It was simply called The Club, something that the members often joked about. It was a total lack of creativity, just the thing one would expect from an organization founded by mining engineers well over a hundred years ago now. Then the bankers had taken it over, eventually joined by lawyers and doctors, until The Club was the premier social organization in the city. You had to be invited in by another member, and then screened by a board. The fee was exorbitant, but the connections, access, and perks it bought were well worth it. Or so everybody that was a member tried to convince themselves.
Jonathan had been a member for years now, and the price did not even register anymore. Years ago, he had written it off as a business expense, but it was more of a social thing, since most of his friends were members as well.
One such group of friends meet every two weeks, usually for golf and lunch. But today it was only lunch, the late winter weather not really supporting the whole golf thing.
"We should go to Hilton Head or something, get out of town for a long weekend." Randy had made his money in trees. With a city ordinance that required trees to be planted according to a complicated formula based on square footage of building space, he was guaranteed to be in business for a while. The city was growing.
"I don't know. If we are getting on a plane, lets go all the way to Arizona, Mexico, something really good." Markus was a lawyer as well as a doctor by trade. He was also probably the smartest man at the table, something he would deny if you asked him. The devout Catholic was the father of six, and the only one here to have never been touched by the cold hand of infidelity.
"South Florida. I was watching the weather channel this morning; it was 80's down there. Unfucking real. If we go, I want to bring the toy." Morrison had made his money in real estate, working closely with Randy. The two were peas in a pod when it came to money, but total opposites in most other things. The toy was his current mistress, instantly drawing a scowl from Markus. He rarely said anything about his friend's habits, but everybody here knew that he did not approve. But he also firmly believed that they would all just burn in hell for it. His priest had told him so.
Jonathan listened to the conversation, his mind turning over the things that his brain and his heart were telling him. The Duty Brain cell had been swamped along time ago, so he had turned down the normal glass of wine he indulged in at these meetings, trying to work through how he felt. The sudden silence at the table ripped him out of his thoughts, as he realized that everybody was looking at him.
"What?"
"Boca?" Randy rolled his eyes. He couldn't stand it when somebody did not keep up in conversation.
"What?"
"Golf. Boca Raton?"
"Fuck, let's go to Vegas."
"Vegas?" Markus was not a big fan of the gambling. But he salivated at the golfing offered there. He didn't like South Florida, either, convinced that it was a cesspool of sinning, so he was surrounded by bad choices.
"Yeah, Vegas. Markus, you know your wife wants to go to that stupid spa again. Wives or girlfriends, no toys. Be a good time." Jonathan made the finger motion for teeing off with his right hand.
There was more silence as everybody looked at the man that was their unspoken leader. Jonathan was the richest amongst them all, but that was not why. He was the most aggressive, and when many of them were still thinking about angels and consequences, he was plunging ahead. And amongst a group considered some of the most forward leaning businessmen on the east coast, that meant a lot.
"Next weekend?"
"You fucking crazy? That's racing. We'll go in two weeks, after we hit the big laps here, and stay in that new place they just opened. Read about it in the Robb Report." Morrison was also a true redneck, no matter how rich he got.
The meeting broke up shortly thereafter, lunch all but forgotten in the decision to head out west. Markus waited for everybody head off, then him and Jonathan headed upstairs to the lounge that took up the top part of the four story suite that The Club occupied in the office tower.
"So what's going on? You've been giving me the eye all afternoon."
"I don't know. You know that girl I'm seeing?"
"Your call girl?" He said with a smile on his face. Jonathan had explained his arrangement to the group last golf outing, to much ohhs and ahhs. He was still conflicted about how he felt about it. Paying for it definitely did not help the karmic balance.
"Yeah, her. You know Robert Enders, right? He asked if he could call her some time, and I about choked his lights out." Despite the fact that Robert Enders, Jonathan Games, and Michael Robinson had started a very profitable and wildly successful Venture Capital firm together, they were not what one might call best friends. They were freaky brilliant when they put their minds together, able to look at raw data and brain storm out which company would make it, which would fail, which could be salvaged, and which would go big.
This often involved a fair amount of conflict, and the three had a private conference room that was super sound proof, where they could scream, yell, curse, and throw things at one another. But they accepted their differences, because they were incredibly rich because of them.
"You and Rob have never really gotten along. If it weren't for Mike, that thing would have never worked out."
"I know. Mike reminded him about our rule of not screwing each others women." It was a pact from way back when, three Harvard boys turning the banking world on its head with their use of data and information management technology to pick winners and separate the wheat from the chaff when it came to losers.
"So what do you want?" Markus had decided against another glass of wine, so he popped the top of a Diet Coke, his poison of choice when coffee was not available. He drank coffee like a fiend.
"I told myself after Angelina that I would never put myself through this again. You know how I get. You know what happens."
"But you think it is happening?"
"Yeah. That's why I want to bring her out. Let you guys see it. You and your wife, you guys are my emotional counter weight."
"Glad to help out. Speaking of my darling wife, her next book is finished."
"Send it down, I'll get that puppy published." One of the things that the firm had acquired was a small publishing business, which had become the outlet for a series of moderately successful books on faith and marriage by Markus's wife Margie.
"You're a scholar and a saint, I don't care what the others say about you."
"He's a NASCAR fan?" Tammy looked truly amazed. To her, NASCAR was a redneck convention, with 200'000 inbred motherfuckers watching cars go in circles, swilling beer and fighting in the stands.
"No. But he says they do a lot of business there. His company owns a box at the track."
"They have boxes at the tracks?"
"Apparently so." Amber shrugged. All it meant to her was that he was not around right now, so she was catching up on studying. She was planning on packing for Vegas, as well, so that she would not do it last minute, as was her normal modus operandi.
"Well, it is Sunday, last day off before we have to go back to school from this beautiful weekend, and you should not spend it sitting here." Jessica was trying to decide if she should wear her short hair up or down. It was her first date with Ricky, and she wanted to make a good impression. Finally she just turned to Tammy, who indicated down with a wave of her hand.
"Don't worry about me. I have studying to do, and I've been out like the last three nights."
"You do go out a lot on school nights."
"Yeah, but my baby is not some spring chicken. He has me home early."
"Not that you go to bed when you come home." Tammy shot her friend a knowing grin in the mirror.
"Do, too."
"Not to sleep. You guys should be a bit more considerate of other people in the building."
