Free The Hazards of Good Breeding by Jessica Shattuck Page B

sociological predictions? The thought is absurd though—if she were on the bottom, surely she wouldn’t need a pyramid to tell her so. The whole train of thought actually succeeds in making her feel three times as certain she is having a heat stroke.
    â€œHey,” comes a voice from behind her, startling enough to make her leap off the pavement. She hasn’t even heard the battered blue Buick Skylark approach.
    She sees first the long black hair, and then the man leaning across the seat to the passenger side. Stephan—the moviemaker she talked to at the play yesterday. “Oh,” she says, from the ditch she has skipped off the road into. “You gave me a heart attack.”
    â€œSorry. I thought you heard me behind you.” He extends his hand through the open window.
    Caroline has to scrabble up out of the ditch to accept it. Her own hand looks sweaty and bloated from running. “Hi,” she says stupidly. He is wearing a snug light gray T-shirt—she can see the long wiry muscles in his upper arms extend and retract as he pulls his hand away. Something about this makes her think of beef jerky. Makes her think of sex, actually. According to Rock, the guy is screwing Denise. Caroline can feel her face getting hotter, standing there, mud soaking through one sneaker. The fact that she has determined the nature of his familiarity does not add to her composure; he was the filmmaker she and her best friend Abby referred to as “Roman Pol-cute-ski” after seeing his movie in their senior film class.
    â€œI don’t want to interrupt your run. I gave your wallet to your little brother—you left it on the bench where we were talking yesterday.”
    â€œI did? I didn’t even notice—that’s so nice of you to have brought it out here.”
    â€œNo problem. I had to come out here anyway.” He has a very intense gaze and almost yellowy green eyes.
    â€œOh, for your—for the movie?”
    â€œYeah. . . .” He sighs and shifts his weight against the flesh-colored vinyl car seat, which makes a wheezing, crackling sound. “Trying to rustle up some interviews. You know Mamie Starks?”
    â€œShe—yeah—she was a friend of my mother’s.” Caroline regrets this as soon as it is out of her mouth. She does not want to have to try to explain the was , and more importantly she doesn’t want to be implicated by her acquaintance with Mamie Starks, a woman whose burning ambition is to make sure the Boston Cotillion stops its slippery slide toward becoming open to just anyone .
    â€œOh, yeah?” he nods his head in a thoughtful way—but as if he is thinking about something else, actually.
    â€œNot really good friends,” Caroline adds.
    Stephan stops nodding and looks right at her. “So now that you’ve graduated, you have something lined up for the summer?”
    â€œSomething? No. I mean, I did—I was going to move to San Francisco, but I didn’t.”
    â€œAnd you like film—that class you were telling me about yesterday, you learned something about production and all that?”
    â€œSome.” Caroline feels herself blushing again.
    â€œWell, how about working for me in sort of a production assistant/liaison position? I mean, you know this place, you like film, I need a little help with the material. I can’t pay you, but it would be good experience and I know some people in the field I could connect you with.”
    â€œOh,” Caroline has finally stopped feeling her heart beating in her face. “That’s nice of you. . . .”
    â€œThink about it,” Stephan says, giving the car door his arm has been resting on a final-sounding pat. “We’ll talk later—you’ll be there tomorrow, right? At this wedding?”
    â€œWhat wed— Skip Krasdale’s?”
    Stephan pulls a scrap of paper from his back pocket. “Is that the same as Matthew