“You two silly guys just go up. I’ll get the beach bag,” announced Katie as she opened the back trunk.
“C’mon, two gentlemen here to do anything for you, at your service.” George gently placed Huck down on the hot midday parking lot outside the Seabrook and then handed the boy a tote bag of sunscreen and towels. “You get this, young man, for your mother. Katie, you’ve had two tutor sessions today, you’ve worked hard, time to relax.”
“It’s fine,” protested Katie, holding another bag even tighter against her rib cage. “I got it, I handle him on my own all the time, I’m . . .”
“You’re not on your own.”
She smiled at him, and handed him the bag as they walked across the small lane and into the one-hundred-year-old WASP fortress.
George nodded at the front guard who shot his shoulders up right at the sight of him. Katie whispered to him, “I’m noticing people are terrified of both you and your mother. What do you do, abuse them when I’m not here?”
“It’s just a summer job for the kid. I have no idea,” he said out of the side of his mouth as he moved toward the pool. “I sit on the bench all the time outside the club because we can’t use phones inside. I talk to them, they like me, but I guess I make them nervous. You know, it’s not easy, the guard is a local kid. He hasn’t grown up like the rest of the kids who are members. Maybe he feels inferior, or maybe he really needs the cash. Who the hell knows, but it’s not me. I’m an angel, remember?!”
George grabbed Huck’s hand and brought him to the pool. There were more practices for the swim meet and Huck looked back at his mother like he’d been duped. His eyes round as the moon, he shook his head back and forth at her.
“Okay, kiddo. This is what I did every summer. It’s a rite of passage. The club swim meet is next Thursday, more trials today so they know what team to put you on. Make damn sure you stay in your age group and they don’t put you with the younger . . .”
“Huck isn’t so comfortable with the pool stuff,” Katie said. “I told him the first day I was here with your mother that he didn’t have to.”
Huck very much wanted this man to stop hanging around his mother. He wanted pasta with butter at home for lunch suddenly, not a grilled cheese at this strange club. He did not like people judging his swimming prowess, which even he knew was a notch below pathetic for his age.
George walked a few steps away so Huck couldn’t hear. “C’mon, Katie, it’s good for him to compete with the other boys. Builds some backbone on the kid. He’s fine,” he told her, as if she were out of her mind protective. “I mean, the kid doesn’t have a male figure who pushes him like this. It’s three laps; it’s not like I’m throwing him in the ocean with those fools down the beach you sent him to. I wished you’d asked me before . . .”
“George, you don’t call or text for days, I wasn’t going to bug you with every confusion I had. Besides, he loves that camp. He’s gotten over his fear of waves already this summer.”
“Well, if you can try to get him into the Seabrook swim camp, this is the real stuff. It makes a kid grow up and test himself. You don’t want him bouncing around white water on a boogie board all day. He’s gotta push himself against his peers, right?”
“I guess.” Katie looked at Huck, hypnotized by anticipation and staring at his toes. “He’s just . . . he’s scared, I can tell he’s not into it and . . .”
“Just let me handle it, would’ya?”
“Katie! Come with me!” Poppy Porter yelled as she powered her skinny legs toward them, pumping her arms on her thick middle. “The girls are out by the veranda and we are discussing the Patio Party. George promised he’d have you here by noon and it’s already twelve-fifteen. We are discussing your tables. I told you they get a little too excited about the details, but they are thinking you go nautical. Think whaling, like everything in the cottage, for inspiration: compasses, halyards, sailcloth even . . .”
Katie looked at the sea of people around her; she didn’t know one person except that dear Henry, now mixing his Southsides in a shaker behind the bar. He smiled at her and winked kindly, as if he knew exactly how she felt being an outsider among insiders.
“Let my son handle Huck, it’s fine, you have responsibility with all the cochairs. I already ordered you an Arnold Palmer and the Seabrook Club crab salad . . .”
“Crab salad, that’s . . .”
“Oh, it’s not expensive.”
“I didn’t mean, I meant I don’t usually eat . . .”
“We at the club don’t like anything that’s too extravagant for a family atmosphere. Don’t worry, it’s not made with real crabs, it’s the long strips of imitation, you know, kind of pink, but it’s delicious and I don’t think you’ve had it.”
“I, uh, I’m not a fan of . . .”
“It’s just perfect on Triscuits; we got a whole bowl waiting for you! They put pounds of mayonnaise in the salad, so you really need the crunch!”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Clash of the Ages
At the other end of Beachwood Lane, Kona and Luke inhaled fried rock shrimp in a spicy sauce copied from Jake’s favorite dish at the Nobu restaurant in Manhattan. They had brought up the impending camp closure several times, and Jake had listened for a moment, given them hope he’d help, then switched to explain how his business minted gold because laundry would need to be done for eternity.
While Jake excused himself for a call, Julia Chase strutted down the floating staircase in a white crocheted bikini “covered” by a see-through green caftan with layers of material flowing under her arms, the butterfly getup only slightly less extravagant than those on the runway for the Victoria’s Secret Angels’ TV special.
“So,” Julia said as she sat down next to Kona. “How are you all? Is Jake boring you with his silly tech investment mishaps this morning? I hope not. I would have saved you all earlier if I didn’t have a conference call for my own business.”
Kona nudged his chair closer while Jake finished his call down on a pool lounger. “I didn’t know you have a mind for business as well. What kind of business? How interesting.” He stared at Julia with his bedroom eyes and, in a lower, scratchy voice, added, “Back on the Big Island, we call that kind of acumen akamai.”
Luke couldn’t help but throw his hands in the air at these same thirty Hawaiian words Kona pulled out every single time he turbocharged after a woman. This was not the time to go after Jake’s wife.
“Oh, God, no, it isn’t acumen, it’s just simple know-how.” Julia pursed her lips as if to suck on a Popsicle, the image driving Kona mad. “I source twelve-ply cashmere from India, and I have beautiful shawls made in every shade of indigo. I send 50 percent of the proceeds to women’s micro-credit groups in impoverished nations.”
“Tell us more, Julia,” Kona asked, slipping an oyster down his throat, savoring it on his tongue for a moment, and winking at her like this would mirror what he’d do between her legs. Kona thought to himself, Life is so great when you are the pussy whisperer. “That’s so weird you mention indigo.” Kona leaned in, his elbow brushing hers and staying put, shamelessly adding, “I’ve been working on the exact same palette with my artwork.”
Luke was disgusted at the heights Kona would go to to get pussy. What fucking artwork? The last time you made art, you were standing in your nursery school smock, finger-painting on an easel!
Kona pressed on. “I’d love to see every shade after lunch. I always feel such connection with the blue-est of shades because of my intense relationship with the sea.”
“I sell my collection at a room at The Mark Hotel for a few days and give everyone food and wine and they get tipsy and shop. The girls love it. And . . .” she added, “we’re helping women all over the world to create their own lifelines by donating . . .”
Jake came back to the table and whispered to Luke, “Yeah, and the champagne and hotel room costs me more than she sells in a few years. Strange accounting practices some women have.” And then to t
he table, “My wife is the most beautiful, intelligent woman in New York. She’s gets to do whatever she wants in my book.”
Now their eight-year-old son Richie, his chubby stomach bouncing out of his swim trunks, waddled to the table like his father. Next to him, Betsy the bulldog’s stride wasn’t much different. Jumping into Luke’s lap, Richie knocked hibiscus tea everywhere. When Richie hugged the guys as if he’d never let go, for a fleeting few seconds, Kona and Luke felt welcome at the table and, possibly, that they could get the Chases to agree to the help they needed.
Midway through the meal, Luke went to the men’s room because he definitely had always hated egg salad, even when made with miniature quail eggs peeled by a matching-uniformed staff.
Once inside the designer powder room, Luke ran smack into a deeply unfortunate situation.
“Dad!” exclaimed Luke, seeing his stepfather, Frank, on his knees, butt crack in the air, a wrench sticking out of the back pocket of his stiff jeans.
Unbeknownst to the guys, Frank had arrived half an hour earlier to repair a persistent leaky drain on the Jacuzzi outside that threatened to flood into the first-floor plumbing.
“What are you doing here, son?” Frank got up to his feet and rubbed the sweat off his forehead with the inside crook of his arm. His fingers were covered with dark grease. “Oh, hell, give me a hand. I don’t want to mess up all these ironed hand towels in here. I saw some soap up there . . . can you grab me some so I don’t have to use soap in the shape of a dolphin they got in this ugly soap dish.”
“Here, Dad, I don’t know, maybe they have, like, staff areas to wash in or something. I don’t see a paper towel in here to . . .” He pumped lemongrass-scented liquid soap into his stepfather’s hands.
Frank grabbed a blob of toilet paper and tried to dry off his hands. “You didn’t answer my question. What the hell are you doing here? Do you have lessons now on their beach out front? I thought there wasn’t a good surf break out in this area?”
“No. I mean, yes. I do.” Luke knew there was no way in hell he wouldn’t hear about this one moment all summer.
“You aren’t making sense, son.”
“Well, it’s like this. They got this kid Richie who worships us . . . and then the bay constable this morning had a field day with a summons . . .”
“Who’s ‘us’?” Frank didn’t like the sound of this.
“Well, it’s just Kona and me, we’re just here for a little between lessons.”
“You know your mother wouldn’t want you with these people. They have a painting with women’s lips that I don’t like around children. Some sexual stuff dripping from them. Don’t forget, these people aren’t your friends. They didn’t get this rich by being friendly.”
“I think you told me that maybe eleven thousand times,” Luke responded. “First, they invited us here because the son looks up to me, for years now, like a big mentor or something. And then we thought Jake Chase could rally the trustees to help save the camp. So it was a win-win invite.”
Frank slammed the door under the sink shut. “I know they pay some slick architect with fancy magazine covers under his belt who doesn’t know how to construct on a dune. I’m here to save them from a flood, but I don’t think ‘helpful to you’ is something they are even capable of.”
“I understand your view,” Luke answered. “Listen, I gotta go. I’m not feeling great.”
Anything to get his father out, so Luke could figure out if he needed to puke. Hopefully the door would close, Frank would leave, and he wouldn’t ever see that his son was breaking bread with these people, wiping the expensive plates with it, and soaking up their values in the process.
When Luke quietly opened the door, still queasy from the meal, he looked left and right to make sure his dad was indeed gone. He sat down to a dessert spread of small local berries, caramelized agave tartlets, and homemade raw almond butter “cookies” that tasted like cement mix.
Luke mouthed to Kona, Any progress?
Kona shook his head.
A staff member stood like a khaki-clad sentry at the end of the table and asked, “Tea with mint leaves and mulberry infusion? Macchiato . . .”. They could barely hear the choices because of loud clanging noises from the far end of the pool deck. Betsy the bulldog started barking loudly at the clamor.
“What the hell,” yelled Jake down toward his Jacuzzi. “We’re trying to have a meal here, buddy, could you just do that another time? Call my architect would ya? He knows the rules about workmen here in the summer when I’m finally trying to . . .”
Julia shot Jake a wifely admonition to please cool it in front of the instructors. He could be so brash and thoughtless. She hated that, but she knew he didn’t mean it; he just wanted a quiet lunch. Since he spent every waking second trying to make her happy, it was hard for her to stay mad.
Frank Forrester’s face popped up from a plumbing access panel under the deck, twenty feet from the table.
“Yes, sir, sorry,” he said. “It’s just kind of a leaking emergency in here.” When he saw his son Luke sitting at the Chases’ fancy table, biting into an 89 percent cocoa-dusted, pink sea-salted caramel, the weatherworn wrinkles in his face instantly melted downward. “I’ll, uh, yes, I’ll be leaving right now.”
Luke cringed his shoulders in silent anguish as he heard his father’s loud work boots stomping down the endless slate staircase toward the driveway.
Kona started to stand. He was ready to defend Frank against this one-percenter Jake Chase asshole. The calmer, more mature Luke grabbed his arm, not wanting to cause a scene.
Kona couldn’t help himself, “You know, it’s hot out. I bet that guy is super overheated in his work clothes; he’s probably trying to save your house from some plumbing accident that could cost you . . . you shouldn’t just . . .”
“I agree!” Julia added. “That plumber, Frank, is such a nice man, Jake, don’t . . .”
“What the fuck? You all taking sides against me? The plumber needs to fix the machinery at 1:15? He can’t wait an hour? I don’t barge into my colleague’s offices while they are eating a sandwich at their desk and demand we do a killer deal. Hell, this guy doesn’t respect my need to eat with my family . . .”
Standing behind Kona now, pinching his shoulders hard, Luke said firmly into Kona’s ear ,“I got this.” And then to the group. “I’m going to talk to that plumber, if you don’t mind. It’s just something I have to do. But, before we leave, Julia, Jake, we really need to talk to you about the trustees shutting down camp on town beaches. Basically our whole way of life might be over. Your kids’ too. You don’t want to send them to a faraway sleep-away camp. You’ve always wanted them safe in the water, and nearby all summer. Let’s keep that plan going. We need your help. Kona is going to explain. I’ll be back.”
“I get it. It wasn’t right of Jake. I’ll take his head off later,” Julia answered. “Tell us, Kona, what can we do?”
Luke tried to run after Frank, but it hadn’t worked. Nothing was working today. Frank had been so steaming mad, he’d gotten into his truck and tore off. Luke knew there was no reasoning when Frank’s temper had gone off the morality deep end.
Back at the table, Luke got back in time to see Julia pat her husband’s arm, then say, “We’ll find a way to get him focused. No one is shutting down your way of life.” She raised her eyebrows. “And no one is screwing with my kid’s fun and safety in the ocean.”
“Hey, you didn’t tell me they were coming! How come?” yelled the famous Chase daughter, Alexa, as she slid open a glass door to the deck.
Exuding more high-end Manhattan stripper vibe than prime-time television runway angel, Alexa then appeared in her black mini-bikini, a crocheted yarn cropped shawl that ended at her belly button and high black gladiator sandals to her knees. She placed her thick and well-muscled thighs in a straight line, one foot before the other, in her well-practiced catwalk. She so wished she had a photo of her walking like this to send to her tens of thousands
of social media followers.
Alexa toured the table, leaning to kiss her father while arching her back, and shoving her barely covered but plentiful ass in the air so that both Kona and Luke would be forced into having a creepy peek. Their faces turned purple. Luke whispered to Kona, “Could we ask the parents to buy her one of those bathing suit burkas?”
“She’s way too young to dress like that. It’s not right.” Kona whispered back out of the side of his mouth. “She’s going to get in huge trouble that she’s way too young to handle.”
As they plotted and planned to dismember the man who lay in the nearby grass during the Memorial Day party, they realized that nailing him with an underage girl, who happened to be the innocent heiress of this very estate, would make her father, Jake, indebted to them forever. So indebted, so determined to keep their camp and livelihood alive, he’d either buy the Seabrook Club to shut down Bucky or run for mayor himself. Or both.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Views in a Vise Grip
When Luke pulled into the parking lot for his 3:00 p.m. lesson after the fancy Chase meal, his father’s maroon two-tone Dodge Ram pickup was idling loudly, one of his favorite Janice Joplin songs pumping out the windows. Frank never saved up enough for a new transmission and figured he could fix most of the truck problems himself rather than get ripped off by some knucklehead mechanic toying with his baby. Luke drove around to the far side of the same lot to avoid his father’s fury.
Luke shifted his van into Park, and looked out the side mirror to see a determined Frank marching up the pavement like a cowboy about to grab two Colt 45s from his holster. Frank opened the car door before Luke could even get his own hand on the handle.
It Happens in the Hamptons Page 14
