by Caitlin Macy
“We sure as hell would! I sure as hell would! Those boats go out for fifteen, sixteen thousand a week! You think at that price we’re going to watch the crew sit on their asses while we grind winches?”
An irrelevant thought came to mind: that if Cara had taken Kate’s money she could have rented a luxury yacht in the Caribbean—for about two months.
“Carter, where are the cards?” Kate was asking.
“I don’t know—left them in Maine.”
“Can you go and buy some? Do they still sell cards on trains? Will you go check?”
When he returned with a new pack, Kate started to deal three precarious hands on the empty seat. “So, George, tell us,” she said coyly, “where on earth are you coming from? You seem … lost in thought.”
“I’m sorry.” I laughed. “A wedding in Boston.”
“Oh, yes? Anyone we know?”
“Friends of the family.”
“Well,” Kate said generously, “they’re the best kind.”
“Depends on what family,” Carter Smith asserted.
“How’s your family, Kate?” I asked.
Kate grimaced, neatening the piles of cards. “I guess you could say—not terrific. Cees is having a little trouble …”
“A little trouble! She ought to be committed!”
Kate giggled. “She just got kicked out of Miss Porter’s.”
“Oh—sorry.”
“That’s all right.” She raised her face to me, disarmingly, and the two of us laughed, the way we used to, at a thing that no one else would find amusing.
“The money your dad has spent trying to get that girl a goddamn high school diploma—”
“Oh listen,” Kate went on contentedly, ignoring him, “have you heard about Chat’s latest scandal at the Town Club? George, you will appreciate this …”
We picked up our hands and began to play.
