Everybody Rise (30 page)

 

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Scottish Fling

Day four of not working, and it was second nature. Evelyn had woken when she wanted to, when the sun in her window gently nudged her awake rather than her insistent alarm, and gone to a late-morning Equinox yoga class, then strolled in the park and looked at the cherry blossom buds before returning home to shower, change, and head out for the hair appointment that she had been able to book just the night before because her time was now so flexible.

Afterward, she stopped for tea and a macaron at Payard, settled into a seat under the amber chandelier, and pulled out her phone. There was another voice mail from her parents, but she didn't listen to it. She switched to the text-message function. She'd been putting it off, but she was seeing Scot tonight and texting seemed easier than a real conversation. She tapped out, “Guess what?” then erased it, then tried, “So update,” before deleting and writing, and finally sending, “I have big news…”

Scot's response came seconds later: “?”

“Will tell u tnt,” Evelyn replied.

“Wd like 2 know now.”

Evelyn typed out, “So I was let go,” then, “So I was fired,” and finally settled on, “PLU had layoffs. Me. DONT worry. For the best.”

“You were fired? RU okay?”

“Laid off. Y. Is good.”

“What will u do?”

Evelyn took a tiny bite of chocolate macaron, the gold leaf melting on her tongue. Not knowing how to answer, she decided to pretend like she hadn't seen the question.

“See u Sothebys tnt?” she wrote.

“U ok?”

“Great. Bye!”

*   *   *

For once, Evelyn didn't care that she would have to arrive solo to the event, a Scottish Society fund-raiser at Sotheby's where she and Camilla were walking in a runway show. She could go from home, rested and refreshed, in an unwrinkled dress, with newly applied makeup. She was finally on equal footing with all the other girls.

When she walked into the benefit through a phalanx of bagpipers, she immediately spotted Preston, who looked like he was already several drinks in, gazing at a fern. “I need steak,” he groaned when Evelyn approached. Evelyn wondered briefly if she should be worried, given Charlotte's concern about his drinking; she'd meant to observe him at her birthday party but had gotten totally sidelined.

“Darling P,” she said. “You made it.”

“Darling E,” he replied. “The newly minted twenty-seven-year-old. I don't think I've seen you since your birthday dinner.”

“Wasn't it the most fun? Bridie Harley's toast was just amazing, wasn't it?”

“Something like that,” Preston said, pushing up his glasses.

“I was so honored that she took the time to come. She had a Central Park Conservancy dinner that night and she still stopped by my party.”

“I'm glad her priorities are in the right place,” Preston said.

“I couldn't believe that Camilla got the Colony to do a tropical theme. Didn't you love the palm trees?”

“A bit of Polynesia in this drear season. ‘Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote.'”

“‘The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote.' Have I really not seen you since then?”

“Well, my dear, whenever I try to set up a dinner with you, we end up at a large-group outing,” he said.

“Yet the Scottish Society could lure you?”

“I couldn't pass up the opportunity to not wear anything under my kilt,” he said. He was wearing a suit.

“I'm glad I got you alone, actually.”

“Well, well, well. Aren't we a forward little thing.” He bared his teeth at her.

“You look like an angry wolf when you do that.”

“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.

“Well, it looks sharp. I must say, Evelyn, you look good. Unemployment agrees with you,” Nick said.

Scot, who was turning his large head around the room—Evelyn supposed he saw the unusual view of tops of heads, cowlicks, and thinning spots, given his height—snapped it back. “You told Nick?”

“It was a secret? Oopsies,” said Preston, covering his mouth with his hand.

“You didn't know your girl here has joined Camilla in the ranks of the unsalaried?” Nick said.

Scot's mouth set in a line that Evelyn hadn't seen before, and he said in her ear, “So you told everyone but me?”

“I told you, too,” Evelyn said, looking beyond him and opening her mouth in mock surprise as she waved at Bridie Harley, who had just walked in. “What time is it? I have to get backstage for the runway.”

“Evelyn.” He turned her so she was facing him straight on. “When were you laid off?”

“The weekend?” she said, biting her lip in a way she'd seen Camilla do with Nick.

“It's Wednesday. You just told me now?”

“I told you a few hours ago.”

“Days after it happened?”

“We're time-stamping everything now?”

“Everyone else seems to have known for a while.”

“Rumors travel fast,” she said as Camilla glided over and said, “Evelyn, my dear, we have to go backstage immediately.”

“Where are you going to work?” Scot said.

“Isn't it fantastic? Evelyn was never meant to work at that place anyway,” Camilla said gaily.

“Where are you going to work?” Scot repeated.

Evelyn hoped Camilla would jump in to answer the question, but Camilla was looking at her expectantly. “I'm … not.”

“What?” Scot said.

“It's just impossible to keep up my life and work at the same time.”

“We'll see you on the runway, Scootles!” Camilla trilled, grabbing Evelyn's right elbow while Scot held tight to her left one.

“How are you going to support yourself?” Scot said.

Camilla released Evelyn's arm and rolled her eyes. “So practical,” she whispered to Evelyn. Then, more loudly, “See you backstage!”

Scot was still staring at her.

“What?”

“How are you going to support yourself?”

“I don't know. How does Camilla support herself?”

“Are you being serious?”

“I suppose so.”

“Camilla has somewhere north of twenty million dollars managed for her right now, and she'll come into about quadruple that when her parents pass away.”

Evelyn blinked. “I—I have family money, too.” Her parents would eventually loosen their grip on their money; they had to. Though her mother hadn't sent the faux rent money in a month or two, Evelyn remembered; she should track that down.

Scot dug his hands into the roots of his hair and tugged at it, waiting for her to say more, but she didn't. “I'm late,” Evelyn finally said, ignoring his “Wait. Wait.”

She turned, hurrying alongside the makeshift runway, and moved the curtain at the end of it back.

Camilla was sitting in a chair as an intensely angled woman applied eyebrow powder to her. “I knew Scot wouldn't understand,” she said as a man with swooped-forward hair like Prince's pushed Evelyn into a chair next to Camilla's and began smearing foundation over her cheeks.

“Well, you were right. He seemed baffled.”

“A man whose life ambition is dealing with media companies can't be expected to understand, can he? Scot's very sweet, but honestly. He's never been taught the virtues of charity work or anything like that.”

“You don't think he's meant for greatness.”

Camilla smiled at Evelyn sympathetically. “I really don't.”

Evelyn looked at herself in the dark mirror, surrounded by Broadway-like bulbs. The Prince man, whose breath smelled of raisins, dipped a brush in a pot of eyeliner and began applying a thick stripe along Evelyn's lashline. “Scot's dressing better. Have you noticed?” Evelyn asked.

“He absolutely is, darling, but clothes only do so much.”

“A pink shirt does not make the man,” Evelyn said.

“I meant to ask you about your father's donation,” Camilla said, shutting her eyes for eye shadow. “We have him down in the program as a Luminary Patron, so we do need the check before the event.”

“Ouch!” said Evelyn, though the Prince man's eyeliner brush was in the pot of liquid. “Sorry, I just got something in my eye. Can I just—I need to just go get it out.”

“Five minutes,” the Prince man said, tapping his watch. “Go fast. There's a restroom at the end of the back hallway there.”

Through a side door, Evelyn walked down an empty service hallway, one eye wet with liner, the other bare, rattled by Scot's reaction, Camilla's assessment that he still wasn't good enough, and the looming fact of that donation. She saw a water fountain and stopped to cool down and breathe. When she stood up, she saw, surprisingly, Charlotte, who she didn't think had been invited. Evelyn noticed with annoyance that Charlotte hadn't done anything to her hair besides stick a bobby pin in it so she looked like a ten-year-old, and her boring black cocktail dress had a milk stain on it, sloppy in a new mother and inexplicable in a twenty-six-year-old single banker.