Work Text:
1995
“That’s quite enough protein for just the five of us, shouldn’t you think, Logan?”
They’re in the fancy dining room, the one normally reserved for guests and holidays, and the help are setting down dish after dish along the overlarge table. Whole roasted chicken, crispy and brown, juices pooling around it. Ham, glaze glistening, soft and lovely and pink inside. Seared crusted tuna; steak bleeding out before them; a real suckling pig stretched long between two tall candlesticks.
It’s a ridiculous amount of food for five people, and Roman grins and looks up to agree with his mother, thinking the staff have simply misunderstood someone’s instructions.
His father is staring daggers at him.
Roman closes him mouth and ducks his head, staring down at his plate instead of across the table at his parents. Beside him, Kendall clears his throat and transfers a slice of ham onto Roman’s plate, then reaches around him and gives another to little Siobhan.
“Everything looks great, Dad,” Kendall says, and Siobhan inhales a bit.
Roman’s feet don’t quite reach the ground yet when he sits in these fancy chairs. Shiv’s don’t, either, but it’s never seemed to bother her as much.
Logan pours dark red wine into his own glass and Caroline’s. “How nice to know you appreciate it, Kendall. A free dinner is such a rare gift.” He raises his glass at the children.
Caroline’s lips purse. She says, “Naturally, your father believes a family supper is a commercial arrangement. I expect he’ll send the contracts up to your rooms later for signing.”
One of the staff comes in with the last of the sides: a perfectly composed salad, not a walnut out of place. He shaves parmesan over it as Roman looks sideways at his siblings.
“Somebody needs to teach the boy that everything has its price,” Logan says pointedly.
Even Roman knows about Kendall’s sticky fingers at the corner store last week. He smirks a little and gets Ken’s elbow jabbed in his side as retribution.
Caroline places a hand on the server’s arm as the man makes to leave the room. “I’m afraid this is all a bit rich for the children’s tastes. Perhaps a nice tureen of the crème ninon that we so enjoyed at yesterday’s luncheon.” She turns back to the table. “Provisioning the household should never be left to a man, you know.”
“By all means,” Logan says, knife going into his steak. “I want you to give our children everything I work for them to have.”
Caroline laughs without smiling and sips her wine. “Careful, or they’ll start to think you’re out to keep them.”
Kendall’s knife clatters against the pretty looping snakes patterned on his china plate. He reaches out and stabs a gleaming carving fork into the suckling pig in the middle of the table. Caroline’s eyes follow as he struggles with the unwieldy dead animal.
“I've gotten top marks on my English exam,” Roman says, swinging one foot under the table. Shiv rolls her eyes at him.
“Oh, darling, you know your father only cares for the serious subjects,” Caroline says, winking conspiratorially. “The economics and the sport and such.”
The server comes back in with Caroline’s tureen of soup and sets delicate little bowls before each of them. Caroline moves her empty plate away, spoons the pale green liquid into her own bowl and Logan’s, and then pushes the tureen across the table at the children.
“No, thank you," Kendall says, his eyes fixed on his father. Logan grunts, nods, and refills his wine.
Siobhan serves herself a bowl of soup, her arms too short to manage the task properly. She spills a few drops onto the fine linen tablecloth, Caroline’s lips pursing at the sight.
Roman is frozen between his siblings. He remembers this dish from lunch the other day: thick, gloopy, the unfamiliar mixture of puréed peas and cooking alcohol doing strange things inside his stomach all afternoon. On his left, Kendall is slicing more meat; on his right, Siobhan stirs her soup.
Caroline tops her bowl off with a bit of cream and then passes it across the table. “Help your sister after you’ve served yourself some soup, Roman.”
He obeys, his mouth going dry. He looks between the piles of meat and salad and roast vegetables on his plate, and the expanse of pale green and white in his bowl.
“Eat up, son,” Logan tells him, gesturing at the plate. “Feast, and be merry.”
“You’ve quite overwhelmed him with your kingly banquet, Logan,” Caroline says. “The soup is refreshing, though, Romey.”
Roman cuts a piece off his ham. He puts the fork down and moves his spoon through his soup. He puts the spoon down.
“Mummy, Daddy’s bought me a pretty new dress!” Siobhan pipes up. It’s Kendall’s turn to roll his eyes, as the room’s attention shifts to Shiv.
“How charming of Daddy,” Caroline says. “I suppose you’ll be needing an acceptable replacement, since you’ve torn the last of the good ones cavorting about the countryside in your usual fashion.”
Shiv scowls and drops her spoon back into her soup, hard enough that a bit of the thick liquid slops over the side and joins one of the wet green patches already seeping into the tablecloth. She pushes the bowl away from herself and picks up her serrated steak knife, hacking off a piece of meat and then chewing it loudly. Caroline’s shoulders tense, and Siobhan chews even louder.
The cream left in her bowl sinks slowly into the green of the soup, a melting iceberg. Roman’s parents are both watching him eagle-eyed. He still hasn’t made a decision, and they’re becoming impatient.
Roman swallows, nothing in his mouth to even go down, and then says, “Is Kendall going to get in trouble?”
Siobhan giggles a bit. Kendall’s fingers tighten around his cutlery. “It was a misunderstanding, you little kiss-up,” he snaps.
Logan drains his wine again and says, “You’ll understand the world soon enough, Kendall.” He slices more meat and stabs it with his shiny silver fork, sopping up the blood that’s wept out of it before he brings each bite up to his mouth.
Logan’s eyes are hard on his first son now, and Caroline is back to disapproving of Shiv’s noise and mess. No one’s looking at Roman or his bowl or his plate anymore.
He places the fork and knife beside the plate carefully, leaves the spoon drifting, and gulps at his ice cold-water until it’s safe to leave the table. He wonders if his siblings really didn’t notice that there was a third choice sat in front of them all along.
***
2001
Kendall’s pupils are so big that his eyes look black across the table. He’s leaning into Stewy, the two of them murmuring to each other under their breaths, their cheeks flushed and their hair rumpled. They think everyone else is too fucking stupid to notice they’re sky-high.
Roman’s still young enough that he’s usually not permitted to drink in company, a category that apparently includes Logan’s bootlicking business minions and Kendall’s dealer BFF. Roman reaches for the wine anyway, scowling.
“Just like your father, then?” Caroline says, placing a hand on his forearm. “He does so like to enjoy a hearty meal.”
Roman puts the bottle down without looking at her.
“Oh, don’t let me spoil your fun, darling, it’s Christmas! What’s life without a bit of pleasure?” Caroline laughs, tossing her head back.
Kendall looks over at her, his gaze twitchy and mean. “Hear, hear.”
Stewy smirks and snags the wine that Roman’s abandoned. He overpours, his elbow brushing against Ken’s chest as the liquid comes perilously close to the rim of the glass.
“Asshole,” Kendall says, leaning forward to slurp up as much as he can without lifting the glass.
“Straighten up,” Logan snaps at him from the head of the table. “And straighten out, I didn’t raise you to become some kind of flighty Continental dandy, guzzling wine and buying out the fucking high street.”
Stewy’s shoulders go rigid as Logan’s guests snicker. Ken sits up. “I have an internship lined up for after graduation, Dad.”
“Certainly, as long as you don’t manage to blow the opportunity before it begins,” Logan says, his voice deadly low and each syllable enunciated razor-sharp. His asshole friends go mostly silent now, shoveling food and drink down their gullets or fussing with the napkins in their laps.
Siobhan’s eyes are wide—not coke, just regular old distress. She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear and butters a dinner roll.
“Uh-huh,” Kendall says, his stupid powdered brain running on seven different tracks at once and missing the stops down every line.
Stewy raises an eyebrow at Shiv, takes a huge bite, and washes it down with a mouthful of Ken’s wine. Shiv smiles a bit, takes a bite of her own.
“You mustn’t be too strict with him,” Caroline says. “It’s not his fault, he’s always been a bit of a wild animal.”
Kendall puts his fork down, his hand dropping to his side. It happens so fast Roman’s not sure he’s even seen it: Stewy reaching over, eyes still fixed straight ahead; Ken yanking his hand away; Stewy flinching. Their faces are red, and Roman’s a teenager and not some dumb kid—but they’re also higher than the Empyrean, and it’s always hard to read Ken when he’s around Logan anyway.
Stewy clears his throat and recovers, turning to Siobhan. “How’s your semester been, Shiv? I got that recruiter’s name for you if you’re still interested in Harvard.”
“Oh.” She blushes, tucking her hair back again. “I can give you my email address so you can send it to me?”
“Harvard, Pinky?” Logan asks, smiling down the table at her. “A worthy ambition for a fine young lady.”
“Yes, a fine young American lady,” Caroline says beside Roman. She slices into a carrot with surgical precision. Her arm nudges Roman’s.
“Hey, Shiv, how’s your little boyfriend, anyway?” Roman asks, smirking. “Carpark? Carpet-munch?”
“Carmichael,” she snaps, her mouth puckering. “And anyway, we—it’s over.”
“Just like her mother,” Caroline titters. “Hard to keep her attention for very long, you know. Though that Yorkshire pudding does seem to be making a run for its money.”
She catches Roman’s eye, just for a second, a laugh still playing at the corners of her mouth as Shiv swallows and shoves her plate away angrily.
“Chill,” Roman tells his sister. “Jesus.”
“Oh, now,” Caroline chides, but she’s already turning away from the children, caught up in another conversation.
Stewy raises Kendall’s glass at Shiv, some cokehead toast that Roman is somehow left out of. Kendall takes the glass right out of Stewy’s hand and drains it, and then Stewy reaches for the remainder of the creamed potatoes.
Shiv cools down. She takes a sip of the sparkling grape juice she and Roman have been supplied with.
Roman cuts and then slowly chews a solitary green bean, a hit of lemon making his tongue sting. He watches as Stewy plows through the potatoes and cranberry sauce, a two-ring circus with Kendall.
They all move into the drawing room and take dessert by the fireplace, Ken and Stewy lounging on an antique sofa that was designed for sitting upright on. Shiv is sat criss-cross at Logan’s feet like a lapdog, ignoring the available armchair beside Caroline. Roman ends up next to Connor, who’s recently learned about aquifers and thinks hippie communes are about to make a comeback.
“…and that’s another thing,” Connor says, punctuating his words with a bite of pie. “People didn’t understand the investment opportunity that Y2K provided. I told Dad…”
Roman tunes out as Connor rambles and runs his fingers through his ponytail. Fucking moron. He’s, like, 30 and still doesn’t realize that showing off only works if you’ve actually achieved something with your life.
Kendall and Stewy are coming down by now, although they’re plenty drunk enough to make up for it. Kendall’s fingers are playing in Stewy’s pocket, Stewy too busy with his second slice of pie to top him off. They’re lucky Siobhan is keeping Logan’s attention by running down her dream career list. Logan’s pals keep jokingly offering her jobs and internships, which makes Caroline’s eyes go hard as she watches.
“Not hungry tonight?” Connor says, snapping Roman out of his reverie. Connor has a few flakes of pie crust stuck in his scraggly goatee.
“What?” Roman shifts.
“You didn’t eat much at dinner, either,” Connor says lightly, eyeing Roman’s untouched dessert. “Big lunch?”
Roman snorts. “You can have it.” He shoves the plate at Connor, who opens his mouth and hesitates for a moment. Then he just shrugs and digs in.
Kendall’s leading Stewy out of the room, Logan’s mouth tightening at the sight. Shiv tosses her bright red hair and dollops whipped cream over her pie, a few of the adults chuckling at some joke she’s just made. Her delicate gold necklace is new—the gift she opened from Logan just this very morning.
Roman gets up, leaving Connor and his pie midsentence. He finds a place closer to the warmth of the fire and huddles there alone.
***
2008
Roman graduates college a semester early because of all the credits he racked up at boarding school—the only good thing that ever came of his years paddling through that lake of boiling blood. It means he’s beaten Kendall, except Kendall’s just accepted a position at Waystar, so Roman still loses somehow. Also, Logan thinks a pheasant hunt is the best way to celebrate it all, so Roman doubly loses somehow.
“This is the beginning of your real life, Romulus,” Logan says, thumping his back as their dead pheasants arrive at the dinner table that evening. “Hunting is the way of the world. No one else will do the killing for you anymore.”
Roman almost laughs, remembering the staff swarming the reserve they shot these poor bastards at. The place even provided fancy gear and a pair of trained dogs to flush the field. If Logan thinks this is what it means to be the sovereign, Roman’s getting a green card and fleeing the country.
Connor is flush with pride at having shot the most roosters. Kendall is flush with pre-dinner cocktails because he’s off coke at the moment. Siobhan is flush with rage because she’s been fighting with Caroline in the kitchen. Caroline is unruffled except that she’s engulfed in a miasma of cigarette smoke.
The birds have been trussed and slow-roasted, served with quartered figs that shock red against the snow-white plates. Roman keeps expecting the tiny pheasant heads to grow back into place, beady eyes staring up at him reproachfully. He puts a breast and a leg onto his plate beside his arugula and the wild rice pilaf that the cooks have studded with mushrooms and slivered almonds.
Kendall’s looking around for a bottle of wine, which Shiv jumps on as soon as it’s open. Ken looks between her and Caroline, eyebrows raised, before filling his own glass.
“Tell me, son, how is Rava?” Logan asks as Kendall raises the glass to his lips.
Kendall nods, his throat working. “She’s, uh. Actually.”
Roman knows what he’s going to say before he even gets his glass all the way back down to the table. “Congrats,” he says sourly.
“Right,” Ken says, drunk. “Well, the paperwork just came through. We’re adopting a little girl.”
“How lovely,” Caroline says, and Roman becomes the below-the-fold headline at his own shitty graduation party.
It’s not like he cares, anyway. He doesn’t even want to be here, poking at dry stringy birdflesh that was flying and squawking twelve hours ago before it had the misfortune of meeting with a trio of insecure daddy’s boys and their self-aggrandizing ringleader–progenitor.
Rava wants kids because she’s afraid of dying, and Kendall wants Rava to stay because he’s afraid of dying alone, and so now they’re roping in some third presence who will tether them both to this cracked brown earth for the next eighteen or eighty years. Big fucking deal.
Siobhan runs her tongue over her teeth and tilts her chin up at Roman. He lifts one shoulder in response, the corner of his mouth pulling back a little. Shiv passes the wine, and Roman empties the remainder of the bottle into his glass.
“Hey, Kendall, how’s Stewy?” he says impulsively. Shiv takes a bite to hide her grin.
“Uh.” Kendall coughs and looks at Logan. “He’s fine, I think. He’s starting a private equity fund. I haven’t, uh, talked to him in a while. He’s seeing someone new. Uh, well, I guess not that new anymore. She does something on Wall Street, or whatever.”
Roman and Shiv snicker at each other, and Roman catches Kendall looking askance at them. He almost feels bad: he knows Stewy’s a sore spot now that Kendall’s cleaning up.
But it’s not like it’s Roman’s fault that his brother’s only real friend is also his sleazy ex-dealer. Let him go home and whine about it to his fucking wife.
“Well,” Caroline says, mincing up her arugula and pairing off the pieces with individual grains of rice, “perhaps we could all learn a lesson from Kendall and his young friend. Family are the only people who will always stay by your side.”
She looks directly at Siobhan, who presses her lips together and casts her eyes upward. Roman’s not sure if things have gotten too serious or not serious enough between his sister and the douchebag she met at her summer internship.
“Well, congratulations to Ken and Rava on the beautiful news,” Connor says. “And congratulations again to Roman on your graduation. And congratulations to all of us menfolk on this wonderful game we’ve procured for ourselves, and to Caroline and Siobhan for transforming it into a perfect meal.”
It’s hard to tell sometimes whether Connor’s stoned or just stupid. Roman thinks the desert sun might have cooked his brain at some point, the human bits drying out and shriveling up and getting replaced by a shiny chrome-plated machine that generates platitudes. Even next to Kendall drunkenly mooning over his whole-grain wife and seedling kids, Connor comes across as a dipshit.
Or he does to Roman, anyway. Logan smiles and raises his glass. “To a good hunt, starting a new family, and returning to the old one. Kendall, I have no doubt your brother and sister will join us soon enough at Waystar.”
Connor’s torn between being hurt that Logan’s co-opted his toast and being flattered that he’s bothered. The wheels visibly spin in his head for a moment, and then self-preservation wins out over self-respect, and he smiles and drinks.
“Well, I’m going into politics,” Shiv says, and Caroline snorts. “I am,” Shiv insists.
“What a shame,” Caroline says drily. “The one who ran fastest into Daddy’s arms is now first to forswear them. And for another man, no less!” She gives one of her wheezing chuckles and Shiv’s jaw clenches.
“Waystar will always be here for you, Pinky,” Logan says, beneficent. “And Romulus, with a little experience under your belt, I have no doubt you’ll make as fine an executive as your brother. Another hunt or two, to sharpen up your instincts, and you’re halfway there.”
“Cheers,” Kendall says, not defending him, probably as payback for Roman bringing up fucking Stewy.
Roman looks down at the dead bird on his plate, come back to life in its new field of red-brown rice and peppery greens. “I have an internship,” he says.
“Uh-huh,” Kendall mumbles.
“Congratulations,” Connor says.
“I mean, I have a career path already,” Roman says. “Outside of Waystar. I don’t need to do any more hunting. I have an internship.”
“Yes, your internship,” Logan says, and takes a bite of pheasant. “It’s a smart plan, Romulus. Take some time, meet someone. Come back when you’re ready.”
Roman moves his food around his plate instead of responding. His fork flips the pheasant leg over, the joint still in its socket and attached to a bit of body cavity. A clod of dirt comes loose from the carcass and tumbles onto the plate, resting beside a shard of almond.
Roman’s stomach turns. He stares at the dark rich earth and waits in silence for the rest of the table to finish eating.
***
2014
The penthouse is so open-concept it’s as though Kendall’s ego fucked an entire department of postmodern studies and then gave the glass lobby full rights to design the lovechild. Roman practically has to shield his eyes from the blinding glare of all the desperation cutting through the place. Rava takes his coat while Kendall is smoking a cigarette on the balcony.
“Thank you so much for coming,” Rava smiles tightly. “Ken is really excited about this.”
“Yeah, he looks fucking thrilled,” Roman says, which Rava pretends not to have heard.
Siobhan and Nate arrive twenty minutes late, and Rava bundles the kids off to their rooms so the dinner won’t be interrupted by whatever it is kids get up to these days. Sophie’s old enough to resent being left out of grown-up events, but too young to do anything about it, and when she appeals to Kendall he just pats her on the back like she’s a particularly uninteresting puppy.
“Sorry,” Siobhan says, still discombobulated, her eyes slightly red. “Traffic was terrible.”
“The soup should be ready,” Rava replies, and ushers them all to the table.
Roman’s invitation came with a plus-one, and there’s a place set for her. Rava has it taken away when the soup arrives.
Rava’s sitting in between Roman and Siobhan, and Roman can’t quite see around her to get eyes on his sister. Her voice is clear and calm, but Nate’s mouth is taut, his hair arranged a little too neatly. He spoons consommé into his mouth and makes polite conversation with Rava.
Kendall’s eyes float over dark purple half-moon shadows, and his cheeks have sprouted midnight’s five o’clock shadow. He’s not high, but it’s obvious he wants to be. His eyes are twitchy, and it’s only whenever they dart over to Rava that he takes each bite, forcing himself to smile as the food goes down.
Roman’s seated across from the empty chair where his date was supposed to be. It’s unnecessary, really: he’s already well aware that Rava’s always fucking hated him.
It’s why she only invites him over when things are so bad that she has literally no other ideas for what to do about it. Make nice over the dinner table, and hope that if Kendall just sits there long enough he’ll spontaneously become the person she needs him to be.
“And how’s your youngest?” Nate is asking, looking pained. They’re up to the entree now: scallops, butter sauce, nests of fine thin pasta twirled together and garnished with bright green parsley.
“Iverson,” Kendall supplies, toneless. “He’s good, yeah.”
“Oh?” Siobhan says, composing a perfect balanced bite on her fork. “He’s adjusting well, and everything?”
Rava hums and sips at her water. None of them are drinking, even though this isn’t an intervention. “We’re working out some strategies to help him. Although we might need to make some bigger changes.”
“Bigger like what?” Roman asks, frowning.
“His school,” Kendall says, his eyes sliding off to the side. “It might be—uh, not the best. Right now.”
Rava nods. “We’re considering all the options for him.”
“Magnet programs?” Nate asks.
“Uh. Among others,” Kendall says, shifting.
Rava makes a noise in the back of her throat. “We don’t think those would really be the ideal choice for Iverson’s needs. But we had an interview last week, actually, at a boarding school in—”
“No,” Roman says, the word coming out louder than he intended. They all stop talking, Nate’s chewing the only sound remaining in the room.
“Rome,” Kendall starts.
“Are you fucking kidding me, you asshole?” Roman snaps, letting the solitary noodle on his fork slide back off of it. Rava is looking in between the two of them, confused. “Ask him,” Roman tells her. “Ask him about fucking boarding school and why everyone in those places is a psychopath or a crack-up. Fuck you, Ken.”
“What?” Kendall says, blinking rapidly. “No one knows what you’re talking about, dude.”
Roman snorts. “Yeah, sure, dude.”
“Roman.” Siobhan now. She inclines her head at the table and swirls more pasta onto her fork.
There’s a pause.
“Well, Iverson sounds very nice,” Nate says, uncertain, and smiles.
“Yeah,” Kendall mumbles. “He’s a sweet kid. He’s just, uh—you know. Things are hard for him sometimes.”
Roman jams his fork into a caper and stacks it on top of a scallop like a fucked up little snowman. “And how are you, Ken?” he asks, tipping the loaded fork sideways onto his plate instead of bringing it to his mouth. “Holding up alright? Stressed? Find anyone to, you know, keep your spirits up?”
Nate blanches, and Rava’s fork clatters against her own plate as she turns on Roman.
“You know, this apartment is very nice,” Siobhan says smoothly, smiling, one hand patting Rava’s wrist before anyone says anything that might approach an uncomfortable truth.
Roman is sure about it now: Shiv was crying before she got here. Her cheeks are splotchy and her mascara is smudged in one corner. She’s never going to admit to it, though.
Rava turns to her and thanks her for the compliment, the conversation picking up bright and false about the real estate market and how many half-bathrooms a young family needs.
“Jesus Christ,” Roman mutters, but he’s badly outnumbered. Even Nate is in on Siobhan’s little act now, laughing at every milquetoast joke anyone makes. Kendall is visibly miserable until Rava gets his attention, and then he returns to his dinner and Roman can’t even provoke him into another outburst.
The caterer takes away their plates, Roman’s still full, and brings out little chocolate soufflés that start collapsing the second the porcelain ramekins are put down on the table. Roman wonders if the puffed-up desserts will eventually deflate enough to just vanish altogether.
Kendall gets a phone call and answers sotto voce, disappearing from the table. The conversation goes even more stilted between Rava and Shiv and Nate.
Roman stands.
“Excuse you,” Rava snaps, spoon poised halfway to her mouth.
“Thanks,” he says sardonically. “What the fuck did you even summon us all here for, then?”
Her face goes impressively stony. Siobhan stutters something unintelligible.
“Have fun pretending to enjoy it,” Roman tells them all, gesturing at his untouched soufflé. He rounds the table and calls, “Hey, Kendall, got a fag?” in the direction of the sitting room, then grabs Ken’s pack of Spirit Yellows without waiting for a response.
On the balcony, a breeze picks up as he lights the cigarette and sucks in hard. He’s a shitty smoker, and he keeps getting bits of ash blown into his face.
***
2018
It’s a fusion restaurant, which makes Roman skeptical on principle. But it’s Tabitha, who, he’s noticed, is very pretty, and also funny, and also unflappable in a way that makes him want to get her flapped. She seems to know the place well: the hostess greets her in a slightly overfamiliar manner, and apologizes that there’s nothing available along the wall.
Tabitha smiles and tells her it’s fine, and before Roman knows what’s happening, they’re in the middle of the room, sitting across an intimately sized table from one another.
“So,” he says, and doesn’t ask her the rest of the question, which is something like, Do you often ask out the people you meet at poser warehouse orgies, or am I special?
“So,” she echoes, giving him nothing else to work with.
There’s a real orchid in the middle of the table, speckled reddish-brown. Roman plucks it from its little dish of potting soil, pinching off the dirty ends of the roots, and tucks it behind Tabitha’s ear.
“My lady,” he says, and he means to flip her off so she knows it’s a joke, but somewhere along the way he loses control of his body and ends up actually genuflecting as though he wants her to believe he’s become the hero in a fairy tale.
She laughs at him, though not in an unpleasant way, and the orchid is copper in her curly golden hair.
His dinner involves seaweed, and mango, and mint, and strips of grill-blackened chicken. Hers is temaki rolls, the fillings all bright and strange and colorful. He’s having trouble paying much attention to the food.
She’s telling him a story about one of her clients, a man with a failing indie record label that had been in the red for nine straight quarters when she took him on.
“He had this obsession with blowfish,” she says, leaning forward. “I brought him here once, because they have them in the tanks—” she gestures off to the side, where fish of all shapes and sizes are flitting through a massive, lush aquarium “—and he summoned the head chef out of the kitchen and asked if he could eat one of them!”
Roman is leaning in, too, her voice flowing warm and sweet into his ears and down the back of his neck. “What a fucking pervert,” he says. “Did they let him? What happened to his record label?”
She laughs again, cocking her head. “Blowfish are extremely poisonous, Rome.” Her eyes glint sort of wicked and dangerous, her tongue darting from her mouth to catch a dab of sauce on her upper lip. “Best not to.”
He shakes his head, disoriented. “What about the record label?” he says again.
“Hmm? Oh, it was a cinch. I negotiated an acquisition for him. He’s under EMI now.”
“So he still gets to release his freaky little polka–Klezmer cover albums?”
She frowns. “Well, most of the time with major label mergers, you have to go a little more mainstream. I think he’s doing adult alternative now. You know, like, the Alanis Morissette revival crowd. Disposable income and very underdeveloped sense of shame.”
“Oh.”
He’s not sure why he cares. It’s not like he’d ever listen to either of these genres, anyway. He couldn’t even say where his expensive Bluetooth headphones have gotten to at the moment. Kendall told him they were shit, and he meant to buy new ones, but it wasn’t the sort of thing that was ever on the top of his to-do list.
The fish in the aquarium are interesting-looking, but they don’t seem particularly dangerous. It takes him by surprise when one of them gives a sort of shimmy, approaches the near side of the tank, and then puffs up all spiky and mean. He jumps.
The blowfish holds its position for a moment, then abruptly shrinks back into its other self: soft, unassuming, subdued. It floats backward and disappears into the mêlée.
“Try this,” Tabitha says, holding out the last bite of one of her temaki rolls. Her fingers are soft and slightly salty when they brush Roman’s tongue, and he wrestles with the bizarre urge to suck on them. He feels somehow violated by their presence in his mouth, and then betrayed when she pulls them back out.
She brings the same index finger up to her own mouth and uses her lips to pluck up a stray sesame seed from her nail bed while Roman chews.
He’s an embarrassingly repetitive eater, most of the time, and he’s not prepared for this off-tempo hipster food. It startles him, the flavors strangely matched and a burst of capsaicin making his eyes water as Tabitha studies him.
Their dessert is on fire when it arrives at the table, a presentation trick that Roman has seen a thousand times before but never quite like this. He almost asks Tabitha to feed him by hand again, but something about the thought of having her inside of him makes his stomach lurch. The flames burn white-hot at the center, and they’re not fully extinguished until the restaurant door swings open and a gust of unseasonably cold air sails over them.
There’s too much of everything in the world, and not enough of Roman to absorb the smallest fraction of it. If he’s not careful he’s going to lose himself in these woods, and there are wolves slinking in the shadows who would kill for a pound of his flesh.
“I’m not a circus show,” he says, leaning back in his hard, uncomfortable chair. “They should warn you before they ask you to eat fire.”
Tabitha shrugs and says, “More for me,” and syrup drips golden off her fork like the cascading ringlets of her hair.
***
2019
“This is not the right time to be a petty fucking dick-necked little asshole,” Connor says, and his words are angry but his tone is flat, which is how Roman knows it’s serious. “And bring him something to eat, whatever you have. Shiv tried to get the staff to get take-out, but this blackout is jamming everything up. It’s like the end of the fucking world out there.”
Roman arrives just as Connor is leaving, waving his satellite phone in the air trying to get through to Willa.
“How is he?” Roman asks, and Connor winces.
“He’ll be fine when the bleeding stops. But, Rome, he looks like shit right now.”
“Is Naomi there?”
“Don’t mention her name. I think she’s—I think they’re on the outs.”
Roman takes the stairs because he’s not sure if the elevators are working, and the last thing he wants right now is to be trapped any more than he already is, chandeliers and gold paneling notwithstanding. He’s panting by the time he reaches Kendall’s door.
He walks into a crime scene. It takes him a moment to even recognize his siblings, the place has been so thoroughly trashed.
He drops the bag he brought—a loaf of sourdough that’s been in his kitchen for God knows how long; a miniature jar of artisanal almond butter; a block of unidentifiable cheese—and steps around the upturned chairs, wading through a sea of blood-soaked tissues.
The sofa is out of place but still upright. Kendall perches on it, leaning forward so the blood still dripping from his nose goes directly into the trash can clenched between his thighs. Siobhan is next to him, one hand on his shoulder and the other clutching a tissue box uselessly.
“Hey, assholes,” Roman says, coming up behind her. She startles and twists around to look at him.
“Roman.” Her face is pale like she’s the one bleeding out into a Hefty bag. Kendall doesn’t so much as acknowledge Roman’s presence.
Roman opens his mouth, but the look in Shiv’s eyes stops him. He raises his eyebrows, and she rolls her eyes and shakes her head in response.
“I can hear you two doing that face thing,” Ken mumbles, looking up.
You can’t hear a facial expression, dumbass, Roman is about to say, but he’s stopped again by the sight of all the blood oozing from Kendall’s nose, making rivulets around his mouth and tumbling off the curve of his chin. It’s crusting dry along the edges, but the middle bits are still shiny and wet. They’re the only parts of Kendall that actually look alive right now.
“How long has this been going on?” Roman asks, and Kendall’s head goes down again.
“On and off since the hurricane came through,” Siobhan says. “Right?”
“I guess,” Kendall shrugs.
“Will you take over?” Siobhan says pointedly. “I’m going to try to get through to Tom again.” She’s gone before Roman can protest.
He remains standing.
“Fuck you, by the way,” Kendall tells him, but his voice is half-strength.
“You’re a prick,” Roman says. “I brought you dinner.”
“Nice, thanks. Why don’t you and Dad try buying me out again as an appetizer, and then you can give me a good shove for dessert.”
When he talks, the blood comes faster. The contents of the trash can are soaked in it, the red so deep it’s almost the same hue as the black plastic bag, little flecks of crimson splattering up every time another droplet falls.
“You’re a Venus fly trap baited with self-pity and misdirected animosity,” Roman informs him. “It’s fucking insufferable.” He retrieves the food from the floor and leaves the room.
Siobhan’s hovering outside. “Thank God,” she says, her eyes falling on the bread poking out of Roman’s bag. “I still can’t get ahold of anyone. I don’t even know if anything’s open right now. Lay off him, by the way.”
“Jesus fuck,” Roman says, closing his eyes. “After what he said to us? To you?”
“I know perfectly fucking well what he said to me,” Siobhan snaps. “It’s common courtesy to let the medics sweep the battlefield before you ride in with the bayonets and finish off the stragglers.”
“Usually the medics aren’t the ones who have to do the actual stabbing,” Roman points out, but he steps around her into the kitchen and finds a knife and holds it to the bread instead of to his brother.
These motions are all unfamiliar to him. By the time he returns to Kendall’s mess of a sitting room, bearing a platter of misshapen sandwiches, the bleeding has stopped, and Ken and Shiv are passing a bottle of whiskey between them. Roman puts down the sandwiches and reaches for the whiskey instead, tossing a few more bloody tissues into the trash can before he sits on the floor.
The last of the day’s light ebbs from the room. Kendall has one of those heavy-duty flashlights under the bathroom sink from when Connor tried to get them all to make bug-out bags, and Siobhan sets it up on the floor with a glass bowl propped over it so it sort of works as a lamp.
They drink some more.
“Uh, thanks, by the way,” Kendall says, apropos of nothing, shredding a tissue in his lap. “For, you know. Uh. Rava’s with the kids, she couldn’t…”
He trails off.
Roman’s flat on his back on the floor by now, staring up at the curving lights and shadows refracted through the glass bowl onto the ceiling. Shiv is curled up on the sofa, one arm propped under her head. They’re all drunk enough to notice it, but not so much that they’ve pointed it out yet.
“We’re still going to come back and shank you as soon as the barber-surgeon finishes cauterizing the wound,” Siobhan says.
“Right,” Kendall says, and laughs a little bit. “Well, I sleep with two wooden stakes under my pillow.”
Roman feels the ghost of the knife handle in his hand and curls his fingers around it instinctively. The bottle goes around again, the city dark and quiet outside.
“You should eat, Brutus,” Roman says finally.
“Yeah, probably,” Kendall says. “I guess we might as well break bread as long as we’re stuck here anyway.”
Siobhan gets up and retrieves the shitty sandwich plate, moving it to within arm’s reach. Kendall leans down to choose one.
“Oh, shit,” he mumbles, as the blood flows hot and dark from his blown-out nostrils again. “Fucking whiskey. It’s a vasodilator, you know.”
They all move too slowly, their nerves dulled by the anxiety of the day and nearly a fifth of 101-proof liquor in their empty stomachs. The blood seeps into the ragged edges of the sourdough, down through smears of almond butter and chunks of cheese, and drips dark on the glossy white of Kendall’s china serving plate.
Roman pulls himself up and shoves the trash can back in front of Ken, who resumes nosebleed position, his fingers knitting together over the back of his head.
“Well.” Shiv looks at the bloody platter and takes another drink. “Seems like we’re all going to bed hungry tonight.”
Roman slides the ghost knife into his back pocket but lets his fingers fall from the handle. He stretches out alone on the floor again, relief coursing hot through his veins.