Breakfast over, Nick dispatched Charlotte to get towels for the beach and Evelyn to get snacks. Evelyn retrieved two bags of Terra Chips and a bag of Twizzlers from the pantry. Up in the bedroom she and Scot were sharing, she threw on her new Tory Burch caftan, which Nick had seen at Lake James and referred to as the erection killer, and then tossed Scot’s items in her beach bag: research reports, annual reports, a pair of sunglasses, his asthma medication, a biography of Nathanael Greene, two Economists, SPF 55, and a bottle of aloe vera for when he inevitably got sunburned.
The beach outing was cut short by afternoon clouds, which were threatening rain by the time Evelyn and Charlotte got back to the house after a stop at the UPS Store, where Charlotte had to mail some paperwork. Evelyn got out of Charlotte’s rental car, salt encrusted inside and out from the sea and the Terra Chips she’d been eating, and rubbed her hands over her bare arms; the air had dropped from warm to cold. Charlotte was typing on her BlackBerry in the car, and Nick’s car was in the driveway, as was an additional one, a blue Jaguar with the license plate BIGDEAL, making creaking noises that indicated it had just been used. Nick’s boss, maybe, over for drinks?
“Hello?” Evelyn called out as she dropped her tote by the door. “Nick? Are you here? Scot? Pres?” She hurried upstairs. If she ran the bathwater right away, she could be submerged in that good-looking tub by the beginning of the storm.
She was startled by a pile of laundry sitting in the hall, lumped over Nick’s Oriental runner. Then the pile took shape into specifics. That was her brown bikini with the tortoiseshell clasp. The white dress she’d hung in the bathroom, crumpled beneath the clay-covered sole of a Jack Rogers sandal. Her makeup case, open, with a tampon poking out indiscreetly. Her turquoise travel toothbrush, wet and splaying its bristles against the hallway floor. Was somebody doing laundry and had accidentally gathered Evelyn’s stuff? The toothbrush and makeup case, though? Had Scot—but he wouldn’t put her stuff outside, and certainly not without folding it. She approached the pile and saw that everything she had so carefully chosen for the weekend had been jumbled together in a furious mess. Scot’s suitcase—which he had not unpacked, and was still neat and intact—was behind the pile. Was Nick mad? What had she done wrong?
She peered into the bedroom she had claimed a day ago, looking for a clue. On the bench at the end of the bed, where her bag had been, was a tote with the pink initials CHR. She decoded them immediately.
“No, keep it in the C corp,” Evelyn heard from behind Nick’s door. “What? Because if we structure it this way we can use the tax loss carryforward. The tax loss carryforward,” he said again, with conviction. “Rich, get your act together, okay? We’ll talk again in a couple of hours and I want those numbers done.”
The door at the end of the hall opened. “Evelyn,” said Nick, holding his phone and looking at the mess. “I take it all that finery is yours.”
Evelyn realized she was not only squatting, but fingering the wayward tampon. She angled her arm to try to block Nick’s view of the tampon, and with her foot, pushed the cup of a bra away.
Nick gave her a strange smile. “Camilla decided to come out for a couple days. I guess she wanted the room you guys were in. Sorry about that.”
Evelyn blinked fast. “No, I’m sure it’s my fault. I didn’t know Camilla was coming. I shouldn’t have claimed a room.” As she said it, she thought it sounded absurd; should she have napped quietly at the base of the stairs last night?
Nick’s smile relaxed. “Yeah. Camilla came up last weekend and really liked the view from that room or something. Sorry.”
“Last weekend?” Evelyn had been at the PLU wine tasting and hadn’t heard a thing about Camilla coming up last weekend. She was already excluded, apparently.
“Yeah. If the rest of the rooms are taken, you and Scot can bunk in the den on the fold-out couch. Sheets are in the closet next to the kitchen.”