“If only. Perhaps it was the bathtub gin they seem to serve at these things. I knew I should have brought something up from the city. You can never trust the liquor service in rural New Hampshire. Would you get me a Bloody?”
Evelyn brought out one of the cut-crystal glasses her mother had brought up from Maryland and mixed a bit of vodka from a leather-covered flask with tomato juice. She wondered where her mother had obtained all these bartending accoutrements. They had shown up en masse when the family moved from their exurban ranch house to the grand and crumbling old house in Bibville when Evelyn was in elementary school. With that came aristocratic airs and fine glassware, she thought as she watched the vodka glug out from the flask. “I think my mom brought celery, but she’s run off somewhere. And there was ice, but it’s all melted. You might have to have warm tomato juice.”
“Horseradish. Poppycock,” Preston said. “More vodka. More. More. More. Good. If I don’t get a drink in me soon, I might have to regurgitate all over this pretty picnic.” He gulped down a long slug.
“Now that your thirst is being quenched, why don’t you make yourself useful? Babs and I have been trying to sort out how these chairs unfold, and we clearly have not been able to master it,” Evelyn said.
“Yes, we all remember your ill-fated forays into manual labor. Put me to work. I’ve always dreamt of being your handyman.” Preston balanced his glass on the car’s bumper and was crouched, fiddling with a washer, when Barbara Beegan returned. He jumped up. “Mrs. Beegan, what a pleasure,” he said.
“Preston, what a delight. Evie said she saw you last night, during the young people’s outing, but I’m glad I got to see you myself today.”
“Well, not so young anymore. Did she tell you we’re now in the middle-aged alumni grouping? Once you’re more than five years out, it’s all over.”
Evelyn elbowed him in the ribs and tried to make it look like an accident in case her mother was watching, but it was too late.
“She’s almost thirty. It’s not surprising,” Barbara said.
“I’m twenty-six, Mom. I’m not almost thirty,” Evelyn muttered. When she’d walked by the current students, though, she’d realized that, to them, she was one of the sea of vaguely old alums who meandered through the dorms during Sheffield-Enfield and talked about what color the carpet was in their day.
“Almost twenty-seven,” Barbara said, turning to look at her daughter.
“Nearly twenty-five,” Evelyn said.
With a kick, Preston got one chair, then the other, into place. “Done and done. You both look like you’ve found the fountain of youth. Your daughter has me hard at work as usual. Is Mr. Beegan here as well?” he said.
Evelyn returned his drink to him. “For your labor,” she said. “No, Dad had to work this weekend.”
“Ah, well, I’m sure he’s sad to miss it.” This drew no response, so Preston picked up a cracker. “I read about a case he was involved in, in the Journal. I think it was a lawsuit against a pharmaceutical company in—”
“Aren’t they all,” Barbara interrupted with a bright tone. “It’s been ages since I saw you last. You’ve been in London?”
“Just moved back to New York,” Preston said.
“That’s wonderful. Isn’t that wonderful, Evie? I always tell her she needs to keep better track of her old friends. How are your old friends? That darling Nick? And that handsome brother of yours? Are they single?”
Evelyn handed her mother a cracker with cream cheese on it. “All right, Mom, we don’t need to review every single person Preston knows for marriage eligibility.”
“I’m just having a conversation, Evelyn. She can be so sensitive. Now. Tell me about you, Preston. You must be dating someone.”
“The course of true love never did run smooth, Mrs. Beegan,” Preston said.
“Of course, you have ages before you need to settle down,” Barbara said.
Evelyn rolled her eyes and stuffed a cracker in her mouth. To Barbara, Preston asserted that New York life was treating him well, and his work as an independent investor was going swimmingly (though Evelyn had never been able to pin down exactly what it was Preston did or invested in). He said that Evelyn was doing terrifically in the city, which Evelyn thought he lied about rather nicely, and Barbara raised her sunglasses to the top of her head, her albino-blue eyes brightening with the compliment, which Barbara accepted as though it were about her. Exchanges complete, they separated, stepping away from one another as smoothly as if they were finishing a minuet. Barbara completed the encounter by saying she would find them all seats in the stadium, and she walked off.
A bellow from three rows of cars away arose, with a “Ha—CKING” an octave apart. Then a “Beegs!”