The High Season

  In the hallway outside her office Mindy stood, planted like a tuber on the carpet. Her thick blond hair was held off her face with a patterned green-and-yellow headband, chosen, Ruthie surmised, to match the Spork invitation. Mindy was the type of person who would plan this. Tiny Gloria leaned in, Mindy’s pocket-sized factotum. In her early seventies, Gloria still projected a clenched vitality. Her hair was a spun-sugar cage of platinum privilege, and although the summer had just begun, she was already deeply tanned. Today she was dressed all in white, and Ruthie had a sudden image of the ghost dolls Jem used to make at Halloween out of tissues and a walnut.

  They hadn’t seen her yet. They were listening intently to Catha, who was speaking rapidly. There was a glittering excitement on her face that sent a trickle of foreboding through Ruthie.

  Catha dressed like Hollywood’s idea of an executive assistant, pencil skirts and jewel-necked tops and shoes with pointed toes that just might conceal a shiv. Her small dark eyes were bright with birdlike attention, and she accentuated the association by moving her head forward like a pigeon after she made an especially trenchant point.

  Ruthie had offered the job of deputy director to Catha five years ago, when she was drowning in overwork and needed help. She had known Catha slightly, the way one vaguely knew almost everyone in a small town, and she knew Catha had once been a marketing person (Ruthie had only a vague idea of what a marketing person did, exactly) at a cable network. One day she’d spotted her weeping in the produce section in the Southold grocery store. Ruthie had approached her tentatively to see if she could help. Catha had clutched endive to her bosom and confided the problem. Bobbing her head down and forward, she’d announced that her oldest daughter, Whitney, had decided to go to Wesleyan instead of Smith. Ruthie waited for a distressing anecdote to follow this news, but that appeared to be the tragedy. “I always confused Wesleyan with Wellesley,” she’d told Catha, revealing her plebeian origins, and Catha had shaken her head, button eyes bright with tears, and said, “Wellesley would have been excellent. But this…” She cast the endive into her cart in despair.

  Rather than dismissing Catha as a crashing snob, Ruthie had decided on the spot that any woman who possessed that amount of rabid attention to status could come in handy at a museum. So, even though Catha had no museum experience, Ruthie had hired her. She had always considered Catha her best hire, except for her tendency to avoid responsibility for missteps and take credit for every success. In the job evaluation in her head (and only in her head; Ruthie eschewed job evaluations) Ruthie would have checked off the Not a Team Player box.

  Yet Catha was her friend. Had been her friend? It wasn’t clear, suddenly. Once, they’d gone for drinks after work together. They’d confided in each other about kids and husbands. Ruthie knew the intimate details of the six-month period when Catha was thinking of leaving her husband, Larry. One evening she and Jem and Catha and Emerson had gone to Shelter Island for a dinner to celebrate Emerson’s graduation from college (Wellesley!), and it had been a magical night. On the way back on the ferry they’d gotten out of their cars and watched the lights moving on the dark water. “I just know we’ll be friends forever,” Catha had said, slipping her arm through Ruthie’s. That had been only a year ago. When had that feeling stopped? How many cues had she missed?

  Clearly she was interrupting some kind of conspiracy, but whether it was about her or the color of the tablecloths she couldn’t say for sure. Board ladies could be fierce about tablecloths. She tamped down her unease and walked toward them.

  Three faces turned toward her. She had a sudden vision of her father’s fish store, the fish laid out on ice, staring eyes liquid and opaque.

  “I didn’t realize we had a meeting,” Ruthie said.

  “It’s not a meeting, we’re just chatting,” Catha said with a sunny smile.

  She had hardly advanced a step when Mindy said, “Did you know that Daniel Mantis is Adeline Clay’s boyfriend?”

  “I would think that you would know about Daniel Mantis,” Gloria said. She blinked rapidly. “Catha says his art collection is world-class.”

  “Of course I know who he is,” Ruthie said. “He summers in East Hampton.”

  “He has a fabulous estate,” Mindy said. “It was in Architectural Digest. We were talking about Gus Romany just now. I’ve been researching his artwork. Nobody ever accused me of not being prepared! Have you seen his killing chickens series?”

  “He strangles a chicken!” Gloria interrupted. She mimicked whirling a chicken in the air.

  Ruthie winced. “That doesn’t sound like his work. When was this?”

  “It’s all over the Internet,” Catha said. “Nineteen seventy.”

  “Oh, that makes sense.”

  “Strangling a chicken makes sense?” Gloria asked.

  “I mean, it was over forty years ago. Shock art was part of a whole—”

  “So graphic.” Mindy shuddered. “Do we really want to sponsor that sort of content?”

  “How are we sponsoring it?” Ruthie asked. “We’re not showing the work. We’re honoring him for his service to the museum.”

  “It’s a video and it’s on our Instagram account,” Catha said. She held out the phone, but it was impossible to see it and she kept it out of Ruthie’s reach.

  “Doe posted it?” she asked.

  “You mean you don’t supervise Instagram posts?” Mindy asked.

  “Well, technically, Catha is her supervisor.”

  “Arnie always says, if you’re the boss, don’t pass the buck,” Gloria said.

  “Don’t you check the museum Instagram every morning?” Mindy asked.

  “I really think the psychographic of our core members is in opposition to this,” Catha said. “Come on, we’re getting solar panels next year.”

  “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.”

  “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 e
yes. “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?

  “I hear the pedicure place is great,” Ruthie said.

  Mindy shot her an incandescent look of rage.

  “Mindy tells us that Adeline Clay is renting your house,” Nan said.

  “Let me have Catha introduce you, Mom,” Mindy said, turning her back on Ruthie.

  Oh, hell, thought Ruthie, I’m losing my job.

  12

  “WHAT A SHITSTORM!” Gus Romany said. Taco breath bathed her ear in heat as he kissed her. “What can I say? My father was a chicken farmer. Beat the shit out of me. It was my big Freudian fuck you. I can’t believe those bastards found it!” For the first time since she’d known him, Gus looked old. His Hawaiian shirt was speckled with salsa.