Heddy spied her unfinished sandwich on the table, her stomach growling. “That doesn’t sound promising.”
Ruth smiled. “You’ll see.”
“Well, now you’re going, too, so at least I have an escape hatch.” With that, Heddy grabbed her sandwich, shoveling half in her mouth before letting the screen door slam behind her.
* * *
Heddy tried to seem upbeat as she opened the convertible’s driver’s side door with caution, as if the car might implode at her touch. Driving a car, let alone owning one, was so distant from her daily life, she’d never considered learning. She knew it took twelve minutes from Union Square to the Upper East Side, twenty-five from Atlantic Avenue to Grand Central. She’d been on a train when she first decided to apply to college. She’d been on a train when she got the courage to confront her mother about her father’s identity.
With her thighs on the warm leather seat, Heddy gripped the steering wheel, which was skinnier and more slippery than she’d imagined. The kids settled into the back, and from the passenger seat, Jean-Rose slipped the key into the ignition and turned over the car.
“Just remember three things: the brake is on the left, the gas is on the right, and the steering wheel is in front of you. Go ahead, give it some gas. You’re still in park.”
Heddy looked down at the gearshift and pressed down on the gas pedal, listening as the engine responded with a loud rev. She rubbed her lips together. A bead of sweat dripped down her neck, and she wanted to rub it away but was too nervous to take her hands off the wheel.
Jean-Rose eyed Heddy. “Ready?”
“I’m not sure if this is a good idea, Jean-Rose.”
Jean-Rose banged the side of the door like a drum. “Nonsense. Put the car in drive.”
“I thought all grown-ups could drive,” Teddy said.
“Not everyone in the city learns,” Jean-Rose told him. “Mr. Parker doesn’t know how.”
“But Mr. Parker drives the bus,” Anna said.
“No, dear—he rides the bus.”
Heddy put the car in drive, waiting for the car to lurch forward, but it remained still.
Jean-Rose leaned toward Heddy, whispering. “You have to lift your foot from the brake.”
“Everyone knows that,” Teddy sassed. “Right, Mama?”
“Right,” Heddy said. She glanced at the kids in the rearview mirror, then angled up her foot and the car began rolling forward, creeping right toward the rosebushes. Heddy turned the wheel to the left, then felt like the car might tip, and slammed her foot on the brake. In the back, the kids flew forward, slamming into the back of her seat, erupting into belly laughter.
“Can Heddy drive every time?” Teddy snorted.
Jean-Rose had her eyes on the driveway in front of her, lighting a cigarette. “The car wants to go, Heddy. It’s your job to control it. Keep the wheels straight, brake by pressing the pedal ever so gently. It needs a soft touch, not a swift one.”
Heddy swallowed hard, lifting her foot from the brake once more. Pressing the gas, she felt the car go, allowing herself to steer it slowly down the driveway; it was going better this time.
“Let’s pick up the pace.” Jean-Rose blew smoke into the open air. It filled Heddy’s nose as she stared hard at the road. She pushed on the gas some more, zipping the Bonneville down the street. They passed a biker who had sped by minutes before, causing Heddy to look at the speedometer: she was going twenty-five miles per hour. A car behind her beeped the horn, passing her on the left.
“The speed limit is forty, lady,” the guy hollered. Jean-Rose grabbed on to the windshield and raised herself up, waving over the glass, like it was all a big joke.
“It’s my babysitter, Hal. She’s learning.”
“I thought you’d had one too many cocktails at the club.” He winked, zooming away.
Jean-Rose popped a piece of gum, slumping back in her seat with a chuckle. “He and his wife are going through a nasty divorce. She doesn’t even come to the club anymore. God, I couldn’t bear it if Ted and I split. Sad how quickly you can fall off the list.” She spun the silver knob of the radio until the static turned into the clear voice of Chubby Checker: “Come on, baby, let’s do the twist.” Jean-Rose wiggled her hips in her high-waisted white shorts. She seemed her thirty years then; music had a way of dating people.
“The list?” Heddy was fascinated by the ways the upper crust organized themselves. She’d seen it at school, how different degrees of wealth were delineated, resented, talked about. How people dropped hints by comparing where they liked to stay: Chicago’s Drake Hotel (Judy Garland’s favorite) or the Palmer House (which had gilded-peacock doors). Then there were small details, like the girl spotted wearing a skirt without a satin lining, or a girl whose boyfriend had to walk to a date instead of driving since he didn’t own a car. No one did it to Heddy, at least not in front of her. This kind of heckling was often reserved for girls with money, the unlucky ones the cooler, affluent girls had decided just had cheap tastes.
“The list—” Jean-Rose said as the car bounced over the dips in the road. “It consists of people you like, people you pretend to like because you have to, and people you make plain you don’t like. It’s all about invitations. Who is inviting who? And it changes every summer.”
“How do you make the list?” Her mother would have told her this kind of thing reeked of rotten cabbage, but Heddy wasn’t so sure. She was convinced wealthy women were different from her mother and her friends, and knowing how—really understanding their manners and mannerisms—might help catapult her into their carefree lives.
“The question is: What kicks you off the list? A divorce is never good. Susanne and I hate those new-money girls who come in with the gaudy jewelry piled around their necks, but we often have to make exceptions, especially if, you know, our husbands are connected in business.”
“It sounds stressful.” In the rearview mirror, she could see Teddy and Anna wrestling in the back seat.
“It is stressful. Obviously, you can’t get invited to everything, even though Susanne and I always do.” She chuckled. “But we figure out who should sit next to who, and everyone is always calling one of us to say: ‘If so-and-so comes, then do I have to ask so-and-so?’ I mean, who wants to ruin their summer with the omission of one person?”
Heddy slowed, a milk truck in front of them, heading back to the dairy with the morning’s empty bottles.
“This summer, Ash made it. On his name alone. Who wouldn’t want to fraternize with Harrison Porter’s great-grandson.”
The surfer. Why hadn’t Jean-Rose set her up with him? She was about to ask who Harrison Porter was, when Jean-Rose’s face lit up like there was a string of bulbs around her neck. “You do know Ash, from when you lost the children the other day?”
Heddy’s cheeks burned like one thousand stinging bees. She was going to kill that boy. “I’m sorry, but I had no idea they would wander up there. It was just minutes.”
“It’s okay, dear. Anyway, we all love Ash. He’s really something, isn’t he?”
Heddy stared at the black pavement, wanting to steer the conversation away from her mistake with the children, even though she was dying to know who Harrison Porter was.