“I’ve been going with the flow,” Jack said. “There’s a lot to get with, turns out.”
“Oh yeah?” Whitney said.
“I mean, that’s probably no surprise, given all…given all this and that. But even more than you’d think,” Jack said, stooping a little to conspire, then catching himself and laughing. “What am I doing? Two drinks in and I’m blah-blah-blah-ing already.”
“Did you guys stay out much later last night?” Whitney said.
“Probably an hour after you. I was dead by the time we left. I don’t know how anyone can do that. This week’s been so surreal.”
“And was it a good rest of the morning after that, then?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Jack said, innocently.
Whitney held fixed, arching her thick eyebrows like a gossip columnist.
“We walked around for a while.”
“Us, too,” Whitney said. “We walked home.”
There was an unnatural lull, the sort that can derail a group of relative strangers. They sipped their drinks and then perked up in unison at the sight of her.
“Well that was fast,” Will said as Jenna fell back in with the bottle and four fresh glasses.
“I cut the line,” Jenna said.
“Saw that,” Will said. “They hopped right to.”
“You do what you can to survive,” Jenna said.
Will poured the wine. They clinked. They swallowed big swallows.
“Jenna, what’ll you do this summer?” Will said. “Summer before senior year.…Internship? More travel? L.A.? New York?”
“I have this job,” Jenna said. “I did it last year. You’ll actually appreciate it, knowing what you know about the Westside.”
“Elbow model?” Whitney said. The first sip had gone straight to her head.
Jenna examined Whitney’s face to see if she was amused with herself, then turned back to Will and said, “I buy books for people to put in their house.”
“Like a personal shopper?” Will said.
“More like an art adviser, but for bookshelves,” Jenna said. “Pick books that make people seem like the sort who would actually read those books.”
“I’ve heard of that,” Whitney said. “Somebody was telling me about it when I was out there last month. I’ve just never met anyone who—”
“These people with, you know,” Jenna said, cutting her off, “the six-thousand-square-foot homes, and the countless rooms, and the miles of shelves—they need decorating help. It’s not like it’s my business. I just work for the woman who does it. She finds the clients. She conducts this personality test. She prepares the lists: mix of classic and contemporary, used and new. And then I go shopping.”
“Local booksellers must love you,” Will said.
“They always insist on taking me out to lunch,” Jenna said.
“I bet one big client’s enough to float a store for a month, right?” Whitney said.
Jenna shrugged and poured herself another few fingers of wine.
“I helped deliver boxes to students when I was home for summers in college,” Will said. “A friend of mine from high school ran a dorm-moving business. I thought that whole thing was rich L.A., as far as seemingly unnecessary services go—pick up the boxes for you, stick them in storage, bring the boxes back to campus in August—but yours has got it beat by miles.”
“She gets five bucks a book,” Jenna said.
“Same as what an author gets,” Whitney said, laughing.
“And some of these guys—and they’re obviously mostly men—they’re in it for thousands and thousands of books.”
“I don’t get it,” Jack said. “If they’re just for decoration, what does it matter which books they are?”
“Simple Jack,” Jenna said. “You sweet, beautiful boy. So sensemaking. So pure.”
“All right, all right,” he said.
“The clients study up to have passing familiarity. She forces you to memorize the title and the author, to be able to move among them. So that if some guest browsing at your party says, you know, ‘Oh, White Teeth!’ he can get in a ‘Zadie? I love Zadie.’”
“Does she give them flash cards?” Whitney said. “Slides?”
“Spreadsheet included,” Jenna said. “PowerPoint for another buck a book.”
“It’s like an art history class!” Whitney said. “Painting to artist. Artist to painting. Incredible.”
“So what’s your cut, then?” Will said.
“I get a dollar a book,” Jenna said. “Plus lunch and gas. Lunch, if the booksellers don’t bribe me first with a sandwich. I made a couple grand one week last summer. I buy, I deliver, I buy, I deliver. Sometimes it’s less specific. Sometimes it’s: Pick fifty at random from the New Releases tables at the front of the store.”
“And then you just swing them by the house, one box at a time?” Will said.
“However they please. She gives them choices for arrangement. Author name. Country. Language. Era. Color.”
“Obviously color is an option,” Whitney said.
“One guy last summer wanted a thousand blue books—that was it.”
“No significance beyond blue?” Jack said.
“It’s the easiest of all. No personality tests. No manufactured taste. Just blue. And hardcover…the older the better was the preference. I went to twenty stores. I picked up the final hundred from the Used bins at Vroman’s.”
“Maybe I move to L.A. instead of going home,” Jack said. “Learn the real ways of the world.”
“You can live with my dad,” Jenna said. “He’ll love it. Someone to watch Lakers games with. Someone to play golf with.”
“It’s settled, then,” Jack said. “Cali, here I come.”
“Ugh,” Jenna said.
“What now?” Jack said.
“Never say that,” Jenna said.
“SoCal?” Jack said.
“Will: Cali? SoCal?”
“California. Southern California,” Will said.
“Got it?” Jenna said to Jack.
Will smiled and Whitney squinted. There were shifting tethers, fluid alliances.
“But it won’t get you in trouble like how San Franciscans feel about San Fran,” Will said.
“No good, either?” Jack said.
“They’ll run you out,” Will said.
“This is great,” Jenna said. “This is why we travel. To meet strangers and suck out of each other what’s worth sucking out.”
There was a halt. Three of the four wineglasses elevated. Whitney looked at Jack to see if they were sharing in a conspiracy; Will was watching Jenna to see if it had been a joke. The temperature rose in their corner of the restaurant.
“You know,” Jack said, running right through it, “some people think I’m pretty cool.”
“Maybe in your athlete days of yore,” Jenna said.
“Maybe that’s
