*
The next morning, a cacophony of laughter and a high-pitched “Niiiiiiiick!”
The group had gone to the Jeroboam the night before after everyone finally arrived, a club that had sprung up on the edge of the Montauk Highway in a former run-down hotel and had instantly become the center of banker nightlife in the Hamptons. Nick had pulled some strings to get them all in, “even Scot,” as she had heard him telling Preston, which made Evelyn twitch. Scot’s sweetness was appealing when they were alone, but in groups like this, his cloddishness made Evelyn so self-conscious that she couldn’t enjoy herself, as she was gauging how harshly everyone else was judging her for being with him.
The Jero, as it was known, was basically a Twenty-seventh Street club deposited in the Hamptons. The club was hot and red inside, thumping and dark like an artery. Evelyn had followed Nick through a crowd, getting knocked by the hips of shaggy-haired men in button-down shirts. They’d waited for drinks in a line five deep and seven across, emerging with $15 Grey Goose and sodas quite a bit later. The drinks were small, and gone in a matter of sips. Charlotte was in hell—Evelyn knew this because Charlotte kept saying, with a clenched-tooth grin, “I’m in hell!” Evelyn didn’t have the luxury of that point of view, though, so she decided she was going to like the Jeroboam. She downed two drinks very quickly and joined Nick and Preston on the dance floor, where a machine was spritzing something into the crowd. “Pheremones,” yelled Nick, pointing, as droplets misted over them, and Evelyn just wiped sweat from her forehead and kept on shimmying to “I’m N Luv (Wit a Stripper).”
At some point later on in the evening, when the group had acquired a table and a group of random girls was dancing on it, Evelyn remembered blotting out cranberry juice from her skirt, and also an image of a bottle of Grey Goose in a bucket of ice; she had a bad feeling about the Grey Goose but couldn’t say why.
Charlotte, still in her pajamas, wandered into the kitchen, where Evelyn was opening cupboards, looking for a coffee filter.
“Did Nick take someone home?” Charlotte said, waving at the screeching from upstairs.
“I think so. Nick and Pres had a bet: whoever could pick up a girl with an opening line about something—what was it called—the litter or something? Some interest-rate thing?” Evelyn said.
“The LIBOR?”
“That was it.”
“Jesus. These poor girls. When we were out in NYC a couple of weeks ago they did the same thing with whether America should stay on the gold standard or not,” Charlotte said.
“Who won that one?”
“I think Pres, though he left the gold-standard girl at the bar.”
“Naturally.”
“Nick was a little, ah, energetic last night, wasn’t he?” Charlotte said.
“How so?”
“Like he was riding the white horse, dummy. One of the Morgan Stanley saleswomen is basically a cocaine trafficker for her clients. I think she routes surplus to Nick.”
“Not that I’m shocked that Nick is doing coke, but someone’s distributing it in her official capacity as a Morgan Stanley saleswoman?” Evelyn asked.
Charlotte opened the fridge. “Client services. Some guys want champagne, some want uppers, some want downers. She also has to take them to strip clubs and pretend she’s into it. It’s sick, but that’s how business gets done. I would like to see her expense report, though.”
“Seriously. Do the Colombians give receipts?”
“Seriously. How late did you stay?”
“Two or so.”
“I can’t believe you’re not more zonked. Do you remember springing for that ridiculous vodka?”
The Grey Goose. “Ridiculous how?”
“Um, did you see the price list?”
“What did it cost?”
“Three-fifty. Four hundred.”
“For a bottle of vodka?” Evelyn opened a cupboard that contained only a jar of spice rub. That was what was bothering her. She could’ve easily gotten away with letting Preston or Nick pay for the vodka, but it had felt good, for once, to step up and offer to get something that expensive. The boys had cheered her purchase, and she had gallantly poured hefty amounts of vodka into each of their glasses while they roared their approval. “Well,” she said, “I’m a guest here, and it’s done, so whatever.”
“It was the guys who wanted table service. It wasn’t like you had to pony up.”
“You got a round.”
“But Ev, I work in banking. I know what you make at PLU, and, look, you don’t have to feel like—”
“Charlotte. Enough. I wanted to do something nice. You don’t have to dissect it.”