“Well, look on the bright side,” she said, attempting to lighten the gloom for which she was solely responsible. “We may be lost, but if I’d been driving, we’d have been lost and we’d probably have hit something.” No one so much as smiled. Instead, they panicked.
“We’re like a hundred miles out of the way now!” Rachel cried, as if she’d actually been paying attention for more than two seconds. “We’re going to miss the party!”
“We’re not going to miss it,” Jamie said, herself only 50 percent sure. “But I’m so sorry I suggested doing this. I thought it would be really simple!” She knew full well she’d lost any planning leverage for the remainder of the summer.
What happened next must really have involved some miracle. For out of all the roads, in all the towns, they somehow stumbled on the right one.
“Wait a minute!” Allison cried. “Is this Elm Street? I think that sign just said Elm Street!”
“Are you serious?” Jamie shrieked. And indeed it was. And before they knew it, they came upon a crowd of dressed-up people hovering around a grand wooden clubhouse, with a sign announcing HAMPTON HALL. And it was the sweetest sight Jamie had ever beheld.
“We made it!” she shouted, unable to recall the last time she’d felt so relieved to arrive at a party. This, despite the fact that they’d missed nearly half of it, as it only lasted till twelve (more important, so did the open bar).
Pulling up in front of the crowd, Allison handed over the keys to Jamie, who thrust them at the valet like they were some kind of explosive. Never was she so eager to get rid of a car, or so in need of a drink.
“To the bar!” Jamie ordered the moment they walked in, immediately embracing the party’s vibe. The historic wooden ballroom was packed, but not in a fear-for-your-shoes way, and certainly not in a nightclub way. There were food stations and cameras flashing and just enough attractive (or at least well dressed) people to make it all interesting. And while even the right elements don’t always create the desired effect, the colored lights were enlivening, the sounds of the DJ electrifying, and the energy contagious.
Still, they could have been at a dive bar for all Jamie cared: Her mission right now was alcohol. Lots of it. And so she proceeded to order one after another of the colorful promotional martinis (complete with glow-in-the-dark keepsake floating inside, of which she quickly collected an impressive number). She double-fisted the entire time—something she’d normally think was tacky—and later on, even downed a few shots with the bartender (after all, they were leaving the car here and cabbing it from this point on).
Once satiated by just enough top-shelf liquor to forget the last hour’s trauma entirely, Jamie surveyed the room more closely. A typical Hamptons Magazine event, the party was a welcome relief from the nightclub scene, which lacked sophistication and class. What’s more, it seemed as if the usual New York crowd had hopped a Jitney en masse and transported themselves over here: prominent figures at the magazine were doing their laps, the requisite socialites and heiresses dropped by to make colorful cameos, and this month’s cover model Beth Ostrosky (Howard Stern’s girlfriend) was posing endlessly for the paparazzi (most notably Rob Rich, Hampton photographer extraordinaire, who snapped party pics of the famous and unidentifiable alike).
But while the atmosphere was fun, Jamie had to admit, it wasn’t the be-all and end-all of parties. Upon closer inspection, it was like that clothing store you walked into loving the look of everything, but not finding a single shirt you wanted to try on. Mostly she enjoyed getting out of the share house, occupying a room of normal density, and feeling like an individual again rather than a member of a kindergarten class. Though even if she hadn’t been enjoying it, she would have darn well pretended to. After all, it’d been her idea.
Despite this fact (and she would never in a million years admit it), all Jamie could think about was meeting up with the share house. Well, meeting up with Jeff. And so most inconspicuously, she kept eyeing her watch, having mentally decided they should leave no later than eleven. Only that’s when the alcohol finally kicked in, and the music switched from atmosphere to hip-hop, and the guys got just drunk enough to strike up conversations (though Rachel had tried to engage a good many before this). So upon discovering it almost eleven-thirty, Jamie proposed they make a beeline to Star Room.
Of course, Rachel wouldn’t leave before using the bathroom, which was pretty much the same thing as all three of them waiting to use the bathroom. And so to the coed bathroom they went, and on the stagnant line they waited, and down the sole functioning toilet flushed another twenty minutes.
After grabbing their gift bags and hurrying outside, they realized they couldn’t have timed things any worse. For the party was just wrapping up, and they found themselves mixed in with the mob all leaving simultaneously. There wasn’t a single cab in sight—just hundreds of people all in pursuit of one. It was an absolute nightmare. (Actually, what it was, was Memorial Day weekend.)
“Wait, I have an idea,” Allison suggested after they’d been shivering in the cold for twenty minutes. Digging through her wallet, she produced Chuck’s business card, which she’d wisely held on to. Jamie eagerly dialed his number.
“Hampton Cabs,” barked a voice that belonged to a cab dispatcher rather than Fingers himself.
“Hi, I’m at Hampton Hall and I’d like a cab to Star Room,” Jamie nonetheless said. There was a long pause, and she feared she’d been disconnected.
“How many people?” the voice then demanded.
“Just three. We don’t need a van or anything,” she made sure to add.
There was another indefinite pause, after which the voice mechanically concluded, “South to East, that’ll be seventy dollars.”
“What?” she shrieked, wondering if she’d misheard a quote of seventeen. “It was ten dollars a head the other night!”
“Not for three people it wasn’t.” The dispatcher sighed, obviously impatient at the constant stream of calls she fielded, very few of which resulted in cab orders. “Do you want it or not?”
Jamie glanced from the hungry horde of cab seekers to her agitated friends, and realized there was nothing to debate. “Okay, fine.”
“You’re looking at about forty minutes,” the dispatcher said.
“No way,” Jamie decided, hanging up in disgust. Moved by desperation, she stepped a few feet out into the street, flailing her hand frantically at any vehicle passing by. And wondering if she preferred being stranded or being lost.
She didn’t stop any cabs, but she did succeed in garnering enough honks to make a prostitute proud, as well as generous offers of rides from random men (which she came this close to accepting).
About forty minutes had passed when a long black stretch limo pulled up to the curb. Once it was apparent no one was getting out, the window creaked slowly down, and the driver asked them, “Where you going?” in a shady whisper.
“Star Room,” Jamie burst out, approaching the vehicle.
“Flirt,” cried the girl next to her, approaching as well.
“I can take all six of you,” he said quickly, averting any competition. “Wainscott is on the way to East Hampton. Twenty-five each,” he added, in a way he almost challenged them to oppose. And any other night they might have.
“Fine!” came a resounding chorus. Everyone eagerly piled inside the car’s spacious interior. Jamie had only been in a stretch limo a handful of times, for proms and funerals; this occasion was highly unlike either.
As one of the other trio blared the radio, Jamie couldn’t believe that in a five-minute time span she’d gone from freezing her ass off on a deserted highway to dancing in a limo to Kelly Clarkson (whose lyrics everyone knew, though it took an occasion like this for them to admit it).
Having as much fun singing inside the limo as she’d had at the magazine party (perhaps she was a tad drunker than she’d realized), it wasn’t long before she recognized the prominent red star outside Star Room. That, and the ubiquitous m
ass of people that wouldn’t let you forget for a second it was a holiday weekend. Wondering what kind of nightmare they’d encounter trying to get home from this place—it was already practically one—Jamie almost wished they’d asked to be taken back to the house instead. But after paying the driver and climbing outside, she confronted the next hole in her plan. The line.
Courageous (or rather, inebriated) enough to tackle this, she shoved her way to the front, her friends timidly following the path her body carved. She overheard one guy gripe to his friend, “I’ve never wanted to hit a girl before,” but she didn’t let it deter her.
Fortunately, the door was being manned by a guy named Pete whom Jamie knew from the city. She only sort of knew him, but this slight recognition coupled with the fact they were carrying gift bags from the Hamptons Magazine event was enough to persuade him to lower the ropes. Pushing through the throng of highly concentrated (and highly intoxicated) revelers clotting Star Room’s expansive patio, Jamie was grateful for the one thing that night that hadn’t presented a problem.
And walked straight into another.
Even before she pieced together the scattering of familiar faces from the house, stationed around an outdoor table juxtaposing the club’s two main rooms, she saw Jeff. Then she saw Ilana. Then she felt the martinis resurfacing.
It wasn’t so much that they were touching, as the invisible energy pulling them toward each other, signifying that they were about to. The kind of energy that is perhaps more identifiable to onlookers than to even the subjects themselves. Refusing to acknowledge it, Jamie silently trailed her friends.
Joining the group, and oblivious to the Jeff–Ilana development, Allison ran straight to Josh; Rachel, to her new friend Brett. This served to alert Jeff to Jamie’s arrival, and he looked slightly taken aback. In what she took as a good sign, he visibly backed away from Ilana, but Jamie wondered if she was already too late.
Finding herself up against him as she floated around saying hello, she was pleased when he took the initiative to speak to her directly. Until she heard his words.
“So I hear you had fun Friday night,” he said with a wink.
“Yeah, it was fun,” she said, but from the gleam in his eye she gathered that wasn’t his implication. “Why, what did you hear?”
He gave her a nudge like she was one of the guys—though unlike one of the guys she was wearing heels and nearly toppled over. “You. And Dave,” he added.
Jamie laughed uproariously, like he’d just paired her with Osama bin Laden. “Where did you hear that?”
He pinned her with his eyes, and she heard the name Ilana in her head even before he answered. Though to her surprise, his answer was “Dave.”
“What? Well, that’s ridiculous. Dave has no idea who he hooked up with that night. I mean, he slept in our room, but...”
“He slept in your room?” Jeff raised a suggestive eyebrow.
“Yeah. He tried to hook up with me, then with Rachel, but we both refused. So then he got into Allison’s bed, and hooked up with the girl who was sleeping there.”
“Which girl?” he asked, this piece of information new to him.
Jamie paused. “I have no idea. Some girl whose friend was hooking up in our house. But she left really early in the morning, and no one saw her but Rachel.”
The words lay out there a minute before they registered. “So the only person who can confirm this story is your best friend?” he concluded, with a derisive laugh. “Look, I don’t care if you hooked up with Dave. Whatever happened the other night...happened. I’m not exactly looking for a girlfriend this summer.”
Jamie didn’t know what riled her more: that he’d said this out loud, or that he wanted to curtail a desire she didn’t even have. “Well, I’m not looking for a boyfriend,” she said, growing instantly defensive. “And I’m not lying about Dave, but you can believe what you want.”
“I believe you,” he said, though he hardly seemed to mean it. “Now you’ll just have to work on the rest of the house.” His eyes lingered long after his words, conveying just enough sexual interest to belie any claim he’d made to the contrary.
Jamie smiled. “I couldn’t care less what anybody thinks,” she said, though she found herself suddenly caring what he did.
Then an impatient Ilana reached over and grabbed Jeff’s arm as if Jamie weren’t even standing in front of her. Watching her whisper something into his ear (something of such importance it couldn’t wait another moment), Jamie’s revulsion was momentarily eclipsed by the knot in her stomach.
Try me, she thought, watching them, waiting for the bomb to explode. Once it did, she didn’t plan to go anywhere near it. Lucky for him—and against all her expectations—it didn’t. As close as they got, their lips never met. And so right then and there, Jamie called the race with Ilana on.
Back at the house, at first opportunity, Jamie yanked Dave aside. “What are you telling people?” she demanded.
Even in his inebriated state, he knew what she was alluding to and recited his preconfigured defense. “I’m not telling people anything. What they assume is their own business.”
“So why don’t you correct them? We did not hook up!”
“Maybe we did,” he said with a smug grin.
“No we didn’t!” she shouted, hoping she wouldn’t further incriminate herself if people presumed they were having a lovers’ quarrel.
To this, he spelled out the way he’d conveniently rewritten history in his mind. “There were three girls in your room, and I hooked up with one of them. So—there’s a one-in-three chance it was you.”
Jamie couldn’t believe they were having this conversation. “There is a none-in-three chance, because you know it didn’t happen!” she bellowed. Screw who was listening. “And if you tell one more person we hooked up, I’m going to spread something so much worse about you!”
“Fine,” he said, with a wicked grin, looking like he was enjoying every minute of her reprimand. “But next time I sleep in your room, you have to promise to keep your hands off me.”
In her mind, the matter was dismissed. But in his, this confrontation was merely the evidence he’d been waiting for that she, in fact, really wanted him. And so he annoyingly clung to her side the whole time the crew—including a still-platonic Jeff and Ilana—hung around the living room late-night. People lingered until exhaustion took hold and they began to peel off to go to bed. Allison went to go sleep in Josh’s room; Rachel retreated early, bummed that Brett had brought back a girl (bummed most of all when it turned out to be his girlfriend).
Then what had started as a race evolved into a waiting game. Eventually the only people left bullshitting on the couch were Ilana, Jamie, Jeff, and Dave. It went something like this: Ilana and Jamie both wanted to hook up with Jeff, Dave clearly wanted to hook up with Jamie (but would probably settle for Ilana), and no one was really sure what Jeff wanted. This game became ridiculous—none of them had any real desire to be chatting aimlessly at five in the morning, though no one wanted to be the first to fold and cede the competition. Basically, it was a four-way cock-block.
As the minutes passed, Jamie grew increasingly tired (and felt increasingly retarded). But it was like waiting on a line. The longer you’ve stood there, the less you can justify turning around.
Eventually, their peripheral conversation came to a standstill and the sun peeked obnoxiously through the uncurtained windows.
“I’m just so not tired yet,” Ilana said, yawning.
“Me neither,” Jamie answered, promising a sprint to the finish line.
“Hot tub anyone?” Dave chimed in, throwing back his umpteenth beer. When no one moved to second that, Jeff rose to his feet.
Throughout the last half hour, he’d maintained a questioning look on his face, and Jamie wondered what he was thinking. She wondered why, if he really wanted to hook up with her, he hadn’t yet tried. She wondered why Jamie-versus-Ilana was even up for debate. And most of all, she wondered how it came to
be that she’d given up the driver’s seat.
But this wondering didn’t persist much longer.
“I think I’m going to hit the sack,” Jeff said, leaving all three of them stunned.
At least for the night, it was decided. Not only did he see no clear-cut choice, but no junction of any kind.
Still, the moment the light threatened red was always the point at which Jamie decided to speed up.
Chapter Nine
Tequila—unlike any other drink—has a delayed reaction. It doesn’t enter your bloodstream immediately, but rather stores up in some organ or another before smacking you in the brain all at once. And in that single moment, you feel the belated effects of your previous actions.
Waking up next to Josh that morning, Allison’s actions—or rather, the delayed reactions she’d previously set into motion—hit her all at once.
What had she possibly been thinking? It had taken her weeks to build up enough courage to finally end things, and in one weekend of weakness (one weekend of tequila-inspired vulnerability) she’d completely undone everything. And as she lay there, after being awoken by the snort-like snoring that had prematurely awoken her for five years running, Allison vowed to leave this house today exactly as she entered it. Single.
Rolling over in the bed, which was barely big enough to contain a child, she freed herself from the arm that hung lifelessly over her waist, only to feel it reach around and grip her even more tightly. His grip threatened her like a noose—and not only had she succumbed to it, she’d lowered her head and hung it around her neck herself.
Right then and there, she knew she needed to get out.
“Where are you going?” Josh whispered as she thrust his arm off her and struggled to her feet.
“I’m going to sleep in my own bed. I’m just not...comfortable here,” she said, aware that this was a notion he wouldn’t understand. One that all the tequila, all the loneliness, all the unfamiliar share houses in the world would never fully suppress. So it was with overwhelming relief that she tiptoed out of his room that final morning and ever so resolutely closed the door.
How the Other Half Hamptons Page 11