The High Season(22)

“Well, you know Gloria.” Helen had once, in a moment of exasperation, referred to Gloria as a mummified ass.

“We don’t want to court controversy unless it’s the good kind. Progressive things like farms and sustainable energy,” Helen said. “I thought Gus was a vegetarian. When I had him over for dinner, he didn’t touch the pot roast. Ruthie, I love your blouse.”

Helen cast her gaze around the party. “I don’t recognize some of these people. Such a new, vibrant look about them! We do need to reach them. We should have initiatives.”

“We do have initiatives,” Ruthie said. She swallowed. “Helen, is there something going on I should know about?”

“You really made this party what it is today,” Helen said. “I love your sense of fun, Ruthie.”

Helen wasn’t quite meeting Ruthie’s gaze. Blood beat in her ears.



* * *



—

RUTHIE WAS WAYLAID by Mindy’s parents. She’d met them several times, and she knew Mindy’s husband, Carl, well. She liked him. He didn’t do small talk. Often he told her about a dream that had made him sad, or theorized about the invention of things like perforated paper towels. Sometimes he would tell her an intimate anecdote about Mindy—usually something funny, like the time Mindy had farted in front of his father—things that Ruthie knew Mindy would not want her to know.

    Mindy’s mother was blond and pretty, with delicate bones that Ruthie was sure Mindy wished she’d inherited. Mindy took after her father, stiff and a bit stout, with the same air of someone who had been teased in middle school and had decided to take their revenge on the world at large.

Carl wore white bucks and a yellow-and-green madras jacket that matched Mindy’s headband. He kissed her warmly on both cheeks and Mindy reintroduced her to Philip and Nan.

Doe drifted by, phone in hand. “Can I get a shot?”

They moved closer and smiled their public smiles. Doe was such a small lovely creature, her hair cropped short, her acorn-brown eyes lively. Ruthie rarely saw her without her phone in her hand, and she seemed to exist on a diet of pop culture and green juice. She needed to ask her about the Gus Romany Instagram, but not here. Doe waved and strolled off, with Philip trying and failing to avoid watching her walk away.

“Such a lovely day for a fete,” Nan said. “I love your blouse. I can’t wear pink. Mindy either. She has that florid complexion.”

“Florid?” Mindy asked with a rush of heat to her cheeks that rendered her, well, florid.

“Mindy says this is really the event to kick off the season here on the North Fork, if you actually have a season,” Philip said with a chuckle.

“It really is,” Mindy said. She touched her headband. “I matched my outfit to the invitation. It’s the kind of detail people appreciate. It’s so funny how everyone notices!”

“We’ve always been South Fork people,” Philip continued. “Have a place in Quogue.”

“Summer is my favorite season,” Nan said. “It’s just delicious. I love everything about it except corn on the cob. I’m with the French, it’s for the pigs. Everything else, I adore. Sunshine, ocean swimming, peonies, pedicures…”

    “There’s a new pedicure place in Southold, Mom,” Mindy said, chirping like a middle-schooler instead of a forty-three-year-old woman with three children. “We could go tomorrow.”

“I don’t know about staying over,” Nan said. “I think we should just drive back.”

“In Sunday traffic? It will take hours,” Carl said. “All the day-trippers are out.”

“Amateurs,” Philip said, and Carl laughed.

“But I had Carmen make up your room! And the girls really want to see you at breakfast,” Mindy said. “I was going to make that blueberry crisp recipe from the Times. Then we could all get pedicures together. The place looks cute. You can get hot wax and great massages—”

“Is it clean?” Nan asked. “It has to be clean.”

“Of course it’s clean, Mom.”

Philip turned to Ruthie. “I understand you’re a local. You grew up out here?”

“No, I grew up in Queens,” Ruthie said.

“Really.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “My farrier lives in Queens.”

“I don’t know why you’d want a pedicure, you only wear closed-toe shoes,” Nan said.

Ruthie had the feeling she was the unwanted guest at the family dinner table. She tried to excuse herself, but Carl turned to her.

“It’s the family trait,” Carl said. “We call it the—”

“Peasant toe,” Nan and Carl said together.

Mindy’s father rolled his eyes. “Stop it, you two. Every summer I have to hear this.”

“Sorry, Ruthie, family joke,” Nan said. “Mindy inherited my mother’s thick feet. The big toe is smaller than the second toe. So many of Mindy’s cousins have it, too. When we’re all on holiday together…oh, we laugh!”

    “On our honeymoon in Umbria, I called it paesano,” Carl said, and he and Mindy’s mother giggled.

Ruthie felt a rush of sympathy for her nemesis, florid, thick-toed Mindy. Maybe that was the source of her sourness, that she didn’t quite fit in with her crowd, right down to her toes. She could see that Mindy’s armpits were damp, and she could smell her skin cream, a scent that Ruthie had always disliked. Mike used to say she smelled like a Rite Aid, which was unkind but rather spot-on. She didn’t like this glimpse into an unhappy childhood, maybe even an unhappy marriage, because should your husband goad your mother into laughing at your big toe?