“Grrr,” he said, surprisingly loudly, rolling his shoulders forward and extending one hand in imitation of a paw, but by the time several people turned to look at where the noise had come from he was innocently looking around, too.
“Be quiet, Preston! People are looking at you,” Evelyn said. Two of the slightly older society girls, Alix Forrester Landau, whose father was said to have the private number of the investor Bernie Madoff, and Gemma Lavallee, whose mother had started a cosmetics line that included crushed pearls in all of the foundations, were craning their heads, looking for the source of the growl.
“I didn’t know you embarrassed so easily,” Preston said.
“Gemma and Alix are practically staring.”
“Why do you care about Gemma and Alix?” he said.
“I care about elegance and grace.”
“I repeat, why do you care about Gemma and Alix?” he said.
Evelyn sighed. “Oh, I meant to ask you something. I wondered if your mother could help me out with Sloan Kettering’s associate committee. Since your mom’s on the board of Dana Farber, she must know the key people at Sloan Kettering, right?”
Preston poked at the fern, and took a minute before answering. “You should ask your pals Gemma and Alix to help you.”
“No, I know the people on the committee. That’s not the issue. It would just be a stronger endorsement if someone like your mother were to—were to indicate that I would be a good board member.”
“I don’t think my mother is involved in Sloan Kettering.”
“I know that, but these circles are small. I’m just asking her to mention me.”
“My mother barely…” He trailed off, evidently engrossed by an ice cube he was trying to push to the bottom of his drink with his straw. “I’ll try to talk to her,” he said finally, his eyes still on his glass. “I just need another drink.”
Evelyn reached for the glass. “I will do it for you, as thanks for your services,” she said, expecting Preston to laugh, but he pulled the glass away. “I’ve got it,” he said, and headed for the bar.
Nick and Scot arrived together at seven-fifteen, just as Camilla floated in. Camilla had severed her hookups with Nick a few weeks prior, explaining to Evelyn that she was trying to simplify and purify her life on the advice of a Reiki master she had gone to. Nick was determined to show how little the breakup, if one could call it that, had affected him; Camilla, on the other hand, appeared to genuinely not be thinking about it as she leaned in for a kiss. In return, Nick gave her a longing head-to-toe appraisal.
“Hi, Milla. Hi, boys,” Evelyn said, mentally picturing how she looked holding her champagne glass as she talked to Camilla. Moments later, the Patrick McMullan photographer snapped the very photo she was hoping he would, and she leaned forward to speak into his handheld recorder like a pro, “Beegan, B-E-E-G-A-N.”
Camilla just gave the photographer a wave; she didn’t need to identify herself.
“Good day in the markets,” Nick said. “Dow thirteen thousand, what-what?”
“It’s as I said: the trend is your friend,” Preston said. He had bounced back from whatever had been bothering him earlier, Evelyn thought. “Did you hear Monsieur Paulson last week? All this subprime nonsense is contained and he believes housing is about to go back up. What say we, should we buy some subdivisions?”
“Paulson should never’ve left Goldman,” Nick said. “Dude left so much money on the table. Deal flow right now is intense.”
“Is the subprime stuff really contained?” Scot asked. “The mortgage market is getting loopy. I offered to guarantee my mom’s mortgage—she was buying a new house and had some bad credit history. The bank in Arizona said I shouldn’t bother with the guarantee as the paperwork was a headache, and they were just going to bundle the mortgage and sell it off to another bank. They also tried to push her to borrow more money, which she didn’t need and, frankly, shouldn’t have qualified for. That just strikes me as untenable. I’m not sure the CDO crisis can be contained if banks are doing that.”
“Way to be a downer, man,” Nick said. “Why don’t you just enjoy the ride?”
“It sets off an alarm bell for me, Nick. So the banks are creating and selling CDOs, hedge funds are doing credit arbitrage with them, the mortgage lenders continue to lend, and no one has any idea what’s at the core of these holdings, right? The thing with my mom’s mortgage drove it home.”
“Who has a mortgage, anyway?” Camilla said. “If we are forced to talk about business, I would like to talk about how the pound is now absurdly high. Céline had to special-order a clutch from its London store for Evelyn and she had to pay in pounds. It was at least twice what it cost here.”
Evelyn was both surprised that Camilla had noticed the price and flattered by the callout; she shifted the clutch, which was gorgeous, in front of her.