“Can I crash?” she’d replied, and his response was a simple, “Oui.” Things with old friends were so nicely simple.
Earlier in the week, she’d done a membership-strategy presentation about her idea, showing Arun and Jin-ho pictures of the Belles Toll event and a few others. “Look at how the people are interacting,” she’d said. “Why has anyone come to this fund-raiser, other than a love of the library? It’s because their friends asked them. ‘Buy a table.’ ‘Give at the Supporters level.’ That’s how this world works. There are people at the center, and they are the influencers. They set the trends. They’re the ones who are dictating what parties to go to. Where to vacation. What sites someone might want to sign up for,” she said. “Focusing on numbers instead of quality is a surefire way to lose any credibility we have with this group. So. We’ll take a page from their own playbook. It’s going to be one-on-one recruitment, one-on-one appeals, just like we’re putting together a library fund-raiser. A quiet sell.” She’d ordered cards for People Like Us, nice card stock, and handed them out to the staff members who were headed to Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard and the Hamptons and Aspen for Memorial Day to give to the right sorts. Arun and Jin-ho had been impressed.
Barbara was still jabbering away, and Evelyn walked to her window, where she swiped her finger across the thick grime-dust that had accumulated overnight. “I hadn’t seen Preston in so long before Sheffield-Enfield. Whatever happened with the two of you?” Barbara said.
“Nothing happened. He was in London for, what, three years? So I barely saw him.”
“His brother, too,” Barbara was saying. “He was a nice young man. Sheffield turns them out well.”
“Bing went to med school in the Virgin Islands because he couldn’t get in anywhere in the States. And he has, like, an eight-year-old.”
“Well. Don’t rule out men who’ve been married. Divorced men would be very grateful to have someone young and pretty on their arm.”
“Mother, there is an end button on this phone, and I am not afraid to use it.” Evelyn jammed the phone between her shoulder and ear and began tossing clothes in her duffel. Her train was leaving soon.
“I always thought you and Preston would get married,” Barbara continued. “His manners are lovely and he’s so good at tennis. A man like that would make life easy, Evelyn. Think of how easy it would be to entertain, or go out to parties, with a husband like that. Who actually enjoys social interaction and always has such funny things to say. Preston’s always the belle of the ball. The beau of the ball, I suppose.”
Evelyn folded a thick wool sweater. She had considered it, too—the simple math of her and Preston marrying, leading their lives like a figure eight, doing their own activities during the day, coming together at night for parties and dinners, separating again afterward, presumably taking lovers on the side. She always screened her life-with-Preston scenes in black and white, accessorized with tiny round martini glasses and long cigarette holders. What she could not imagine was a night alone in the same house—without even getting to the mechanics around avoiding sleeping together, she shuddered at the awful intimacy of his wet toothbrush.
“What is your plan for the summer, Evelyn?”
“Lake James, at the moment.” She knew her mother was asking about the rest of the summer. Some marketing people at her former employer, the textbook publisher, had gone in on a summer share on the Jersey Shore, but even if Evelyn had had the money for that, she didn’t know what to say to those people, who made frat-boy jokes about dirty Sanchezes and quoted Caddyshack. On the other hand, staying in New York in summer wasn’t all that appealing, either; last summer had meant lots of Sam Adams Summer Ale by herself on hot weekend days when it seemed like just her and the Dominican Day parade.
“You’re doing that so you can do your website sales. At any rate, you can’t just rely on Preston’s mother’s hospitality every weekend. A single woman is a strain on every hostess. It’s a struggle to find a single man for a dinner partner.”
“Mom. I’m already going to Lake James. Take your victories, okay? And, for the fourteenth time, it’s not website sales.”
“Did you pack the Lilly?”