The woman was right, Sebastian had seen it himself in Tripoli. But the man remained undaunted.
“They said the same about our war. Until they didn’t,” he said. “Locals helping enemy are enemy. Families of terrorists are terrorists. That’s how the wogs fight. That’s how it works. Weren’t you a protestor? Flower power didn’t save Saigon from the horde.”
“That’s not fair.” To be accused of being a peacemonger was a big deal for older people, Sebastian knew. “We were doing what we thought was right. We were trying to protect our friends and classmates. Our brothers.”
The silver-haired man turned to Sebastian again. “How would you feel, young man,” he said, “if your friends and classmates took to the streets with picket signs while you were getting shot at for your country?”
“Hmm.” The Found Generation, protesting war? An absurd thought. They’d been raised to trust the government. But Sebastian didn’t say that. Instead he repeated the common wisdom used for years to resolve conversations like this. “It’d be strange. I know we’re all thankful the protestors helped end the draft, though. Made the all-volunteer force possible. Which is how you all finally won Vietnam.” Should he add the pat phrase you were supposed to use here? Why not. “Praise to the Victors.”
The veteran and the protestor both nodded at that. Sebastian excused himself, saying he needed to find the betrothed. Eighty or so people were inside the restaurant, talking and laughing, gathered in clumps like raked leaves. Glass chandeliers hung from the ceiling and bathed the room in a yellow glow. Every man he could see wore a navy blazer with a bright summer tie. He tugged reflexively at his own collar. Waiters with trays moved around the dining room in step. Sebastian took a breath and routed for the bar, cutting through groups with apologies he didn’t mean. He looked for people he might’ve known from before but recognized no one. Maybe it’s the wrong engagement party? he thought. Then he spotted the gift table with a placard on it that read, “Tucker—Stein.”
A gift, Sebastian thought. Whoops.
The bar line proved long and slow-moving. Sebastian kept his head low but his ears open. He listened to a conversation in front of him. A middle-aged man was complaining about his niece going to a pricy school like Empire State to become a teacher. He listened to a conversation behind him. A pair of brokers about his age were complaining about the unreliability of their drug dealer. Getting high in Empire City used to be easier! He listened to a conversation adjacent to him. An elderly woman was complaining about the Tucker grandfather. She was descended from Mayflower pilgrims, too, she said. Where did he get the nerve?
This fucking place, Sebastian thought. Becoming an American city-state had only made it more of a bubble. He rubbed at his eyes under his sunglasses, wiping away beads of sweat. The line remained slow-moving. He looked up and studied the wall behind the bar. A watercolor of a broad-shouldered man wearing a Stetson and a mustache like a bandit covered it. The man stood in front of a fallen gray elephant, presumably shot by the musket the man held in the crook of his arm. He resisted an impulse to salute the painting. Serious people stood around him, and serious people took things like watercolors seriously. Still, the gun and the elephant stirred something in him. What it was felt slippery to Sebastian. He had strong feelings neither about guns nor elephants.
“Of course you’d be here,” Mia Tucker said, approaching Sebastian from the side. He grabbed his whiskey and coke from the bartender—he hated drinking beer on an empty stomach—and congratulated his friend with a hug.
“Drinking away the day,” Mia continued. “Tsk-tsk, See-Bee.”
Sebastian smirked at the old nickname. “It’s a party, you know?”
“It is,” she said.
Tall and thin, Mia didn’t look like the type of woman who’d served in the army, Sebastian thought, which he knew was probably sexist of him, but he still thought it. He’d always thought of her more as a tennis player, or the serious friend in a romantic comedy. Her olive skin and close-cropped raven hair emphasized features he’d once described as “hawkish” in a profile for their college newspaper. Wearing a floral maxi dress, she may as well have been attending a fraternity formal instead of her own engagement party.
“You look nice,” he said.
“Thanks,” she said. “You look like you.”
Sebastian and Mia’s friendship had begun as freshmen in Philosophy 101, which felt like a long time ago to them both. The next semester she’d convinced him to join the army ROTC program with her, something he’d soon drop but she’d find much purpose in, becoming the cadet commander their senior year. Just the second woman named to that position in Dupont University history, Mia went on to commission as an active-duty officer and fly attack helicopters in the Mediterranean Wars, fighting terror across four combat zones (Syria, Albania, New Beirut, and the Barbary Coast).
“Biggest testes in the family,” the Tucker grandfather had said at her college graduation dinner, something only Sebastian had laughed at. Everyone else had stared at their plates, no one harder or deeper than Mia.
That had been six years before, though, before Tripoli. Before a lot of other things, too.
They caught up on mutual acquaintances and gossip. Had he heard about the volleyball girl joining the separatist cult out west? Some people just couldn’t get it together. Had she heard about the creepy Sig Ep from sophomore year who fell off a cruise ship? Police suspected his new bride had pushed him. Sebastian was figuring out how to bring up the night before when a pale man approached and put his arm around Mia. She pulled him in as if gravity depended upon it.
“Jesse Stein,” the pale man said, putting out his hand.
Sebastian did the same. Jesse squeezed hard and tilted both palms toward him. Sebastian squeezed back and introduced himself, all the while thinking, I hate alpha power games. They’re so un-alpha.
But he said, “Congratulations. Good to finally meet.”
“I’ve heard a lot ab-about you,” Jesse said, a verbal tic almost coached away dashing his words. “You’re another Yankee who went south for school.”
“Who says that anymore?” Mia asked. Her voice made it clear that Jesse should not be saying it anymore. “And he’s not. He’s not anything. He’s from California.”
Her attention shifted to an end of the restaurant before Sebastian could summon a response. She patted both men’s forearms and walked that way. Sebastian whistled, low and without melody. Jesse tapped his foot and looked at the ground.
“So,” Sebastian said. He always felt awkward around people his age who had money. He was also surprised. Mia’s type in college had been different. Tall, dark, and awful, mostly. “How’d you kids meet?”
“Through, uh, work.” Jesse coughed and straightened his tie—Sebastian took in his choice of a classic sack suit, deciding it was a good decision for someone with his build, round and loose, like an old balloon.
“Fantastic.” Sebastian patted Jesse’s shoulder and swigged more whiskey and coke. “Well done on the rock, man. That thing could blind Stevie Wonder.” He tapped at his sunglasses for effect.
Jesse laughed, an honest, raw laugh, Sebastian thought, which pleased him. For a few minutes Jesse explained the complexities of diamond negotiations. Sebastian tried to care but couldn’t, his mind drifting to the night before, and the man who’d defied his way into suicide.