The High Season(21)



“Did you tell her to take it down?” Ruthie asked. “Never mind the psychographic, it’s gross.”

“I’m a pescatarian,” Gloria said.

“I spoke to Doe immediately,” Catha said. “I’m a believer in proactivity.”

“We should be doing exciting things, like tie-ins with Hamilton,” Gloria said. “I mean, we have Benedict Arnold’s buttons. Have you explored this?” she asked Ruthie.

“Explored…Hamilton?” Ruthie asked. “Who can get a ticket?”

“You should write down every suggestion and have a time line to accomplish it,” Mindy said. “Remember, we discussed this at your performance review?” She smiled widely, as if she were about to floss out some gristle. “Is Adeline Clay coming to Spork?”

Ruthie still hadn’t heard from Mike, though she’d texted him that morning. “I invited her. She said she came here for privacy, so…”

“I sent Adeline a basket from Locavoracious,” Catha said.

    “So proactive, Catha!” Gloria applauded. Literally. Her hands came together in a clap. “They do wonderful baskets. And the name. So clever!”

Ruthie’s stomach began to churn. The rapid peppering of accusations felt rehearsed. It was like she was one of those baby penguins being force-fed material already masticated.

“And everybody says they come to the North Fork for the laid-back vibe,” Catha went on. “I said the same thing to Larry when we decided to move out here. Look at me now, I don’t have a free day in the week! Larry curates The New Yorker for me, you know—he cuts out the articles I should read? Anyway, they are piling up in my home office, let me tell you. He had to scold me at dinner last night! But you know, work is so consuming.”

“Oh, Catha, you do so much,” Gloria said.

“Who knows, we could honor her at the gala!” Mindy cried.

“Adeline? But we’re committed to Gus Romany,” Ruthie said, smiling so hard she felt a muscle jump in her cheek. “We can’t shove out someone just because someone richer comes along.”

“I think we need to dream big, don’t you?” Gloria asked. “And as treasurer, I’m always looking at the bottom line.”

“But it would be wrong,” Ruthie said, and they all swiveled to stare at her, startled at hearing such an unfamiliar word.

“Oh, my God!” Catha pointed out the window. “She’s here!”

Mindy and Gloria craned their necks. Out on the back terrace of the museum, Adeline entered the party, surveying the guests with a chin-lifted interest. Behind her trailed Mike and Jem, who were stopped by Tina Childers, their summer neighbor from across the street. The architect Robert Sample touched Adeline’s elbow and Adeline greeted him with a small cry and lifted her face to be kissed on both cheeks.

As if a bell had rung, the three women clattered across the hardwood toward the stairs. In seconds they burst out the front door. She watched Catha, in the lead, eagerly feint and scurry her way to Adeline’s side, Uriah Heep in red pumps.

    The three women had never stopped smiling. Yet underneath what they said, glinting like vein through rock, was something she recognized, from landlords in her childhood to Peter Clay: contempt. A man might feel anger right now. As a woman, she felt only shame.





11


LATER SHE WOULD remember the party’s perfection, and give herself that, at least. The food, the music, the kids running to the craft tables, the conviviality, the pleasure of it. Neighbors and friends under a clearing sky: Dodge and his boyfriend, Hank; the Hellers; the Beavers; Dave Sandman and his daughter Cielo, who won the junior sailing race that year; the art dealer Alex Wilcox, whom everyone later learned was having a secret affair with Dodge that summer; Tracy Field before her stroke; Lionel Partridge telling a magnificent joke; so many pretty women dressed in white; Melissa Fein in a hat with flowers; Clark Fund in shorts so tight he was called “Quads” for the following month.

She saw Jem sticking close to Mike, who was talking to Adeline now. She saw Meret and Saffy wearing cropped T-shirts and tiny shorts, all thrust pelvises and boredom, sucking on lemonades. Catha made a beeline for Ben Farnley, who had just bought that huge spec house off Narrow River Road.

Ruthie stopped every few feet for kisses and hugs and hellos. She had the same conversations she had every summer, Looks like a hot one and Have you seen and Have you heard and, this year, Did you hear about the whole helipad idea, it will never pass and Did you hear Adeline Clay is here?

    Ruthie searched the crowd for the board secretary, Helen Gregorian. She needed a touchstone. Helen was a magisterial presence on the board and the owner of one of the most beautiful houses on Village Lane. She lived there most of the year, spending the coldest months in Palm Beach. Ruthie spotted her with Samantha Wiggins, a younger member of the board.

“Ruthie!” Samantha leaned in for an air kiss. “So terrific that Catha got Adeline Clay to come! I heard she sent a basket. Hey, what’s all this about Gus killing chickens?”

She forced a chuckle. “It’s nothing, an art film he did a long time ago.”

Helen put her hand on Ruthie’s arm. Ruthie loved her, but Helen tended to deliver information as though the world had been waiting for her to weigh in, on everything from weather to the current state of Syria. “Gloria thinks we should reexamine.”

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