Evelyn, despite herself, laughed.
“I think it’s so important to stay connected to real people,” Camilla said. “Like, I’ll bet your father’s clients are people who are in real poverty.”
“His clients?” Evelyn said. His own family had been. She had visited the town where he had grown up only twice. Once when his parents were still alive, and Evelyn could only remember a dark house with dentures floating in a smudged glass, and everything smelling like wet wood. Later, in high school, Dale had made a great fuss about a father-daughter weekend they’d have together, but instead of going golfing like he’d initially proposed, he had taken her to his hometown, now mostly abandoned and somewhat frightening. Whatever it was he had wanted to tell her, he hadn’t been able to find the words, and they’d ended up silently eating greasy burger patties at the one operating restaurant and then spending the night in Charlotte. If Camilla had already read about her father, Evelyn wasn’t going to be able to paste over that background, but she could still shape Camilla’s impression of her mother’s lineage. “The clients are definitely real people. As is my father. I mean, he and my mother are such a funny pair. She’s from this old Baltimore family, shipping—shipping fleets—and they’d been in Baltimore for generations, and her parents nearly lost it when she brought home this North Carolina mill-town boy.”
“That’s so romantic.”
“Very.”
“I love that. That’s so amazing. I want you to introduce me.”
“To my parents?”
“To your father.” Camilla folded her arms, looking quite pleased with herself. “I want an introduction.” She turned toward the door and, walking out, tossed Evelyn a set of car keys. “Can you drive? I’m a little woo-woo.”
“On it,” said Evelyn, a bit befuddled as to what had just taken place.
Camilla’s car was the blue one, tiny and sleek.
“I love your license plate,” Evelyn said as she opened the drivers’-side door.
“What do you mean?” said Camilla.
“‘BIGDEAL’? It’s so funny.”
“Oh my God,” Camilla said. “That is not my license plate. This is my mother’s boyfriend’s car. I decided I needed it for the summer. He could not be tackier. That license plate gives me conniptions.”
“Right,” Evelyn said quietly and put the key in the ignition; at least she had learned to drive stick in Sarennes.
When they pulled up to a stoplight, Evelyn saw that Camilla was wearing the same racket bracelet she’d worn at Sachem. Camilla directed her to go to Southampton, which, she said, had better shopping than Bridge. Evelyn obeyed and, improbably, found a parking spot on Main Street once they arrived. “So, do you want to get the steaks and the lobster salad? I’m just going to pop into the drugstore,” Camilla said. “Johnson’s is a block that way.”
Camilla hopped out of the car and crossed the street between a Volvo and a Vespa, both seafoam green, both stopping in the middle of the street for her. A pug in the basket of the Vespa was wearing goggles. “Thanks! You’re a doll!” shouted Camilla from the other side of the street. “Ooh, and some wine! A cab or something!”
Evelyn thought about the Grey Goose she’d bought last night, and then thought that not getting wine when Camilla had requested it was a bad idea. She made the liquor store her first stop. In the store, nothing over $150 was displayed within arm’s reach, partly to discourage the petty thieves of Southampton, partly so those who wanted to buy a Ducru-Beaucaillou could announce those intentions loudly to the crowd. Evelyn walked directly to the Bordeaux section, so anyone watching would seem to think she knew what she was doing, and picked up bottles until she found one that cost $125; even if it wasn’t cabernet, it was expensive enough that no one would complain, and she got two for good measure.
She found Johnson’s after she’d passed by it three times. It was an old-fashioned butcher shop. Long and slim, Johnson’s was not made for crowds, and as a result was always very crowded, with everyone wishing everyone else would go back to Manhattan so they could enjoy the authentic Johnson’s. After twenty minutes, she ordered. “I need some steaks?” she said. “Um, six, I guess? Or eight, if people are hungry?”
“You call ahead?” said the butcher.
“I didn’t, actually.”
“Porterhouse, flank, filet, strip, whaddaya want?”
“Uh, filet mignon, I guess?”
“Whole filet, or center cut?”
She was guessing like it was an eye exam. “Center cut?”
“How big? About a pound each?”
Evelyn checked the display case for a price, but she was in front of the pork section, not beef. “Sure.”
“Six filet mignon, center cut, pound each!” the butcher shouted.
“Eight, just in case.”
“Eight!”
“Some lobster salad, too? I guess, how much would you need for six people?”
“Six people, two pounds and a half for sandwiches.”
“Okay, that sounds fine.”
She got her packages and struggled to the front, plunking down the heavy, chilly parcel of beef and the vat full of lobster salad on the counter. The woman ringing her up was chewing gum and busied herself blowing a giant pink bubble before she said, “Five forty.”
Figuring the woman spoke Nick-ese, in which five bucks meant, variously, five thousand, five hundred thousand, or five million, Evelyn deduced the woman meant $50.40, and handed her three twenties.
The woman chawed her gum and stared. “What’s this?”
“It’s for fifty-forty. Sorry, I don’t have forty cents.”
“Ha!” She laughed, spitting berry-colored saliva over the cash register. “Bill! Get a load a this! Fifty dollars for all this crap!” She waved her hand over the packages. “You just made my day. No, it’s five forty. Five hundred forty.”
“What? Dollars?”
“No, lire. Whaddaya think, dollars.”
“What? It’s just some beef and lobster salad.”
“Filet mignon,” the woman said loudly, holding it up, “thirty-four a pound, eight pounds. Lobster salad, ninety a pound, two and a half pounds. Plus sales tax. That’s five hundred forty. We take Visa or MasterCard, no AmEx.”
“The lobster salad is how much?” Evelyn started to say, but then noticed a pair of sockless loafers and frayed cuffs behind her, and knew an impatient Southhamptonite was waiting his turn, judging whether she was really that naive or really that low on funds. “I’m so sorry,” she said to the clerk, while smiling at the man behind her and handing over her debit card. She weighed whether to tell Camilla the story. On the one hand, it showed she was insouciant about money. On the other, shouldn’t she already know that lobster salad in the Hamptons cost $90 a pound?
“My wife’s the same way,” the frayed-cuff man said, and Evelyn gave him a who-me? shrug and laughed.
“Aren’t they all,” the clerk muttered, and ran the card through.
“That’s what you get when you send civilians to do the job, I guess,” Evelyn said, and met the guy’s eyes as he laughed. “My cook usually does all the shopping here,” she added. “Have a great afternoon.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Alumni Affairs
Evelyn had been hesitant to invite Scot to the Sheffield alumni reception, which her parents would also be attending. She liked being alone with him: he had recently taken her to The African Queen at the Film Forum in the Village, and had smuggled in Good & Plentys, and the fact of being on a date with this sweet and thoughtful man had been reassuring. Their forearms touched on the shared armrest like they were shy teenagers, albeit from a teenage phase Evelyn had never experienced. Afterward, making their way through the drooping August city, they’d gone to Scot’s favorite bookstore and then drank cold white wine at a tiny dark-wood-and-candles bar. She felt like a happy part of the Ella Fitzgerald “Manhattan” song on the summer weekend, a young couple ducking into places bohemian and smart.
Her
mother’s judgment would come down eventually, though. Barbara’s questions about Scot were getting increasingly pointed, and Evelyn in some way wanted her mother’s opinion. Evelyn did like Scot, sometimes a lot, but needed outside confirmation that he was a good boyfriend, someone who reflected well on her and could keep up with her pace, which was getting faster by the second. She’d received invitations to two fashion shows, even though the assigned seat for each of them was a few rows back. She had gone to Shuh-shuh-gah again and Nick’s twice more, Camilla had invited her up to Sachem in the fall, and everyone was talking about a ski trip to Jackson in the winter.
With the sky still light at seven, and drizzle falling, Evelyn tried to get to and through Times Square without body-checking anyone. She pulled her trench coat tight as she walked past button stores and trim stores and other remnants of industry that had clung on despite the city changing around them. She was squished, slammed, and sandwiched between tourists who stopped three across on the Seventh Avenue sidewalk so as to block any linear traffic flow. She was approached by someone sampling PowerBars, someone sampling toilet paper, and someone sampling what looked like chunks of white chocolate in fluted cups, which she was about to pop into her mouth when the promoter cautioned her it was artisanal soap. Twice, her stiletto heel sank into the gummy mortar between sidewalk panes, and she had to yank it out while trying to look elegant and unflappable.
Barbara was dissatisfied with this alumni event in advance. She had lobbied for this dinner to take place at the Harvard Club, but as neither she, Dale, nor Evelyn had actually gone to Harvard, she held little sway there. When Evelyn met her mother outside the Marriott Marquis in Times Square, she was huddling under an awning as though it were pouring and dramatically ignoring a comedy-show busker who kept asking her if she liked to laugh. Not your demographic, Evelyn wanted to tell him.
“Evie. Is that the dress I bought you?” Barbara held her at arm’s length, appraising her as she gripped her shoulder.
“Yes.” The Marquis Theatre was playing a swingy tune from its loudspeakers, and Evelyn, twitching her knees imperceptibly in rhythm, looked longingly at the musical poster the theater displayed, for The Drowsy Chaperone.
“It works well. I’m surprised. Beige is a color most women can’t wear. Your father is not here, as usual. Did he tell you where he is?”
“I’ll check. I wish you would get a cell phone.” Evelyn flipped open her phone and listened to a voice mail from Aimee, his secretary. “He’ll be late.”
“Of course he will be,” Barbara said. “I didn’t think he should come at all, but he says it’s important not to act like a guilty man when he’s not. I’m not sure Delaware prosecutors are monitoring Sheffield alumni events, however.”
“I don’t think he’s been to a Sheffield event since I graduated,” Evelyn said. It was maddening that her father was choosing now to attend her events, when it apparently mattered for public perception, rather than when she had wanted him there. It put her in an awkward spot; she had decided that, big deal or not a big deal, it was better not to say anything about the investigation to her friends, and as far as she could tell, no one but Camilla knew about it.
“No. I don’t think he has,” Barbara said. “So. Where is this friend of yours?”
“You can say ‘boyfriend,’ Mom. I told Scot to meet us inside.”
“Should we go in?”
As the two women entered the lobby, they saw several men waiting. Unfortunately, Evelyn saw, her mother’s face brightened when she spied a man with strong shoulders in a sharp gray suit who emanated confidence. Not Scot. Evelyn gave a lame wave to the actual Scot, who was standing storklike on a single foot.
“That tall one? That’s Scot?” Barbara said.
“That’s Scot.”
Barbara considered this.
“He reminds me of that handyman we had. Large features and that darkness.”
“He’s a banker, Mom.” The handyman. Christ.
The two women had the same stiff stride as they approached Scot. Evelyn had been hoping Scot would be relaxed and boyish, as he had become with her, but he fumbled with his BlackBerry, almost dropping it before he managed to replace it in his pocket. “Hi,” he said, and bent over from the waist to greet Evelyn, then raised both arms toward Barbara. Evelyn, alarmed, stepped between them before he could hug her mother and tried to subtly press one arm down so he could only perform a handshake.
The strange modernity of the Marquis, with its extra-long escalators and its semicircle of elevators without elevator buttons, was an odd fit for Sheffield. Evelyn was glad to see the alumni association second-in-command there outside of the coat check, as her mother immediately went to quiz him about why Sheffield was sponsoring an alumni cruise on the Yangtze. Across the room, Evelyn saw Charlotte and Preston, huddled by the bar, and headed toward them with Scot.
“Well, well, well,” Preston said. “We were just talking about you. Scot, good to see you.”
“She does exist,” said Charlotte to Preston. “We were debating whether you were a figment of my imagination. Hi, Scot.”
“I saw you, like—” Evelyn said.
“The Hamptons in July,” Charlotte said.
“Oh,” Evelyn said.
“Solo sightings are getting increasingly rare,” Preston said, adjusting his glasses. “Though one just has to look for Camilla and Evelyn will be near.”
“Oh, come on, Pres,” Evelyn said.
“Camilla,” muttered Charlotte. “Scot, how’s your chess coming along?”
Scot lit up at this and began describing a game he’d played recently in a Lower East Side park with some Russian men, as Preston sidled to Evelyn and slung his arm around her waist.
“Bringing Scot to a Sheffield event. Bold. To meet the formidable Babs. Does Scot know what he’s in for?” Preston said.
“He just met Babs.”
“He’s still standing? Wasn’t shot on sight? That’s something. I remember the first time I met your mother, she plied me with liquor, but then I was a favorite son.”
“She did not give you liquor. You were sixteen.”
“Oh, Miss Beegan, I beg to differ. I remember it well. Babs took us into Portsmouth for dinner and I swear to you I ordered a chocolate martini. It was right after we got back from Sarennes.”
All of a sudden Evelyn could recall with perfect clarity the martini glass with the milky liquid sitting on the white tablecloth, and the feeling of success she had as she watched her mother chat with Preston Hacking.
Her attendance at Sheffield and friendship with Preston there were by no means preordained. One Sunday morning when Evelyn was twelve, she woke to the sounds of Barbara’s piano playing and was about to get up when the playing stopped. Barbara knocked on her door and told her she could stay in bed for another hour. Then, Barbara gave her a stack of reading material: a book called Preparing for Power: America’s Elite Boarding Schools, a J.Crew catalogue, an SSAT study guide, and a Sheffield admissions catalogue. Barbara said that Gibby Hodge’s daughter had gone to Sheffield and there had met, and eventually married, a Cabot from the Massachusetts line. Evelyn knew that Gibby Hodge had nothing to do with it, and it was because Push Van Rensselaer’s boys had gone there that she was being sent there. Happily, her grades were good enough that she got in without a problem, and Dale could easily cover the tuition.
Preston was a year above Evelyn, and she had known his name before she had found out what he looked like. That was in part due to her mother. After finding out that Preston’s mother was a Winthrop, and that he was from Beacon Hill, Barbara had suggested that Evelyn get him to ask her to the Lower Social. This idea was so laughable that Evelyn did not even know how to explain to her mother what would happen if she, an unknown and pudgy prep, were even to speak to Preston Hacking. Or she knew what would happen: she would likely end up writing an English paper on his behalf instead of going with him to a dance.
He wrote a humor column, “Perched on the Ivory Tower,
” for the school newspaper. It was initially supposed to come out every week, but Preston didn’t believe in deadlines, so it earned the subhead “An Approximately Fortnightly Column” after its debut. Preston played club squash, not varsity, because he found bus travel to weekend tournaments uncivilized, and was the nominal vice president of the Young Republicans, largely because his great-grandfather had been the secretary of state under Teddy Roosevelt.
Knowing all this, Evelyn was startled to discover what Preston Hacking actually looked like. It was the Alumni Appreciation Day assembly, and the headmaster had asked Preston to say a few words about being fourth generation at Sheffield. Rather than the dark-haired and dashing guy she had come to imagine him as (his directory photo was blurry, and taken from a strange angle, allowing Evelyn to add all sorts of dramatic flourishes), she realized he was the tall, skinny fellow with wavy blond hair and alabaster skin that she’d seen lounging about on campus benches dressed in sweaters with elbow patches. He was of the cool kids, absolutely, but also seemed eccentric in a way that Evelyn envied.
Evelyn herself was neither eccentric, nor cool, nor anything at Sheffield. That was clear on her second day there, Tryout Day: the Key Association in the library, the Ben Jonson Players in the experimental theater, the Federalist Society in the Academy Building, the Indian dance troupe Aananda in the JV squash courts. Evelyn, with her piano background, had long had hopes of being in the theater. One bad morning in Bibville, though, Barbara had said that she was singing flat, and Evelyn had stopped singing. She went from chorus roles in Bibville middle-school musicals to painting the backdrops, thinking maybe she could direct or something someday. Before eighth grade, she’d tried once more, as she’d wanted to attend music camp in Virginia, but her mother took one look at the brochure’s cover, showing a plump girl singing, and said that these theater people needed to spend some time getting exercise outdoors. Babs enrolled Evelyn in tennis camp again that summer instead.
Evelyn worked up the nerve on that second day of Sheffield to go to the arts center and hear about the upcoming theater season, but when her hand was on the auditorium door, she heard a girl talking about how she had played Young Cosette in the touring production of Les Miz over the summer. She almost ran back to her dorm. It was clear to Evelyn by the end of the tryouts that a handful of students was already picked for stardom. A freshman in Wyckoff had done an amazing job as a soccer forward that morning and was going to be a three-sport prep. The Cosette girl, a prep in McGeorge, was favored for Sarah in the fall production of Guys and Dolls. Evelyn sensed she had been cast in her Sheffield role without attending a single tryout: Girl in Background #4.
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