It wasn’t until she looked at her knee, scratched and smeared with dirt, that she remembered falling, and remembered what had happened with Preston. She looked at the living room and saw his jacket was still there. He had fled. She had betrayed him, had made his deepest secret seem like a piece of gossip, and he had fled. She touched the jacket material, but didn’t know what to do with it, so she left it on the armchair.
Evelyn staggered back to the main house in the gray light, getting up to her room without anyone seeing her. She was in bed. Asleep, awake, asleep. Then footsteps. A knock. A dream about her teeth falling out. Queasiness. Go to sleep. A dream about signing up for English at Sheffield and not going to a single class and it turned out she had never graduated. Sounds from downstairs. She was missing out already. Minutes, maybe hours, later, the word “omelet,” which she shook off, receded into grayness, felt sick, rolled over.
Later, a sound. Evelyn pulled her encrusted eyes open. Daytime. Late daytime. It was a knock. “Evelyn?” Camilla. “Time to rise. It’s ten. I think I want to get on the road early. So you can either take the train later or go with me now.”
Jaime. Last night. Jaime. Scot. Camilla would kill her. Everyone would kill her. This was really bad. This was really bad. Evelyn shoved her wrist, still with the bracelet on, under the comforter. The rest of her stayed still, her heart racing from the sugar of the alcohol and the problem she had created. “Okay,” she said back; her voice was cracked and dry. “How soon are you leaving?”
“An hour.”
“Just let me shower.”
On the way to the bathroom, she heard Jaime in the kitchen downstairs, saying something about making some toasted bread to go along with the eggs.
Of course he was making toast for her. Of course everything was fine. Jaime liked her, remember the seconds he’d let his hand sit on top of hers, the unbelievable attraction at the Lake James Club, and the way he had told her what a mischievously pretty—was that it, or just mischievous, she couldn’t remember—girl she was, the way he’d hung around her after everyone left? She couldn’t be some random girl he had slept with. She couldn’t be that, some throwaway middle-class aspiring girl, another suitcase in another hall. This had to be the start of something serious. He had mentioned his mother—who talks about their mother unless they’re serious? Meeting at Lake James was such a cute story, it practically vaulted them to the first slot in the Times wedding announcements. He would want to settle down soon, and Evelyn would be the perfect wife to accompany him to all his functions. She had gambled on this and she had to have won. It would be fine. It had to be fine.
But Scot. Put it away, she told herself. Don’t think about it. Don’t think of his big grin when he leaned on his elbow and looked at her on the Sunday two weeks ago when he woke up before her. There hadn’t been another way, she told herself; she couldn’t have broken up with Scot without knowing there was something definite with Jaime. People cheated. Kennedys and Paleys and Roosevelts cheated. She wasn’t married, hadn’t vowed to stay faithful. She was doing it for her family. She had done the right thing.
And Preston. Put that away, too. Friends said stupid things. Friends forgave. It was okay. It would be fine.
Evelyn got up out of bed, pressing a gold racket against the soft flesh of her palm. As she passed Camilla’s room, she unhooked the bracelet’s clasp and was about to deposit it on Camilla’s dresser when a creak on the stairs made her jump. She refastened it and hurried into the bathroom. Turning the shower water as hot as it would go, she scrubbed and cleaned until her skin felt raw. The bracelet was wet when she stepped out, which meant she couldn’t leave it on Camilla’s bureau without raising questions, and, she reasoned, wouldn’t Jaime wonder where it had gone when she saw him next? She picked up her duffel and tucked the bracelet into a side pocket.
Downstairs, she found Nick and Camilla downing coffee in the small family kitchen used for breakfast and snacks. “So you want to leave with us?” Camilla said.
“It’s that or the train?”
“Yes.”
“Is Jaime going later?”
Jaime then walked through the kitchen. “Hey,” he said, tilting his head at Evelyn.
“Are you leaving later, Jaime? Could I get a ride?”
“I might leave soon. I’m not sure. I have to do some business on the way back, so you should really go with Camilla.”
“So go get your stuff, Ev. We’ve got to move,” Camilla said.