The Book of Jonah Read Free Page B

wunderkind talk hard for Jonah to take seriously, though, was the fact that Patrick was among the most socially inept people he had ever met. He wasn’t a bad guy, really; he just had an astonishing talent for annoyance. The massive overbid on the baseball—ruining the entire fun of it—was, sadly, typical: Patrick seemed possessed by the very simple and very dumb idea that he could invest his way out of his social awkwardness—discover some trade of assets that would return him genuine affection, or at least popularity. Hence the parties he regularly threw at his massive Tribeca loft; the invitations he sprayed wildly to just-opened restaurants and to exclusive-ish clubs; the outsize donations to next-gen charities like QUEST. And, predictably, the more lavish and transparent these efforts were, the less success they met with.
    â€œI’m impressed you guys came out tonight,” Patrick observed. “Y’know, Aaron and I had dinner a couple nights ago,” he continued, not knowing, or not wanting, to disguise his pride in this achievement. “We were talking about how important it is to get people to these events who don’t actually care about charity.” Patrick laughed again, though, again, no one else did.
    â€œWell, if I knew you were coming…” one of them said.
    â€œIt’s really ironic, though,” Patrick went on. “Finance is supposed to be so evil, but Goldman does more in terms of corporate citizenship than an organization like this could ever dream of. Even though I retired several years ago, I’m still active in their—”
    â€œAnyway,” Seth interrupted, making a show of turning his shoulders away from Patrick. “They’re probably going to close the open bar in a few minutes.” He turned to Jonah. “You want to come?”
    Jonah knew he ought not glance over to see Patrick staring into Seth’s shoulder with guileless hope of being invited, too. But he did; and somehow the idea of ditching Patrick struck him as counter to the entire spirit of QUEST—whatever that was supposed to be. “No, I’m gonna make a bid or something,” Jonah answered, regretting it even as the words left his mouth.
    Seth shrugged, almost sympathetically. “Suit yourself.…” And he and the others moved off toward the stairs.
    â€œSo, I didn’t know you were involved with QUEST,” Patrick said as they left.
    On top of everything, Jonah’s beer was now empty, which only seemed to confirm he’d made a mistake in remaining. “A friend of mine is on the board,” he replied.
    â€œAdrian? Jin? Kent? Abbey? Philip?”
    It didn’t exactly surprise Jonah that Patrick could recite the names of the entire QUEST board from memory; he’d probably been asking them to dinner for months. “Philip and I went to law school together,” Jonah explained.
    Patrick nodded, a pair of dips of his long head. “And Philip went to undergrad at Princeton with Aaron.”
    â€œThat’s how these things work,” Jonah replied.
    â€œSo how are things with Sylvia?” Patrick now inquired a little too eagerly. “Things good with you guys?” And he then finished off the glass of champagne in his hand a little too gulpingly.
    Of all the irritating aspects of Patrick’s personality, this one was the hardest to reconcile with a belief that he was not really a bad guy: Before Jonah met Sylvia, Patrick had been not-so-subtly courting her—and had never fully stopped courting her, despite the fact that he knew she and Jonah had been dating seriously for months. Granted, Patrick not-so-subtly courted every woman in finance he met; and, in more dispassionate moments, Jonah could even identify a certain integrity in Patrick’s attempts to find a romantic partner with her own career and money, rather than just dating a platinum-blond Russian whose greatest aspiration in life