Class - Cecily Von Ziegesar [52]
Mrs. Gilbert greeted them with a glass of Chardonnay in hand. She was sinewy and blond and her clothes were made of silk and cashmere, in varying tones of champagne and French beige. She looked like she subsisted on white wine alone, with maybe an after-dinner mint or two thrown in. She opened her arms and pressed both girls against her skeletal chest. “I’ve put Eliza in the yellow room,” she said as she ushered them into the house.
The sofas were upholstered in green, gold, and cream Regency stripes, embellished with black throw pillows stitched with tiny gold pineapples. The wood floors were dark and polished, the bouquets of flowers perfectly arranged in crisp crystal jugs. It looked like a set from a horror movie. The palatial suburban wonderland—until the doorbell rings. Even Shipley’s room, with its white canopy bed and pink rose wallpaper, had a sinister air of too-good-to-be-true.
“Do you have a decorator or did you do this all yourself?” Eliza asked Mrs. Gilbert politely.
Mrs. Gilbert swilled her wine. “I worked very closely with the decorator. I was even thinking, now that the children are gone, I might take a decorating course myself.”
“Awesome,” Eliza said. The furniture in her house had been bought in sets from Sears. The shiny cherrywood TV cabinet matched the shiny cherrywood coffee table, which matched the shiny cherrywood dining room table they never used. The curtains and the carpet, the sofa and the armchairs all matched too. Nothing in Shipley’s house matched, not in an obvious way, and it definitely didn’t come from Sears.
They followed Mrs. Gilbert downstairs and into the kitchen.
“Look at that fridge,” Eliza exclaimed. “You could keep a pony in there.”
Shipley watched for the telltale twitch in her mother’s left eye, revealing her distaste for Eliza’s linty army jacket and dirty red Converse sneakers, but her mother actually seemed glad that Shipley had brought a friend. She’d even prepared the food ahead of time. The butcher block island was crowded with Tupperware and bags of vegetables.
“I just have to put dinner on the hotplates to warm up and throw together a salad,” Mrs. Gilbert said. “Why don’t you give Eliza a tour of the neighborhood and do some shopping for a couple of hours? We can eat when you get back.”
Eliza couldn’t believe how shameless Mrs. Gilbert was about getting rid of them. Even her mom would sit at the kitchen table, smoking her Capris and pretending to be interested, while Eliza rattled on about the snake she’d seen at sleepaway camp or the asshole swim coach at the high school who’d been fired for being a perv. “How’s college?” her mom would have asked. But Shipley’s mom didn’t care.
Shipley could have driven to the Darien Sports Shop blindfolded. It was her favorite store. Three floors of shopping bliss. Lacoste. Lilly Pulitzer. Ralph Lauren. Patagonia. CB. Sportswear, skis, swimsuits, shoes, ice skates, tennis rackets, golf clubs. Everything.
Eliza trailed her while Shipley found a warm wool ski hat, insulated gloves, a heavy wool turtleneck sweater, and thick wool socks for the stranger who’d been stealing her car.
“Those for Tom?” Eliza asked.
“Uh-huh,” Shipley lied. She wandered into women’s sleepwear and picked out a pair of white thermal long underwear and a luxurious gray cashmere bathrobe for herself.
A saleslady came to unload the pile of clothes from Shipley’s arms. “I’ll just keep these at the register for you, miss.” She peered at Eliza over a pair of bifocals. “Anything I can hold onto for you?”
Eliza frowned. “No, thanks. I’m all set.”
Shipley hadn’t noticed until now that Eliza wasn’t shopping. She spied a pair of magenta rabbit fur earmuffs on a mannequin. “Hey, did you see those? Those are totally you.”
Eliza removed the earmuffs from the mannequin’s head and put them on her ears. They felt like headphones but softer. She checked herself out in the mirror. They were awesome. She took them off and examined the price tag: $224.95. “I guess not,” she said, putting them back on the mannequin.