“You lied about the donation, Evelyn. I’m sorry about your father—”
“Oh, can it, Camilla! You’re sorry about my father? You don’t give a fuck!” The “fuck” felt even more satisfactory than the loogie, popping off of Evelyn’s lips with force. “You wanted Jaime for yourself! You’re mad about a boy! That’s all!”
“You think I’m mad about a boy? Do I look that uninteresting?” Camilla said.
“What is it, then? The dance? The three minutes that the spotlight wasn’t on you? Sorry every photo wasn’t of you, Camilla. That must have really stung.”
“You didn’t even deb, did you?” Camilla shouted. “The Bachelors’ Cotillion? Guess what? My friend Morgan from St. Paul’s was a deb there and had never, ever heard of you. Or your family. Shipping money? Really? You completely made it up. And for what? So you could be a handmaid for a bunch of teenagers? And your father? He was never going to be a donor for the Luminaries, was he? How long have you been lying?”
“You were going to eviscerate him at that lunch,” Evelyn said. “You were going to parade him in there like some sort of freak. The Southern lawyer, ladies and gentlemen of New York City. He’s so down-home that he didn’t even get he was supposed to give twenty-five thousand dollars in exchange for people making fun of him. Does the mascot dance? Does Camilla get points for being so clever?”
“Oh, please. You’re pathetic.”
Evelyn gasped for breath as she tried to get away from the circling motorboat, but Camilla was upping the throttle and the waves were knocking the oar handles into her stomach.
“Yes, Camilla, you get to set the rules. You get to be in charge of everyone and everything. I forgot. Please excuse me.” Evelyn had spent a not-insignificant amount of time reading up on where Camilla’s fortune came from and had concluded the only difference between Camilla’s money and her money was time. In her anger at being attacked, it was all spilling out. “The Hennings wouldn’t even pay fair wages during the Depression, and the Rutherford banking fortune has some sketchy roots, so if you want to talk about background—”
“Oh, ladies, we have a stalker on our hands!” Camilla said, clapping, which meant her hands left the steering wheel and the motorboat nearly hit Evelyn’s oar.
Charlie Hawley was pulling close, taking advantage of the fight. Evelyn tried to speed up. “Why don’t you ask Brooke?” Evelyn said, but Brooke had turned to the side of the boat, apparently fascinated by Charlie Hawley’s advance. “Brooke, you’re not going to say it now? Fine. I’ll tell you what Brooke said to me. Everyone has something to say when you’re not around, Camilla, and it’s not nice. We say you use people and throw them out. I’m saying it, but we talked about it. We talked about it.”
“Brooke, did you say that?” Camilla said evenly.
Brooke shook her head miserably.
“I didn’t think so. Evelyn, these are just more of your fantasies,” Camilla said sweetly.
“I’m Evelyn and I was a debutante,” Phoebe said in a loud falsetto. “I’m Evelyn and I like to sleep with men who are way out of my league.”
“You’re eighteen!” Evelyn said, sucking in air as her strokes got shorter and shorter. “Shouldn’t you not be a major-league bitch just yet? Isn’t that something you should age into, like your sister?”
Camilla brought the motorboat so close that Evelyn had to yank her oar in so she didn’t hit it and get thrown off balance. She thought, for a second, that she had quieted Camilla, but then she heard, “Is that my bracelet?”
Evelyn shoved her oar back out into the oarlock and tried to row fast enough that Camilla’s view of the bracelet would be blurred.