Push had grown up at Sixty-sixth and Park, and in the intervening decades had moved two blocks up and two blocks over, to Sixty-eighth and Fifth. Barbara did not want to walk there from the Plaza, as she was worried about grime from the city soiling their clothes, and had ordered a special long black car to take them there. Barbara wore a pink suit with golden buttons down the front and had Evelyn wear a seafoam flowered Laura Ashley dress with a lace bib at the front that Evelyn thought made her look like a Puritan.
The first thing Evelyn saw when they got out of the elevator was a painting of a young military drummer with bright red cheeks, hung over a gilded table with pink flowers on it. A maid led them past room after room, until they reached a room with windows on two sides, where the ceilings appeared almost as high as in the Plaza lobby, and there was a big chandelier and more vases of fresh flowers. She knew that fresh flowers were very expensive because her parents were always fighting over whether they were necessary or not.
Evelyn went to the window and watched taxis below, until her mother said, “Evelyn!” and inclined her head toward a chair, and Evelyn buried herself in a big green armchair where her feet did not meet the floor.
Then, announced by a tinkle from her bracelets, in came Push. Evelyn knew it was Push right away by the hurried worry of a servant behind her, and because she wore a kind of blouse Evelyn had never seen, all swooshy around the neck. Her hair was pulled back into something that looked like a cinnamon bun, held in place by will and a chopstick. Push wore red lipstick, which Evelyn’s mother had once told her was only worn by call girls, and though Evelyn didn’t totally know what those were, she was pretty sure that Push was not one of them and her mother might be wrong on that.
“Barbara, so lovely to see you again, you haven’t aged a day,” cried Push as she approached the couch that Barbara had jumped up from. Evelyn half stood, then sat again, completely forgetting whether she was supposed to be upright or seated when she shook an adult’s hand. She was confident in her handshake, though; her mother had had her refine her handshake two years ago, because to have a weak handshake is to invite disrespect.
Then the grown-ups were talking, and it was a while before Push noticed Evelyn, hovering in a squat over the chair in case she was called upon to either sit or stand.
“Well! This must be your daughter!” Push said. “Hello, I’m Mrs. Van Rensselaer,” she said, extending a hand to Evelyn, and Evelyn shook it with purpose, and responded, “I’m Evelyn. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Are you going to be a Hollins girl, too?” Push said.
“I hope to be,” Evelyn said, in an accent she thought sounded close to the Baroness Schraeder’s from The Sound of Music.
“Well! How lovely,” said Push. She turned to Barbara with a smile. “I have a daughter, too, though she’s just a toddler. We’ll see if we can sign her up for Hollins someday, too.”
The adults continued chatting, then Push signaled to someone, and a tray of tea was placed on the table, and Evelyn figured out what she and her mother had been practicing for at the Plaza.
Push poured a cup for Barbara, then one for Evelyn, who lifted it by the handle. She watched to see if Push would put in cream with her tea. She did, after the tea, so Evelyn deduced it was English breakfast, and Evelyn reached for the cream, too. Then Push put in lemon, which Evelyn had thought was a no-no, and Evelyn, lost, looked to her mother, but her mother was not paying attention.
“Well, it’s so nice to see old friends,” Barbara began. “And just wonderful to be back in New York. The city has so much verve.”
“It’s a wonderful place to live,” agreed Push.
“One thing we’re sorely lacking in Bibville is the sort of cultural life you have here,” Barbara said. “I took Evelyn to the Frick yesterday and she was just transported.”
This was not true; Evelyn had liked the water pool, but the art was boring.
“Bibville,” Push said vaguely.
“A lovely spot on the Eastern Shore, heavy with politicians come summertime.”
“The Eastern Shore.”
“Maryland.”
“Of course.”
“The Frick is doing fascinating work,” Barbara continued. “You’re on the board there, I think I remember.”
Push furrowed her brow. “Just recently, yes.”
“It’s such a worthy institution.”
“Yes.”
Evelyn’s mother curled her pinkie around the teacup’s handle. “I’m hoping to spend more time in New York now that Evie’s nearly out of the house,” she said.
“Is she really almost out of the house? How old are you, Evelyn?”
“Ten,” Evelyn said.
“Almost eleven,” her mother said, “and we’re seriously considering boarding school.”
This was the first Evelyn had heard about it but, being an enthusiastic reader of Pen Pals, a teen-novel series about girls named Palmer and Shanon who attended boarding school, she was into it.
“Well, my boys are at Sheffield and they just adore it. I was a Porter’s girl. So you’ll hear only good things from me.”