But for the first time in a long time, it wasn’t about being at the hot spot, or sighting celebrities, or being photographed, or even about consummating a night out with a guy. Tonight had been about bonding with the group and spending time with her friends, with nothing more to be desired. And for that matter, they could have been absolutely anywhere. (Well, maybe not Whitehouse or 21 Water, but pretty much anywhere else.) And Jamie only wished the night could slow down.
But around three (the early group had departed around one thirty), Craig rallied the remaining people together to get a van. Mark had disappeared ages ago.
“Already?” Jamie asked, feeling like a five-year-old being told to go to sleep. But satisfied with the turn the night had taken, she obediently followed.
Funneling out of the club into the abyss of darkness, Jamie didn’t even notice Kevin Connolly standing outside as she strolled out. And she didn’t even complain about the sardine effect as she piled behind twenty people into one of the waiting vans.
“Ten Eighty-one Montauk!” a distant voice directed the driver.
“No, it’s Ten Eighty-eight!” another argued.
“Can we stop at 7-Eleven?” voiced a third.
But Brian had other ideas. “Anyone thirsty?” entreated his voice from the back.
“Where’d you get that?” everyone cried, whipping around as he unveiled a half-full bottle of Grey Goose from underneath his shirt.
“At five hundred dollars a bottle, I couldn’t just leave it on the table,” he said. Reaching in front of him and grabbing Jamie’s head, he motioned like he was going to pour it in her mouth.
Shocking everyone, most of all herself, she tilted her head back, opened wide, and allowed him to do so.
The vodka burned her throat as it trickled down, but made her feel wild and alive and uninhibited. And most of all, happy.
Throwing her head up and wiping the spillage off her face, she turned to her friends. “You guys, I had so much fun. This was one of the best nights I’ve had in a long time.”
From next to her, Dave turned to look her in the eye. “Oh, the night is young,” he said, much to Jamie’s delight, as the last thing she felt like doing was going to sleep. He then smiled mischievously. “Four AM in a share house is when the party first begins.”
Reveling not as much in her vodka shot as in the anticipation of it, Jamie shot him a smile back.
And as they pulled away from the club, Jamie gazed out at the maze of loiterers smoking cigarettes, engaging in PDA, puking curbside, and evading the numerous cop cars ready to pounce. She shook her head. Oh, where in the world was she?
Perhaps this was unlike anywhere she’d ever been, anything she’d ever done, anyplace she’d wanted to be. Perhaps her glamorous Friday nights had taken a total 180-degree flip.
But be it East Hampton, Southampton, or indeed, Frat-Hampton—she was loving every minute of it.
Chapter Six
When you’re done going out, there is the going-out aftermath.
Not that Allison didn’t believe the night (the weekend...the year) had already been enough of a roller-coaster ride.
Still, from the moment they decamped from the club, that aftermath began.
Aftermath in a share house started with food. Though, since most things outside Manhattan (notwithstanding its residents) do not operate nocturnally, people had only four choices: pit-stopping at McDonald’s (if you think emaciated girls who refused to touch a carb all day wouldn’t rifle down fries at 4 AM, you are clearly mistaken); pit-stopping at 7-Eleven (what inebriated men in their late twenties wouldn’t do for a blue Slurpee!); ordering from the only open eatery, the Hampton Bays Diner (speed-dialing during the van ride home proved most time-efficient); or, for the more culinarily inclined, throwing anything lying around that was remotely edible onto the barbecue grill (and hopefully remembering to turn it off again).
Now, while any of the above options may seem in itself sufficient, over the course of one night Allison saw each one exhausted.
And that was just for starters. Once everyone was properly nourished, that was when the throwing commenced. (Oh yes, the throwing.) In a take-no-prisoners manner, everything was thrown: furniture into the pool, clothes onto the floor, food into your face. The share house mantra? If it’s lying out, consider it thrown. And if you stood too close to the pool, well...consider yourself warned.
Unfortunately, Tara (Jocelyn?) came to establish this rule when Rob shockingly pushed her in and inspired (nearly) everyone’s pity. Now, Allison wasn’t a sadistic person, but she was an observant one—and all too aware that said target had occupied Josh’s lap the entirety of the van ride, and was also the willing recipient of his drink offers. So Allison didn’t entirely mind when Tara/Jocelyn hit the water, complete with clothes and cell phone and jewelry. Until Tara/Jocelyn relayed that she’d yesterday had her hair chemically straightened—a process that not only took five hours but cost her nearly five hundred dollars (a figure at which the damage finally resonated). Following this process, she wasn’t allowed to wash her hair the entire weekend so as not to upset the chemicals, something the chlorine most certainly succeeded in doing. And while her friends tried to reassure her that her hair wouldn’t fall out, Rob atoned for his guilt by offering to lend her Brian’s hat.
Needless to say, she was the last girl he attempted to throw in the pool. That evening.
It wasn’t, however, the last of Rob’s practical jokes. When the let’s-think-of-something-to-do stage of the aftermath ensued, and mundane amusements such as Truth or Dare or I Never were proposed, Rob voiced a more creative suggestion.
“I know,” he said. “Let’s play Find the Mirror.”
It took a moment for his hoax to register. “Hey!” Jamie shrieked, going over and pounding him playfully with her fist. “Where is it?”
Smiling, he responded with only one word. “Cold.”
Allison suspected that Jamie might have been furious had his answer not been so creative (and memories of their dreadful getting-ready experience not so far behind them). Obligingly, her friend took a dramatic step to the left, which garnered her a prized “Warmer.”
Pretty soon the entire room was enraptured in a convoluted game of Hot and Cold, which led them fruitlessly in and out of each room, and finally to the mirror’s hiding place in the closet.
Then, after everything hidden had been unearthed and everything throwable had taken flight, the group’s late-night personalities were revealed. And up until now, Allison had been an impartial observer, with a mission merely to understand the ways of drunken single people. But witnessing oddities she’d never before encountered, she found the colorful cast of characters before her to be altogether immature, unnerving, and endlessly shocking:
• The WWF (Wasted Wrestling Fools): This was the group of guys (presumably members of that destructive fraternity that was always on probation in college) who couldn’t drink without taking on Rocky’s fighting mentality. With them, any ill-considered comment escalated into an argument, and every inadvertent tap into a full-blown wrestling match. In short, to drink was to become belligerent (and consequently, to break something).
• The Male-Attention Whore: There was always one whiny girl (who is made considerably whinier with intoxication) who stopped at nothing to be the center of all male attention. She would not be satisfied unless she was the orchestrator of every joke, narrator of every story, and focus of every eye. And if she wasn’t, she’d employ any degree of shrieking, flirting, and ridiculing to capture this status.
• The Stripped Tees: The naked drinkers, the guys whose after-hours activities seemed to always involve losing their shirts. They did so in an only partially disguised effort to expose their gym-honed physique (something the next day at the pool could have similarly accomplished).
• The Mutes: The omnipresent people who hung around not saying a word or doing a thing, but continued to linger slumpishly into the AM anyway. They didn’t take any value away from a r
oom, but (aside from sheer volume) certainly didn’t add to it, either. And for that matter, they might as well have gone to sleep hours ago.
• The Eccentric Eater: He or she concocted the weirdest combinations of food imaginable, less for shock value than for gastronomic pleasure. This was not to be confused with the Oral Fixator, who shoveled into his or her mouth anything and everything in sight.
• The Marathon Puker: The overindulger who left the bathroom off-limits for the entire evening—who seemed utterly repulsive, until it became you.
• The Leaning Tower of Tequila: This was the guy who drank so much, he could barely hold himself up, and for whom the night became an unending quest for balance. Pushing him back into an upright position required a frequent and collective effort.
• The Hot Tub Christener: The person who continually suggested hitting the hot tub—merely because he or she thought it the cool thing to do, and wanted to be known as the one who made use of the hot tub. Unsurprisingly, this was invariably the person who was least cool, and least inclined to get any action sans steam.
Allison noticed that missing from this ragtag bunch were the house managers—even though the dearth of supervision left the house open to implosion. Mark had disappeared from the club extremely early in the evening, and though no one had seen him even speaking to anyone, everyone assumed there was a girl with him behind his closed door. And while Craig had upheld his surrogate duties by waiting out the night at Pink Elephant, he hit his bed the moment they returned to the share house...proving him either a heavy sleeper or prescription-friendly.
He wasn’t the only one in such lackluster pursuit. As many people as there were who wanted desperately to break dawn with the biggest ruckus possible, there were others who craved only enough tranquility to fall asleep. But hearing outside distractions while lying in a bed was quite the desirable predicament, given how many others couldn’t share in the luxury and had to stake claims on any available couches; while others were assigned beds only to find them prematurely occupied.
Last but not least (in fact, undeniably most important), intertwined among all of the above were the ass seekers—more imperative on the first night than on any subsequent night. And while girls mostly sat around and looked available, Allison found it quite amusing to study the guys in their approach. She determined their tactics to be less calculated, more impulsive, and subject to countless revision: First they’d set their targets high, on whomever they’d earlier deemed the hottest girl in the house (usually overlapping with other guys in this estimation). Should their efforts be refused (not so much previously in the day as at this pivotal moment), they’d instead zero in on a second girl—one they were still attracted to, but perhaps not initially their first choice. Should this girl seem unlikely to oblige them, they’d move farther and farther down the ladder. And so the pattern continued until they’d finally identify a girl whom they perhaps barely found attractive, but whose appearance was secondary to her obvious willingness.
Similarly amusing, as the hours wore on, the testosterone-driven tactics grew increasingly immature and increasingly transparent. The guy who began by drumming up polite conversation might progress to poking fun, then to pushing and shoving, and finally to nailing his target with french fries.
Allison couldn’t decide who was the more culpable party: the guys who resorted to fast-food throwing or the girls who succumbed to this romantic gesture.
Holding their own in the bastion of sexual tension were Allison’s friends, whom she believed to be faring pretty well.
Despite his initial indifference, Rachel had made remarkable headway with Dan. She’d spent the bulk of the night huddled in the booth in conversation with him, to which the nightclub was hardly conducive. Still, she advanced and advanced and advanced until she finally got her way. Or what one might perceive to be her way.
For, Hamptons or not, Rachel wasn’t one to compromise her strongly practiced convictions. (Those convictions being to not practice at all.) So Dan, thinking he’d at the very least secured a kissing buddy, was in for quite the surprise when they got back to the house.
“My room or yours?” Allison overheard him whisper, firmly clutching Rachel’s hand.
“Oh,” she remarked, taking a reflexive step back. “I think you have the wrong idea.” Then, seeing the bewilderment on his face, added, “I mean, I don’t see why we should rush into anything. We should go for dinner this week.”
Upon mention of the D word, Dan did the only thing a hormone-raging (and time-handicapped) guy at 4 AM in a share house possibly could do. He released her hand (so quickly you’d suspect it was stricken with disease) and hastily set off to find a less moral target.
Fully distraught, Rachel joined the large group that had congregated around the living room sofa. And she stayed there, until Aaron and Steve came over. Allison wouldn’t have minded talking to Steve again—at the meet and greet he’d seemed incredibly polite—but Rachel clearly didn’t want to give Aaron a second of her time. Further aggravated by his presence, she declared it “insanely late” and decided to call it a night.
Jamie was a different story, though Allison had long ago quit trying to track her capricious friend’s love life. And while she noticed Jamie’s ears fine-tune to a conversation confirming the absence of her recent conquest (“Jeff was so pissed he couldn’t make it out this weekend,” someone had mentioned), it didn’t seem to take her long to recover.
Dave had taken an obvious liking to her from the start, and while Allison initially thought his height would put him out of the running, she noticed Jamie’s growing interest in him. Allison imagined he’d won her over with his unexpected dance skills, mischievous smile, or the one thing that Jamie was helpless against—constant attention. During the course of their flirty interactions, Brian had kindly kept Allison entertained, but when Jamie stepped into their bedroom to change for the night (not before giving her friend an encouraging nod), Allison saw Dave sneak in after her. (Pretty much the whole house did.) She subsequently heard a loud bang, but didn’t see him scurry out again.
And she didn’t know what to do next.
New to this problem—she’d always had a serious boyfriend to whose apartment she could easily retreat—her instincts told her not to rush back in. Brian offered momentary relief, and, though distracted, Allison talked with him rather effortlessly. Really, anyone could have, as Brian was one of those guys it was hard not to like (though she couldn’t yet tell if he was also that one every girl laughed with, yet none took seriously). His humor wasn’t of the loud, obnoxious, attention-seeking sort, as Rob’s was; he was instead witty and subtle and quick. You had to really pay attention or you’d miss his sharp interjections. Unlike most of the serious guys Allison knew, Brian used this humor to deflect the gravity of nearly every situation, and almost got away with it. However, his eyes gave away his vulnerable, sensitive side—the guy who just wanted to be loved, and in return would treat a girl like gold.
Still, despite Brian’s efforts and the fact that the room was packed and buzzing, Allison now felt strangely foreign in it without her friends—only now fully appreciating the comfort of their presence.
In the midst of the unfamiliar, Allison was drawn to the familiar. She found these urges to be altogether immature, unnerving, and endlessly shocking.
But when you’re done going out, there is the going-out aftermath.
Aftermath among exes starts with surveillance. And Allison honestly intended Brian no disrespect. But from the other side of the room, she now felt herself extremely conscious of Josh—whom she’d resolved to ignore (for the most part succeeding) from the moment she discovered him.
This proved to be a whole lot easier in theory. And so, she’d allowed herself to steal intermittent glances, finding it impossible to keep her eyes from the one place she knew she shouldn’t look.
Phase two of her game was the I’m-over-you facade. After most satisfyingly detecting Josh’s eyes on her, Allison acted the part
—that of a person who was fully self-sufficient, fully capable of thriving in a boisterous share house environment, and who’d fully and unmistakably moved on. Allison and said counterpart bore no similarities. Still, she flirted like each guy was full of potential, laughed like each joke was the funniest thing she’d ever heard, and danced like no one was watching. But only when he was.
Believing in this facade was an entirely different matter. Though she’d spent the whole night at Pink Elephant trying to look like she was having the time of her life, all she’d been able to think about was the guy sitting opposite her. The one who knew more about her than anyone else in the world. The one with whom she’d shared nearly every moment of five years. The one she could bar from her vision but never her memory.
Not that Josh hadn’t been pretending-to-have-moved-on back, and a hundred times more viciously, as guys often do. He’d made obvious his interest in Tara/Jocelyn (whichever one had suffered the chlorine mishap), who was the type of girl Allison knew always tempted him. Someone high-maintenance and fashionable, snooty to other girls and thus to guys a desirable conquest. The type of girl who couldn’t have been any farther from herself. Of course, Josh had always denied it, but she’d always suspected he was disappointed that she didn’t know one designer from the next, was the last to catch on to the Murray Hill trends, preferred flats and casual, nonrevealing clothing, and didn’t turn guys’ heads when she walked down the street.
That she’d never been any of these things had never bothered her in the least. Until she realized Tara/Jocelyn embodied all of them.
What’s worse, Allison had been forced to watch them from across the communal table the group had shared. And though she’d kept busy dancing, Rob had kept them laughing, and Brian (often the ventriloquist to Rob’s dummy) had supplied a generous stream of tequila, she’d found herself yielding to what she couldn’t deny:
How the Other Half Hamptons Page 7