It's Hot in the Hamptons

by Holly Peterson

“And he saw what?” she had to ask.

  “I don’t know what he fuckin’ saw, Caroline. He had the class not to tell me whether you were taking it missionary or doggie style.”

  “Jesus, Eddie, you can be so crude. I wasn’t, I mean, I’m sure he didn’t . . .”

  Eddie interrupted her. “And then, if you really want to know, I just rented a car so you wouldn’t know it was me, and watched for myself. You guys in the bay, paddling on those boards.” He put his head in his hands. Two full minutes passed. His body slumped back down, and he lay there for a moment, staring at the ceiling, thinking he never got what he wanted, even a fuckin’ white ceiling. “And, you know, it sucked. It really fucking sucked.” Now he was yelling louder and faster. “And you know, Caroline, you would never paddleboard with me in a million years. And fucking forget about surfing. But now you do with the fuckin’ shitty architect? Oh, and I checked him out good. He’s never touched a home larger than a garage. You do know that, right? No one could trust him with the real thing. What the fuck does he have on me?”

  She had the wisdom not to answer. She knew it was better to let the lava flow.

  “Remember when I asked you to call that Paddle Diva lady and rent some paddleboards because I thought it would be easy for you, and we could do it together? You looked at me like I asked you to run a marathon.” Eddie wiped his eyes with the bottom of his T-shirt. He kept talking to the ceiling, not even able to look at her. “And, out in the bay, with him, on that board, you were laughing. I’ve surfed my whole life. That pussy probably wouldn’t know a wave if he saw one, that’s why he has to paddle on a fuckin’ flat pond. But forget him. It’s you! You looked happy. It was just like a goddamned arrow through my heart.”

  “I didn’t want that Eddie,” Caroline said. “I never wanted that. And I won’t lie about what I did. That would only hurt you—and us—more. And, for what it’s worth, my, uh, extramarital whatever was something I needed for me. It was never about you. I know that’s hard to hear, but it’s the truth.”

  Eddie closed his eyes and nodded.

  “And, you know Eddie, you’re not exactly innocent when it comes to fidelity. I know you’re up to something now, in 2019, not way back, even if it’s flirting and not fucking. I don’t honestly know what it is frankly, but just do whatever you’re doing with Brittany. I’m not an idiot either.”

  At hearing Brittany’s name, Eddie’s ears pricked up like a dog’s.

  How the fuck did she know about Brittany? It was only two times!

  He looked up at her and said, “You’re not an idiot. You’re a smart and beautiful woman, Caroline. I just can’t lose you. Ever. If I ever strayed, which I’m not saying I did . . .”

  “You did, Eddie,” Caroline said. “You admitted it in therapy, remember?”

  “Okay. Well, but if I ever did after that, it was for me, not you.” He said in an exaggerated tone, parroting his wife’s reasoning so she would hear how hollow it sounded.

  “It was for you?” Caroline said softly, considering that they had very real and very similar rationales for their actions. Her mind raced around the painful possibility that they were more in sync than not.

  His affairs were for him. Caroline actually believed her husband, and, when she defended him to Annabelle, saying just that, she knew she was right. The attention Eddie got from these women, whoever they were, filled a bottomless hole dug way back by his drunk dad.

  A few minutes later, she asked for clarification. “I mean, when I was pregnant, were you just . . . being needy? Which, by the way, I know you are. I know you love attention, but like, was any part of you back then figuring out if you, if you really wanted a kid with me . . .”

  “Are you for friggin’ real? I loved you, Caroline! How could you ask that? Always! Since ninth grade in Ms. Maher’s class,” he yelled. “I. LOVE. YOU. I just, you know, need distractions. I crave attention like a man in a desert craves water.

  “And,” he said, pausing. “I know this sounds really sexist and shitty and just awful, but I never thought you’d do it too. You’re doing it feels so much bigger than me because I know mine doesn’t mean shit. I know that. I’m the one who, well, did it, so I know about myself and how I was feeling during it: nothing. FUCKING NADA.

  “It’s a horrible thing to say that it’s bigger with you, but that’s how I feel. In fact, it’s nuclear with you.” Eddie stood up, circled the room, and stretched out again on the sofa, one leg resting on the back again. He covered his head with a soft pillow and moaned into it. He sounded like an animal who had been run over.

  Caroline chose not to go over and comfort him; she knew it would restore a connection she was trying to break. Her face felt hot, and the tears came. She rubbed her temples and closed her eyes to swim inside her thoughts.

  And then she considered Eddie Clarkson’s belief that his wife, his woman, would never stray. Her anger at this presumption rumbled and boiled up in her.

  Perhaps it was rage.

  Chapter 49

  Horse Show Crescendo

  Two days later

  “This Joey thing is the ultimate mindfuck,” Annabelle said as she and Caroline settled into high-viewing chairs beside the horse ring at the Sea Crest Rolex Classic. “At the beginning of the summer, I thought you’d imagined a ghost on a Boston Whaler. Then, when you told me yesterday, finally . . . Jesus, how could you keep that secret from me?”

  “It took a week to settle.”

  “I get that, I forgive you. I mean, not really.” Annabelle jabbed her. “But let’s just acknowledge there’s something crazy happening around you.”

  “Why would he show up after all this time and then not reappear for a week?” said Caroline, jamming on a sun hat. It was eleven in the morning and the Classic was already under way. Gigi, Rosie, and Annabelle’s youngest, Lily, were competing.

  “Well, he is sending cryptic messages. The Frisbee and the shell and all that. So we know that Joey is kicking around somewhere near you,” Annabelle said. “Do you get the impression Eddie is still watching you?”

  Caroline rearranged the items in her bag instead of responding to the question. Annabelle always said Caroline’s lips curled strangely when she lied, so she didn’t look up. Maybe she’d switch topics, or perhaps the girls would ride soon.

  “Hello? Do you?” Annabelle pushed.

  “Who knows?” Caroline finally responded, vowing to steer the conversation away from the talk she’d had with Eddie. “I know I saw Joey, and I don’t believe Eddie knows he’s even alive. But Joey is screwing with Eddie for sure. He got a trucking job just to gain entry here.”

  “I can’t get my head around any of it. Okay, so he’s hovering around the stables, but why is he taunting Eddie?” Annabelle asked.

  “I don’t know, I’m so nervous I feel like I’m going to puke all the time.”

  “Just do your mom thing. Handle your clients better than ever,” Annabelle advised, placing her arm around her and pulling Caroline to her. She tipped the brim of her hat up and looked into her friend’s eyes. “Choices will become clear if you focus on the things that matter most to you: your kids, your kids, your kids, and, oh, your kids. Then work. Everything else will fall into place. Hey, Gigi’s pony is second in line over there.”

  Caroline smiled and waved at Gigi who, with a young woman trainer that Philippe had hired, was readying herself for her trip in the ring. Adult and child riders from all over the East Coast had trucked in horses and ponies to compete in the four rings for the first year of the Rolex Classic at Sea Crest Stables. In the cross rails, the easiest over fences division, the girls were to make their ponies walk, then trot, then canter and jump over six small jumps individually. Judges scored them based on the girls’ posture, their command of the animals, and the steadiness of gait the animals displayed as they rounded the ring. Local kids who were paying thirty-five dollars for hourly lessons and didn’t own a pony were competing on Eddie’s ponies alongside wealthy girls who owned or leased thei
r own. Caroline held her breath every time her pony, Scooby-Doo, was approaching the jump until he cleared it with Gigi safe and secure on his back.

  Eddie stood at the entrance with Gigi, brushing dust off her back and tightening the pink striped bows on the ends of her braids. Meanwhile, Thierry tended to his niece’s jacket, yanking it down in the back, brushing it off; Rosie was slated to go next. The riders’ presentation counted for points as well. Not a collar or a bootstrap could be out of place. Eddie then polished both girls’ boots. Ribbons, from blue for first place to brown for eighth, hung at the gate waiting to be awarded.

  “You letting Eddie handle all the parenting needs over there?” Annabelle asked. “On the ice meter this weekend, where are you guys?”

  “I told you, I don’t really have much to discuss. He’s been working and sleeping in the guest room,” Caroline said, reaching into her bag to put on her sunglasses and ready her phone to film her daughter’s trip in the ring. She was not ready to tell her friend that Eddie knew about Ryan. “You’re right, all the design work I’m so behind on will save me from obsessing over decisions I’m not ready to make. Part of me never wants to see Ryan again. And another part of me, well, just wants to wait at home, like some prairie wife, hoping Joey rides in at sunset and explains what the hell is going on.” Caroline turned to her friend. “And you? You talking to Mr. Polo Eurotrash Extraordinaire?”

  “Nope. I’m really done. You should have stopped me at the start!” Annabelle elbowed her friend, teasing. “Hey, your daughter is going in.”

  Caroline stood, took off her sun hat, and videoed Gigi as she did her two-minute tour around the ring with Scooby-Doo. She turned to Annabelle. “It’s so funny,” she said. “She sticks her tongue out every time she jumps. I tell her, and she’s so embarrassed . . . oh shit, I’m taping, and she’ll hear this conversation.” Then she said into the phone’s microphone, “Sorry that I said that, honey. You’re doing great.”

  Scooby-Doo trotted neatly into the ring, then cantered at the right spot and jumped over six sets of rails. Having completed the trip, just before the gate, the pony halted and turned toward the small crowd in the rafters beside the ring. Gigi lost her balance at the abrupt move by her animal and grabbed Scooby-Doo’s neck to steady herself. The judge called out on the microphone, “Rider scores a seventy-one.”

  “I can’t stand this. I know they aren’t doing anything that dangerous yet, but it still scares me,” Caroline said. “Her legs aren’t strong at all, and she always loses balance at some point. She was tired at the end there. Oh, God, she’s going to hear me worrying on this video too. She hates me worrying. Sorry honey!” She turned off her phone and slid it into her jacket pocket.

  Caroline waved like a crazed person back at her daughter, yelling, “Good job, Scooby-Doo! Woo-hoo!” Gigi flapped her hand back in disgust, horrified someone might figure out she was related to Caroline.

  “Stop, please. You’re even embarrassing me,” Annabelle said. “The moms don’t yell like that. I know this is her first big competition, but that wasn’t a soccer goal, for Christ’s sake; it’s an elegant hunter trip in a ring. Gigi’s going to kill you. And she won’t claim a ribbon, but she rode well, and got her lead changes when she needed to. At her age, maybe a year or two older, I was fox hunting in Virginia and flying over logs in the fields. She’s got a way to go, but she’s a nice little rider.” Annabelle put her arm around her clueless friend’s shoulder again. “Wait till she’s Laeticia’s age and jumping over fourteen three-foot-six-inch jumps as fast as she can in the Jumper division. You’ll have a heart attack if you can’t even handle the easiest class in the sport.”

  “Okay, okay. Look, Rosie’s up next.”

  Eddie was now paying equal attention to Rosie, polishing her boots and wiping dust off her breeches.

  “Wow, what the hell? You see that pony she’s on?” Annabelle pointed. “That’s Cashmere, one of the best ones on the East Coast. It’s awfully nice of the barn to allow Rosie to ride him, considering that if anything happens, that’s a half-million-dollar animal. It’s strange putting someone as green as Rosie on him. And I was hoping, with all the working students and local kids here on hourly lessons, the playing field would be even, but that horse is going to beat everyone, if Rosie can get around the ring on him!”

  “Eddie doesn’t take chances like that with cash, ever,” Caroline said. “Is he really a half-million-dollar pony? What’s that to lease for a year?”

  “Usually you figure like a third of the purchase price to lease it, so like one hundred and seventy-five thousand to lease for a year. It’s, you know, a little risky to a put a kid on Cashmere in this silly little starter division. He usually does the large pony hunter class. I didn’t even know that pony was here at Sea Crest. Philippe probably brought it in to try to lease it to someone, nice of Eddie to let Rosie show him off. It has very distinct markings on its nose, and just one sock on his hind leg.”

  “One sock?”

  “I mean the color of the right hind hoof and shin; see how it’s white, and the other one is brown?

  “Yeah. You know, if Rosie gets to be a good little rider, I know Eddie would be happy to chip in and get her something her uncle couldn’t afford. Sauerkraut is fine for now. I just don’t get why Eddie is putting her on that priceless one?”

  “Cashmere’s a ballerina,” Annabelle explained. “Baryshnikov with four legs. But that horse is powerful. Laeticia was a great rider at this age, but when she rode Cashmere for one summer, she had some issues with him. He’s a peppy little rocket, and he takes off when he’s spooked. The rider has to have some skill to handle him, and I think that Rosie is just . . . look at her, she looks terrified.”

  Caroline watched how solicitous Eddie was with Rosie, making sure she was well mounted before she stepped in the ring. “Something isn’t right,” Caroline said to Annabelle. “Maybe it’s my nerves, I just . . . everything now is so off in my life. And, I’d venture to say, Eddie is spending more time with Rosie than he did with his own daughter.”

  Rosie and Cashmere trotted carefully around the ring. She posted correctly during the trot and looked beautiful doing so. Word spread fast among the horse moms that the half-million-dollar pony was in the ring. It seemed Cashmere was taking care of Rosie. “He’s doing fine, so there’s no need to worry,” Annabelle said. Still, she was nervous for the child. Rosie was only a mediocre rider, and not at all experienced with the tension of real competition. Then, the animal did a lead change on cue, right as he rounded, and she felt the kid might even win.

  As Rosie neared the second set of cross rails, she jumped all three flawlessly, and Caroline let out a deep breath. “She’ll be fine. It’d be great if she beat all these little girls, even Gigi,” she said. She sat back down on her chair and started to relax.

  Annabelle didn’t sit. “Still, she has a little way to go before she wins. She’s doing fine, and I agree it would be nice. Just . . . one more tour around the ring, and one little step over the rails again and she’ll be clear.” She studied Rosie’s position, knowing the child could never be a graceful rider like her own daughters—she was too stocky, and her movements too jerky to compete in the equitation divisions that judged the position and grace of the rider. Still, she wouldn’t say that out loud, not even to Caroline.

  “Is she going to win?” asked Caroline. “God, can you imagine the faces on all those bitchy mothers who came in from Greenwich if some unknown newcomer wins? It’d be great.”

  “Everyone always thinks an expensive horse always wins, but it’s not really true. You can’t win the Indy 500 just because you have a great car; if you can’t drive it, you’re going to crash. Same deal with this sport: in the end, it’s still the skill of the rider that counts,” Annabelle explained. “The best riders take the championship on mediocre horses all the time.”

  Caroline grabbed Annabelle’s arm and Annabelle went on. “Fuck. Look at that, did you see that little trip as he was cantering there
? It’s sad that Rosie’s parents are not here for her, her first big show. Remind me what exactly happened to them. She’s lucky to have that uncle Thierry raising her.”

  “Thierry only told me the mother died when she was pregnant with Rosie, that the father wasn’t present ever. They were able to save the baby. How sad for a child to be without a father or mother. It gives me chills every time I remember Eddie had an accident in this huge Hummer Jeep he insisted on buying back then, but it was only a hurt arm for him.” Out in the ring, Rosie seemed to have some trouble with the reins. “Wait, did you see Cashmere trip again? He’s not acting smooth, is he?”

  “I told you, that pony is like a rocket, he can just take off, but that was just a stumble. Rosie is pulling too hard, and even a championship pony gets confused.” Annabelle started biting her bottom lip as she watched Rosie. “Look again, just there, that was Rosie’s fault. Her distance at the sixth jump was way too far away, so he had to take another stride then go over the cross rail awkwardly. It’s called chipping when they’re right near the jump. Distance is something everyone works on. Sometimes you guide the horse too close, sometimes you do it too far. Sometimes the horse is pissed and refuses to jump, and you fly off, and sometimes, the animal will just take over, cover your mistakes and get over it somehow. In the end, it comes down to whether the rider and animal are in sync, and Rosie and Cashmere just aren’t. But she’ll get through it, she’s almost done.”

  On the last rail, at the stroke of noon, the Long Island Railroad train barreled by in the distance and honked, like a foghorn. Hearing it, Cashmere spooked. He refused to do the last jump. And poor Rosie, who had no experience in a real show ring or even handling a pony like this, had no time to prepare for the stop. She went flying over the top of the pony’s neck and landed in the mud on the other side of the rails.

  Eddie and Thierry rushed into the ring as Rosie lay on her back. Gigi ran yelling and crying to her best friend, as people crowded around her.