by John Glynn
She grabbed the vodka and began to pour with both hands. I was standing next to her and could smell the floral scent of her hair product.
She finished pouring and looked up. “I know you.”
Her voice was caramel-dipped. It took me a moment to register that she was addressing me.
“Hi. I’m John. Mike’s friend from BC.”
“I’ve seen you in Mike’s pictures. And you’re Matt, right? I’m Ashley.”
Matt and I both stared in confused wonder.
She turned back to me. “I hear you’re a writer and, like, the funniest person in the house.”
I told her I was a book editor, but that I wrote a little on the side. And I didn’t know if I was funny.
“I need to read more. I’m such a numbers person. Look, I just need to straighten my hair real quick, and then I’ll be ready to go out with you guys.”
You guys. I remember this. For a second, for Ashley, no one else in the house existed but the three of us.
She returned ten minutes later in an ocean-gray bandage dress. Her hair was somehow even straighter. It shimmered a luminous dirty-blond. She looked like Britney Spears circa “Toxic.” She looked like a pageant contestant.
“Cab’s here in ten minutes!” someone shouted.
Ashley sat on a stool and opened her CFA book. Someone handed her a shot of tequila. On the other side of the island, Carolyn and Taylor were dancing. Others circled the table for flip cup. A phone camera flashed as Perrie and Bonnie angled for a selfie.
“Under which measurement scale is data categorized, but not ranked? A, an ordinal scale; B, a nominal scale; C, an interval scale…B, a nominal scale.”
Ashley flipped to an answer key, nodded, and returned to the initial page.
Mike handed her another shot of tequila. She downed it.
“The joint probability of events A and B is thirty-two percent with the probability of event A being sixty percent and the—”
“Wait, sorry.” Matt tapped her on the shoulder. “Are you studying for the CFA right now? While pregaming?”
“I take the test next week and I hear it’s super hard.”
She reached for the tequila.
“A company has just issued five million dollars of mandatory redeemable preferred shares with a par value of one hundred dollars per share and a seven percent…”
Montauk had many cab companies, but we always used Montauk’s Best Taxi. The driver, Henry, was friends with all the returnees. He spent his winters in Colombia and his summers in Montauk, and seemed to own only tank tops. He was tan, a gym buff, short and muscled.
“Dana, my girrrrl!” he shouted through the window. “My bees are back in da Hiiiiive.”
The entire house piled into his massive yellow van. It had leather seats like a school bus and a back floor that could fit a handful of people willing to endure the road bumps. Ashley brought her CFA book and read by the light of her phone.
As we whirred along the Old Montauk Highway, Robyn’s “Dancing on My Own” blared out the open front windows. Henry toggled the light switch to the beat of the song, transforming the cab into a disco. Squished in the back, I leaned my head against the windowpane, a cold gust rippling my shirt. Everyone was singing along, racing to finish their drinks before we reached town. With each ebb of the road my stomach dropped. I couldn’t see the ocean, but I could tell it was there, far below.
Henry pulled up to the Memory Motel. It was a long, flat motel with twelve rooms and a parking lot facing the street, which had been emptied of vehicles and fenced in to become an outdoor bar. On the left side of the building an indoor bar with saloon-style double doors echoed music. I watched people moving in and out.
The Memory Motel. The Mem for short. The Rolling Stones wrote a song about it. Andy Warhol had often popped in. The Mem was a Montauk fixture, a backdrop of chaos. A flexion point in the night when memory itself began to fade.
“The Mem is crazy,” said D.Lo. “Colby saw my ex here last summer and dumped a beer on his head.”
“I lost my cell phone, money clips, and five credit cards here. In August alone,” added Shane.
“Once at the Mem I got hit in the face with a sheet cake,” said Kirsten.
The rooms were façaded with chipped white paint and forest-green trim. Technically you could stay there, but no one we knew really did. The main draw was the bar, a red neon dive with a small stage, Hoop Fever, and Bud Light in aluminum bottles. We got out of the cab and ditched our cups in a bush. A line, fifty-deep, snaked along the sidewalk.
Each weekend in Montauk carried a rhythm unveiled only in hindsight. Weather, weddings, and holidays played a part, but you could never tell beforehand whether the weekend would be quiet or busy. Fridays differed from Saturdays. Lines varied night to night, bar to bar. Sometimes a queue would move lightning quick. Other times you’d wait so long you’d get sober.
“Guys, these crowds are insane,” said Kirsten.
“It’s gonna be like this all summer,” said Tyler. “Hurricane Sandy’s flushed all the Jersey Shore crowd up here.” In our limited interactions, Tyler struck me as one of the more levelheaded housemates. Circumspect and unflappable, he seemed to balance out the Hive’s larger personalities. If he said the crowds would be bad, I believed him.
Another group our size stumbled out of a bright pink van. They walked straight up to the front of the line, all waving wads of cash. The bouncer instantly lashed them away.
Colby patted down his hair. “Nuh-uh, we are not waitin’ in this line. Ashley, girl, come up here.”
Ashley stood arms akimbo, piercing the crowd. “My guy isn’t here. I don’t see him.”
“Girl, make a new guy.”
“How many in our group? Fifteen?”
“Eighteen.”
I watched as she made her approach, framed by a cone of light, the mica-mixed sidewalk sparkling beneath her. She directed the bouncer’s attention toward our group, loosely touched his arm. I tried to look cool. To look like someone who belonged on the other side of the white dividing rope.
The bouncer wavered for a minute before dipping his chin. The others acted nonchalant as we flooded the entrance. I tried my best to mimic them, to walk slow, to keep my head up high, to appear indifferent. But inside I was swelling with a giddy rush. For the first time in a long time, I felt popular. I felt part of something. We had just cut a line of fifty people. This, I learned, was the Hive.
Chapter Nine
The next morning, the house was still and gray. Rain pattered the slanting roofs, the piled decks and staircases. I was still asleep downstairs as blue light filtered through the blinds of the living room and into Kirsten’s eyes.
She had fallen asleep on the couch next to Stefano. They both worked in fashion, in creative roles. He was twelve years older than she was, with a salt-and-pepper beard and silver hair that jungled across his forehead like layers of banana leaf. His eyes were intelligent and mischievous. They matched the clouds that broke through the window. His hand was rising and falling over his hairy chest.
Kirsten grew up on the Connecticut shore. As a kid she could walk out her front door and jump into the sand. In her Little Mermaid bathing suit she plucked snails from tide stones. She washed her feet with the hose so she wouldn’t track sand into the house. She was shy and bookish. She spent hours in bed reading Lucy Maud Montgomery and the poetry of e. e. cummings, losing herself in their tangles of language.
In eighth grade, when her looks changed, girls who had ridiculed her in elementary school began to seek her friendship. She had always wanted to be good-looking, and the attention she received from her male classmates boosted her confidence. But inside she was still the girl who curled up with Anne of Green Gables. She still felt like no one could see her.
In college Kirsten developed an eating disorder. Pretty girls seemed to like her because she was pretty, but her inner and outer selves were out of alignment. She felt like two half-formed people. It took therapy and depr
ession medication to wrest back control of her life.
After college Hurricane Sandy pummeled the Connecticut shore, and Kirsten’s parents’ home was destroyed. Eight months later, her parents were still displaced. Kirsten’s family had begun to rely on her for emotional support. The Hive became Kirsten’s anchor that summer. Her port of call.
The last time she had hooked up with Stefano had been in March. He wasn’t interested in a relationship, but they had continued to spend time together as friends. Kirsten’s spring darkened under the pain of these encounters. Each one sharpened her longing. She thought if they kept seeing each other, he’d change his mind.
As the rain drummed the deck, she reached for her glass of water. Next to it, on the coffee table, were Stefano’s tortoiseshell sunglasses. He had gone straight from happy hour to the bar without changing.
Stefano blinked awake, eyes rimmed with panic. For a second he did not know where he was. Kirsten gave him a sip of her water, and he tugged at her sweatshirt.
“I’ve missed you,” he said, and pulled her head against his chest. For the first time since arriving in Montauk, she exhaled.
I went for a run, early, before full light. The streets were slick and blanketed in fog, and when my earbuds fell out from sweat, I could hear the birds. I had set off with no particular route, just planned to run fifteen minutes out and fifteen minutes back. In the city, I liked to run along the West Side Highway, framed by the tall buildings, river jetties, and views of the Statue of Liberty. Running was how I acclimated. No matter how lonely and out of place I felt, running gave me a sense of ownership.
My legs ached. My lungs burned. I could smell the vodka seeping into my shirt. A big blue stamp tattooed my inner wrist. The word OK in a circle.
Okay. Okay. You’re doing this. Okay.
I thought back to the night before, the clustered dancing and shots of Fireball from small plastic condiment cups. The bar was illuminated by neon signs, and the music echoed through a blast of drunken yells. At one point I went to the parking lot while Ashley smoked a Parliament. She asked me why I was single and I said I didn’t know. Then Matt dithered toward us, his gaze off kilter, his hair damp with sweat. He winged his arms across my shoulders. When Matt was drunk his affectations shined through. His wrists softened, shoulders narrowed, neck hunched.
Ashley stamped out her cigarette. She looked at the two of us, wrapped arm-in-arm. Her lips parted, about to speak, then closed.
We went and got more pizza.
Every year, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving my aunt Ellen had a psychic medium come to her house to give individual readings. Ellen was raised Catholic but believed in past lives. She told me we traveled through each incarnation with the same people. In your next life your mother may return as your best friend. Your sister may be your husband. When you connect with someone instantly it’s because you’ve known them before.
I finished my run and did crunches on the shag carpet. Music blasting, I hardly noticed Matt in the living room. His toothbrush jutted from his mouth. He had slept in a teal T-shirt and black tapered sweatpants. The sweatpants ringed his ankles, accentuating his long pale feet. The way he walked around while brushing his teeth reminded me of a hummingbird dipping its beak into the same empty flower over and over and over.
He finished brushing and stood over me.
“I can’t believe you already worked out!”
I wanted to tell him how running was the only thing that quieted my mind.
“It’s good running weather,” I said.
He sat down next to me.
“Do you always get up this early?”
Yes, because my mind races.
“I like to exercise before work sometimes,” I said.
“I wish I had that dedication.”
I feel like I have no choice.
“It’s not too hard. You just have to pack your gym bag the night before.” I started to stretch my legs. “God, I can’t even touch my toes.”
“Neither can I!”
He lunged his arms out and yelped at the strain, then rolled onto his side, arm bent, facing me. The pose revealed a portion of his pale, flat stomach.
We were quiet for a beat, a comfortable silence.
“You’re in such good shape,” he said, smiling. “I could never date someone in better shape than me.”
But you. You’re incredibly fit. Do you not see that?
I forced a laugh. “Why’s that?”
“I’d feel constantly insecure. I’d, like, never want to eat again.”
“Did you see that place we drove by last night? John’s Drive-In? We need to get ice cream there.”
“Great. You get two scoops. I’ll have a side of air. Unless they have peanut butter cup. Then I’m getting a waffle cone.”
I rolled over onto my side, too, my body sinking into the carpet’s soft ropey tufts. “I could go for a Bloody Mary right now, to be honest.”
“I could go for tequila.”
“I could go for meth.”
He laughed a deep, chocolaty laugh. A laugh that solidified our alliance. Then his voice dropped to just above a whisper.
“What do you want to do today?”
We made our plans.
The clouds and cold persisted. Everyone bundled up in hooded sweatshirts and left their bathing suits and tank tops in piles on their travel bags. The plan was to go to the Sloppy Tuna. It sounded like fun.
On rainy summer days in Springfield my cousins and I used to play Ninja Turtles. An old jump rope became nunchucks and a broken wood beam served as a bo staff. My cousin John Andrew was the oldest, the natural leader, so he was Leonardo. Mikey was good at building things, so he played Donatello, the Turtles’ in-house engineer. Jay was always Raphael because he was the youngest, and I was Michelangelo, the party animal. My cousin Tommy, who was learning to walk, had to settle for Master Splinter or April O’Neil.
We’d play Ninja Turtles, then we’d watch the older cousins play Nintendo. Super Mario Bros. 3 was a spectator sport, and I never dared ask for a controller. As Pat and John Andrew willed the mustachioed plumbers through Desert Land, smashing coin-filled blocks and snatching raccoon suits, Jay Bird and I would munch on Goldfish. Something about the familiarity of the game—the jumping, the stomping, the flying, the dying over and over—held me in its thrall. I cheered on my older cousins, idolizing their prowess as if they were professional athletes. It didn’t matter that I didn’t get to play. All that mattered was that we were there together, urging each other on toward the same eight-bit castle.
After my morning run, the Hive grew kinetic. The hiss of showers, the drumbeat of feet as housemates rushed up and down the stairs. A roar of hair dryers, and then a silence when they short-circuited the electricity, forcing Colby to the basement to jigger the fuse box.
“Don’t worry, your dad’s got it under control!” he called as he raced down the stairs.
I slipped on my leather boat shoes and followed Matt to the driveway. Cars were another invisible partition of the Hive, a signifier of cliques and alliances, of control. Shane, Colby, and Perrie were driving, and their cars filled quickly. Matt hopped in the back seat of Shane’s Rover, four in the back already. I felt an elemental flush of panic, the kickball teams filling up. Matt nudged Taylor onto his lap.
“Come on,” he called to me. “Plenty of room.”
The Sloppy Tuna was a beachside bar clapped with gold shingles and fenced in by a wall of multicolored surfboards. On the patio I could see a few high-top tables and a small corner stage.
We were right by the beach, and the wind was stronger. It plastered my hair in mists of salt. I’d been in Montauk for thirty-six hours and had yet to see the breaking waves. I could see them now, and hear them. Compared to the waves from my childhood they felt larger, more violent, their crowns of spray at once majestic and feral.
At Mike’s behest we posed for a group photo. I still have it. In it we’re on the beach, arranged in an arm-wrapped row. Four
people are crouched down, knees bent like a soccer team. We’re posed in front of a white lifeguard chair affixed with an American flag pulled taut by the wind. A green tide flag flying below it means it’s safe to swim, but the water’s too cold and choppy. All of us are bundled in sweaters and light jackets, our cheeks still winter pale. We look happy and hopeful. We look relaxed. None of us knows what the summer will hold.
“You two come with me.” Ashley dragged Matt and me to the inside bar, adorned with hanging light bulbs and a corrugated metal ceiling. The Sloppy Tuna was packed with a random assortment of Murray Hill bros and surfers in hooded ponchos. I felt an odd sense of recognition, one that would only heighten as the weekends layered. These people, though I’d never met them, looked somehow familiar. To Ashley they truly were.
“Hey, Ash!”
“Hey, girl!”
“What’s up, Ashley?”
At the counter a group of guys—they looked like a bachelor party—were woofing through a round of Jameson. A sign above them read WHEN IT RAINS WE POUR.
If it was a beach day in Montauk, you got shitfaced. If it wasn’t a beach day in Montauk, you got shitfaced. Ashley handed us Transfusions—Welch’s grape juice, ginger ale, and vodka. I took a sip, the vodka warming my chest. It was delicious.