Everybody Rise (15 page)

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
Economist
s, SPF 55, and a bottle of aloe vera for when he inevitably got sunburned.

The beach outing was cut short by afternoon clouds, which were threatening rain by the time Evelyn and Charlotte got back to the house after a stop at the UPS Store, where Charlotte had to mail some paperwork. Evelyn got out of Charlotte's rental car, salt encrusted inside and out from the sea and the Terra Chips she'd been eating, and rubbed her hands over her bare arms; the air had dropped from warm to cold. Charlotte was typing on her BlackBerry in the car, and Nick's car was in the driveway, as was an additional one, a blue Jaguar with the license plate
BIGDEAL
, making creaking noises that indicated it had just been used. Nick's boss, maybe, over for drinks?

“Hello?” Evelyn called out as she dropped her tote by the door. “Nick? Are you here? Scot? Pres?” She hurried upstairs. If she ran the bathwater right away, she could be submerged in that good-looking tub by the beginning of the storm.

She was startled by a pile of laundry sitting in the hall, lumped over Nick's Oriental runner. Then the pile took shape into specifics. That was her brown bikini with the tortoiseshell clasp. The white dress she'd hung in the bathroom, crumpled beneath the clay-covered sole of a Jack Rogers sandal. Her makeup case, open, with a tampon poking out indiscreetly. Her turquoise travel toothbrush, wet and splaying its bristles against the hallway floor. Was somebody doing laundry and had accidentally gathered Evelyn's stuff? The toothbrush and makeup case, though? Had Scot—but he wouldn't put her stuff outside, and certainly not without folding it. She approached the pile and saw that everything she had so carefully chosen for the weekend had been jumbled together in a furious mess. Scot's suitcase—which he had not unpacked, and was still neat and intact—was behind the pile. Was Nick mad? What had she done wrong?

She peered into the bedroom she had claimed a day ago, looking for a clue. On the bench at the end of the bed, where her bag had been, was a tote with the pink initials CHR. She decoded them immediately.

“No, keep it in the C corp,” Evelyn heard from behind Nick's door. “What? Because if we structure it this way we can use the tax loss carryforward. The tax loss carryforward,” he said again, with conviction. “Rich, get your act together, okay? We'll talk again in a couple of hours and I want those numbers done.”

The door at the end of the hall opened. “Evelyn,” said Nick, holding his phone and looking at the mess. “I take it all that finery is yours.”

Evelyn realized she was not only squatting, but fingering the wayward tampon. She angled her arm to try to block Nick's view of the tampon, and with her foot, pushed the cup of a bra away.

Nick gave her a strange smile. “Camilla decided to come out for a couple days. I guess she wanted the room you guys were in. Sorry about that.”

Evelyn blinked fast. “No, I'm sure it's my fault. I didn't know Camilla was coming. I shouldn't have claimed a room.” As she said it, she thought it sounded absurd; should she have napped quietly at the base of the stairs last night?

Nick's smile relaxed. “Yeah. Camilla came up last weekend and really liked the view from that room or something. Sorry.”

“Last weekend?” Evelyn had been at the PLU wine tasting and hadn't heard a thing about Camilla coming up last weekend. She was already excluded, apparently.

“Yeah. If the rest of the rooms are taken, you and Scot can bunk in the den on the fold-out couch. Sheets are in the closet next to the kitchen.”

The den on the fold-out couch. Great. Camilla would probably be standing over her in the morning, pointing at the saliva crust that formed around Evelyn's open mouth when she slept. “Will do. I just need my bag. It doesn't seem to be here.”

Nick kicked at a neighboring bedroom door with his foot and located the duffel wedged behind the door. “Camilla has a good throwing arm, but her aim is a little off,” he said grimly, handing Evelyn the open duffel and loping toward the stairs. Evelyn shook out a shirt and began refolding her clothing slowly. When she heard Nick's footsteps downstairs, she jammed everything into the bag. She clapped the Jack Rogers together with an unsatisfying thwack, and hurled the toothbrush down the hall so it bounced off the wall. If Nick had seen her stuff in the hallway, so had Preston, and Camilla had gone through all of it. The bloodstained period underwear that a thousand washings had made mud brown that she'd thrown in at the last minute. Her toothbrush on the germy hallway floor. All dumped in the hallway for everyone to see. What rule had she forgotten to study? What had Nancy Mitford forgotten to forewarn about American social mores in 2006? She took her bag downstairs to the small, dark den and sat on the couch as the sky outside got grayer. She kicked the bag. She knew what Nancy Mitford would've said: Evelyn shouldn't have claimed the second-best room, certainly not in Nick's house, where she was at best the fourth-ranked guest. She kicked it again.

“Fuck!” She heard Charlotte walking by the den, typing on her BlackBerry. “Why didn't this fucking file attach?”

“Language,” Preston said from somewhere outside. Evelyn skulked into the hallway and looked out the glass doors to the backyard and pool. Camilla was indeed there, lounging in—Evelyn squinted—a fisherman's sweater, bikini bottoms, and worn-down Top-Siders. Evelyn retreated to the den. She had to smooth over this thing with Camilla. Show her it hadn't fazed her. She wriggled out of her caftan, leaving her bikini on, then faced the obvious question: Did Camilla have a bikini top under the sweater, or did that take away from the whole thrown-on effect? She buttoned up a thin green cardigan but it looked bizarre. She tried the bottoms with an anorak, but then she looked like a seafaring prostitute. Evelyn pulled on a long-sleeved T-shirt over her bikini, and hoped that was close enough.

Everyone was in conversation when she approached the door. Evelyn looked around the kitchen for, literally, something to bring to the party. There was an open bottle of red wine in the kitchen, but Evelyn vaguely recalled a rule about not drinking red before four o'clock. She saw some dark rum on Nick's bar cart, and grabbed it, remembering seeing ginger beer in the fridge. She poured one Dark and Stormy, tasted it, wiped away her lip marks from the glass, added a lime, and then poured a second.

She walked outside, the ice in the glasses clinking. “Anyone want a Dark and Stormy?” she asked.

“Yes!” hooted Camilla from her chair. “Please.” She waved her hand at Evelyn, who promptly felt, clutching these slippery drinks, that her own swimsuit look was entirely off. “Evelyn! I didn't know you were coming. I love my People Like Us page. Yesterday I posted a question about Gorsuch and got an answer in, like, three minutes.”