Page 83 of Exit Party

“What? Why?”

“My doctor was on my case about it yesterday.”

“Less than once a week.” I was exaggerating wildly. Less than once a month was more accurate. I’ve never found alcohol especially compelling.

“You dating anyone?” Fayed asked.

“Intermittently. Nothing steady.” I liked first and even second dates, but I found it best to fade out after a night or two. My life had too many secrets.

“Women? Men?”

“Both. I like to alternate.”

“Okay, let me ask you something. You date women, so maybe you’ll understand this. Do you remember when you first realized that women are crazy?”

“What?” Oh, Nico, my friend, what were you thinking.

“I’m sorry. I’m drunk. I don’t mean you specifically, obviously, I mean as a population. Women as a group. I found it liberating, personally.” Fayed’s gaze had drifted to the musician, bent over her guitar. The musician’s hair shone gold under the lights.

“You ever date men?” I asked. “Or just women?” The other Kareem, according to his interview transcripts, had mostly—but by no means exclusively—dated men.

Fayed laughed. “I’m the straightest guy you ever met in your life,” he said.

I looked at him. His jeans were tighter than any straight man’s jeans I’d ever seen.

“She’s hot,” Fayed said, meaning the musician.

“Oh,” I said. “Sure, yeah, she’s pretty.” But she wasn’t really my type. I’ve never been that into blondes. I just thought her music was good. I liked her voice, low and almost raspy. She was singing about travel across the State, hard miles on a motorcycle from Las Vegas to New York. “Remind me,” I said, desperate to change the subject, “how old are your kids?”

“Young. Samir’s four, Marlowe’s three. You don’t have kids, right?”

“No,” I said.

“Dodged a bullet,” Fayed said.

“But just, like, as a hypothetical,” Fayed said. “Would you want to have kids?”

We’d finished what I had decided would absolutely be my last drink of the evening. The singer was gone. How late was it? Very, but it didn’t actually matter that much, because tomorrow was my day off and I didn’t have to get up in the morning.

“I was never that interested,” I said. “Where are your kids?”

“Sleeping.”

“They’ve been alone all this time?”

“They’re fine. Don’t worry about them. Look, I’ve got this app.” Fayed fumbled on his phone, swiping here and there, and then showed me a screen that I was certain he hadn’t looked at all evening.

“Is that your living room?” I was looking at a video image of two small children curled up together on what looked like a pullout couch.

“The kids like sleeping in the living room. It’s like camping.”

“I hated camping,” I said dreamily. Hazy memories of some god-awful span of time next to a lake when I was a kid, rain leaking through the tent into my sleeping bag, cold food, mosquitoes, smoke.

“We both know there’s no crime anymore,” Fayed said. “That’s the Promise of the State, right?”

“To the State,” I said, and raised my glass. “But you’re not worried they’ll wake up and be scared?”

“Oh.” He looked startled. “I guess that never occurred to me.”