“Look, Evelyn, I don’t really need details, okay? It’s just better if you go home.”
“There’s only one train back on Fridays and it was at noon. I have all this stuff.”
Camilla looked it over. “I’ll take the party stuff,” she said.
“But—”
“I’m sure you’ve wormed your way into some other families up here. Surely one of them will take you in.”
“Camilla, this is just a misunderstanding. Your mom wants me to race tomorrow.”
“Evelyn, it’s not a misunderstanding. And you’re not racing. Back down. For once.” With that, Camilla hopped in the car, shut the door with a firm click, and hit the gas. Evelyn realized then that Camilla hadn’t even turned off the motor to talk to her.
Evelyn, glancing back to make sure the station attendant hadn’t been watching, took her duffel and walked to the service road behind the strip mall next to the train station, so no one driving to or from town would see her on the main road. She walked by the unadorned backs of the grocery and the video-rental shop, both of their Dumpsters bursting. She walked by the touristy furniture stores and the motels and the boat-repair shops with their propped-up hulls. As town got closer, she walked by the ice-cream parlor, and the motel, and the hotel that was a step up from the motel, and the flower shop where all the summer brides ordered their bouquets. From this side, they were all the same, with giant garbage bins and cigarette butts and cars parked at odd angles in lonely lots.
Evelyn felt that if she could just keep moving, it would be all right and she could keep these things at bay. Camilla would backtrack; Jaime never mentioned a girlfriend, so something must have been amiss between him and this girl already; Scot didn’t necessarily know for sure yet, and she could convince Nick and Camilla not to tell him; she’d see Preston and he would see she was sorry; her father, her father, they couldn’t all know about it, it wasn’t possible. But it was possible.
After she had walked for three-quarters of an hour, a small hill demarcated the start of town from the strip-mall outlying parts. Evelyn pitched down it, hot and smelly, with a sore shoulder from where the stiff leather duffel strap had been digging in, looking for somewhere to land. After checking that no one she knew was in sight, Evelyn took a break next to the marina. So she had lied a couple of times. So she had violated Camilla’s rules. She had worked hard to get here and deserved to be here and wasn’t going to be defeated because Camilla decreed it so.
The marina was lively for that time of day on a Friday and, in preparation for the Fruit Stripe, was crowded with trailers holding single sculls, double sculls, fours, and eights. Some collegiate crews had shown up; a foursome carrying a boat down to the water for an evening row wore Yale jerseys. Evelyn remembered crew at Sheffield, the races on the Schuylkill and on Quinsigamond where they’d sleep in motels the night before and carbo-load. Two people were stringing up a banner: FRUIT STRIPE REGATTA 2007—HEAD OF THE FRUIT STRIPE. Evelyn was just under the Lake James Marina wooden arch when she saw Scot.
“Oh, my God,” she said, tired, happy, relieved. She ran to throw her arms around him. “I’m so happy to see you. You don’t even know.” She shut her eyes and pressed her ear against Scot’s beating heart, so glad he was there, so solid and warm, as if she’d summoned him, and it was three blissful seconds before she wondered why and how he was there.
“Jesus,” someone said, and Evelyn looked behind Scot to see Nick, arms crossed.
“Nick?” she said.
“I think I can say with some confidence that Scot doesn’t want to see you right now,” Nick said, stepping out from behind Scot’s shadow; Scot was gnawing at his thumb. “Camilla said you weren’t coming.”
Her stomach started to simmer and pop. “Scot’s going with you? To Camilla’s?”
“That’s the plan.” Nick began to steer Scot off toward the motorboat dock, until Evelyn grabbed Nick’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Nick, but I’m allowed to talk to my boyfriend. You’re not his bodyguard.”
“No, Evelyn, I’m his friend. You need to go home.”
She was a few inches shorter than Nick, but she managed to force him back and squeeze in between him and Scot, who looked like he had been teleported from apartment 5G. Nick moved toward her, but Evelyn put both hands on his shoulders and pushed him away. “I’m sorry. You understand.”
“What the fuck?” Nick said as Evelyn guided Scot to a bench by a garbage can.
Scot sank onto the bench, still not making eye contact. She tiptoed to him, her hand hesitating until she rested it on his back. He flinched and moved his body away. He was not looking at her and had raised one hand to shield his eyes. She put her hand on his back again; it was warm. His hand now shot down from his face and chopped her arm away.
On the shore, she heard a cheer of “Bulldog! Bulldog! Bow, wow wow!”