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Tom stopped short. "What's he doing here?"
"It's Christmas, Charlie Brownnose." Roman saluted with his drink. "Connor and Willa invited me."
Shiv was awkward with pregnancy, already wondering how much worse it was going to get as her due date approached. She felt like a container ship trying to navigate the Suez Canal, but thankfully the apartment was still half-empty from the post-funeral vulture fest so she had lots of space to turn and meet him when Rome came at her for a hug.
"You tanked StarGo's stock prices," said Tom. "You got us in trouble with the FEC and the FFC and ATN is being fined into the ground and the Jimenez administration is going to be even less lenient than the Raisin's."
"I swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," said Rome. "Not my fault StarGo can't handle it."
Shiv couldn't even be mad at him, because she wasn't StarGo's American CEO. It didn't affect her, and he knew it. Besides, Darwin had already testified he thought the missing ballots would have given Jimenez the edge and he'd made the opposite call after pressure from corporate leadership. And then Roman had cheerfully admitted that he'd been in contact with Mencken's team all night, that Mencken's campaign manager had asked him to make ATN make the call with a sort of gee shucks, you will find nary an ethics course on my transcript, I never should have been let into the C Suite, that somehow made him seem but a pawn in the great game of life, or at least late-stage capitalism, a self-deprecation that sold despicably well.
And yes, it had started the StarGo stock's slide downwards, but that could have been managed with competent leadership. Shiv might even have felt sympathetic--or smug--enough to help Tom manage that crisis. Only then the India numbers got splashed across the trade pages, and then it had come out that it wasn't just India's numbers, courtesy of Ebba, who sensed blood in the water and started raining napalm down on whatever bits of earth had been left unscorched. Her burn book was even worse than expected. Shiv couldn't be mad at Ebba either.
"Tom, it's no big deal--"
"He made me look like a total asshole."
"Newsflash, dingus," said Rome. "You are a--" Shiv stepped on her foot. "Ow!"
"Hey, guys," said Connor, coming into the living room with a frilly pink and white apron that said Kiss the Chef, "Can we not fight? Willa's mom is here and she hates conflict."
"Wow, did she ever end up with the wrong in-laws," Shiv murmured. "Wait, are you cooking?"
"Yeah, Willa's mom is teaching me to make her famous roasted Brussels sprouts with bacon and balsamic glaze recipe. And I already made mashed potatoes from a box!"
"Congratulations, but that's kind of disgusting."
"Hey, Con, remind Duluth Iscariot over here that we've all screwed each other a bunch, him more than the rest of us, so he needs to stop being so fucking precious about it."
"That's what family does," said Connor. "You hurt each other, you get over it, you move on. I mean, I'm sad that I don't get to be ambassador to Slovenia for a few more years, but sometimes your family gives you lemons and you give them to your personal chef and then the next time your family comes over you can all enjoy a nice tall glass of lemonade and maybe some lemon tart and lemon curd and lemon shortbread."
"Or you pay a therapist four hundred dollars an hour to hold the lemons for you," Shiv said.
"Your therapist only charges four hundred an hour?"
"I'm not as fucked up as you, Rome. Plus, they're probably charging you a dick pic premium."
"They're therapists, all they want to talk about is dicks and parents and I've already shown them pictures of our parents."
"Come on, guys, Willa's mom, don't be rude." Connor herded them through the apartment and into the kitchen.
Willa's mom was elbow-deep in a turkey's butthole. "Hello, dears!" She waved with her free hand which was glistening with some kind of oil or butter. "So lovely to see you both again."
She sounded like she meant it. Shiv exchanged a glance with Roman; he was clearly thinking the same thing and neither of them really knew how to interact with genuinely nice people. "Yeah," Shiv said. "Great to see you too."
"Yes, hello, Willa's yummy mummy."
She laughed. "Oh, please, call me Sylvia."
"Well, lovely to see you, Sylvia," said Shiv, who also didn't know how to interact with people who laughed at Rome's jokes without scorn.
"Be a lamb and check if the gravy in the fridge is defrosted yet."
"Oh, yeah, sure," said Rome. "This come from a box too?"
Willa's mom laughed again. "Of course not, it's from Duane Reade." It was fascinating. Like she was completely immune to Roys. "I'd ask my daughter to do it but she's busy with her new play."
Willa had slotted herself in a corner of the kitchen between cabinets and wine fridge, dressed in an ecru sheath dress and pearls for camouflage.
"Your new play?" Roman asked. "Theaters come back begging to your door?"
Willa didn't look up from her phone. She knew her in-laws, at least. "Something like that, yes."
Shiv supposed they were, between the inheritance and Connor's share of the Waystar sale, and how much money he'd thrown at the previous disaster. "What's it about?"
"Four children fighting over which of them will get their father's crown when he dies."
Even Willa's mom stopped fisting the turkey for a second and looked at Willa.
"Not like that," said Connor. "It's inspired by House of the Dragon, honey, isn't it?"
"Yeah, but with, like, a modern setting to keep the props and costume budget down."
"So House of the Dragon without any dragons?"
"Just House?" asked Shiv. "Because I think that title's already taken."
Willa shrugged. "You can't copyright a word."
"Hey, Sylvia, how do I tell if it's defrosted?"
"Bring it here, that's a good boy."
Shiv couldn't get Rome out of the kitchen fast enough. "Before she calls you a very good boy and you cream your pants."
"Willa's mom has got it going on," Rome said. Shiv socked his arm. "What?"
"You are so gross and transparent," Shiv said. "Hey, I have something to show you."
"I thank you for your offer, but even your tits cannot turn my head from the glory that is Willa's mom."
Shiv socked him again. They were in one of the rooms in the initial stages of renovation, and it was dark and there was plastic sheeting cutting off the entire east side and paintings sitting on the floor. There was a pale leather sofa that must have been a new addition by Willa, thankfully not the cow print one but it was butter yellow and flat and Shiv already knew she was going to have problems trying to climb out of it.
Rome sat on it anyway, so she had to, but before she could pull out the phone to show him his rang: a flash of the name Jerry Mencken on the screen.
"Wow, the Ghost of Christmas Fash," said Shiv. "You need to get that?"
But Roman was already hitting decline.
"What's that about?"
"According to previous voicemails, he wants to know if I'll come work on his next campaign."
Shiv blinked. "Even after--?" Mencken had appeared surprisingly civil on the news about the Wisconsin court case, insisting he didn't know about the crimes but he could blame neither his campaign manager nor Roman, that whole extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice bullshit, but Shiv had assumed it was all an act. That Mencken was angry, that he'd want nothing more to do with Roman, but on the other hand, Roman might give off a scent that sadists found irresistible. Roman Roy, sadist magnet. "Would you?"
"No," said Rome. "I'm not even returning his calls. I can't--I thought--I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop. I feel like I'm always asking people to beat me up and the only way to avoid getting beaten up is to avoid the people who care enough to beat me up. Mom's perfect for that. Connor and Willa work too. And I guess I'm willing to take the risk with you."
Shiv thought about Tom in their dead dad's living room, the only changes there absences of furniture, paintings, a couple of lamps and candlesticks. It felt echoing and empty, wrong in a way that this half-demolished room with the flat, uncomfortable couch didn't. "Huh. Maybe I should try an eight hundred dollar shrink too."
"My guy also doodles. Mostly pictures of my dick. But he occasionally dispenses good advice."
"Yeah," said Shiv. "I'm proud of you."
"Ew, yuck, gross." He leaned in to her a little anyway. "Thanks. I didn't really mean to burn it all down, I just didn't care enough to lie anymore."
"It's all right. I had my half in cash and the stocks might even out eventually, it's what stocks do. I don't even care if I eat the loss if it takes Matsson down. And anyway, Pat Dubek offered me a job at her network. Said she thought I seemed like a nice person--". Roman started laughing, "--and it was a shame and a waste of talent that they didn't pick me and she would love to have me working with her."
"The Pat Network? All those reality shows about--property flipping and chicks with a dozen kids? That home repair show that sounds like a pervert's dream?"
"What?"
"You know, 'A Man, a Plan, and a Van'?"
"You're awful," said Shiv. "And I thought you were referring to their ten-season confectionary competition show, 'Who Wants Candy?'"
After a while they stopped snickering and Rome asked, "Are you going to take it?"
"Well, it comes with a ridiculous amount of maternity leave, so I almost turned it down, but then I thought, what if Tom loses his job? Then I'd be stuck in the apartment with him and Mondale and the baby confined to their respective pens, so I said yes. I start in January."
"Well, I for one think you will do a great job with the petting zoo pablum shows. Greenlight a couple pieces of absolute filth for me."
"I give it six months of me working there before the homes on the renovation shows start spontaneously manifesting skeletons in the foundations and the octuplets start cannibalizing one another on camera. Speaking off," said Shiv, and unlocked her phone.
"If that's an ultrasound of one of your babies eating the other in utero, congratulations, you have out-dadded Dad."
"Not exactly," said Shiv. "The ATN attorneys got this in discovery and I made them hand it over."
She pressed play on Kendall's deposition. It was just Kendall looking past the camera to the attorneys and saying, "No comment," at intervals, but--
"He looks good," said Rome.
"Yeah," said Shiv. Her throat still went a little dry, even though she'd watched it a few times before. "Rehab agrees with him."
"He was coked up the day of the funeral. Not, like, really coked up, but pretty coked up."
They'd seen Kendall on enough different drugs and dosages that they could tell by now. "And he was drinking again. Not saying that excuses what he did."
"No." They watched Ken saying "no comment," to various questions some more. "How long is he going to be in there for?"
"Mom says four, maybe six months."
"That's a long time."
"It may not be long enough. But it keeps him from dumb self-destructive behaviors and they have counselors on staff." Kendall kept saying "no comment," eyes clear and voice strong. She felt good for him, she felt fond of him; he was doing better and he was in a facility upstate instead of this room and they still weren't talking. Maybe time didn't heal all wounds but sometimes it made them hurt a little less.
"Hey, is that Ken?" Connor asked. "Hi, Ken."
"It's not FaceTime," said Shiv.
"Yeah, this is Ken fights the law and the law says fuck it, why is this loser flailing ineptly at my ankles?"
"He looks good," Con said. "Is this that place in the Adirondacks?"
"I think it's up by the Canadian border," said Shiv.
"I've heard good things about that one," said Connor, and Shiv just knew he had a file full of rehab brochures ready for Ken when he needed them, just waiting for Ken to admit he needed help, and she was angry at Kendall and his "I'm the oldest boy" bullshit all over again. "Hey, you gotta get back in the kitchen so you can see me make my famous cranberry sauce."
Shiv raised her eyebrows. "Does that come from a box?"
"A can, but I've perfected the art of getting it out of the can in one glorious, wobbling, burgundy piece. It's all in the wrist."
"Oh," said Roman, "you really should know better than to hand me lines like that, mon frere," but he helped Shiv get up off the couch to follow Connor into the kitchen. The cranberry sauce thing sounded extremely stupid and she could not wait to see it.