Bing picked up, almost causing Evelyn to drop the phone, but she instead deepened her voice. “Yes, Jean Hacking, please,” she said, not that Bing would recognize her voice.
“Hello, is this Mrs. Hacking? Mrs. Hacking, it’s Evelyn Beegan, from Sheffield. I’m well, thank you. No, no, I’m just over at the lodge with a group of people. I do, I really like the renovation. Preston? I was … I was planning on calling him, but it’s been—he’s been hard to reach. No, no, I have his cell phone. I actually hoped to talk to you. Listen, this is so forward of me, but I couldn’t resist. I heard you were organizing a group for the Fruit Stripe tomorrow, and I just wondered, I love rowing so much, and if you need a last-minute fill-in. Yes, I rowed lightweight at Sheffield. I did! I did. Sculling? Okay, sure. I can scull. I will, I will definitely say I’m a Mildred’s Mom. Really? That’s fantastic. I can’t tell you how much I miss rowing. Oh, that’s just great, Mrs. Hacking. So seven A.M. tomorrow at the marina. I’ll be there. I can’t wait.”
She pressed end. She would show them all. Scot would see her and change his mind. Camilla would see her and change hers. She had a vision of herself rowing into the dock, jumping out to claps on the back, and standing up on the porch of whoever was hosting this year and laughing as she toasted with her fellow racers, while Camilla looked on with at least interest and at most regret and Scot reconsidered. Evelyn was someone who had a rightful place in this regatta, in this world. They would all see.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Racecourse
The only room available at the Lodge at Lake James was the Moose Suite, and that cost $1,600 for the night. Though the receptionist at the Lodge had specifically asked for a credit, not debit, card, Evelyn thought it was highly possible that none of her credit cards, not even the Visa Pewter, were still working, and handed over a debit card instead, praying that there was enough cash in her account to cover it. When the woman successfully ran the card and handed Evelyn the room key, Evelyn told herself she just had to make it through the race Saturday and then she could figure everything out.
The Moose Suite turned out to have a spectacular view of the lake, but those picture windows also looked straight out to Sachem. When the glowing iris-blue sky of Lake James at dusk receded, replaced by blackness and stars, Evelyn could see the lights on the Rutherfords’ camp.
She ordered room service and found she was watching Sachem like it was television, with her carbo-loading spaghetti laid out before her. A boat left West Lake, and she followed its pilot light as it skirted closer to Sachem, wondering if it had come from Shuh-shuh-gah. A light in the top of the main house winked on and off—was that the attic, or was that Souse’s office? Then there were two more pilot lights, these from the same point on West Lake, moving toward Sachem, and she felt certain that the Hackings were headed there tonight for some pre–Fruit Stripe party, some event that Mrs. Hacking had not invited her to or even mentioned. She squinted at the lake, trying to detect movement on the island, Scot or Nick or Camilla, and opened the door to her balcony to see if she could pick up some sound over the water. She heard laughter from somewhere, and a few trumpet notes, but the acoustics of the lake made it too hard to tell where the sounds were coming from. Still, she could picture them at Sachem, lights on, fire jumping, Louis Armstrong playing, no doubt talking about her.
She felt better now that she had eaten. Her head was clearer than it had been in a while. Evelyn pulled out Camilla’s bracelet from her duffel and fastened it on her wrist, pressing the pads of her fingers against the crisscrossed gold that made up the rackets’ nets.
The next morning, Evelyn awoke at five-thirty with pillow creases on her face. She had not slept well. She trudged over to the marina, where the Mildred’s Moms boatman helped Evelyn rig the single scull and take it down to the water. Evelyn hadn’t been able to shake the sense that she was in a dream, and now, as she tightened the bolts and greased the slide and knotted her race bib, she was finding words and actions that had been gone from her physical and mental vocabulary for years resurfacing. Foot-stretcher. Oarlock. Gunwale. She looked down and saw she still had the racket bracelet on from last night. She thought of hiding it in the grass somewhere, but then left it on; it was irreplaceable, and she couldn’t risk losing it.