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“Nobody minds their own business anymore,” his brother agrees, punctuating his words with a hacking cough.
Marie and Bill continue to look disgruntled, busying about with their place settings, adjusting silverware, and sipping from the already-poured wine glasses before them. Anything to avoid looking at each other. But their presence alone is enough to bring the guests out of their verbal hibernation at last, and as the salads are brought out, the room gets a touch more lively.
Of course, to this crowd, a funeral viewing might be too much excitement.
“I just hate Monaco. I love the Prix, but blah the French,” Tiff the Heiress says to Marie, shaking her head in disgust. “Smoking everywhere, all the time. It’s disgusting. And don’t get me started on the crowds. Crowds of smoking French.”
I look eagerly to Marie, waiting for her dismissive rebuttal to this spoiled brat.
But Marie is smiling pleasantly, and when she speaks her voice sounds very different from the no-nonsense executive Liz has described.
“Oh trust me, Tiff,” Marie says. “Unless I have business in Paris, I’ll never set a foot in that country. It might have been interesting twenty years ago, but now? Well, nobody goes there anymore.”
Huh. I expected Tiff to be a snob, but Marie?
“A friend of mine is on her honeymoon in Peru right now,” Liz offers.
The mention of Peru gets several titters from around the table, though all the laughers look away when I try to make annoyed eye contact with them.
“Peru?” Tiff says disdainfully. “Just horrible. Seriously. I only wanted to see Machu Picchu and it was like a whole expedition just to get to the foot of the trail. Trains and buses and tourists freakin’ everywhere.”
“How did you even manage?” the blonde woman asks, shaking her head.
“Oh, somehow,” Tiff replies, flipping her hair. “Of course that was in my more adventurous youth. These days I don’t go anywhere I can’t helicopter directly to.”
Tiff can’t be older than twenty-eight, but I refrain from pointing that out.
Still, I can’t help but interject. I bite into an oversized piece of lettuce like a giraffe and say, talking through the mouthful, “I like Peru. Good food. Nice people.”
Tiff rolls her eyes, “Well of course you do.”
This is obviously supposed to be a burn, though I don’t completely understand it. I look at Liz and she shrugs. Apparently we’re the only ones in the dark though because her comment gets chuckles from several people around the table. Even the guy who’s been on his phone the whole time smirks, though even this doesn’t get him to look up.
I glance over at Marie and though she’s not outright laughing, she is smiling.
“Where’s your idea of a good time?” I ask Dudley, Tiff’s boyfriend who so far hasn’t said a word.
Tiff places her hand protectively on Dudley’s forearm. “Dudley has taken a vow of silence,” she says with a tone of superiority. “He’s a Buddhist. Do you know what that means?”
Okay, this is obviously not going well. Normally, I wouldn’t hold my tongue with this group of spoiled, bad mannered malcontents, but there are more precious things on the line than my pride tonight.
So instead of snapping back, I reach beneath the table to thread my fingers into Liz’s. Her hand is soft and warm, comforting in this high-ceilinged hellscape. Together we’ll get through this and later we’ll make fun of all of them in the privacy of the infinity pool.
The guests, having deemed us tasteless and uncultured, leave us alone after that. They continue to engage Bill and Marie in petty conversations about who wore what at which fashion show (and why it was absolutely hideous) and which ski resort makes the best powdered snow and whether good help is getting harder to find.
I find myself watching Bill for most of the dinner. What happened to the nerdy man talking about B-movies in the hotel bar? That Bill didn’t seem like the type to go skiing in Aspen or golfing at Pebble Beach. I thought this week was supposed to be a collection of their techy friends. How did we end up saddled with the Real Assholes of Billionaire Row?
The only other person who seems out of place is, ironically enough, Paul Morgan. He throws hostile glances around the room to warn off anyone who might even think about engaging him in the conversation.
After a failed attempt to talk to the two women with dogs (who the hell doesn’t know what a grape is?) Liz and I end up just talking to each other. By the time dessert is wheeled out, I can hardly wait to escape.
“When can we go?” I whisper to Liz.
“Just ten more minutes,” she breathes back. “We’re almost in the clear.”
Avoid disaster for ten more minutes? Seems easy enough.
Unfortunately, things don’t stay calm for long.
