Page 47 of Old Money
“You.” Jamie points at me. “Freight elevator. Let’s go.”
***
The lemon crisis began with an unexpected flood of Tom Collins orders. The drink is always on the menu, but today it’s all anyone wants.
“Every year, it’s something like this,” Jamie explains, shoving an ancient key into the ancient elevator operating panel. It jolts to life.
“In 2016 we ran out of gin. Fuck, man, that was a day.”
He recounts the great gin disaster as we descend to the cold-storage room where the kitchen staff keep a backup stash of frozen lemon juice. (“We have to ration fresh. When martini time hits, we’re gonna need those twists.”) Jamie’s so jacked on manic energy he’s practically bouncing on his feet.
“You’re not fired, by the way,” he says, as the elevator bumps to a stop. “But—we need to talk.”
The elevator doors clank open and Jamie leaps forward, running toward the freezers.
“Later though,” he calls, his voice echoing in the dark. “When they’re gone.”
They never leave though. They just keep coming. The Descent is an endless, lawless day, with the whole staff working overtime and some of them not even staff. Jamie and I return from cold storage to find Cory by the elevator, waiting with some blond kid I’ve never seen before. Without a word, they swoop in to help unload the tubs of frozen lemon juice, all of us running them down the hall like vital organs to all the suffering, Tom Collins–less people at the grill.
The rest of the day is a sweaty blur. I spend most of it in a golf cart, ferrying coolers of lemon juice to the satellite bars set up around club grounds, with the help of the blond kid—who, it turns out, is both Cory’s brotherandthirteen years old.
“It’s cool!” the kid tells me. “Cory said it’s okay as long as they don’t pay me, because of child labor.”
I drive him to the staff parking lot and tell him to call his dad, wondering how many laws I’ve broken, serving cocktails mixers from a vehicle, with a minor, in ninety-two-degree heat.
I go inside for a bottle of water and somehow end up carrying a pallet of them to the snack bar. The snack bar needs napkins, so I hike up the hill and go in through the basement door, where an attendant pops out of the men’s locker room with a wild-eyed look, implores me to fetch more mouthwash, then disappears before telling me where to find it. I ask a grill server who tells me to ask the valet, who tells me to fuck off because he’s on his first break in six hours and he just wants to finish his sandwich in peace,please.
“Sorry,” he says after a moment, a fleck of tuna on his lip. “Long day.”
That’s when I look at my watch and realize it’s almost 6:00 p.m.
“Holy shit, what happened,” I say to my wrist.
“Right?” the valet answers, wiping his mouth. “Worse every year.”
***
I knock on Jamie’s open office door and lean in.
“Got a minute?”
I’m officially gross, my skin tacky with dried sweat and a Picasso-esque sunburn on the left side of my body from my afternoon in the golf cart. But Jamie’s even more wrecked. He’s reclining in his desk chair, eyes shut, mouth ajar and clutching the armrests with a white-knuckle grip. He looks like he’s fallen asleep on a roller coaster.
“Hi. Hey.” He jolts forward, shaking himself awake. “What’s wrong, what happened?”
“Nothing. I just thought we could talk.”
“It’s not about Matthew, is it?”
“Who?Oh.” Cory’s brother. Feels like that happened a monthago. “You mean the child bartender I drove around without a seat belt? No.”
I risk a smile and sit down.
“Look,” I begin.
“You know what?” Jamie says. “I know I said we should talk, but—another time. I really don’t want to get into it.”
“Okay. I do though.”
