SEVERAL DRINKS INTO THE evening, Sara found herself in the Barlows’ dining room, cutting into a rare veal shank smothered in rich merlot reduction. She heard Nick laugh from across the table, and she was reminded of how they had suffered through the past ten days, speaking but not really speaking. Sleeping next to each other but never touching. Sara had gone to the fertility clinic. In spite of the ambivalence about the second baby that she had confessed to him on Thanksgiving, she had done the tests—blood work, ultrasound, a pelvic exam. He’d whacked off into a cup. It turned out they were just fine. Only they weren’t fine, because Sara didn’t want to get pregnant. How could the impact of that be measured? Surely it was part of the explanation. And now they had stopped trying by virtue of the distance that had grown between them.
The dinner was fabulous, of course, and the company certainly the reason for Nick’s sudden change in mood. The Barlows, Halsteads, Ridleys, and Livingstons all enjoying food designed by a world-renowned chef. The first course was butternut-squash soup with a dollop of sour cream, accompanied by a large dose of town gossip. Sara had the soup and washed it down with a glass of white burgundy. The second course consisted of heirloom beet salad with blue cheese and finely chopped greens, and even more gossip, which Sara digested with a glass of pinot noir. Now the veal was sitting on her plate as they talked about vacation homes—exclusive this, exclusive that—and she could not put a piece of it in her mouth. She reached for the third wineglass of the evening, a large bowl-shaped thing filled with something red.
“He’s hot. I’m telling you. Hot, hot, hot. Hats off to the pool committee this year.” Eva Ridley giggled and raised her glass to toast the women who had just made their selection for the club’s pool manager. “There are some perks to being on the board.”
Smiling at her with affection, Marcus Ridley raised his glass and clinked it against hers. “Thank God. Now I can play golf in peace. Gentlemen—I think we’re in store for a great summer.” Like his wife, Marcus was lean, well dressed, and generally slick in both appearance and demeanor.
Seated at one end of the table, Rosalyn forced a smile. It was almost cruel how they could do that—pretend they were the stereotype of a dys-functional suburban couple when they were still deeply in love with each other. Marcus Ridley never played golf, and Eva rushed in and out of the pool solely to deposit and collect her children. They could make Brad Pitt the pool manager, and Eva would still race home for a quickie with Marcus while the kids had diving practice. But the people they pretended to be—the wife who sat poolside in her bikini all day reading novels and watching the lifeguards and the husband who didn’t care, because it meant he could play another nine holes without complaint—were all around them. And what they represented could be found in some manifestation right here in this house. That’s what was cruel. Unintentional on Eva’s part, but cruel nonetheless. And with all that was going on in Rosalyn’s life, it hit her particularly hard tonight as she watched her husband converse with Sara Livingston.
Barlow, who had been intentionally seated next to Sara by Rosalyn, was leaning in now to whisper in Sara’s ear, “You’ve gone quiet.”
Sara smiled politely. There was no simple answer. This was her tendency when she drank, chatty for the first one, then pensive and dark as the intoxication grew. But it was more than that. Unlike her college days, when all she had to be pensive about were external, geopolitical problems facing mankind, she now had a litany of very personal crises.
“I’m just thinking, that’s all.”
“Thinking? What are you thinking?”
Sara turned to face him, looking him dead in the eye. “Do you really want to know? I mean really?”
Barlow was curious, and his smile was infused with enthusiasm. This was their third encounter, and he once again had the feeling that beneath her awkward attempts to fit in among them, there was something interesting waiting to be found.
“I asked, didn’t I?”
Sara shrugged and took a sip of the wine. “Okay. I’ll tell you. I’m thinking about little calves chained to wood troughs in stalls so small they can’t move. And I’m thinking that I’m a complete hypocrite because if this were a cheeseburger, I’d be all over it.”
Barlow’s smile widened. “I see. So it’s better to let them run free and grow up, then pound a battering ram between their eyes?”
Sara pretended to be indignant. “Jeez—I already admitted to being a hypocrite.”
“But you still aren’t touching the veal.”
She shrugged again.
“Maybe your objection is to what that piece of meat is saying to you.”
“Saying to me? You think the meat is sending me a secret message?” Sara was smiling now, fully, as she pulled off a piece of her dinner roll.
“Yes. Shhh . . .” Barlow tilted his head and leaned his ear over Sara’s plate. “I hear it!”
“Stop!” Sara was laughing, suddenly self-conscious as she felt her mood lifting.
“It spoke to me, I swear it,” Barlow said, sitting straight again. He took a long sip of his wine, then cut off a large chunk of his own veal and put it in his mouth.
“Apparently, it didn’t ask you not to eat its friend.”
Barlow kept chewing, but nodded to acknowledge the worthy retort. Then he washed down the veal with more wine and pretended to ponder the situation of the meat on Sara’s plate. “Here’s what I think,” he began.
“Okay . . .” Sara watched him carefully, waiting for the next amusement from Ernest Barlow. That he was a billionaire seemed incomprehensible to her, as did his interest in this conversation. Still, it felt genuine.
“Veal is the meat of the wealthy. Hamburger is not. Therein lies your objection to our chef’s finest work—not the plight of milk-fed, imprisoned calves.”
Sara could feel her mind engaged, even through the alcohol. Even among this crowd, which had so intimidated her before. “Really? You think? ’Cause calves are pretty cute, and their plight is certainly worthy of concern beyond the socioeconomics of meat consumption.”
Barlow nodded and leaned back in his chair. “Mrs. Livingston, I think you just might be a socialist.”
This made her laugh. She wasn’t a socialist, but her views were downright radical in a town that was this concerned with money. “Maybe by Wilshire standards. Anywhere else, I’m a moderate Democrat.”
“Good God, woman! Don’t use the D-word around here.”
“I know. It’s a sacrilege.” Sara took a drink of water, now oblivious of the rest of the table that was buzzing away with chatter about ski resorts. “Why is that? I’ve only been here a few months, but why is it that all these Northeastern, liberally educated people are such staunch Republicans?”
Allowing a servant to remove his plate, Barlow turned his chair slightly to face her, crossed his legs, and perched his elbow on the table, where the veal had been. “Oh, come on. You seem like a smart girl. You must know.”
“Taxes. I know. But really? Isn’t there enough money?”
Barlow’s laughter now filled the room. “All right, let’s have it. What’s so funny?” Eva asked from across the table, masking the worry that had been growing all night.
Sara looked at Barlow pleadingly. But he was having too much fun to let her off the hook. “We are discussing the quandary of Wilshire politics, and in particular, why we vote Republican despite our liberal social views.”
Eva managed to smile at them, but this wasn’t good. Barlow loved to talk politics, especially with idealistic people like Sara Livingston, who were still untainted by the corrupting influences of their privileged lives.
“Taxes,” Marcus Ridley said matter-of-factly from his seat next to Rosalyn.
Barlow was quick with an answer. “We know that, Marcus. But why don’t we ever admit that we have enough and it’s time to give back? That is the question on the table.”
Sara felt her cheeks flush. “Not exactly—I mean that’s not exactly the question.”
Barlow reached out and touched the back of her hand with his. “It’s okay. It’s a good question.”
Rosalyn managed a smile, though she was irritated by the complete lack of discretion her husband and his lover were displaying. She had brought Sara here for one reason: to keep her enemy closer. Now she was finding it hard to swallow.
“It’s not difficult to understand, Sara.” Rosalyn’s voice was laced with condescension. “Money buys us out of reliance on the government. Paying taxes is the only way the government touches us.”
“Christ, Rosalyn Barlow,” Eva replied scornfully. “You make us sound like anarchists!”
“Anarchy! I like it!” Barlow said, fully enjoying himself.
Marcus Ridley moved in with smooth, nonchalant charm. “Maybe we should secede. The Republic of Wilshire. Jacks, what do you think?”
Seated beside Marcus, Jacks tried to care about the unfolding complexities the conversation had taken on. What was actually concerning her at the moment was the ease with which she had displaced Rosalyn’s suspicions on this unsuspecting young woman, and the guilt that would not be quelled by the abundance of wine.
She smiled coyly because it seemed appropriate. “What is it they say? Never discuss politics, religion, or pets at a social gathering.”
Marcus was shaking his head. “I think it’s children. Never discuss politics, religion, or children.”
“What the hell’s the difference?” Eva’s remark brought uniform laughter to the table, though little of it was real. Still, it gave Rosalyn the chance she needed to change the subject.
“So enough about all of those things. Let’s move on to something totally selfish and indulgent.”
“I’ll drink to that.” David Halstead had been politely quiet for most of the evening, latching on to small chances like this one to say something benign.
Rosalyn allowed her expression to soften. She looked first to Sara, then focused on Nick—ignoring her husband as his face morphed back to a state of misery. She was going to do this, sponsor the Livingstons at the club, and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do to stop her. She needed to offer the membership committee an alternative to the Conrads, and the Livingstons were the obvious choice. Their lives would become instantly enmeshed with hers, and Barlow’s, making the affair a living hell for all of them.
“Let’s talk about frivolous, ostentatious, and offensively exclusive country clubs.”