Everybody Rise by Stephanie Clifford Read Free Book Online Page B

stepped into a pool of sunlight and put what she hoped was a placid look on her face.
    Charlotte snorted when she saw the beatific smile Evelyn was displaying. “Ev, why do you look possessed?”
    â€œNot possessed, Charlotte, dear. In recruitment mode.” PLU was going to need up-and-coming people on the site at some point. It would be smart to at least make the connection now. With the fresh gin and tonic in her hand, Evelyn approached Scot and offered it to him. “I thought you could use a drink after the long train ride,” she said.
    â€Oh. Gosh. Thanks. Thank you.” He wrapped his large fingers around it, sloshing some over the side onto Evelyn’s hand; she let the liquid sit there rather than wringing it off and risk making him feel even more ill at ease. “I was late because I thought Hamilton’s dog treats were cookies and ate some,” he blurted.
    Evelyn gave him an it-happens-to-everyone smile.
    *   *   *
    At dinner, served at a long wooden table with antler candelabras, hunting-themed place mats, and stiff wooden-wicker seats, Evelyn practiced. A dinner party with old-money sorts was a series of hurdles that Evelyn had to clear if she wanted to come away from this weekend with PLU members. She remembered much of the etiquette that her mother had burned into her once they moved into Sag Neck, and as she flirt-talked with the ancient neighbors seated on either side of her, she revived her muscle memory to scoop her soup spoon away from her.
    Still, she felt like an interloper. She was constantly afraid of using the wrong fork or overreaching for the salt or making some other mistake she wasn’t even aware she was making. Like Scot, on the opposite end of the table, who was failing miserably. Evelyn had assumed that he’d have gone through enough HBS and firm dinners to pick up the rules of this set, but she detected as she watched him that he didn’t know what he didn’t know. He picked up his fork for the appetizer and dug in before anyone else, prompting a loud, “I have picked up my fork,” from Mrs. Hacking several moments later. He buttered his bread in one piece; he passed the saltshaker without the pepper; he didn’t seem to have any idea what to do with the fish knife during the sole course and left it at the side of his plate.
    Part of the game, Evelyn thought as she watched the rest of them separating the sole’s flesh from its spine with their fish knives, was to prove that they all knew the same code, that they’d all grown up in the same great country houses using fish knives every night. They hadn’t, of course—no one did anymore—but without any actual aristocracy in America, the best those who wanted to be upper class could do was create systems of exclusivity and codes of conduct. She wondered how well she was passing as she used her fish knife to lift a delicate flake of sole from the spine and turned to Mr. Desrochers to inquire about how iron-ore mining had changed in the last decade.
    During dessert, Scot used his spoon to break into a chocolate torte and then dumped milk into his espresso shot, earning a sharp cough from Mr. Van Borgh on Evelyn’s left.
    Scot soon made himself welcome to at least Mr. Hacking, though, given the homework he had done.
    â€œShuh-shuh-gah is one of the great camps?” Scot was saying.
    â€œIt was once,” Mrs. Hacking said. “Split up and sold for parts when the Levelings needed money.”
    â€œWe’ll see one of the great camps tomorrow,” said Mr. Hacking, an even thinner model of Preston who spent minimal time in the great outdoors but for golfing. He was taking dollhouse-spoon-sized bites of his torte, chewing each bite so mildly and slowly that Evelyn feared they would be at dinner for hours longer. “Camp Sachem. They’re having the dinner for the Fruit Stripe.”
    â€œI read about that camp,” said Scot with