She didn’t move.
“Go on, touch it.” He put his hand on her lower back, and she started to tremble. “It’s good luck,” he said. “Touch it.”
He was now inches from her, with his hand warm and firm on her back, and she was able to feel his body rise and fall through the conduit of his hand when he breathed. “You can make a wish if you touch it,” he said. “You look like you want a good wish.”
He pushed her forward. The duck was mounted on a board shaped like a shield, and she couldn’t help thinking of its last moments, flying boldly over the still lake, thinking he was safe and free. “Just take your hand, like this,” Jaime said. He’d now slid his right hand to her waist, and his left hand was on her left arm. With a sudden movement, he thrust her hand on the duck’s head, pushing the rackets into her wrist, holding her hand there even when she reflexively tried to withdraw it from the duck’s spiky feathers. He pressed harder, moving her hand to the duck’s body and spreading it out. “Good girl, Evelyn,” he said. His belt buckle pressed into her back, and she felt him straddle her legs. She was breathing heavily, too heavily, not ladylike, half terrified and half aroused. She pushed the thought of the duck aside and willed Jaime to press harder against her, here in this dirty upstairs hallway. She felt like there was a blinking red light emitting from their points of contact, his smooth, tan hand, his cold metal wristwatch, the buckle against her spine, his loafer pressing against her sandal. “Make your wish,” he said in a low voice, and she did, then turned her face so her eyes would lock with his and he would just be able to see the fringes of her long eyelashes. “Like that, Jaime?” she said in her own low voice, looking up at him, trying to echo his tone.
He snapped his hand away and moved back, checking his watch. “We should get back,” he said, and walked toward the door, leaving her heaving with her hand still pressed against the dead duck.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Typee
Dinner was served in the octagonal dining room at Sachem, along a long wooden table that, tonight, held seventeen. Souse had come up in the afternoon, and the crowd was more eclectic than at the Hackings’: the couple who owned Camp Adekagagwaa, and a pensive Asian man whom they described, apparently sincerely, as their “poet-in-residence” for the summer; a provost at Yale named Gardiner; a minister at Harvard who was also named Gardiner; a woman who had come in third at the golf U.S. Open in 1993; a wine importer named Chipp with two p’s, who always got the first crates of Beaujolais Nouveau in the States; the guitarist for Whitesnake and his twenty-year-old girlfriend; a stout older lady who had unsuccessfully pushed the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum to do a pornography exhibit around the borrowed Madame X when she was on its board; a stout younger lady who said she worked at Cartier for years but “work just didn’t take.” Evelyn thought they were lively, and enjoyed showing off for Jaime as she asked about Block Island and Bar Harbor. She loved, too, that at Sachem, her hands wouldn’t have to touch a dirty dish, as there was staff for that, and Evelyn’s status was high enough that she no longer had to work as a houseguest-aide.
Preston arrived by boat just after dessert had been served. Having Preston there gave her social standing a boost, Evelyn thought, but it also made outright flirtation with Jaime that much more difficult—an old friend didn’t let you get away with much.
“Weren’t you supposed to be here for dinner? Where have you been?” Evelyn asked as she leaned in to kiss his cheek.
“Hither and yon,” he said, opening his jacket to reveal a flask.
“What on earth, Pres? The Rutherfords have a fabulous wine cellar.”
“I like a personal stash.” Preston was half singing.
“Are you drunk?” Evelyn asked.
He leered toward her. “I don’t touch the stuff. Where’s your erstwhile boyfriend? Your man-about-town?”
“He had to leave. There was a crisis with work.”
“Is there gin in this joint?”
“You seem like you’ve had plenty, frankly. Charlotte has me keeping an eye on you, you should know.”
“Charlotte has you what? Are there G and Ts here?” Preston said.
“I meant to ask, did your mother get a chance to talk to anyone about Sloan Kettering?”
He drew his lips into a line. “If Fritz Rutherford were still here, there would be G and Ts everywhere.”
“Preston, pay attention, would you? I thought your mother could mention that I’m helping with the Bal Fran?ais.”