by John Glynn
To me Montauk was still a blank space. In the months before the ground thawed, it had served as my fulcrum. On wind-battered nights in March and April I’d go to the gym and stare at my reflection. Over bicep curls and leg lifts I’d mentally track the weeks until Memorial Day. Seven weeks, I’d tell myself as sweat ribboned down my arms. Six weeks now. Five. Something will change. Something will open up. You just need to make it till then.
The song in my earbuds would end, and I’d hear the rusty creak of the gym’s weight machines. The basement facility had the no-frills air of a Philadelphia boxing ring. For an hour and a half each night I descended, head down, into its concrete depths, lifting weights next to men double my size. I punished my body in those workouts, pushing myself beyond the threshold of physical strain to a place where thought evaporated. I wrenched my neck multiple times that winter for no reason. I hurt my elbow. I didn’t know why I was doing this. I just knew I needed to.
After the gym I’d go to the supermarket, where I’d buy prepared food from the deli counter. I’d return home and eat my grilled chicken or breaded fish in front of the television, then immediately get ready for bed. My roommates were spending more nights with their girlfriends. On the nights they stayed, I felt better. It was a comfort just knowing I wasn’t in the apartment alone. But when they were both gone, I felt the full weight of my thoughts. A dark hand pressing onto my chest. To self-soothe, I thought about Montauk.
Around noon it started to rain. I changed into a sweatshirt and joined the others in Shane’s car. We drove to the Bridgehampton Kmart. Navigating the lacquered aisles, we filled two carts with paper towels, laundry detergent, toothpaste, hand soap, twenty-packs of toilet paper, bottles of No-Ad sunscreen, bug spray, seltzer, jars of peanut butter, and two-packs of Pantene Pro-V shampoo.
Shane liked to drive through the rich neighborhoods. On the way home he showed us the Duke family mansion: “See those dark cedar shingles? Those are distinct to the Hamptons. You don’t see those on the Cape or Islands.” We drove by Ralph Lauren’s house and the Andy Warhol estate. Shane worked in finance but had an eye for design. He knew how to curate. In Mike’s dorm-like apartment in Stuytown, Shane had installed an Oriental carpet, a mahogany boudoir, chinoiserie bowls, and a vase of calla lilies, the trash bins filling with Mike’s Disney posters and Office Max desk lamps.
We got back to the Hive and were unloading the supplies in the kitchen when the first car arrived. Colby shut the cabinet and spun around, his fingers dancing. “Now y’all be on your best behavior,” he declared in a faux Southern accent. “Mama’s got eighteen more babies coming tonight. Mama’s got company.”
I checked my reflection in the tiki-framed mirror. My hair was askew. I tried to smooth it down. I only knew one other housemate who was coming out that weekend: my coworker Perrie. We’d become close, but we’d never spent time together outside the office. I wondered how our two spheres might merge.
The others moved to the living room. I trailed. I told myself to relax. Chill. Be cool.
Two guys climbed out of a royal-blue Audi. They wore high-seamed shorts, leather Sperrys, and T-shirts that clung to their arms. Even their duffel bags looked fashionable.
The shorter of the two skylarked into the living room. He removed his aviators and glared from wall to wall with discerning familiarity.
“The lesbian painting’s still on the wall. And there’s the shitty couch that everyone has sex on. Oh my God wait they got a new shag carpet?” He hugged Kirsten. “Hi, baby. Your hair smells good. Shane, did you already take an ax to the wicker cabinet? Someone get me a drink.”
“It must be summer again. Timmy’s color-blocking,” Kirsten said, grabbing him by the T-shirt.
Timmy’s bag hit the floor with a thud. “Where’s Ashley? Is she here yet? I need her energy.”
“No Ashley this weekend,” Mike said.
“Stop.”
“She’s studying for the CFA.”
“Wait. Seriously. Where is she?”
“I am serious!”
“She just got back from a work trip in Vegas,” Kirsten added.
“Stop. I can’t.” He turned to me and held out his hand. “Hi, so rude of me, I’m Timmy.”
“Hi. I’m John. Nice to meet you.”
“Mike’s BC friend, right? Welcome to the Hive.”
“Thanks.”
“Are you gay or straight?”
“Haha, what!”
“Where are you sleeping?”
“Umm…the Game Room?”
“Straight.” His attention turned to the kitchen. “Look at all those vodka handles. John, do you know the ABCD’s of the Hive?”
I noticed the other housemate standing silently at the threshold. He was scanning the room dizzily, one leg pretzeled around the other, his neon Nikes hugging. He looked like a Jane Austen character: night-black hair, ice-chipped eyes, freckled skin. Narrow nose. Narrow cheeks. Wiry, with veins running down his biceps.
“What are the ABCD’s?” I asked.
“Alcohol, Booze, Chips, and Dick.”
There was an airiness about the other housemate. He reminded me of Peter Pan. He glanced around eagerly, smiling at Timmy’s histrionics. I noticed how he kept spinning his watch around his wrist—a small tell, a percolation of manic energy. I could sense his urgent need to size up the room.
We caught eyes. A split-second determination, a recognition, a mutual unlocking, an alignment. I could tell from his bewildered amusement that we were thinking the same thing. I don’t know what I just walked into, but I guess I’m about to find out.
“Hi,” he said. “I’m Matt.”
Chapter Eight
People began to show up. From anywhere in the house you could hear them, the judder of the sliding door, the thunk of a duffel, a pronouncement of arrival. Hello! We’re back! The Hive! Each arrival brought a jolt of fresh energy, an addictive sense of accrual. I pictured those paint-by-numbers books, the colors filling in slowly, then seemingly all at once.
Who would walk through the door next? Who was still on the road? It was reported that the Long Island Expressway was a parking lot. Route 27 was worse. An hour to drive through Amagansett alone. The four thirty “Cannonball” train from Penn Station was standing room only for the first two hours, tallboy beer cans, crushed and empty, tossed across the piss-covered bathrooms. No one had ever seen such crowds.
Mike instructed me to shower upstairs, quickly, because hot water was scarce. I grabbed a towel from the linen closet and closed the door but did not lock it, fearing it impolite. The bathroom had a blue inlay tub with frosted glass sliders that afforded at least some modicum of privacy. I turned the clear plastic spigot until the water grew tolerable, the room filling with steam. Last summer’s sand clung to the strips of tack beneath my feet. I showered as fast as I could.
I got out and toweled off. In the mirror I polished away a circle of condensation, revealing my brown eyes, my freckled nose, my damp blond hair. A fresh wave of loneliness washed over me. More housemates arriving. I could hear them.
I attempted to pump myself up. You’re great. You’re fun. People love you. This is a new adventure. This is exciting. You look good.
The voice in my head was my mom’s.
I sought my dad for practical concerns, but my mother was my soothsayer. When I was stressed, overwhelmed, or emotionally deflated, I’d call her to comfort me. The mere sound of her voice—steady, smooth, and luminous—made me feel better. She always knew the right thing to say.
Back home she kept a small drawer of treasures. A gilded set of prayer-worn rosary beads, a Miraculous Medal, and a silver pendant of a synchronized swimmer in a cobalt-blue bathing suit and bathing cap. The pendant was the size of a fingernail and had survived many moves. My mom won the New England synchronized swimming championships in 1964 with a solo routine to Arthur Fiedler’s “Sleigh Ride.” Her sisters and she were members of the local team, the Springfield Aqualinas. The noncompetitive team, which pract
iced in the same pool, was called the Dolphinettes. The Aqualinas were coached by Dottie and Roh Dahms. The Dolphinettes were coached by Helena Waddlegger. These names were like wood beams in our family’s mythic pantheon.
When I was growing up my mom rarely swam, but when she did the water transformed her. She became magnetic. Elemental. I remember one night at the public pool. It must’ve been mid-July or early August, when the day’s heat seemed to collect in the evening trill of cicadas. My mom dove in and I watched, mesmerized, as the water slicked back her hair. I let go from the lap lane and swam toward her. The sky had gone dark and the pool was illuminated by spotlights. She swanned through the water and we floated together, laughing. Then she did her stunts and tried to teach me. The ballet leg. The dolphin. The kip. I wrapped my arms around her neck and let her ferry me through the pool, its surface a mosaic of shattering white gold. We were the only two, swimming beneath the spotlights.
I remember the pressing need to be near her, to not let go.
Alone in the musty Game Room, I considered various outfits before settling on a lightweight cardigan and jeans. My bag, which I’d arranged on the cold damp futon, looked like an exploded spring roll. I styled my hair with paste. I smoothed my cheeks with store-brand lotion. I rolled up my sleeves, rolled them back down. Took off the sweater entirely. Did I look okay? Would these people like me?
Everyone seemed outgoing, though I’d quickly detected the translucent divides. There were two tribes of girls: the immaculately dressed D.Lo, Perrie, Kirsten, and Dana, and the more laid-back Kara, Carolyn, and Taylor. The gay guys: Mike, Shane, Colby, Tyler, and Timmy, who moved between the girls and the gregarious finance bros: Bradley, Johnson, and Arthur. Then a few others, like Matt and me, who were either new or floated.
It was, of course, a privileged milieu. Most of the housemates hailed from the tristate area and held degrees from top-tier schools. Not everyone had money, but everyone had access. Everyone lived in Manhattan. Everyone had a career path. Everyone seemed to have a gym membership at Equinox.
In this cocoon of fortune our perspectives flattened. All of our problems existed in one dimension. Minor vexation and true hardship were one and the same. Small annoyances—an unanswered text, a sold-out SoulCycle class, a crippling hangover—rendered us inert. A Starbucks drink made incorrectly was a personal attack.
There was no distinguishing between drama and melodrama that summer. It was all part of the story, and I needed to grasp what that meant if I wanted to fit in.
From the landing I could smell the burnt clamps of hair straighteners, the acerbic cut of hair spray. I passed by bedrooms aswarm with totes. The furious purr of inflating air mattresses.
One by one people gathered in the kitchen until everyone was there. Colby put on “The Way You Make Me Feel” by Michael Jackson. It was one of my favorite songs, triggering memories of a dance party I threw in high school one night when my parents went out to dinner.
Across the counter a menagerie of chip bags were splayed open: Doritos, SunChips, Ruffles, Cape Cod, BBQ, sour cream and onion. Jars of ranch dip, artichoke spread, and mango salsa pocked the kitchen island like small aboveground pools. Since Memorial Day was a special occasion, Colby ordered four cheese pizzas on the house account. The pizza boxes were stacked across the stove. I devoured two slices in the corner.
Ice cubes cracked under streams of Smirnoff vodka. The girls were fixing their drinks at the same time. They were dressed in form-fitting bandage dresses, wedges, silk garments I’d later learn were called rompers, all of them glowing, the gray malaise of the city scrubbed off them.
The finance bros were loud and drunk. They kept going from the basement back to the kitchen. Arthur appeared to be their den mother. He was big, broad, and tall enough to change a light bulb on flat feet. He’d grown up in Chappaqua and lived with three other guys in a bro pad on Fourteenth Street. He entered this and every summer with no agenda other than to make friends, drink beer, grill food, and have fun. He wrapped his hairy arm around me like a mother bear pulling in her cub. I was up next for beer pong. Who was my partner?
I scanned the room. Neither Mike nor Shane was big on drinking games, and Kirsten and Perrie were still getting ready upstairs.
I glanced at Matt, who was standing by the breezeway. He was locked in conversation with D.Lo, his Solo cup resting in the crook of his elbow. He turned around. The empty cups on the table signaled a finished game.
“Hey.” He nodded. “Do you need a partner?”
He moved through the room with light, carefree steps, eyes darting. His shoulders were square and straight as a coat hanger. He looked both boyish and world-weary. Anxious but confident. I had never seen anyone quite like him.
We filled up the cups, reaching for the Ping-Pong balls at the same time. Our hands touched, and we smiled at each other. I realized we were the exact same height.
“Are you good?” he asked.
“Good?” The simple question threw me. “I mean, I try to be? I don’t jaywalk.”
He laughed. “I’m talking about the game.”
I grew crimson. Of course he was talking about the game. “Oh yeah, I guess I’m decent. Are you?”
“I go on streaks depending on who I play with. We’ll either win big or lose terribly. But it’s always the same.”
“I have a feeling we’ll be good,” I said.
“I do too.”
I finished filling our cups.
“You shoot first,” he said.
We won our first game, then our second. Matt claimed he played better with a buzz. We poured celebratory shots of tequila from a long blue bottle and grimaced as we kicked them back without limes.
“Where I grew up in Virginia they called it beer pong, not Beirut,” he said. “But then I got to college and people called it both.”
The tequila was warming my chest, pinning me to the moment. Colby was readjusting his nautical belt and button-down in the mirror. Perrie was glued to her phone. On the other side of the table Kirsten rinsed off one of the Ping-Pong balls in a cup of water. She kept looking up at Matt and me.
“It was interchangeable for us, too,” I said. “At least flip cup is flip cup.”
“I love flip cup.”
“So do I.”
“Let’s play it next,” he said, then, tapping a finger between us, “Same team.”
The house cups were soft plastic and translucent, sturdy enough to withstand the dishwasher but cheap enough to be left in a cab. They were monogrammed with THE HIVE 2013 and embossed with a honeybee. I noticed stacks of them in a plastic sleeve beneath a chair.
“These cups are so cute,” Matt said. “I wanna steal a few for my apartment.”
I handed him one. “You totally should.”
“Would people get mad?”
“Not if they don’t find out.”
“Cover for me.” He tucked a loose cup in a freestanding drawer.
“Remind me it’s there.”
He touched my forearm and I flinched, I wasn’t sure why.
There was a commotion in the living room. Someone paused the music. Timmy barreled around the kitchen island, his glass of white wine catching bars of light.
“No. Stop. Get out.”
A statuesque blonde clutching an electronic BMW key entered hair-first. Her skin was tan and her teeth were white. She wore a white tank top and cut-off jeans. My first thought was that she resembled a Barbie doll. Narrow waist, long legs, feet angled into heels. Her eyes were big and green and studded with fake eyelashes that opened and closed like butterflies. She carried an overstuffed pink pearlized bag. I could easily picture her at a thatched bar in Cancún, nursing a neon-pink drink. This was Ashley.
She momentarily short-circuited my brain. The symmetry of her face; her flat, tan stomach; the way her breasts seemed to defy gravity. She spoke breathlessly, addressing everyone.
“Guys, I was just in the city and was like, what am I doing, why am I not in Montauk, I needed to be wit
h my loves. I love you all so much I just couldn’t not be here!”
She tossed a fat yellow CFA study guide across the counter. It landed next to a pack of Philadelphia cream cheese that had been partitioned by Tostitos. I’d heard about the prestigious credential, chartered financial analyst, and the rigorous three-part exam one had to pass to earn it. The process could take four years or more.
“But, like, I have to study. I’m going to fail. What time is it? I just got back from Vegas. I’m not even going to shower, I’m wearing this out, I don’t even care.” She glanced dismissively at her white tank top and ripped jean shorts. “I’m just going to get ready real quick. Oh my God you guys, you all look so amazing, like seriously you all look like models. Taylor, you look stunning in that dress.”
She approached Kirsten and grabbed her by the shoulder.
“Thank you for keeping it a surprise, roomie,” she said, looking her up and down. “Ugh. You just look so beautiful.”
Ashley worked in the finance department of a boutique real estate firm. That week her company had hosted an event at the Bellagio. At night the fountains surged and danced, and Ashley watched them alone from her window. The firm held its daily meetings at a poolside cabana. Ashley extolled market analysis in a pink bikini.