The Next Big Thing

by Sadie Hayes

  “I’ll put it on your tab,” Jim called from behind the bar, but Adam didn’t respond as he pushed out onto the sidewalk and swallowed the damp air. It was drizzling lightly and he made no attempt to shield himself as he walked the two blocks to his car.

  That was one thing he had that he didn’t have before: a car. He kicked the front tire angrily. He thought back on how excited he’d been when he’d realized they had enough money saved from Roger Fenway’s incubator income to buy it. Adam Dory, buying his own set of wheels! At age nineteen! Now he looked at it in disgust: a 2003 Honda Civic with a hundred thousand miles. He didn’t know which was more pathetic, the car or the excitement he’d had for it.

  Adam pulled onto University Avenue and followed it to Palm Drive. The majestic palm trees that lined the road were framed by the gray clouds of winter rains; it looked like they were mocking Adam for believing life could have been as picture-perfect as they’d promised the first time he saw them. Adam felt encouraged to press his foot on the gas and pulled left onto Campus Drive before turning right onto Galvez, just past the Alumni Center.

  “Fuck!” Adam gasped as he noticed blue lights in his rearview mirror. Was the cop car following him? How long had it been there? He hadn’t been paying attention.

  Focus! Adam told himself, his heart pounding as he pulled over to the side of the road and put his car in park.

  The cop knocked on the window and Adam rolled it down.

  “Evening, son,” he said. “License and registration, please.”

  Adam pulled out his wallet for the former and reached into the glove compartment, praying the registration was in the stack of papers stored there.

  “Know why I pulled you over?” The cop leaned down so they were face-to-face. He was Hispanic, somewhere in his forties, with a thick neck and a wide face. He had a dark mustache that was carefully trimmed and turned down precisely at the corners of his lips. Adam thought it looked foolishly stereotypical for a Hispanic cop and despite his panic couldn’t suppress a slight laugh. “No, sir, I don’t know why you pulled me over,” he said.

  “What’s funny?” the cop asked.

  “Nothing,” Adam retorted, but something about how comical the mustache was, curled down as if this man spent extra time at the mirror each day to get it just right gave Adam more confidence. “Why did you pull me over?” he asked.

  “You didn’t stop at the last stop sign. There is a four-way stop at Campus and Galvez.”

  “I did stop,” Adam retorted, remembering now that he had specifically moved his foot from the gas to the brake pedal.

  “Not fully.”

  “Are you serious?” Adam asked.

  “Yes,” the cop said, not acknowledging Adam’s tone. He began writing something on his ticket.

  “What are you writing?” Adam persisted.

  “A ticket. Failing to stop at a stop sign is a four-hundred-dollar violation.”

  “Are you kidding?” Adam’s voice was less controlled now. “But I stopped!”

  “Not fully.”

  “But enough to know everything was clear! Isn’t that the point? To make sure everything’s clear?” Adam could tell his words were coming out at an abnormal cadence but he didn’t care.

  “No, the point is to stop. That’s why it’s called a stop sign.” The cop smiled from beneath his mustache, a genuine smile, not a mocking one, which irritated Adam all the more.

  “Yeah, thanks,” he snapped. “I can read. I go to Stanford, you know. Maybe you’ve heard of it. It’s a college? Like, a really, really good one?”

  “How much have you had to drink tonight, son?”

  “Are you fucking serious?” Adam felt his blood start to boil.

  “Yes. How much have you had to drink?”

  “Oh, fuck you!” he exclaimed. “Just because I go to Stanford and you probably didn’t even graduate from high school you’re going to try to bring me down by insinuating I’ve been drinking?”

  “How much have you had to drink?” the cop said calmly.

  “A Jack and Coke,” Adam snapped. “At Rudy’s.”

  “At Rudy’s?” The cop raised an eyebrow.

  “Yeah,” Adam snapped. “It’s a bar?”

  “According to your ID, you’re nineteen.”

  “Yeah, well, I used—” Adam stopped himself. “I went to Rudy’s after I had my drink at the office.”

  “Can you step out of the car, please?”

  Adam got out of the car and followed the cop’s instructions to walk in a straight line, which he failed; to touch his nose, which he failed; to follow the cop’s fingers with his eyes, which he also apparently failed.

  “Get in the car,” the cop told him, indicating the police car.

  Adam guffawed: “I’m sorry?”

  “You can’t drive,” the cop said simply. “You have to spend the night with me.”

  “What!” Adam exclaimed.

  “In jail,” the cop assured him, “not with me and my wife.”

  “And your seven children?” Adam said under his breath. “Don’t you all have like dozens of children?”

  “I suggest you not add racial slurs to your line of offenses.”

  “Offenses?” Adam argued as he got into the cop car. “I haven’t done anything wrong. I’ve just got more important things to be doing than this shit. I run a company, you know? In addition to going to the best college in the country. And you’re going to interrupt my whole night and prevent me from building my company and doing my schoolwork because I didn’t fully brake at a stop sign? It’s bullshit!”

  Adam punched his fist against the glass and fell back onto the seat with his arms crossed.

  He protested the whole way to the police station on campus, where the cop led him into a holding cell, handed him a blanket, and slammed the bars closed.

  33

  Little Boy Blue

  T.J. had tears in his eyes he was laughing so hard.

  “And so then we’re all standing in the street watching Jake, who by this point is completely naked, holding his laptop over his head like he’s John Cusack in Say Anything. All the while he’s yelling to this sorority chick that they’re soul mates. All of her friends are freaking out, but she’s laughing hysterically because, I mean, look at him.” His buddy Robert was red with laughter as he punched Jake’s shoulder, the latter blushing madly with a smile as he sipped his cocktail.

  The three girls the trio of buddies had picked up were clearly not sure what to think, but played along and laughed flirtatiously as Robert recounted last year’s “guys’ week” at the New Orleans Jazz Fest.

  “Honestly, he’s exaggerating,” Jake defended himself, putting his hand reassuringly on one of the girl’s knees. “I never thought that girl was my soul mate.”

  The girl, who said her name was Betsy, sipped through her straw and peered at him with doe eyes. “Is that so?”

  “Of course it’s so, baby. I’ve never had a soul mate. At least not until an hour ago when I met you.”

  Now she blushed furiously. T.J. and Robert exchanged a look: Jake was definitely getting laid tonight.

  T.J. rolled his eyes merrily. It had been a week, but he was still surprisingly jovial from his ZOSTRA win and the time he spent with Amelia—hanging out with her again relaxed him more than anything else. Since then, he and Amelia g-chatted regularly, and it felt nice to have someone real to talk to. On autopilot with his friends, T.J. turned his attention to Stacey, the girl who, by process of elimination, had fallen to him. “Have you been to New Orleans?” he asked.

  Stacey had dark straight hair, cut short at an angle that followed the line of her exaggerated jaw. Her eyes were watery and reminded T.J. of a fish’s. Not the best face, but her body had perfectly proportioned curves, and it took all the energy he could muster to keep his focus on her fish eyes instead of the cleavage spilling out of her tight black V-neck top.

  “I have not,” she said in a raspy voice. “It’s been on my list for a while. I love
jazz.”

  “Oh, yeah?” T.J. asked. “Well, we’ll have to go together sometime.” He clinked her glass, and she blushed. She was definitely the least attractive one of her friends, and he got the impression she didn’t get compliments from guys like him very much.

  “Anyone need a refill?” a cocktail waitress in a tight black dress asked as she picked up Betsy’s empty glass.

  “Round of tequila shots, I think?” Robert glanced around the group, who all nodded approvingly.

  T.J. finished off his drink and handed his empty glass to the waitress, gesturing for another. As he turned his attention back toward Stacey, though, his eye caught a familiar face in the distance. T.J. squinted, trying to see who it was. His mind shut out the raspy-voiced Stacey and he felt his muscles tense as he recognized his ex-girlfriend Riley, in tight jeans and heels, walk up to the bar with a tall, athletic older man in a navy sports coat.

  T.J.’s breath deepened and his jaw tightened as he turned his attention to Stacey. Ignore it, he told himself. Pretend she isn’t there.

  “Do you like jazz?” Stacey continued the thread from before.

  “I do,” T.J. said, “I love Coltrane.”

  “Me too,” she said, her voice even raspier.

  There was a moment of silence that Stacey took a sip of her drink to fill.

  Who was she with? Who was that guy? He had to be at least forty. Was she really dating a forty-year-old? Had she actually gotten that desperate?

  The tequila shots arrived and T.J. took his without waiting for the group.

  “Dude,” Robert said, punching him, “you didn’t even toast.”

  “Sorry.” T.J. picked up his Scotch glass, which the waitress had replenished, and joined it in the group’s clinking glasses, neatly polishing it off in three deep chugs.

  Stacey’s fish eyes widened at his aggressive drinking. “What’d you do to him, Stacey?” Jake teased, and she furrowed her brow in concern.

  T.J. clapped his hands together. “Nothing at all. Stacey is excellent company. We were just discussing her affinity for jazz.”

  T.J. felt the booze take hold and he closed his eyes with a deep breath before opening them again on Riley, now seated at a barstool, her knees facing her male companion. She’d taken off her chic suede jacket to reveal a sleeveless beige silk top that made her skin look white as milk from across the room.

  “She likes Coltrane,” T.J. announced to the group, turning his head back to them but unable to keep his eyes from flicking back to Riley, who he could see lean in seriously to her date as if saying something significant.

  “I think we should do another,” T.J. said, feeling antsy. He stood up from the couch. “Where’s the waitress?” he said to the air before him, peering around.

  Robert looked at Jake and Jake shrugged as if to say, “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “Miss? Miss!” T.J. heard himself yell across the room. People turned to stare. “Miss, another round of tequila shots, please,” he announced to the entire Rosewood bar. The waitress gave him a thumbs-up and he sat down, glancing back toward Riley and finding her eyes on him. She pursed her lips and tilted her head upward in acknowledgment of him as her glossed lips opened and she continued whatever she was saying to her companion.

  T.J. clapped his hands together again. She’d seen him: Now he had to show her how good of a time he was having. “So, what do we think?”

  “About what?” Robert asked, wondering why his friend was now on overdrive.

  “What do we think about a little round of two truths and a lie? I want to know more about Stacey here.” He put his arm around her waist and tickled her side as he squeezed her toward him.

  Robert caught T.J.’s glance and followed it to Riley, then, realizing who it was, let out an “Oy vey” under his breath, finally understanding what was going on. “Epic idea, T,” he said in support. “I’ll start: I’m a certified scuba instructor, I sold a mobile app to Facebook last year for four hundred thousand dollars, and I have a third nipple.”

  “No way you sold an app to Facebook,” Betsy blurted, tilting her head skeptically.

  “Wrong. That one’s true.”

  “For four hundred thousand dollars?” Betsy smiled more broadly.

  “Then you don’t have a third nipple,” Stacey insisted, unintentionally cuing Robert to take off his shirt, revealing an enviable chest. He pointed proudly to a small red nub on the far side of his right pec, flexing as he did so. “Wrong again!” he said proudly. “The lie was scuba diving. That is scary as hell, all those sharks and crazy deep-sea creatures? No thank you.”

  The girls all laughed. Jake and T.J. joined in, even though they’d seen Robert pull this same spiel dozens of times before. It always worked.

  The entire bar was now staring at the table with the shirtless guy, but Robert gave no sign of redressing as he leaned forward to eat an olive. That third nipple was the best thing that ever happened to him, providing such a neat excuse to constantly take off his shirt.

  T.J. laughed again in exaggerated happiness before glancing back toward the bar—proud of himself for having waited a good thirty seconds since the last time. This time, he found an empty seat next to Riley’s companion, who was studying his iPhone. His eyes darted to the door, where he caught her walking out toward the restroom.

  “Excuse me,” he abruptly announced to the table as he got up. He wasn’t going to repeat last time.

  “Careful,” Robert cautioned quietly, but T.J. didn’t pay any attention.

  The men’s and women’s restrooms flanked a floor-to-ceiling mirror. T.J. caught his reflection in it as he waited for Riley to come out, and it revamped his confidence. He was attractive in college, but he’d gotten more so since; his eyes had lost their boyishness and his skin had grown more rugged.

  Riley opened the restroom door and was startled to find him there. She’d reapplied her lip gloss in the bathroom, he noticed with jealousy.

  “Oh,” she said. “Hi, T.J.”

  “Really? Hi?” he blurted, wishing he’d thought harder about how he was going to start this.

  She slunk her weight back onto one hip and tilted her head with annoyed patience. “What is it, T.J.?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m having a drink. As, it seems, are you.”

  “Who is that man?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “Are you sleeping with him?”

  She didn’t flinch. “Also none of your business.”

  “What I mean is…” He wished he hadn’t brought up her date so quickly. He did want to know, but that wasn’t the point. “Why are you back here?”

  “I came up because Roger was sick, T.J.,” she said gravely, as if talking to a child too self-absorbed to remember the last time they’d seen each other was at a funeral.

  “Roger’s dead,” he said too bluntly. “Why are you still here?”

  She glared at him, unsure whether to criticize his insensitivity or answer his question. “I’ve been doing some freelance work that went well, so I’m taking on another assignment. And the vibe is exciting up here, it’s nice to be back in it.”

  “You. Can’t. Stay. Here,” he said, emphasizing each word, getting to the point.

  She laughed, unfazed. “And why is that, T.J.?”

  “Because it’s mine.”

  “What’s yours?”

  “This.” He swept his arm around them, noticing the mirror starting to sway and wishing he hadn’t had that last tequila shot. “It’s my … territory.”

  “I’m not having this conversation, T.J.” She moved to walk away.

  “No, stop,” he said. He couldn’t let her leave without her understanding.

  “You’re not allowed to come back here.”

  “Listen, T.J.,” she said sharply, “you’ve made it excessively clear that you have no interest in being around me, okay? I get it. And while I do wish we could learn to be civil, you’ve convinced me not to ex
pect it anymore. And I assure you, from the very bottom of my soul, that nothing about my coming back has anything to do with you.”

  The words landed like skewers. He realized for the first time how much he’d wanted her to be back for him, and how honestly she was just back for Roger.

  He wasn’t going to lose this one, though. “Doesn’t matter. You come back, you play by my rules. Rosewood is mine, Atherton Country Club is mine, any alumni party where SAE is represented is mine.”

  Riley laughed and pushed her hand through her hair in frustration. “Jesus, T.J., you really have changed.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  She shook her head in disbelief. “You didn’t want any of this, remember?”

  He swallowed and waited.

  “Remember those forever-long talks about how much you didn’t want to be in Silicon Valley? How you didn’t want to be in your father’s shadow? How much you wanted to break out and do something big? You hated it here.”

  It was true. When they were dating, T.J. confided in Riley his fears and vulnerabilities. He would ask her what his purpose should be, and she would ask him the same. T.J. knew that when they were together he had envisioned a future that was very different from the life he now claimed.

  “I was young.”

  “You were real. You wanted to break out and make a name for yourself. You wanted to be different from what you’d grown up with.”

  “I am,” he said deliberately.

  “No you’re not. Look at you. You’re becoming the same selfish, controlling jerk you hated in your father.”

  T.J. didn’t move. He stared at her with hate and admiration and attraction and disgust. Mostly he really wanted to pull her toward him and press her glossed lips to his own.

  Riley saw that she struck a chord and backed off, her voice softening. “Country clubs? The Rosewood? Trashy girls? You’re better than this, T.J.” She turned to walk away.

  “You’re a real bitch, you know?” he yelled after her. “You just dig and dig and dig. It’s disgusting.”