The High Season(81)

“What?”

“Am I in charge of geopolitics right now? Oligarchs aren’t who they used to be.” Lucas opened the car door.

She grabbed on to a strap of the tote. “You said you were knee-deep in oligarchs! Those were your exact words!”

“No worries. I’ve got someone else. It’s better because the deal will be, like, instant. I’ve already prepped him.”

    “Who is it?”

“Better you don’t know, right? I’ll probably have a cashier’s check by Monday.”

“The banks are closed on Monday.”

“Jesus, you’re a buzzkill. Tuesday.” He yanked the strap from her grasp, slid out, and stuck his head back in. “I’ll let you know.” After he shut the door Ruthie watched him check himself out in the reflection. Life for Lucas was a series of poses.

She tried to swallow. She had an urgent need to pee.

She slid out of the car. Lucas was behind the wheel of his own car, checking his phone. She bolted like a rabbit toward the café.

The place was crowded. It had only opened last year, and they roasted their own ethically sourced beans and had barnwood on the walls and scattered couches and armchairs, so it was a hit. Ruthie ignored the coffee line and launched herself at the bathroom door. She peed and then washed her hands, out, out damned spot, even though her hands were paint-free, but wasn’t that the point for Lady Macbeth anyway? She remembered being pregnant with Jem, that low-level nausea in the first months, that bitter taste in her mouth that never went away. This was like that. As though she were carrying something inside her, something that in the end would undo her and leave her stranded, gasping and bewildered.

After this, after it was done, after she had herself back, she’d get her best friend back, she’d get on her knees (well, maybe not that, but she’d bring wine) and deeply apologize to Penny for being such an asshole. She’d been thrown off something moving very fast and she was dizzy and totally sick and she was sorry she lashed out. She would apologize to Jem for neglecting her and maybe even to Helen for throwing a tree at her. Ruthie met her frantic eyes in the mirror. It was almost over. She just had to hang on to something real instead of the edge of a sink. And get a coffee.

She stood on line behind a couple. The fortyish woman had skin tan and smooth as a teenager’s. Her legs looked as though they’d been rubbed with oil. She wore heeled white sandals, her toes painted a cyanotic lilac. “All the choices,” she said to the man. “It makes me need a hug or something. Someone to say There, there, you can’t go wrong with just ordering a coffee. There’s no bad choices here.”

    The man gave a distracted smile and ordered a soy latte. Ruthie realized that the two weren’t together. The woman continued talking, this time to the barista. So she was one of those people, the ones who held up lines, who never could find their wallet or their receipt, who asked for directions and then didn’t listen to the answer. GPS and Apple Pay had not eliminated them from social discourse. Not yet.

Thank God. Ruthie loved this kind of person. She liked people who would willingly share, since she had been married for years to someone who guarded his feelings like a leopard snarling over a carcass. So when the woman turned and smiled at her, Ruthie was happy to smile, too, to have a pleasant exchange in a spinning world.

“Stupid to drink hot coffee in this heat, right?” the woman asked. Now that she had turned, Ruthie noticed her breasts, because she had to. Two perfect mounds, as if someone had modeled them from wet sand.

“Well, we’re in air-conditioning all the time anyway,” Ruthie said, and gave her order to the barista. The woman’s dress was familiar, a seersucker shift with lime-green lines. She was petite and pretty, honey-brown eyes that also seemed familiar. Pink lip gloss that looked like the kind with a flavor. Compared with the distracted women around them in rumpled linen, she was as cheerful as a Skittle.

“I’m from Florida, so this heat is nothing,” the woman said. “You know, I thought there would be more opportunity here. It’s kinda dead, right? I mean, not this weekend, it’s pretty crowded, but, you know, September.”

“You’re on the wrong fork,” Ruthie said. “You should try the Hamptons.”

    “Stuck on the wrong fork,” the woman said. “Story of my life.”

The bell on the door jingled, and Doe walked in. When she saw them, Ruthie saw something flicker on her face. Annoyance and something like fear.

Doe strode forward. “Mom, what are you doing here?”

“Dora!” The woman’s face lit up. “You know, having coffee? Oops, I’m wearing your dress. Busted!”

Doe’s mother? Ruthie recognized Doe’s expression, the hurried way she turned to her. She recognized it because she’d known it herself as a teenager, if she ran into a classmate while she was with her mother. Shame.

Angela, who never met a purse she wouldn’t clutch, never met a restaurant bill she wouldn’t declaim as ridiculous. Ruthie wished she could touch Doe on the arm and say, One day you will miss her. You will miss being that loved.

“Ruthie, hi. I didn’t see you—”

“You know each other?” Doe’s mother interrupted. “How funny is that? Wow, this is such a small town, right?”