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but she’s positive there’s not one person on earth who uses the term ironic accurately,
Otto St. Clair’s name constantly dominated headlines, and he was well known for his eccentricities—like buying a chain of exclusive uninhabited islands off the coast of Belize just so he could create his own country, Ottolaw.
Brick pauses, and the silence is so pure and tension-filled, Jane’s reminded of that one time in Vegas, pre-kids, when Dan had too many mai tais and put two hundred dollars they couldn’t afford on black at the roulette table and she nearly passed out waiting for the ball to drop. “As long as it takes,” he says. “We’ve come this far.”
It’s that motherhood is hard, and sometimes the only bright spot is when you see someone having a harder time at it than you are, and you can momentarily dwell in the comforting reminder that
Jane’s eyes flash. “It’s a metaphor!” she shouts. To be fair, it was what most of the negative reviews pointed out: What was the point of the book if the bad guys just got away with
“The worst?” Otto shrugs. “Nah. I’m not even the worst tech CEO. BuzzFeed named me second behind Elon Musk.”
Otto doesn’t respond, and Dan has to wonder what it is with billionaires and their obsession with sitting on gold when they take a shit.
“This was all my idea! I mean, your idea. Our idea. Once you’re on the news, having survived a terrorist attack, just like in your book, it’ll go viral.” He shrugs. “Or
we talked all night about how we were going to get one of these vans and fix it up and live in it. Just travel the world and hike, and you would write and I would…What was I going to do?” Dan
“Give drum lessons,”
that’s just yours?” It sounds stupid when he says it out loud. A terrible excuse for
I just thought I would do something that mattered. Something important. Do you know what I mean? But it feels like nothing I do matters.”
“No—you’ve been acting. It’s what you always do. You just go off half-cocked with no plan, consequences be damned.”
but suddenly a plate comes whistling through the air, hitting Isaac’s temple with a sickening thud.
“I really did like your book. Such a brilliant metaphor for the evils of capitalism and how the powerful and wealthy and corrupt can act solely in their best interest with impunity from consequence.”
“As a novelist, don’t you know?” He grins. “Every great heist has a wild card. Ours was Isaac.”
“Change clothes with me. I’ll go over the cliff. You can say you were at the restaurant with Dad.” “It won’t work! Besides”—her face screws up in disgust—“I would never wear that.”
It’s a cruel, horrible place and I’m so terrified for you to be here. It’s a wonderful, beautiful place and I’m so glad you’re here.
Kip frowns, disliking the man almost instantly. At least Emilio had been humble; kind, even.
Briefly, it occurs to him how much faster Olympians could be were they running from an explosive device. Running for their lives. The Olympics would certainly be more entertaining, anyway.
The truth is, most people are doing the best they can, given their situations.
