times in nine days. If he was the reason her life was going down the tubes, then she wanted, at least, to be with him. In the hot shop, she worked crazily on what she now thought of as the g.d. chandelier. She spent all day Monday and all day Tuesday trying to pull out a second arm, eight hours of work, 163 tries. She was rewarded with not one but two arms that made it into the annealer. Claire wasn’t sure at first, but when she held them up to the sublime sphere of the body, she saw that they fell perfectly, better than perfectly; they dripped and twisted like the trajectory of a flower petal falling to the ground, like a happy or peaceful thought flowing from the mind to the page. Claire thought, This g.d. chandelier is going to be the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever done. Elsa, of Transom, had called again, asking for two dozen of the Jungle Series vases, and although the vases would have been easier, not to mention good money, Claire turned her down. I don’t have time right now. Claire was cheating on Jason with Lock; she was cheating on her career with the chandelier; she was cheating on her life with the gala.
From: [email protected]
Sent: April 29, 2008, 11:01 A.M.
Subject: Seating
Dear Claire,
Just to give you the heads up, I have called Lock and purchased a $25,000 table for the gala. I feel it’s important that, as cochairs, we support the gala in the biggest way possible, and one way we can do that is by purchasing the most expensive tickets. I noticed, from looking at the list of tickets sold last year and the year before, that you and your husband bought $1,000 tickets and sat in the back. You will understand, no doubt, the importance of sitting up front this year—we can take tables side by side—in the $25,000 section. I just buy the table myself and invite people to sit with me. (It’s expected, in turn, that they will make a large donation to the cause.) However, it is perfectly acceptable to ask the people sitting at your table to pay for their seats, which is what you may prefer to do. I have purchased my table now because summer is nearly upon us and the time has come to start selling tickets and it’s always better/easier to do this when one has bought tickets oneself.
Thx!
Isabelle
Claire stared at the computer screen, dumbfounded.
That night, she had nothing to make for dinner, so she threw eggs into the skillet with chopped-up deli ham, shredded cheddar, half-and-half, chives, and halved cherry tomatoes, and she served this with buttered wheat toast. Jason regarded his plate with disbelief and said, “What’s this?”
She said, “We didn’t have anything else in the house and I didn’t have time to go to the store.”
Jason said, “Why didn’t you call for pizza? I could have stopped on my way home and picked it up.”
At the mention of pizza, the kids started to clamor, even Zack, who didn’t know what pizza was.
Claire stood up from the table and glared at Jason. “Fine,” she said. “Get pizza.”
That night, as Jason climbed into bed, he said, “Do you want me to call Carter tomorrow so you can settle this thing with Siobhan?”
Claire reread the e-mail in the morning and found it just as egregious. She had cashed in a once-in-a-lifetime favor and gotten Max West to play for free, she had spent a month of Sundays in the hot shop, working on the g.d. chandelier—and now, now, Isabelle had basically set forth a mandate that Claire cough up $25,000 for the concert. Claire got it: hard work and favors were one thing, but when it came down to it, one’s contributions were measured in terms of cold, hard cash.
Twenty-five thousand dollars: it felt like a dare.
It was the first week of May, and every day had brought a cold, steely rain. This was comforting. Claire retreated to the hot shop and blew out a pair of vases; she was too aghast and distracted to work on the g.d. chandelier. The awful thing was, she could see Isabelle’s point. Claire had agreed to be cochair, she had taken on that responsibility, and it would be naive of her not to understand that part of the responsibility was fiscal. But Claire could not swing it. Two tickets at $2,500 was $5,000; this would be an extreme stretch for them. (It would have