The Hazards of Good Breeding (12 page)

“Sure—who really needs fingers?”

“Mm. That's not very encouraging.” There is the sound of Jenny Banks's laughter coming out of the bathroom. “Who're you waiting for?”

“Jimmy Sorrens—I told him I'd give him a ride. He's chatting up some girl over there.” Rock gestures at the corner where a tall, good-looking guy from Rock's class at Quilton is leaning over a pretty little redhead who looks no older than sixteen. He has the pendant hanging around her neck in his hand and seems, from the girl's giddy laughter, to be saying something funny about it. “Isn't she a little young for him?”

“No such thing for Jimmy.”

Caroline rests her head against the back of the sofa and looks up at the ceiling. There is a delicate brown water stain in the corner, shaped like a butterfly. It has an ancient, out-of-place look here in the newly renovated foyer. “Do you ever think about what you'll be like when you're old?”

“Oh, probably mean-spirited and deaf and wearing leaky Depends that make my grandchildren not want to hug me.”

Caroline rolls her head in Rock's direction and looks up at his face, which from this angle, looks once again less familiar—a little weary, older, and sharper. She can see the stubble along his jaw line. “No, you won't,” she says, brushing a piece of lint off his tuxedo jacket. “You'll be cool.”

“Ready to roll?” Jimmy Sorrens's shadow falls over them and Caroline sits back upright, straightening her dress.

“Right,” Rock says, getting to his feet.

“You're looking awfully lovely, Miss Dunlap,” Jimmy says.

Caroline smiles politely and slips her feet back into her shoes.

“See you, Carol,” Rock says softly, touching the top of her head as they turn to go.

Caroline stares after them. “No way,” she can hear Jimmy say, “not without the works.” It has a sinister ring to it. In a moment there is the turning over of an engine, the squeal of a car spinning around the curve of the drive and out onto the street. The redhead has been joined by two cronies—equally young, although not as pretty, little cousins of the Krasdales. “. . . for my
number
, silly,” the redhead is saying in a tizzy of excitement, her little freckled cheeks all flushed. Poor kid—she's really in for it. Caroline was hospitalized once, when she was that age, for the poison ivy she caught while being mauled by her own generation's equivalent of Jimmy Sorrens, who happened to be the BCD swim instructor the summer she was a junior counselor at the day camp. At the time, it seemed fair enough—the price you paid for making out with a twenty-six-year-old dreamboat. In retrospect she remembers him as having breath that smelled like baby shit and a yellow Speedo swimsuit.

Remembering this, Caroline feels older than she is and sorry for her former self. She considers crossing the room and telling the girls to watch out, telling them not to be too impressed by the likes of Jimmy Sorrens. But they would probably just think she was some sort of crazy spinster with a religious agenda. She pulls herself up off the little sofa and walks unsteadily back down the hall, feeling her body weave and bob above her feet.

Back in the tent, the band is packing up long coils of electrical wire and the empty parquet dance floor shines like a bald spot. White linen napkins are scattered on the grass and over the seats of chairs and the remaining guests are huddled in small vicious-looking groups around the bar, or intimate drunken conversations at the edges of the tent. It is nearly two
A.M
., after all. How can she possibly have stayed this late? She wasn't even on the A list, wasn't even supposed to be here in the first place.

And how will she get home now? She should have asked Rock for a ride. Her father is certainly long gone, although she does not remember saying good-bye. Maybe the Forlinghams will give her a ride if she can find them—the Holdens are no longer an option now that she has gaped at Frank's penis. And Anne Radley left in the middle of the dinner. Which leaves her stranded.

“Dunstable,” a voice says. Adam Lowell's hand snakes around her waist from behind. He is a master of stupid nicknames. Caroline can't think of one person under the age of thirty whom she has heard Adam address by his or her real name within the last four years.

“Wanna get out of here?” he says, holding her arm out and moving his hips as if they are doing the cha-cha front to back. It makes Caroline feel like an ungainly rag doll.

“Adam,” she says, moving out of his grasp. “I've got to get to bed.”

“But the night is young! Bee Bee Menders is having people over to her sister's house, all the old gang—it'll be a blast.” Adam is the kind of person who insists on boxing the past into a neater, cheerier version of itself in which groups of awkward, surly adolescents thrown together on country club swim teams and neighborhood Christmas parties become a “gang” and gatherings hosted by Bee Bee Menders become a “blast.” Adam drives a black BMW he got from his grandfather for his twenty-first birthday, and which was, at one point during college, spray-painted with the words
COME OUT YOU FAGG
with two
g
's. Caroline knows this only through Rock, who thinks the two
g
's are hysterical—a true expression of Middlebury College's paranoiac isolation from the real world.

“Not for me,” Caroline says, moving away. “I've got to get to bed.”

“Sweet Car-o-line,” Adam begins singing—something he is not alone in feeling the need to do at least once every two hours he is in her presence.

“Oh, Adam, come on—could you just give me a ride home?” Caroline asks.

“Via Bee Bee's, sure!” Adam says brightly.

“You need a ride?” comes a voice from over Caroline's shoulder. And there is Stephan at the table behind her, packing up his camera and mike. He has taken his hair out of its slicked-back ponytail—a style Caroline found not so appealing—and it hangs into his face as he bends over. Through it, she can see his grin.

“Oh, that would be great,” Caroline says, and Adam's face falls.

“No problem.” Stephan straightens up and swings his camera bag over his shoulder.

Out in the parking lot Caroline feels suddenly jittery and dumb. Stephan is at least a full head taller than her, which she is not used to, and he is really very sexy, and here she is, drunk and tired and all talked out. There must be other things, besides this place, they could discuss. It occurs to her he has not asked her much of anything about herself, really, and has given witty, evasive answers to anything vaguely personal she has asked him. What do he and Denise talk about? She really can't imagine. Maybe, if Rock's theory is right, they don't talk. Maybe they just have sex.

“So Denise was your lawyer?” she asks, and then blushes, afraid she has somehow given away her train of thought. It is dark, though, thankfully. She looks down at the asphalt, which is slightly glittery, full of tiny bits of mica.

“Yeah.” He shrugs. “There was this whole thing about my last movie—the studio was freaking out about the content and liability, blah blah blah. I get a kick out of her—she's such a powerhouse, take-no-prisoners kind of gal.”

Caroline has never thought of Denise as a “gal” before. “She's nice,” she finds herself offering inanely.

Stephan laughs. “It's not the first word that comes to mind.” He unlocks the door for her. The front seat is one long vinyl bench, roomy enough to be where he and Denise have their rendezvous. She settles herself against the cool, slightly sticky vinyl and watches the aces suspended from the rearview mirror bounce gently as Stephan backs the car out of its spot and onto the driveway.

“Was it—did you get good footage in there?”

“Eh.” Stephan shrugs. “All right. Nothing spectacular.”

“What would be spectacular?”

Caroline can see Adam Lowell and Bee Bee Menders coming out on the porch of the Ponkatawset Club. Adam is still doing the cha-cha.

“I don't know—the usual—anything surprising, or unexpected, or, you know”—he glances at her evaluatively—“ugly.” There is a pause. “I mean, I'm looking for some kind of a story.”

Caroline rests her head against the seat back. “Oh.”

“How did you come up with—
here
? I mean, the whole Old Boston idea or whatever?” she asks after a pause.

“In a fit of insanity.” Stephan laughs. “No, I don't know—I guess it was actually Denise who got me excited about it, all her stories about living here and stuff. She's got a natural sense for what plays well on camera, what people will want to see.”

“Hunh.” Caroline shifts and the bare skin of her back makes a peeling sound against the vinyl. “And what if you don't find it?”

“Find what?”

“What people will want to see.”

“Why?” Stephan looks over at her sharply. “Why wouldn't I?”

“I don't know—no reason. Just what if it wasn't how you pictured it or whatever?”

Stephan shrugs. There is a pause and Adam Lowell's black BMW passes them, trailing “Sweet Home Alabama.” “I guess that's never happened to me. If I see it some way, then that's what comes out in the picture. You just have to be careful not to overcomplicate, you know? You have to have a distinct vision of the thing and it comes through.”

“Mmm.” Caroline nods, although she is not sure she agrees with his answer. What if it isn't really distinct? What if, once you're in the middle of your subject, you can see it in more ways than one? What if, for instance, you can find Adam Lowell's nicknames as stupid and annoying and full of small-minded reverence of all things insular, but also as pitiable attempts to stand in for an intimacy he has no idea how to create? Or what if you can decry your father's insistence on raising aggressive, overbred jackal-dogs, but be moved nearly to tears watching him throw a stick for them across the grass? Outside, trees toss gently in the wind like obscure, restless creatures. She leans her head back again. When she closes her eyes, she is surprised to find the window, the dashboard, the world outside are spinning against her eyelids.

“Caroline,” Stephan is saying. “Hey, Caroline.” There is a warm pressure of his hand on her knee.

She has been sleeping. When she opens her eyes, she can see Stephan's face in front of hers. For a moment she thinks they are in bed together—has the slight skip of panic that she doesn't remember what has happened, but then, of course, they are in her father's driveway, in the front seat of his car.

“Sorry,” she says, straightening her neck. “I don't know how I got so sleepy.”

“No problem,” he says, keeping his eyes on her.

“Thank you so much for the ride home—I don't know what I would have done.”

“I have a feeling you had some other willing drivers.” Outside, there is the sound of tree limbs creaking in the wind and the gentle hiss of blowing leaves. Caroline wonders suddenly if they are about to kiss. Is this how it happens? After two years of going out with Dan, she has forgotten.

“So listen,” Stephan says, his tone changing. “I'd love to meet your grandmother—or aunt or whatever—the one you were telling me about in the . . . what did you call it? The Monte Carlo of the North Shore? Think she'd let me interview her?”

“Oh,” Caroline says. She sits up straighter against the slippery vinyl. “I don't know. I mean, I can ask her.” This is what she gets for blabbering on about Lilo. “She's difficult, though,” she adds lamely.

“Why don't I give you a call tomorrow? If she'd let me, I'd love to go over there with you. And anyway”—Stephan fixes his eyes on her again—“maybe we could go out for coffee or something.”

Caroline is glad it's dark out. She feels a blush rising to her cheeks. “Okay.” Her father is probably awake up in his bedroom wondering what the hell is going on in his driveway. She opens the door and puts one foot out on the gravel. “Thanks again for the ride.”

“Hey,” Stephan says, and leans across to give her a kiss on the cheek. Just a light brush of lips, no different from that an uncle or cousin would give, but he holds his hand on her shoulder for a second longer than usual, flat of thumb pressing against the smooth round of her bone. It feels hot and dry and pressureful and intensely foreign to her. “Good night.”

Crossing in front of the headlights, Caroline tries to walk gracefully despite the fact that it is very dark and she feels unsteady with her high heels catching on the loose stones. She can feel Stephan's thumbprint on her skin. Did she get out of the car too quickly? Behind her the car is shifted into gear and there is the crackle of gravel under the wheels.

Inside the house, it is dark and silent. Not even the porch light is on.

In the mudroom, Caesar is up on his hind legs barking, front paws rattling the metal gate in the doorway. “Shush,” Caroline says, and, surprisingly, he stops. “Here.” She thrusts her hand into the box of milk bones Jack keeps on the counter and walks over to the gate. The dogs are sitting at attention now, a shaggy, panting mass in the darkness. Caroline has not turned on any lights. She pauses for a moment, holding the milk bones up in front of them, on her side of the gate. Their eyes glitter in the darkness. “Fucking morons,” she says finally, and throws in her handful. There is a thudding of weight and scrabbling of nails on the floor as they grapple silently for the bones.

Caroline is kicking her shoes off when the telephone rings—a sharp, startling sound in the dark house. It is nearly three
A.M
. She rushes across the kitchen, banging her hip into the corner of the table—Rock, probably, she thinks in a panic, or Adam. And her father will pick up the phone and make a scene.

“Hello?” she pants, pressing her bruised hip.

A stream of angry-sounding Spanish accosts her from the other end of the line.