The Unfolding

by A.M. Homes

Genres: Literary Fiction; Alternative History sci-fi

Synopsis

“[A] much-anticipated, wickedly funny and sharply observed political satire…This novel of politics and family brings readers to the fault line of American politics.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Beyond being good or bad, the characters in this impressive book are, above all things, unpredictable.”—Wall Street Journal

One family will remake America. Even if they fall apart trying. A.M. Homes delivers us back to ourselves in this stunning alternative history that is both terrifyingly prescient, deeply tender and devastatingly funny.

The Big Guy loves his family, money and country. Undone by the results of the 2008 presidential election, he taps a group of like-minded men to reclaim their version of the American Dream. As they build a scheme to disturb and disrupt, the Big Guy also faces turbulence within his family. His wife, Charlotte, grieves a life not lived, while his 18-year-old daughter, Meghan, begins to realize that her favorite subject—history—is not exactly what her father taught her.

In a story that is as much about the dynamics within a family as it is about the desire for those in power to remain in power, Homes presciently unpacks a dangerous rift in American identity, prompting a reconsideration of the definition of truth, freedom and democracy—and exploring the explosive consequences of what happens when the same words mean such different things to people living together under one roof.

From the writer who is always “razor sharp and furiously good” (Zadie Smith), a darkly comic political parable braided with a Bildungsroman that takes us inside the heart of a divided country.

Release date: September 6, 2022

Publisher: Viking

Print pages: 416

Sample

Wednesday, November 5, 2008The Biltmore Hotel, Second-Floor BarPhoenix, Arizona1:00 a.m.

This can’t happen here.

He’s been at the bar for ninety minutes; a dozen men have come and gone, having drowned their sorrows, done a little business, and put the whole thing to bed.

There are four whiskey glasses in front of him, each one different, none of them empty.

In one corner the television is on, volume down, the talking head postmortem will go all night. In the other corner, by the window, there’s a couple canoodling like there’s no tomorrow. And in the middle of the bar a screwball with a Zippo lighter runs his thumb over the wheel again and again, scratching the flint to spark. “Windproof,” he says each time the fuel ignites. “Windproof.”

“It’s on me as much as anyone,” the Big Guy says to the bartender. “Humility if nothing else requires that a man take responsibility for his failures.”

“You sound like a man pleading guilty,” the bartender says.

“I am guilty.”

“No prophet is accepted in his own country; no doctor heals in his own home.”

“You’re seriously playing that card here?”

“On Saturday nights I work at the casinos, Desert Diamond, Talking Stick. I’ve seen men give up the ghost right in front of me, and even on their way out, they’re still feeling the high. ‘Hit me. Hit me again.’ ”

The Big Guy shakes his head. “All men make mistakes, but making the same mistake twice is not a mistake, it’s a pattern. Tonight it was like Fat Man and Little Boy got back together and planted a mushroom garden right here in Phoenix. And yet, somehow, we’re surrounded by folks who have no idea what they have brought upon themselves. No idea.”

A man slides into the seat next to the Big Guy, glances at the four glasses of whiskey, and signals the bartender.

“Pour me one of those,” he says.

“Which one?”

“The one in the middle.”

“There is no middle,” the bartender says.

“The Highland Park.”

The Big Guy looks up. “You can call it in the dark?”

“Slainte,” the man says, knocking back the drink.

“You’re not one of them, are you?”

“One of what?”

“Your hair is wet so I’m thinking you’re one of the assholes who got sprayed with champagne and did a little victory dance a couple of hours ago.”

“I don’t think so,” the man says. “I’m more like a fella who came downstairs and took a dip in the pool in order to clear my head.”

“Explains the smell,” the Big Guy says. “Chlorine.”

The man taps his glass for the bartender. “Again.”

“Were you in the room upstairs?”

“I was.”

“And what did you see?” the Big Guy asks.

“A generational earthquake that split the terra firma.”

The Big Guy snorts.

“I would characterize it as a heavy metal Led Zeppelin, a grim shaking of the head, the palsied all-too-knowing dip of disappointment, keening women knowing they’ll have crushed male egos to deal with for breakfast. The damp, dull face of defeat. They banked on the wrong horse in the absence of a better horse while full well knowing it wasn’t even a horse race but really a rat race.”

“Please, tell me you’re not a reporter.”

“Historian, sometimes professor, occasional author, but not on the clock tonight.”

“If you’re not on the clock, why are you here?”

“Bearing witness?” the man suggests. “Fella traveler?”

The Big Guy flags the bartender. “Give him the Ardbeg. It’s one of my favorites. I call it Santa’s Paws, tastes like it crawled out of the fireplace. Smoky.”

The man laughs. “Similar to Lagavulin.”

“Similar. I’ll tell you what I don’t like, a scotch that’s fruity. I don’t want anything that’s got raisins, cherries, or essence of Fig Newton. That’s what I call a stool softener.” The Big Guy belches. “Pardon me,” he says. “I’m in a little deeper than I thought.”

“They should just burn it down,” the screwball with the Zippo says, flipping his lighter into the gun position, letting the flame go high and then slapping the lighter closed.

The bartender goes over and asks the screwball to settle his tab. “It’s been a long night for everyone,” he says. “Time to go home.”

“There’s no place like home,” Zippo says, standing up. “Every dog is a lion at home.” He peels twenties off a thick wad of cash, knocks back the rest of his drink, leaving the money under the empty glass.

As Zippo wobbles out of the room, the Big Guy taps his glass. “Ardbeg again for me and my friend.”

The bartender pours.

“You want to know what I’ve been writing?” the Big Guy asks.

“Yeah,” the man says.

“My memory of the dream.”

“The dream?”

The Big Guy nods. “September 2, 1945, my introduction to the world.”

“V-J Day?”

“I was literally born into it. The war ended and the American dream came into bloom with my name written all over it. You know what I’ve been saying all night? ‘This can’t happen here.’ But it did. And it’s not the first time. Happened eight years ago as well, but that time we took it back. This go-round there is no rescue plan.”

The two men drink.

“What do you call that?” the Big Guy says, nodding toward the couple in the corner.

“Wound licking,” the man says.

“It hasn’t progressed. Two hours and they’re still like that.”

“They’re married but not to each other,” the man says. “They can get away with what they’re doing now, call it grief counseling, but if they take it upstairs, it becomes something else.”

“You a married man?”

“No. I would say that I am devoted to my work, but that wouldn’t be true either.”

“Been here before?” the Big Guy asks.

“Do you mean literally here in this bar?”

“Yes.”

“I have,” the man says. “As a kid, I came here with my father.There was a special knock to get in or at least that’s what my father told me.”

“Back in the day, the liquor used to be kept in a false bookshelf,” the Big Guy says. “You see that skylight up there? If trouble was coming, they’d shine a light over the roof and the fellas would skedaddle. I’m not sure that was Mr. Wright’s intention when he designed it.”

“I thought it was Wrigley, like the gum.”

“Frank Lloyd Wright designed it. Wrigley bought it in 1930 and put in the pool. People used to come out for the season. There was an office of the New York Stock Exchange downstairs. This was the Smoking Room. You might say I’m a bit of a history buff,” the Big Guy says. “If you wanted to get in you had to know the password.”

“What was the password?”

“It changed frequently.”

“Was it something like ‘It’s raining on Mount Weather’?”

The Big Guy looks at him. Mount Weather is not a run-of-the-mill noun one simply drops into conversation. “Oh Shenandoah,” the Big Guy lobs back.

“High Point,” the man says, replying with another watchword.

“The squirrel got the nut,” the Big Guy says.

“I left my suitcase on a train,” the man says.

“You two quoting poetry to each other?” the bartender asks.

“Just singing the same song,” the man says.

“Sniffing each other out to see if we’re members of the same club,” the Big Guy says. “I don’t think I got your name?”

“I didn’t give it.” There’s a pause. “What did you expect tonight?”

“More,” the Big Guy says. “I expected more.”

“Hope,” the man says. “That’s what he offered them and they went for it. Hope won over More.”

The two men are quiet for a moment, nursing their drinks.

“I’ll tell you something,” the Big Guy says, looking around as if making sure it’s safe to reveal a secret. “There are two cycles for political business in this country; one is eighteen months and the other is four years. We talk about the ‘next go-round’ like we’re buying tickets on a theme-park ride. Democracy, the roller coaster. It goes up a couple of hundred feet and then plunges at a hundred miles an hour and what do people do? They get in line to go again. And again. Up and down, each time their stomachs drop; you can’t escape biology; each time they feel the rush. Eighteen months. Four years. Other countries plan one hundred years out. Native Americans talk about what things will look like seven generations from now—one hundred fifty years. What do we talk about? Tax rebates. We give people three hundred bucks to blow and think that seals the deal.”

“Continuity,” the man says.

“The plan ensures that our government as we know it continues to stand.”

“Exactly. It requires a vision.”

“The last great vision was the dream.”

“Bye, bye, Miss American Pie,” the man says.

“It’s time to get the program going. The program is the plan. You know what I’m talking about?”

“Give me another hint,” the man says.

“Extraordinary circumstances,” the Big Guy says. “There is a moment when you have to be ready to take action. You can’t rely on others. This is the kind of story you tell your children; it’s about the night you woke up, realized that things were not what they seemed, and you did something about it.”

“What are we going to do?” the man asks.

“Something big,” the Big Guy says, showing the pile of napkins he’s been making notes on. “A forced correction.”

The man finishes his drink.

“Gimme your number.” The Big Guy pushes a clean napkin toward the man. “Let’s stay in touch. A fella like you is a good man to have around and I suspect we have a thing or two in common.”

“We’ve never met,” the man says, preparing to leave. “But I look forward to another sing-along soon.”

“Are you working on anything in particular at the moment?” the Big Guy asks.

The man shrugs. “A book. It’s a brief history of the twenty-first century called Thus Far.”

“So you’re a historian but really more of a scribe.”

“Till soon,” the man says, leaving cash on the bar.

“Hell of a guy,” the Big Guy says to the bartender. “Knows all the songs.” A moment passes. “Any chance the kitchen is still open?”

“What are you looking for?”

“Soft-boiled eggs and toast soldiers?”

“Let me see what I can do.”

“And pass me some more of those napkins; I’ve got to get it down on paper.” The Big Guy scrawls in blue pen, “A patriot’s plan to preserve and protect. Double Rainbows with Cherries on Top.” He sketches what looks like a football play chart; two rows of players that look like red cherries in a U-shaped lineup guarding the Liberty Bell.

One by one the Big Guy finishes the drinks in front of him. It’s after two a.m. when room service arrives with a dome-covered plate. Voilà. The bartender lifts the dome. “Tits up,” the Big Guy says, looking at the beautiful pair of soft-boiled eggs staring up at him.

The bartender laughs. “You’re more fun than you look.”

“In my cups,” the Big Guy says. “I am in my cups.” He taps his spoon against one of the eggs; the first blow lands on the silver egg cup, sounding the alarm. He continues tap-tapping, sending the message “We are no longer safe” in Morse code. Until finally, the shell cracks.

 

The Day Before Tuesday, November 4, 2008Laramie County, Wyoming6:08 a.m.

Earth and sky are open and endless. As the brightness increases, the sky flushes with pink and red hues somewhere between birth and Armageddon.

She steps outside to be alone. The air has the clean snap of winter to come. She’s thinking about the sky, the distance to the river, the mountains, the great unfolding of land. Even if one has no particular religious belief, the enormity of it is a spiritual experience. It reminds her to remain in awe as she faces into the wind. The ground, coated in frosty white dust, cracks underfoot. She hears her parents behind her, leaving the house.

“As long as you’re happy,” her mother says.

“Thrilled,” her father says. “I’m absolutely thrilled. We’ll be among the first.”

Sonny, the ranch hand, is at the wheel, the scent of his morning cigarette leaking out of the cracked car window.

The bison are at the fence, their enormous eyes like great black globes of history, of memory, their wide nostrils pumping out air like steam pipes. She thinks of them as ancient animals somewhere between bull and minotaur.

The tires roll over the cattle guards, ka-thunka, ka-thunka, a marker between home and the rest of the world. She watches over her father’s shoulder in the rearview mirror as the ranch recedes.

It seems strange: Yesterday she was at school in Virginia giving a report on the three witches in Macbeth. After class, she took a taxi to the airport and got on a plane that landed late last night. Now she is here, in a car, with her mother and father, on the opposite side of the country. There are many Americas; the language and the brand of orange juice might be the same, but they are very different places.

“I remember my first time,” her father says. “My father took me.”

“It was centuries ago,” her mother says, laughing.

“Is it that funny?” her father asks.

“Did you go by horse-drawn carriage?” she asks.

“Actually, we walked,” her father says.

“I’m just realizing that I didn’t even register until after I was married to you. I wonder why I didn’t participate then?”

There’s a beat. A moment of silence.

“How’d you sleep?” her father asks her.

“Like a log.” She’d gone upstairs, cracked her window, and let the night air slip in like the plume from a genie’s bottle. The cold air, a little chimney smoke, the dirt and dung of animals on the farm, a couple of deep breaths, and she was out. “As soon as I get here, it’s like I’m under anesthesia.” She pauses and realizes he’s waiting for a compliment. “And the warm milk was very good, thank you.”

“Fresh air, fresh milk, you don’t need much else.”

“The cookies,” she says. “Night cookies.”

“I don’t sleep well without them,” her father says.

They are quiet as the car rolls toward town.

“Is it always on a Tuesday?” she asks, when the silence has become too loud.

“Yes,” her mother says.

“For a reason?”

“For the reason that it has always been on a Tuesday,” her father says.

Her mother scoffs. “I’m sure the men who originally picked the day had something more in mind than the idea that two hundred years later people would say that it’s always been that way.”

“Well then, look it up,” her father says.

“Will it be crowded?”

“In some places they stand in line for hours,” her father says.

“Not here,” her mother says. “In this place three people is a line, five is a crowd, a dozen is a rock concert.”

The car pulls into the church parking lot.

“It’s at a church?” she asks, surprised. She secretly loves church: the ritual, the music, spacing out while “reading” the stories in the stained glass.

“My sentiments exactly,” her father says.

“We’ve been here before,” her mother reminds them both. “For the Mason boy’s funeral.”

“Horrible,” her father says. “I don’t know how you recover from something like that.”

“You don’t,” her mother says.

They walk down the stairs into the basement.

She realizes that her mother and father are the only people who got dressed up. Her father is wearing a camel-hair topcoat over his suit. He’s skipped the tie—but she has no doubt it’s in his pocket, just in case. He always keeps a tie in his pocket. These days, after an incident with a melted chocolate Kiss, it’s in a Ziploc bag. Her mother is wearing a red coat over a pair of nice slacks. That’s what she calls them, “slacks”; it’s always “slacks” unless she’s going riding, and then they are “dungarees.” Neither is dressed in a way that would keep them warm if they had to wait outside. Everyone else is wearing regular clothes: hats, gloves, parkas over long pants. Her own coat bears the symbol of an upscale company on the upper arm. A while ago she put a piece of dark duct tape over it, hoping perhaps that people wouldn’t notice.

“Today’s the day,” someone says.

She feels like she’s a small child being delivered for the first day of school.

“The moment is now,” another man adds.

“Picked out your turkey for Thanksgiving yet?” her father asks one of the men. She notices that he’s guiding the small talk away from the events at hand and toward more generic seasonal chat.

“No, sir,” the man says. “This year I’m going to visit my brother up by Seattle.”

“Fine man you are.” It’s charming how pleased her father is to be among these men and women. He’s beaming; his excitement is palpable. He shakes hands, any hand he can get hold of. “You have to touch people; you have to look them in the eye and listen to what they have to tell you,” he’s said to her in the past. “You don’t like it but you have to listen. We used to have a word for it—decency.”

“Fine day,” her father says to another man, who simply nods back.

“Nice to see you,” her mother says to one of the women. As they move around the room, both her mother and father greet strangers as though they’ve met them before.

“Good of you to come out,” a man calls out to them.

When she was younger, going places with her parents used to make her feel special; people paid extra attention; she imagined herself as a princess. When she stops to think about it now, she’s embarrassed.

“Hello, Mrs. Hitchens.”

“Hello, Jane, hello, Meg,” her mother says. Other women call her mother Mrs. Hitchens and she calls them by their first names.

“Did your daughter have the baby yet?” Her mother is always asking after babies and young children.

“Soon,” the woman says.

She tries her own hand at conversation. “That’s a beautiful sweater,” she says to one of the women. Her mother smiles, whispers, “Good girl.” Her mother raised her with the idea that when women are together they talk about what they’ve made, their children, clothing, food; and what they’ve seen, travels, theatre; and if they’re in the right crowd, what they’ve read, books.

“Thank you,” the woman says.

“Wonderful colors,” her mother chimes in.

Her father moves with a kind of swagger, occupying space in a way that might make you think he is the candidate. But he’s not; he’s the machine that makes it go—the money.

“Bull in a china shop,” her mother once said when she was angry with him, and then she got defensive when Meghan looked shocked. “Well, you don’t get rich being mister nice guy,” her mother said and left it at that.

“They’ll be coming,” she hears someone say. “Just before lunch, and then again at the end of the day.”

“People are gonna show up for sure; that’s what they do when they have something to say.”

“Some folks feel it’s already been said,” another one adds.

“Either way, it shouldn’t be optional,” one of the men says. “It should be legally required; if you’re of age, you’re required. That’s just my opinion, but no one gives a hoot what I think.”

“Folks don’t like to be told what to do.”

“You’d think they’d want as many people as possible to participate,” another man says.

“A little naïve,” her father whispers. “It’s always interesting to hear how common people see it.”

“Why do you say ‘common people’?” she asks.

He looks confused. “What should I say?”

“Just people?” she says. “When you say ‘common people,’ it sounds like you see yourself as different from everyone else.”

“I am different,” he says. “I’m rich and proud of it. Common people should be glad to see me and be happy when I buy their products and eat in their restaurants; it’s a sign of approval.”

“Whose approval?”

“My approval.”

“And because you’re rich, your approval means more than someone else’s?”

“If you were studying for a test, would you take advice from an A student or a C student?” he asks.

“Is this a test?”

“It’s life,” he says.

“It makes people feel bad, like they’re less than equal,” she says.

“It’s not my job to make people feel equal.”

“Are teachers less valuable than doctors? They get paid less; but without teachers, you wouldn’t have doctors,” she says.

“When I hear the word common, I hear Aaron Copeland’s ‘Fanfare for the Common Man,’ ” her mother says. “I attended a performance in New York years ago when you were just a baby.” Her mother pauses. “What’s nice about a place like this is that people are neighborly; they help out.”

“It’s the same folks who do everything from organizing the parades to the potlucks. They’re the doers,” her father says as they move closer to the check-in table. “Did you know that if you’re sixteen you can be an election judge? All it takes is being a bona fide county resident, mentally competent, and four days of training before the event. A little pecker-schmecker who can’t even tie his shoelaces gets to count things up and call it in. And they get paid; in a town that’s not brimming with employment for children, it’s not a bad deal.”

Then it is their turn. Her parents step up and sign the book. You can see their signatures where they signed the last time—she finds it curious that a person’s signature doesn’t change over the years.

“Is this your first time, Meghan?” the woman asks, as she inscribes her name in the book.

“Yes.”

“Do you know how it works?”

“In theory,” she says. “But I do have a question.”

The woman nods.

“Do you know why it’s on a Tuesday?”

The woman smiles. “I asked my husband the same thing last night. He had no idea, so I looked it up. It turns out the founding fathers had something in mind; by November, the fall harvest was done but the weather was still mild enough for travel. And because folks used to have to travel in order to take part, they couldn’t do it on a Monday because people wouldn’t travel on the Sabbath, and it couldn’t be November first because that’s All Saints’ Day, and some people care about that and so on.” She pauses. There’s a line forming behind Meghan. “Anyway, that’s what I learned—do you know how this next part works?”

“Not really.”

The woman hands Meghan a paper form. “You take this and go on over to one of those booths, make your selections, and then fold it over and bring the paperwork back over there and drop it in the sealed box. Easy-peasy.”

The booths are mini stalls with cardboard side screens like blinders you’d put up to keep a kid from cheating on a test or keep people from peeping over their neighbor’s shoulder.

“That simple?” Meghan asks.

“That’s the way we do it,” the woman says.

“How will they know who wins?”

“Tonight, after we close up, a few of us stay behind, open the boxes, and count ’em up.”

Is that what the sixteen-year-old does? Meghan wonders. “And then what?”

“We get on the phone and call the number in; when my granddad was a kid, they sent the number via wire—like an SOS to the state capitol.”

She’s surprised at how rudimentary it seems, rinky-dink. She’s not sure what she imagined, but it was definitely something more substantive, professional, modern, maybe a big machine with lights, bells, whistles, the kind of thing they have in arcades. She imagines matching the picture of the person you’re supporting with their name, pushing the button, and then a lot of lights go off and simultaneously it registers on some great scorecard in the sky. Score one for the red team!

This, the paper form, the cardboard blinders, is beyond banal. All over the country people are doing the exact same thing? And by late tonight there will be a new order in the land? It’s more like an activity you’d do at a school to pick the new head of the class.

She looks over and sees her parents carefully pushing their forms into the sealed box.

Her father smiles at her—he’s passing the torch. His deep pleasure in this process reminds her of all the things they’ve talked about over the years—all the car trips and vacations they’ve taken to historical sites. This is the passion he shares. He doesn’t talk about himself or his childhood. He talks about historical figures, battles, wars, treaties, and the three branches of government. She’s been brought home to vote—to go on this electoral journey as a kind of indoctrination.

She ducks into her booth, fills out the form, folds as directed, then hurries over and stuffs it into the box.

On the way out, there’s a table set up with an enormous industrial-size coffee urn, glass bottles of milk, and a box of fresh glazed donuts, still shining while the sugar dries.

She picks up a donut. Her mother sees her do it and looks horrified. It’s hard to know if it’s the calories, the idea of a donut for breakfast, or the fact that it’s been sitting out and possibly touched by others. She’s caught, donut pinched between her thumb and middle finger. The glaze begins to melt. She squeezes, denting the dough. As she’s holding the donut, unsure what to do, her father leans over and takes a bite.

“Best damn donut I ever had,” he says. “That had to be made within the last hour; I can taste it; the yeast is still rising.”

Her mother reaches over, plucks the donut from between Meghan’s fingers, and drops it into a trash can. The expression on her mother’s face is one of enormous satisfaction—like she’s put out a fire. Meghan is left with sticky fingers. She puts her hand in her pocket and thinks about when she might be able to sneak a lick.

“Well, that’s all she wrote,” Sonny says, as they’re back in the car.

“Our duty is done,” her father says.

They drive straight from the church to the airport. Sonny smokes with the window down—the smoke catches the air and blows into the back seat. Meghan can see her mother take a deep breath.

As soon as they’re on the plane, her father turns to her and asks, “So, what did it feel like?”

She can’t tell her father what she’s really thinking; it reminds her of another first—her virginity and how losing that was also less spectacular than it was supposed to be.

She can’t tell him that she finds the whole thing so basic that it is causing her a new kind of anxiety, the deep existential ache that nothing is as previously represented; nothing in reality is as good as the idea she’s been sold. She can’t tell him any of it because she knows it would break his heart.

Luckily, before she can say much, he continues. “Back in Connecticut we used to vote on a device that was gunmetal gray. You went in, pulled a little half curtain around you like in a photo booth, and then you’d toggle the switches up or down depending on which man you were for. When you were done, you’d pull an enormous lever with a black handle to register your vote. Every time I threw that lever to the right, I felt like I was doing something major, starting up a time machine or launching an atomic bomb, I was never sure which.” He pauses. “I’m so proud of you. Getting yourself out here to cast your ballot with us means a lot.”

“Thanks,” Meghan says. “It meant a lot to me, too, we’re making history one day at a time. I cast my vote in honor of all those who have come before me and with an eye to the future ahead.”

“Is that a line from a poem?” her mother asks.

“No, I just made it up. What are we going to do when we get where we’re going?” she asks.

“I expect we’ll eat some lunch,” her mother says. “Then I’ll be taking a disco nap.”

“I have some calls to make and later there’s a cocktail event,” her father says.

“A lot of standing around,” her mother says.

“It’ll be a reunion of the faithful,” her father says.

“A very tense night,” her mother says.

“There’s gonna be a shit show if he loses, pardon my French,” her father says.

“Is Tony coming?” Meghan asks. Tony is her godfather, her father’s best friend from college.

“No, he’s in DC, can’t get out of the house on a night like this.”

By house, her father means the White House, where Tony works as a special assistant to the president.

“It’s a very big job,” her mother says. “Too bad it’s ending.”

“Less a job and more like a calling,” her father says. “It’s like joining the priesthood; once you’ve worked there, you know things that mere mortals never get to find out. He’s a good man to have around.”

“Do you think he’ll ever get married?” she asks.

“No,” her father says definitively.

“I hope he doesn’t get lonely.”

“Tony is a very busy man,” her mother says. “He doesn’t have time to get lonely. He’s what we call a confirmed bachelor.”

“He has friends,” her father says. “The man has a lot of friends, friends in all kinds of places.”

Her mother has a drink on the plane.

“So early?” her father asks.

“You know I hate to fly. Did everything make it onto the plane?”

“Yes,” her father says. “And if it didn’t, that’s what stores are for.”

“Did you bring a dress?” her mother asks Meghan.

“Yes.”

“It’s good you’re tall; you don’t need heels. Young girls shouldn’t wear heels anyway, ...