You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz Read Free Book Online

payback for getting him through trigonometry at Horace Mann. Actually I barely got him through trigonometry.”
    â€œAnd the auction itself?” Grace asked. She was visualizing Sally’s list, trying to push things forward.
    â€œRight. I have a proof of the catalog. Amanda, what did I do with it?”
    Amanda pointed out the ragged-edged booklet amid the scattered papers on the table.
    â€œOkay,” Sally said. “This isn’t final, we can still add till tomorrow morning, but he’s printing tomorrow afternoon, and…Sylvia?”
    â€œPicking them up Saturday at one,” she said efficiently.
    â€œGood.” She put on her glasses, opened the cover, and started down the printed page.
    Flowers from L’Olivier and Wild Poppy. Stays in no fewer than six Hamptons houses, one on Fire Island (“But the family part,” Sally said reassuringly), a pair each in Vail and Aspen and one in Carmel, New York (this particular offering relayed with less than effusive gratitude). There was a design consult with an A-list decorator (daughter in twelfth grade), a cooking lesson for eight in an excessively popular Tribeca restaurant (son of chef’s publicist in seventh), a chance to shadow the mayor of New York for a day (policy analyst’s twins applying for two of the extremely valuable spots in next year’s pre-K), and something called a “stem-cell face lift” with a doctor at NYU, which sounded so appalling (yet so intriguingly bizarre!) that Grace made a mental note to ask Jonathan what it was.
    â€œAnd—I think I sent out an e-mail about this,” Sally said. “Or maybe not. But Nathan Friedberg offered us a place in his camp.”
    â€œSally, that’s fabulous!” Amanda said.
    â€œWhat camp?” Grace asked.
    Amanda turned to her. “You know, his camp? That he’s starting?”
    â€œIt was in Avenue ,” said Sally. “He’s starting this camp?”
    â€œIt’s going to cost twenty-five thousand dollars for the summer,” said Sylvia.
    â€œThat’s…a lot of waterskiing,” Grace observed.
    â€œNo waterskiing. No knot tying. No campfires,” said Sylvia, sounding suitably bemused. “Children of mere mortals need not apply.”
    â€œBut…I’m sorry, I’m not understanding. This is a summer camp?” Grace said slowly.
    â€œI think it’s a little bit brilliant, actually,” said Amanda. “I mean, let’s face it, these are the kids who are going to be running things. They need to know how business works, and they need to know how to be philanthropists. Nathan called me about it. He was wondering if the twins might want to enroll. I said I’d love it, but they’d kill me if I took them out of their camps in Maine. They have these whole posses up there.”
    Grace still couldn’t grasp it. “Where exactly do they go for this camp? What do they do?”
    â€œOh, they’ll all live at home. A bus picks them up in the morning. And all these great people are going to come talk to the kids,” Sally said. “People from business and the arts. They learn about business plans, and investments. They take trips to visit companies downtown and outside the city. I know they’re going out to Greenwich at least once. And they get the weekends off so they can do whatever they’d usually do then. I signed Ella up. Bronwen just wants to stay out at the beach all summer. She has her horse out there. But then I thought, I wonder if he’d donate a place . I mean, a twenty-five-thousand-dollar value! If we could get that for the school, it would be great.”
    â€œBravo, Sally!” Amanda smiled. “That is completely brilliant.”
    â€œYes,” Grace managed, but she was still mystified. And now slightly appalled, as well.
    They went back to the list. A college admissions counselor. A preschool admissions counselor. A