Chapter Three Augusta #2
“So, Danny, where are you living these days?” tried Colin.
“Miami.” Danny had a dimple in the middle of his chin that made Augusta think of Superman. “The bank sent me down there to help open the office and I was only supposed to stay a year, but I met a girl and it turned into five.”
“Oh, you have a girlfriend?” Augusta perked up.
“Ha, no.” Danny shook his head. “We broke up this fall. She wouldn’t stop going into my laptop to read my emails.”
“Yikes.” Colin looked at him wide-eyed. “She had jealousy issues?”
“No, way worse. She was embezzling from my clients.”
“Oh, shit.” Bailey covered her mouth and Augusta laughed in spite of her bad mood.
They ordered wedge salads with bacon, artichoke dip with toasted bread, and steaks, Augusta’s medium rare.
Bailey and Danny flirted and reminisced, Van told an elaborate story about a seal that had beached itself at Crane’s, and Augusta continued to surreptitiously observe Caroline.
Did she know about Van and Bailey’s history, or did she think the pregnancy was from a onetime thing?
Was she serious about Van, or was he just someone to date while she was in town?
Augusta hated that Van was dating anyone.
She didn’t need him to be a monk forever, but he could at least stay single until Bailey had the baby, just to see how it might go between them.
It made her question Van’s priorities, made her wonder if he was as “good” as they had always assumed.
She knocked back her cocktail and signaled for Colin to pour her a glass of red wine.
“Do you girls still hang out with Fran Gianopoulos?” Danny asked.
“Of course.” Bailey nodded. “I saw her this morning.”
“Her brothers were crazy in school.”
“Oh, they absolutely still are.”
“Some of my buddies went to Vegas with them a couple years ago and Damien rolled in with two suitcases, one full of cash and one completely empty. He left with both full of cash and was banned for life from the MGM Grand.”
“I can’t decide if Fran’s brothers are Mensa-level geniuses or total freaking morons.”
“It’s a thin line,” chimed in Caroline. “Especially among the crypto-bro types.”
“Right? They either become billionaires or go to prison.”
“Van,” Augusta interrupted. She was annoyed at Van and, she realized, a little bit buzzed. “Have you told Caroline about the time you were arrested?”
Bailey snorted and Van’s ears turned pink. “No…”
“You were arrested?” Caroline asked curiously.
“Our little felon,” joked Augusta, patting Van’s shoulder.
“It wasn’t a felony.” Van shrugged off her hand.
“We were sixteen and this guy Pete Lancaster was having a house party. His parents were away. The whole class was there. When the police came to break it up, I was in the bathroom, so I didn’t realize everyone had run out the back.
When I opened the door and saw the cops I tried to go out the window. ”
“Caroline, it was honestly the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
” Colin leaned across the table. “Imagine you’re out in the backyard and you just see Van diving headfirst out the bathroom window but then someone grabs his legs.
So he’s just hanging there, waving his arms, like he’s trying to swim away. ”
“The police officers were actually laughing too,” Van admitted. “I got a five-hundred-dollar fine.”
“Aw, that’s not so bad,” Caroline offered. “I was arrested once in high school too.”
“You were?” Van looked up with interest and Augusta frowned.
“It was just a protest,” Caroline explained.
“I feel like getting arrested on purpose and getting arrested by accident are two entirely different things,” said Colin.
“Completely,” Van agreed. “Getting arrested on purpose is brave. Getting arrested climbing out a bathroom window is—”
“Embarrassing,” Bailey finished.
“Well, we both have good stories for the grandchildren,” Caroline said agreeably, and Augusta cringed. Whose grandchildren was she talking about? Bailey’s? Hers? She tried to make eyes at Bailey but nobody else seemed to notice Caroline’s gaffe.
“Did your parents freak out about it?” asked Colin.
“They weren’t thrilled.” Caroline shrugged. She took a sip of her espresso martini and Augusta quietly snorted. Who ordered an espresso martini at the 1640 Hart House?
“How old are you, Caroline?” Augusta asked suddenly.
“Twenty-eight?” she answered, confused.
“Got it.” Augusta nodded knowingly and she felt Colin put his hand on her knee under the table, as if telling her to cool it.
“Babe,” Bailey interrupted, “we need to look at the castle summer concert schedule. We should book tickets early for the ones we want.”
Augusta relented, sitting back in her chair and letting Bailey chatter happily about the cover bands coming to Crane’s.
Soon Colin and Danny were comparing stories of run-ins with random celebrities—Colin had played golf with Bill Murray, Danny had been cursed out by a former Disney star at Ocean Prime—and by the time dinner was over Danny was feeding Bailey bites of chocolate lava cake, Van had his arm around Caroline’s chair, and Augusta had polished off most of a bottle of wine.
Clearly Van would go home with Caroline, Bailey would bring Danny back to Budweiser Manor, and everyone would end the evening having sex with the wrong people.
She excused herself to pee. When she passed by the Keeper’s Room, she saw Samantha sitting alone, looking at her phone.
She knew it would be polite to go in to say goodnight, but instead she used the bathroom and washed her hands, plucking a few tissues from the box on the counter and stuffing them into her nursing bra.
Despite the cocktails and the wine, Augusta’s buzz was wearing off.
She had read somewhere that redheads metabolized alcohol better, and she felt like it was a good tradeoff for all the extra sunscreen she needed to use.
On her way out, Augusta poked her head into the bar.
The game was over, the TV switched to the Golf Channel, but Augusta saw her father down at the end, his hand on a woman’s lower back.
“Hey, Dad?” she called out. “I think Samantha’s ready to go.” He turned and nodded, and Augusta stalked back to the table, her face flushed with annoyance.
In the car she slid her sandals off and texted Zoey to tell her they were on the way home. She felt bad; she had told the girl they’d only be gone two hours, but Zoey sent back a thumbs-up. She then texted her brother, Eben.
I think Dad’s cheating on Samantha again.
She watched her text deliver and then the little word “Read” popped up beneath the bubble. She waited for Eben to reply, but he didn’t. After a minute Augusta locked her screen and tossed her phone back into her bag.
“Have I ever told you how perfect you are?” Augusta put her hand on Colin’s.
“Because I let you drink a martini and listen to some random guy hit on Bailey all night?”
“Yes, and because you’re not a narcissist who sleeps with half the town.”
“Nah, I’ve only banged like a third of them.”
“Shut up.” Augusta laughed.
On nights like this Augusta couldn’t figure out how her mother had married her father in the first place.
She supposed her mother’s choices had been more circumscribed back in those days.
Both her parents were from prominent Boston families; her mother, Annie, was five years younger than her father, and she said it had all happened so fast. They went to dinners, to polo matches, sailing in his boat.
She met his grandmother, who kissed her on both cheeks and told her she had a lovely nose.
Their families knew each other, their fathers belonged to the same clubs, their mothers attended the same lectures and events.
Everyone kept saying they would have beautiful children, redheaded like their mother, slim like their father, and it seemed impossibly easy and right, so they tied the knot.
Then Annie was pregnant with Eben, glowing with pride, and they bought the place in Greenhead, a huge pink house on top of a hill, with stables for horses.
It was meant to be a weekend home, they would spend the week in Beacon Hill near where George worked, but when the baby was born, Annie couldn’t stand the city anymore.
She wanted to spend her days walking in the fields with baby Eben, wanted to fall asleep at night with the windows open.
Annie was lost in the early months of motherhood, barefoot and in love with the world, then pregnant again six months later.
It wasn’t until baby Augusta was sleeping through the night that Annie looked up and realized George was barely around, that he was coming home from Boston late or not at all.
He’d fallen headlong into an affair with a colleague’s college-age daughter, and by the time he left, his colleague threatening a lawsuit, Annie had two babies under two, a pair of black labs sleeping at her feet, and a resolution never to let a man into her bed ever again.
Augusta’s father moved out west for a while, and so for her childhood she saw him only occasionally, maybe once a year, talking to him on birthdays and Christmas.
She and Eben barely knew him, barely knew their grandparents on his side despite the large checks they sent, and their mother didn’t waste a single minute talking about him.
He was no more present in their lives than a tax attorney or a dentist, someone they saw at annual intervals with a sense of mild obligation.
But then, when Augusta was twenty-three, George moved back to Massachusetts.
He had retired, had time on his hands, and was looking to get to know his adult children.
Eben wasn’t buying it, but Augusta felt more sanguine about the whole thing.
No, George wasn’t going to suddenly become her best friend or confidant after a lifetime of benign neglect, but she wouldn’t mind spending the occasional Sunday afternoon studying the man who held half her genetic material.