“Thanks,” she said, accepting the drink from Jeff with a flirtatious smile. “I’ll have to get you back later.”
Then along with the drinks, he ordered two shots of tequila. The bartender gave him a telling smile when he handed the drinks over, some male-to-male gesture acknowledging the female at his side. Jamie pretended not to notice. This move nevertheless emboldened Jeff, and he surrendered his attention to her after throwing back the shot.
“So what’s going on?” he said, disarming her with his clear blue eyes.
As if she were watching a movie and suddenly placed an actor, Jamie just then recognized something very Jordan Catalano about him. The slow, simplistic way he spoke, the distant pauses where his mind drifted noticeably elsewhere—as if life itself was a bit over his head. Also like Jared Leto’s famed My So-Called Life character, he’d learned to say as much with his eyes as others could with their words, exuding a vulnerable charm to which girls found themselves helpless.
“Just hanging out,” she said, grinning playfully as she sipped her drink.
“So how are things going with Dave?” he asked. It was a joke, she presumed, but one he pronounced just as even-temperedly as everything else.
“Ha,” Jamie said. “You don’t still seriously believe that?”
If he did, he seemed to move past it quickly.
“That’s a hot dress,” he said after a brief pause, looking at her clothing so intently Jamie feared he could see through it. Not that it was much of a mystery to him what lay beneath.
“Thanks,” she said, opting not to correct the fact it was a skirt and not a dress (two items whose names most guys found near indistinguishable).
“All the guys in the house were talking about it,” he said.
“Who?” she asked, allowing her curiosity to get the better of her.
“I don’t know, Mark, Craig, Dave.” He downed nearly half his drink in one sip, and Jamie wondered if his sudden re-interest arose from competition.
Just then, his eyes followed the motions of a blonde towering above Jamie’s head, reminding her she was one of many contenders for his attention. Why Jamie forgave this was beyond her, for normally if a guy wasn’t fully into her, she’d instantly dismiss him. Well, she liked to think she would. Because normally when a guy was talking to her, she was the one whose eyes were habitually inclined to wander.
Still, standing passively beside Jeff, Jamie didn’t like this role reversal one bit. She didn’t like the insecurity, the second-guessing, the constant desire to prove herself. But above and beyond these feelings, she didn’t like the fact that she submitted to them.
“So...why didn’t you call me the last time?” she heard herself saying. She hated these words the second they came out, for they hardly sounded like her own. But she really wanted to know—really thought there’d be an answer.
He shrugged. “Because I knew I’d see you here. Come on, let’s do another shot,” he suggested. At the moment, this seemed like the ideal solution.
Afterward, claiming he wanted to dance, he pulled her toward the back of the Hip Hop room—an unlikely move on three accounts. First, because their group (and comfort zone) was all stationed outside. Second, because Star Room’s Hip Hop room at two in the morning transformed into a hazardous sandwich of people, much the way Cinderella’s coach turned into a pumpkin at midnight. And third, because this wasn’t like a wedding where two people just stood up to go dance together. Dancing at nightclubs was pretty much a collective and impromptu event.
Still, perhaps because he was gripping her hand, in a gesture that seemed both intimate and deal-sealing, Jamie followed him. The dirty floor was flooded with an inch-thick puddle of alcohol, and the oppressive heat generated by gyrating bodies seemed to intensify the farther they ventured into it. Ever conscious of appearance, Jamie hardly wanted to assimilate into this random crowd of people, what with the humidity and body odor. And her motto Always look available was difficult to uphold front and center at a grope-fest. But glancing around (once, or twice, or twenty times), she fortunately didn’t see anyone she recognized.
She wasn’t shocked to learn that Jeff couldn’t really dance—no doubt another skill he’d never had to develop, because his looks more than compensated. So it was more like they were swaying together, pressed up against each other for the sole purpose of enjoying publicly sanctioned affection. It felt a little ridiculous because it was a fast song, and Jamie actually did dance. But she went with it. And before long he was sweaty and she was sweaty and the two of them were sweaty together. And Jamie stopped caring who was in the room with them.
Then they got another drink. And did another shot. And after that, it was all a bit blurry...
“I am so drunk,” Jamie said at one point, clasping her head with her hands as if she could manually steady the rocking sensation.
“Yeah, me too,” Jeff said, which—she often noticed—is something a guy always seconds after a girl professes it first.
After that, the time all blended together, a blur of dancing and drinking and words that flowed effortlessly, but that Jamie knew she’d barely remember. When they finally went outside in search of the group, their share house crew was nowhere to be found. In fact, few people remained on the patio at all, as if the venue had been officially evacuated by a police or fire alarm.
Jamie stared around at the drunken stragglers, alarmed to be mixed up with the sort of people who linger at clubs late-night. Pulling out her phone, she discovered a series of missed calls and text messages from her friends, who had supposedly “searched the entire place for her” and departed with the group hours ago. She knew this, because the last call came in around two something, and it was now somehow almost four in the morning.
Jeff led her to one of the waiting vans, which were scrounging up latecomers to deposit at various houses in various towns. The two of them took up the whole last row of seats, sitting unnecessarily close to each other, finding means to occupy their hands.
When they finally made it back to 1088 Montauk, the house was strangely empty, even though the group often stayed up much later. Throwing down her purse, Jamie flopped onto the sofa, and unsurprisingly, Jeff flopped down next to her. Jamie had a feeling where this was heading, but it was one of those things you couldn’t consider a given until they actually happened. And the prospect of it happening right here in the open was rather invigorating, almost like bringing a guy back to her parents’ house when she knew any minute her mother could walk in.
Which wasn’t exactly out of the question, as Jamie’s mother and this share house were hardly mutually exclusive. Still, Jamie found this unprecedented privacy a bit discomforting.
“How can everyone all be sleeping?” she asked a little too loudly, looking again at her watch (but instantly forgetting the numbers).
“I’m not complaining,” Jeff said, pulling her toward him. And just like that, it happened. One second, they were merely sitting there, and the next they were going at it. It was all a bit surreal, and in her plastered state Jamie felt like a robot able to register only her motions. Expertly he lifted her shirt (dress? tomato, to-mah-to!) over her head and unclasped her bra. And before she knew it, Jamie was sitting on the couch where anyone could walk in at any second, topless. And then it got even better.
In one gallant motion he scooped her up as if they were honeymooners crossing a threshold and carried her in the direction of the deck. To be polite, Jamie asked if she was heavy, but he put her quickly at ease by assuring her she weighed “like nothing” (she loved when guys said that).
Swishing the door closed behind them, he placed her down beside the hot tub. At once, they stripped themselves of any remaining clothing and climbed inside. Oddly, Jamie had never been skinny-dipping before, and had never hooked up in a hot tub either (she associated such simulated romantic environments with shows like The Bachelor). But she found herself warming to the idea—despite the fact Rachel warned them hot tubs were a breeding ground for disease,
and even despite the looming possibility they could be interrupted at any moment. Actually, Jamie was enjoying it because of these dangers.
Of course Jeff had something to do with it, too. While uttering how she had a “sick body,” he glided his hands over it in a fluid way only water could enable. In a way she’d craved since the last time, when she hadn’t really taken it seriously. It was a little scary that every inch of her was exposed in early-morning daylight (especially since she was inclined to hook up with the lights off), though Jamie had never been one to feel embarrassed by nakedness. Never been one to step back from the spotlight.
“You are so beautiful,” he whispered, touching her face like if he pressed too hard, it might break.
This was a compliment Jamie was accustomed to hearing, almost to the point that she wondered if it was something guys learned to say in Hooking Up 101. Though hearing it at that moment, from this guy, was pretty much the icing on the cake.
In fact, with the sun peeking through in the background, at the disorienting hour that is just past night but not quite morning, it was pretty much the perfect moment.
Until Jamie spotted the face.
For a minute she thought she might have been imagining things. But Jamie was certainly not that drunk, and her subconscious not that cruel, and well, she would have recognized that face anywhere. The face, and the shrill voice that came from it.
“Eeeeew!”
Instantly Jamie clasped her hands over her chest in a feeble attempt to cover herself and flew to the other side of the hot tub. But the voice from the window didn’t stop.
“They’re naked in the hot tub! Everyone look outside!” In her typical whiny, attention-seeking tone, Ilana did her best to awaken the entire house. (Which, if you’re ever trying to do, is easily accomplished by throwing around a few key words. Like those.)
Getting caught naked in the hot tub had pretty much the same sobering effect as seeing your parents when you were drunk, and what progressed next felt like a nightmare. Chivalrously, Jeff tried to shield Jamie behind his back, but there was no avoiding the gawking and the whistling and the window pounding and the camera flashing. What are they, five years old? Jamie thought. And though it was soon over just as quickly as it started, the damage had been done. Practically half of the house had just seen her naked, and those who hadn’t could certainly catch up by way of Ofoto. Though once the X-rated entertainment had finally grown old, Ilana’s was the last image Jamie saw retreating from the glass.
Aghast, the two of them just stood there staring up at the window—like that moment when the villain in a movie has just been shot, but you’re not quite sure he’s dead yet. Finally stepping out of the tub, Jamie slinked her clothing over her sopping wet body (silently mourning the ruined fabric). Still in shock, she crossed her arms protectively over her chest, not wanting to remain outside topless, but in no hurry to rush back in, either.
“How immature are they?” she at last exploded, growing as enraged as she was embarrassed. Though she had to wonder, did the blame lie with the people who ran to witness a colorful exhibit, or the people foolish enough to exhibit themselves in a notoriously nocturnal house?
Definitely, it lay with the person who publicized the exhibit! Picturing Ilana’s smug face at the window, Jamie vowed to make her regret this in the immediate future.
But as angry as Jamie was, Jeff was angrier. “I can’t believe that bitch!” he fumed, kicking the hot tub with his foot. “Waking up the whole house up at five AM. She’s, like, sick or something!”
Jamie had known this all along, of course.
She retreated to her room alone, to sleep alongside Rachel and Allison (and Brian). Only a few hours later, though, she awoke to piercing shrieks that not only ricocheted throughout the entire thin-walled house, but probably served as an alarm clock for the entire town of Southampton.
“Eeeeew!” sounded the high-pitched cry—the same one that had summoned the house to the hot tub site hours earlier.
“I’ve been caked!” it rang out again, from a predicted two rooms away.
Caked?
That’s when the door to the girls’ room burst open.
“You did this!” bellowed the drama queen, lunging decisively toward Jamie’s bed. Refusing to acknowledge her, Jamie buried her face back into her barely dented pillow. But she couldn’t help first sneaking a peek.
Just as she expected, there stood Ilana. Her eye mask was hinged on the top of her limp brown locks, and she wore the same frilly pink Victoria’s Secret short set she usually slept in. But unlike other mornings, she now stood before them decorated head to toe in...cake?
Clots of sticky brown paste clung to her hair, patterned her pajamas, and stuck to her face in unnatural brown splotches.
And it was completely hysterical.
Jamie couldn’t have planned it any better if she’d been the avenger herself. (Which, despite her denial, many believed she was, and had this not occurred, she very well might have been.)
From what Jamie later learned, it was mostly Jeff’s doing, though Rob had been all too eager to assist him. Ransacking the house for a torture device, Jeff had happened upon one staring him right in the face. And so they’d patiently waited until nearly 6 AM before grabbing handfuls of Jill’s recyclable birthday cake and mauling Ilana in her sleep.
Jamie had no pity, of course, not one single dollop. Though long after they’d rid their room of Ilana, mental images of her frosting-doused foe made it difficult for Jamie to return to sleep. No matter. Revenge was sweet...and a whole lot easier than she’d originally anticipated.
Now that Ilana was covered in more calories than she had probably consumed in weeks, justice was finally served.
It was a piece of cake.
Chapter Twelve
A black swan is an outlier, an event that lies beyond the realm of normal expectations. Most people expect all swans to be white because that’s what their experience tells them; a black swan is by definition a surprise. (Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Learning to Expect the Unexpected)
Newcomers quickly learn that the only way to survive in a share house is to expect the unexpected.
If you aren’t asleep in your bed, expect that someone else soon will be. If you’re standing in the vicinity of the pool, expect you’re going to be thrown in. And if you fail to lock the door before changing, expect your body to be put on public display.
Even equipped with this information, Allison and Brian discovered something neither expected.
From the moment she had received his e-mail and met him at Mizu for sushi the following night, Allison and Brian became “that couple.” The couple who united the very first weekend and were subsequently attached at the hip for the rest of the summer. The couple who spoiled the debaucherous atmosphere for everyone else; who looked as pained to be in a party house as your grandparents might—and for that matter, wouldn’t be, if not for the unrecoupable fee they’d paid.
On these grounds alone, their newfound romance met with considerable resentment.
Don’t you think you’re rushing into this? Allison’s acquaintances would urge. Do you really like Brian, or do you just want to be back in a relationship? It was the same argument she’d always had to defend against when she moved on from each short-lived period of singlehood.
Couldn’t everyone see that having feelings again so soon was as much a surprise to Allison as to anyone else? Why, of course I like Brian, she’d argue. And it wasn’t so much that this happened quickly, as that it happened in reverse. We saw each other in pajamas even before we exchanged five sentences! was the catchphrase she’d say.
But there was one thing she didn’t say. One thing she’d never say, much less own up to. That, as their sushi date turned into a sleepover, turned into additional dinner dates, turned into takeout and TiVo...the tiniest part of her felt relieved to retreat from the Hamptons’ cutthroat singles scene.
Which is perhaps why Allison had always been sympathetic to Sara.
/> While otherwise unremarkable, Sara had done something unprecedented in share house history: taken a share by herself. Really, it’d come as quite the surprise when Mark received an e-mail from her, claiming she’d heard about his house from a friend of a friend (traceable to any of the thousand e-mail addresses he’d swiped off forwards in composing his—highly indiscriminate—promoting distribution list). But despite the rumors (that her parents had laid out the money for a quarter share and forced their socially inept daughter to attend), Mark hadn’t minded one bit. Twelve hundred fifty dollars was $1,250, no matter how eccentric the source.
Only fast-forward to Memorial Day weekend. And enter Sara.
Allison easily identified Sara as the lone shareholder she’d heard about, on account of the girl’s appearance alone. A pasty redhead in her late twenties, Sara looked so rattled each time she opened her mouth, she made Allison nervous by association. Still, when she passed the entire first day huddled inside with a book rather than outside at the pool with the masses, everyone merely supposed she was shy. But when she opted to crawl into bed rather than accompany the house to Pink Elephant that evening, everyone knew she was done. With the Hamptons, that is.
“I don’t want to do this anymore,” she’d pleaded to Mark after her first (and only) weekend at the house.
Mark wasn’t exactly surprised. But as he later relayed, he was faced with a quandary he’d never encountered in his many years of share house managing. On the one hand, he certainly couldn’t refund her money. She had reserved one of the limited spots he might have sold elsewhere, and he needed to maintain some authority, after all. But allowing his compassion to get the better of him, he decided to cut her a deal.
Rather than lose the money she’d paid, he welcomed her to find someone else to take her place.
She thankfully obliged, informing Mark to expect her friend at the share house her next assigned weekend.
How the Other Half Hamptons Page 15