Everybody Rise

by Stephanie Clifford

  Scot wriggled out of his seat and, to Evelyn’s surprise, didn’t hesitate, just pulled her into an enveloping hug. His chest was hard and warm, and his arms long enough to wrap her right up, and his cotton sweater was soft, and he smelled like Christmas, and for once he said the right thing by saying nothing.

  “Do you want to walk?” he said, after a few minutes during which she soaked his shirt with tears. She nodded, and tried to dab at the dark spot she’d left on his sky-blue cotton, but he just said, “Shhh,” and guided her through the blurry restaurant. As he turned her onto Sixty-ninth Street, Evelyn started blurting out one-word attempts at explaining herself. Scot didn’t force anything, just left his big, warm hand on her back and walked slowly with her down the block, across the street, down another block, across another street, occasionally circling his hand around her back, but otherwise just letting her cry. Finally, she sank onto a bench outside an optometrist’s office and tried to subtly wipe away what must be pooling mascara from under her eyes as Scot sat down beside her.

  “Sorry,” she said. “It’s just family stuff.”

  “Okay,” he said. She couldn’t remember being so relieved at a word. No questions. No prying. Just okay.

  “Okay?” she repeated.

  “Okay.” He stroked her hair, and she felt that delicious soothing tingle she’d felt the few times she was invited to middle-school sleepovers and the girls braided one another’s hair. “Do you still feel like eating?” he asked softly.

  She shook her head.

  “Do you want me to take you home?”

  She shook it again.

  “Should we just sit here for a while?”

  She looked up and saw, through her tears, someone across the street who looked like a Sheffield classmate. It wasn’t, but it was close enough that she just wanted to leave the area. “Why don’t we go to your neighborhood?” she said.

  “Wall Street on a Sunday? It’s going to be quiet.”

  “Quiet sounds good,” said Evelyn, sniffling. “Quiet sounds very good.”

  Scot squeezed her closer to him, then rose and hailed a cab.

  His apartment was in a giant tower on Gold Street, where all the buildings loomed over narrow colonial-era streets, making them feel dark and dank even on this early summer night. He guided her past the clanging and drilling from construction, the profiteers selling tacky postcards promising we would never forget, the tourists trying to figure out which one was Fulton. The building itself was typical Wall Street bachelor, with a pool in the basement and a giant lobby of black-and-white tiles and couches that no one ever sat in.

  Scot’s apartment, number 5G, was similarly huge and bare. The living room contained an enormous and hard-looking gray couch, a flat-screen TV, a sound system with giant silver speakers, and two stools lined up at a pass-through window to the small kitchen.

  When Evelyn followed Scot into his bedroom, he turned on classical music, “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” and then sat on his bed. Evelyn wasn’t going to have sex with him so early, but wanted more of that warmth she’d felt on the street. They began kissing, and she finally unbuttoned a few buttons on her shirt when it became clear that he wasn’t going to. He responded by standing up, taking off his shirt, folding it, placing it neatly on a chair, then returning and waiting for her to proceed. She gave him a hand job while he rubbed at her, and though he grunted appreciatively the whole time, she had the feeling it was just as lame for him as it was for her. Afterward, though, when she made noises about leaving, he said, simply, “Stay.” And she did. She brushed her teeth with toothpaste and her index finger, washed her face with his Irish Spring, and wore one of his Tshirts that fell to her knees to go to bed. He wrapped his big arms around her and tucked his legs in behind her, and Evelyn stiffened at first, but then, there on that unfamiliar bed, Evelyn felt protected, and ran her thumb over his nice thick forearm and fell asleep to the strains of Grieg.

  The next day, an e-mail from Nick: “So, I heard you held each other. Hot.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  South of the Highway

  Evelyn was so absorbed in Nancy Mitford that, when the Long Island Railroad train pulled into Bridgehampton, she nearly missed the two-minute window for unloading. August was high season in the Hamptons, and the train was more packed than a subway car, with girls sitting and standing in the aisles for much of the three-and-a-half-hour ride. Evelyn had gotten a seat, and with the help of her books, the ride had gone by fast. She had decided that she needed to study if she wanted to continue her People Like Us success, and she’d been reading like a fiend: old Emily Post from the 1920s, before the etiquette adviser got too mass-market; Paul Fussell’s Class; Mitford’s “The English Aristocracy,” where the aristocrat laid out “U and non-U” speech. Evelyn had just learned that the frank “die” and “rich” should be used rather than the florid “pass on” and “wealthy.” She shouldn’t say “cheers.” She was annoyed to find that monogrammed stationery was to be engraved, not printed; she’d just spent $300 on correspondence cards but they were printed, and now she’d have to reorder them. Camilla would absolutely know the difference.

  Evelyn had been to the Hamptons twice before, an embarrassingly low count: once for a pool party hosted by her old boss in Westhampton, which didn’t rank. Then last weekend for a People Like Us–hosted wine tasting she’d organized in East Hampton, where Evelyn had felt worker-bee wearing her laminated name tag when Preston and Nick had dropped by to say hi. She’d signed up fifteen new members out of it, which she thought was a good result, though Jin-ho felt like the few-thousand-dollar price tag on the tasting hadn’t been worth it. Evelyn argued that just being the kind of site that hosted East Hampton wine tastings was good for the brand; you couldn’t do a strict cost-benefit analysis on all of this.

  “Ev! Look alive!” Charlotte was leaning out the window of her red rental in the parking lot.

  Charlotte, to Evelyn’s relief, didn’t seem to know anything about her father. Evelyn didn’t plan on telling any of her friends about those problems and regretted having broken down in front of Scot; weakness gave everyone else the advantage.

  Evelyn got into the car, and Charlotte sped the short distance to Nick’s house. Nick’s place was south of the highway, though just barely, and as they drove, Evelyn saw why everyone made the south-of-the-highway, north-of-the-highway distinction in the Hamptons. One side was estates, hedges, money, privilege. The other was lacking.

  Charlotte spun into the driveway and Evelyn was surprised by how attractive Nick’s house was—she knew from Preston that it had cost $900,000 and was expecting something that was glass and chrome, not a sweet weather-beaten shingled house with white trim. That Nick owned a house at twenty-six was, as he would term it, NBD. Nick must have had more money than she thought; while banking paid well, an associate’s salary wasn’t enough to fund a starter summer house, and Preston said that Nick’s parents hadn’t helped him out with the place. It made her wonder if all her friends had some secret store of money.

  Inside, in the living room, it was clear that a bachelor had bought the place—there was an overstuffed couch against one wall, a bar table against another, and a dining table against a third, with everything as close to the walls as possible. The place had just the mix of money, manhood, and a latent promise of domesticity to give every Jenna and Jenny and Sara-pronounced-Sahrah that Nick brought home from clubs a feeling that she could tame the house, and tame Nick; there was a steady parade of them, Evelyn knew from Preston. None made it back a second time.

  Charlotte was three steps into the house when she announced to Evelyn that she was going to squeeze in a run, as she had to work that night. Nick was in town picking up charcoal, and Scot and Preston were taking an evening Luxury Liner. “Are we supposed to just claim a random room?” Evelyn said.

  “I think so. I did. Not Nick’s room, obviously, but there aren’t that many people coming this weekend, right? So we don’t have to worry about it.”
<
br />   “I guess.” Evelyn took her bag upstairs to a narrow hallway that was flanked with bedrooms. Each bed was neatly made with linen-colored, linen-material linens that Nick had ordered, again showing remarkably restrained taste. The one at the end was marked as Nick’s from the gigantic wooden sleigh bed there and two oil paintings of the forest; the rest had no wall decor. Evelyn ducked into one on her right, with twin beds, nice tall windows looking out on the lawn, and its own bathroom. It was too early to share a bed with Scot—she didn’t want to deal with the comments from Preston and Nick, and the hooking up had not improved much—so the twins were a happy find.

  *

  The next morning, a cacophony of laughter and a high-pitched “Niiiiiiiick!”

  The group had gone to the Jeroboam the night before after everyone finally arrived, a club that had sprung up on the edge of the Montauk Highway in a former run-down hotel and had instantly become the center of banker nightlife in the Hamptons. Nick had pulled some strings to get them all in, “even Scot,” as she had heard him telling Preston, which made Evelyn twitch. Scot’s sweetness was appealing when they were alone, but in groups like this, his cloddishness made Evelyn so self-conscious that she couldn’t enjoy herself, as she was gauging how harshly everyone else was judging her for being with him.

  The Jero, as it was known, was basically a Twenty-seventh Street club deposited in the Hamptons. The club was hot and red inside, thumping and dark like an artery. Evelyn had followed Nick through a crowd, getting knocked by the hips of shaggy-haired men in button-down shirts. They’d waited for drinks in a line five deep and seven across, emerging with $15 Grey Goose and sodas quite a bit later. The drinks were small, and gone in a matter of sips. Charlotte was in hell—Evelyn knew this because Charlotte kept saying, with a clenched-tooth grin, “I’m in hell!” Evelyn didn’t have the luxury of that point of view, though, so she decided she was going to like the Jeroboam. She downed two drinks very quickly and joined Nick and Preston on the dance floor, where a machine was spritzing something into the crowd. “Pheremones,” yelled Nick, pointing, as droplets misted over them, and Evelyn just wiped sweat from her forehead and kept on shimmying to “I’m N Luv (Wit a Stripper).”

  At some point later on in the evening, when the group had acquired a table and a group of random girls was dancing on it, Evelyn remembered blotting out cranberry juice from her skirt, and also an image of a bottle of Grey Goose in a bucket of ice; she had a bad feeling about the Grey Goose but couldn’t say why.

  Charlotte, still in her pajamas, wandered into the kitchen, where Evelyn was opening cupboards, looking for a coffee filter.

  “Did Nick take someone home?” Charlotte said, waving at the screeching from upstairs.

  “I think so. Nick and Pres had a bet: whoever could pick up a girl with an opening line about something—what was it called—the litter or something? Some interest-rate thing?” Evelyn said.

  “The LIBOR?”

  “That was it.”

  “Jesus. These poor girls. When we were out in NYC a couple of weeks ago they did the same thing with whether America should stay on the gold standard or not,” Charlotte said.

  “Who won that one?”

  “I think Pres, though he left the gold-standard girl at the bar.”

  “Naturally.”

  “Nick was a little, ah, energetic last night, wasn’t he?” Charlotte said.

  “How so?”

  “Like he was riding the white horse, dummy. One of the Morgan Stanley saleswomen is basically a cocaine trafficker for her clients. I think she routes surplus to Nick.”

  “Not that I’m shocked that Nick is doing coke, but someone’s distributing it in her official capacity as a Morgan Stanley saleswoman?” Evelyn asked.

  Charlotte opened the fridge. “Client services. Some guys want champagne, some want uppers, some want downers. She also has to take them to strip clubs and pretend she’s into it. It’s sick, but that’s how business gets done. I would like to see her expense report, though.”

  “Seriously. Do the Colombians give receipts?”

  “Seriously. How late did you stay?”

  “Two or so.”

  “I can’t believe you’re not more zonked. Do you remember springing for that ridiculous vodka?”

  The Grey Goose. “Ridiculous how?”

  “Um, did you see the price list?”

  “What did it cost?”

  “Three-fifty. Four hundred.”

  “For a bottle of vodka?” Evelyn opened a cupboard that contained only a jar of spice rub. That was what was bothering her. She could’ve easily gotten away with letting Preston or Nick pay for the vodka, but it had felt good, for once, to step up and offer to get something that expensive. The boys had cheered her purchase, and she had gallantly poured hefty amounts of vodka into each of their glasses while they roared their approval. “Well,” she said, “I’m a guest here, and it’s done, so whatever.”

  “It was the guys who wanted table service. It wasn’t like you had to pony up.”

  “You got a round.”

  “But Ev, I work in banking. I know what you make at PLU, and, look, you don’t have to feel like—”

  “Charlotte. Enough. I wanted to do something nice. You don’t have to dissect it.”

  “Whatever you say.” Charlotte turned into the living room and flopped on the couch.

  Evelyn finally found the filters in a drawer with grill tools and was scooping ground beans into the coffee machine when she heard heavy footsteps on the staircase. Neatly pressed, but with his voice half an octave lower than usual, Preston materialized in the doorway. “Coffee,” he said pleadingly.

  “It’s not quite ready,” Evelyn said.

  “Now,” moaned Preston. “Why can’t you be a good secretary and do as I say? File! Take my dictation!”

  “Good morning, Mr. Hacking,” Evelyn said. “Thank you, Mr. Hacking.”

  “Do you remember the coffee in Sarennes? I believe it was a solid, not a liquid,” Preston said as he opened the fridge, took out a jar of mustard, and contemplated it as if trying to discern its meaning before gently placing it in an empty wooden bowl on the counter.

  “God, yes,” Evelyn said, pouring the first of the coffee into a mug and handing it to Preston. “I love that we were high schoolers on a term abroad and yet we became such serious coffee drinkers.”

  “We were in France. Of course we did.” Preston took a sip. “Not that I liked the Sarennes jet-fuel coffee much, but good God, woman. Is there even caffeine in here? This is basically hot water.” The machine was still clicking away, and he swung the filter arm out, dumped in more ground beans, then moved the pot and put his cup directly under the stream.

  “So who did Nick bring home last night?” Evelyn asked.

  “Who does Nick ever bring home? A girl. She’s rather beat. Thirty-five or something,” Preston said.

  “Isn’t he still hooking up or whatever with Camilla?” Evelyn said, trying to sound casual.

  Preston sucked at his coffee. “Kind of, though I don’t think Camilla wants anything serious.”

  They heard a clatter on the stairs and peered into the living room. Nick was trying to usher the girl, her eyes dark with mascara stains, out the door before anyone saw her. “Hi, I’m—” the girl started to say as Nick said, “We’re just going to do a quick drop-off, then I’ll be back with muffins, okay?” Evelyn saw a look in the girl’s eye, a desire for possession, and knew that Nick wouldn’t be returning her calls.

  Nick came back fifteen minutes later with a Golden Pear bag, after Scot had joined everyone downstairs. “All right, campers. Here’s your food,” Nick said, tossing brown waxed-paper sacks to everyone. “Did my CIM come?” he asked Scot.

  “Yeah,” Scot said, pointing toward the door, where a FedEx box sat. “That’s yours there, Nick.”

  “CIM?” asked Evelyn.

  “Confidential information memorandum,” Nick said. “For deals.”

  “Wow, you’
re such a big shot,” Charlotte said.

  “What, Hillary? You’re peeved because you’re not important enough to get a CIM on a weekend?” Nick said.

  “Bite me. I get about five of them a week. My boss dropped one off for me last night. Door-to-door service,” Charlotte replied.

  “Where’s his house?”

  “Southampton. Meadow Lane.”

  Nick was fixated on Charlotte. “When did he buy it? Which one is it?”

  “The huge gray one with the gables you can see from the road. Like two down from Calvin Klein’s.”

  “That was on the market for so long.”

  “Yeah, he bought it maybe eighteen months ago.”

  “For what, thirty bucks?”

  “More. It was in the Post.”

  “Goddammit. He’s living my life. Isn’t he the one with that hot wife, too?”

  “She,” Charlotte said, smiling, “is absurd. She’ll call his VP, who’s, I don’t know, thirty-six and fabulous, and ask for financial advice. As if, (a) the wife has any control over the family finances and (b) this VP, who makes a good million a year, has time to direct her day trades. I think it’s seriously, like, she sees something on CNBC while at the gym. And, in her leotard—I picture her wearing a leotard—she calls this woman, all ‘The ticker on the screen said the forint was losing value, and I was just wondering what that meant for my portfo-portfo—oh, what’s that silly thing that makes all the money!’”

  Breakfast over, Nick dispatched Charlotte to get towels for the beach and Evelyn to get snacks. Evelyn retrieved two bags of Terra Chips and a bag of Twizzlers from the pantry. Up in the bedroom she and Scot were sharing, she threw on her new Tory Burch caftan, which Nick had seen at Lake James and referred to as the erection killer, and then tossed Scot’s items in her beach bag: research reports, annual reports, a pair of sunglasses, his asthma medication, a biography of Nathanael Greene, two Economists, SPF 55, and a bottle of aloe vera for when he inevitably got sunburned.