The Bend of the World: A Novel by Jacob Bacharach Read Free Book Online Page A

bunch in the stock market. No one ever talked about it because there wasn’t anything to talk about. It’s actually a very boring story.
    What’s a boring story?
    Jesus! I yelped. Mark and Helen had appeared behind us again.
    Sorry, said Helen. Mark is always sneaking up on people. It’s how we met. I was so startled that I accidentally agreed to go out with him.
    Cool, said Lauren Sara.
    Smokers, said Mark. I like you guys even more. Can we steal cigarettes from you? Neither of us smokes unless someone else gives us cigarettes.
    We all stood for a while watching the end of the party queuing up at valet.
    So what’s this boring story? Mark asked.
    Oh, nothing. We were talking about my grandmother.
    And who’s your grandmother?
    It was an odd question, so I laughed, but he seemed to want an answer, so I said, No one. An old lady who may or may not have squandered her fortune.
    That doesn’t sound boring, said Helen.
    Trust me.
    I don’t, said Mark. It sounds like an English novel. The Life and Times of . . .
    He trailed off. I didn’t say anything. Lauren Sara said, Nanette Morrison.
    Nanette? said Helen.
    That’s her name, said Lauren Sara.
    No shit, said Mark. We know your grandma. How about that?
    How do you know my grandmother?
    She bought a piece from Helen.
    Oh, cool! said Lauren Sara.
    A piece? I said.
    Of art, Helen answered. I was an artist.
    15
    I have to warn you, Mark said.
    Warn me?
    Helen is going to stuff your girlfriend’s nose full of coke.
    She’s not really into coke.
    No offense, Mark said, but she looks a little get-along, go-along.
    You might be right.
    They’d gone off to the bathroom together, and I’d made some lame comment about women going to the bathroom together. Mark had asked for another cigarette. So, I said, you don’t really think all artists should be shot.
    He shrugged and grinned and inhaled and exhaled.
    Seeing, I said, as your girlfriend is an artist.
    Mark said, She’s the exception that proves the rule.
    It’s funny that you know my grandmother.
    All coincidences converge on the inevitable, he said.
    I’m sorry? I said.
    So what do you do, Pete? he asked as if he hadn’t heard me.
    Corporate shill, I said. Fake money and contracts and stuff. I work for a big company downtown, although no one’s ever heard of it. What about you?
    Sort of a lawyer.
    What’s a sort-of lawyer?
    I don’t practice. I’m a bit of a corporate shill myself. I used to work at a company called Dynamix.
    Sounds like a breakfast cereal.
    That’s funny, he said. That was actually a joke around the office. It was a consulting firm, whatever that means. Anyway, then I did some private consulting and equity stuff for a while, and now I’m working for a big Dutch NV that’s gobbling up some shitty American companies for reasons that only the Übermenschen in Rotterdam comprehend.
    Oh shit, I said.
    He smiled—not a grin, not a smirk, not a guarded display of approval or pleasure, but an actual unmediated expression of joy. Really? He said, and then he laughed, and his laughter, too, was disturbingly genuine. Global Solutions Solutions for a Global World?
    16
    This, more or less, was how we ended up crushed in the back seat of Mark’s little fast car on our way to what Mark called Our Club. New friendships require less bargaining than old ones, less planning, fewer points to settle and details to iron out; for instance, I’d left my car on a side street in Oakland; if it had been Tom or Derek or even Johnny (not that the issue would have come up with Johnny, who didn’t have a car and did not, to the best of my knowledge, know how to drive), I’d have worried about that part—for no good reason, but nevertheless. But that evening it had seemed immaterial. The valets had brought Mark’s silver teardrop around, and we were off.
    We whistled down Fifth Avenue, past the university and the hospitals, a pile of immense, mismatched buildings that climbed the hillside to our right like a stepped