DANIEL MANTIS FUSSED over Doe, insisting she sit to his right and ordering glasses of rosé champagne “for the beautiful girls” and a martini for himself.
Doe concentrated on Daniel so completely she could barely acknowledge Lark. His head was shaved close, his face tan and smooth, his beautiful white shirt open and pressed sharp. He wasn’t a good-looking man, but he was a billionaire, so everyone and everything was available to him, and everything about him said that he knew it.
For the ultra-rich the world moved at superhero speed. Valets and maître d’s and waiters and bartenders were there a second or two before you wanted them. Then they disappeared and came back again with whatever you asked for, plus things you didn’t, treats from the chef and fresh napkins and forks. Disappearance, reappearance, disappearance, until you had everything you could possibly need except for a catheter. You still had to get up if you wanted to pee.
Daniel focused his gaze on the waiter as he recited the specials. He clasped his hands together and leaned forward a bit. “Last summer I had the most exquisitely simple pasta,” he said. “Olive oil, pecorino, fava beans. Can I have that?”
“I’m not sure if we have fava beans, sir. I’ll check in the kitchen.”
“Fantastic.”
No fava beans, but Daniel bravely withstood the disappointment and ordered fish. He decided on four appetizers “so we can all have a taste, the crudo is amazing.” They sent over six. It was something Doe had always wondered, why those who could afford it were the only ones who got stuff for free.
Doe was careful with the wine. She knew better than to get even the slightest bit tipsy. Lark, however, had finished her champagne in two swallows and started in on the white Daniel had ordered. The meal would cost double Doe’s month’s rent.
Doe kept her face on alert. She was alive to everything Daniel was saying, even if it was pass the salt. Not that he’d salt his food, that was for the middle class. She had to be Daniel-worthy, a wealthy Florida prep kid with style, not the sneaky low-rent paparazzo who’d grown up in a concrete block house with cockroaches in the kitchen, geckos on the wall, and a mother who was a masseuse who occasionally threw in a hand job if the rent was due. The mother who was sending her increasingly desperate texts because she wanted to move to the Hamptons and Doe needed to get her a job, “as a concierge, I think I’d be really good at it.” She ate her sea bass and it tasted like nothing spiked with lemon.
“So when did you two meet?” Daniel asked.
“At the Memorial Day party,” Lark said. She giggled. Under the influence of champagne and wine drunk too fast, she’d turned into a teenager, half sullen, half giddy.
“I gave Doe a dare.” Then she laughed again. “Doe, a dare, a female dare!”
“It was such a great party,” Doe said. “This fish is superb.” Once she’d been at a gallery dinner in Miami and someone had said that. She’d practiced saying it later, when she was alone. This fish is superb.
“A dare?” Daniel asked.
“To get you to take off the hoodie,” Lark said. “I let her in the house to interrupt you.”
“The house is so exquisite,” Doe said. Exquisite was another word she used to slip into conversations when she felt outclassed.
“Thank you. I always say it’s like heaven, if God had taste,” Daniel said.
“I never heard you say that,” Lark said. “It’s a little self-serving, don’t you think?”
Doe rushed in to fill the silence as Daniel shot Lark a cool look. “Anyway, I never got to you,” she said. “But she took me to lunch anyway.” She put on her brightest smile, hoping Daniel would be deflected. “Such a good cause, protecting the farms.”
Daniel passed this off with a short chopping gesture. “Doomed. And yet another big check I wrote for my daughter whose career seems to be spending my money on plants.”
“Oh, no, let’s not go there,” Lark said. “I refuse to have the career conversation now. Why can’t I just enjoy my summer?”
“Because I gave you a deadline of September first last September first. Which means you had a year to find your path.”
“I don’t see why you get to give me deadlines.”
“Because I’ve given you three years to plant flowers at that so-called farm of yours.”
“It’s not So-Called Farm, it’s Larkspur Farm—”
“It’s called fifty million dollars, that’s what it’s called.”
“It’s not like you gave me fifty million dollars, Daddy.”
“I’m on the hook for it, and that’s the same thing. You have an MFA. You had about fifteen lunches—with Aggie and Larry and Amy and everyone I could possibly line up—”
“I did the MoMA thing, I had a job at a gallery. It’s not for me, okay? All I did was make copies and file things.”
“You worked on that exhibition.”
“Like I said, I made copies and filed things. Then I stood around in a little black dress at the opening.” Lark ate a forkful of spinach. “That gallery was bullshit. They came up with busywork for me. It was obvious they just wanted me for decoration.”
“You’re going to be twenty-seven in September and you don’t have a career.”
“So who would hire such a loser old crone anyway, Daddy?”
“Forgive me for thinking my intelligent and talented daughter should have a career.” Daniel swiveled his attention back to Doe. “Doe, tell me about your museum. How long have you worked there?”
“Two years,” Doe said. “Technically I’m part of the membership department, but I also handle all the social media. That’s my real interest.”
“Do you enjoy that?”
“Visibility is a commodity, just like everything else. So, yes. I like to get coverage for things I believe in.”
“Excellent. And what’s your big ambition?”
“World domination, of course.”
“Ambition, I love it. Did you hear that, Lark?”
“Sitting right here, Pop.”
“Tell me about the Belfry. What’s the collection like?”
“We don’t have an art collection. We have historical artifacts. Like Benedict Arnold’s buttons.”
“Buttons?” Daniel’s fork stayed in the air.
“A small historical collection. Kids love it. We also do contemporary art. There’s a project space in the barn for special exhibitions.”
“Contemporary art—that’s Lark’s big interest.”
Lark rolled her eyes and took another gulp of wine.
Before the waiter could glide in, Doe refilled her own glass with wine she would not drink, just so she could place the bottle closer to Daniel. Lark would have to reach past him to get it. “Ruthie and Tobie have done some great exhibitions. When we get a review in the Times, Ruthie bakes a cake.”
“Is it that much of an occasion?”
“They don’t cover much regionally,” Doe said. “So, yes. We also run educational programming, classes, lectures. During the year we bus in schoolkids from all over. Ruthie started this pilot program to get underserved schools through the doors.”
“Sounds worthy, that’s great. Giving back. I heard your director—Ruth, did you say?—might be leaving.”
Doe frowned. “I don’t know. I mean, Ruthie is fantastic.” Had Mindy and Catha’s plot gone this far, that gossip had flown all the way over Peconic Bay? And since when would someone like Daniel Mantis care about someplace like the Belfry? “Anyway, it’s a terrific museum,” she said.
Lark picked up her phone, but at Daniel’s look she put it down on the banquette. “Orient’s cool.”
“I never heard of it before Adeline decided to discover it.” Daniel chewed on a bite of fish. “A little less lemon next time, I think. Balance is everything. What’s your endowment?”
Luckily Doe knew this. “A million and a half.”
“Seat of the pants, is it?”
“Pretty much. But we do a lot.”
“Can we order a bottle of red?” Lark asked. “Daddy, stop quizzing poor Doe.”
Daniel signaled the waiter. “Art is a mind-opener, isn’t it? We don’t get enough arts education in this country. I’m thinking of starting a foundation.”
“What?” Lark rose out of her sulk. “You never said anything.” She put her fork down. Doe knew from experience that Lark only ate half her food.
She put her fork down, too. She knew the rules of this game. You always left food on your plate. And no one, ever, asked to bring something home. Not even dessert. Once out to dinner in Miami she’d asked for the rest of her crab cake meal to go, and the man she was with, an art dealer who taught her so much and then ghosted her texts, said, “No. This isn’t the Cheesecake Factory.” She never did it again.
“Why not, everyone’s getting one. It’s the newest accessory. That’s a joke, Lark.”
Daniel said this without looking at his daughter. He was looking at Doe. She felt suddenly buzzed and very awake.
“I think it’s time I supported more local causes,” he said.
Doe tried to hold his eye but couldn’t. Was she imagining how intensely he was looking at her? She couldn’t read this glance. She didn’t know whether he was thinking about exposing her or thinking about fucking her. Either way she could be as doomed as a bag of kittens.