She Who Shops

by Joanne Skerrett

  She hated thinking such thoughts. Am I envious of Lana and her life? she asked herself. It had been bugging her for weeks, but she just couldn’t bring herself to think it. Lately it just seemed that everything Lana did got on her nerves big-time. The way she flaunted her expensive clothes, car, fancy friends—making Weslee feel that she just had to be a part of it and that her own life was a pitiful existence she needed to be rescued from.

  Sometimes Weslee looked at the new clothes hanging in her closet as if they belonged to someone else. The brand names confused her. She didn’t always like the way they looked. But Lana always was so sure. “You have to get it. It’s Miu Miu.”

  Weslee sighed. She wasn’t sure if she wanted this life.

  “That was so awful!” Lana grabbed her shoulder.

  “What?” Thoughts interrupted, Weslee was almost surprised to see Lana standing right next to her.

  “Peony,” Lana answered.

  “Her name is Peony? I thought it was Penny.”

  “No, it’s Peony. Her mother’s a nut, and she’s worse. That guy she’s marrying is so gay. Everybody knows he’s gay; even her mother knows.”

  “Really, then why . . . Never mind.” The answer to that question usually was: These people are nuts.

  Before Weslee could say anything else, they were interrupted again. This time by an older woman, maybe Peony’s mother or some relative. Weslee tuned Lana and the woman out as they air-kissed and began their little dance of telling where they had gone, who they had seen, where they had eaten, and what they had bought.

  The blue water, stirred into a frenzy by the ferry, was more interesting to look at. And listen to, Weslee decided. She hoped these people would not be at Lana’s parents’ barbecue.

  The only reason Weslee recognized the Pratesi tablecloths was because housewares and linen were her newest obsessions. Someday, she thought, someday I will only sleep on Pratesi. She admired the spread of gourmet finger food—some of which she did not recognize—wine and more wine and imported beer that Lana’s mother had laid out for her guests. This was the kind of party that she had half-dreaded having to host some day if she and Michael had ever gotten married. Now she was relieved. She could never have pulled this off.

  She recognized Eleanor Brown, Lana’s mother, the moment she laid eyes on her. She was the woman who had sat next to her in first-class on her flight into Boston a couple of months before. But Eleanor shook her hand, not a hint of recognition in her eyes, when Lana introduced them. Weslee decided not to ask her why she had been so angry at Lana on the satellite phone that day.

  It was easy to see where Lana had picked up her skills as limelight-craver extraordinaire. Eleanor was the same. She bubbled over as she greeted guests, squealed as she complimented their appearance, asked about their jobs, their children. Weslee found it almost laughable. Mother and daughter read from the same script.

  Eleanor approached her, smiling.

  “Weslee, please make yourself at home here, dear. Mingle, mingle, mingle. There are some really great folks here that it may be worth your while to know.” She winked and touched Weslee on the shoulder and quickly made her way to speak to an older couple.

  Weslee cringed inside. Sure, it would be worth her while to know the Kensingtons of Newton, the Feinsteins of Brookline, the De Villars of Prides Crossing, the Mercers of Back Bay, the Shermans of Newport, the Bromfields of Sag Harbor, and the Tennisons of Southfield. They had intimidated her at first, and then they irritated her. They all got around to asking the same questions.

  “Dunster?” Jack Sherman, philanthropist and venture capitalist, had asked her warily. “Dunster of Chicago? What does your father do?”

  Another woman had said, “Dunster . . . I don’t think I’ve heard of your people, honey. What does your father do?”

  Where was Lana? Her current conquest, Jeffrey Knight, had made an appearance, and she was in hot pursuit.

  Weslee stood alone near the food, sticking with the crudités. She watched the fifty or so people socialize and felt like an outcast. Again, Lana had left her alone in a room with people she did not know and with whom she had nothing in common. Their empty questions swirled in her head.

  “What does your father do?” “Dunster of Chicago? I’ve never heard of any Dunsters in Chicago.” “Oh, are you related to James Dunster, the doctor, of Lake Forest?”

  No. No. No. No. Sorry, no. Great meeting you, too. Weslee wondered if it was pity or disinterest that she saw in their eyes as they studied her briefly and then moved on.

  The few guests who were in her age group were just as boring and tired as their parents. They shook her hand limply. Looked uncomfortable then fled to the refuge of people they already knew. One of them had asked, “So, been anywhere interesting lately?” She had answered a bit too truthfully, “This is the most interesting place I’ve been in quite a while.” The young woman walked away, looking confused.

  Weslee had run to the bathroom and checked her underarms, her teeth. No, she smelled fine. There was nothing stuck in her teeth. Yet she was not wowing this crowd. Oh, well, she thought, popping another baby carrot into her mouth. I’ll just have to wait this one out. She felt as if she were marooned on an island, all alone.

  “And who are you?” she heard a voice say from behind her.

  She turned around, and there he was, Weslee’s cousin Duncan. She opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came out.

  God, he was beautiful. His polo shirt matched the sky and his khakis were perfectly creased. He was wearing Docksiders. He had perfected the preppy look, which Michael had carried off so well, and it drove her out of her mind with desire.

  Then she smiled. “Hi.”

  But there was no recognition in those honey-colored eyes.

  He doesn’t remember me? Maybe he’s had a few beers, she thought. But he didn’t seem to be the beer-drinking type, if one were to judge from his athletic body.

  “I’m Weslee,” she said, sucking in her tummy and trying not to breathe as he very obviously took inventory of her from head to toe.

  She immediately wanted to kick herself. He had been a jerk to her at that party at the art gallery. She couldn’t believe he didn’t remember her. She certainly remembered him.

  She thanked her lucky stars that she had followed Lana’s advice and bought the outfit she was wearing. The way he looked at her made her worry for a quick second. At least, thanks to her Kate Spade shoes and Cynthia Rowley dress, she fit right in with the rest of the younger women at Eleanor’s party.

  “That’s an interesting name for a girl.”

  “All my father’s doing. He really wanted a boy.” She tried to suppress a sigh. What did it matter? She knew what question was coming next.

  “That’s understandable, I guess,” he said.

  She waited, but the question didn’t come. What does your father do?

  Apparently, he wasn’t going to introduce himself, and she certainly wasn’t going to ask. She started to look around for Lana.

  Then another handsome young man came running up to him.

  “Hey, Dunc,” he said. “I need your keys, man. I’ve gotta go get some beer. Hey you,” he said to her.

  Her heart skipped. “William, what a surprise!”

  The Crest smile she had tried hard to forget over the last couple of weeks made her heart flip-flop again. She had called him once, but his answering service had said he was away on business. She didn’t bother trying again. Now here he was, reappearing like magic.

  He nodded. “You look great.”

  “Thanks.” She smiled and blushed as their eyes met. She looked away.

  “Oh, you must be the Weslee that everyone’s been telling me I have to meet, then,” Duncan said.

  “Huh?” she said, looking at him. He frowned. “Oh,” Weslee said, coming back to reality. “I didn’t know people had been talking about me.”

  “Nah, just Lana,” Duncan smirked.

  She could see that William was embarrassed.r />
  “Well, I’ll see you around later, Weslee,” William said as he took Duncan’s keys and ran off toward the front yard, where all the Jaguars, Mercedes, and monster SUVs were parked.

  “William’s a good guy,” Duncan said. “He’s worked hard to get to where he is.” Gee, I hope that’s a good thing, Weslee thought, getting the distinct feeling that Duncan might have worked to get to where he was—but not hard.

  Weslee, for lack of anything better to say, asked him about his family’s ties to Lana’s family. He spoke purposefully, as if he had taken diction lessons, in a voice that was somewhat hoarse. She wondered if he smoked. He was a beautiful man, and she barely listened to what he was saying. She caught phrases here and there—his father, Lana’s uncle, close families, going to the same camps together as children, taking vacations together.

  She couldn’t possibly be his type. Matter of fact, she could just picture him with a more toned-down version of Lana: golden skin, straight hair, Ivy-educated, Talbots-clad, and whatever else went along with that old stereotype. She, Weslee, was not those things at all. She would rather spend a Sunday afternoon going for a sixteen-mile run instead of sitting around pouring tea and serving petit fours on perfect china to prim and proper women who hated to perspire. So what did he want with her? Did he feel sorry for her because she was standing here all alone, marooned on her own little island? He made her uncomfortable. He seemed kind, but she worried that she would say the wrong thing to him.

  “Oh, business school is great,” she heard herself saying in reply to one of his questions. “It’s challenging, but that’s what I was after.”

  “I know what you mean. I like to be challenged, too.”

  Again, she had no idea what to say. “So, what kind of work do you do?”

  A lawyer, of course. Corporate.

  He seemed apologetic to answer “Harvard” when she asked where he had studied law. Was he ashamed of his platinum pedigree, or was it false modesty?

  “Wow, that’s really impressive,” Weslee said, and she meant it.

  He blushed, and for some reason that made him seem less daunting.

  At that moment, a part of her wanted William to come back and rescue her from this man, and another part of her wanted him to continue staring at her the way he was now: intently, curiously. It’s so rude of you to just look at me that way, she could have said. But no such words came out of her mouth.

  “So, what do you plan to do with your MBA?” he asked.

  “Join a major investment bank and then cash out in ten years and start my own business. Not sure what kind yet.”

  “You’ve got it all worked out,” he said. She thought she detected a bit of sarcasm in his voice.

  “I’m a planner,” she said defensively. “I like to know where I’m headed at all times.”

  He pondered that for a second. “Wharton has a much better program,” he said.

  Her temperature rose immediately, and she clenched her fist. “I didn’t want to go to Wharton. I wanted to come to Boston,” she lied. She could tell from his eyes that he didn’t believe her.

  “You should talk with Pearl Martin. She went to Wharton. She works for Goldman.”

  “Duncan, I appreciate what you’re trying to do here. But I really don’t need anyone telling me where I should be at the moment. I’m in a program that’s the right fit for me.” And, besides, Wharton rejected me. But she would never admit that to him.

  He shrugged. “Lighten up. It’s not a big deal.”

  She sniffed.

  “I’m back,” William said from behind her. She almost hugged him. He looked at her and then looked at Duncan quizzically and then gave him back his car keys. He knew something was going on.

  “Did anyone show you around the property?” Duncan asked her.

  “Not really,” she said, silently cursing the absent Lana.

  His cell phone rang. “Pardon me, but I have to take this call. Good to meet you.” He extended his hand to Weslee. He shook her hand firmly and strode away.

  “I can show you around, if you’d like,” William said.

  A minute later they walked to the other side of Lana’s parents’ property. There were only a handful of people by the pool. It was an unusually warm late-summer afternoon. The pool was covered, but the Sunbrella furniture was still out.

  “This place is so gorgeous,” she said to William.

  Lana’s parents had purchased the house when Lana was born. It was one of a few homes their family owned on the island. This one was the newest and largest and most modern. The four-bedroom house looked like a French country cottage inside but was all old New England weathered clapboard—effect, not real—from the outside. Eleanor was all about silk taffeta curtains, lots of flowers, crystal chandeliers, and porcelain figurines. It was pretty but definitely not Weslee’s style. The grounds, however, were stunning. The house was not near the beach, but it had a large swimming pool and splendid old trees. Plus, Eleanor’s gardener had made her front yard the envy of her neighbors.

  “Yeah, it’s all right.” William smiled back.

  “Just all right? I think it’s a bit more than that.”

  “I’m the city type,” he said. “I’m more glass and concrete than flora and fauna.”

  “Hmm. So what does that say about you?” OK, she thought, that is a pathetic way to flirt with a man, but it’s all I’ve got.

  He didn’t say anything, but she noticed that he smiled. “Well, what does it say about you that you like all this B. Smith stuff?”

  “B. Smith?” She was horrified. “I don’t even like B. Smith. I like nicely decorated homes, but I’m not one of those women.”

  “Ahh. I see. Then you’re more like Martha Stewart. You’d have someone else do all the decorating and just enjoy it,” he teased.

  She rolled her eyes at him playfully. What are we talking about? she wondered. I should probably be trying to impress this guy by talking about art, geopolitics, and the state of the stock market. But not talking about anything in particular didn’t seem to bother him.

  He only continued to rack up points. He grew up in the city, too—Roxbury, though his parents later moved to Randolph, a suburb ten miles out of Boston. They both had Caribbean parents. He was the first nerdy jock she had ever met. He talked about old buildings and architecture—and football—like they were the only things on the face of the earth. She almost laughed out loud at the way he got all excited talking about the first time he went to Rome, with an Italian-English dictionary and one hundred dollars in his pocket. One would have thought he was talking about heaven the way he described the old buildings, the culture of the place, the people, and the old-world style of living.

  “Oh, you have to go, Weslee. You have to go.” She noticed that the more passionate he was about something, the stronger his accent became. She liked that.

  “Am I boring you?” he finally asked when he finished describing the Coliseum.

  “No, not at all, I’m really enjoying hearing about all these places you’ve been to. Makes me wish I were better traveled.”

  “Well, there are beautiful spaces everywhere, even all over this country.” He was back in full architect mode. “Take Chicago, for instance. To some people it’s just a jumble of skyscrapers. But when I look at it, I see the same thing I think you see when you look at all these trees and even in the way you described how you saw the water when you were coming over on the ferry. I’ve always loved the city. It’s not that I hate nature. But I guess when I see all those buildings, I just see possibility, the power of building, of constructing, of making space work. And to me there is so much beauty in that. My father was a foreman, and I used to go to some of his construction sites after school when I was a kid. Man, it always amazed me to see those buildings go up so fast. All the steel beams, the concrete, the foundation. In a matter of months, all those things would take the form of a huge, towering, complete structure.” He paused as if reliving the memories. “All those things that you c
an just do with your own hands and your sweat—and years and years and years later they’re still standing there. People work in them and live in them, make their living in them.” He stopped. “Here I go again,” he said.

  “No, go on. I like hearing you talk about that stuff.”

  She was fascinated by his ease with her. She had never met a man who was so animated about what he did. From what she knew, most men did what they did because it paid the bills or allowed them to brag to their friends and impress women. But William was like a little kid talking about a video game or baseball card collection. It made her realize how glad she was that she had quit her job. She could never feel that way about writing reports about mutual fund performances.

  They talked for what seemed like hours. By the time it had started to get dark, she realized that she hadn’t mingled after all, as Lana and Eleanor had advised her to. She had spent the last two hours with William. She made that observation as they walked to the backyard, which was emptying. Many of Eleanor’s guests had left or were leaving.

  “What are you doing later?” he asked.

  “I think Lana’s taking me to some nightclub.”

  “You really don’t seem like the club-hopping type to me. How did you and Lana get hooked up?”

  “It just sort of happened,” Weslee said. “I really can’t explain it.”

  “You two are so different.”

  “Well, we’re not that different,” Weslee said, racking her brain for things that she and Lana had in common.

  “If you say so.” William shrugged. “I guess I’ll catch up with you later, Weslee Dunster.”

  As he walked off to his Jeep, now unblocked by the near-empty makeshift parking lot, she hoped to herself that he would catch up with her again. Something about him made her feel so relaxed and comfortable. Maybe it was his casual manner. Or the fact that he was so handsome yet didn’t seem to know it or care. Or that there was just a speck of dirt under his left third finger. Or that though he was quite muscular, he did not seem to be the type to spend hours every day at the gym. He was a man’s man, she decided. Only the bigger picture in his sights, not the details; thus there would be no manly manicures or personal tailors, nor would there be Kiehl’s products in his bathroom, she imagined. What were the odds, she thought. Someone like him in a place like this. She felt like she had found an ally.