“It sends the wrong signal,” Lowell grumbled. “This town is roiling with suspicion that certain-someones got their cash out of the country in advance. Or worse, have made a fortune at everyone else’s expense. It’s not a good time to live conspicuously high on the hog.”
“Fine, we’re not having pork,” Avery said brusquely. “And there’s nothing highfalutin about the menu.”
This was not entirely true. Avery had her standards. People thought you couldn’t get bluefin tuna anymore, but you could—for a price. After all that ruckus about the bees and patchy pollination on the West Coast, tossing shaved almonds in a salad was like scattering gold leaf. Since the jet stream’s burro-belly sag over North America had frozen Florida’s crops again, the lemons and the avocadoes were from Spain; the guy stacking them reverently in the produce aisle said shipments from Europe were so extortionate that Wholemart might stop stocking citrus altogether.
Worst of all, like most cooks of her generation, Avery listed the primitive necessities of life as fresh water, shelter, clothing, and extra-virgin olive oil—preferably oil pressed in Cyprus; all the Italian stuff was fake. But when the liter went through the scanner at checkout, she objected that there must have been a mistake. Perhaps weary of this interchange multiple times a day, the surly clerk assured her that the bottle had scanned correctly, and asked if she wanted to have the olive oil put back. Embarrassment won the day, and Avery shook her head no, she’d take it. That receipt went into the outdoor can, too.
“It’s not only the risk of ostentation,” Lowell said. “I’m not in the mood. I ran into a guy from Administration today, and he said to be prepared for a big drop in enrollment next semester. Parents are pulling their kids out of school. They can’t cover the tuition—if they ever could. Lucky I got tenure. When it came through, I took it as a compliment. Now it’s a lifeline.”
“Therapists, I’m afraid, don’t get tenure,” she warned him, grating ginger. “Four more cancellations today. Those patients may never be back.”
“They’ll be back.” He smoothed a hand over her rump, wrapped in a tight little black number for the evening. “If only to get counseling over, ‘Oh, why on earth did I sell my GM stock after it took such a dive? Had I simply held my nerve, I’d be sitting pretty!’ Like my wife”—he gave her buttock a squeeze—“who can’t help but sit pretty.”
“Thanks. Listen, I do want credit: when you were so tepid about tonight—”
“Not tepid. Violently opposed.”
“When you were so ‘violently opposed,’” Avery revised, “I cut the guest list to the bone. It’s only going to be Ryan and Lin Yu, Tom and Belle.”
“My, two out of the four I can actually stand. Good odds, as dinner parties go.”
“It’s in your interest to stay on Ryan’s good side. Mark Vandermire’s a passing clown who got lucky, and given your positions you were always going to hate each other. But Ryan is your boss.”
“He’s only head of the department, in defiance of my seniority, because he threatened to take his marbles to Princeton. They should never have capitulated to blackmail.”
“That’s because Ryan Biersdorfer is a rock star. Economics doesn’t have many rock stars, so you have to make nice.”
“Your husband’s not a rock star?” He’d have tried to say this lightly, but it came out wounded.
She looped her wrists around his neck, keeping her ginger-hairy hands from soiling his shirt collar. “My husband’s more like a jazz musician. Much more careless.”
Lowell left to check on the kids upstairs. Hopefully with that butt-patting banter and grousing about the guest list, he’d pulled off a reasonable facsimile of the grumpy yet affectionate husband on an ordinary Saturday evening when he wasn’t up for company. Everything he did and said lately felt fake—like cover, or distraction. Yet he did believe fiercely: this too shall pass, and more rapidly than anyone expected. Look at the Stonage: the country sprang right back. GDP took a hit in ’24, but the market recovered lickety-split. So: all that hair-tear for basically nothing. Same cycle, all over again.
He rapped on Savannah’s door, then poked his head in. “You consider joining the grown-ups tonight?”
“Nah.” His seventeen-year-old was sprawled on the bed, hunt-and-pecking on her fleX. Savannah was one of those girls who managed to make brown hair seem exotic. He trained his eyes away from her long bare legs; she was a knockout, she had powers, but he was her father. Which made him fortunate. He’d hate to be one of the teenage boys she turned to jelly. “I want to finish this application. I can ask Mojo for an omelet.”
“Better make it yourself. Mom’s turned Mojo off for the night. She didn’t want it to bury the guests in the backyard or something.”
“There’s a new Netflix series about that, you know. About a murderous Mojo run amok.”
“Oldest sci-fi plot in the book. Goes back to 2001: A Space Odyssey.”
Savannah frowned. “Why would science fiction be set in the past?”
“Because when the novel was written, 2001 was in the future. Like 1984—which seemed far away when Orwell wrote it, but then the real 1984 came and went, and it wasn’t nearly as horrible or alien or sad as he predicted. Plots set in the future are about what people fear in the present. They’re not about the future at all. The future is just the ultimate monster in the closet, the great unknown. The truth is, throughout history things keep getting better. On average, the world’s population has a higher and higher standard of living. Our species gets steadily less violent. But writers and filmmakers keep predicting that everything’s going to fall apart. It’s almost funny. So don’t you worry. Your future’s looking sunny, and it’ll only get sunnier.”
She looked at him with curiosity. “I wasn’t worried.”
Well, that makes you a colossal idiot popped into his head before he could stop the thought. “What’s the school?”
“Risdee. I can draw. But they want you more than anything to be able to talk about drawing. I’m not sure I’m so good at that.”
“Visual art stopped being about making anything a long time ago. It’s all about talking. The talking is what you make.”
“Doesn’t ‘visual’ art have to be something you see?”
“I guess text is something you see.”
“Not anymore,” she said. “Nobody at my school reads anything. They use ear buds, and get read to.”
“Sounds slow,” Lowell said glumly.
“It’s easy. It’s relaxing.”
“They do know how to read.”
She shrugged with a smile. “Not all of them.”
“You have to be able to read even to work for the post office.”
“Not really,” she said with an air of dreamy mischief. “Hand scanners can read aloud addresses, too. Careless, huh?”
Lowell rolled his eyes. “Good luck with the application.”
He shut the door. Not long ago, he’d been pleased that Savannah had fostered the marginally practical ambition to become a fabric designer, and of course she was pretty enough—no father was supposed to think this way anymore—that some guy was bound to scoop her up and take care of her come what may. But at this exact point in time, Lowell was leery of quite so airy-fairy a profession as crafting new prints when the world was already chockful of paisley. More pressingly still, last he checked a degree from the likes of the Rhode Island School of Design cost about $400,000—before room and board. The 529 Plan that Avery’s grandfather established when Savannah was born, meant to cover Goog’s and Bing’s higher education as well, was currently