The High Season(14)
Ruthie frowned, puzzled. What was this, high school? Then she realized what this meant. “Because Mindy criticized my clothes?”
Carole looked uncomfortable.
“Tell me.”
“She says you don’t dress up enough. Gloria says you never wear heels.”
“What?”
“Look, I’m just saying.” Carole got up and began to rifle through the hangers. “Raid my closet! Please, I’ve had four pregnancies, I have a size that will fit you, double zero all the way up to eight. I was a house when I was pregnant with Verity. Here.” Carole slipped a pair of white pants off the hanger and tossed them on the sofa. She waggled a hanger with a pink silk shirt on it. “This would look perfect on you. Or this, or this.” She tossed more shirts on the pile, a sudden blizzard of pinks and creams and blues. “You’re not going to win this dressed in Ann Taylor, sweetie. And you might want to rethink the ponytail. What size shoe are you?”
“Thank you for the warning,” Ruthie said, standing. “And thank you for the offer.”
“Oh, no, now you’re offended!”
“I’m not offended,” Ruthie lied. “But no. I can’t change who I am.”
“Of course you can!” Carole tossed another shirt on top of the trousers. “Listen, I’m not on Mars, just France! It’s barely even a foreign country! We’re friends. Which means I have your back.” She cocked her head and studied Ruthie for a moment. “Just try to be…a little less you.”
7
JEM’S PHONE
From: Lucas Clay To: Jemma Dutton I need to return a blueberry From: Jemma Dutton To: Lucas Clay Get to the end of the line, sir From: Lucas
To: Jem
Your rutabagas are delightful From: Jem
To: Lucas
I have to stop texting u will get me fired From: Lucas
To: Jem
how busy can u be, it’s only May …
When the corn comes in I’ll leave u alone From: Jem
To: Lucas
Shuck u
From: Lucas
To: Jem
Ya snap. I’m in so much trouble I can tell but trouble w u could be worth it
8
A LITTLE LESS her.
Ruthie drove to the farm stand. Mike had texted, saying he was stuck on a job, his day was crazy, could she pick up Jem after all? Nothing about this morning. Nothing about tomorrow night.
Still. Summer, car windows down. If she blasted the radio she could grasp just a split second of feeling young despite an adulthood of airbags and disappointments.
Traffic was heavy. Travel writers undid themselves with headlines about the Un-Hamptons, with the predictable result that the North Fork was becoming more like the Hamptons every day. The locals were starting second jobs as bartenders and cashiers. They would do the shopping early, take the back roads, and curse the interlopers. Memorial Day weekend was only a taste of what was to come. August would be full of corn and cars.
Ruthie pulled into the parking lot next to a white Jeep. The sun was at an angle in the sky designed to bounce the accumulated heat straight at you like a punch and then scatter it skyward again.
Red-haired Annie Doyle was spraying escarole while Jem stood at the counter. Annie had spent many a Saturday night in her house before the triad of Jem/Olivia/Annie had been pitchforked by the alpha girls Meret, Saffy, and Kate. She missed the shrieks and the private jokes and watching whole casseroles of mac and cheese disappear. Instead she had glottal stops and nail care.
In her cutoffs and pigtails Jem looked adorable, but somehow…mature. This past year there had been times when Ruthie had seen her bicycling, or walking from afar, and not recognized her for a moment. Who was that Pre-Raphaelite with the legs?
Looking like a god in rumpled khaki shorts, Lucas sauntered toward her, carrying a bag with waving fronds of fennel poking out. He held a block of French butter in the other hand.
“You found the best farm stand,” she called. “Good start!”
He stared at her blankly. Then he tossed the bag in the seat, got in the Jeep, and roared off.
Heat sprang to Ruthie’s cheeks. Okay, the remark was inane, but, what? Had she offended him?
Then she replayed the blankness on his face. He had completely forgotten that he’d met her. That very morning. In her yard. She’d chatted with him for a bit before she drove off to work. They’d had a conversation. About the best times to avoid ferry lines to the Hamptons, her favorite restaurant in Greenport.
With cheeks that still glowed with humiliation, she stalked past the broccoli. “Hey, Annie, hello, summer!” she called.
“Hello, summer!” The back of Annie’s pretty neck was sunburnt. She was about twenty pounds overweight and that meant that despite tilted green eyes and creamy skin she was not popular. She wore overalls and Doc Martens and kept her head down when she walked. No doubt boys walked by her in the halls and dismissed her. Someday she would be glorious. Someday she would flirt. Someday she would have sex and fall in love and betray someone and be betrayed and start all over again. And then, at forty-five, the iron gate of indifference would clang down and she would remember that overalled girl, and she would know she was stuck back exactly where she’d been in high school as if all that sex and attention had happened to someone else.