I want to say something about the surname, because everybody asks and it makes the whole thing sound arranged.

They are not related.

Vance Global is called Vance Global because two men with the same last name and no blood between them started a company and thought it was funny, and because it saved an argument about whose name went first.

I have heard Julian tell that story at perhaps forty dinners.

Arthur sat back down eventually.

And what he said, after a while, in the flattest voice I have ever heard a person use, was:

“So every single thing I own came out of your mother’s house.”