22. Under the Influence I
Dru-Ann is sorry she isn’t a better “gal pal” or whatever is expected of her this weekend, but she likes to shop alone. She knows what looks good on her and what doesn’t, and she gets in and out of stores as expediently as possible.
She’s also a snob, and the prospect of popping into a bunch of shops that sell Nantucket T-shirts, brass porthole mirrors, or watercolors of the harbor makes her itch. Brooke wanted to go to Murray’s, which is where the women who hand out programs at the Episcopal church shop. No offense, but Dru- Ann’s tastes are a little more urban.
Gypsy does not disappoint. It’s in one of the grand old homes on Federal Street; it has a pleasant outdoor garden where two young women are sitting on a comfy-looking sofa with shopping bags at their feet. One of the women is Black with close-cropped hair, wearing fire-engine-red lipstick and head- to-toe Gucci. The other is a porcelain-skinned blonde in one of those long, floral, puff-sleeved dresses that make Dru-Ann think of Little House on the Prairie. The Gucci woman is showing Laura Ingalls something on her phone; Dru-Ann hears her say, “This was from the shoot at Rashad’s apartment on Bleecker.” They both look up as Dru-Ann approaches, and she smiles if only to prove that, even as a native Chicagoan, she can be nice to people from New York.
When Dru-Ann steps inside Gypsy, she enters her own personal fashion nirvana. She’s been looking for a particular Dries Van Noten shirtdress in amethyst that the website says is sold out, and she immediately spies it across the room. A tall, slender, painfully chic salesperson takes in Dru-Ann’s look —her Mother jeans, Golden Goose sneakers, Rick Owens tee under a cream linen Veronica Beard blazer—and gives her a nearly imperceptible nod of approval. Dru-Ann isn’t a day-tripper who has wandered in looking for “something cute to wear out for lobsters.” Dru-Ann belongs here.
“Welcome to Gypsy,” the salesperson says. “My name is Joey. May I offer you a glass of champagne?”
Does Dru-Ann want champagne at ten thirty in the morning? Hell yes she does. “I’d love it, thanks. My name is Dru-Ann.”
In a tiny but beautifully appointed kitchenette behind the counter, Joey pops a bottle of Moët et Chandon that’s sitting in ice. Dru-Ann is pleasantly surprised; she’d been expecting lukewarm prosecco. She accepts the flute from Joey, moves her sunglasses to the top of her head, and whisks the amethyst shirtdress in size small off the hook.
“I’ll start you a room,” Joey says.
Dru-Ann glides around the store, touching sleeves, holding up sweaters.
They have the Nili Lotan pants that are all over the internet. Dru-Ann likes them in the eggshell but are they too trendy now? Would they qualify as “coastal grandma,” a look Dru-Ann is desperate to avoid? She sees a Raquel Allegra dress she’ll try on just for fun and an ivory camisole top by Chloe.
She tries to banish Nick from her mind, though she can’t help but replay a Saturday only two weeks earlier—before the Dow Invitational disaster— when she and Nick had mimosas at the Hoxton, shopped the boutiques in the West Loop, had a very late lunch at Beatrix, then went back to Dru-Ann’s town house and had the kind of sex you see in movies. It feels very weird that Nick doesn’t know she’s on Nantucket—she mentioned the weekend to him when Hollis first invited her, but she doubts he remembers—and that she has no idea where Nick is today. He owns a lakefront estate in Winnetka, where he lives with Polly; he’s waiting for her to “launch” before he sells the big house and buys the penthouse at no. 9 Walton.
Is he home in Winnetka, Dru-Ann wonders, or did he fly to Scotland?
If Nick flew to Scotland, can Dru-Ann ever forgive him? Would her forgiving him even matter since they’ve “hit the brakes”? Dru-Ann throws back her champagne and picks up a red leather Isabel Marant motorcycle jacket. She’s going to… what? Spend money until the pain goes away?
The best thing about the other four stars, even Tatum, is that they have distracted her from thinking about all of this.
The two young women from the garden enter the store. They must be influencers, Dru-Ann thinks. They carry themselves as though the world is watching. Dru-Ann considers befriending them and seeing if they want to go to a bar. She can tell them about the Five-Star Weekend and how one of the other women hid a rubber snake in her sheets to settle a twenty-five-year-old grievance. Joey refills Dru-Ann’s champagne and whisks the motorcycle
jacket to the dressing room. Dru-Ann follows him before she decides to try on the entire store.
The amethyst dress is a yes (she knew it), the Raquel Allegra is a no (Joey is refreshingly direct: “That’s not flattering on you”). The ivory camisole top underneath the red leather jacket is such a big hit that the influencers gravitate over, and the one in Gucci whips out her phone to take a picture.
“Is that Isabel Marant?” she asks.
“It is,” Dru-Ann says. She poses with her champagne. “I think I’ll treat myself today.”
Laura Ingalls billows over to the rack to check the price tag on the jacket.
“Twenty-six hundred bucks,” she says with a note of awe in her voice.
Dru-Ann winks at Joey. “I’ll take the purple dress and the camisole.”
“Outstanding,” Joey says.
The Gucci influencer is still holding up her phone. Now, it seems, she’s filming Dru-Ann. “We know who you are,” she says.
“You disrespected our girl Posey,” Laura Ingalls says. “As well as the fifty-three million other Americans who suffer from mental illness.”
Dru-Ann nearly drops her champagne. Talk about an ambush. She’s pretty sure these two wouldn’t know a nine-iron from a curling iron—and yet Posey Wofford is their “girl”? Dru-Ann wants to snatch the phone out of Gucci’s hands and smash it. Then she wonders if maybe this is her chance. These women are influencers; they might have hundreds of thousands of followers apiece. They can help her get the word out.
“I’m sure you ladies want the inside scoop,” Dru-Ann says. “Which is that Posey Wofford was faking ‘mental illness’”—here, Dru-Ann uses air quotes —“so that she could duck out of her commitment at the Dow Invitational.”
Gucci drops the phone and gives Dru-Ann a withering look. “If you think I’m going to amplify that garbage, think again.”
“I know mental-health struggles are real,” Dru-Ann says. “I was speaking out on behalf of the fifty-three million Americans who suffer. Posey Wofford was using the excuse because it was convenient for her.”
“Come on, Bex,” Laura Ingalls says. “Let’s go.”
Gucci follows Laura Ingalls out the door, but before she leaves, she turns around. “You were my hero, you know. I watch Throw Like a Girl, I read your pieces in The Cut, I found you smart and insightful, a role model, until I saw that video. It was such a disappointment. You are such a
disappointment.” Gucci’s polished facade cracks open for one instant, and Dru-Ann glimpses her authenticity. This woman, Bex, looked up to Dru-Ann and feels that Dru-Ann has let her down. It is, frankly, sobering.
Maybe Dru-Ann should just issue the apology and be done with it.
But the fact remains that Posey’s mental state is just fine.
“I know it seems that things are one way,” Dru-Ann says. “But trust me, they’re the opposite. You have to believe me”—blood is pulsing in her ears, and she’s nauseated from the champagne; she came to Nantucket to lie low, but news of her disgrace is everywhere, even here—“Posey Wofford is the
one who’s a disappointment.”
“Say less,” Laura Ingalls snaps.
Gucci’s expression hardens back into an impenetrable mask. “Girl, bye,” she says, and they walk out, shutting the door firmly behind them.
There’s a beat of incredibly awkward silence, then Joey relieves Dru-Ann of her empty champagne flute and whisks the amethyst dress out of the changing room. “I’ll just wrap this up,” he says. “What did you decide about the jacket?” Joey already knows what Dru-Ann will say; being uncomfortable makes people spend more money. His commission is going up!
“I’ll take it,” she says.
