by Leanne Shear
“I’ve got it,” James said when the check arrived. He shot me a smile to reassure me that he’d be leaving the waitress a huge tip to make up for the incessant demands of our table, and tucked his black AmEx into the black leather folder.
“Nope, it’s my turn,” Tom objected, grabbing the check, tossing James’s card on the table and then replacing it with his own black AmEx. “You paid for the table at Tavern last night.”
“We’re staying for drinks at the bar, right?” Glen asked.
James looked at me and asked, “Do you want to stay for drinks, or do you want to head out?”
“I told Annie to meet us here when she’s done with dinner,” I said, “so we might as well have another drink.”
The waitress came and collected the card. “I’m gonna run to the ladies’ room,” I said to James.
As I stood up to leave, he pulled me down toward him and planted a warm kiss on my sunburned lips. I loved when he kissed me in front of the Pearls Girls; it made me feel wildly victorious. He was by far the best catch of the clique, and he was all mine. And he appreciated my democratic manners, even if they didn’t. On my way to the bathroom, I pulled our waitress aside and slipped her $40.
Well-heeled New Yorkers turned into Hamptons pumpkins after 8:00 P.M. on a Sunday, when they tore back to the city at breakneck speed, kids and nannies in tow. As a result, the restaurant crowd at East Hampton Point thinned considerably. The bar, however, was still hopping with a younger set of people in no hurry to leave the gorgeous summer evening behind.
As I crossed the deck, on the way back from the bathroom, I could see James’s head, high above the rest of the flip-flopped crowd, and flashes of the blond head he was talking to. I hurried over and put my hand on the small of his back. He moved aside to reveal Annie.
“Cassie!” she exclaimed. We’d just seen each other only a couple of hours before, but every time Annie saw me, her face lit up, she threw her arms around my neck, and she acted like we hadn’t seen each other for ages. She was the very best kind of friend to have.
“Hey! How was dinner?”
“So much fun. Bobby Van’s is officially my favorite restaurant in the Hamptons. And André was amazing. He called ahead so there was a bottle of Dom waiting for us at our table, and he knew everyone there. Literally everyone.”
“Wow,” I marveled. Leave it to Annie to land a date with the famed hotelier who was also rumored to be dating Uma Thurman. Annie’s inhibitions about double-dipping were inversely proportionate to her intended’s level of star power. She’d met him the night before in VIP at Spark.
“I ordered you a blue margarita. They’re amazing, and they’ll knock you right on your ass.” Annie beamed.
“Sounds good,” I said, and even though no self-respecting bartender would be caught dead drinking a blue drink, we raised our neon turquoise glasses.
“Hey, girls!” a familiar voice called from behind us.
We turned around and saw a copper-toned Travis in a green T-shirt, worn-in khaki shorts, and his signature Reef flip-flops standing right behind us, Bud in hand. “Travis!” Annie squealed. “What are you doing here?”
“Yeah, I thought you spent your Sundays slamming PBR on the front lawn with the rest of the shirtless,” I teased.
“I’m classing it up, ladies,” he said, laughing. “Joining the civilized world.”
“Really?” Annie asked.
“No, not really. I’m here with Camilla. She says it’s the ‘only’ place to be on a Sunday.”
I turned around and saw a decked-out Camilla gushing with the Pearls Girls. “Oh my God!” Air kiss. Air kiss. “You all look fabulous . . .”
“Baby, do you need a drink?” James asked, coming up behind me and wrapping his arms around my waist.
“James, this is Travis,” I said. “Travis, James.” My worlds were colliding. Even though Martin Pritchard had told me that the Hamptons were four times the size of Manhattan, they’d suddenly been reduced to the bar at East Hampton Point.
“It’s nice to finally meet you,” Travis said, shaking James’s hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Nice to meet you as well,” James said, giving him that thousand-watt smile that blinded me every time. If his banking career didn’t work out and his trust fund ran out, I thought, he could always make a living doing toothpaste commercials. Travis turned to try to get the bartender’s attention and, under Camilla’s instruction, ordered the Pearls Girls a bottle of the most expensive Sancerre.
James pulled me aside and kissed me. “You look so beautiful in that little dress,” he said huskily. I nuzzled into his neck.
“I love you,” he whispered. I turned to face him. He was so handsome and he looked at me like he couldn’t bear to lose me. He made me feel so taken care of that all my doubts from the dinner debacle receded.
I took a deep breath. “I love you too.”
Located on the border of the residential West Village and the fashionable meatpacking district, James’s luxury co-op building was equipped with a gym and an impressive roof deck, complete with a pool. The minimalist lobby had been designed by Philippe Starck. Martha Stewart, Calvin Klein, Nicole Kidman, Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos, and countless business billionaires lived in his building. There was no option to rent, and the apartments started at $2 million for a studio. James’s father had given him a two-bedroom as a college graduation gift. Driving back to the city after dinner at East Hampton Point, James had handed me my very own set of keys.
“I know you don’t have air-conditioning in your room, so now even if I’m out of town, you always have a place to crash where you can get a good night’s sleep,” he’d said, handing over the keys to his kingdom. To me, it was a very symbolic moment. I no longer had to sleep in a sixth-floor walk-up—I slept in the ritziest building in town. And I no longer had to take the Jitney or train—I had my own personal chauffered Range Rover. I’d moved up in the world. James had gone from my Hamptons fling to my full-time boyfriend.
That night, using my keys for the first time, I let myself in and dropped my bags on the cool marble tiles in the foyer while James took the car to the garage.
After a feast of cookie dough ice cream, we fell asleep on his couch watching Serendipity. James would never admit it, but he was a huge fan of the romantic comedy. His alarm bleated at promptly seven the next morning, and I awoke to a brand-new week.
Through half-closed eyes, I watched him shower, shave, and get dressed. I felt like a stay-at-home wife, a lady of leisure, and a small part of me didn’t mind at all. He leaned in to kiss me good-bye and smelled so fresh and delicious that I had to struggle not to throw my arms around his waist and pull him back to bed.
“What’re you going to do today?” he asked, bending down so he was at my eye level.
“I was going to write a little,” I said.
“Why don’t you stay here? You can use my computer and printer or whatever else you need. I’ll try to get out early tonight and I’ll take you to Da Silvano for dinner.”
“Okay, maybe I will.” I buried my head in the pillow and issued a muffled “I love you” to his back.
“I love you too,” he called before the door clicked softly shut.
I stayed in James’s Helmut Lang boxers and Calvin Klein undershirt all day, lounging in his luxurious air-conditioned apartment, ordering Movies On Demand and catching up on all the Sex and the City episodes I’d ever missed. Looking out the window at the sweaty bodies battling the humidity on the blistering pavement, I thanked my lucky stars that I didn’t have a day job and didn’t need to put on a restricting suit and brave the city heat.
At around four, I decided it might be a good idea to at least try to get some work done. His Apple G5 and attached printer seemed to pulsate in the corner, inviting me into the warmth of their silver glow. The bev nap notes stuffed in my bag were crying out to be transcribed into my notebook. So I settled into his deluxe office chair and admired the opulent rosewood desk t
hat looked like it had once belonged to Alexander Hamilton.
I couldn’t resist the urge to take a little “look” through the top desk drawer. Nothing but stamps, faded business cards, a stapler, and some old cell phone bills. I slammed the drawer shut, determined not to be one of those creepy girlfriends who snooped and spied on their trusting boyfriends. But I just couldn’t help myself and slowly creaked the next drawer open, and started sifting through all the papers inside.
Soon a frenzy came over me. I couldn’t find anything interesting in that drawer either (I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for, but I knew I needed to unearth at least some small secret), so I systematically studied every single item in the next drawer. But the pictures, bank statements, and correspondence revealed nothing more than what I already knew: he was a multimillionaire, he went to Yale, and he was close friends with Tom, Glen, and the Pearls Girls. I slammed the drawer shut with frustration and maniacally wished I could crack the code to his e-mail account.
At the bottom of the final drawer, I came across a battered copy of The Great Gatsby and fell in love with James all over again. The pages were tattered and the binding was held together by masking tape—by the looks of the book, he’d read it at least a hundred times. I was just about to snuggle back into his thousand-thread-count sheets with the novel when another book caught my eye.
I lifted it out of the drawer. The Hamptons Blue Book was written in bold silver script across the cerulean blue hardcover. It was roughly the size and thickness of a novel. It appeared to be a kind of phone book for the Hamptons, and I started leafing through it. Each entry had a last name with an address and phone number, followed by a list of all the first names of the family members along with the college they attended and the year they graduated. I paged through the E’s until I found Edmonton: 17 Lily Pond Lane, (631) 555-6564. James Richard II; Yale 1970. James Richard III; Yale 1998. Martin Pritchard was also in the little blue book. I learned he had two daughters, Rebecca and Erica, both of whom had graduated from Cornell and then attended Johns Hopkins Medical School. As my search continued, I found Rosalind’s family entry, and discovered that every member was a graduate of Harvard. All of the other Pearls Girls were in the book, along with Tom and Glen. I remembered that Jake had lived in the Hamptons his entire life. I wanted to look him up, but I didn’t know his last name.
I heard the locks to the door being turned and immediately threw both books in the drawer, slammed it shut, and scurried out into the hall just as James walked in. He loosened his Paul Smith tie and tossed his briefcase on the floor. “I’m so glad you stayed!”
“What are you doing home so early?”
“I pulled some strings,” he said with a wink as he collapsed on the brown leather couch and pulled me onto his lap. “Because I needed to see you. What have you been up to all day?”
“What’s The Hamptons Blue Book?” I asked suddenly, surprising myself with my lack of control.
“Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know . . . I was just wondering.”
He looked at me accusingly, and I immediately tried to cover my tracks. “I was looking for a pen to write down some ideas and . . .”
James pulled my face close to his and kissed me. It appeared he wasn’t mad. He actually looked kind of amused.
“So what is it?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s stupid.”
“Is it like a phone book?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then what?”
He let out an exaggerated sigh and, with a mock British accent, said, “It’s the Social Register of the Hamptons.” He rolled his eyes and continued, “Cassie, it’s stupid. Some obnoxious anonymous committee gets together every year and comes up with a list of the so-called important families in the Hamptons. It’s ridiculous. Whatever.”
I could feel my stomach turn. “So it’s a book of all the rich people in the Hamptons so they know who’s acceptable for them to associate with? So they don’t accidentally mingle outside of their caste?”
“Cassie, I told you it’s stupid. I’m embarrassed that I’m even in that book. I hate it.”
“You’re not the only one that’s in it. Tom and Glen are in it too, and Rosalind, Charlotte, Buffy, and Abigail. You’re all in it.”
“Who cares? It doesn’t mean anything.” I studied his green and gold eyes. “It doesn’t matter, Cassie,” he assured me again. “Now get dressed, and let’s go to dinner.”
I got up and went to the bathroom, turned on the water in his executive shower (with six water spouts, heated towels, heated tiles, a water temperature dial, and every Frederic Fekkai you could imagine), stripped down, and got in. I couldn’t stop thinking about The Hamptons Blue Book. All this time I’d been trying to convince myself that the Manhattan/ Hamptons caste system was all in my head, and now I was faced with concrete evidence that it actually did exist.
What really bothered me was that even if I made $100 billion, became a famous writer, philanthropist, or whatever, I’d still never be able to get into that book. The Hamptons Blue Book was reserved exclusively for people who came from a certain level of breeding. Somehow my gene pool was contaminated. The whole thing seemed so anti-American. What about the Horatio Alger stories? Rags to riches? Wasn’t that the American dream? I’d read in middle school that Andrew Carnegie had been an immigrant laborer making two cents a week before he became the biggest steel tycoon and robber baron America had ever seen. I wondered if he’d be allowed in the Blue Book. With his working-class roots, he’d probably be chased off the course at the Maidstone.
So, we’re not opening the doors to the general public until at least 1:00 A.M.,” Shalina instructed the following weekend. “The guests from the White party will be the only people served until we decide that the masses can come in. Open bar—everything—including Johnnie Blue, the cognacs, all of it. Make sure your bar backs stock extra Hypnotiq and Cristal.”
Every summer in the middle of August, P. Diddy hosted his famous “White Party” on the grounds of his Hamptons estate, which interestingly enough was located in the Springs. Even more ironic was the fact that it was the most coveted invitation in town—even the old-money residents who turned their noses up at “his kind” still wanted the opportunity to see and be seen at his event—P. Diddy was a bonafide Jay Gatsby. This summer, the after-party to the White Party was being held at Spark.
“Hand me two Heinekens,” Jake barked an hour later when the party was in full swing. I grabbed two green bottles from the depths of the imports cooler, popped off the tops, and handed them to Jake, who was busy shaking a red devil. “This party fucking sucks,” he grumbled.
I had to disagree. The place was more star-studded than the Planetarium at the Museum of Natural History. I’d never seen more celebrities in my life, and although I was trying to play it cool, I was a little starstruck, especially when I caught a glimpse of the Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez and the Nets’ Jason Kidd toasting up in VIP with Bruce Willis, Jared Leto, and Rosario Dawson.
“I fucking hate open bar. We’re not getting tipped, and you know that bitch Shalina is going to pay us nothing for this,” he went on, slamming an enormous shot of Patrón. “We only have three Saturdays left in the summer. This is fucking bullshit.”
“At least it’s cash bar from one on,” I gingerly reminded him, as much for my own reassurance as his. “We’ll make some money then.”
“Cassie, you don’t get it. We normally make money from ten to four. Now we’re only making money from one to four. That means we’ll make half of what we normally do,” he said through gritted teeth as if he were explaining simple addition to a mentally retarded child. “Before you know it the summer will be over. This is our last chance to make some cash.”
His words echoed in my brain and triggered a panic attack. How did the summer fly by so quickly? The cash we’d been making at Spark had been both a blessing and a curse. I’d been shopping with increasing frequency at Ral
ph Lauren and Scoop Beach and treating myself to $60 brunches at Babette’s. Every time I went out drinking, I’d tip the bartenders and waitresses like I was Midas himself. Meanwhile I was up to my diamond-studded ears in credit card debt. I hadn’t saved any money, and even though I’d made several small payments, I still owed Alexis’s dad roughly $500. I hadn’t counted on the money flow ending so abruptly, but Jake was right. The summer was quickly drawing to an end, and I knew I wouldn’t be making this much dough at Finton’s.
There was a momentary lull in drink orders, and Jake leaned in with a menacing look in his eyes as if he were about to hatch his plan to take over the world. “You better pull your weight if you want to finish out the summer here.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“You know what I’m fucking talking about. Don’t pull that Virgin Mary shit with me,” he growled. “Now listen, when you get exact change for an order, ring in only one drink and hit cash so the register opens, then put all the money in. The only thing the spotters ever look for is if the register opens and you put money inside. Then write down all the extra money you put in on a sheet of paper, and at the end of the night, when you’re closing out, slip the money somewhere—in your shoe, your bag, whatever. We’ll divide it up later.”