Everybody Rise (16 page)

“Amazing.” Evelyn giggled, making a mental note to find out what Gorsuch was. “How funny. You're a Dark and Stormy girl, too? There aren't many of us. So good, right?”

“Mmm-hmm,” Camilla said. “You guys, this is too funny.” She had the weekend
Journal
spread out in front of her. The shade of Nick's body fell over the newspaper.

“Private planes story,” Nick said. “Little do you know I forwarded that story around at ten
A.M
.”

“Little do you know I forwarded it at nine-thirty,” said Charlotte, clonking down her BlackBerry on the wooden picnic table. “Wireless Internet, gotta love it.”

“And that's why you're not married, Hillary,” said Nick.

“What's the story?” Evelyn asked.

“It's people refurbishing planes for their personal use,” Charlotte said. “Entire passenger planes. One hedge-fund guy uses his plane to transport his horses.”

“The weirder part is the lawyer who has the 737,” Nick said. “It doesn't add up—the lawyer kicking the tires of this plane? What kind of lawyer has a plane? On, what, one-eighty bucks a year, he's buying a 737?”

“If it's a plaintiffs' lawyer, they're making a lot more than one-eighty bucks a year—a Big Tobacco case or something?” Preston tapped a pack of cigarettes on a side table. “Basically, our Parliament dollars are paying for this guy's ride.”

“Pres,” Charlotte said sharply, nodding her head toward Evelyn.

“Oh, shoot. Sorry, Ev. I forgot about your dad.”

Evelyn smiled wanly and sat down at the picnic table.

“What about her dad?” Nick said.

“Dale Beegan, plaintiffs' lawyer,” Preston said.

“You joke,” Nick said. “What firm?”

“Leiberg Channing, out of Wilmington. You haven't heard of it,” Evelyn said. “It's pharma cases, mostly. Where the companies didn't do enough testing on a drug, that sort of thing.”

“Leiberg Channing,” said Camilla, of all people. “It's a big firm?”

“Medium,” Evelyn said, willing the topic to die a quiet death.

“Nick, can I borrow your BlackBerry for a minute?” Camilla said.

Nick handed it to her as he said, “Pharma. I swear I didn't know that. Wait, is that the one—”

“I can't believe people still smoke,” said Charlotte loudly.

Preston stretched his lean body out in his chair and ran a hand over his curls. “This reminds me, fellows. We can't sustain this train situation any longer.”

“You don't like the feeling of being a Jersey commuter with the LI double-R?” Charlotte said. “Wait, didn't you guys take the Luxury Liner yesterday?”

“The Luxury Liner, my dear, is still a bus. Anything with four wheels and a tin toilet—not to mention anything that christens itself ‘luxury'—has nothing to do with the real thing. What we need to do, group, is upgrade altogether. I think we ought to take a helicopter out here next time.”

“So pretentious!” said Charlotte, laughing.

“Dude. Preston has forty g's on his wrist and we're sitting around a Bridgehampton pool—I think we passed pretentious some time ago,” Nick said, lifting his chin at Preston's Patek Philippe watch. “I'm in for the heli. We'd get out here in half an hour. The helipad is about two minutes from my office.”

“Why must you say ‘dude,' Nick? Your work trips to L.A. should not give you license to talk as if you were from California. Sorry, Scot,” Preston said.

“I'm from Arizona.”

“I don't recognize Arizona.”

“What, like as a state?” Charlotte said.

“No, from a diplomatic perspective. Trade, reparations, that sort of thing. At any rate, the thing to do is not to rent a helicopter. Renting…” Preston smiled indulgently at the notion.

“We don't want a helicopter,” Nick said. “My boss has a great twelve-seater. Keeps it in the private airport at JFK. Heliport to JFK, plane to the East Hampton airstrip. Half an hour, tops. When we get our bonuses.”

Camilla looked up from Nick's BlackBerry. “Must you be so crass?”

“It's not crass when it's achievable, darling C,” Preston said.

“You guys are idiots. I like my bus.” Charlotte shifted her weight on the picnic-table bench.

“What about you, Scot? Where do you stand on this divisive issue of air travel to Bridgehampton?” Preston asked.

Scot, who was wearing blue swim trunks which needed to be so long to cover his thighs that they looked to Evelyn about the length of her inseam, cleared his throat. “Well,” he said, and Evelyn peeled a splinter of wood from the table, “mass transit is actually incredibly efficient, and air travel relies on fossil fuels and obviously gives off heavy carbon emissions. Beyond that, I'm not sure—” He looked at Evelyn, who was examining the splinter. “Sorry, am I being boring?”

“Not at all,” Nick said. “Please. The floor is yours.”

“Well, I guess you have to think about the issue of materialism. I think our generation is obsessed with too much. We keep wanting to trade up, and if you think about Schopenhauer, the futility of striving and the ultimate emptiness of human desires…” Evelyn looked at the group: Charlotte looking sleepy, Preston studying his watch, Nick evaluating the sky like a satisfied cat looking for a snack of birds, Camilla tapping on Nick's BlackBerry. Evelyn had thought the weekend in the Hamptons, at Nick's house that he owned and didn't rent, with her friends who had gone to Sheffield and Enfield and St. Paul's, Harvard and Dartmouth and Tufts and HBS, was enough. Yet she had taken the train when she was supposed to take the bus, and the bus wasn't good enough so they were discussing a helicopter, and then the helicopter would be subordinate to a plane, and there was never enough, and nothing was ever good enough. Always, the more danced around, taunting her.

“Sorry. Um. I guess that's heavy for the beach,” Scot concluded.

“I love Schopenhauer at the beach,” Charlotte mumbled, her eyes closed. The others were silent.

“Scot,” said Evelyn briskly. “Would you mind getting me some water?”

“Sure.” He jumped up, accidentally kicking the chair, which squealed loudly over the bricks and skittered to a halt. “Oh. Ha.” He strode inside with the focus of a man carrying out an important mission.

“Your boyfriend is a blast,” Preston said after Scot had shut the door. “I look forward to his evening lecture on geology.”

“Seriously, what the fuck was that?” Nick said.

Camilla was looking at the door that Scot had gone into. “I think he's very smart,” she said simply, and handed Nick's BlackBerry back to him. With that, the meanness evaporated and the mood was kind again, and Evelyn wondered if she'd underestimated Camilla.

“Can we work on dinner plans?” Camilla said. “I'd like steak. Grilled and with chimichurri. Nick, will you make me chimichurri?”

“I'll make you anything you desire,” Nick said, his voice soft, pleasant.

“Ooh, let's have tiny lobster-salad rolls to start! Isn't that fun and beachy?”

“You got it.”

“We'll go get supplies,” Camilla said, and then looked at Evelyn, who jumped up from the picnic table when she saw that Camilla was including her in the “we.” “I suppose I have to put on pants. I'll meet you at the door in five minutes, Evelyn.” Camilla walked inside, handing Evelyn her empty glass as she passed her.

“So,” Nick was saying as Evelyn headed in, “I now have a Best Buy credit card because of this zero percent APR offer they were running when I bought the flat-screen. I'm thinking, time value of money, it's a year of interest-free financing, I'll take it. But it's so bush league, having a Best Buy credit card in my wallet.”

Evelyn hurried to wash and dry the glasses, go to the bathroom, pull on some pants herself, and be waiting by the door within five minutes, as Camilla had instructed.

A few minutes later, Camilla knocked on the den door and walked in without waiting for a response. “Hi—oh. That was your stuff?” Camilla looked amused as she scanned Evelyn's things, spilling out of the duffel.

Evelyn quickly slammed her hand down over the tampon. “Mine? Oh, yeah. It is.”

“I threw it out of the upstairs room.”

“Oh, that was you?” Evelyn said, she thought unconvincingly. “I figured it was just in the way, or something.”

“Oh, my God,” Camilla said, starting to laugh. “I saw that, like, spangly turquoise bathing suit and thought whoever Nick slept with last night must have left her stuff there. Nick and I hooked up the last time I was here, and Preston said there was some girl here last night, and I just saw those dresses hanging in the bathroom and I thought—well.”

Evelyn hadn't thought the turquoise bathing suit was overdone at all and wondered what was offensive about the dresses—her clothes looked like they belonged to the random girl that Nick brought home? She had bought half of that stuff at Calypso, when that girl was probably shopping at Rampage. “Seriously, the den's really cozy,” Evelyn said. “It's fine.”

Camilla leaned against the door frame. “We're hooking up. Nick and I. It's truly, like, the least interesting thing. But FYI. My palmist says that I need to work on being more open, so I'm telling you. I'm just bored and need someone to mess around with.”

“Completely. Completely. I think that's great. Nick's a good guy, and—”

“I wasn't actually looking for your opinion. I just wanted to be open and honest, and being open and honest is a practice rather than a quality, the palmist says. So that's all.” Camilla seemed to be waiting for something. “Oh, I Googled your father.”

“My dad? Just now?”

“On Nick's BlackBerry. I found some very interesting things.”

Was Camilla actually coming in here to haze her, like this was
Dazed and Confused
and she was a freshman piggy? Evelyn was trying her hardest with this girl, but this was getting ridiculous. She plopped on the edge of the fold-out bed, facing away from Camilla. “Look. It was a guy from years ago who's bitter, basically, that started all this. They're not going to find anything.”

“What guy?”

“The grand jury, Camilla. If you're coming in here to let me know that you know that my father is being investigated, very good. Go tell it on the mountain.”

Camilla walked around the bed and tilted her head. “Your father's being investigated by a grand jury?”

Evelyn looked at Camilla, unsure how to answer.

“You're not worried, are you?” Camilla said.

“Camilla, it's a federal investigation.”

She heard Camilla laugh, and it was a kind, tinkling laugh, not a cruel one. “Oh, my dear,” Camilla said. “It is so not a big deal.”

“What?”

“Darling, everyone who's anyone is being investigated by grand juries these days. You're not taking enough risks in your business if you're not, truly. Two of the girls in my St. Paul's class have had their fathers indicted in the last two months.” Camilla was nodding confidently. “First of all, no one ever goes to jail, and if they do, they go to, basically, camp for a couple of months. The wives love it; they get a break from their husbands. My mother just planned a trip with one of her best friends whose husband is going away for three months. The Amalfi Coast.” Camilla clapped. “I'm serious. You cannot be worried about it. It is not even an issue. By the way, I brought up your father because he sounds very real,” she concluded.

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.