“Oh, I didn’t do that stuff,” he said.
“Oh?” Camilla let the silence fall, waiting a few beats. “So, Birchie,” she continued. “Will may think this all rather puzzling, I suppose, and old-fashioned. For the Bal, you’ll help me, right? My mother has signed me up for the hostess committee—they like a young person to corral the debs—and I can’t handle all those teenagers by myself so she said I could pick someone to do it with me.”
“Oh, my gosh, yes. Of course, Milla.”
“That’s great. It’s not a lot of work, honestly. Just a few meetings and then the ball itself in June.”
“In June?” Brooke shot a glance at Will. “Well, I’d love to, though the thing is, in June I might be busy. Sweetie?”
Will stood up and clinked his spoon against his water glass, an entirely unnecessary motion, as the restaurant was quiet other than their table. “We have an announcement,” he said, leaning too heavily on the “we.” He looked to Brooke, who thrust out her hand, her ring finger erect. It had a diamond ring on it, which she must have slipped on in her pocket, as she hadn’t been wearing it a moment ago. “We’re engaged!” she squealed.
Preston and Nick were instantly on their feet, clapping Will on the back and kissing Brooke on the cheek, and Charlotte got up, too, proffering masculine handshakes to them both, but Evelyn stayed seated when she noticed Camilla, across the table, also seated and carefully folding pleats into her napkin. “Wow, congrats, kids,” Camilla said.
Brooke rushed around the table. “Do you want to see the ring?”
“Yes, definitely,” Camilla said, batting away Brooke’s hand. “It’s so round.”
Evelyn stood up and awkwardly patted Brooke on the back. “That’s great,” she said to Brooke. “So pretty.”
The waiter then appeared with a bottle of champagne and several glasses. “To celebrate!” Will called out, and the group accepted their flutes and Nick called out a toast to the couple.
Camilla drank fast, finishing her champagne in a few sips and holding the glass out for the waiter to refill, then sloshing a bit over the side. “Oops. My cup runneth over,” she said, raising the glass in the direction of the betrothed.
After dinner, Evelyn and Camilla walked straight to Camilla’s apartment; Nick insisted on stopping at the wine store with Preston, arguing that the last time Preston had gotten a Burgundy it was so thin it tasted like it was from Long Island, and Charlotte, who was drunk and arguing with Nick over the 1986 Red Sox lineup, went with them. Brooke, complaining that her heels were too high, said she and Will would take a cab. As Evelyn and Camilla peeled off, they heard Brooke, almost in tears, saying to Will that this was not how her engagement announcement was supposed to go.
Camilla was walking down Madison so quickly that Evelyn had to jog to keep up. “So. What just happened? The engagement theater? I’m surprised there wasn’t a floor show,” Camilla said.
Evelyn measured what she knew: that Camilla and Brooke had been best friends at St. Paul’s, that the wedding was interrupting Camilla’s plans for the Bal, and that Camilla disliked Will. She went with a neutral statement. “They certainly wanted a celebration.”
This worked as she had hoped, eliciting more from Camilla so Evelyn could figure out where to head next. “First of all, they had to have gotten engaged a while ago, and they were just keeping it from us to make us celebrate their fabulous choice. I mean, the viewing of the ring? The ordering of your own celebratory champagne? There are no words. I should’ve ordered my own bottle of champagne and had everyone toast to me.”
“Camilla, for her latest string of successes…,” Evelyn said.
“Right? Why not?” They paused at a red light, a motorcycle zooming past. “You don’t know Brooke, obviously, but back, before, she was the most fun. A total original. And now? Will? Will Brodzik? Evelyn, his parents own a car dealership. A car dealership, Evelyn. And he gets to marry Brooke? Really? I’ll bet that she’ll pull the goalie on the wedding night, and Brooke will be pregnant within a month. Then what? They’ll move to some San Francisco suburb, Will will go to his absurd job and pretend he cares about his career, and that’s it. We were in the same house at St. Paul’s, and senior year she was always talking about living in Italy and designing her own clothing line, and now she’s basically going to be a suburban wife. I mean, what’s the point?” They passed a closed shoe store, the shoes uplit like jewelry. “I’ll bet their first child will be named Will. Their second child will be named Birch. That’s about the level of imagination we’re dealing with. It kills me.”