“Yeah. Renee Schultz. We were in the same pledge class. We were going to live together in New York.”
“Thank you, Renee, for telling me.”
“I’m so sorry,” she sniffed.
He drove back to the hotel and dropped his parents off before checking in himself. The student dean had delivered a box of Kelly’s belongings, and he looked at it cautiously as he sat on the bed, not sure he wanted to know what was inside.
Kelly hadn’t told him she would live with Renee in New York. What else hadn’t she told him?
He picked up the keys and went back out to the car, following the signs to Stanford Hospital.
—
“SHE WAS DEAD when she got here,” the doctor, a short, round woman with frizzy red hair, said without looking up from a patient’s chart as she headed to her next appointment.
Charlie followed, offended by her tone. “But her RA said she still had a pulse.”
“Her RA should have gotten a DUI for driving her here,” the doctor said impatiently. “You could smell the booze on his breath. I assure you, by the time that girl got to me she was gone. There was nothing I could do.” The doctor turned to the door.
“I’m not accusing you of anything,” Charlie said, “I’m just trying to figure out what happened.”
“What happened?” The woman turned back and lifted her eyebrows as if he were stupid. “She took a huge amount of drugs, she had sex, and she died. Don’t overthink it.”
“She’d had sex?”
“Yes. We could tell from the autopsy.”
“Did they run the DNA?”
“No. She didn’t die of sex, she died of drugs.”
“I just don’t understand how she could have overdosed,” he pressed the doctor.
“By taking a gram of Molly and a punch of dextromethorphan, on top of a diet pill, an Adderall and six Advil. No heart could have survived that.”
“A gram? Her friend said she took one hit,” Charlie said. Why was she taking diet pills?
“Then her friend is lying,” the doctor said, then finally paused and said, more softly, “Why do you care so much?”
“I’m her brother.”
The woman sighed heavily, adopting the sympathetic voice her med school hadn’t done a good enough job teaching her. “Listen, I get that it’s hard to accept the truth about people you’re close to, but don’t make this more complicated than it is.”
“You don’t know a damn thing about my sister,” he snapped.
—
HIS HEART was still racing when he got back to the hotel. None of this made sense. If it had been a massacre in the Middle East he’d be thinking clearly, looking at the facts and uncovering the story. But it wasn’t. It was Kelly, and all his brain could see was a deep, dark hole.
He looked at the box the dean had delivered again.
He drank a little bottle of whiskey from the hotel’s minibar in one gulp as he tried to decide whether he was ready to go through it. He drank the vodka, too, then started in.
He removed her books—copies of Henry James and Virginia Woolf and Jane Austen and, at the bottom of the pile, the worn copy of Man’s Search for Meaning, the book she knew was his favorite. The spine was broken and the pages covered in highlights. He felt a lump in his throat, realizing how much time she’d spent with it, and another when he saw a picture fall out.
He knew the photo before he turned it over: it showed the two of them together on the day of her high school graduation. She was wearing her cap and gown, her enormous grin matched only by his beaming next to it. He’d just been staffed permanently in Tunisia and she’d written him a long e-mail saying she understood that he couldn’t make it back for her big day. He remembered how he’d laughed when he got it—the AP could have offered him a Nobel Prize–worthy assignment and he wouldn’t have taken it—there was no way he was missing his little sister as valedictorian. He’d booked a ticket without telling her, and she’d spotted him at the end of her speech, laughing on stage, and running down into the auditorium to give him a hug, ignoring the administrator’s horror at the interruption to the ceremony. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so happy.
He put the book down and looked through the photos she’d framed of herself with her sorority sisters—he was biased, but she was the prettiest one. He flipped through her binders, full of old tests and papers organized by semester. He found her laptop and her iPhone and two water bottles with the L.Cecil logo, which made Charlie roll his eyes: was one not enough?
He saw a yellow book at the bottom of the box, and his chest clenched again when he recognized the journal he’d sent her the day she left for college. He gently undid the string and read the first entry:
Thursday, September 16, 2010
How to begin this journal? I feel like I need to write something really significant, like I need to say something profound to mark this moment. I’m on a plane from JFK to SFO. How cool to write that? S-F-O. And to know it’s just the first of lots of flights to SFO. Oh! It gives me chills just thinking about it. I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe I’m going to California and to Stanford and that everything is about to change. Charlie gave me this journal. The only problem with California is that it’s so far from Tunisia, but he swears we’ll Skype all the time. We better—the only thing that makes me not nervous about college is knowing I can talk to him about anything. I love that he gave me a journal. Like, a real journal. I think it’s harder to write the truth when you’re typing. I think you need a pen and paper sometimes, to get to the underneath of things. Is that profound? Or will I look back on this in four years and laugh at my now-self and think how silly I was thinking I was intellectual at seventeen. Sigh! Who am I going to be four years from now? What will I know? Will I have a boyfriend? I hope so. Will I have a job? Don’t think about that. I wonder who my roommate will be? I hope I don’t embarrass her. I hope I’m not the stupidest person there.
Charlie looked up at the ceiling to ward off the unfamiliar feeling of tears forming.
“I can’t do this,” he said aloud.
He turned on the television and flipped to CNN, grateful to find a report about another roadside bombing that put his tragedy back into perspective. But then the reporter cut to new coverage from California. Charlie’s throat burned when he saw Kelly’s photo.
“Students gathered today for the memorial service of Kelly Jacobson, the Stanford senior found dead of a drug overdose last week, just three months before the girl was scheduled to graduate and go work for the investment bank, L.Cecil. The conservative pundit Rush Limbaugh was quick to opine, criticizing the university for honoring a girl he says represents the irresponsibility of the millennial generation and the moral decline of the nation—”
Charlie shut off the television. “Fuck,” he said out loud.
He reached for his bottle of Ambien and picked up one of the L.Cecil water bottles and went to the sink to fill it. But when he took off the lid he noticed a white film at the mouth. He licked his finger and touched it: it tasted sour, like a crushed-up pill. He went back to the other water bottle: it was clean. Was this . . . ? He tasted more of the white residue: it was Molly. It had to be. But how had it ended up in her water bottle?
TODD
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26; NEW YORK, NEW YORK
“Boom!” Todd turned his laptop to Tara.
The note was from Hook’s lawyer at Crowley Brown, announcing that the S-1 had been officially submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the culmination of three weeks of around-the-clock work. S-1 filings normally took twice that time to pull off. Take that, Harvey Tate: just try giving Todd Kent a challenge he can’t overcome.
Tara smiled thinly. She looked exhausted, and that made her look pretty, in a vulnerable way that almost compensated for the glasses and pinned-back hair.
“Ev
erything okay?” Todd asked.
“Yeah,” Tara said. “Just tired.”
He could tell something was wrong, and guessed it had to do with Callum Rees. Apparently he’d just wanted to get her advice about market conditions and how much of his position he should sell. Tara said they hadn’t even had drinks, just soda water, and that he’d spent the whole time checking out other women. That had to have sucked for Tara—comparing herself to all those hot girls at the Crosby—and Todd felt a little bad for having been so hard on her.
He liked Tara. She worked hard and didn’t get stressed out and occasionally said things that were funny. She didn’t get upset when he and Beau talked about sex or sports, and she didn’t inundate them with questions about men. She was still neurotic—she only ate salads without dressing—and overly serious—she never took part when they ordered beers into the office—but he liked working with her more than he had any other woman, and would still sleep with her if the opportunity arose.
“I’m going to go home before the honeybees land.” Tara stood up and straightened her dress, wrinkled from a day and a half of wear. Honeybees were the employees who filled their days doing internal networking, picking up gossip and pollinating it elsewhere in the office. They scoured firm-wide announcements for employees who looked like they were on the rise, then e-mailed congratulatory notes and scheduled coffee chats to “get in front of” them in hopes of being remembered someday, once the rising colleagues were in charge.
“Congratulations, guys.” Lou Reynolds popped his head into the room as Tara slipped her heels back on and smiled knowingly at Todd. “Heard the big news!”
“Thank you,” Tara said, reaching out to squeeze the honeybee’s hand. Lou blushed at Tara’s warmth; he was used to buttoned-up, professional Tara, not the exhausted, tender Tara whom Todd had gotten to know over the past three weeks.
“Will you be back later?” Todd asked her, ignoring Lou.
“No, I’ve got this event at the Frick,” she said, shaking her hair from the clip that secured it and refastening it more tightly as she spoke.
“Since when do you rub shoulders on the Upper East Side?”
“It’s work,” she said. “L.Cecil’s got a table and Catherine asked me to go.”
“Catherine Wiley?” Lou’s jaw dropped.
Todd’s throat constricted: why was Tara on a first-name basis with the president of the investment bank?
“I guess a couple of important clients are going to be there and Catherine wants me to get some exposure,” she said innocently, as if she weren’t aware of what that meant.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I didn’t think you’d care,” she lied.
“Of course I care,” Todd said, dumbfounded. Senior management wasn’t teeing up introductions for him, and he’d brought in this deal. Tara was only on it because he’d chosen her.
“Good luck tonight,” Lou told her. “And let’s grab a coffee later this week. Would be great to catch up.”
“Sure thing,” Tara said, winking at Todd. “See you guys later.”
“Dude, what are you going to do to celebrate?” Lou sat down where Tara had been, anxious for whatever manly adventures his hero was plotting for the evening.
Todd was in fact going to PH-D, the nightclub in the Meatpacking District, but no way he was telling Lou that. His face was still on the door. How the hell could the firm give Tara such a leg up like that? Because she was a girl? That wasn’t gender equality, that was reverse discrimination.
He glanced at his watch. “Right now, I’m going to the gym,” Todd said to Lou, not lying. “It’s been too long.”
Lou stood, embarrassed he’d just sat, as Todd picked up his gym bag. “Yeah, totally. I hate it when I’ve got a big deal and can’t work out.”
Todd tried not to laugh. “Well, thanks for the congrats.”
—
HE FELT HIS ANNOYANCE subside as he opened the doors to Equinox and breathed in the over-oxygenated, eucalyptus-infused air.
“Long time no see,” Morgan, his super-hot personal trainer, teased when he came out of the locker room. Her spandex capris made no attempt to hide her sculpted legs and ass. Todd’s friends had all written off personal trainers, insisting P90X was the way forward, but Todd couldn’t imagine giving up Morgan or sessions of her undivided attention focused on perfecting his body. “I hope you have a good excuse,” she said.
He swatted her ponytail playfully. “I do, in fact,” he said, leading her to the gym floor, where he reached up to turn one of the flat-screen TVs to CNBC. She pointed him to the bike below it and he climbed on, watching the screen.
“A group of Stanford students today announced their intention to create a nonprofit investment fund honoring Kelly Jacobson, the Stanford senior found dead of a drug overdose in her campus dorm room earlier this month,” the anchor said. “The students struck a deal with the crowd-funding site Kickstarter to use the site to raise the two-million-dollar fund, which will be managed by the university’s Student Finance Club, and donate five percent of annual proceeds to programs supporting women’s rights, a cause Jacobson was passionate about when she was alive.”
“We’re creating the fund to continue the work Kelly wanted to do, both in her finance career and in her passion for helping women around the world,” a pretty brunette told the camera. “Kelly was an amazing girl, and we want to make sure the world remembers her that way.”
“That was Renee Schultz, a sorority sister of Kelly’s. We contacted Sean Robinson, a vocal critic of the fanfare surrounding Jacobson’s death, for his comment.”
“I’m not saying I don’t commend the students’ efforts,” Sean Robinson said, raising his hands to the camera. “All I’m pointing out is that a black kid ODs and no one pays attention, and a white girl ODs and she gets a televised funeral and a memorial fund.”
“You’re working on Kelly Jacobson’s memorial fund?” Morgan turned her attention from the screen, punching up the resistance on Todd’s bike.
“Wait for it,” he said, feeling his heartbeat rise with the movement of his legs and anticipation of the moment to come.
“In business news,” the anchor continued, “the location-based dating app company, Hook, filed an S-1 with the SEC today, indicating its intention to offer its shares on the NASDAQ stock exchange. The deal, which is speculated to value the company around fourteen billion dollars, is being underwritten by L.Cecil. It’s a piece of good news for the global investment bank that has, otherwise, only been making headlines for SEC investigations. The announcement comes as a surprise to many analysts, but is already generating speculation that it will be the hottest issue since Twitter went public last November.”
Todd grinned at Morgan. She looked back from the TV, pursing her lips in approval. “Not bad.”
Bam, Todd thought. That was the moment that mattered: the moment when a hot girl was impressed by his power and authority and involvement in things that got reported on CNBC.
“Come on,” Morgan instructed him off the bike to the weights. “Let’s see if you’ve got any muscle left in those manly, important arms of yours.” He let her flattery spread across him like a steroid.
“So, do you have a big celebration lined up?” Morgan asked as she adjusted the weights on the lateral pulldown. He could see a girl on the mat checking him out in the mirror. This one’s for you, he silently told her, pulling down on the bar.
“Going to PH-D tonight. Come as my date?” He smiled slyly.
“Afraid I don’t date clients.” She sighed but grinned in a way that made him know it wasn’t off the table.
“I’ll fire you, then,” he countered. The idea suddenly seemed very smart: Morgan must be incredible in bed, with all that core strength and endurance. “Come on, it’ll be fun.”
She laughed. “I’ve got plans.”
“Who’s the lucky guy?”
“Girl,” she corrected. “Her name’s Rosie. And it’s our anniversary.”
Todd let go of the metal bar and it clanked back up. “You’re gay?” It came out with more disgust than he intended.
“You thought I was straight?” Morgan laughed, unbothered.
“How?” was all he could muster.
“Well, when a girl—”
“No, I—” He grabbed the bar again. “I just didn’t realize.” She hadn’t been wanting to sleep with him this whole time? “Is your girlfriend hot, too?” he finally asked, consoling his masculinity with the vision of Morgan having sex with an equally attractive girl.
“I think so.”
“Are you into threesomes?”
“Get on the bench.” She pushed him over to the chest press with a smile.
NICK
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26; MENLO PARK, CALIFORNIA
The Rosewood Hotel, a subtly designed sprawl of five-hundred-dollar-a-night suites tucked at the top of Sand Hill Road, was where it all happened. The venture capitalists who ruled Silicon Valley, and by extension anything interesting happening in the world, came here for their power lunches and after-work drinks. It was the only place in Northern California where you could order a proper twenty-three-dollar martini and be surrounded by women who’d made an effort to look great.
Sure, there had been some scandal around a prostitution ring, and some older VCs claimed the excess was out of character for the Valley, but they were behind the times. Not like Nick. He was the new wave, a ruler of Silicon Valley 3.0. His phone buzzed and he checked the text message.
Grace: Call me when you have a second?
To celebrate Hook’s S-1 filing, Nick had scheduled this meeting at the Rosewood with Darrell Greene, the esteemed wealth manager, to discuss his finances, followed by dinner with his girlfriend, Grace. He hadn’t told her, but he’d also reserved a suite at the Rosewood for after dinner. He had a feeling tonight was the night they were finally going to sleep together, and he didn’t want to have to go back to San Francisco or, worse, her sorority house.
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