As we walked through the crowd there was an air of excitement for the first big party of the summer where everyone would see exactly who they’d be spending the next three months with in Montauk. Arms were freckled and cheekbones kissed by the first few weekends of sun, everyone was eager to be sociable and the barmen worked extra hard as the guests sipped champagne and mingled as though they’d been hibernating all winter long. I recognized a few faces from the city. Folk from the same high-society circles that Harry and his business partners moved in would be here this summer, along with other curious souls passing on Providence and Newport for the season, and even hailing from Miami, to see what all the fuss was about.
The jazz ensemble played on in the grand lobby, but no one was dancing yet. Harry spotted Clark and his wife, Dolly, a couple we knew from the city, and we walked over to them arm in arm.
“Hello, old chap,” Harry said, slapping Clark on the back. “I hear you did well at the archery tournament today.”
“I’m pretty rusty,” Clark said. “A few of us are heading out to practice early tomorrow morning if you want to join us.”
“I’d love to. Clark, you remember my wife, Beatrice?”
“I do,” he said. “It’s lovely to see you again.
“Maybe you two ladies will cheer us on at polo tomorrow afternoon.” He nodded to his wife, Dolly, who gave a slight shrug of the shoulders.
“Perhaps,” she said at the exact time I said, “Of course.”
Dolly had attended Vassar College like me but several years earlier. She was closer in age to Harry than me, but she and I really seemed to get along. She was legendary, actually—wildly popular and active in women’s service and in promoting the idea of education for young females. The boys had loved her and she’d always worn the most beautiful hats.
Hors d’oeuvres were passed around and the room began to swell with guests, everyone in their finery, proudly making the rounds, the excitement for summer buzzing throughout the room as the music picked up and the singer took the stage. Her flawless skin was the color of polished caramel and her hair was pulled tight on the top of her head where a mass of black curls obediently stayed put. She began her set with a Billie Holiday number, “I’m Gonna Lock My Heart.” It made my hips sway. I loved that song and the girl could sing. Her beautiful voice was flowing through me like the long notes of the trumpet. As her last note ended and the sax player took over with an upbeat solo, a few couples started to swing.
“Come on, Harry,” I said, tugging his arm toward the dance floor. “Let’s go and brush off the cobwebs.”
It had been months since Harry and I danced together. Harry was far better at the more traditional styles than swing, but I just wanted to move and I always felt closer to him after a good go-around on the dance floor. My cheeks flushed with color, my pinned hair loosened and my smile was wide and free as he whisked me across the dance floor. For a moment, though, I saw his face looked strained, and when I sensed he wasn’t enjoying it like I was I had the urge to suddenly stop. When the song came to an end we exited the floor and made our way back to Dolly and Clark.
“Aren’t you two the spring chickens,” Dolly said. “You looked fabulous.”
“Not me,” Harry said, waving to the waiter to bring him a drink. “I’m going to throw my back out dancing like that.”
“Oh, Harry, you were wonderful,” I said, linking my arm in his, trying to encourage him.
“Say, Clark, we could leave archery for another day and join the fox hunt tomorrow morning.… I haven’t done that since December in Boston.” He plucked a martini off a passing tray.
Dolly rolled her eyes. “Well, if you gents will excuse us I think Beatrice and I will go and admire the view.” Dolly placed her diamond-heavy hand on mine and led me over to the lounge. “I hope you don’t mind, darling, but talk of hunting small animals just turns my stomach.”
“I don’t understand the fascination with it,” I said. Dolly had rich, dark hair and even on the first weekend of summer she had a golden complexion like that of the Europeans. With her high cheekbones and full lips you could see how her husband had fallen in love. Refined and elegant in the way she carried herself, she exuded something that I admired, envied even, something I couldn’t quite place. Her womanliness, or her confidence, or perhaps it was the two together that was rare to see.
“How are the hats coming along?” I asked. Her father was a well-known milliner in the city and she had recently launched a collection of her own.
“Fine,” she said. “You should come down to the factory with me sometime; we could make you something special.”
“I’d love to,” I said.
Excused from the tedious talk of shooting, we settled into lounge chairs that gazed on to the Manor green and beyond that the Long Island Sound. We smoked cigarettes and Dolly leaned all the way back in the deep lounger and swished her legs to the side like a movie star. Though we were three thousand miles east of Los Angeles, it seemed Hollywood glamour was everywhere.
“Heart and Soul” played in the background and I looked around for Harry, but he had his back to me, talking to a woman in a peach gown. Dolly seemed uninterested in the rest of the party and perfectly content to watch the sun go down with no one’s company but mine, yet guests constantly stopped to greet her and she introduced me to some of her friends from Providence, where they had summered before Montauk became the place to be. And then Harry came over, approaching me from behind the lounge chair.
“How are you, darling?” he asked. He bent down, draped his arms around my shoulders and kissed me on the cheek. “Can I get you ladies another drink?” I still had half a glass of champagne left, but he took it from me and replaced it with a full glass already in his hand. “You look beautiful tonight,” he whispered. That was the line he always used right before he was about to disappear for a while.
“Thank you,” I said, feeling a pang of disappointment. I knew it was silly and selfish, but I wanted him to want to stay. I didn’t want him to get swept up in whatever parlor game it might be; I wanted him to be by my side, to introduce me to some of his friends’ wives so I’d know a few people after he went back to the city for the week. I wanted him to show me off on this first weekend; I hoped he’d feel proud to be with me and happy for us to spend time together. I thought perhaps we’d go upstairs to the room together at the end of the night and I’d feel close to him even after he left for the city. Things were supposed to be different, but they weren’t feeling that way.
“I’m going to play cards with the gents,” he said. “Be back in time to take you for another spin on the dance floor, maybe a fox-trot this time so I can keep up.” His face was next to mine, his mouth by my ear, so he couldn’t have seen the look on my face, but maybe he felt my smile drop, my cheek go slack. I knew him. An hour would mean three or four and I’d be asleep by the time he joined me in the suite. “You don’t mind, do you, darling? It’s just that I haven’t seen some of these fellas since winter.”
“Of course not,” I said, turning back to smile, to convince him I meant it. “Go on, have fun and win some money. I was just about to see what’s on offer at the buffet.”
He kissed my cheek and left. I didn’t look back or let my eyes follow him, but I could feel his footsteps moving farther away.
I should have worn the beige chiffon, I thought. I should have saved the royal blue for another occasion.
* * *
We wanted to have a baby right away and as newlyweds Harry and I couldn’t keep our hands off each other. It should have been that way anyway, but trying to get pregnant gave us an added incentive, a secret that only we knew. We’d make eyes at each other all evening across our dinner table with ten guests, and as soon as they left we’d dash to the bedroom, Harry tearing off my clothes, ripping at my underwear before we even made it to the bed. There was such urgency. Sometimes as we lay there, after, the sheets tangled at the end of the bed, my head on his chest, him passing me his cigarette,
I’d wonder if I was ready for all the passion and desperation for each other to dwindle, for me to become more domesticated, more motherly. I wanted a child, but I wanted Harry, too. I had time. I was only twenty-two when we married, but Harry was already thirty. We wanted two children, maybe three, and Harry was adamant that he didn’t want to be an older father. But each month I waited and each month my menstrual cycle arrived perfectly on time.
A year or so into marriage the doctor gave us a chart to follow indicating certain days that we should “indulge” in each other. He called it the rhythm method, a new, scientific way to estimate the likelihood of my fertility based on the days of my cycle. He said it was experimental but that we should remain optimistic. We both felt uncomfortable about it, awkward. Sometimes Harry couldn’t get aroused on the particular day that Dr. Lombardi told him to. I started to feel rejected, he was frustrated and the whole thing began to feel like a damned science experiment gone wrong. We stopped talking about having a baby completely. I longed for the day that I’d be with child; then this would stop, his job would be accomplished and we’d have a new focus, a new life to enjoy. But I waited and waited.
3
The women crammed together at the platform and waved madly as the train pulled away from the station.
“I’ll miss you, darling!” one called out. “Hurry back, sweetheart,” said another, while the rest blew kisses to closed glass windows already forty feet away.
They were all made up like dolls, giving their husbands one last glance at their loyal and loving faces before the men headed back to the city after the first weekend of the summer, not to return for four whole days. It seemed a little odd and overly zealous to behave so desperately, but I joined the commotion anyway, waving frantically long after the train had left the station.
I watched until it was just a speck in the distance, and when it was no longer in sight I felt a sudden pang of panic. I looked around at all the unfamiliar faces. I barely knew anyone in Montauk; my marriage didn’t feel quite as it should. What on earth was I doing here?
“Yoo-hoo, off to the Seahorse,” someone cooed in the crowd.
There was a note in the Manor newsletter that after the gentlemen left the women would meet at the nearby Seahorse for cocktails and the season’s first “Week in Review” meeting led by Jeanie Barnes, secretary of the Junior League back in New York. I got the impression that these afternoon meetings were to become a regular thing. I needed to get to know some of the other women so that I wouldn’t feel like an outsider here and I wanted to make friends soon, since we’d all be in one another’s company for the rest of the summer. Not only that, I was eager to have some new acquaintances to report back to Harry, but I felt as though I’d been putting on a show all weekend playing the perfect wife in a perfect marriage and part of me was looking forward to having the evening to myself. I briefly considered sneaking back to the Manor unnoticed. Now that Harry was gone at least I could read my new book by Virginia Woolf. He didn’t think I should be reading that kind of “feminist baloney,” so I had kept it under the bed the whole weekend.
I admit I had a tendency to get wrapped up in books. Before Woolf I’d been captivated by the romance of du Maurier’s Rebecca and before that the murder and scandal of Field’s All This and Heaven Too. I’d spend hours immersed in their worlds, enraptured most by those that felt so far from the prim and proper behavior of our Manhattan crowd.
“Beatrice, darling, we’re meeting momentarily.” It was Jeanie. Everyone was somebody’s darling. She and the crowd of about twenty women were heading left as I was veering right, toward Manor Hill. “I’m really looking forward to your thoughts for the Wednesday afternoon activity.”
“Oh, I thought we were meeting at the Manor,” I lied.
“Well, what were you going to do, walk up there?” She laughed.
“I suppose not,” I said, though I would have quite enjoyed the fifteen-minute walk to the Manor in the fresh, crisp early evening air.
“Of course not,” she said. “I’ve arranged for the Manor trolley to pick us all up in a few hours, after we’ve had a chance to discuss the social calendar.”
“Great.” I walked over and, at her suggestion, with her hand on her hip and her elbow pointing right at me, I linked my arm through hers.
“Sit close to me,” she said in a whisper, as if she were letting me in on some big secret. “I’ve been heading up society events for a while now; you could learn a thing or two from me.”
“Okay, I will, yes. Harry really wants me to get involved.”
“You know just before summer started I organized a wonderful luncheon at the Frick House and we had a private tour of the art collection; next time you should come along.”
“I’d love that, thank you.”
“Of course it’s not that simple to set up a private tour and a private luncheon in the gardens; you have to know people. And my husband’s father knew Henry Clay quite well before he passed. So of course we’re well connected to the family.”
Though I didn’t know her well at all, I had a strong sense that one wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of Jeanie Barnes. She and her husband, Cecil, were pictured in the Society Pages almost weekly. Rumor had it they lived in a magnificent five-story brownstone on the Upper West Side and had three live-in nannies for their three children. I’d only seen one of their nannies in Montauk, but they were staying in one of the penthouse suites in the Manor to accommodate Jeanie’s brood.
I’d also heard that she had some beef with the President of the Junior League and was desperate to let everyone know how worthy she herself was of such a prestigious position. The higher-ups in the Junior League were treated like movie stars in and around Manhattan, and they were invited to the top soirées in the city.
Jeanie was certainly a well-connected woman—thriving on introducing one acquaintance to another and taking credit for whatever friendship or social success might ensue. Getting in her good graces would definitely be useful.
* * *
Sometimes I longed for the close friendships I had with the girls from back home in Pennsylvania. It’s funny how the bonds you form when you’re young, that tiny window in-between girlhood and womanhood, are often the ones you long for most. It was at that time with those girls when I felt truest to myself, as if they were the ones who knew me most intimately. Now that we were older I wished I could talk to them about life, about marriage, to ask if they ever felt their husbands drifting, to ask for advice on what to do to make sure Harry felt wanted and needed. But when Charlie, my only brother, died, I’d drifted away from so many friendships and I’d retreated into myself and into mourning, cutting ties with old friends and new because I didn’t know how to be sad; I felt it was a burden to others, so I extricated myself from just about anyone except my family.
In New York my friends were Harry’s friends’ wives for the most part, and while they were pleasant enough, it quickly became clear that these women wouldn’t be the kind I could speak to in confidence. Since I had stopped working after we married, I was finding it hard to meet anyone on my own who I felt was trustworthy and compatible and not just interested in climbing the social ranks. Part of me hoped this summer in Montauk would help me find my own way a bit more, find my own friends again, not be so reliant on Harry. And at the same time I was invigorated to build friendships that would help him, us, succeed in business.
The Seahorse was a small cocktail lounge with red walls and floral upholstered barstools. People came here and drank while they waited for the trains to come in. Dolly caught my eye and nodded toward the bar. She looked magnificent in a fitted gingham dress, a matching belted jacket and an electric-blue hat at an angle. Into one of the creases on her hat she’d pushed a large cluster of purple hydrangeas likely plucked from a bush outside the Manor. I admired how she always looked so put together in an effortless way, unlike Jeanie, who looked as though she’d spent most of the afternoon squeezing her post-baby tummy into a dress far too
tight. Why not let your body recuperate after such a transformative experience, I thought, instead of trying to force it back to the way it used to be? Of course I knew nothing of how the body really reacted after having a baby; I could only imagine.
I ordered a gin fizz and Dolly a mint julep. She drank it down in less than five minutes and ordered another. By the time Jeanie started clinking her glass with a fork, all the seats at the long table were taken, so Dolly and I stood in the very back near the exit by a woman who introduced herself as Martine. Jeanie glanced back at me with a glimmer of disappointment. I shifted my feet and looked again for an empty chair up front, but there was nothing and Dolly looked perfectly relaxed as she leaned against the wall, so I tried to emulate her ease.
“Ladies, I hope you all have a cocktail in your hand and have had a chance to mingle.” Jeanie finally stopped the glass clinking and set it down on the table in front of her. “Now that everyone’s settled, let’s get down to business and go over the week’s exciting events. Tomorrow, we’ll meet at ten a.m. at Gurney’s Inn on the great lawn for a game of croquet and immediately following there’ll be a luncheon hosted by Mary Van de Coop, to raise money for the Tail Waggers’ charity.” She went on, giving a rundown of the activities for the entire week. “And Wednesday afternoon I’ve arranged for archery lessons.” There was a gasp and Jeanie clapped her hands. “Well,” she said, “I don’t see why the men should have all the fun.”
“What about rest and relaxation?” Dolly whispered toward me and Martine. “Isn’t that what we came for?”
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