27. Calm and Present
Dru-Ann leaves the beach right after she finishes lunch. Brooke is fast asleep on the chaise next to her, faceup and snoring loudly; Gigi is reading, and Hollis is cleaning up but refuses any assistance, claiming it’s her Zen. The only person Dru-Ann could talk to is Tatum, and that’s obviously not happening. Dru-Ann puts on her cover-up, grabs her towel and sunscreen, and goes over the dunes, around the pond and then the pool, out a little gate, and down a flagstone path to the guesthouse. The cool, dark air of the cottage feels good. It’s quiet; Dru-Ann is alone. She takes one breath, then another.
You’re so present. So calm. Dru-Ann is amused—and a little flattered—by this description. In real life, Dru-Ann is never “present.” She rushes from one moment to the next; she likes to get it done, then move on. And calling her calm is downright laughable. Dru-Ann is calm only when she’s asleep, and sometimes not even then.
Is Dru-Ann calm and present enough to open her laptop and check the standings of the players at the British Open? Probably not, but she does it anyway—and what she sees makes her do a double take.
Phineas has advanced to third place. He’s at five under, behind McIlroy and Hovland.
He had a dream he was going to win, Posey said.
Well, he’s not going to beat McIlroy, and he probably won’t beat Hovland, but third place at the British Open is nothing to sneeze at. He’ll take home a tasty share of the purse and he’ll be seen in a whole new light where sponsorships are concerned. One tournament does not an elite golfer make, but even so, good for Phineas.
Yes, Dru-Ann actually thinks, good for Phineas.
Today’s round is over; there’s only tomorrow’s round to go. Will Phineas be able to tough it out and hold on to third place? As a sport, golf requires as much from a player psychologically as it does physically. If she were Phineas’s agent (he’s repped by some underwhelming minion named Gannon
at ISE), she would advise him to pretend he’s playing golf at a bachelor party for bragging rights and free drinks. Smile, relax, enjoy yourself. That’s how he’ll play his best. But Gannon is probably talking to Phineas about the Eye of the Tiger.
Dru-Ann closes her laptop and stares for a moment at her phone. She hates the thing so much, she fantasizes about setting it on fire. But that would change nothing. It’s not her phone’s fault she’s in this predicament.
Dru-Ann presses the button and the famous bitten-apple icon appears.
Maybe, she thinks, there will be a sweet text or a voice mail from Nick. They haven’t spoken in two and a half days, and she misses him the way she’d miss hot running water or a second pillow: She’ll survive, but it’s not at all pleasant. She closes her eyes as her phone comes back to life with buzzes and dings. This goes on for a while. So many people want to talk to her, she figures one of them must be Nick.
Dru-Ann starts to scroll. There are three missed calls and a voice mail from JB; a voice mail from Jim in Legal; a voice mail from Zeke, her producer at Throw Like a Girl; a voice mail from Dean Falzarano, her editor at New York magazine (this is somewhat troubling because she and Dean have never spoken on the phone; they communicate only by e-mail); and a missed call from Rosemarie Filbert, the president of Dru-Ann’s neighborhood association. Rosemarie is the nosiest person in Lincoln Park.
She’s a Realtor and makes it a point to know everyone’s business—divorce, bankruptcy, pregnancy, ailing parents—on the chance it might lead to a
purchase or sale.
There are no missed calls from Nick.
Dru-Ann clicks into her texts, thinking, Come on, baby, you know you miss me. But there’s nothing from him, not even an update on Phineas’s miraculous finish on the day. There is, however, a text from Dru-Ann’s cohost, Marla Fitzsimmon: Nantucket? I’m jealous! Isabel Marant is getting so much publicity, she should be paying you.
What? Dru-Ann thinks. How does Marla, who is sleeping with half the White Sox bullpen and spends every Saturday at Comiskey Park, know that Dru-Ann is on Nantucket, and what does that comment about Isabel Marant mean?
Oh no, she thinks. That annoying TikTok song plays in her head: Oh, no, no, no, no, no!
She clicks into Instagram and searches for her name-as-hashtag. The first hit is an account called SexyBexxx, and—surprise, surprise—the profile picture is the woman in Gucci. She has posted the video of Dru-Ann drinking champagne, modeling the red leather jacket, and saying into the camera, “I think I’ll treat myself today.”
Here, Dru-Ann thinks, is the final nail in her coffin. She could have issued an apology and kept a low profile, but instead, she drank Moët et Chandon and made a glib and incredibly tone-deaf comment while modeling luxury goods.
The caption reads: @DruAnnJones disrespects her client’s mental- health issues then treats herself by spending her client’s royalties on @isabelmarant. #disgusted #DruAnnJones #gypsynantucket The video was posted at noon and it already has 692,000 views. The first comment, which Dru-Ann can’t help reading, says: Cancel this ghoul. And somehow, this person has copied Dru-Ann’s avatar—a cute brown-skinned woman with a ponytail wearing a blazer—and placed it inside a red circle with a slash through it.
Dru-Ann comments on SexyBexxx’s post: I was standing up for mental health! But then she deletes it. It’ll only make things worse.
Dru-Ann powers off her phone. She wants to flush it down the toilet but she can’t screw up Hollis’s plumbing. She’d like to bury it in the dunes, but she wouldn’t want anyone to say that Dru-Ann Jones doesn’t care about the environment!
She hears a commotion out in the driveway and for an instant, Dru-Ann worries it’s reporters who have discovered she’s at Hollis’s house and want a statement. This would actually be welcome; maybe Dru-Ann should be proactive and call the press. She has a solid contact at Sports Illustrated. She could “break her silence” before her silence breaks her.
Dru-Ann peers out the window. There’s some clown standing on Hollis’s front porch waving his arms and shouting at Brooke.
Not on my watch! Dru-Ann thinks, and she steps outside.
