“You joke,” Nick said. “What firm?”
“Leiberg Channing, out of Wilmington. You haven’t heard of it,” Evelyn said. “It’s pharma cases, mostly. Where the companies didn’t do enough testing on a drug, that sort of thing.”
“Leiberg Channing,” said Camilla, of all people. “It’s a big firm?”
“Medium,” Evelyn said, willing the topic to die a quiet death.
“Nick, can I borrow your BlackBerry for a minute?” Camilla said.
Nick handed it to her as he said, “Pharma. I swear I didn’t know that. Wait, is that the one—”
“I can’t believe people still smoke,” said Charlotte loudly.
Preston stretched his lean body out in his chair and ran a hand over his curls. “This reminds me, fellows. We can’t sustain this train situation any longer.”
“You don’t like the feeling of being a Jersey commuter with the LI doubleR?” Charlotte said. “Wait, didn’t you guys take the Luxury Liner yesterday?”
“The Luxury Liner, my dear, is still a bus. Anything with four wheels and a tin toilet—not to mention anything that christens itself ‘luxury’—has nothing to do with the real thing. What we need to do, group, is upgrade altogether. I think we ought to take a helicopter out here next time.”
“So pretentious!” said Charlotte, laughing.
“Dude. Preston has forty g’s on his wrist and we’re sitting around a Bridgehampton pool—I think we passed pretentious some time ago,” Nick said, lifting his chin at Preston’s Patek Philippe watch. “I’m in for the heli. We’d get out here in half an hour. The helipad is about two minutes from my office.”
“Why must you say ‘dude,’ Nick? Your work trips to L.A. should not give you license to talk as if you were from California. Sorry, Scot,” Preston said.
“I’m from Arizona.”
“I don’t recognize Arizona.”
“What, like as a state?” Charlotte said.
“No, from a diplomatic perspective. Trade, reparations, that sort of thing. At any rate, the thing to do is not to rent a helicopter. Renting…” Preston smiled indulgently at the notion.
“We don’t want a helicopter,” Nick said. “My boss has a great twelve-seater. Keeps it in the private airport at JFK. Heliport to JFK, plane to the East Hampton airstrip. Half an hour, tops. When we get our bonuses.”
Camilla looked up from Nick’s BlackBerry. “Must you be so crass?”
“It’s not crass when it’s achievable, darling C,” Preston said.
“You guys are idiots. I like my bus.” Charlotte shifted her weight on the picnic-table bench.
“What about you, Scot? Where do you stand on this divisive issue of air travel to Bridgehampton?” Preston asked.
Scot, who was wearing blue swim trunks which needed to be so long to cover his thighs that they looked to Evelyn about the length of her inseam, cleared his throat. “Well,” he said, and Evelyn peeled a splinter of wood from the table, “mass transit is actually incredibly efficient, and air travel relies on fossil fuels and obviously gives off heavy carbon emissions. Beyond that, I’m not sure—” He looked at Evelyn, who was examining the splinter. “Sorry, am I being boring?”
“Not at all,” Nick said. “Please. The floor is yours.”
“Well, I guess you have to think about the issue of materialism. I think our generation is obsessed with too much. We keep wanting to trade up, and if you think about Schopenhauer, the futility of striving and the ultimate emptiness of human desires…” Evelyn looked at the group: Charlotte looking sleepy, Preston studying his watch, Nick evaluating the sky like a satisfied cat looking for a snack of birds, Camilla tapping on Nick’s BlackBerry. Evelyn had thought the weekend in the Hamptons, at Nick’s house that he owned and didn’t rent, with her friends who had gone to Sheffield and Enfield and St. Paul’s, Harvard and Dartmouth and Tufts and HBS, was enough. Yet she had taken the train when she was supposed to take the bus, and the bus wasn’t good enough so they were discussing a helicopter, and then the helicopter would be subordinate to a plane, and there was never enough, and nothing was ever good enough. Always, the more danced around, taunting her.
“Sorry. Um. I guess that’s heavy for the beach,” Scot concluded.
“I love Schopenhauer at the beach,” Charlotte mumbled, her eyes closed. The others were silent.
“Scot,” said Evelyn briskly. “Would you mind getting me some water?”
“Sure.” He jumped up, accidentally kicking the chair, which squealed loudly over the bricks and skittered to a halt. “Oh. Ha.” He strode inside with the focus of a man carrying out an important mission.
“Your boyfriend is a blast,” Preston said after Scot had shut the door. “I look forward to his evening lecture on geology.”