by John Glynn
He wore a white V-neck tee, backward cap, and blue floral bathing suit. He looked road-weary but happy. I steeled myself as I approached, remembering what Ashley had instructed me.
“Hey!” He went in for a hug and I stayed rigid. He pulled back, eyeing me quizzically. “How are you?”
“I’m good.”
“That’s good. Kelley just dropped me off. She’s unpacking at her friend’s share. I’m so tired from the wedding. We all went to Pier A after. Have you ever been there?”
“Once or twice.”
“How was last night?”
“Good.”
“That’s good.”
I turned away. “Mike, did Caroline text you about the bonfire?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I’m not getting any service right now.”
“I know!” Matt jumped in. “I tried calling you both, like, a dozen times.” He looked at me as he said this. “I just assumed you’d be here.”
I held his gaze for a moment, then turned away. “Oh, look, Mike, there’s Sarah and Mallory! Let’s go say hi to them.”
As I pulled Mike toward two of our college friends, I looked back at Matt, catching the confusion in his pale blue eyes. Almost instantly I felt guilty. Did he know what I was doing? Could he see through my frostiness? Did he intuit the correlation between his relationship and my misery?
The sun-bleached crowd dissolved around me. Hundreds of people laughing and dancing, animated by the shared privilege of the milieu. The intoxicating swirl sharpened my despair. I could have Matt as a friend or not at all. Both options made me want to die.
I sat in the Land Rover holding a bag of Jet-Puffed marshmallows. In the truck were blankets, extra chairs, and stacks of firewood. It was dark, the car was full, and we were driving toward the beach.
“Guys, I’m so sad. I like, can’t. Oh my God, look at the moon, it’s so beautiful. Everything about tonight is perfect, especially all of you.”
The glow of the crescent moon illuminated Ashley’s tears. Mike was sitting shotgun. “Jesus, Ash! I haven’t even put on Coldplay yet. Save some feelings for the rest of us.”
She smiled and wiped the tears from her eyes. “Stop. You guys are my family.”
“I barely tolerate any of you,” Shane said.
“I’m too dead inside to feel anything,” I joked.
“What if the car flipped right now, like in season three of The OC?” Mike asked. “Which one of us would be the Marissa?”
“Mike, don’t speak ill of the dead!” Kirsten shouted, laughing.
“Marissa Cooper had a great thigh gap,” Colby said.
“Remember when she shot Trey?” said Perrie.
In unison the entire car started singing the chorus to the Imogen Heap song that played when Marissa Cooper shot Trey in a season two cliffhanger episode. We watched Mike’s full-season DVDs whenever it rained.
“I think I’m Julie Cooper,” Mike said as we pulled into the Sloppy Tuna parking lot. “I’m quick-witted, a redhead, and good at exploiting those around me.”
“I’m Ryan Atwood in a silk bathrobe!” shouted Colby.
“Kirsten is Kirsten!”
“Parker is Ryan Atwood because he’s our guest.”
“Parker is not Ryan Atwood.”
“Hey! I could be Ryan Atwood!”
“You’re too nice, though.”
“Yeah, Ryan has an edge.”
“What about Sandy Cohen?”
“I’d fuck Sandy Cohen!”
The conversation ended just in time.
On the beach we joined forces with Everett’s house. Everett and D.Lo’s relationship had blossomed over the past two months. Each Saturday they’d abscond to Ditch Plains, buy ice cream at the Ditch Witch truck, and walk the coast. The dunes were high and crumbling and chocolate brown, and they cradled the sea. Everett would surf while D.Lo read. Then they’d rejoin the group in time for Cyril’s.
We’d become good friends with Everett and his housemates. Most of them were single and all of them were straight. A natural affinity coalesced between them and the Hive girls. Perrie especially.
“I’ve slept with half the people at this bonfire,” she whispered to me, covering her head with her shawl.
We roasted marshmallows and pressed them into s’mores. It reminded me of my family’s childhood trips to Camp Holy Cross, a parish campground in the Berkshires. During the day we swam in the pond and played kickball in an unkempt field. We stayed in cabins without plumbing or electricity and made our meals—hot dogs, Dinty Moore beef stew, and s’mores—on an open fire. I had a fear of fire but tried to be brave. I remember my aunt Trisha cradling me. You’re safe. We’re all safe. Nothing can hurt you.
Shane had purchased paper lanterns at White’s Drug Store. I watched the lanterns catch and rise to the sky, each a silent prayer. It was a windy night and they ascended quickly, disappearing into the stars.
The night was wistful and emotionally charged. Ashley could not stop crying. I too was on the cusp of tears, the summer returning to me in Kodachrome slides. I had believed, in my late twenties, that I was beyond the point of making so many new friends. The Hive had created an opening. The Hive had brought me Matt.
I heard him calling my name through the merriment. He was approaching with a beautiful girl. His knuckles were rolled into the sleeves of his green hoodie.
“John, this is my friend Kelley.”
She gave me a strong hug, and I took in her delicate glamour. She had a thin frame, porcelain skin, boat-swept blond hair. The blue-and-white striped sweater wrapped around her shoulders reminded me of New England. Nothing about her suggested she was physically unwell. If anything she exuded a strong-willed vitality. I was incapable of viewing her in any other light.
“It’s nice to meet you,” she said. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
In the glow of the fire I caught a defiant spark in her eye. As we spoke it became clear that she cherished Matt, but she looked like the kind of friend who collared no bullshit. I wondered what they had talked about on their long car ride from the city. I wondered what she knew about me, or thought she knew. She seemed to treat Matt with the perfect balance of gravity and whimsy. But I sensed, in our brief exchange, that she was on my side, too.
Near the end of the night, Mike and Parker stole away. They carried their drinks to the tideline and watched the last of the paper lanterns floating by. They started talking, their voices getting lost in the loud crash of the waves.
“What’d you say?”
“What’s that?”
“Huh?”
They leaned in closer until all they could see was the whites of their teeth.
When no one was watching, their lips met.
It was our last full day in Montauk. Over the summer the Hive had housed many guests, and each had paid a guest fee of $150 a night. An exception was made for the unanticipated. If you were lucky enough to meet someone at the Mem, they could spend the night for free.
Colby had managed the budget diligently. Between rent deposits and guest fees, we never had to pay for alcohol or groceries, and we were occasionally permitted to use house funds for pizza. By the end of the summer we had enough money in the pot to buy a table at Surf Lodge and to each receive a forty-dollar reimbursement.
“That’s a free class at Barry’s Bootcamp!” squealed Timmy. We had spent the morning at the beach and were back at the house playing beer pong. Some of the girls were upstairs getting ready. Our reservation at Surf Lodge was for three p.m.
“I’m obsessed with Barry’s,” said Matt. “It’s so hard, I die every time.” He took wobbly aim at the cups and missed by a mile. He was already pretty drunk. Since the bonfire the night before, I had abandoned Ashley’s protocol. I didn’t see the point in pretending to be aloof or disinterested in Matt with one day left. He was the source of all my emotional turbulence, but his mere proximity made me feel whole. It was a vicious paradox that, at twenty-seven, I was coming to know for the fir
st time.
Kelley took aim at the cups. She had gravitated to the mellower of the Hive girls—Taylor, Dana, and Kara—and the four of them had gotten ready together. “Guys, I’m, like, nervous for the Surf Lodge. I hear everyone’s evil there.”
“I mean, to be fair, everyone’s evil here.” Timmy waved his hands to signal the whole house. “But the Surf Lodge is like that quasi-abusive high school coach who screams at you during practice and makes you do extra wind sprints and tells you you’re worthless. It makes your life hell, but it’s oddly motivating.”
We nodded in agreement.
The entire house packed into Henry’s cab. I sat in the way back with Matt and Kelley, knees tucked to my chest, my Solo cup jostling. The cops were out in full force that weekend, so Henry dropped us off a hundred yards from the Surf Lodge to avoid drawing their attention.
“Leave your empty cups in here,” he instructed. “Someone got a fifteen-hundred-dollar ticket for littering the other weekend. I don’t want my bees going bankrupt.”
We walked on the roadside between the parked cars and the guardrail. To our left the pond stretched like a plate of flat glass. A vast bullpen had already formed at the entrance, and we attempted to slide through the crowds to the reservations line. Girls in crop tops and fedoras leaned against the divide, waving at the managers with bangled arms.
“Reservations only. No one else is getting in.”
A waitress delivered us to an L-shaped day bed in the sand. We kicked off our shoes and sprawled across the plush yellow cushions. Colby took charge.
“Two buckets of Dos Equis, a bottle of Whispering Angel, a carafe of Endless Summer, and a bottle of Grey Goose. Oh, and a bucket of chicken fingers.”
I looked over the menu as Colby pointed. The chicken finger bucket was eighty-five dollars.
“We’re treatin’ ourselves today. Dad’s gotta make sure his Hive kids eat well!”
The sun was strong, but a breeze skimmed off the pond. Hipsters, socialites, and new-media wunderkinds circulated the deck with practiced ennui, but the vibe on the sand was ethereal and relaxed. We people-watched, taking in the bohemian opulence of the scene. One of our favorite games was to sort people into the houses from Harry Potter. We spent hours doing this on the beach and endlessly argued about what houses we ourselves belonged to. The vast majority of the Surf Lodge that day was Slytherin.
“What about him?” Mike nodded to a broad-shouldered guy in a T-shirt and khaki shorts. “He could be Gryffindor. He’s even wearing red.” The guy had a smooth face, angled jaw, and oak eyes. He looked wholesome and innocent. Just then he produced a small bag of coke and snorted some off the top of his hand.
“Ten points for Slytherin.”
Thoughts of Harry Potter carried me back to Longmeadow, to those bleary-eyed nights of addictive reading, to the books I carried each summer in my backpack. In high school my cousin Jay and I lifeguarded at Bliss Pool, the public facility in our hometown. On rest breaks I’d sneak into the guard house, devouring The Poisonwood Bible, Catch-22, Beloved, and the stories of Flannery O’Connor.
One day, a storm swept in, clearing the pool of swimmers before abruptly dissipating. With Bliss to ourselves, we all walked to the deep end, where a twelve-foot-tall lifeguard chair stood between the diving boards. One by one I watched as the veteran guards scaled the chair, then jumped—whooping and screaming as they plunged toward the water. When it was my turn, I climbed the thick rungs and stood for a second, absorbed in the vertigo of my vantage. From that old wooden perch I could see everything—the fields I had run through as a child, the trees I’d climbed, the swings I’d attempted to flip over the bar, and the basketball court where I’d played countless games of Knockout. Then, before I could think too much, before I could talk myself out of it, I jumped.
“Where’s the bathroom?” Matt asked. He was bombed and had to break the seal. The Surf Lodge men’s room had one enclosed stall and a urinal trough that could accommodate two people at most. The line extended from the barn to the patio. At the edge of the sand stood an old-fashioned projector screen framed by a wall of dense shrubs.
“Just go behind the projector,” said Kirsten. “No one will see you.”
“I need to go, too,” said Shane. “And I am not waiting in that line.”
Matt and Shane stumbled through the maze of day beds. I watched as they indiscreetly knocked into the projector screen before walking around it. The moment they finished relieving themselves, a security guard with iron-clad biceps escorted them out. They drunkenly lingered in the parking lot before stumbling into a cab. Kelley didn’t know what to do.
“I feel bad. I should go back.”
“Honestly, I’m so exhausted from the sun,” said Dana. “I’ll go back with you once I finish my drink.”
“I haven’t seen Matt this drunk since college.” Kelley started to laugh. “It’s kinda hysterical.”
I asked her what Matt was like in college. As close as we were, I had a hard time envisioning his social scene.
“We met at a Halloween party freshman year,” Kelley said. “Matt had just rushed a frat. He was dressed as Peter Pan. It was, like, the perfect costume for him. He had this innocence about him. Céline Dion started to play and we bonded.”
“Was he out freshman year?”
“No. But Céline Dion saved us the conversation. You’ve heard the Tucker story, right?”
“No. Who’s Tucker?”
She winced, and I noticed her Miraculous Medal. It dangled from a thin gold chain.
“Tucker was Matt’s first love,” she confided. “He was the first person to break his heart.”
I stood there, blank-faced, synthesizing the story. Matt had fallen in love with his best friend from college. They’d met at freshman orientation and started hooking up first semester, always in secret. During winter break, they’d sleep over at each other’s houses, and their parents had no clue. Their relationship continued into sophomore year. Matt wanted more. He wanted them to be together openly. When he voiced this desire, Tucker started pulling away. He claimed he wasn’t gay and would never have a relationship with a guy. Matt was destroyed.
“Pretty soon after that he came out to me,” Kelley said.
As the sun set over Fort Pond a live band took to the stage. Ashley started crying again, and Mike did, too. Time stretched to accommodate a strange celestial energy. Timmy had passed out across the day bed.
“Timmy!” Colby shook him. “Come on, honey! You’re embarrassing yourself!”
“Mrrrgggh,” he mumbled, and rolled over.
“Come on, Timmy. We’re all leaving. It’s time to go home.”
I had done a good job of pacing myself that afternoon, limiting my alcohol intake to an Endless Summer and two beers, padding my stomach with a clutch of overpriced chicken fingers. But something about the short, doleful lull ahead of us—the downtime between dinner and town—shuttled my thoughts down a dark canal. As we dispersed into the Hive’s dark corners, I decided to take a shower to wake myself up.
The water streamed down my face and onto the sponge-soft foot mats. In high school I’d ritualized the last shower of summer—a washing away of the scents I associated with fizzy, starlit freedom. Sunblock, bug spray, chlorine, and cheap Keystone beer. I thought about Matt’s college love affair. The searing confusion, the fear of rejection, the lonely cage of his feelings—he had been through it already, had built a wall against it. In his current boyfriend he had found Tucker’s opposite—a middle-aged millionaire.
How could I convince Matt that I was not Tucker?
On the window ledge stood a phalanx of shampoo bottles, conditioners, and Dove eucalyptus body wash. Peach facial scrubs, balms and ointments, pink Venus razors in plastic holders. I cranked open the window and the air crept in, casting the bathroom in a halo of steam. Throughout the summer we had carried Montauk with us—in the taste of salt, the pink of our noses, the grains of sand embedded in our hair. I had carried other things with
me, too, and now I could not carry them anymore. I needed to tell Matt how I felt. I wanted him to know I was different. I wouldn’t abandon him. My life had started the moment I met him.
When I turned off the water I could hear the sounds of insects harmonizing in the grass. I was going to talk to him. I was going to reveal my heart.
We got ready that night more out of obligation than anything else. We planned to go to Shagwong, a time-worn watering hole next to Herb’s Market on Main Street. Founded in 1936, Shagwong counted Andy Warhol, John Lennon, and the Rolling Stones among its habitués. The wooden walls were scratched and smoke-stained, the ceiling still cast in original plasterwork. Faded sepia photos hung above the lacquered booths where locals ordered the fish of the day. On the weekends Shagwong had live music—cover bands that stuck to the hits. It was the opposite of the Surf Lodge in the best possible way.
I was absorbed in a game of Kings in the Hive’s living room when Mike came downstairs.
“Come outside with me.”
“Huh?”
“It’s important.”
He pulled me off the couch and onto the front deck. His eyes were wide and sparkling. I couldn’t read him. He looked bubbly, almost manic. I braced myself. Something must have happened with Parker.
“Okay, first off. Promise me you won’t be mad.”
“Mad about what?”
His face was plastered with a strange grin.
“I told Matt.”
I froze, overcome by a sudden hyperawareness: the anxious chirp of crickets, the scent of cigarettes, the touch of the shirt on my biceps, Mike’s red hair shadowed in the dark. He continued to speak and I listened through a scrim of adrenaline.