How the Other Half Hamptons

by Jasmin Rosemberg

  “So, the Hamptons Magazine party at Hampton Hall tonight is, like, the kick-off to the summer,” Jamie began, more fervor slipping into her tone than she intended. As time had taught her, her friends were inherently suspicious of anything she wanted too badly. “My whole firm is going to be there... basically everyone is going to be there,” she added, flopping onto her bed and attempting not to sound like she cared too much.

  Unfortunately, it didn’t work. “That sounds way too complicated,” Rachel said, shooting her down immediately. “It would cost us a million dollars in cabs, and no one even knows how to get anywhere.” Jamie wondered how much her friend was being swayed by that guy Brett she’d met yesterday. Clearly she was in no rush to separate from him.

  Allison at least entertained the idea. “I thought we decided it would look bad if we split from everyone the first weekend?” she pointed out while neatly repacking her pool stuff. Now that she’d reunited with Josh, Allison had thankfully returned to her good-natured self.

  Jamie was prepared for this rebuttal as well. More so, she’d been counting on it. “We can still meet up with them at Star Room after. This is an early party, it starts at nine,” she explained, emphasizing the key to her argument.

  No one spoke for a moment.

  “Oh,” Allison finally said. “I guess we don’t usually do anything during that time anyway?” And it was true. The ideal time slot for getting ready in a share house—four to seven PM—was unofficially naptime.

  Seeing she was quickly losing out, Rachel hurried to intervene. “So how would we even get anywhere?” she asked, wriggling upright on her bed.

  Jamie grinned, conscious that Rachel was slowly conceding. “Okay, so here’s my plan. I would drive us to the Hamptons Magazine party at Hampton Hall and leave my car parked there overnight. Then we can take a cab from there to Star Room, where we’ll meet up with everyone, and someone can drive us to Hampton Hall to get the car tomorrow morning.” She relayed the details as slowly as possible, though any way you put it, it was a mouthful.

  “Do you even know how to get to Hampton Hall?” Rachel fired off.

  “I’ll get directions. How hard can it be? The Hamptons is only one road,” Jamie assured her. Sensing her friend’s lingering doubt, she added, “Besides, we’re not even going that far. Hampton Hall is right here in Southampton, on Elm Street.” Jamie neglected to add that she’d never even heard of Elm Street; she figured this argument needed no further obstacles.

  Pausing only to regroup, Rachel went at her again. “How do you know you can park overnight?”

  Jamie rolled her eyes. “I did it every time I came out last year.” (Which really meant once.) “These places totally expect people to do that, because everyone gets so drunk they can’t drive home.” This part involved some speculation, but it sounded feasible enough.

  Rachel addressed Allison. “What do you want to do?”

  Allison’s indifference was predictable. “I’ll do whatever.”

  Turning back toward Jamie, whose resolute look suggested she’d forever hold a grudge otherwise, Rachel finally agreed. “Okay, let’s do it.”

  Which was fortunate, because Jamie already held her cell phone in hand and had prematurely begun to dial.

  Once this plan was sealed, though, it actually made the getting-ready process that night monumentally easier. Because they weren’t leaving for the Hamptons Magazine party till eight thirty, for the first time all weekend they could actually get ready with ease, hours before anyone else would be vying for showers or mirrors.

  Plus, they were finally afforded the prized opportunity to take over Mark’s spacious bathroom—a privilege he’d quickly conferred on them before running out to grab food at a place known only as “the Pork Store.”

  After they’d filed into the spa-like enclave, Jamie closed the door behind them, opened her arms, and took a few blissful spins. It was the only bathroom in the house remotely spinnable.

  This space also instantly transformed the girls’ moods. After setting up Allison’s iPod speakers and blasting music, they started their own little party. However, no sooner had they showered, blow-dried, and taken to simultaneously applying makeup along the never-ending countertop than someone broke it up.

  “Oh,” Ilana said, walking in and seeming startled to find them. But then her tiny features tightened. “I need to shower,” she whined, clutching her towel and things restlessly.

  “Don’t let us stop you,” Jamie said, continuing to work on her eyes while gesturing to the transparent shower. And wondering how she possibly could have forgotten to lock the door.

  Ilana grimaced, flinging her towel over her shoulder angrily. “Does Mark even know you’re in here?” she spurt, color rushing to her face.

  “Yes,” Jamie replied, touching gold MAC shadow to the crease of her eye ever so gently. “He gave us the bathroom because we need to get ready for the Hamptons Magazine party,” she pronounced, insinuating not just that their time was more important, but that their social connections were superior. Driving in the knife, Jamie added, “We’ll be done at nine”—even though she expected to finish a whole half hour beforehand. Then she presumptuously gripped the doorknob, waiting until Ilana took the cue to leave before closing it again. And this time locking it.

  “Jame, she’s a friend of my sister’s,” Rachel protested. Rachel preferred to be on good terms with everyone she’d ever met in her life, because she never knew who had a friend who had a friend with whom she could possibly be set up.

  “I can’t see why,” Jamie answered, returning to her makeup and giving Ilana’s hostility no further thought.

  It was almost nine by the time they finally all got their acts together—or rather, that Jamie did. She really intended to be ready on time, but always seemed to encounter some last-minute problem. After bursting out the front door (and having to bend down and physically yank her heels out of the cracks in the wood as they hurried across the deck), all of a sudden, Jamie stopped short.

  Heading directly toward them, still twenty feet away but in her direct line of vision, was a familiar form that looked entirely out of place here—that in fact might have looked entirely out of place anywhere short of an Abercrombie catalog. Noticing this as well, her friends continued on into the darkness and waited some paces ahead.

  As he drew closer, Jamie worried he’d think she was staring, so she began unnecessarily digging through her bag until moments after his footsteps should have given him away. Then, in a dead giveaway that she’d seen him, when he was a few feet from her she looked up and straight into his face.

  “Hey?” she said, as much a question as a greeting. His striking blue eyes studied her with the innocence of a child, and she realized that as he was checking her out, it hit him that it wasn’t for the first time.

  “Oh...hey,” Jeff said, forging a massive save. He bent over and air-kissed her on the cheek, a bit too methodically for her taste.

  “Getting a late start to the weekend?” she asked. She’d heard several times that he wasn’t going to be here.

  “Yeah, I was so bummed,” he said, his eyes still locked with hers in a manner that made it difficult for her to process his words. But then he quickly moved them off her, as if aware of their effect and opting to use it sparingly. “I thought I’d be out on Friday, but I got assigned to a deal at the last minute.”

  Now, if she’d ever had any interest in knowing what he did, she might have asked him to elaborate. But to Jamie, details surrounding the guys who came in and out of her life like seasonal runway fashions always seemed superfluous. “How’d you get here?” she asked instead, bending forward to peer behind him and finding it a bit odd that he should appear off a highway.

  “I just finished, so I caught a train two hours ago. The stop is like a block away,” he explained, waving behind him to the empty space. “Figured I could salvage what was left of the weekend,” he added with a shrug, shifting his duffel bag from one side to the other, as well as his
gaze from her to the windows. Lingering silently, Jamie was hoping he might drop some casual comment about her, or about them...or, well, about her. Only “Is Mark in there?” were the next words out of his mouth.

  Jamie nodded, wondering how her party attire might have managed to escape him. Just then, as if reading her mind, he turned back and reexamined her, this time seeming to register that she was dressed up and heading out somewhere. That, and every bit as alluring as other guys made her believe.

  “Where are you going?” he asked, those eyes doing a scan of her body in a way she didn’t exactly mind, except that they landed on every inch of her besides her face. Again, something about his mannerisms reminded her of a child—one capable of entertaining only one notion at a time, who wore his desires on his sleeve and saw no need to filter them with adult-like discretion.

  “To a party,” she said, soaking up every bit of this attention—no matter how indiscreet. “But we’re going to meet up with everyone later,” she made sure to add.

  “Well, you look great,” he said, which was perhaps the most frustrating male comment of all time. Not because she didn’t want him to think she looked great, but because the fact that he did proved inconsistent with his actions. See, girls whom guys thought “looked great” usually received a phone call. Jamie, on the other hand, had not. “See you later,” he then called over his shoulder, instantly dismissing her as he concentrated all his effort on lugging his stuff up the stairs.

  Hearing the door slam with finality behind him, Jamie ran to catch up with her friends. As she struggled to regain her composure, she felt like she’d just been visited by an apparition, and worried that her face reflected this. It was ironic, though, that she’d spent the entire weekend wondering what it would have been like if he were here...and now that he finally was, she was (literally) running away from him. Plus, was it the lighting, or did he look way better than she’d remembered? Though it was perhaps the kind of “way better” most guys looked in light of not having called.

  Shaking off the encounter so as not to appear weak (harping on guys was the epitome of female weakness), Jamie directed her attention toward her more obvious shortcoming—driving.

  “Whoa, it’s dark,” she muttered under her breath as she stabbed the pebbled grounds with heels she could barely walk in, much less drive. Approaching the car, she rummaged through her Marc Jacobs bag for the keys she’d just minutes ago placed there (which took a remarkably long time, considering the small size of her bag and the fact she could barely fit anything in it). After much anticipation, she located the Tiffany heart key chain and clicked the alarm, jumping back at the startling noise. Then, pausing momentarily and staring around, she couldn’t help but exclaim again, this time louder, “You guys, it’s like totally pitch-black!”

  This wouldn’t alarm a future passenger in the least.

  “Let’s not do this,” Rachel immediately said, putting her back to the vehicle as if proof she was ready to turn right around and forget it.

  But the thought of walking back inside and admitting defeat when everyone (namely, Jeff) knew they were going out was something Jamie refused to entertain. Fear or no fear, when Jamie set about doing something, very little could stop her. “Don’t be silly,” she said, climbing awkwardly into the front seat with new momentum, and gesturing for her friends to follow her.

  After they reluctantly obeyed and slammed shut the doors that sealed them tightly inside the dark vehicle (for better or worse), nervous apprehension seemed to fill the car.

  Taking a deep breath, Jamie started up the ignition, which emitted a loud scary rumbling like a beast she wasn’t sure she could tame. After she adjusted the mirror and was reaching for the gear, she shut it all back off again and spun abruptly around. “You guys, I don’t think I can do this. It’s just really dark.” And I’m scared out of my mind, she thought.

  “Look, do you want me to drive?” Allison offered from behind. “The dark doesn’t bother me. I’m used to driving in this.”

  “Yes!” she cried without a moment’s hesitation. Rachel hated driving, but this was something Jamie hadn’t even considered! “I’ll sit shotgun so I can direct you,” she offered, sliding over and feeling as if a huge weight had been lifted off her chest. Before long the three of them had swapped seats and set off. Not only did you need the right people in your life and in your car—you also needed them in the right seats.

  In much better (safer) spirits, they creaked down the driveway, and Jamie got her personality back. Watching Allison maneuver the car so expertly (and with so little apprehension), she realized she had in no way been ready for the challenge at hand. This was especially evident when they started off down the road and Allison clicked on the brights (Jamie had never used brights in her life—nor driven anywhere that had warranted them).

  And she had to hand it to Allison: So far they were doing okay. Three days had hardly acquainted them with the area (they’d moved the car around the driveway a great deal, but taken it no farther than the bagel store or the 7-Eleven), so Jamie did her best to follow the directions.

  “So was that weird, back there?” Rachel eventually asked, referring to Jamie’s encounter with Jeff.

  “No, not at all,” Jamie said. But then she turned her whole body around. “Why, did it look weird?”

  Rachel quickly shook her head. However, now that Jamie no longer held their lives in her hands, her thoughts were free to roam back to the house’s newest arrival. She hated to be doing so, but she wondered what he might be doing, where he might be going, and why she even cared. She wondered when they’d get to this silly party already, but only so they could turn around and meet up with the rest of the house. And most of all, she wondered how Allison could see a darn thing.

  Damn was it dark. True, Jamie had heard it said that when driving, you often can’t see any farther ahead than your headlights—but that’s really all you need to get through the journey.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t.

  Out of nowhere, they came upon a point in the road that their directions hadn’t mentioned—or that maybe, in her distraction, Jamie had overlooked. Either way, they just weren’t prepared for that sudden split, that T-shaped junction that forced them to pick one way or the other. And really, there wasn’t a clear-cut choice.

  “Do I go left or right?” Allison asked, her voice remaining remarkably calm as her head turned from one side to the other.

  Leaving it to Jamie to furnish the necessary melodrama. “Um, I’m not really sure!” she cried, panic in her voice. She whirled around to Rachel, tapping her hand impatiently a few times on the seat. “Left or right?”

  Predictably, Rachel was engulfed in her own world of daydreaming. To her, not being able to drive justified not paying attention. “What? Oh, I have no idea,” she sputtered. And then, catching on a moment too late, “Are we lost?”

  Hitting the brakes, Allison approached the junction as slowly as she could. But the cars behind her honked furiously, forcing her to make a choice. Jamie stammered, “Uh, I would say left but—”

  “Right!” Rachel screamed, so resolutely that Allison took the hard turn.

  “Hey, are you sure?” Jamie asked, glancing back at her friend once the turn had been made, and they were starting down a road no less dark or desolate than any other.

  Rachel looked back at her and merely shook her head. “No, not really. But since we were guessing randomly, I’ve noticed things are usually the opposite of what you think.”

  Jamie swung her studded bag in Rachel’s direction, but then laughed, realizing her friend was probably right.

  Thus they started down the dark little road—if you could call a barely defined sequence of bumps and quick turns and no lights a road. It was only one lane, and there was an impatient Range Rover bullying them from behind, so they dutifully turned corners and rounded turns and kept up a reasonable speed (and a reasonable confidence level). Still, no sooner had they circumvented some massive body of water (a lake
? river? ocean?) and entered an unfamiliar residential terrain than Allison voiced what everyone had been thinking. “You guys, do we think this is wrong?”

  Each nodded silent consent, although wrong was clearly an understatement. They had far surpassed wrong—why, they’d left it back at the crossroads twenty minutes ago. Wrong was straying from the share house, appointing Jamie navigator, attempting this ill-conceived journey in the first place. Now they were entering the vicinity of stupid.

  “Yeah, maybe turn around at the next opportunity,” Jamie said, trying to be helpful. But that opportunity just didn’t come, and that car kept pressing from behind, and minutes later the road split again. And they passed more strange water and more foreign houses and more disorienting sights. Finally Allison veered off onto some grassy nonroad and pulled a desperate U-turn (something Jamie would never have been able to do in one motion). Then, battling the poor visibility and the fact that what they could see all looked the same, they rationally tried to retrace their steps. But it’s hard to remain rational when you’re working at it, and they must have taken a wrong turn somewhere...because before you knew it (and I imagine you did), they were lost.

  Like, insanely lost. Like not just made-a-wrong-turn-and-need-to-turn-around lost. No, wholly and irreversibly lost, in an abyss of black darkness, following one long twisting road that never seemed to end. Lost to the point you couldn’t even remember what it felt like not to be lost lost. It was a two-minute mistake that became a ten-minute one that became a whole-hour one, and that seemed more and more hopeless with each passing minute.

  Not to mention the party had started an hour ago. So not only were they lost, but they were also late. Staring out the window and praying for some sign of civilization, Jamie (mostly) focused on the former.