Everybody Rise

by Stephanie Clifford

  At the end of her first full week, Rick gave her an envelope with a paycheck and a stack of bills that was her portion of tips in it. She tucked it at the bottom of her purse, checking that it was still there whenever she walked by the purse at work. On her way home, she deposited the check in her checking account. The ATM screen read “Current Balance: $315.19.” It was the first time she had been to an ATM since Lake James, and seeing that she had shifted the balance up that far with her week of work made Evelyn give the blue screen a tiny smile.

  She was reading a Sheffield-era copy of The Magnificent Ambersons, her old notes scribbled in the margins, when she heard the sound of the door, and her mother walked in, holding a McDonald’s bag. (Having never tried fast food when she lived in Sag Neck, Barbara had discovered that she had a taste for Filet-O-Fish.)

  “You’re home,” Barbara said; she was wearing a floor-length black kimono with little teahouses on it. Evelyn hoped she had used the drive-through. “You can set the table.”

  Babs was going to eat something made in a deep fryer, packaged in cardboard, and handed to her through a bulletproof window, but she would not deign to use a paper napkin, which made Evelyn smile a little. She got up and laid out the linen napkins and silverware and plates.

  “Haven’t you wondered where I’ve been for the last week?” Evelyn said.

  “I don’t know. All sorts of things are going on that I don’t know about, I suppose.” Barbara was listless and sat down and arranged her napkin in her lap, then pushed a lukewarm hamburger toward Evelyn.

  “I’ve been working. I got a job. At the Caffeiteria. Out on the wharf, the cute little coffee shop. With the good lemonade?”

  Barbara picked up her knife and fork, and cut a neat slice of fishburger. She chewed and swallowed so slowly Evelyn could practically see the fish descending down her throat.

  “So,” Evelyn tried again. “I’m saving some money, actually.”

  “Your hamburger’s getting cold,” Barbara replied.

  The landline phone rang, startling them both, as no one besides telemarketers in search of uncomfortable conversations called anymore.

  “Well? It could be important,” Barbara said, dabbing tartar sauce from her mouth.

  Evelyn picked up, but before she could say “Hello?” the voice on the other end began chattering. “Hello! I’m looking for Evelyn Beegan, and I hope I have the right number.”

  “This is a new number,” Evelyn said.

  “Is this Evelyn? Evelyn, it’s Becky Breen, formerly Becky Aquino, from Sheffield. It’s been ages.”

  Evelyn couldn’t remember Becky’s face but recalled she had been president of the Demosthenes Society, the classical-Greek group, and had given an endless oration at assembly their upper year in said classical Greek. “And an unlisted number,” Evelyn said.

  “Well, Sheffield doesn’t maintain the highest giving rate among prep schools by just letting people fade away, fortunately or unfortunately. Now, listen, I want to talk to you about major gifts. As you know, our class is in the middle of a fund-raising drive, and we’re so close to beating the class of ’eighty-seven—”

  “Seriously, though, no one knows I’m at this number. Do you guys have the Mafia on your side?”

  Becky laughed. “It’s a prep-school development office. We’re better than the Mafia. Remember Panupong Pradchaphet from Thailand? Came upper year, left after a term? We just tracked him down in the UAE.”

  “Did you get a major gift from him?”

  “Recurring.”

  “Nice.” Evelyn nodded. “So what’s in your book on me?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Your book. I’ve done Sheffield fund-raising. I know you get a little book talking about everyone’s giving history and potential. What’s my listing in your book?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t disclose—”

  “Becky, you just told me that Panupong Pradchaphet is living in the UAE, which is already a violation of the rules. Come on. I want to know what my listing says. What does it say? Here, I’ll start. Evelyn Topfer Beegan ’ninety-eight, Beardsley dormitory, crew…”

  “Uh, Le Petit Trianon—”

  “And my job?”

  “People Like Us. Director of membership.”

  “What’s your target for me this year? I gave, what, a thousand last year?”

  “Well, of course we’re happy with anything you choose to give, but if you’d consider joining the Rising Gryphon Society and going up to twenty-five hundred—”

  “Evelyn!” Barbara, who’d looked half asleep for weeks, was now alert, frantically waving her arms at Evelyn to get her to stop.

  Evelyn covered up the receiver. “What?”

  “Who’s on the phone?”

  “Sheffield. Alumni office.”

  “What do they want?”

  “A donation. I’m just about to tell them that they’re looking in the wrong place.”

  “Don’t tell them that, Evelyn. There’s no need to tell them that.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s unseemly,” Barbara said.

  “Don’t you think they’ll figure it out when I can’t give a major gift?”

  “I don’t think you need to debase yourself,” Barbara said.

  Evelyn stuck her tongue between her front teeth. She heard from the receiver, “Hello? Evelyn, are you still there?”

  Evelyn put the phone back up to her ear. “Here’s the thing, Becky,” Evelyn said, her eyes still locked on her mother’s. “Maybe you should put this in my listing. I’ve had a, let’s say, an adjustment in circumstances.”

  “Ah.”

  “So if you could replace that ‘membership’ line with ‘barista’—though that’s overselling it, really, with just ‘clerk’—‘coffee-shop clerk’—that’d be better. Caffeiteria is my new employer. And I’d get rid of the Petit Trianon address. I’m now a temporary-but-it’s-not-so-temporary member of the Marina Air apartments in Bibville.”

  Barbara was shaking her head faster and faster at the Filet-O-Fish box.

  “Of course. I’ll update the listing,” Becky said.

  “I assume the notes say something about my father, but he’s probably going to prison, so the big gifts just won’t be coming for a while. If ever. Can we do, let’s say, three dollars?”

  “Whatever you’re comfortable with. It’s participation, not amount. So I’ll, ah, I’ll make those notes.”

  “Three dollars doesn’t get you the commemorative Scotch glass, does it?”

  “No, I’m afraid not.”

  “What about a nice postcard? I’d like a Sheffield postcard. I can hang it in the coffee shop. I’m in charge of the bulletin board on alternating weeks.”

  “I don’t think that should be a problem. If I could just grab the Marina Air address?”

  Barbara had flattened the box by the time Evelyn got off the phone, and she was still shaking her head no. Evelyn took a giant bite of the cold hamburger. “Better to set expectations, I think,” Evelyn said. “Did you get any ketchup?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Sentencing Guidelines

  “Mom? You have to get up. We have to be downstairs in forty minutes.”

  The fluorescent light in the bathroom of the Wilmington Friendship Inn was sputtering overhead as Evelyn tried to pat on concealer in the sallow bathroom. With no natural light, it was impossible to see whether the basic problem was that her skin was too ruddy for any makeup to cover it up, or whether the cat-sick light was at fault. Stepping into the room, with dark green carpet and dark magenta curtains, Evelyn looked at the twin bed across from hers. There was a sudden whoosh of breath from the lumpy figure under the covers.

  “I feel just dreadful,” her mother said, rolling away from her and toward the window.

  When they had arrived last night, Evelyn had seen her mother planting the seeds for this when she announced wearily that she just didn’t have the strength to have a bite of food, leaving Evelyn to get a baked potato f
rom Wendy’s on her own. Her father was already at the hotel, staying in a separate room, but had spent the last night discussing the sentencing with Rudy, his lawyer; Evelyn had heard from him only in a brief phone call when he asked them to meet in the lobby at eight-thirty.

  “Mom, come on. You need to shower. It’s not terrible water pressure, and I brought some Kiehl’s so you don’t have to use the soap.” The water-pressure comment was a lie; she also knew her mother would object to the thin, dingy white towels, barely thick enough for Valeriya, wherever she was working now, to approve for dusting. “Mom, please? Rudy said we had to be in the lobby at eight-thirty.” Evelyn moved back toward the bathroom. “I’ll get the water started for you, okay? It takes a minute to heat up.”

  Her mother raised an arm over her supine body, then let it arc down heavily. “I feel just terrible. I can barely move. I think I must have food poisoning.”

  “You haven’t eaten anything since the sandwich you had in the car last night.”

  “It was oozing with mayonnaise. Mayonnaise is swimming with germs. I don’t understand why people at these delicatessens put mayonnaise on absolutely everything. Valeriya never used to put mayonnaise on my sandwiches.”

  “You had Valeriya make you sandwiches?”

  “It gave her something to do,” Barbara said.

  “Cleaning the house probably kept her occupied. But, Mom, you get food poisoning, like, four hours after you eat something. It’s been overnight. I’m sure you’re fine.” Evelyn started for the bed, but stopped herself; she didn’t want to have to see her mother in her nightgown, the outline of her aging body under the thin material, smelling of morning and seeming far too vulnerable.

  “Mayonnaise…,” Barbara mumbled, and drew the cover, a rough paisley print, closer to her underarm. “Evelyn, please, turn off that ghastly light.”

  “In the bathroom?”

  “It’s giving me a headache. I can feel a migraine starting to come on, and I can’t have any light when I’m getting a migraine. Evelyn, I just don’t think there’s any way I can go today. You’ll have to apologize to your father for me.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t say ‘what,’ Evelyn, how many times do I have to tell you? It’s ‘pardon.’”

  “Mom, you have to. Rudy said it’s really important that we’re both there. It could help with the sentence.”

  “Well, you’ll have to tell Rudy that I’m feeling just miserable. Your father has managed to do all the rest of this on his own so far. I’m sure me with a blinding headache standing behind your father as he does the perp walk will do no one any good.”

  “It’s not a—I don’t think it’s a perp walk, Mom. Please get out of bed. You have to go.”

  Now Barbara had pulled the thin cover, a mélange in rust and orange, over her head. “Phowhit blan whaffle,” she said.

  “What?” Evelyn glowered at this creature. She could see the gray roots of her mother’s blond hair above the paisley bedspread. Her mother was opting out, but opting out left all the responsibility on Evelyn’s shoulders. Barbara was acting like a toddler at a moment when Evelyn badly needed a mother. Evelyn felt tears coming into her eyes but blinked to erase them; one of them had to stay stable, and apparently that had to be her. “Get up. Mom, get up.”

  Barbara moved the cover down to just below her mouth. “You don’t know what it’s been like, I was saying. All these people with their false concern: ‘How is Dale?’ What answer am I supposed to give to that?”

  “I don’t know, Mom. Please. Get out of bed.”

  “It’s why I simply don’t go out anymore.”

  “Today, you have to.” Evelyn looked at the alarm clock, with its 1980s white-block lettering; 7:58 thirrupped to 7:59. “We now have half an hour. You need to get dressed. I don’t care if it’s the last thing you want to do. It will help with Dad’s sentence and you have to do it. Please. Just get up.”

  Barbara was silent and Evelyn watched the clock flip to 8:00 and then 8:01. “I just can’t get out of bed today,” Barbara said finally. “Tell your father I feel nauseated and dreadful. I have tried, Evelyn—I came all this way. I can’t face everyone like this. I need to rest.”

  Evelyn shut her eyes tight, then opened them and stalked over to the curtains and yanked them open wide, scraping the rings along the metal rod, eliciting a muffled moan from her mother. She returned to the bathroom and tried to slam the door, but the wafer-thin wood only gently puffed shut. She slammed down her hairbrush and threw a lipstick against the mirror so it left a chunk of pink wax dangling against the glass, then marched back to the room.

  “One more chance,” Evelyn said, her voice even and cold. “Do your duty.”

  Her mother laboriously opened her eyes. “Don’t you think you should put your hair up?”

  Evelyn’s arms searched for something else to throw, but there was nothing nearby, and so Evelyn stamped her foot and let out a cry of frustration. Barbara’s eyes were already closed. Her mother started to say, “Tell your father…” but Evelyn grabbed her purse and pulled the door to the room shut as hard as she could, getting out before she could hear the end of the sentence.

  The elevator stank of instant coffee and cigarettes. In the lobby, a child was carefully peeling an orange into the steaming breakfast-buffet tin of scrambled eggs. She saw Rudy in front of the automatic doors, which were opening and shutting and opening and shutting as he waved his hands.

  “Good, a couple minutes to spare. Your father’s in the car. Get in there,” he said.

  She walked out and hoisted herself into the backseat of the SUV. Dale turned around from the front, looking up. He didn’t smile; his forehead was creased in a new pattern. “Hi, there.”

  “Dad,” Evelyn said.

  Rudy grabbed the car door and stuck his head in. Evelyn could smell his cinnamon gum. “Where’s Barbara?”

  “Is your mom almost ready?” her father asked. He was neatly and subtly dressed, in a navy suit that was hanging off him. His jowls hung loose from his jawbone. He tried to grin a few beats after he had finished the sentence, but he couldn’t quite achieve a full smile.

  “She’s not. She says she’s sick. I’m sorry.”

  “What’s that?” Rudy said.

  “She says she’s sick. My mother. She’s not coming. She says she’s sorry. I’m sorry.”

  “She’s sick.” Rudy chomped on his gum so that his lips smacked against one another with each jaw movement. “She’s sick. Okay, so, what, she’s bent over the toilet throwing up?”

  Evelyn sat looking at the seat in front of her.

  Rudy was working his gum into a saliva-filled lather. “She understands the concept here, right? You show up as an upstanding member of the community, your responsible wife and your pretty daughter at your side, judge is gonna look at you with a little more lenience than if your wife cares enough about you to go ahead and get sick the morning you’re being sentenced for obstruction of justice.”

  Her father flipped down the visor mirror so he could see his daughter. “Evelyn, why don’t you see if you can get her down here? Just go up to the room and see—”

  Rudy chawed. “Yeah, hon, why don’t you go up there and tell that mother of yours she’d better get down here, oh, five minutes ago? This car is going to leave and she had best be in it.”

  Evelyn turned to look at Rudy, spittle clinging to his lips, and then to her father. She took a breath. “Driver, you know where we’re going, don’t you?” The man looked in the rearview mirror and grunted. “Great. We’d better get going. Dad, are you ready? Rudy, if you’re going in this car, I suggest you get in.”

  “Listen, sweetheart—” Rudy said.

  “Evelyn. That’s my name. Not ‘sweetheart.’ I’m not going back up there, all right? Don’t you think I had this conversation with her already? If you want to go up there and slam the door and plead and cry and make a scene in the Friendship Inn hallway, go ahead. But I won’t do it, and I think we’d better go. It�
�s better to have his daughter there with him than just you. Right? Rudy?”

  “Fuck!” Rudy shouted to the universe, then, a minute later, opened the back door and plopped down next to Evelyn.

  The courthouse’s exterior, to its credit, promised nothing. It looked more like a prison than anything, square, drab, from an era of Soviet-inspired cinder-block architecture. Rudy led Evelyn and Dale through the metal detectors and to a courtroom where the benches were already populated, some of the people, obviously reporters, holding notepads. The hearing started right on time, with the prosecutor and Rudy arguing over the sentencing-guideline calculations, then about $9 million in restitution, which was a whole lot more than Evelyn had thought her father would owe. Then the judge asked if Dale had anything to say.

  He did. The back of Dale’s neck was stretched long, his head seeming heavy. Then Dale stood up a little straighter. “Judge Nakamura, my respected colleagues in the legal profession, I just wanted to tell you all that I have thought seriously about what I did, and really faced some of my demons here, and I take full responsibility for it. I understand that it was wrong in the eyes of the law, however right I may have thought it was at the time, and however much I thought it helped my clients. I was always working for my clients, and I always believed I was doing right by them. Nevertheless, when the law tells you you’re wrong, you’d better listen.”

  He sat, and the judge looked up at the room. The sentencing guidelines in this case were fifteen to twenty-one months, the judge said, and those guidelines were suggested but not mandatory. He had taken into account all of the factors, he said, including Dale Beegan’s strong community support, his family, and his long work record that suggested this was an aberrance in behavior.

  Evelyn saw the back of her father’s head nodding. That was good; he always said he could read a judge better than anyone. Please, she thought, trying to send a message to the judge. Please. Probation with no prison time. Please.

  The judge coughed, almost bronchial. However, given the state of Delaware and the current administration’s stance on what was and was not proper conduct among lawyers, and the egregious nature of the scheme outlined by prosecutors, the judge said, it was important to send a message that the blind pursuit of money cannot be tolerated. Dale Beegan was hereby sentenced to twenty-nine months.