The One That Got Away (6 page)

Then, turning to me and putting her manicured hand on my
shoulder, she looked at me with loving concern. “Abigail, we were so worried. Is there anything we can get you?”

I opened my mouth to respond, but the woman, who I guessed was “Mother,” continued to speak, though her eyes were glued to a passing server’s tray: “What an absolutely bizarre accident. You know, someone should really investigate those escalators. For someone as fit as Abigail to fall, there’s a problem. But the most important thing, of course, is that she is fine.” She turned back to me and smiled, and I smiled back.

Then she leaned in closer to me with a wink. “Though I have to say, we so enjoyed having the children here with us. You should have seen Van with Cook. What an appetite that little one has.”

Van,
I thought.
That’s what they’ve been calling him. Oops.

Then I saw her eyes flick over my dress and land on my sparkling heels.

“What wonderful shoes!” she exclaimed. She seemed delighted by them, but I couldn’t help but feel slightly embarrassed.

“Thank you,” I whispered shyly. “I thought so too.”

But she didn’t hear, instead focused on a half-filled ice bucket floating toward the swinging doors. She darted away, leaving tendrils of gardenia perfume in her wake.

“Mrs. van Holt?”

I heard someone talking behind me but ignored the sound as I took in the enormous wood-paneled room. Despite all the bodies flowing in, and the crackling fire in the stone fireplace, I was shivering in the cavernous space, realizing only now why everyone else wore thick tweeds, wools, and cashmere.

The voice behind, this time closer and louder, asked again, “Mrs. van Holt?” and I wished whoever she was addressing would just respond.

It wasn’t until Alex whispered, “Abbey, answer her!” that I remembered. Mrs. van Holt was me.

I whirled around, and not realizing how close the server was, I upset the wide silver tray she was balancing so neatly in one hand. She and I watched in horror as the tray—filled with champagne flutes—flew up in the air, the glassware hitting the carpet without incident but the bubbly liquid flying farther, smacking a group of party guests as if they were sitting front row at SeaWorld.

And thus began my foray into Main Line society.

A woman who doesn’t even know her own name. A woman red-faced and shaking with embarrassment and wondering what one can possibly say to a bunch of elderly Presbyterians one just baptized in booze.

“Jeez, Abbey,” said Alex after the help swooped in to clean up and the room returned to its conversations. “If you weren’t feeling like champagne tonight, you could have just said so.”

I looked up at him in anguish, mortified, before I saw a smile curve on his lips. He was joking. I laughed in relief, then leaned toward him and whispered, “Oh my God.”

“Seriously, what’s with you? Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine, really. Just… just nervous for you. The election and fund-raising and everything.”

“Well, don’t be. You know I’ve known these people forever.”

He slid his arm around my back, guiding me protectively, and for a moment, the rest of the room disappeared. It came back into focus quickly, though, as a photographer hired for the event jumped in front and asked us for a few photos, and then, as the flash went off, couples from around the room noticed us. They looked over and moved toward us like a leather-heeled herd, all wanting to be the first to greet the guests of honor.

I clung to Alex’s side, even standing a few steps back, like a small
child hiding behind a parent. I quietly smiled and nodded, trying my best to go unnoticed. But almost every person who approached expected me to say
something
, if only small talk. After all, Alex was the reason for this party, and I was the reason’s wife.

Even the simplest question was fraught with danger, and never in my life had I felt so uncomfortable in a social situation. My body language was as taut as a drum, my expression anxious, and when I spoke, my voice came out either too soft or too loud. It was as if I had been thrown onto a Broadway stage on opening night with no script.

And the audience? Not only strangers, but strangers from another land, talking about things and people and places I knew nothing about. And the
way
they spoke was problematic too. I had no idea that people—aside from the Thurston Howells on
Gilligan’s Island
—actually spoke like this.

“Abigail, dear, are we mucking through?” asked a silver-haired matron with golf ball–sized pearls.

Mucking through what? This party? My recovery? Life in general?

I whispered a benign “yes” and she began to drone on about the demise of our country now that there was a “colored man” in the White House. Was I hearing her correctly? I hoped not.

After her, a silver-haired gent with an enormous overbite mumbled questions at us between bites of shrimp. Though I couldn’t understand but every fifth word, Alex answered deftly and with ease—he being well-versed in this secret Wasp language—before he pitched the conversation to me.

“You’d have to ask my wife,” he said as he put his hand on my shoulder. “That’s her domain.”
Oh no.

I bought time by pretending I couldn’t hear him. “Excuse me?”

The old man shuffled closer, his sour breath making my eyes sting. “I
mumble mumble
Alexander here
mumble mumble
the cottage. Is it coming along?”

A cottage? What cottage?

“Fine,” I replied. “Just fine.”

“
Mumble mumble.
So by New Year’s?”

I wanted to tell him,
I have no
mumble
idea
—anything to get him and his halitosis away from us—but I took a stab at an answer: “Yes.”

Alex started to laugh. “Are you kidding?”

I guessed again—“I mean maybe”—figuring that was safer. But at this, Alex turned and stared, eyebrows raised. Next, I went with the only remaining option: “No?”

Alex leaned over and yelled into the old man’s ear: “George, with the way my wife fires architects, we’ll be lucky to be in by
next
New Year’s.”

The two men laughed. I joined in a beat later while making a mental note: The van Holts were building a “cottage” so magnificent it required multiple architects and many years to build. Somewhere.

From another direction came a tall, steely-haired woman in a dark green plaid suit hanging like Spanish moss on her gaunt frame. Her skin was so pale and thin I could see the web of her veins, as if she’d just risen from the dead and rushed right over to Bloemveld. Her only adornment? A diamond salamander with sapphire eyes trying to escape over her bony shoulder.

“Abigail,” she snapped, stepping in front of the mumbler. “There are too many people here. Why don’t you van Holts pare down your lists?”

“Um, well…”

“And the crab is almost gone. Mirabelle should have used my man. He does a smacking good job.”

I nodded, smiling, but that seemed to irritate her more. She stood straighter and spoke louder. “And you haven’t responded to my note. We
will
be seeing you and the children at Jamaica Hill over the holidays, right?”

Jamaica Hill as in Jamaica? Count us in!
, I wanted to say. But then I noticed Alex looking down at the floor. I took a stab at an answer.

“I’m sorry. But we don’t have plans to travel this year.”

Her black eyes flew open in surprise, then narrowed with irritation. She stomped away.

“Really, Abbey?” asked Alex, annoyed. “I don’t think driving a mile down the road constitutes ‘traveling.’ Surely we can work her in.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, just then realizing that Jamaica Hill wasn’t a resort in the Caribbean but the name of her estate. And it was close to Bloemveld, maybe even just next door. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”

“Yes, you did. You’ve always hated Aunt Tickle.”

Aunt Tickle? Who would tickle her? Rich people and their stupid names and their stupidly named estates. Didn’t they realize this was the twenty-first century?

“Should I go apologize?” I asked. But before Alex could respond, we were approached by yet another couple, these two looking like they’d just stepped off the Scottish moors, their tweed jackets, thick wool turtlenecks, and riding boots perfectly matched. Their most marked difference was their eyebrows: hers were drawn on messily while his stuck out like steel wool. I braced myself.

“Abigail, we’re so sorry about your little fall,” said the woman languidly. “I trust you’re feeling better?”

Finally, someone had asked me about something that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. Something I could easily answer.

“I’m fine, thank you. Overnight in the hospital was just a precaution.”

“But what happened?” she asked. “Did you slip on something?”

“I… I just lost my footing. Everyone’s worst fear on an escalator, right?”

“I’ve warned her before about those high heels, but she won’t listen to me,” said Alex, shrugging.

“Wives these days never do,” added the old man. Everyone laughed except me.

The conversation turned to the campaign and then life in general. I listened intently, trying to pick up any information that might help me. From what I could gather, this couple was Mr. and Mrs. Brindle of the now defunct Brindle Department Store chain. They lived nearby and were old friends of the van Holts; Alex was even their godson. And perhaps benefactors too: At one point, the old man pulled Alex aside and slipped him an envelope. Alex put it in his coat and stepped back to me, and we all stiffly shook hands good-bye (no one hugged here, not even godparents).

We were almost free of them when Mr. Brindle turned back, suddenly remembering something. “Oh, Abigail, I forgot to ask. How did you like the seats last Sunday? Helluva night, huh?”

Last Sunday? Last Sunday I had been home watching the Eagles get crushed by the Giants as Jimmy threw things at the TV. I guessed he meant the game?

“I know! What a disaster. Heads are definitely going to roll for that one.”

The group turned silent; then Alex jumped in. “Oh, I don’t know, doll. I know it’s not the philharmonic, but I thought the new strings were terrific.”

Huh? “Oh! You meant the symphony! Yes. Terrific.”

Alex laughed. “What did you think we were talking about?”

“I thought you meant the Eagles.”

A confused-looking Mrs. Brindle spoke next. “Who?”

“The Eagles. The Philadelphia Eagles.”

The woman looked at her husband and then back at me. “Excuse me?”

“She means the professional sports team, Edith.”

The old lady and I stared at each other without speaking, she still confused and me stunned. To not know Katy Perry or
Finding Nemo
or Blue Man Group, I understood. But to live in Philadelphia and not know the Eagles? Unbelievable.

The couple smiled and walked off, leaving me a few seconds to take in the room and everyone in it before the next conversation. These people were the last of the great robber barons and society matrons of the Main Line, a group of people so out of touch with reality, so protected in their own tweed- and mahogany-coated world, it was like they were their own species. Or a lost tribe—hidden not by jungle but by high stone walls and curling iron gates. And lots and lots of money.

And here was I—or some symphony-loving, cottage-designing, estate-visiting version of me—living among them.

Or “mucking through,” that is.

After another twenty minutes of “fines,” “greats,” and “uh-huhs,” plus a lot of napkin dropping, drink refreshing, and talking about the weather—so much so you’d have thought a fifty-five-degree day in late October was like a snowstorm in July—I realized I had better get away from Alex. Even though he was so polite it was hard to tell what he was thinking, I had made so many gaffes, he had to be suspicious. Or think I had suddenly turned into a moron. Thank God I could always fall back on my “head injury” if I needed to.

I excused myself and made my way slowly through the crowd, examining the world around me. There were so many people jammed into the large room—more than one hundred guests, all drinking heavily, barking orders at servers, and crowding around two bars (one raw, one wet)—that no one seemed to notice me.
Adding to the commotion were three loping Irish wolfhounds, which mingled along with everyone else, knocking into knees and begging for bits of Camembert when not lounging like furry maharajas on the flowered couches.

Across the room, I spied Alex’s sister and mother, both at ease in their natural habitat. There was no sign of a father, and no one mentioned one, so I figured he must be dead or out of town. Not that I was one to question a broken home; I hadn’t heard from my dad in more than twenty years.

I moved into a corner, eager to further examine my in-laws. Alex’s sister was Aubyn, much younger and even more patrician looking than her brother. She was tall, ballerina thin, and very pretty, but her preppy pink sweater and plain black pants made her look matronly, dull. Her eyes were just as azure as my husband’s, and her chestnut hair was thick and glossy, piled on her head like a Gibson Girl painting come to life.
She could use a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and a hair out of place,
I thought as I took a seat beside her on a long leather bench. When she rose and walked off just seconds after I sat down, I began to understand our relationship. She hated me.

Alex’s mother, Mirabelle, on the other hand, showed only sheer delight in all her guests, including me, treating each of us with warmth and rapt attention. She had dark hair like her children, but hers had touches of silver and was cut in a soft bob that curled up under her chin. Her skin was smooth and rosy, suggesting she wasn’t above a good facial or two, but with enough laugh lines to indicate she viewed Botox as vulgar. An impeccably tailored suit accentuated her petite frame. Her shoes were stylish but not too high; her jewelry was expensive but tasteful; and her hair shone as if it had been brushed with a good fifty strokes.

I watched her move from group to group, making each person feel welcome with her direct gaze, easy smile, and quick wit, social
skills no doubt honed with decades of practice. With no patriarch around, I deduced Mirabelle was used to being the sun around which this family orbited. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was mesmerizing.