An antler chandelier hung from above, and a giant fireplace made up of flat, broad gray stones hulked over the side of the room. Mr. Hacking was squatting in front of it.
“Very good, isn’t it? You see a lot of these fireplaces, but the masonry here is hard to match. Do you see why?” he said. Evelyn looked to Scot, the straight-A student, to answer, but Mr. Hacking beat him to it. “The mortar!” Mr. Hacking said. “It’s very thin. It shows skilled work. Most fireplaces like this have mortar of a centimeter or more. This, no. Fine work.”
Charlotte was eager to go see the dining room, in a separate building from the main house, and she, Scot, and Mr. Hacking hurried off. Evelyn turned toward the room. People were milling, talking. She heard one woman say that she would never touch turnip, and another say how much she hated Portland. It wasn’t just Camilla who had that sense of belonging. All of these people did. Everyone knew what to do, what to drink, what to talk about. They knew what they liked and what they did not (Portland and turnip the beginning of a no-doubt long list). There were other things Evelyn couldn’t see that were surely going on, she knew—alcoholism here, an affair there—but their rules protected them and kept everything running so smoothly. Adjustable-rate mortgages? Why had Evelyn been reading about adjustable-rate mortgages? These people didn’t care about that. She had no idea what she was supposed to say to any of them, and she was going to return to PLU a total failure because she couldn’t manage to think of anything that would interest these people and she certainly couldn’t sign them up. Evelyn felt as if there were a large neon arrow over the thin-mortared fireplace pointing down to her and blinking OUTCAST—OUTCAST—OUTCAST.
The warmth of fingertips on her elbow made Evelyn start. She snapped her head to see the woman she’d been watching minutes ago who’d been dissing turnips, a brunette in a gray pearl necklace. She looked familiar in that way that Evelyn found rich white women did; perhaps she’d seen her in one of Barbara’s Town & Country back issues, or her doppelgänger had umpired at an Eastern Tennis Club match Evelyn had played in. “I always think the opening moments of a party are the hardest, before everyone has had enough to drink,” the woman said.
Evelyn knew a life rope when she saw one and clutched on gratefully. “So true,” she said. “Though I’m not sure we can safely say that everyone here has not had enough to drink.”
The woman laughed, a rich, cigar-smoke sound. “I’m Margaret Faber,” she said, extending her hand.
“Evelyn.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Evelyn. And how do you know the Rutherfords?”
“I’m staying with the Hackings, on West Lake. I went to Sheffield with Preston, one of their sons,” Evelyn said, watching Margaret closely to monitor her response, and saw Margaret’s mouth turn up.
“Sheffield,” said Margaret. “Marvelous place.”
Open sesame, thought Evelyn, and continued, “Everyone at camp is very excited for the Fruit Stripe. Mrs. Hacking is quite determined that we’ll make a good showing.”
“Knowing Jean Hacking, I can assure you that the camp had better make a very good showing. Are you racing?”
“Ah, no,” Evelyn said. “I’ll be spectating.”
“Do you know, I think I will, too,” Margaret said. “I don’t have any interest in getting drenched at my age.”
The woman’s kindness had lifted Evelyn, and she felt like she might actually be able to handle this. Seeing Mr. Van Borgh coughing into a napkin, she excused herself to talk to him, persuading him to walk outside with her so Camilla might see her with a Lake James elder. After a conversation with Mr. Van Borgh and Maisie somebody and Wim somebody else, who were trying to sort out the best treatment for tartar on dachshunds, Evelyn turned toward the croquet game, which Camilla and Nick were just wandering away from.
She planted herself in Camilla and Nick’s path, in front of a table filled with cheeses. She showed her back to Camilla first, so it wouldn’t seem like she was trying to wedge her way in, and then reached for a cheese knife at the same time as Nick.
“Oh, excuse me,” Evelyn said, and flicked her eyes up. “Oh! Nick! Sorry, I didn’t mean to be a cheese Nazi.”
“NBD, Evelyn,” Nick said, which stood for “no big deal.” “Get down with your Roquefort.”
“Thanks.” Evelyn smeared a wedge of cheese on a hunk of bread, and then let her eyes go to Camilla. “Oh! Hello.” She looked to Nick expectantly.
“You two know each other? Camilla Rutherford, Evelyn Beegan.”
Evelyn let Camilla, as the higher-status person, extend her hand first, a Babsism she remembered. “Thank you so much for having us. We’re staying with the Hackings. You know Preston Hacking, I’m sure? It’s so nice to formally meet you.”
“Nice to meet you,” said Camilla. On her wrist, a gold charm bracelet, with what resembled tiny waffles hanging off it, jangled as she grasped a drink that looked to be a Dark and Stormy.
“I love your bracelet,” Evelyn said, trying to hold on to the conversation before Camilla got distracted. “What are those?”
“Oh, Racquet Club championships. That my grandfather won. It was my grandmother’s,” Camilla said.
“Amazing,” Evelyn said. She let the importance of the bracelet sink in; the Racquet Club, still, defiantly, men only, still elite, still so traditional it allowed members to swim nude. Of course, everyone in the know would know precisely what Camilla was wearing and precisely why it was so much more valuable than a bracelet of rubies or diamonds. Camilla gave it a musical shake.
“My grandfather was a serious court-tennis aficionado,” Evelyn said, so fast that once the words were out, she didn’t know how to explain them. She barely even knew what court tennis was, only that it had arcane rules and was extraordinarily preppy.
“Really? Where did he play?”
“Oh, in Baltimore, before it urbanized.” In truth, her grandfather had been an accountant who hadn’t gone to college and who’d left his family when her mother was a kid, and Evelyn doubted he’d even played regular tennis. She hoped desperately that Camilla wouldn’t ask for specifics; luckily, Camilla, warming up, wanted to talk about her own foray into court tennis.
When Nick weighed in on the cork core of court-tennis balls, Evelyn took the opportunity to cast her eyes around the lake. Evelyn’s eyes passed over one camp and then the next. When she was ready, she lifted her chin at Camilla’s empty glass.
“I think Camilla could use another drink, Nick, my dear,” Evelyn said.
“Oh, of course. Just a minute.” Nick headed off toward the bar.
“It’s so interesting about Camp Piemacum, isn’t it?” Evelyn said, moving closer to Camilla and throwing out one of the camp names she had heard on the boat ride over.
Camilla narrowed her eyes. “What about Piemacum?”
“Are the owners here?”
“The Pratts? No, they’re in Maine for their daughter’s wedding.”
“Ah.” That made things easier. “I’d heard that the head of NBC, or was it the head of ABC, had made an unsolicited offer on the camp, but it was contingent on his building an Italian villa on the grounds.”
“Really?” Camilla cut herself a corner of blue cheese, but was observing Evelyn as she picked it up. “Don’t they have a conservation easement? I thought that limited what they could do with the land.”
Evelyn fluttered her hands in the air; she needed to stay vague. “That might be right. I thought someone posted about it on People Like Us, but, honestly, I’m terrible with details. It may not even have been Camp Piemacum. Maybe it was something in Upper St. Regis?”
Camilla ate the cheese with tiny bites. She was absorbed in the party and didn’t seem to be interested in what Evelyn was saying, and Evelyn was trying to think of another way in. Then Camilla said, “Posted about it where?”
Evelyn let out a tiny exhale. “People Like Us. It’s a site for influencers to connect with one another. I work there, actually. It’s cool. Travel tips, and where to buy
certain hard-to-find things. People are able to track down their best friends from summer camp in Switzerland in 1992, that sort of thing. I thought someone posted about the transaction in the real-estate section, but I could be wrong.”
“I haven’t heard of it. The site,” Camilla said. She cocked her head, considering.
“It’s invitation-only for the moment, so it’s quite small. They’re focused on signing up just a few key influencers in each social circle. If you’re interested, I’d be happy to pull a few strings. They’d love for you to weigh in on fashion.”
Camilla took her time before she said, “I also know a lot about the arts.”
“Absolutely. The arts. People would love to read what you have to say.”
“People Like Us, you said?”
“Here.” Evelyn pulled a card from her clutch, happy that she had sprung for the heavy card stock. “I’ll have my staff set up your whole profile. You won’t have to do a thing, except, of course, let people know what your take is on fashion shows. Or, better, art shows.”
When Nick returned with the Dark and Stormy and pulled Camilla away, Evelyn chewed her lip for a moment, then got another gin and tonic, which she drank fast enough to get hiccups. Through the rest of the party, she kept track of where Camilla was as though the girl were a potential beau: talking to a younger blond girl, who must be her sister, Phoebe; hooking arms with Nick.
Later, while a Chubby Checker record played, Evelyn tracked down Preston, who set down his gin-and-something, leapt into the air with the grace of a crane, and offered his hand to Evelyn. As they did their rote prep-school swing dance, she appraised the other dancers on the lawn. They would all go home tonight to imposing houses, and over breakfast tomorrow discuss the evening, remembering the glasses of champagne and gin that caught the twinkling lights, and feel secure in who and where they were. They had been nice to her, that was the surprising thing. She thought they’d be cutting, and they were kind. Welcoming.
Evelyn, spinning as Preston increased the pressure of his hand against her upper back to turn her, saw Scot’s gawky figure outlined before the black Adirondack lake. Preston spun her again so her eyes settled not on Scot but on Camilla, now standing on the sidelines, taking a delicate bite from a radish.
CHAPTER FIVE
A Bottle of T
Wearing two coats unearthed from a Shuh-shuh-gah closet, Evelyn sat vibrating with cold in the motorboat as the Fruit Stripe got under way. Bing was racing with a neighbor boy, despite pleas from Pip to race with her (the neighbor boy weighed less, and thus Bing’s boat would move faster), which left Pip paired with Chrissie. Mrs. Hacking had stopped by Camp Jumping Rock, where the Fruit Stripe reception was being held, to load up on drinks before heading out to the course, and Nick, Scot, Charlotte, and Mr. Hacking had stayed at Jumping Rock to help with sending off the boats.
Evelyn had volunteered to go with Preston and Mrs. Hacking, mostly because Scot, at the party last night, had cornered Evelyn and asked for her phone number and then had been unable to talk to her in the boat back or at breakfast this morning, and Evelyn wanted to avoid more stiff encounters. However, now, stuck with Mrs. Hacking in the motorboat, Evelyn saw the wisdom in remaining on land.
Mrs. Hacking, wearing a wide-brimmed maroon rain hat and a Dole-Kemp sweatshirt, scanned the sails for the ones from her camp, all marked with blue stripes. It was a chilly Adirondack day, and the race participants wore heavy foul-weather gear but for Chrissie, who had unwisely worn a silk scarf on her head as though she was starring in the “True Love” scene of High Society. The one time Evelyn had watched the race before—the time of the badly rigged boat that she would apparently never live down—she had assumed that the Fruit Stripe was a serious race. Now she knew the drill better. The day before the race, all the older teenagers and twentysomethings on the lake would go to the host’s house to help mix drinks. They would pour into paint buckets one bottle after another of lemonade, cranberry juice, or white-grape juice with a dump of green food coloring. Varying amounts of vodka were added, mixed, and then poured back into the juice bottles, now evoking the colors of Fruit Stripe gum packages, with a mark on them of V for “virgin,” S for “strong,” and T for “toxic.” The drinks were stored in an ice-filled canoe onshore during the race, and last time, Evelyn had spent the awards ceremony hurling into the shrubbery at Camp Georgia after selecting a bobbing bottle marked T from the canoe and thinking it meant “tame.”
Most of the racers took the Fruit Stripe lightly, taking a bottle of T with them and, when the wind was too weak, using a paddle to move around the course and happily disqualifying themselves. However, Mrs. Hacking had a Yankee reverence for outdoor sport, and expected Shuh-shuh-gah’s residents and guests to win, place, or come in last. First place meant possession of the Lake James Yacht Club trophy for a year, second meant she got to hang the Fruit Stripe banner from her boathouse, and last meant the racers got all the leftover drinks. A boat from her camp coming in second to last, which showed the racers had neither skill nor wit, made Mrs. Hacking turn red with fury.
In the back of the pack, in a dead spot on the lake, Evelyn saw the blue-striped sail that belonged to Chrissie and Pip. Mrs. Hacking gunned the motor, spraying freezing water onto Evelyn and Preston.
In under a minute, the motorboat was circling the sailboat. Though it was not long after the start, Chrissie’s boat had taken on several inches of water already, and Chrissie was trying to bail out the boat with a travel coffee mug while Pip lay miserably on the bow of the Sunfish.
“Your line in the water is too low. Bail her out. Bail her out!” Mrs. Hacking said.
“I’m bailing!” Chrissie shouted. “We got off course!”
“Look to starboard, Chrissie. You’re getting pushed into shore.” The wake from the boat was rocking the Sunfish, and Pip wrapped her arms around the hull. Mrs. Hacking had procured a megaphone from somewhere inside the motorboat and now began booming into it. “Chrissie! The wind is coming from the west side of the lake. Come about. Come about!” With her other hand, Mrs. Hacking spun the steering wheel so she stayed nipping at the sailboat’s side. “Pip, show Chrissie what to do!” she yelled.
Pip pushed the brim of her raincoat hood back. “I’m trying, Grandmother,” she said, resigned.
“Come, Chrissie, look at the angle. Look at the angle. You’ll never get out of it now! Grab the rudder—watch it—watch it—no, no, no, no! Good Lord! Watch it!” Mrs. Hacking shouted as the boom swung over and nearly cracked Chrissie in the head; Chrissie desperately shoved the rudder back and forth. “I thought Bing said she knew how to sail,” Mrs. Hacking said to Preston, though she said it into the megaphone. Preston took a long drink of his cranberry juice, the T version. Evelyn reached for the bottle and took a swig in sympathy—with Chrissie, with Bing, with Pip, or with Preston, she wasn’t sure—but she was trying not to move too abruptly, lest Mrs. Hacking turn the megaphone on her.
“It’s luffing. It’s luffing!” Mrs. Hacking shouted as a wave came up and hit Chrissie in the arm. “Everyone else is around the third buoy, Chrissie! You’ve got to get out of there! This is a dead spot. Get out of there!”
“Can I get back in the boat with you, Grandmother?” Pip called out.
“I wish you could, Pip, but you’re going to have to finish the race.”
A horn sounded from the other end of the lake. “That’s first place!” Mrs. Hacking yelled. “We have to get back to the party! Get some wind, Chrissie. You’re going to be out here for hours!” Pip, lying flat on her stomach in the front, waved a sad farewell.
Mrs. Hacking gunned the motor again, heading toward Jumping Rock, and the wake deposited a few more inches of water in the sailboat once the motorboat left. Evelyn looked back, watching Chrissie get smaller. Chrissie was overly anxious and had made her own mistake in forcing an invitation to the Hacking house, claiming sailing know-how, and generally trying too hard. And Chrissie’s presence on the other side of the invisible behavior line let
Evelyn stay cleanly on this side of it. Yet, looking at Chrissie dipping her cup into the freezing water that went up to her ankles, with the patrician girl in the front who was doubting her every effort, Evelyn wished a gust of wind would come and help them out.
“Simpsons are moving ahead! Tom Junior is behind you with Lally!” Mrs. Hacking cried as the motorboat skipped away.
At Jumping Rock, Evelyn jumped out of the boat and ran up to safer ground. Nick was about ten drinks in and had decided the path to the Jumping Rock guesthouse should be marked with cairns, and he enlisted Preston in gathering stones from the woods. Tired, Evelyn retreated to the boathouse deck with a bottle of S green punch, settling into a deep Adirondack chair. She was drunk enough forty minutes later that she could almost tamp the uneasiness she felt about the finish. Bing was lingering just to the side of the finish line in his boat, and when he saw Chrissie and his daughter finally coming toward the line, he made another loop so he could come in last, and his daughter and girlfriend would get the dreaded second to last. As Evelyn listened to the air horn marking Chrissie’s place, then the second air horn marking Bing’s, she exchanged the S for a T. Bing stood up in his boat to laughs and applause from the shore, bowing. Phoebe and Camilla flew down to give him hugs, and Mrs. Hacking, who’d brought her megaphone onto land, yelled her congratulations into it. Evelyn looked for Chrissie and saw her trudging up the hill, her wet and wilted scarf still glopped around her head.
Evelyn scrambled to her feet and hurried to the boathouse bathroom, where she grabbed one of the stacked beach towels she’d noticed earlier. “Hey,” she said when she’d caught up to Chrissie. “You must be cold. I thought you could use this.”
Chrissie turned, soaked, as Evelyn held out a towel.
“That was so awful,” Chrissie said, wiping her eyes. “So awful. So wet, and so long, and then Bing…” She trailed off.
Evelyn shook out the towel with one hand and draped it around Chrissie’s shoulders, and Chrissie clutched at it. “Thank you,” Chrissie said.
Everybody Rise Page 6