It Happens in the Hamptons

by Holly Peterson

  As she opened the wooden gate, it creaked loudly, and she carefully closed it back while covering it with dangling branches.

  “Over here,” he said quietly, calmly. She liked his voice. It was so gentlemanly, so evolved, so not like men her age.

  “I’m coming!” she whispered loudly, hopping on one platform espadrille as she pulled off the other. She walked with both shoes hanging from her two fingers as she moved along the pathway toward him. Before reaching the clearing where he was lying, she noticed the stars flickering above as the evening sky transformed the landscape into a hazy, Hamptons purple hue. She snapped a photo to be posted later. For sure.

  “You smell delicious,” he muttered as he pulled her down toward him. He kissed her furiously for good measure, then, not too subtly, pushed her head down his torso to get on with it already.

  Chapter Four

  Preposterous Posing

  “It’s not like we’re saving some hedge fund client in rough currents; they hardly need us here,” Luke whispered loudly to Kona. He was taller than his childhood friend, but much slighter in composition. He looked back at the lawn, which was as long as the five-par golf holes he used to caddy. “Let’s hold back a little, look at the line of cars arriving now.” He pointed at the never-ending driveway behind them. A dozen cars snaked along, while uniformed valets raced around to open doors as if they were saving children from a burning building. First rolled in a vintage 1970’s Mercedes convertible 280SL, then a Porsche Turbo S, and then an Aston Martin V12 Vantage.

  “C’mon man, I’m hungry,” Kona yelled back to Luke. “‘A’ole pilikia. Stop sweating this. Let’s go crush the buffet.” For the first time, the men were able to check out the grounds of the famous Chase house, normally hidden behind twenty-foot-tall hedges. Only in the late autumn and winter, when the leaves fell and the green walls turned to barren branches, could anyone get even a glimpse of the landscaped Southampton estates filled with outdoor art installations, tennis courts, and infinity pools stretching out toward the sea. Like many of his neighbors, Jake Chase had labeled his home with a wooden plaque out front as if it were Windsor Castle on the English countryside. He fretted over the possibilities for months until he settled on Pine Manor. That many of these homes were contemporary in design or had titles that had nothing to do with the local landscape (no pine trees nearby) didn’t much matter. It was the aura of gentility and massive wealth that the monikers announced.

  Kona and Luke passed an enormous sculpture that looked like a poodle made up of long balloons that clowns twist into shapes. Luke knew he’d seen that same image in pictures from a museum exhibit, but he couldn’t remember the name of the artist. He wondered if it cost over a million dollars, or over ten million, or possibly even more.

  Just then, both men heard laughter on the other side of the hedge.

  “Let’s start some trouble if you wanna wait,” said Kona, trying to peer through the bushes at a couple in the sea grass. “We’re going to find something we shouldn’t.”

  He grabbed Luke’s shoulder and pushed him behind the pool shed so they could both get a better look. They cleared the brush from above a small wooden gate. Though the clusters of high sea grass obstructed their view, they could see a man was lying on his back. He looked older; they could make out grayish hair, with his elbow draped on his face while a young woman had her mouth bobbing up and down between his thighs.

  “Check it out,” whispered Luke, who never wanted to follow Kona’s often disastrous lead. “He’s really getting worked on. And look at her, on her knees getting so busy. Check out his blazer, what is that, yellow flowers inside it? I told you they’d all be wearing stuff like that. You recognize the guy?”

  “No idea.”

  “Let’s go,” cautioned Luke.

  “Nope,” replied Kona. “Stay here, we gotta nail this old asshole. She looks too young.” He waited a few more moments, and then yelled “Yo!” at the couple to get their attention and freak the older man out.

  Suddenly from behind the pool shed on their side of the hedge, a muscled man dressed in a white polo shirt with Pine Manor stitched on the left chest tapped Luke’s arm with enough force to inflict a bruise. “Can we help you boys? Whom are you yelling at?” He elbowed his partner.

  “No, uh, we were . . .” answered Luke, rubbing his arm.

  “You were what?” The two security goons looked at each other, trying to divine if Luke and Kona were nosy guests or criminals. “Should we escort you up to the cocktail area, or is there a problem here we should alert Mr. Chase about?”

  Through the high sea grass that lined the deck ahead, the young woman completed the artistry with her expensive mouth. She then ran back to the party, her short silk romper outlining her curvy legs and water balloon breasts, as the man disappeared to the darkened beach below.

  Luke said, “All good, all fine.” The men walked up the stairs, while the guards muttered to themselves.

  “I think we should figure out who the guy was,” said Kona. “I got a nose for bad stuff and I’m telling you . . . sicko preppy pervert.”

  On the expansive deck overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, a sea of kelly green and Tweety-bird yellow now greeted Luke and Kona, as if they had suddenly walked onto a life-size board of Candy Land. Orange and pink weather balls were strung across the pool. Waiters meandered through the throngs with cantaloupe mojitos curated to match the guests.

  The guys didn’t know where to move first, as wealthy summer people converged in tight, impermeable circles. On the couches, a media CEO who had just merged his company with a telecommunications giant pontificated gleefully about spineless antitrust legislation. And inside, a black artist, dressed in a Gucci bomber jacket, track pants, and snakeskin Balenciaga high-tops, mesmerized a crowd about his blockbuster show in Chelsea. While waxing on about cultural signifiers, his devotees jockeyed to secure one of his tar-covered sculptures they knew would triple in value by next summer.

  Luke and Kona walked strategically around the herd of partygoers toward the bar, the drink less important to them than their dire need to look occupied and purposeful. This kind of money would make anyone nervous. Luke tapped his toe impatiently. “Like I predicted, we don’t know anyone.” The wind turned slightly, and they got a whiff of the wood burnt pizzas the celebrity chef created in the Chases’ new outdoor pizza oven.

  “Relax, man,” answered Kona, grabbing a slice with heirloom baby artichokes and truffle shavings. “We look fine, professional.” Of course “professional” to these two meant they had “a job,” such as running a water sports venture in summer. In winter, Kona worked as a Hawaiian landscaper and Luke, a part-time marine biology teacher. To everyone else at the party, “a job” meant “own, run, or be the majority stockholder in a multinational conglomerate.”

  “C’mon,” whispered Kona, glaring into the crowd before him. “Let’s nail the lecherous guy in the grass.”

  Luke and Kona waded around huge floor pillows covered in Mexican tapestries, an attempt by Julia Chase to make the “intimate” affair for one hundred and fifty guests seem thrown together and casual. The party planner had charged the Chases a twenty-eight-thousand-dollar design bill just to get the “bohemian” décor on paper, fifty-five thousand dollars for a tent complete with Latin American planters flown in from Belize, and a sixty-four-thousand-dollar food and beverage bill that included a shellfish taco bar with several handsome servers hacking open stone crabs flown in from Florida. The Kobe beef sliders and the hip-hop Pandora station pumping in the background helped boost the Chases’ bourgeois self-delusion that they were playing it down.

  “C’mon, Luke, let’s cop some drinks,” Kona demanded, suddenly fed up with feeling inferior. He grabbed two pink, girly shot glasses from a passing waiter who looked annoyed they considered themselves guests.

  “Doesn’t it look like an airport hangar, all the glass and steel?” Luke asked, noticing how the ten-thousand-square-foot house lit up the sky. “If I had fifty mil
lion dollars, I think I’d build something that looked like a home where people actually watch TV, fuck, and sleep.”

  Kona elbowed Luke, saying, “Hot babe at nine o’clock.” On their left, a married mother of four brushed her butt into a best-selling author’s side, as she gobbled her meal for the night, three radishes from the crudité tray.

  Minutes later, Julia Chase spotted Luke and Kona lying back on loungers by the pool, several black cod ceviche crisps they’d hoarded balancing on their thighs. As they chomped, she appeared before them like a Missoni mermaid, with a long knit skirt in shades of peach that strategically matched the setting sun. A slinky white silk tank top left no one guessing as to her nipple size and shape: half-dollar sized, coffee-with-cream in color, and showing the beginnings of chilly air.

  “Kona, Luke, there’s so many people who want to meet real surfers!” Julia’s blond curls framed her beautiful, angular face, and her lips were permanently poised as if to whistle. “Let me introduce you.” She blew out her breath slowly.

  “Sure.” Kona slowly lumbered up as if he didn’t really need to meet anyone, because, well, he was fitting in just fine.

  But before they could take the seven steps over to her, Julia had turned away to infiltrate another group of men and women who would rather swallow an orange beach ball than talk to someone who wouldn’t advance them socially or professionally.

  At this point, Luke and Kona only wanted another free shot of expensive Patron tequila, or three . . . and hopefully to embarrass the pervert in the brush, when a young woman appeared and said, “Hey, guys! It’s so cool you showed.”

  Neither Luke nor Kona could respond at first—they were both so alarmed by the transformation that a year could inflict on a teenage girl. They remembered Alexa Chase, their camper for four summers, as the girl with braces, teeny little budding breasts, and twig legs.

  “What happened to you? You look so, well, so different, Alexa,” sputtered Luke, still struggling to accept this woman with rambling curves was the skinny girl who acted as DJ on his water-ski boat instead of getting in the water like the rest of the campers.

  “What is it?” she asked with faux naiveté.

  “You look like you grew up five years. I swear if any tenth-grade boys get . . .” Luke stammered, his paternal instincts kicking into turbo gear.

  “What? I’m sixteen. You guys are acting silly. There are no boys. I just gained like twenty pounds this year.” Alexa swiveled her butt around and grabbed a chunk of flesh.

  Both guys looked up at the sky, their cheeks flushing red.

  “So this summer I swear I’m going to get in the water more to work it off.”

  Kona ruffled her hair like she was his kid sister and put his arm around her. “We’re glad to see you,” he said. “But Luke’s right. Look at you! What are you wearing, honey? How short is that? Did your parents okay your outfit?”

  Alexa twirled around for them, her curly ponytail whipping around her head. She took off her long sweater and fidgeted with the straps of her silky orange romper. Just then, in the exact same millisecond of the exact same infinitesimal tilt of the Earth’s axis, Kona’s and Luke’s faces turned as white as the plush loungers behind them.

  “What is it?” she asked, smiling.

  “Uh, nothing . . . it’s just . . .” Luke said, trying hard to delete the image of the man getting pleasured in the sea grass.

  “You guys are being weird. Go get a drink or something, I’m not checking my outfits with my mom!”

  Alexa strutted toward the Beluga caviar tapas bar as if she were on a catwalk.

  “I can’t handle this; she’s so young still,” said Kona.

  “She’s sixteen years old. The guy was like forty. In her parents’ home, or near it?” said Luke. His eyes glazed, colorful humans, drinks, and pillows now blurring together.

  Like twins in their monochrome black pants and white collared shirts, Kona and Luke stood there dumbstruck one moment too long.

  Just then, a man dressed in Pepto-Bismol-colored pants shoved his empty highball glass in Kona’s one hand, mushed a pesto marinade–covered napkin and shell-encrusted toothpick in the other and said, “Waiter. Be so kind. Fetch me two gin and tonics.”

  Chapter Five

  An Innocent Stroll

  Sunday, May 28

  Katie and Huck waited in line at a deli positioned between a Chinese take-out spot and a carpet chain in a small shopping strip before the town of Southampton. She studied the six or eight men around her wearing Timberland boots, worn work pants, and utility vests. They grabbed BBQ-flavored chips and Arizona iced tea in big cans on a ninety-nine cents special while they waited for their chicken Parmesan and meatball heroes. Katie’s two turkey and American cheese sandwiches, Snapples, and potato chips cost nineteen dollars, which she didn’t find expensive. A young teen helped his father wrap up a bagel at the counter. The man kissed the top of his son’s head while he counted out change for the customer ahead. Nice people around here, she thought.

  That morning, after organizing their clothes in the small Porter family cottage, Katie wanted to take Huck to explore the town. They’d spent their first day napping and getting used to the creaks in the house where they would spend the twelve weeks of summer.

  George wouldn’t be out for seven more days, and Katie was relieved to discover the Hamptons first on her own terms, not as a beholden tourist, with him playing the role of insider guide. He had left her an old pale green Volvo station wagon in the driveway, cautioning against driving it on a highway or at any speed over fifty miles per hour. That sounded good to Katie. Slowing down was just what she needed.

  “Can we go to the beach tomorrow?” Huck pleaded as he climbed into the back of the beat-up Volvo in the deli lot. “I don’t want to get sandy for a picnic, Mom. I’m cold anyway.”

  “I’ll find a little spot near town in the grass with no breeze, honey. We can eat the sandwiches there.” Katie looked into the rearview mirror and sent her son a little kiss. She longed to put her feet in the sand and feel the slosh of soothing salt water on her body. But she knew not to push her son more than she already had.

  For their lunch, she pulled into a protected bay with a small dock and yellow flowers blooming along the embankment. As they threw bread scraps to the ducks in the water, Katie told herself she needn’t have been worried about snooty people in the Hamptons. Catapulting their life out here still felt like a prudent decision, even if it were a little rash. The farm stands were country in feel—cute red wagon–style trailers filled with baskets of jewel-colored flowers and produce. Maybe George’s assurances were on point: the tutor hours would pile up, Huck would love a new coastal environment, and the Hamptons were populated by kind people drawn to water sports and nature, who also fed fuzzy ducks paddling for crumbs with their children.

  Katie watched her son throw the crusts of his sandwich into the flurry of ducks gathered by the bank. She thought about her mother, and how strange it was that she would never know she’d taken Huck here. Having died in early March, her mother had advised her to leave home when she felt ready for a new life chapter. Today, it felt both natural and bizarre to have landed here at the dawn of Katie’s first summer without her.

  As she faced the warm Hamptons sun, her mind flashed back to day one of the Portland education conference series, near the remnants of the Danish breakfast spread, when George had walked right up to her.

  “Your morning talk was damn good,” he’d said. “I want to hear more about your dyslexia papers. My company is investing in some of the learning software you mentioned.” He’d pulled his long bangs off his forehead and locked his blue eyes on hers like a dare. “But I’m more interested in your brain than all the studies we are hearing about, frankly.”

  “Thank you. I’ve published other . . .”

  “Let’s leave.”

  “Leave now?” Katie asked, shocked by his bold suggestion. “It’s only eleven-thirty, we’ve got four more panels . . .”
<
br />   “Let’s slide out. Now, before the next session starts.”

  And so it was that Katie and George replaced the sessions on fostering academic grit with an early lunch at a bistro on Portland’s Willamette River. A frenzied session tangled in the Hilton’s starchy sheets followed. The couple barely participated in the education conference over the next three weekends, favoring wine and heated calisthenics in their hotel rooms.

  Katie looked at the still bay, reflecting like a mirror off the bright sky. She said to Huck, “It’s so peaceful, how can anyone be anything but happy here?”

  Huck smiled up at his mother, his contagious, youthful innocence fortifying her own convictions. “You’ll see, we’ll meet people and we’ll both make great friends. They can’t be that different from the folks back in Hood River. Let’s go walk down the Main Street in Southampton town, and we’ll see some new faces.” She remembered locking the door of her Oregon loft for the final time just forty-eight hours before.

  “This was the right move, honey, I’m sure.”

  Chapter Six

  Close Encounters with Another Kind

  On Main Street of Southampton town, Katie and Huck entered a gourmet-style market called the Silver Apple where she paid six dollars for a small bottle of water. Strange, she thought, what exactly is in this water at these prices?

  She placed a twenty-dollar bill at the counter, where people were packed in like a tight elevator. Below her, Huck could barely get oxygen in the dense crowd. As the waitress took her money, Katie squeezed Huck’s hand tighter to signal that this plan to move all the way across the country wasn’t ill-founded. The town was just a little more crowded than she imagined.