“You mean Nick?” Evelyn said.
“Oui. Et Mademoiselle Rutherford.”
“They’re not…”
“They’re doing the dance of love, et cetera.”
“Nick and Camilla Rutherford? Really? How did they meet?”
“At a benefit. Kidney Cares, I think. Or Liver Cares. Whichever is the popular organ that all those girls are involved in.”
“Is the liver an organ?”
“Do I look like an anatomist?”
“So they’re hooking up? Or dating?”
“Good God, woman, I don’t know. Do you think you should have The Talk with them?”
Evelyn took Preston’s drink and sipped from it; then, when he cried out in protest, handed it back. She followed Preston indoors but kept glancing back at Camilla.
Inside, Evelyn understood what the lines and logs and decor of the Hacking camp were drawn from. Sachem’s central room could legitimately be called a great room, versus the marketing-speak used to sell condos, wherein a “great room” meant a single living/dining room. It smelled of library-book pages and peaty smoke. Broad horizontal windows looked out over the lake, and all the coffee-table books and Navajo pillows and thick blankets looked so casually strewn about that Evelyn suspected they probably were, not carefully placed just before the party.
An antler chandelier hung from above, and a giant fireplace made up of flat, broad gray stones hulked over the side of the room. Mr. Hacking was squatting in front of it.
“Very good, isn’t it? You see a lot of these fireplaces, but the masonry here is hard to match. Do you see why?” he said. Evelyn looked to Scot, the straight-A student, to answer, but Mr. Hacking beat him to it. “The mortar!” Mr. Hacking said. “It’s very thin. It shows skilled work. Most fireplaces like this have mortar of a centimeter or more. This, no. Fine work.”
Charlotte was eager to go see the dining room, in a separate building from the main house, and she, Scot, and Mr. Hacking hurried off. Evelyn turned toward the room. People were milling, talking. She heard one woman say that she would never touch turnip, and another say how much she hated Portland. It wasn’t just Camilla who had that sense of belonging. All of these people did. Everyone knew what to do, what to drink, what to talk about. They knew what they liked and what they did not (Portland and turnip the beginning of a no-doubt long list). There were other things Evelyn couldn’t see that were surely going on, she knew—alcoholism here, an affair there—but their rules protected them and kept everything running so smoothly. Adjustable-rate mortgages? Why had Evelyn been reading about adjustable-rate mortgages? These people didn’t care about that. She had no idea what she was supposed to say to any of them, and she was going to return to PLU a total failure because she couldn’t manage to think of anything that would interest these people and she certainly couldn’t sign them up. Evelyn felt as if there were a large neon arrow over the thin-mortared fireplace pointing down to her and blinking OUTCAST—OUTCAST—OUTCAST.
The warmth of fingertips on her elbow made Evelyn start. She snapped her head to see the woman she’d been watching minutes ago who’d been dissing turnips, a brunette in a gray pearl necklace. She looked familiar in that way that Evelyn found rich white women did; perhaps she’d seen her in one of Barbara’s Town & Country back issues, or her doppelg?nger had umpired at an Eastern Tennis Club match Evelyn had played in. “I always think the opening moments of a party are the hardest, before everyone has had enough to drink,” the woman said.
Evelyn knew a life rope when she saw one and clutched on gratefully. “So true,” she said. “Though I’m not sure we can safely say that everyone here has not had enough to drink.”
The woman laughed, a rich, cigar-smoke sound. “I’m Margaret Faber,” she said, extending her hand.
“Evelyn.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Evelyn. And how do you know the Rutherfords?”
“I’m staying with the Hackings, on West Lake. I went to Sheffield with Preston, one of their sons,” Evelyn said, watching Margaret closely to monitor her response, and saw Margaret’s mouth turn up.
“Sheffield,” said Margaret. “Marvelous place.”
Open sesame, thought Evelyn, and continued, “Everyone at camp is very excited for the Fruit Stripe. Mrs. Hacking is quite determined that we’ll make a good showing.”
“Knowing Jean Hacking, I can assure you that the camp had better make a very good showing. Are you racing?”
“Ah, no,” Evelyn said. “I’ll be spectating.”