And so yes, I think it all has more to do with Jimmy McTeague than with anybody. At her 
birthday party in late July, he told me that he thought the world was meant to be owned 
by people like him.
  I believe those were his exact words.
  Yes, he had money. Yes, he was extremely good looking for a boy his age.
  Extremely. Only a fool wouldn’t notice that. But he had no spirit. What he had was pure 
badness. He was absolutely pure in his badness.
  I once had a dog like that. Beautiful. Completely bad.
  Jimmy McTeague’s like that.
  I really began to hate that boy at Jenna’s birthday party.
  
  
  Chapter Four
  The birthday party 
  1
  In the mirror, Owen combed his hair, parting it a bit higher, not to the middle of his 
forehead, but certainly an inch higher than his usual. He also brushed it back so it rose 
a bit higher. The summer blond-streaks looked better this way. He rubbed some gel into 
it, and made sure the part was clean. He smiled as naturally as he could. No, that wasn’t 
right. He let his lips pull back slightly. He squinted his eyes the way that Jimmy did. 
It looked rich to do it.
  Like the sun was always on his face, even on a cloudy day.
  Then, he rubbed some of his mother’s Neutrogena face lotion on his face. It brought a 
shine to his cheeks and nose. He wasn’t sure if he liked it, but it seemed to be what the 
rich boys had. That shine.
  Hanging on the bathroom door: the crisp J Crew shirt, pale blue, the tan chinos. He 
dressed, and then returned to his bedroom to get the gift he'd wrapped that morning.
  “You’re not going to that party,” his mother said, glancing at his father.
  Both sat in the small living room in the dark, the television providing the only source 
of light. Their faces flickered. His father laughed. “Oh, he’ll have fun.
  The kids are really going to mix it up.”
  “Yeah. It’ll be fun.”
  “You’re not one of them,” his mother said. “You can pretend. You always pretend.” Then, 
she turned to his father, patting his shoulder. “Well?”
  “Leave it alone, Boston,” his father said. “It’s the kids’ party. You used to go to 
parties.”
  “What’s that you’ve got there?” his mother asked. She got up from the couch, setting 
her beer down on the coffee table. His father reached over, turning on the standing lamp. 
Light came up. His mother looked gray, despite the fact that she colored her hair. Even 
her skin seemed gray. His father looked like a wisp of smoke. It was all Owen could do to 
keep them from vanishing within the room.
  Owen looked down at the box in his hands. “It’s her birthday.”
  “You bought her something?” his mother asked, a grin spreading like blood on her face. 
He could imagine her dead, her skull cracked open like an egg. “You bought the Montgomery 
girl something? Working for tips at the Salty Dog and you bought the richest girl in the 
world something?” She shook her head gently. “Owen, you’re always trying to impress 
someone with what you don’t have.” She said this sweetly, and he felt a twinge of love 
for her then.
  He almost felt bad for what he’d done. He almost felt bad for what he’d stolen from his 
mother to put in the box.
  He almost felt bad for what he was giving Jenna.
  Almost.
  2
  The party was in full swing by ten at night. Every Nancy, every Skip, every Jess and 
Sloan, they all were there, poolside. The great curtains were drawn back, and the glass 
doors had been removed for the party. White tents had been erected along the yard; 
lanterns of every conceivable hue strung along the walkway to the Montgomery place, and 
balloons flew with some regularity from the back acre. The smell of cigarettes and 
perfume and gin and beer and money were there, too.
  Watching it, you’d have seen nearly fifty teenagers dancing, laughing, shouting, a tall 
blond girl with flowing hair and limbs soaked from having been thrown into the swimming 
pool, the fat drunk frat boy vomiting over by the birdbath, half-a-dozen homely young 
women shining under the spotlight of boy’s gazes — for lust and money and breeding and 
privilege all attract beyond mere looks. The Sound sparkled with moonlight, and summer 
was at its peak, the sun had only just gone down an hour before, and the smell of salt 
sea air mingled with the foam of mermaids’ souls, lost from true love.
  All these things Owen thought.
  3
  “Did you see Jimmy at the nationals? God, I hear he’s going to be at Wimbledon someday. 
Soon.”
  “If he’s at Harvard —”
  “When he’s at Harvard, I’m going to call him Jimmy McTeague of the Ivy League. Isn’t 
that cute?”
  “I think what’s cute is his father. Have you ever met him?”
  “Well, I’ve been in the store.”
  “Sports superstores never interested me. It seems crass to sell that kind of thing.”
  “I read in Forbes that his dad is worth several billion.”
  “Dead or alive?”
  “Dead; then Jimmy’s worth that.”
  “Jimmy McTeague is shallow. He is. He’s not smart either,” one deb said, her party 
dress ruined because someone spilled a Bloody Mary down the front. “He’s pretty but he’s 
dumb. And my uncle went to Yale with his father, and let me tell you, that man was nearly 
kicked out for cheating and once that kind of thing happens, you never know.”
  Owen stood back, beyond the lights that had been set up along the tents, and watched 
them all.
  The small gift in its box, in his trembling hands.
  “Smooth. Just be smooth,” he whispered to himself.
  He wanted to make sure Jenna saw the gift.
  Saw what it meant.
  4
  Jimmy McTeague held onto a bourbon and water as if for dear life, and he laughed with 
his jock friends, and he eyed the other girls, and he thanked Mrs. Montgomery for the 
excellent whiskey. “People who have whiskey like this should own the world,” and even 
when he said it, he didn’t know what it meant; and when he saw Owen standing just at the 
edge of the party, he raised his glass and shouted, “Yo, Mooncalf, get your ass over 
here!”
  5
  Jenna Montgomery, in her own words:
  Here are things I’ve read about and I really believe:
  The happiest of people don’t necessarily have the best of everything; they just make