The Perfect Manhattan

by Leanne Shear

  BAY BREEZE

  My brand-new, three-inch, baby pink, crocodile Sergio Rossi heels (which had cost more than I made in an entire weekend at Spark) sank into the gravel parking lot as I turned to admire the yachts docked at East Hampton Point. The forty-foot bows bobbed lazily in the tiny wakes of Three Mile Harbor, as crew members mopped their decks industriously. The sun was setting, and a delicate bay breeze swept the hair off my shoulders. James tossed his keys to the valet and grabbed my hand, lacing his fingers with mine.

  We walked up the red-carpeted ramp of the yacht club’s restaurant to the outdoor bar where dozens of bronzed faces vigilantly watched everyone who entered or exited the scene. As I followed James past an open kitchen emitting all sorts of mouthwatering smells, I felt like a starlet about to work the press line of a major premiere. For a second it seemed like the room took a collective breath and paused to watch our arrival. But two steps later we’d blended in with the tanned, toned, and (mostly) blond crowd. Handsome, clean-cut bartenders wearing crisp white shirts and Maui Jim sunglasses were shaking bay breezes to the rhythm of the live reggae band that was stationed on the deck overlooking the bay, and the air vibrated with warmth and activity.

  Cocktails and a light bite at East Hampton Point were a Sunday evening ritual for anyone who was anyone in the Hamptons. And now, it appeared, I was someone. I surveyed all the twittering socialites who were “dressed down” in Cynthia Rowley sundresses (the designer was an East Hampton local) and Michael Kors espadrilles, and even spied Betsey Johnson herself in a glorified sarong of her own design, swaying her dreadlocks to the island beats. I decided that if people were really confident in their wealth and status, they could afford to pull off the whole “beachy” look every once in a while.

  I hung back slightly with Glen and Tom as James approached the five-foot-ten hostess, who looked like she’d feel more comfortable on the runway at the Ungaro spring fashion show than behind the oak podium at the front of the restaurant. She was wearing a minuscule white dress that hugged every inch of her perfectly toned body, and her long blond hair was pulled back into a purposefully tousled ponytail. “We’d like a table for eight, please. The name’s Edmonton.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Edmonton,” she replied, barely looking up. “The wait’s at least an hour.”

  I couldn’t believe it. If James and his crew had to wait over an hour for a table, I figured this place must really be exclusive.

  “Let’s get a drink at the bar,” James suggested. “We still have to wait for the girls to get here anyway.”

  We walked over to the outdoor bar where I settled myself in a giant director-style chair and envied the bartenders who had been getting a great tan all summer while they concocted their island specialties (which to my trained eye were nothing more than Malibu coconut-flavored rum mixed with juice). At that moment, I would’ve given anything to trade the sweaty maelstrom of Spark for this perfect seaside bastion of summerness. I promised myself that if I was still bartending the following summer, I’d make sure to score a job at an outdoor location. In deciding what to order, I thought of Rosalind and the Pearls Girls who were en route to join us and how they were always demurely sipping champagne or white wine, and ordered a glass of Chardonnay.

  James had picked me up at Animal House a little after six. Tom and Glen were in the backseat recapping the weekend’s earlier highlights, and it became clear that they were both infatuated with Elsie. It seemed that her little show for P. Diddy a few weeks ago had sparked a fascination, and they begged me to divulge everything I knew about her.

  “You guys, she’s a cokehead,” I said with a chuckle. “Don’t get me wrong, she’s a nice girl, but she looks a lot better at night, if you know what I mean. She doesn’t look too hot when the sun comes up.”

  “Ouch!” Tom said.

  “Come on, Cassie,” Glen pressed as we made a right on Three Mile Harbor Road. “She’s hot as hell and her body’s smoking.”

  Mine would be too if I spent all my tips on plastic surgery, I thought wryly, but decided to keep my mouth shut. I rolled down my window and peered out into the vast wooded plots of the area north of Montauk Highway known as the Springs, transfixed by the metamorphosis in the Hamptons scenery. As we drove along narrow, winding roads, traffic was practically nonexistent: not a Hummer in sight.

  “Is that a trailer park?” I’d asked, pointing out the window to a clearing in the woods where I saw a cluster of dilapidated trailers. Clotheslines were strung in between them and small barefoot children darted in and out of the drying clothes.

  “No way,” Tom said. “The Springs are ghetto compared to the rest of East Hampton, but not that ghetto.”

  “It totally is,” I said. “Look.”

  As the Range Rover wound its way down the road, we all caught a quick glimpse of a young Hispanic woman with a baby slung over her hip walking toward one of the trailers carrying a bag of groceries. I thought back to my first trip out to the Hamptons with Martin and Lily, and all the workers I’d seen who seemingly “disappeared” during the peak season.

  “That’s crazy,” Glen said, genuinely surprised. “I never knew they were out here.”

  “Me neither,” James said. “I can’t believe I’ve never noticed them.”

  A couple of weeks earlier while riding an early-morning Jitney past the 7-Eleven in Southampton, I’d looked out the window and seen droves of Latino men milling around.

  “Illegal workers,” the woman in the seat next to me had whispered knowingly. She looked like a hippie, with her Birkenstocks and long, flowing skirt, but then I’d spied her Hermès Birkin bag and realized she was really a “Trustafarian,” the Hamptons breed of hippie—a bleeding-heart liberal living off daddy’s trust fund. “They line up in East Hampton at the train station too,” she said. “Some town residents are trying to crack down on the builders and contractors who hire them. My heart goes out to them.”

  Migrant workers apparently flocked to the Hamptons and were available for any kind of physical labor—farming, landscaping, construction—and were much cheaper to hire than legitimate labor because they would work for less than minimum wage. Also, with only one road leading out to the Hamptons and traffic forever at a standstill during the summer months, it was hard for established landscaping or construction companies to get their equipment and laborers back and forth. The migrant workers settled in the Hamptons and were thus easily accessible. But the residents were unhappy about it.

  A week or so later I’d read a letter to the editor in the East Hampton Star from a resident complaining that dozens of migrant workers were cramming themselves into tiny share houses so they could live in the Hamptons affordably. She was concerned that the property value of her own home would nosedive due to her numerous new neighbors. We’d never received any complaints at Animal House, even though our landlord had long since figured out that we were way over legal capacity. I was sure no letters to the editor would be written about a bunch of white yuppies boozing it up all summer long.

  I’d also read a similar letter in the East Hampton Independent—this one complained of “five or six cars in one driveway” of a share house inhabited by migrant workers. I found this interesting because in every driveway on Further Lane there were at least five cars. After all, every Hamptons family needed an SUV, a sports car, a convertible, a minivan, a vintage pickup truck, and a hybrid (to assuage their SUV gas-guzzling guilt). It appeared that even though the workers dug their pools, built their houses, reaped their fields, and beautified their gardens, the residents of the Hamptons would prefer for them to magically disappear at the end of their seventeen-hour workday.

  “The girls are here,” James announced, interrupting my activist musings.

  I turned around and saw Rosalind and the girls parade into the restaurant as if they were entering a cotillion, blowing air kisses and picking their way distastefully through the boardshort-wearing crowd with NutraSweet, beauty pageant smiles plastered on their faces. Like the rest
of the patrons of the yacht club, they had “downgraded” to Sunday beach wear: different pale shades of C&C California tees, and buttery suede Manolo flip-flops. I was surprised to discover that I towered over them when they weren’t wearing heels. While Charlotte and Abigail normally wore their hair blown out and expertly styled, today it was pinned back in “messy” buns to protect it from the bay breeze. Buffy had pulled her fair locks into an immaculate ponytail, and Rosalind’s hair, immune to the humidity, was resting neatly on her shoulders. I guessed that the four pairs of Chanel sunglasses perched atop their perfect noses had probably cost a total of about $2,000.

  “Can I get you ladies a drink?” Tom asked.

  “I don’t know what I want.” Charlotte pouted. She turned to me. “What are you drinking?”

  “The house Chardonnay,” I answered. “It’s good.”

  “Let’s see the wine list,” Rosalind said sourly. “I detest wine by the glass.”

  “Hey, isn’t that Betsey Johnson?” Buffy asked. I looked over at the trendy designer who amid all the lily-white people dancing awkwardly with the band was the only one who really fit in. Her multitonal dreadlocks brushed against the African lead singer as she bumped her hips against his.

  “Yes,” said Charlotte. “We’re doing the PR for her new collection. She’s totally nuts. And apparently her daughter Lulu is quite a piece of work.”

  “I met her daughter!” I interjected excitedly. “She was in Spark the other night. She was totally wasted, and she’d gotten sick all over her dress. It was really gross . . .” I trailed off, feeling like an asshole. Why had I been talking about Lulu Johnson’s puke? These girls always brought out the idiot in me.

  “That’s disgusting,” Rosalind sniffed.

  A half hour later we were seated at a large round table with a dazzling view of the sun as it made its descent over the glittering bay. I made sure to sit in friendly territory between James and Tom, as far away as possible from the Pearls Girls. A cute brunette waitress wearing sneakers, khaki shorts, and a sweat-moistened brow bustled up to the table, looking a little harried, but still with a broad smile on her face.

  “Hi, guys, how are you this evening?” she asked.

  “Great!” I said. “How’s your shift going?” I saw Rosalind and Buffy exchange a look.

  “Can’t complain,” she said. “It’s a beautiful evening.”

  “A bottle of Pellegrino,” Rosalind spoke up. “With a lemon and a lime.”

  “Coming right up,” the waitress said, reaching for her pad. “Can I get you guys anything else to drink? I see you already have a bottle of wine.” But everyone else had already turned back to their conversations.

  “I think we’re fine, thank you,” I said finally.

  The waitress smiled at me and tucked her pad into her apron. She was starting to walk away when Rosalind called out, “Actually, I’d like to take another look at the wine list. This Riesling is too sweet.”

  “We have a nice California Chardonnay,” the waitress offered.

  “Vintage?”

  The waitress looked flustered as she wracked her brain to visualize the wine list. “It’s from Sonoma . . .”

  “I said vintage.”

  “I’m not sure. Let me check,” the waitress said, but before she’d gotten very far, Rosalind started ordering.

  “And the grilled shrimp salad with no dressing, no avocado, no onions, and no carrots,” she said.

  The startled waitress turned around, whipped out her pad, and frantically started writing down the order.

  “I’ll have the same,” Abigail said.

  “Me too,” echoed Buffy.

  “Same for me,” said Charlotte. It was uncanny—whenever Rosalind placed an order, the others followed suit, like a chain of dominoes falling one by one.

  “And you can forget the wine list,” Rosalind added. “Just bring me a bottle of Château d’Yquem. I trust you have the ’97.”

  Our waitress then turned to the boys, who ordered two filets, medium rare, and a surf ’n turf for James.

  “And for you, miss?” the waitress asked. I looked into her tired eyes and wanted to give her a hug. It wasn’t easy running around all day catering to the dining and drinking whims of the Hamptons elite. She was probably exhausted and miserable, just as I often was during a shift—only she didn’t have the buffer that alcohol provided. When obnoxious customers got on my nerves, I could at least drink half a bottle of Patrón with Jake.

  “I’ll have the lobster roll, please,” I said, adding, “Thank you so much.”

  “I hate lobster salad,” Buffy announced after our waitress had finally escaped. “Too much mayonnaise.”

  “I loathe mayonnaise,” Abigail agreed.

  “But it comes with fries, and the fries here are off the hook,” Tom countered. Off the hook? I thought, trying to mask my amusement. Whenever rich white guys used gangsta terms, I had to laugh.

  “I haven’t had a French fry since junior high,” Charlotte boasted as if it were her greatest accomplishment.

  Our waitress reappeared seconds later with the mandated sparkling water, and the second bottle of wine, which she presented to Rosalind, who nodded haughtily. The waitress quickly opened it with a loud POP. Rosalind frowned at the noise.

  “Sorry,” the waitress apologized.

  She poured a small sip into the glass and Rosalind swished it around and smelled it deliberately before taking a sip. She pushed the glass away, grimacing.

  “I don’t like it. It’s much too oaky. Take it back and bring me a different vintage. Do you have the ’94?”

  “I think so,” the waitress said evenly.

  “I’ll try that.”

  I’d never in my life—even at Finton’s—seen someone refuse a bottle of wine after tasting it. I looked at James for his reaction, but he was busy admiring a cigarette speedboat skimming the harbor.

  After another ceremonious uncorking and tasting, Rosalind said reluctantly, “I don’t love it, but I guess we’ll keep it. Otherwise, we’ll be here opening wine all night.”

  I stole a glance at the Pearls Girls, all of them sitting up straight, their knees touching, like Queen Elizabeth. Like so many times before, I found myself studying them. I couldn’t imagine what their life was like. What did they do during the day? Go shopping? Visit the spa? Sit around eating lettuce? Their daily activities (especially of the mental variety) were a complete mystery to me.

  Well, not a total mystery: I could make a few intelligent guesses. They probably all came from a long line of heiresses who didn’t do all that much. However, in this day and age, it wasn’t exactly fashionable for a young woman who went to a good school to loaf around and live off family money and not work. It was all about appearances. From what I could ascertain, they all worked either in PR or, in the case of Rosalind, as a muse, after striving for their “MRS” degree from whatever Ivy League or southern university they’d happened to attend (where they’d pledged the same sorority as their mother and grandmother). The big PR firms were chock-full of Pearls Girls just killing time until they got married and possibly had a kid or two. Once that happened, they could officially return to their lives of leisure and give up their “careers.”

  But what went on inside their blond heads? Did they agonize about their place in the world and what it all meant? Or did they just go from party to after-party, shop to showroom, and manicure to pedicure, never growing intellectually, emotionally, or spiritually, and just feeling entitled to everything that came across their path, not even considering how it got there?

  “God, my nails are a mess. As soon as I get home, I’m getting a manicure, pedicure, and oxygen facial at Bliss,” Rosalind said.

  “Oh, me too,” echoed the other three. And I guess I had my answer.

  Our food arrived, and I dug into my lobster roll, handing Tom a bread plate full of his favorite fries. For a while, only the sound of contented chewing and forks clinking against china could be heard. Then, as our waitress
was busy taking the orders of a family seated at the table next to us, Glen whistled to get her attention.

  “Glen, what are you doing?” I asked, unable to contain myself.

  “I need a beer,” he responded obliviously.

  “If someone whistled at me like that at Spark, I’d kill them,” I muttered under my breath. I half hoped that James would hear me and agree, but he remained absorbed in his lobster tail.

  As I sat there wondering what it was about these people—at least some of whom I generally liked under other circumstances—that made them utterly oblivious to their own indecency, I remembered James telling me that he’d grown up with a baby nurse, a full-time live-in nanny, a cook, a butler, and several maids.

  “What’s a baby nurse?” I’d asked him.

  “Someone that’s hired to take care of the baby from when they just come home from the hospital until they’re four or five months old. They live in the nursery, change diapers, feed the baby, stuff like that.”

  “But isn’t that the mother’s job?”

  “I guess, but a baby wakes up a lot of times during the night, and the mom’s recovering, you know, from the labor and everything, so she needs to rest. It’s just a lot easier on everyone to hire help.”

  I thought about my mom, who’d had three kids all two years apart with no maids, butlers, cooks, or nannies, and certainly no baby nurses. When my brother was born, I’d been two and my sister was four, and my mom had managed just fine without any help other than my dad. In fact, she’d always told us that it was the happiest time of her life.

  With visions of baby nurses from Trinidad and Tobago and tuxedo-clad butlers from England running wild in my head, I finally understood why Tom, Glen, and the Pearls Girls treated waitresses, maître d’s, and valets like their own personal servants. They were used to having people wait on them hand and foot and had grown up with a very real sense of entitlement.

  The interesting thing was that Tom and Glen had never treated me rudely when I waited on them at Spark. They clearly viewed me as being different from the average “server,” but I couldn’t pinpoint exactly why. Maybe it was because I was dating their best friend, or maybe it was because I’d gone to a good school and they knew I planned to do more with my life than sling drinks. It was hard to discern what made people “acceptable” in their eyes and worthy of their respect. Until tonight I’d always thought that Glen and Tom—unlike Rosalind and the girls—were really down to earth, unimpressed by their pedigrees and affluent upbringings. But now watching them bark at the waitress made me see them in a whole new light. You can always tell how decent a person really is by the way they treat the people who work for them. I looked over at James and saw that he had grown visibly uncomfortable. He’d read my mind, and knew I disapproved of his friends’ treatment of the waitress. He squeezed my knee under the table, but I still felt disappointed and alone.