“Camilla,” muttered Charlotte. “Scot, how’s your chess coming along?”
Scot lit up at this and began describing a game he’d played recently in a Lower East Side park with some Russian men, as Preston sidled to Evelyn and slung his arm around her waist.
“Bringing Scot to a Sheffield event. Bold. To meet the formidable Babs. Does Scot know what he’s in for?” Preston said.
“He just met Babs.”
“He’s still standing? Wasn’t shot on sight? That’s something. I remember the first time I met your mother, she plied me with liquor, but then I was a favorite son.”
“She did not give you liquor. You were sixteen.”
“Oh, Miss Beegan, I beg to differ. I remember it well. Babs took us into Portsmouth for dinner and I swear to you I ordered a chocolate martini. It was right after we got back from Sarennes.”
All of a sudden Evelyn could recall with perfect clarity the martini glass with the milky liquid sitting on the white tablecloth, and the feeling of success she had as she watched her mother chat with Preston Hacking.
Her attendance at Sheffield and friendship with Preston there were by no means preordained. One Sunday morning when Evelyn was twelve, she woke to the sounds of Barbara’s piano playing and was about to get up when the playing stopped. Barbara knocked on her door and told her she could stay in bed for another hour. Then, Barbara gave her a stack of reading material: a book called Preparing for Power: America’s Elite Boarding Schools, a J.Crew catalogue, an SSAT study guide, and a Sheffield admissions catalogue. Barbara said that Gibby Hodge’s daughter had gone to Sheffield and there had met, and eventually married, a Cabot from the Massachusetts line. Evelyn knew that Gibby Hodge had nothing to do with it, and it was because Push Van Rensselaer’s boys had gone there that she was being sent there. Happily, her grades were good enough that she got in without a problem, and Dale could easily cover the tuition.
Preston was a year above Evelyn, and she had known his name before she had found out what he looked like. That was in part due to her mother. After finding out that Preston’s mother was a Winthrop, and that he was from Beacon Hill, Barbara had suggested that Evelyn get him to ask her to the Lower Social. This idea was so laughable that Evelyn did not even know how to explain to her mother what would happen if she, an unknown and pudgy prep, were even to speak to Preston Hacking. Or she knew what would happen: she would likely end up writing an English paper on his behalf instead of going with him to a dance.
He wrote a humor column, “Perched on the Ivory Tower,” for the school newspaper. It was initially supposed to come out every week, but Preston didn’t believe in deadlines, so it earned the subhead “An Approximately Fortnightly Column” after its debut. Preston played club squash, not varsity, because he found bus travel to weekend tournaments uncivilized, and was the nominal vice president of the Young Republicans, largely because his great-grandfather had been the secretary of state under Teddy Roosevelt.
Knowing all this, Evelyn was startled to discover what Preston Hacking actually looked like. It was the Alumni Appreciation Day assembly, and the headmaster had asked Preston to say a few words about being fourth generation at Sheffield. Rather than the dark-haired and dashing guy she had come to imagine him as (his directory photo was blurry, and taken from a strange angle, allowing Evelyn to add all sorts of dramatic flourishes), she realized he was the tall, skinny fellow with wavy blond hair and alabaster skin that she’d seen lounging about on campus benches dressed in sweaters with elbow patches. He was of the cool kids, absolutely, but also seemed eccentric in a way that Evelyn envied.