Barrett intervened, to change the subject. “This is a great party,” he said.
“It is great, isn’t it?” Mrs. Fullin said. She reached for his hand. “I am so glad you’re here. Last year wasn’t the same without you.”
They looked at each other, and something passed between them. Tate guzzled the rest of her champagne. She checked the faces of the other women, all of whom were watching Barrett and Mrs. Fullin like it was something being shown on TV.
Barrett said, “I just couldn’t do it last year.” He took a sip of his drink.
“Of course not,” Mrs. Fullin said. She beamed at him and then at Tate. “But look, life goes on!”
The interaction with Anita Fullin left Tate feeling threatened and uncomfortable. She had half a mind to sneak into the house, find the computer, and lose herself in the electronic world. (This temptation was very real. It was, Tate imagined, the same urge her father felt when he passed a golf course.) But Barrett hung on to Tate, and sensing that her shoes were driving her insane (they weren’t called killer heels for nothing), he directed her to the seawall, where they sat side by side and admired the harbor. Tate was happier. She drank her champagne and Barrett flagged down servers and they ate mini crab cakes and sticky Chinese ribs and cheddar tartlets.
Tate said, “Mrs. Fullin loves you.”
“Yeah,” Barrett said. “It’s a problem.”
“She’s beautiful,” Tate said.
“You’re beautiful,” he said.
Dinner was served in the side yard under a tent. There were ten round tables of ten and a rectangular head table of sixteen, which was where Barrett and Tate were seated. Barrett was placed at one end of the table, to Anita Fullin’s left, and Tate was all the way at the opposite end, to Mr. Fullin’s left. This was, in Tate’s mind, the worst possible scenario, and she thought that Barrett might do something about it-switch the place cards?-but he just licked his bottom lip.
“Are you going to be okay down here by yourself?” he asked.
No, she thought. But she said, “Yes. Absolutely.”
It was an honor to be seated at the head table, Tate recognized, even as she wished that they’d been stuck in Siberia with the middle-aged AuClaires. Barrett and Tate moved through the buffet line together. The food was amazing and Tate didn’t hold back. She piled her plate with grilled lamb, green beans, a beautiful potato salad, and sautéed cherry tomatoes, as well as a lobster tail, six jumbo shrimp, and four raw oysters, which she drowned with mignonette. She plucked another glass of champagne off a passing tray. Then she sat in her assigned seat and watched as Barrett journeyed to the other side of the world.
Roman Fullin was bald and wore square glasses. He had the distracted manner of a very important man who made lots of money. He sat down, flagged a server, and asked for a glass of red wine from one of the bottles he had set aside. For this table only, he said. He inspected his plate of food as though he didn’t recognize anything on it; then he shifted his eyes to Tate’s loaded plate; then his eyes swept up to Tate’s face. Who was this woman sitting next to him at the head table? Tate felt like she was encroaching on his personal territory; she felt like he had just discovered her in his master bedroom.
“Hi,” he said, offering a hand. “Roman Fullin.”
“Hi,” she said. “I’m Tate Cousins.”
“Tate Cousins,” he said, repeating it loudly, perhaps to see if it rang a bell.
She said, “I’m Barrett Lee’s date.”
“Ah,” Roman said, though he still seemed nonplussed. He considered the people to his right and Tate’s left, whom he clearly knew a lot better. “Betsy, Bernie, Joyce, Whitney, Monk-this is Tate Cousins.”
“Cousins?” one of the men said. All of the men at the table looked alike, and Tate hadn’t been able to pin down any names. “You aren’t by any chance related to Grant Cousins?”
Tate was sucking down an oyster, which gave her a second to think. People either loved her father or they hated him. She was feeling too vulnerable to lie. “He’s my father,” she said.
“Whoa!” the man said. “What are the chances? He’s my lawyer.”
Roman Fullin’s eyebrows shot up. “What are the chances, indeed! He’s not the guy who…”
And the other man said, “Yep, the very same one.” To Tate, he said, “Your father is a genius. He really saved my tail. Does he ever mention the name Whit Vargas? I send him Yankees tickets every time they cross my desk.”
Tate sucked down another oyster, and some of the mignonette dripped onto her silk sheath. She forgot her manners when she was nervous, and she was very nervous now, though things had taken a turn for the better. At least she had an agreeable pedigree. She checked on Barrett at the other end of the table; he was locked into conversation with Anita Fullin.
She shook her head at Whit Vargas. “He rarely talks about his clients,” she said. “He likes to respect their privacy.”
Whit Vargas held a dripping piece of tenderloin in front of his mouth. “I should be grateful for that!” he said.
Roman Fullin was filled with new interest where Tate was concerned. “So wait,” he said. “Who did you say you came with?”
“Barrett,” she said. “Barrett Lee.”
“And how do you know Barrett?”
“He caretakes our house on Tuckernuck.”
“Ahhhhh,” Roman said, as though it were all so clear to him now. “You’re part of the Tuckernuck family. The bane of my wife’s existence.”
“Apparently,” Tate said.
“So you live on Tuckernuck?” Roman said. “You spend the night there?”
Did people know how asinine they sounded when they asked these questions? “Live there, spend the night there,” Tate confirmed.
“Wait a minute,” Whit Vargas said. “Where is Tuckernuck again?”
“It’s an island, Whit,” Roman said. “Another island.”
“Half a mile off the west coast,” Tate said.
“What do you do about electricity?” Roman said.
By the time Tate finished her dinner, she was the star of the eastern half of the table. She was, more truthfully, a museum exhibit, an anthropological study: Tate Cousins of Tuckernuck, a woman from a respectable family, who was living for a month without hot water (the women couldn’t believe it) and without a phone, Internet, or TV (the men couldn’t believe it). Tate decided to take this particular ball and run with it. She was funny and charming, smart and self-effacing. She checked on Barrett at the other end of the table. Was he watching her? Did he see that she had turned a potentially disastrous social situation on its head and now had all of these Upper East Siders eating out of her hand? Was he impressed? Did he love her?
When the plates were cleared and the band started playing, Roman Fullin stood up and asked Tate to dance.
Tate took his hand. She couldn’t very well turn him down, could she? And yet they would be the first people dancing. Shouldn’t he be asking his wife to dance? Her shoes were another problem; it felt like her feet were caught in a couple of mousetraps.
Tate said, “This is a beautiful party. It’s like a wedding.”
“Every year a wedding,” he said. “Anita has to have it. She lives for this night.”
Other couples joined them on the dance floor, including Barrett and Anita Fullin. Anita was glowing in her orange dress. (Thank God Tate had not worn that dress!) Anita shrieked as Barrett spun her around.