this one code sequence. It’s completely taking over my life. Maybe I should just go to the lab and work it out so it’s off my mind.”
“You sound totally exhausted.” Patty stood in the corner of her room, fumbling in her sock drawer. Her hand found the small orange bottle of pills that her childhood doctor still prescribed to help her stay focused in school. “Here, take one of these if you want to get your stuff done quickly.” She placed the bottle on Amelia’s desk. “I’m sleeping at my parents’ house tonight but I’ll see you tomorrow,” Patty said as she left the room for the shower. “Good luck with your coding!”
Amelia changed into a clean pair of denim shorts and a plaid shirt and slipped on three-dollar rubber flip-flops from Walgreens. She was five feet six inches tall, but her slight frame made her seem much smaller, as did the fact that her shoulders sloped forward from hours in front of the computer. Her straight blond hair was always pulled into a ponytail, which unintentionally accentuated her high cheekbones. She wore plastic-framed glasses over her green eyes and occasionally slathered on ChapStick when she met with a professor.
Amelia put the bottle of pills back on Patty’s side of the room. As she was leaving, she checked her cell phone and saw her brother’s text message. Quickly, she typed, “No worries … gonna be a long night at the computer lab. I’ll stop by your room tomorrow to collect my dessert. Have fun!”
3
Macallan, Champagne, and Two Maraschino Cherries
Adam tried to play it cool as he punched in the code to the front gate of the Bristol estate, but he could hear his heart beating in his head. The family changed the code every day for security purposes, Sheryl had told him, so there was no use trying to remember it after tonight. She’d told him the family was an “important client,” which he understood as code for “rich.” As the gate swung open he realized what “rich” actually meant.
The gate opened onto a circular drive that approached a sweeping three-story white mansion delicately draped with wisteria in full bloom. Two large sycamore trees provided shade over an eight-car garage. The circular drive enclosed a lawn that had been mowed to create a careful crisscrossing pattern on the grass, and a manicured rose garden lined the fence separating the house from the neighboring estate. Adam took a deep breath and, per Sheryl’s instructions, headed toward the back entrance next to the garage, resisting the urge to peek inside to discover what automobiles were housed within it.
These people make serious money, Adam thought to himself.
The hour of preparation flew by as Adam filled crystal glasses with smoked almonds and blue-cheese-stuffed olives. Sheryl gave him a starched white uniform and was kind enough to help him with his bow tie.
Once he passed her inspection, she led him out the back kitchen door to his station for the evening. He audibly gasped when he saw the Bristols’ backyard. It started at the edge of a rose-enclosed patio adjoining the house and held a massive white tent that glittered with thousands of white Christmas-tree lights. Twenty round tables were draped with white tablecloths and showcased elaborate flower arrangements at their centers. At each table, ten places were set with three forks, two wineglasses, and multiple porcelain plates. The tables surrounded a large wooden dance floor, where jazz music was coming from a DJ stand. A swimming pool glittered behind the DJ, and behind it sat a mini version of the white mansion, which Adam realized must be the pool house.
“You have thirty minutes to figure out how to act like this is normal.” Sheryl elbowed him with a smile.
The bar was set up on the patio, stocked entirely with top-shelf liquor. Beneath the bar, hidden by a white tablecloth, were cases of additional bottles. A nearby table was stacked with shining crystal glasses, organized by type, from martini glasses to bulbous red wineglasses to delicate champagne flutes.
“You’ll run out of liquor and glasses quickly. Enrique is your barback, so make sure you let him know when you’re running low. Just keep pouring, and keep the drinks stiff. Fine to take tips, but put them away immediately—we don’t want anyone to feel pressured.”
Guests started arriving at six o’clock, and by six-thirty Adam had sent Enrique away with three cases of empty Grey Goose bottles. For all the glamour of the setting, he was struck by the casual attire of the party’s attendees. There wasn’t a suit in the crowd; the men were dressed mostly in dark denim or khakis, and most weren’t even wearing sports coats. Far from the elaborate cocktail dresses he’d expected, the women donned sundresses or white denim and sandals. College-aged guys and girls mingled naturally with their parents, who didn’t seem to mind the cocktail glasses they all had in hand.
“What type of scotch have you got back there, bud?” asked a tanned gentleman with curly white hair and a sideways grin. He leaned his elbow on the bar and popped a handful of almonds into his mouth.
“Macallan, sir.”
“How old?”
“I’m sorry, sir?”
“How old is the Macallan?”
“Um, I…” Adam had no idea. He quickly reached for the bottle, hoping it would provide an answer. “It’s, um…”
The gentleman took the bottle from him and looked at the label. “Ten,” he said as he showed Adam where the label indicated the year. “Bristol’s a cheap son of a bitch. I bet he’s got a bottle of twenty-five in the kitchen for himself.” He winked at Adam. “I’ll take a glass anyway. Got to get through this party somehow.”
“Absolutely, sir.” Adam nodded and reached for a tumbler.
“Know your scotch if you’re going to serve this crowd,” the gentleman advised. “And your white wine. Get those two right and you’ll have everyone eating out of your hand.” He lifted his glass to Adam as he walked away.
Adam turned to face a tall slender girl with long blond curls twisted into a side ponytail. She was wearing a pink dress that hung delicately from her shoulders to her midthighs, revealing knockout legs accentuated by strappy gold heels. She was smiling warmly at him. “He always complains about these things, but deep down he loves them,” she said.
Adam was speechless. A girl this pretty had never spoken to him before. He started to say something but couldn’t find his voice. The girl stuck out her hand.
“I’m Lisa.”
He shook her hand.
“Adam. Nice to meet you. Can I get you anything to drink?”
“That’d be great. How about a vodka lemonade?”
“Sure thing. Coming right up.”
“So, what do you think so far?”
“I’m sorry?”
“About the party. What do you think?”
“It’s incredible. I mean, the place is gorgeous. And you just know all these people must have done extraordinary things to be so … financially successful.”
She paused and looked at him with her head tilted to the side, thinking about his comment.
“Cherry?” he asked.
“Two, please.”
He dropped two maraschino cherries into her drink and handed the glass to her. She nodded and turned to walk away, just as Patty walked up to the bar.
“Oh my God. Adam Dory? Do I have to file a restraining order against you?”
“Patty, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…” Adam started blushing. Just as he mustered the courage to have a conversation with the prettiest gir
l at the party, Patty had to show up.
“Well, bartender, have you stalked me and my friends enough to know my favorite drink?” Patty was clearly already drunk, and she smirked at Adam as she looped her arm around Lisa’s shoulders. “Adam, I’d like a…” Patty paused, swaying a little on her heels and thinking hard before blurting out her order. “Vodka cranberry lemonade, please.”
Lisa turned to Adam. “You know Patty?”
Patty butted in. “Adam is the twin brother of Amelia, my roommate.”
“You’re at Stanford?” Lisa turned to face Adam, a surprised expression on her face.
“Yeah, I’m a freshman.”
“Oh, wow. I mean, that’s great. Congratulations. I didn’t realize…” She stopped herself, afraid she might say something rude. “I’m starting there in the fall. I’ll be a freshman.”
“You are?” Adam said this a bit too quickly, and he scrambled to hide his enthusiasm. “That’s cool.” He shrugged.
Lisa smiled. “We’ll have to be friends.”
Patty laughed and shook her head. “I think you two will be in very different social circles. No offense, Adam, but the only time I see you at parties is when people pay you to wait on them.”
Adam felt his jaw clench. Right when Lisa was starting to acknowledge him as an equal, Patty had put him back in his place.
Lisa blushed as she turned to Adam. “Sorry, she’s too drunk. Come on, Patty, let’s go sit down.” With a flick of her wrist, Patty downed most of her cocktail.
Adam swallowed hard and attempted a smile. “Don’t worry about it. Have a great summer!”
“Thanks, Adam. I’m going to take her back before she does something to embarrass herself.”
Adam watched Lisa guide Patty to the center table as the DJ got on the microphone to announce dinner. The first course was served, then the second. Waiters served wine at the tables, giving Adam a break, save the occasional request for a cocktail.
After the dinner plates were cleared, a man in his fifties approached the DJ booth and took the microphone. He was tall and handsome and would have been imposing were it not for his charismatic smile, which Adam could sense even from the bar in the back. The man, who was apparently Mr. Bristol, asked for the crowd’s attention.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I can’t tell you how glad I am to have you all here tonight to celebrate the extraordinary accomplishments of my son. T.J., will you please stand up?”
From the center table where Patty and Lisa were seated, T.J., a thirty-years-younger image of his father, stood with a proud smile.
“When T.J. was a little boy, he was absolutely determined to be a professional soccer player. He followed the European teams religiously and spent hours and hours in the backyard practicing his pass. Though he didn’t make it on that track, he always applies that same rigorous determination to everything he does. So I didn’t have the slightest doubt about his continuing our family’s legacy at Stanford when he applied four years ago. Since then—”
His ringing phone stopped him short and his face went white as he reached into his pocket and looked at the screen. “I’m so sorry,” he said into the microphone as he gestured to his wife. “I’ve got to take this. Lori?”
Lori, Ted’s striking blonde wife, hurried from her chair with a martini in hand as Mr. Bristol hurried off stage, speaking into his phone. “Well, always something exciting around here!” She giggled into the microphone as she glanced around at all the guests. “Why don’t we have another song? DJ? Something special for our graduate!”
The guests started chatting again, all of them giddily wondering what Mr. Bristol’s call was about. He was one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent investors, so it must have been important if he was getting a call at seven o’clock on a Friday night. But Adam’s eyes fell on T.J., who still stood in the middle of the floor, looking blankly at the space where his father had just been. His jaw was slack and his face pale, his striking blue eyes crisp with what, at first, Adam thought were tears, until he noticed T.J.’s jaw tighten and his eyes reengage with their surroundings in calm determination and contempt. He turned back to his table, full of good-looking peers, clapped his hands, and shouted, “Shots, guys?” There was applause from his comrades. “Waiter, twelve tequila shots, pronto!”
The waiters hustled to get dessert to the tables and the DJ turned up the music, encouraging people to start moving away from their crème brûlée and onto the dance floor. The inebriated crowd was in full swing when the DJ cut off the music and Mr. Bristol got back on the microphone, grinning from ear to ear. “Friends, can I beg you for your attention one more time. We’re bringing around bubbly.” Sure enough, the waiters were all passing out flutes of freshly poured champagne on silver platters. “I’d like to share some exciting news. Everyone have a glass? Ready? The London papers just published that the Aleister Corporation has officially announced their acquisition of Gibly … for three-point-eight billion!”
The entire room roared. A man near the bar grabbed an unopened bottle of champagne, shook it, popped the cork, and sprayed it all over the people in the crowd, who laughed delightedly.
Mr. Bristol went on. “It’s the largest acquisition of its kind in history and one that will take us to new international prominence. Not to mention, between us here tonight, we’ve got about two of the three-point-eight billion reasons to celebrate. I couldn’t be happier that you’re all here for this monumental occasion. To Gibly!”
“To Gibly!” the crowd responded.
Adam couldn’t believe it. People at this party—people he was serving—had just made hundreds of millions of dollars. The waiters were rushing around the dance floor, filling up champagne glasses as the partygoers toasted over and over, cheering their accomplishment. Adam searched for Patty but couldn’t find her—she’d probably passed out somewhere. He scanned the crowd for Lisa and noticed her standing off to the side of the patio with T.J. The two were deep in conversation, and she was holding his hand.
Adam felt his heart race with jealousy.
How could he have been so stupid to think a girl like that would ever be interested in a guy like him? Patty was right; the only reason he’d talked to Lisa was because she needed a drink. That they would be peers at Stanford didn’t mean anything. She was in a different league, a league that included rich, attractive, older guys like T.J. He quickly looked away, but not before Lisa glanced up and caught him looking at her.
To Adam’s horror, Lisa walked toward him, pulling T.J. by the hand to the bar.
“Adam, can you please make T.J. a very strong Manhattan? I’m going to go find Patty and make sure she’s still alive.”
“Sure thing,” Adam said as he reached for the whiskey. Lisa smiled at him in gratitude, but he refused to smile back as she walked off to find Patty, leaving him with his new nemesis.
“What a fucking night, huh?” T.J. said to no one in particular, his elbow perched on the bar as he looked out across the room.
“There seems to be a lot to celebrate,” Adam responded coolly.
“For sure. Gibly was a huge acquisition. One of the biggest Silicon Valley’s ever seen.”
Despite his instinctive dislike of T.J., Adam couldn’t hide his interest. “What is it?”
“What is Gibly? Have you been living under a rock? Gibly is what makes your phone almost magical. It’s the most important software platform of the century. You know how you can speak into your iPhone and it’ll translate it into a text message? That’s Gibly software. Or how you can use the NFC chip inside your phone to pay for things now, instead of using a credit card? Gibly. Or how your phone will send you an automated update any time your favorite store is having a sale? All Gibly.”
“Wow. I guess I never really thought about the software behind all those things. Your dad developed that?”
T.J. laughed. “No, fucking smart-ass software engineers developed it. Dad invested in it. He gave them a few million two years ago in exchange for half of the company so t
hey could afford to eat while they spent twenty-four hours a day coding.”
“So, he just made two billion dollars off of three million?”
“Yep. Welcome to venture capital.”
“But he didn’t actually do anything other than give them money?”
“Well…” T.J. said, straightening up, clearly offended. “He advised them. And shit, he saw their potential. If he hadn’t stepped in, these guys would never have gotten off the ground. They would have closed shop and gone to work as linemen in some computer programming factory and the world would never have had this software. VCs make a lot of money, sure, but they make it all possible.”
“I wasn’t criticizing,” Adam said quickly. “It’s amazing. Must be really cool to be a venture capitalist.”
“Of course it’s cool,” T.J. said, turning to face him. “It’s the best fucking gig on the planet.”
Adam handed T.J. his Manhattan. T.J. took it with a nod. “No one knows what you need better than your sister, huh?” he said.
“Sorry?”
“My sister, Lisa. She can always tell when I need a drink.”
Adam couldn’t hide his surprise or delight. “Lisa’s your sister?”
“Yes. Put your tongue back in your mouth.”
“Oh, I—”
“Whatever. She’s hot. I get it.” T.J. gestured toward his drink. “Don’t you want one, too?”
“I’m pretty sure I’m not allowed,” Adam said, grinning. His whole night had changed. Maybe he had a chance with Lisa after all.
“And I’m pretty sure I’m the one who’s paying you, and, therefore, I get to say what’s allowed. Pour yourself something.”
Adam hesitated. He glanced around to see if Sheryl was nearby. “Come on,” T.J. said. “Surely they don’t expect you to make it through these parties sober. Besides, how will you know how good a job you’re doing if you never taste your creations? This Manhattan is terrible.”
“You have a point,” Adam said. He reached for the shaker to pour himself a Manhattan and refill T.J.’s half-empty glass.
“So, what do you think of Stanford? Lisa said you’re a freshman.”
