Everybody Rise (19 page)

“Well,” Dale said, looking around the room. “This looks like quite an event. What's that you're reading there, Scot?” A white volume was sticking out of Scot's messenger bag.

“An economic journal. An article about Nouriel Roubini,” Scot said, as Preston, behind him, feigned narcolepsy.

“What did Mr. Roubini have to say?” Dale asked.

“He thinks America's about to go over a cliff. Housing, bank failures.”

“The prophet of doooom,” Preston said in a Scooby voice.

“Well, it would be nice to see Wall Street taken to task,” Dale said.

“Dad, let's leave Wall Street alone, okay?” Evelyn said.

Dale looked around, then perked up. “Ah! Look, that's Jim Weisz over there. I tried a case against him in SDNY last year. I'll just go say hello.” He strode off as quickly as he had arrived.

“SDNY?” said Preston.

“The Southern District of New York. Federal court,” Scot explained.

“Oh, good. I was afraid it was a state school,” Preston said, pushing aside the straw in his drink to drain his glass. “Another round?”

As Preston went to get drinks, Evelyn joined Charlotte at the appetizer table; caviar was just toppling off Charlotte's piled-up plate.

“God, isn't this all a bit much? How much do you think this event cost?” Charlotte said.

Evelyn picked up a plate, surprised that Charlotte, who always seemed to be staying afloat with her salary, would have noticed cost.

“Don't you ever—” Charlotte said. “I mean, all of it, all this prep-school stuff and everything that surrounds it, the weekend trips and the wines and the dinners. Like, when we were at Nick's in the Hamptons, everyone was just sort of congratulating themselves on being part of the WASP hegemony, when it's not really meaningful anymore.”

Evelyn picked up a smoked salmon crepe. “I don't know, Char. It has its appeal,” she said.

“How?”

“I guess it's in the tradition of it. The way of life, the code of manners. Treating people well, and serving a greater good. The people—Char, not to be all PLU propaganda, but I thought the people would be awful and they're nice. They're great, in fact.”

“But”—Charlotte swept her hand over the meeting room—“who in that crowd, or here, for that matter, is achieving a greater good? It's a bunch of self-involved kids who have jobs supplied for them by their parents.”

“That's not true, Charlotte. You're saying that because everyone's young, and no one's really had a chance to shine yet, but Camilla's going to run the New York social scene and, you laugh, but it is pretty important charitable work. Nick's grandfather was a Massachusetts governor, and he'll probably go into politics.”

“That's crazy talk. Nick can't even get a promotion to VP and has a long history of cocaine use that would waylay any attempt to run for office. You think any journalist covering him isn't going to turn up the, like, thirty women a year he slept with and never called back before he marries whatever proper wife he ends up marrying? Also, in order to be in politics, shouldn't he be doing something other than banking right now?”

“He's not going to be a banker forever. He was talking last weekend about moving back to Brookline and running for selectman. The banking background gives him some real-world experience.”

“I don't think it works like that anymore. Look at the kids out there who actually are trying to do politics as a career. About half of the kids I went to Harvard with were dead set on being president. They were scary as hell, but that's a side note. They were presidents of their high-school classes, and they joined the Institute of Politics the first week on campus, and by the time we graduated they were interning in D.C. and organizing conferences with Henry Kissinger. A banker with family connections can't just sail in and get elected anymore.”

“Look at the Bushes. There's something about family connections that people trust.”

“The Bushes! Okay, except for an incident where Daddy buys you out of trouble and gets you the presidency—”

“Charlotte, please, I don't really need your lecture on this. The Kennedys, if you want an example of a Democrat.”

“I'm just saying that money is made in so many more interesting ways now.”

“Well, but doesn't that make the tradition more important? If anyone can make money, isn't it desirable to have, I don't know, breeding, or tradition—”

“Say it. Class.”

“Charlotte.”

“Class. Class class class class class.”

“Whatever. I'm just saying that as all these colleges and clubs and whatnot open up to literally anyone who can buy their way in, and even to people who get in on their own merits, then maybe people still want somewhere where family and tradition and—”

“Insularity and aristocracy still reign? Keep the rabble out, right, Ev? Look, the WASPs used to be in charge of everything because there was no one else there. Now there is. We live in a meritocratic society, or at least what's supposed to be a meritocratic society, so you have people with actual ability who are gaining power. I mean, the manners of the WASPs are still good, yes, but there's nothing else to look up to. Nobody cares about the WASPs except the WASPs themselves.”

“I just don't think that's true. Look at, I don't know, fashion. Michael Kors's fall collection is all
Gatsby
and
Love Story
. Rugby stripes everywhere.”

“You care about fashion now?”

“You don't need to be so dismissive, Charlotte.”

“Okay. It's a cultural reference still, I'll give you that,” Charlotte said.

“Look, the other paradigm for someone with money is, like, Phil Giamatti or your dreadful boss with his house on Meadow Lane. I'm not sure that's something to aspire to, either.”

Charlotte snorted. “Did I tell you my boss named his new yacht the
Never Satisfied II
?” she said.

Evelyn laughed. “The
Never Satisfied I
should've been a clue.”

When the parental Beegans joined them at dinner, Charlotte abruptly got up from the table, claiming she had promised to sit with her old swimming coach. That meant Barbara seated herself next to Scot, where her conversation grew seemingly more and more random, though Evelyn knew precisely what Barbara's aim was as she brought up tennis to see if Scot played, then talked about great Baltimore families that Scot couldn't have known, then asked where he prepped. When he said he had gone to high school in Arizona, Barbara inquired if it was a public school, and when he gave an affirmative, she asked if it was on an Indian reservation.

Evelyn was eager for the break when the speaker, an alumnus who was now ambassador to China, spoke. She drifted away during the boring thrum of his speech, but snapped back during the question-and-answer session when she saw Scot's hand raised high. Her mother inclined her head, and Evelyn put one hand on his knee. “It's not really that sort of an event,” she whispered with a light smile.

“They just asked for questions.”

“I know, but people don't really ask questions at these dinners,” she said.

“I think it's fine to ask questions,” Dale, sitting on Evelyn's other side, said loudly. “Fire away. Good to hold people in power responsible.”

From across the room, an old alumnus croaked out a question about the Yangtze cruise accommodations, and Scot gave Evelyn a quizzical look, raising his hand higher.

“Yes,” Scot said when someone brought the microphone to him. “I was curious about whether there's any movement on the notion that President Bush should pressure Hu Jintao on the artificially low value of the yuan, and how you're thinking about the effect of that on American manufacturing versus the effect a freely traded yuan could have on U.S. interest rates.”

Preston, sitting across the table, made spirit fingers at Evelyn, Barbara gripped her napkin, and Dale grinned, entertained. The ambassador answered the question, and Scot then indicated he wanted the microphone back, but Evelyn waved off the microphone holder. “That's good, Scot. That's enough,” Evelyn whispered.

“I thought—”

“That's good,” she said, with an eye on her mother's knuckles.

“I like his spunk,” Dale said.

As they got up from their seats, Barbara clutched Evelyn's shoulder. “This is a Sheffield alumni event, not a news conference,” Barbara hissed. “I presume the ambassador thought he was speaking to friends, not interrogators.”

Evelyn rearranged her napkin on the table. “Well!” she said to the napkin. “Should we get going?”

“So. He's from Nevada,” Barbara said, as she steered Evelyn toward the coat check.

“Arizona.”

“His family is still in Arizona?”

“His mother is.”

“A widow?”

“No, she's divorced.”

“Divorced.” Barbara pursed her lips. “I'll tell you something, Evelyn. The Topfer women may not have been happy, but we have never resorted to divorce.”

This was true; even after Barbara's father had fled with the secretary, Barbara's mother, who spent most of her time smoking cigarettes and cutting coupons, never filed for divorce. Evelyn pulled two singles from her wallet for the coat-check girl.

“I told you to start wearing suntan lotion on your hands,” Barbara said. “You have to be careful about wrinkles. The hands are the first to go, Evelyn. The hands and the knees. Have you been wearing suntan lotion on your knees?”

“I don't know.”

“They're a dead giveaway for age. You're already almost twenty-seven. Is this really the best way to be spending your time? With this Arizonian?”

“Twenty-six. Most people my age aren't married.”

“A lot are. Palling about with an Arizona boy is fine when you're just out of college, but at this age—”

“Mom, he's, like, he's really smart. Charlotte says he's one of the smartest people at Morgan Stanley. He was recruited there by David Greenbaum, who's a hotshot, and he's one of the youngest VPs there, which is a position even higher than Nick has. It's not like he's a subway musician.”

“I'm sure he's perfectly qualified for his work. I thought your website job would take you into new circles, however. Lead you to meet new people.”

“It has.”

“It's just with the investigation—” Barbara guided Evelyn to the end of the hallway, where no one was listening.

“Everyone's father is getting investigated these days,” Evelyn said. She had been trying to convince herself of this ever since Camilla had said it, and the mantra sometimes helped tamp down her anxiety about the investigation, but it rang false when she said it aloud.

“Oh, are they?” Barbara's tone was sarcastic. “How nice to know New York has become so accepting. In Bibville, they do care, as it happens.” Barbara extracted a mauve lipstick from her bag and applied it precisely. “To tell you the truth, all of my friends at the Eastern have been asking me about you, and saying they just don't know why someone hasn't snapped you up yet. Because deep down, people think something is wrong with you when you aren't married or engaged at twenty-seven. It starts to be strange.”

“Why don't you tell them I'm dating someone?”

“I don't want you to make the same mistake as I did. Marrying someone on the fringes of the circle just puts you on the fringes of the circle, don't you see? The life you're conscripted to, of constant social adjustments because your husband doesn't bother with what he thinks are silly social niceties, isn't a pleasant one. Rules are rules for a reason. Scot doesn't even play tennis. Do you really want to spend your life with someone who can't play tennis?”

“Mom, that's so old-fashioned,” Evelyn said. Yet Evelyn had felt disappointment when Scot sat on the sidelines during the tennis games at Nick's, lost in his history book, not caring that he couldn't play, while Evelyn had to partner with Nick's fat friend from Enfield who flung sweat all over the court.

“I wanted to talk to you about Jaime Cardenas. He's on all the junior benefits committees, and went to Harvard and Stanford business school. Fernando Cardenas's son. Do you know him yet?” Barbara said.

Evelyn was often amazed by her mother, who managed to track young New York social circles almost as closely as Evelyn now had to, despite Barbara's barely knowing how to use the Internet. Evelyn didn't know Jaime, but she knew of Jaime; she had Googled Jaime several times after seeing him in some pictures with Camilla. The family fortune started with a Venezuelan bottling plant a few generations ago, and then Jaime's grandfather had built up a conglomerate of consumer products, retail and banking businesses. Jaime was now a vice president at the family business and had hit the New York social scene with some force, including an unheard-of election to the Met Museum's board of trustees at the age of twenty-eight. He was one of her eventual targets for People Like Us, but she hadn't yet run into him to give him the pitch. “It's pronounced ‘Haime,' Mom, and ‘de Carden-yaz.' Or ‘de Carden-yas.' Jaime de Cardenas. Scot went to Harvard, too.”

“The business school isn't the same thing as the college. Jaime de Cardenas.” Her mother said it slowly and as if there were olives stuffed in her mouth; Evelyn wondered if it was the only Spanish she'd ever spoken apart from “Rioja.” “Good. So you do know him.”

“Not really.”

“Now, normally I'm not sure how I'd feel about someone, you know, Chicano,” Barbara was saying.

“I don't think people say ‘Chicano' anymore.”

“The fact is, the world is changing.”

“I'm sure Jaime will be delighted to hear that.”

“Stop that sarcasm. It's unbecoming. I think you should consider dating him.”

It was Sheffield all over again. Her mother thought a simple directive was sufficient to make Evelyn achieve social glory. Just make friends with so-and-so from Watch Hill. Just date a Venezuelan billionaire. Yet her mother had never made it at that level, Evelyn thought, and had been trying to make up for it ever since.