Her mother’s judgment would come down eventually, though. Barbara’s questions about Scot were getting increasingly pointed, and Evelyn in some way wanted her mother’s opinion. Evelyn did like Scot, sometimes a lot, but needed outside confirmation that he was a good boyfriend, someone who reflected well on her and could keep up with her pace, which was getting faster by the second. She’d received invitations to two fashion shows, even though the assigned seat for each of them was a few rows back. She had gone to Shuh-shuh-gah again and Nick’s twice more, Camilla had invited her up to Sachem in the fall, and everyone was talking about a ski trip to Jackson in the winter.
With the sky still light at seven, and drizzle falling, Evelyn tried to get to and through Times Square without body-checking anyone. She pulled her trench coat tight as she walked past button stores and trim stores and other remnants of industry that had clung on despite the city changing around them. She was squished, slammed, and sandwiched between tourists who stopped three across on the Seventh Avenue sidewalk so as to block any linear traffic flow. She was approached by someone sampling PowerBars, someone sampling toilet paper, and someone sampling what looked like chunks of white chocolate in fluted cups, which she was about to pop into her mouth when the promoter cautioned her it was artisanal soap. Twice, her stiletto heel sank into the gummy mortar between sidewalk panes, and she had to yank it out while trying to look elegant and unflappable.
Barbara was dissatisfied with this alumni event in advance. She had lobbied for this dinner to take place at the Harvard Club, but as neither she, Dale, nor Evelyn had actually gone to Harvard, she held little sway there. When Evelyn met her mother outside the Marriott Marquis in Times Square, she was huddling under an awning as though it were pouring and dramatically ignoring a comedy-show busker who kept asking her if she liked to laugh. Not your demographic, Evelyn wanted to tell him.
“Evie. Is that the dress I bought you?” Barbara held her at arm’s length, appraising her as she gripped her shoulder.
“Yes.” The Marquis Theatre was playing a swingy tune from its loudspeakers, and Evelyn, twitching her knees imperceptibly in rhythm, looked longingly at the musical poster the theater displayed, for The Drowsy Chaperone.
“It works well. I’m surprised. Beige is a color most women can’t wear. Your father is not here, as usual. Did he tell you where he is?”
“I’ll check. I wish you would get a cell phone.” Evelyn flipped open her phone and listened to a voice mail from Aimee, his secretary. “He’ll be late.”
“Of course he will be,” Barbara said. “I didn’t think he should come at all, but he says it’s important not to act like a guilty man when he’s not. I’m not sure Delaware prosecutors are monitoring Sheffield alumni events, however.”
“I don’t think he’s been to a Sheffield event since I graduated,” Evelyn said. It was maddening that her father was choosing now to attend her events, when it apparently mattered for public perception, rather than when she had wanted him there. It put her in an awkward spot; she had decided that, big deal or not a big deal, it was better not to say anything about the investigation to her friends, and as far as she could tell, no one but Camilla knew about it.
“No. I don’t think he has,” Barbara said. “So. Where is this friend of yours?”
“You can say ‘boyfriend,’ Mom. I told Scot to meet us inside.”
“Should we go in?”
As the two women entered the lobby, they saw several men waiting. Unfortunately, Evelyn saw, her mother’s face brightened when she spied a man with strong shoulders in a sharp gray suit who emanated confidence. Not Scot. Evelyn gave a lame wave to the actual Scot, who was standing storklike on a single foot.
“That tall one? That’s Scot?” Barbara said.
“That’s Scot.”
Barbara considered this.
“He reminds me of that handyman we had. Large features and that darkness.”
“He’s a banker, Mom.” The handyman. Christ.
The two women had the same stiff stride as they approached Scot. Evelyn had been hoping Scot would be relaxed and boyish, as he had become with her, but he fumbled with his BlackBerry, almost dropping it before he managed to replace it in his pocket. “Hi,” he said, and bent over from the waist to greet Evelyn, then raised both arms toward Barbara. Evelyn, alarmed, stepped between them before he could hug her mother and tried to subtly press one arm down so he could only perform a handshake.
The strange modernity of the Marquis, with its extra-long escalators and its semicircle of elevators without elevator buttons, was an odd fit for Sheffield. Evelyn was glad to see the alumni association second-in-command there outside of the coat check, as her mother immediately went to quiz him about why Sheffield was sponsoring an alumni cruise on the Yangtze. Across the room, Evelyn saw Charlotte and Preston, huddled by the bar, and headed toward them with Scot.
“Well, well, well,” Preston said. “We were just talking about you. Scot, good to see you.”
“She does exist,” said Charlotte to Preston. “We were debating whether you were a figment of my imagination. Hi, Scot.”
“I saw you, like—” Evelyn said.
“The Hamptons in July,” Charlotte said.
“Oh,” Evelyn said.
“Solo sightings are getting increasingly rare,” Preston said, adjusting his glasses. “Though one just has to look for Camilla and Evelyn will be near.”
“Oh, come on, Pres,” Evelyn said.