The Perfect Manhattan

by Leanne Shear

  “It’s okay,” he said. “We don’t have to.”

  “It’s just . . . I don’t know . . . we just . . .” My body literally ached with wanting him. But I also didn’t want to open myself up to someone I hardly knew. Deep down, I worried that flash-in-the-pan romances might be part-and-parcel of James’s M.O. I was conflicted. I wanted him, but I also wanted him to respect me.

  “Shhhh,” he said, kissing me gently on the forehead and enveloping me in the blanket. He carefully pulled the sweatshirt back over my head.

  My confusion over how far and how fast to go with James continued to rattle around in my mind as Annie and I got ready for the barbeque the next afternoon. I’d arrived back from the beach around nine, giddy and exhausted, and collapsed into bed. The previous night, before we left for work, Annie had figured out that if she locked the door to our bedroom from the inside, she could open it later with a butter knife. This solved the problem of coming home at seven in the morning and finding a naked inebriated jock snoring in our beds. But even as I drifted off to sleep, my brain was awash in a sea of images: James kissing me while the sun came up; James’s father brushing me off at Finton’s; James mingling up in VIP with the rest of the Hamptons elite. There was no question that I was smitten, but I worried about falling for someone whose life was so different from my own.

  “. . . so Teddy has a huge cock,” Annie babbled as she scrunched L’Oreal Volumatic Full-Up Mousse into her hair. “I mean, I didn’t know what to do with it! We were in the backseat of his Jeep, and I was trying to give him head, but I kept gagging and . . .”

  “Mmm-hmm.” I nodded distractedly. Annie’s sexual play-by-plays usually shocked me into incredulous laughter, but I was too busy obsessing over which skirt would look the cutest with my brand-new bright turquoise Juicy Couture tank top—hastily purchased at Scoop Beach earlier that day for a mere $98—to pay her any attention.

  “You’re not even listening to me,” she complained.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “For some reason I’m really nervous about going over to James’s house.”

  “Oh, come on. You have nothing to worry about. It’s gonna be so much fun. And you look adorable. I love that top.”

  A half hour later, though, even Annie was awed into silence as we stood outside James’s massive front door on Further Lane, which looked like the portal to a medieval fortress. I felt like Jay Gatsby staring longingly at Tom and Daisy’s East Egg estate. Despite my nerves, though, I was determined to play it cool. I glanced down again at my new tank top—even though it had set me back almost $100, its flattering shape gave me a necessary boost of confidence.

  “Cassie. Hey!” Tom said, Heineken in hand, as he opened the double doors. “So glad you could make it.”

  “Hi,” I said, stepping into the foyer and discreetly looking around for any sign of James. “This is my friend Annie.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Tom said. “I see Cassie follows instructions very well.”

  “Excuse me?” Annie asked.

  “I told her to bring her cutest friend, and here you are.”

  Annie’s pouty lips spread into a big, gleaming smile. She was, by her own admission, a complete sucker for cheesy one-liners. Meanwhile, I took a deep breath and purposefully directed my eyes right at Tom.

  “This is an amazing house,” Annie gushed, tilting her head back to scan our surroundings, which included a lofty entrance hall that stretched up to reveal the second floor. I followed her gaze, and for a moment the grandeur of the house distracted me. I couldn’t believe that three guys only a few years older than us could own something this lavish.

  Tom led us into the dining room. “Wow, this table is incredible,” Annie said, tracing her fingers across the glass pane that protected what looked like an ancient artifact resurrected from a dig in western Europe.

  “It’s actually from a castle in Scotland,” Tom replied. “James got it at an auction on one of his golf trips.”

  I was trying hard to stop my mind from racing ahead and feeding me images of James sitting across from me at that very table while the two of us clinked wineglasses over a dinner we’d cooked together in his stainless steel kitchen, or of me wearing his bathrobe and making him pancakes in the morning. My eyes caught the reflected light off a wall of picture frames, and I walked over to take a closer look. The first photograph was of Tom and an older man flanked by Bill and Hillary Clinton.

  “How’d you get to meet Hill and Bill?” I asked him, impressed.

  “My dad’s a senator.”

  “What’s your last name?”

  “Pendergast. My dad’s Charles William Pendergast of Rhode Island.”

  There were also photos of James and his dad posing beside George Steinbrenner, the principal owner of the New York Yankees, Tom next to Rande Gerber and Cindy Crawford, and Glen with Keith Richards.

  Just when I thought I could no longer be impressed, Tom led us outside onto the marble patio where people were mingling, sipping cocktails. Beyond the patio lay an Olympic-size pool, two Jacuzzis, tennis courts, and an expansive lawn that stretched down toward the beach. On the horizon, past the perfectly landscaped flower beds and hedgerows, I could see the ocean.

  “Wow, this is just a little different from our backyard,” Annie whispered. Both of us were trying hard not to look too obviously awestruck.

  “Yeah, not nearly enough empty PBR cans,” I joked.

  Glen spotted us and waved hello. He was flipping filet mignon and lobster tails on what Tom cheerfully pointed out was “the Cadillac of grills”—a $10,000 apparatus complete with refrigerators and separate cooking surfaces designed for seafood, red meat, chicken, vegetables, and anything else you might want to prepare. Back home in Albany, we still barbecued on an old charcoal-and-lighter-fluid camping grill we’d had since I was six. James was nowhere in sight.

  “Can I offer you a martini?” Tom asked.

  “I’ll just have a beer,” I said.

  “Me too,” Annie agreed.

  “Heineken, Stella, Corona, or Budweiser?”

  “Budweiser,” we said in unison.

  “King of beers,” Tom agreed. “Okay, ladies, these are some of our buddies from college—this is Taylor, Christian . . .”

  As I was being reintroduced to James’s friends, I noticed a cluster of highly manicured women conspiring in one corner of the patio over glasses of white wine. They were all slender with expertly (and presumably expensively) styled blond hair. Each one of them had perfect posture and perfectly smooth, creamy skin. Their clothes were a tasteful mix of soft pastel cashmere sweater sets, Lily Pulitzer dresses, and shahtoosh shawls that draped over their narrow shoulders, revealing toned arms. Their nails were all meticulously painted a sheer pink, and the toes I saw peeking out of their Sigerson Morrison sandals matched perfectly. A strand of pearls lay elegantly around each of their swanlike necks. With dismay, I reflected on my own generic jeans skirt, dark, windblown hair, and chipped coral nail polish. My new top, which only moments earlier had seemed like sexy summer fun, now seemed unrefined and loud.

  “What’s up with the Pearls Girls?” Annie whispered, shooting me a devilish look.

  “Sssh,” I hissed, hoping Tom hadn’t heard.

  “And this is Buffy, Abigail, Charlotte, and Rosalind,” he continued, apparently unaware of our whisperings. “They have houses over on Middle Lane, a couple of blocks from here. James’s family is really close with Rosalind’s, and Charlotte’s father and my father have worked and summered together since we were little kids. Buffy and Abigail winter in Telluride next door to Christian’s family’s chalet. It’s all a little incestuous.” He laughed.

  I forced a smile at the girls. “Hi, I’m Cassie,” I said. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  “It’s nice to meet you too,” they responded coolly, surveying me with their pale blue eyes. I caught a hint of a southern accent from at least one of them.

  “You didn’t go to Yale with the boys, did you?” Buffy sniffed
. “I’ve never met you before.” As if to imply that if I was “somebody” she would certainly have met me ages ago. She had champagne-colored hair that curled upward at her shoulders and made her look like a country club mom.

  “No, I actually went to Columbia,” I said, hoping to at least impress them with my educational pedigree. “I met Tom and Glen last night.”

  Rosalind arched a perfectly threaded eyebrow at Charlotte as if to imply that Tom and Glen had picked me up on a street corner. I floundered to correct the situation. “But I met James a couple of weeks ago in Southampton.”

  “At the Southampton Country Club?” Charlotte asked, suddenly interested. She had caramel blond hair neatly combed back and fastened with a white headband.

  “Yes, actually,” I said.

  “Oh, how long has your family belonged there?” Abigail asked, wrapping her pink shawl around her slim frame in the same manner Cruella De Vil donned her dalmation-fur stoles. She was the tallest of the girls and had the lithe figure of a ballerina. Her strawberry blond hair was tidily swept up into a flowing ponytail.

  “Actually, I was with a friend, who’s a member.”

  “Oh,” Rosalind said somewhat reprovingly. She caressed the delicate strand of pearls around her neck, which reflected the translucence of her flawless skin. “Well, is your family’s house in Southampton?” she continued. Her hair was the fairest of all and tumbled in soft flaxen waves onto her shoulders.

  “Uh . . . no. I have a place with some friends in Amagansett. So, where did you all go to school?” I asked, eager to shift the attention away from me before I was forced to confess that I was from upstate New York.

  “UVA,” Buffy, Abigail, and Charlotte sang in unison.

  “Harvard,” Rosalind declared.

  Shit, I thought.

  “But Abigail and I grew up together in Charleston. And Rosalind and Charlotte grew up together in Greenwich. It’s such a small world,” Buffy explained. “The three of us ended up Kappa Kappa Gammas together in college. I think they have a chapter at Columbia. What sorority were you a member of?”

  I gnawed nervously on my thumbnail—a habit I was desperately trying to break. “I actually never pledged—I couldn’t get time off from my job during rush.”

  Rosalind gasped. “You worked while you were in college?”

  I ripped my whole thumbnail off with my incisors and felt like crawling in a hole. Who were these girls, and why did I suddenly feel so inadequate? I needed to change the subject. “So, what do you girls do?”

  “Charlotte, Buffy, and I work at Cheban/Grubman PR,” Abigail told me proudly.

  “Cool,” I responded. “Rosalind, what do you do?”

  Before she could answer, Charlotte volunteered excitedly, “Rosalind’s the newest muse for Calvin Klein!”

  A satisfied smile played at the corners of Rosalind’s mouth as her minions chattered excitedly about her new “job,” which I couldn’t begin to wrap my head around. What exactly was a muse?

  “Oh my God, Rosalind! You’re following in the exact footsteps of Caroline Bissett Kennedy, God rest her soul,” Buffy continued amorously.

  I longed desperately to get away from these women and join Annie, who had wandered over to where Tom, Taylor, and Christian were tossing a football around on the impossibly green expansive yard. She was perched on the long stone wall that ran alongside the hedges, sipping her beer and swinging her long shapely legs.

  “Tom, I’ll go out for the pass!” I yelled. But as soon as the words escaped my throat, it was as though the proverbial record had screeched to a stop at a crowded dance. The guys just stood there uncertainly holding the football, and I heard the Pearls Girls tittering behind me.

  “Is she serious?” Rosalind’s voice carried over the others. My knees nearly buckled with mortification, and I stood there paralyzed for a few agonizing seconds until Annie saved me.

  “Come on, Tom, what are you, afraid to play with a girl?” she called out. He laughed and lobbed the ball to me, which I caught easily, and threw back to Christian. I decided right then and there I was not going to let these girls get to me. Tom, Glen, and James had invited me, and I belonged there just as much as they did. I looked around hoping James had witnessed my nice pass, but he was still nowhere to be seen. I was determined to look like I was having a good time should he emerge. “Any of you guys up for a game of touch football?” I asked.

  Tom pretended to chuck the ball at Buffy. She squealed with fright, ducking behind Rosalind.

  “Tom, you’re such a brute!” she protested.

  “What’s the matter, Buffy, you don’t like football?” he said with a wink in my direction.

  “Why on earth would I play a man’s sport?” she sniffed à la Scarlett O’Hara. She turned to Rosalind, and the two shared a hushed exchange, eyeing me disdainfully the whole time. I didn’t want to be paranoid, but something told me I was the topic of conversation.

  “I think it’s time for another beer,” Taylor said, spiking the football. Annie and I followed the boys back to the patio where Glen was taking orders for dinner. The Pearls Girls strolled behind us.

  “I’ll have a small chicken breast—no skin, no sauce, no potatoes, no corn. And a little salad—dressing on the side,” Rosalind said.

  “Me too,” Abigail said. Charlotte and Buffy nodded in agreement. Annie rolled her eyes.

  “What can I get for you, Cassie?” Glen asked.

  “I’ll try some of the filet mignon, and the lobster, and I’ll have some corn and a potato,” I said quietly, hoping to avoid further condemnation from the Pearls Girls—given how they felt about football, I was pretty sure I could guess how they felt about eating—but no such luck.

  “A little hungry?” Rosalind frowned, her eyes concentrating on my heaping plate.

  I ignored her barb. I could easily guess what had triggered their vicious behavior. Annie and I were outsiders—different from them—and had clearly captured the attention of their male friends. It was a classic case of girls being bitchy to defend their territory. I felt impotent, though, because they were James’s friends and I didn’t want to ruffle feathers.

  Rosalind turned away and joined the other girls, who were now absorbed in a heated debate over the merits of cushion versus brilliant-cut diamond engagement rings—a distinction that had about as much meaning to me as quantum physics.

  “Well, when Andrea got engaged to Graydon, she got a three-point-five-carat cushion cut from Harry Winston,” Abigail was saying.

  “But the five-carat classic brilliant-cut ring from Tiffany that Allison got was so much more timeless,” Charlotte disputed. I looked around to Annie for support, but she had long since left to get a lesson at the grill from Tom. He had his arm around her as he explained how Wolfgang Puck handled a lobster tail. I was on my own.

  I felt awkward hovering on the periphery of their group so I made one last stab at amicability. “So what brings you to the Hamptons all the way from Charleston?” I asked Buffy and Abigail.

  “Well, my daddy’s always kept a place up here,” Buffy said. “He’s from Manhattan originally, and he just adores the Hamptons. I’ve been coming here since I was a baby.”

  “We all live in Manhattan now, on the Upper East Side, and we come out on weekends,” Abigail added. “Where do you live in Manhattan?”

  “I live in the Village and Annie lives on the Lower East Side.”

  “Oh,” they said, looking bemused that anyone might actually choose to live in those neighborhoods. I cut off several small pieces of my filet hoping to eat in as delicate a manner as possible.

  “You look really familiar,” Rosalind went on, scrutinizing my face. “Have we met before?”

  I met her gaze. She looked familiar to me as well, but I couldn’t place her. It was hard to imagine we ran in the same circles. “I don’t think so,” I said, taking an uncomfortable gulp of Budweiser.

  “I know!” she finally exclaimed, careful not to upset her brimming glass of Sancer
re. “You’re a bartender at Spark. I saw you there on Friday night.”

  “Yeah. That must be it.” I smiled awkwardly.

  “You’re a bartender?” Abigail asked. “What’s that like?”

  “You mean Spark?” I asked, confused.

  “No, she means bartending,” Rosalind interjected, cocking her head to one side and flipping her hair. “It must be so difficult for you—staying up all night, serving all those people.”

  “It’s not that bad,” I said. “Actually, it’s a lot of fun. I love the people I work with, and I make great money.” I managed a confident smile. I wasn’t going to let them ruin my afternoon. There was nothing wrong with my job—it was a means to an end, I assured myself.

  “I’m sure you do,” Rosalind said. “In fact, girls, if I recall correctly, Cassie makes a fabulous sour apple martini.”

  I smiled uneasily. Even though it seemed she was giving me a compliment, I felt like it was backhanded at best.

  “Ooooh, we have sour apple schnapps and vodka in the kitchen,” Abigail said, her eyes lighting up.

  Rosalind turned and looked at me levelly. “Cassie, would you do me a huge favor and run inside and mix me one of those delicious drinks of yours?”

  I stood there wondering how I should deal with the situation, which had gone from uncomfortable to insulting. I wouldn’t have minded mixing a drink for a friend, but there was something about the dynamics that made me loath to do anything that might suggest I was part of the working class that had catered to Rosalind and her friends throughout their entire lives. They clearly didn’t view me as an equal. I looked around for James for the umpteenth time—I couldn’t help hoping that he’d appear at my side, put his arms around me, and pull me in for a kiss, instantly validating my presence at the barbeque.

  “I guess I can do it,” I said finally. I hated that I was playing into their hands, but if James’s and Rosalind’s families had really known each other for years, being deferential to these girls—even in the face of their passive-aggressive animosity—seemed like my only strategy. I set down my plate of food and turned to walk toward the kitchen.