by Leanne Shear
My heart dropped. I’m caught. He knows I’m stealing. He’s going to fire me.
“Okay,” I squeaked.
“Meet me in my office.”
James looked up from his counting as I followed Teddy up the stairs and into the office. To my surprise, Jake was inside sitting on the couch, smoking a joint and drinking Patrón. I searched his strung-out expression for clues on what was about to go down. But his eyes were focused in all different directions, and he seemed to look right through me.
“Have a seat,” Teddy ordered. I pushed aside a dated issue of Hamptons magazine with Kristin Davis on the cover and sat down. My stomach was churning in agony, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
“Cassie,” Teddy began, “I’ve been watching you really closely all summer and tracking your sales . . .”
I could actually feel the adrenaline flooding my bloodstream, cranking up the old fight-or-flight response. How could I be so stupid? I thought. Who did I think I was? I should’ve known that Teddy would be tracking my sales and would automatically detect a recent plunge in my rings. The moment was positively agonizing.
“. . . and with the exception of Jake, you’re the highest ringer in the club.”
It was a moment before it registered that Teddy was paying me a compliment. I looked up at him, confused, and said nothing.
“A couple of colleagues of mine are getting ready to open up a club in the city. It’s going to be twice the size of Spark—the VIP room alone will hold three hundred people. We’re working with a team of promoters from Lotus, Jet, and Marquee, and I can guarantee you it will be the sickest spot Manhattan’s ever seen.”
I nodded. I had no idea where he was going with this.
“I’m trying to nail down the staff right now, and Jake suggested I offer you a position behind the bar.”
“We’ll be able to make twice what we make here if we really bang it out,” Jake offered through his chemical haze.
“Are you interested?” Teddy asked.
“Um . . . yeah,” I said, feeling not only enormously relieved but incredibly flattered. All the pent-up fear evaporated, and I felt as light as a feather. Only months ago I had flunked out of bartending school and had to take a job at a no-name bar where I was barely getting by—sometimes making less than $100 a night. Now, after working at the hottest spot in the Hamptons, one of New York’s leading promoters was asking me to accompany him on his next venture. I’d graduated into the ranks of Jake, Elsie, and the girls who followed Teddy from hot spot to hot spot like disciples.
“Great,” Teddy said. “Finish counting your money. I’ll be in touch.”
I left the office and walked through VIP toward the stairs. But halfway down I suddenly felt conflicted. I had expected to go back to Finton’s after Labor Day, but that meant I’d be making about 75 percent less money than I’d made during my Spark shifts. I felt manacled by golden handcuffs to the enormous sums of money I could make at high-volume clubs. Furthermore, while the Spark staff and clientele nauseated me a lot of the time, it was still exhilarating to be a part of the scene. I liked being close to the glamour of it all, even if I was participating in it only from my vantage point behind the bar. And everybody there—Jake, Teddy, and even the cocktail waitresses—had grown on me. I guess because we were all in it together, trying to make enough money to avoid working a miserable day job in corporate America.
But I still wasn’t sure I was ready to leave Finton’s. True, it would mean a salary cut, but I never felt pressured and stressed out like I always did at Spark. No one ever pushed me to steal at Finton’s, and I didn’t live in constant fear of losing my job. And despite his questionable motives, Dan Finton had been good to me, giving me a job when I had no experience and changing my schedule so I could bartend in the Hamptons.
What really perplexed me was that Teddy thought so highly of my performance, while I was stealing hundreds of dollars from right under his nose. I’d been waiting for punishment for my debauched behavior, and instead I’d been rewarded. I went downstairs to finish counting and thought about the twisted world in which I was somehow entrenched. I now had a job at the latest in the string of New York VIP clubs because I’d been stealing with Jake, in part from his friend Teddy, who was actually the one hiring us in the first place.
But any remaining anxiety disappeared as I sat in the passenger seat of James’s Range Rover on the way home with $890 in my pocket. I washed down the sesame bagel I’d bought at Twice Upon A Bagel with the Bud I’d swiped on the way out the door. I wasn’t going to be losing any sleep that night.
Hey, kiddo,” Billy called from behind the bar. Sean was counting out his register and getting ready to leave for the night, and Billy was meticulously scrubbing the bar, polishing the taps, washing glasses, and wiping down bottles. After all these months, I still admired the genuine pride Billy took in his work as a bartender. He kept his “office space” immaculate.
“Hey, guys!” I leaned over the bar and grabbed a cloth napkin to wipe the sweat off my brow and lower back. “It’s ridiculous outside. You can hardly breathe it’s so hot.”
“How’re the Hamptons?” Billy asked.
“They’re great,” I said, sliding behind the bar and checking out my face in the mirror. I had melted mascara oozing down my cheeks.
“It’s gonna be tough for you to leave that gig,” Billy said as I scrubbed the black smudges off my face and dabbed my cheeks with ice cubes.
“Yeah, but you know, working until seven in the morning can really take its toll on you.”
“Definitely. But if you’re walking home with five or six hundred dollars, it softens the blow.”
“Try seven or eight at least.”
“Seven or eight hundred dollars in one night?” Sean asked, stunned.
“Sometimes even more,” I answered proudly. I loved watching people’s reaction to the magnitude of cash you could bank (either legitimately or otherwise) as a bartender in the Hamptons. The funny thing was, every time I told someone about it, I found myself exaggerating more and more. I was like a seafarer telling tall tales. Pretty soon I’d be telling people we never walked with less than a grand.
“I’ve never made that in a week,” Sean said. “Hello there, love,” he added, pulling me in and kissing my cheek. “You look ravishing, as usual.”
“Thank you, sugar,” I said. I’d picked up cocktail waitress lingo. They always called their customers and fellow workers “sugar,” “baby,” or “honey.” I always overheard them saying “Can I get you any cranberry juice, sugar?” Or “Would you like Red Bull with that, baby?” And sometimes: “Honey, how about another magnum of Cristal?”
“So Spark’s kicking your ass?” Billy asked. He was organizing the beer in the coolers into neat stacked towers.
“Everyone’s just a little crazy there, you know? I mean, we drink like a million shots every night, and half the staff take coke breaks every other minute, and this one guy I work with, who’s sort of like in charge of the bartenders, he takes money from the register and keeps it for tips.” I threw that last bit out there deliberately to gauge Billy’s reaction. Of course I had no intention of telling him that I too was guilty of taking a little extra cash.
He didn’t even blink. After twelve years of bartending in New York City and the Hamptons, Billy had pretty much seen and heard it all. “It’s a rock star world, kiddo,” he said. “After a while it hardly fazes you. You just have to keep your head on straight and not get swept up in all of it, ’cause it can be pretty fucked up.”
And it certainly was. I mulled over the chain of deception in my head. Bartenders stole from the promoters, who stole from the owners, who stole from the well-to-do clientele, some of whom ironically had their own problems with thievery. The week before I’d read an article in the Observer about certain scions of the upper crust who had shoplifting and embezzlement problems. And look at Winona Ryder—what did she need to steal for? All those people were staging one big ploy for attent
ion. Except for me, of course. I just needed the extra cash at the moment and then I promised myself I’d never do it again.
“We had this one guy working here a couple of years ago, stealing tons of money,” Billy went on. “Dan caught on pretty quickly and canned him. It’s just so stupid to do that. An owner always knows when an employee is stealing.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, Dan said he stole a couple grand in less than a month. I heard through the grapevine that the guy couldn’t get another bartending gig in the city again. That’s the thing—if somebody fires you for stealing, whether it’s true or not, word gets around to all the other bar owners and you’re fucked.”
I gulped, but I calmed myself down by thinking that I would certainly never come close to stealing thousands in under a month, even though there was so much money floating around at Spark that they probably wouldn’t even notice.
“There she is!” a voice suddenly boomed from the entrance. I turned and saw Baby Carmine strutting into the bar, accompanied by a short, plump woman with long black hair. Even though it was a virtual inferno outside, the woman was draped in a full-length chinchilla coat and adorned with more gold and baubles than King Tut’s tomb. Baby Carmine was in a white linen suit, with a shiny, black silk shirt underneath. Of course the top three buttons had been left open so his diamond-encrusted crucifix was visible, gleaming underneath a web of wiry chest hair. His sapphire pinky ring twinkled in the light that reflected off his giant gold Rolex. I noticed that the woman was wearing a matching Rolex, although hers was partially veiled by a tangled lattice of diamond tennis bracelets. “Cassie, this is my wife, Olympia.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” I said. She reached over the bar, clamped my face in between two bejeweled hands, and kissed me on each cheek.
“Honey, I’ve heard so much about you!” she enthused, in a nasally Fran Drescher–New York accent.
“How are you, doll face?” Baby Carmine said, grabbing my jewel-less hand and kissing it.
“Long time, no see,” I said.
“Yeah, well, I was kind of on vacation . . . on a very exotic island,” he said with a wily grin, flashing his gold-capped teeth.
“Yeah,” I said, “You look very relaxed.”
He laughed ironically. “I think we’re gonna grab some dinner, gorgeous,” he said, escorting his fur-clad wife toward the dining room.
“Come see me for a drink when you’re finished,” I requested, smiling at Mrs. Baby Carmine.
I watched them promenade through the restaurant, a blur of sparkling jewelry and plush glossy fur, thinking that Baby Carmine and Olympia were eerily reminiscent of P. Diddy’s entourage with their bling-and-logo mania. I could have cut them out of the Finton’s background and dropped them into Spark right next to the rappers and they would have fit in perfectly—minus the fact that they were white, Italian, and a good twenty years older. In their wake, I felt the curse of the nouveau riche in America. In the words of Bruce Springsteen, You end up like a dog that’s been beat too much till you spend half your life just covering up.
Not that I blamed them. I could relate. There was nothing I liked more than flashing my new (real) Gucci sunglasses or having the tag on my Juicy sweats peek out at just the right moment—especially when I was feeling insecure around the Pearls Girls. I’d read somewhere that Americans defined wealth by the class above them. Therefore, nothing was ever enough. It was a material addiction—the more you had, the more you wanted. But it was also a major source of conflict for me, because growing up I’d been taught to appreciate everything I was lucky enough to have and value things like family and friends above all material possessions. In the microcosm of the Hamptons, I’d been infected with acquisitive fever, and I didn’t know what the antidote was.
“Cassie!” Laurel barked over the intercom. I ran over to the phone and picked it up. “Can you work this weekend?” she snapped.
“Uh, no, this weekend’s Labor Day, and it’s my last weekend in the Hamptons.”
“Well, when can I put you back on the schedule?” she demanded.
“I guess the weekend after Labor Day,” I said, feeling my anxiety level surge. I still hadn’t made up my mind about whether I should follow Teddy and Jake to the “sickest spot Manhattan’s ever seen” or stay loyal to Finton’s. At the moment, I was committed to both jobs.
“Fine,” Laurel said, and hung up. I mentally added her name to the “con” list for staying at Finton’s and turned back to the bar.
“Why don’t you bring this over to Baby Carmine’s table?” Billy said, handing me a cold bottle of Dom Perignon and two chilled champagne flutes.
“Doesn’t he have a waitress?”
“Yeah, but this is on the house as a present from Dan and us. It’s a big night for him. He just got out of jail again.”
“What? I thought he said he was on vacation on some exotic island.”
“I don’t know if you could call Riker’s Island exotic.” Billy laughed.
“Oh my God!” I gasped, peering out into the dining room to catch a glimpse of my mobster friend who ran Mulberry Street. He had his hand on his wife’s thigh and was looking at her lovingly. “What was he in for?” I asked.
“I don’t know, the usual: racketeering, drugs . . . You should do the honors. He fucking loves you.”
I grabbed the bottle, the flutes, and a champagne bucket filled with ice and presented the gifts to the recently released prisoner and his consort. “This is from Dan and Billy and me,” I said, using a napkin to muffle the sound of the cork popping. “Welcome home.”
“Thanks, beautiful,” Baby Carmine said. His wife beamed at his side as I poured two glasses. “Thank you, Dan,” Baby Carmine called across the restaurant, lifting his glass.
I followed his gaze and was surprised to see Dan Finton sitting in a booth with Martin Pritchard. Dan signaled me over as I submerged the bottle of champagne in its icy bath. I plastered what I hoped was a relaxed, friendly smile on my face and walked over to them.
“Cassie, why don’t you join us for a second and taste this Pinot Noir that Martin brought back from his friend’s vineyard in Oregon? It’s magnificent,” Dan said.
I didn’t get it. Why was Dan suddenly being warm to me again? The last time we’d spoken, he’d accused me of having questionable priorities, and now he wanted to ply me with wine?
Feeling like I had no choice, I slid in next to Dan in the dimly lit booth. Martin handed me a sparkling Riedel Bordeaux glass and poured a small amount of wine into it. When Finton’s had first opened, one reviewer commented that the wineglasses were so big, “you could drown a kitten in them.” I took a sip of the velvety Pinot Noir and let the warm liquid linger on my tongue. “Delicious,” I said, mentally adding the fact that I could sit around drinking expensive wine with the owner midshift to the “pro” list for staying at Finton’s.
“Martin just invited me to come play golf with him this weekend at Shinnecock, so if I have time, maybe I’ll swing by Spark afterward and see what you’ve been up to all summer,” Dan said. He was so mercurial. Maybe he figured that the summer was almost over, and I’d be coming back to Finton’s full time, so why not take me back into his good graces.
“I didn’t know you belonged to Shinnecock,” I said to Martin. “I thought you belonged to the Southampton Country Club.”
“Yes, well, they don’t have golf there, my dear. Truth be told, I’m not much of a golfer anymore since I injured my back,” Martin said, chuckling under his breath and shooting Dan a devious look. I cringed, thinking he no doubt meant that he’d thrown out his back swinging with Lily, Denise, and Bill rather than a five-iron. “But the course is beautiful, and all my friends out there are members.”
“It’s the number-one course in the country,” Dan said.
“I’ve never been there,” I said. “But I had brunch at the Maidstone a couple of weeks ago with James and his father. The course is right on the ocean and—”
“Who’s J
ames?” Dan interrupted.
I looked at him, momentarily confused. Dan had met James at least five times. “James Edmonton, my boyfriend, whose dad is friends with Martin. You guys have met a few times when he’s stopped by the bar.” I thought I saw Dan’s face darken, and I quickly turned away and fumbled with my napkin. “Anyway, it was really nice.”
“Ah, the Maidstone,” Martin mused. “Lovely place. It’s one of the few institutions in the Hamptons that’s still almost exactly as it was when it first opened, over a hundred years ago. The rest have bent with the times, so to speak.”
“Oh, really?” I asked. I harkened back to the genial conversation I’d had with Charles, the feisty ex-director of admissions at the Maidstone, who’d tried to diversify the club at the expense of his position.
“Of course. The Maidstone is incredibly traditional,” Martin went on. “Their committee is dedicated to discerning who should and should not be admitted. The newer clubs in the Hamptons aren’t nearly as selective,” he scoffed. “For example, National, in Southampton. Some younger men with no family connections in the Hamptons who did well in the Internet boom of the late ’90s decided simply to start their own club because they couldn’t get into any of the established ones.”
“That was smart of them,” I said evenly, trying to nip in the bud what threatened to be another one of Martin’s diatribes about new money encroaching on the sanctity of the Hamptons WASP aristocracy.
“National’s actually really beautiful,” Dan said. “A friend of mine belongs there. The staff waits on you hand and foot. They literally wipe the sweat off your forehead and spritz you with Evian. It’s hysterical.”
“It’s tacky,” Martin groused. “That’s what those people don’t understand. When you go into a club like the Maidstone, it’s casual because it’s a country club, for Christ’s sake! The members don’t want the staff fawning all over them. They want to be left alone.”
“Exactly,” Dan agreed, suddenly switching his position. “The members of National need to have waiters and caddies falling all over them because it makes them feel important.”