Page 4 of The Delivery

Derek squeezes the back of Mark’s neck, a dude-bro clench that’s a touch too hard. “Glad you’re enjoying your weekend nights while you have ’em,” he says. “Once we start updating the customer-service modules, you’ll be sleeping on your desk blotter.”

“AI chatbots,” Mark says. “What could go wrong?”

The waiter materializes at Derek’s elbow. “A second round of everything,” Derek proclaims grandly. “And port my tab over here. I’ll cover all this.”

“That’s not necessary,” Mark says.

“And we’re good,” Rebecca says. “We just started on these.”

“It’s okay,” Derek confides in the waiter. “They’ll catch up.”

His credit card rises between two fingers. The waiter pockets it with grace and withdraws.

Rebecca feels Alexa’s eyes picking over her. Derek leans to the side, examines Mark’s outfit. “Nice pants,” he says. “Purple Label?”

“Thanks,” Mark says. “Second time I’ve put ’em on. I’m still amortizing them.”

Rebecca and Mark did well with their stock options, but Derek did spectacularly. He has a stunt plane and a private jet in a hangar in Santa Monica and restores antique Porsches in his spare time. The de Grasses have a passel of children, four or five—Rebecca has lost count.

“Isn’t that the dress you wore to the holiday party?” Alexa says. And then quickly: “I like it. It’s . . . cute.”

Rebecca shrugs. “I don’t remember. Probably.”

“I don’t remember much from that party either.” Alexa laughs, and Derek stiffens slightly, an inadvertent show of unease. “When I drink too much—wooo!” Her hands fly up, and sparkly bracelets slide down her forearms, glimmering. She is wearing gold metallic gladiator heels, straps wrapping her calves, snakelike. They look like sexy garters for the feet. “Anyhoo, we’ve all been there.” She reaches those manicured nails for her husband’s cheek, smooths a lock of hair back around his ear. Her eyes, an improbable contact-lens emerald, find Rebecca’s. “Sorry to just flutter over here. Y’all looked so serious. What did we bust in on?”

“We were just talking about getting back to Maddy.”

“Ah.” Alexa lays her hand on Rebecca’s forearm, eyes intense with performative concern. “How is she?”

“Great,” Mark says curtly. “She’s great.”

“Good,” Alexa says. “That’s so good. She’s such a dear.”

“We sent ours off to boarding school,” Derek says. “New Hampshire. All four of them.”

“Derek’s alma mater. The house is so quiet.”

“But we love it.”

Alexa puts her hand to the side of her mouth, leans in to stage-whisper: “So much time to fight or fuck.”

Rebecca and Mark don’t fight or fuck very often anymore.

Their schedule is filled with hard work, parenting, recovery.

“Don’t you miss them?” Rebecca asks.

“Well, the academy sends us these once a week,” Alexa says, producing her phone and flicking through photos, her pointer finger bent to meet the screen with her print, the nail flared back. Something about the toggling gesture feels suggestive. She shows Rebecca several photos of their children, indistinguishably attractive and healthy, performing various athletic and scholarly feats. “Proof of life.”

“Gives me more garage time,” Derek says. “You should see the Targa I just got at auction, a 997.2 4S.”

“He outbid Jerry Seinfeld and Jay Leno.”

“But we get the kids for Thanksgiving, Christmas, ski week, all summer,” Derek adds quickly. “It’s good for them to get instruction elsewhere too. It was good for me.”

“I don’t know what we’d do with all that time,” Rebecca says.

“Oh, we figured out what to do,” Alexa says wickedly. Her eyes flash to her husband. “Should we share?”