“So the girl invited herself up, and then wouldn’t even take the hint? Souse. It is somewhat amusing.”
Evelyn slunk down into her seat.
“Beegan? No, I haven’t. Have you? Where are they from? Beegan? That’s not a Baltimore name. Camilla’s calling her what? Oh, I see. Clematis. A climbing vine. Once these girls from outside the city get a taste of fame, or even, really, acceptance—well, what they think is acceptance—it’s just impossible. Of course, no one who’s actually from here cares at all about all this.” The woman had the tone of someone who’d given this advice time and time again. Conventional wisdom that applied to the thousands of kids from Duluth, from Mobile, from Detroit, who came to New York to try and rise above their stations.
Social clematis. That’s what Camilla was saying in the boat. Evelyn had thought she was meant to be a part of this scene, but her mistakes had piled up so high that complete strangers could detail them in the train waiting station. Jaime. A girlfriend. That the girl had played field hockey at Yale. Scot. Her father. Her mother. Credentials that Evelyn didn’t have. That Evelyn had just been faking all along.
“Train’s coming in ten minutes. Have your tickets ready,” the attendant said into a microphone.
Evelyn, feeling nauseated and still sweating, stood up and took the long way around the sitting room so the woman couldn’t see her face. “One to New York, please,” she said in a voice that finished in a whisper.
The attendant, pale with burst-capillary cheeks and a dyed red perm, typed in something. “That’s a hundred seventy-five,” she said.
“One-way?”
“Last-minute purchase. Only have business class available.”
Evelyn used her forearms to support herself on the counter. Her head was whooshing so loudly she wondered if everyone could hear it. She opened her wallet and looked at the array of options that were no longer available to her. All these empty, useless cards filling her wallet.
The Visa Pewter. With the new terms she’d received. Maybe it would still work. She slid it across the counter. The woman ran it through and, as Evelyn had pretty much known she would, said, “Not going through, hon. Got something else?”
Something was wrong with Evelyn’s breath. Or her heart. Were they changing the lights in the station? It was so gray. She thought she heard Scot’s voice, and a hand extracted Evelyn’s AmEx, and she knew there was something about the AmEx that she should be worried about, then Evelyn was surprised to see that the person’s hand holding the credit card looked like hers. “Nope, not this guy, either. Hang on a sec,” Evelyn heard, but the words were floating and bumping, not arranging themselves in any logical order. She heard Camilla saying “Clematis, clematis.” Why had they turned off the air in here?
“The twelve-nineteen to New York City arrives in five minutes. Please gather your belongings and make your way to the platform for an on-time departure.” Evelyn heard, then, “You got anything else, hon?” Evelyn must’ve responded, though everything was shape-shifting now, because she heard the woman say something about Barneys from very far away. She remembered the subway station next to Barneys from when she’d first arrived in New York, so long ago, when she thought she’d go into Barneys to buy a purse and didn’t realize how expensive they were. She’d gone right back out, offended, and bought a purse from a street stand instead, a cute one, red, for something like twenty dollars, and had patted it as she’d gone to catch the N downtown to meet Charlotte for a movie.