“Uh...sure,” Rachel replied, suddenly imagining the girl using up all her minutes, or calling out of country, or accidentally dropping it in the pool. But she had no choice.
Trying not to appear anxious as the girl pounded authoritatively on the dial pad, making one call after another, Rachel couldn’t distinguish the words she muffled softly and privately until the girl addressed her directly. “What’s the address here?”
Rachel drew a blank. Fortunately, the number she’d drilled repeatedly into her head (in the event she was lost, abducted, or assaulted) resurfaced. “Ten Eighty-eight Montauk Highway.”
The girl repeated this verbatim. “A cab’s coming to get me,” she announced a few minutes later, then handed Rachel back her phone.
Casually accepting it, Rachel resumed her normal breathing. “That’s good,” she said. Then, since the girl still lingered beside her, she added, “So...I guess you’re not in this house?”
Staring into space, the girl seemed to still be thinking about her phone, but then surprised Rachel by responding. “No. My friend hit it off with some guy at Pink Elephant last night, so she begged me to come back to this house with her.”
“Wow, that was really...nice of you,” Rachel exclaimed, imagining she’d never have done anything of the sort.
“Stupid is more like it,” the girl acknowledged, rummaging through her bag and emerging with a pack of Marlboro Lights. “Because they started hooking up, so I just found a bed and went to sleep, and God knows where they are now.” Rachel noticed she’d left out the part about hooking up herself, but saw no need to point it out. The girl sighed, depression visibly washing over her again. “I just want to get the hell out of here and try to find my phone,” she said, lighting the cigarette she dangled from her mouth. “Want one?”
“No, thanks,” Rachel said, feeling too sorry for the girl to ask her to please smoke in a different direction. A few minutes later Rachel’s phone rang, and the girl immediately grabbed at it. (So now she’s getting calls on my phone? Rachel thought.) But after speaking for only a moment, the girl returned it and rose to her feet. “My cab’s here. Thanks for your help,” she called as she ran off, a blaze of smoke and sequins.
“Sure,” Rachel said, with considerable relief. And so she settled back into her chair again, alone with the silence that, a few minutes later, seemed to have never left.
Her mind instantly began to wander—replaying the details of the night before, freezing on the part she didn’t care to think about. The part that was Dan.
She’d been so hopeful about him—of course, that was before he tried to capitalize on their chemistry. Before she’d realized that what to some was “chemistry” was to others “anticipated ass.” It was a shame, too, because really he had everything going for him that she usually looked for, every element of the equation. What a devastating (and time-consuming) blow this had been! But she knew as well as any that some equations have no real solutions.
As the minutes drew on, more and more girls began to spring up and scatter themselves among the lounge chairs (where had they come from?). At first Rachel tried to be friendly, but either these girls weren’t morning people or they had serious sticks up their nonexistent asses. And so they all coexisted awkwardly, with their identical pink iPods and Us Weeklys and chick-lit novels...their hot little swimsuits (boasting New York Sports Club–sculpted and carb-starved bodies), dark straightened hair (tied back to deter frizz), and thick designer shades (this season’s Chanel, Gucci, or Marc Jacobs)...and with the dismissive attitude they had mastered—conveying bored yet arrogant in perfect proportion. But beneath it all raged insecurities and a desire to just blend in. In irritating New York intonation, they yammered on their cell phones (the smallest, newest flip-top models), disclosing minute details of the night before (which Rachel found especially ironic, as everyone in the house had pretty much had the same night—all that differed were the names each whiny voice dropped). The voices started off hushed but took on volume, and while everyone around the pool pretended not to eavesdrop, each word of each frivolous conversation became universal (if inconsequential) knowledge.
Once the guys started filtering outside, things became a tad more interesting. But just a tad. Like a boy-girl party from fifth grade, the guys and girls instinctively divided themselves to opposite sides, barely acknowledging each other. This separation wasn’t difficult to maintain, since the girls preferred to bask on lounge chairs (filling up quickly) while the pool became the guys’ safe haven. No girl, in the name of vanity, ever fully went in.
Still, in the midst of all this, Rachel was quick to notice something appearing before her. Something of which she was so desperately in need.
A new variable.
When you can barely distinguish one person from the next, as is often the case the first full day in a share house, people assume identities based solely on their swimsuits. And so, awakening to the splash of a body she had certainly never before seen hit the water, Rachel came to monitor that pair of yellow trunks. Equally, she monitored the face attached to them—a rugged unshaven face with dark features, longish hair, and a happy-go-lucky smile. True, he wasn’t the tallest guy there, but he compensated with both an evident gym commitment and deliberate placement of his broad shoulders to exaggerate their effect. Plus, he was tan. Not just red-enough-not-to-be-white tan, but dark-incapable-of-burning tan—which people are in May only if they make a concerted effort.
This wasn’t the only effort he made. “Hey,” he said, lunging over the pool’s edge and flashing her a smile so personable she wondered if she knew him. “Do you have any sunscreen?”
She did, of course, right next to her. Though she found the remark funny, because from her experience sunscreen ranked so low on guys’ lists of priorities that not only did they never bring it, but they applied it only when they reached the brink of lobster red that prompted everyone to continually ask “Are you wearing sunscreen?”
Happily accepting it as a conversation starter, Rachel knelt beside the pool’s edge and handed it over.
“Forty-five, huh?” he said, in a way that made her blush. “Guess they were out of sixty,” he joked, then squeezed some out with that indiscreet blurping noise. He thanked her, again flashing an exaggerated smile.
“Did we meet last night?” Rachel finally asked, alarmed at the prospect she had forgotten a face (and silently vowing to ditch the embarrassingly strong sunscreen).
“Probably not, but I thought I’d play it safe,” he said in an effortlessly charming manner. “We came late and went straight to the club. Brett,” he added, a wave of water splashing her as he put out his hand.
“Rachel,” she said, leaning over to shake and paying the water absolutely no mind (so long as it didn’t go anywhere near her hair). To be safe, she sat back down again. “So you’re up early,” she said, realizing he could say the same to her. And leaving it open for him to do so.
He waded a bit closer. “I have to be at work at six thirty every day, so I always wake up early on the weekends.” A man after her own heart!
“What do you do?” she asked, as nonchalantly as she could. But not quite nonchalantly enough.
“I’m a trader,” he said, which made sense given his slick persona. “You?”
“Analyst,” she answered, before steering the conversation back to him again. “Do you work on Wall Street?” she continued, hungry for details.
“No. Lehman, in Midtown.” He gazed away and closed his eyes for a moment, as if concentrating on tanning would maximize the effect.
“Ohmigod, I work right around there. At Bear,” she said, lunging forward on her seat. This was just getting good. “So what do you trade? Stocks, bonds, derivatives?”
There was something utterly out of place about hearing the word derivative poolside. He picked up on it as well.
“Fixed income, institutional side.” Just as she was about to bombard him with a dose of names, he added, “But I try not to think about work on
the weekends.” That said, he changed the topic. “So where’d you go last night?” It was the question uppermost on everyone’s minds in the morning, used to ascertain whether or not they had missed a better time elsewhere.
“Pink Elephant,” she said. “And you?”
“Yeah, I was at the Pink Elephant.” It irked her when people added the on to the names of clubs, but it bothered her less once he pulled himself out of the pool and positioned himself on the edge of her chair, somewhat presumptuously. “What’d you think?”
“I had a lot of fun,” she said. Which she would have claimed even if she hadn’t, for it was her policy to act like everything in life happened the way she intended. “What about you?”
“I was so drunk I couldn’t tell you,” he said, half complaining, half boasting. As if suddenly recalling his hangover, he hung his head back like it weighed a hundred pounds. The spot where he was sitting on her towel had developed a huge wet splotch, but Rachel considered it a small price for this intimacy. She’d never known a guy to act so casual around a stranger—like they were already well acquainted. “So I don’t know about you, but I’m starving,” he said, straightening up. “Do you want to take a ride to the bagel store?”
Stunned, she looked at him like he had just proposed marriage instead of a food run. “Do you...have a car?” she finally responded.
“Yeah, it’s in the driveway. Come on,” he said, standing up and gesturing with his hand for her to follow.
Rachel had absolutely no desire to eat a bagel, and even less to leave the house before connecting with her friends. (Where were her friends?) Flattered by the impromptu invitation, though, she accepted. Agreeing to meet him in front of the house in five, she dashed up to her room, threw a brightly colored Juicy skirt and wifebeater over her bathing suit, and had just pulled the door shut behind her when it reopened.
Out stepped Dave, wearing nothing but boxers and rubbing his eyes groggily.
“Listen,” he began. “About last night...” A decently attractive guy, he now looked like he was seeing daylight for the first time in months. His light hair was standing up in a way she would have thought impossible without ultrastrength mousse, and he peered lazily at her through half-shut eyes.
Confused, she waited for him to elaborate, though he seemed to be having trouble finding the words. That, and commanding his vision. “What are you talking about?” she asked, hating to keep Brett waiting.
His eyes widened, fully unsquinting as if he’d instantly come sober. “Oh, we didn’t...last night?”
“No!” she shrieked. Perhaps her reaction was a bit harsh, but she was more appalled by the act he was insinuating than the possibility it’d been with him.
He seemed only for a minute insulted. But looking hastily at her again, he then whispered, “Do you have any idea who, then?”
Rachel stared at him in awe, unsure whether to laugh or reprimand him. As time was ticking, she decided it wasn’t her place to do either. “Didn’t you wake up next to her?” she asked, straining to bar any judgment from her tone.
“Nooo,” he sang, as if that answer was obvious. “There’s no one in the room now but Jamie, and I only saw someone’s back before.” He inspected Rachel again. “Are you sure? I came into your room with Jamie, and I got into bed with someone.”
“Yeah, that part I remember. I pushed you off onto the floor,” she told him, flashing him a scolding look. “But here’s what I don’t get,” she proceeded, now quite invested in the mystery. “I went to bed first. And you’re saying you came into the room with Jamie?”
“Yeah.”
“And there was a girl sleeping in Allison’s bed?”
“There were people in both beds.” He shrugged.
Rachel digested this. “So then why didn’t Jamie make her get up?”
Oddly, this Dave could answer. “Maybe because that other girl you came with was hooking up. Jamie said she was going to.”
“What?” Rachel exclaimed, her eyes bulging. She wasn’t sure what shocked her more—that Allison had done what she’d least expected, or the extent of Jamie’s manipulation. “Who did Allison hook up with last night?”
“Hey! Can we first figure out who I hooked up with?” he shouted, though at the same time smiling.
Rachel sighed, and for a moment contemplated making him sweat. “I hate to break it to you, but she ran out of here early this morning.”
She expected Dave to look distraught, but instead discovered him overwhelmingly relieved. “Who was she?” he finally asked.
“I have no idea, some random. Her friend’s hooking up with a guy here,” she replied, though Dave was no longer listening. Instead, he was covering his mouth as he let out a loud yawn.
Seeing that her work here was done, and having wasted far too much time already, Rachel about-faced. But Dave blocked her with his arm, posing one final question before she could hurry away.
“Last thing...was she cute at least?” The mischievous gleam returned to his eyes.
Rachel smiled, once again embracing the opportunity to make him sweat. “She looked as hot as you possibly could wearing club clothes at nine in the morning.”
With that, she pounded down the stairs.
Running outside to greet Brett, she found him leaning idly against his car and talking into his cell phone, hardly seeming like the same person. He’d thrown on a bright white T-shirt (which served to illuminate his tan) and shiny square sunglasses that hid much of his face. In fact, they hardly seemed the same two people who’d been lounging hungrily beside the pool ten minutes ago. As a mere layer of clothing had afforded, he was now a guy, and she was a girl, and that was a 2008 silver Porsche whose door he was holding open for her.
At that moment, Rachel grew suddenly shy. Going for bagels. This was a date...sort of?
She examined the evidence:
If she and Brett were going for food (a5b)
And going for food is considered a date (b5c)
Then she and Brett were going on a date. (a5c)
And there you had it. Proof by deduction.
Chapter Eight
When you come to a crossroads, there isn’t always a clear-cut choice.
But there they were, the very last night of the very first weekend, and Jamie was determined to have her way at least once.
So far she’d sucked it up rather heroically and followed Mark to each of his respective clubs. They’d accompanied the share house to Pink Elephant on Friday and Star Room on Saturday; they were supposed to return with them to Star Room tonight for the final evening of the holiday weekend. But after the three girls had packed up from the pool and retreated to their room that afternoon, Jamie decided the time was right to propose her alternative.
And it wasn’t that she’d been having a bad time at these places. On the contrary, she’d been bonding with her housemates, letting her hair down, and having a refreshingly unpretentious, great time. Still, she couldn’t ignore the fact that each party (and partygoer) had been disappointingly...ordinary, and she craved a small taste of the glamour for which the Hamptons was known. And—more important—the guys said glamour enticed.
There was no arguing that guys who flocked to “the scene”—to quote her friends—weren’t the type of guys looking to settle down. Well, actually, there was a lot of arguing about it. Incessant arguing, as a matter of fact. For Rachel (and perhaps Allison, too, though Rachel was far more vocal about it), any guy who was so infatuated with frequenting the “in” party, running with the right crowd, and being the focus of beautiful girls (plural) wasn’t the type of guy who deserved any of her time. Especially not when there were perfectly decent, spotlight-shunning investment bankers waiting in the wings elsewhere (elsewhere being the slightly less exclusive venues). There you would find countless guys who spent their time raking in dough rather than obsessing over party schedules and promoters and everything else Rachel equated with misdirection. Guys who, come the weekend, looked to the Marks of the world to direct
them to a place they could trade in their credit cards for bottles—a place whose name they would quickly forget but would temporarily provide a normal-enough crowd, ego-stroking girls, and free-flowing booze.
This, for Jamie, was not enough.
Unlike her friends, Jamie herself resembled the scene-seeking playboys. When she went out she did so to let loose, to see and be seen, and to mingle with tons of people (the more, the better) rather than to weed out the one guy who could potentially be her husband. And it wasn’t so much about the attention (though naturally, the attention always did follow). It was about the liberation, the defying of convention, and, for better or worse, the glamour. And it suited her just fine.
Deep down she hated that her friends saw this as a sign of immaturity, some rebellious phase she would eventually outgrow. Yet if maturity was synonymous with monotony and monogamy, Jamie hardly saw herself reaching that point in the near future. This wasn’t to say she couldn’t appreciate a guy with a solid education and a promising career who was from a world that closely mirrored her own. And she certainly wouldn’t undervalue any good-looking ones (namely Jeff, whom she was beginning to think was a figment of her imagination). But she soon discovered that talking to one Mike/David/Jon who worked in finance/law/medicine and was from Long Island/New Jersey/upstate was the same as talking to ten others. And after two nights of doing exactly that, she tired of these hordes of homogeneous cookie-cutter people—who were of course all that filled the clubs on three-day weekends. Finding a trendy nightclub scene in the Hamptons on a holiday appeared no more feasible than finding one in Manhattan on a weekend (when any ounce of weekday trendiness was lost to the masses desperate to go somewhere and willing to pay good money to do so). Lacking as a result was any flair, any flavor—and most of all any space to move around. Jamie saw tonight as a final opportunity to take hold of the wheel and steer her reluctant friends into uncharted territory: the private party. She had a feeling it wouldn’t go over well.
How the Other Half Hamptons Page 9