They drove by a home that had twenty-four rooms facing the sea. Katie then asked, “Didn’t the owners see the trucks, the helipad, the trailers at the park down by the jetty when they purchased these homes?”
“That’s what I say!” Luke was getting more animated. “They bought it sight unseen on realtor dot com or what? They knew what they were getting into. Many of us are volunteer EMTs and firemen, too. The city people want the fifty million dollar home, but they don’t want firemen living in the same town to enjoy the same views. They only want them to put out fires, the cops to handle a burglary, and the plumbers to save them from leaks. But no eating a grilled hamburger in front of a pretty view, that’s only for people with a fifty million dollar second or third home. Bullshit.”
“I heard that, too!” Huck said and toasted his Orange Crush at the air. Life was just beautiful when cool people cursed.
“I think,” Katie answered, “if the owners are complaining afterwards, they gotta be thinking they got the house and it gives them the right to get whatever they want next.”
“Yeah, like ruin summer nights for hundreds of families who’ve been coming down here for generations. Fuck those fucker vagrant city people, they . . .”
“That was the third f-word!” Huck yelled.
Katie knew Luke brought out the sloppy male side of Huck. It was good for him. It was good for both of them.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Playing with Fire
Luke parked his van near the gang of local water sports instructors and surfers, along with their friends and girlfriends. Katie put her flip-flops on the dashboard and looked at the Atlantic stretching out before her. She felt a slight chill and remembered she’d left her sweater in her car back in the lot.
Luke grabbed Huck out of the center of the van, and after helping him into his sandy, cold wetsuit he’d worn earlier at camp, tore into the sea without a word to Katie. First he held Huck’s hand and helped him leap over the small crashing waves on shore. Katie watched them bounce in the white water for a while as Luke pushed Huck into a few waves on his boogie board. She then grabbed Luke’s gray sweatshirt with a faded new york sunshine logo on the front and walked timidly over to the bonfire.
A few younger women in their early twenties, about five years her junior, talked in a small group and didn’t say hello. She looked for the friends of Luke whom she’d met—Kenny, maybe, or an instructor she knew. In the distance, she spotted Kona out in the waves cruising down the line and besting every surfer out there. He wasn’t her type, but she watched his muscles glistening on his bare, wet skin, and his long hair flying behind him. Faster on his short board, and with tighter turns than anyone, he raced ahead of the crashing white water as if it were a pack of dogs behind him. She got why young, old, married, single, and wavering women fell in unison like dominoes before Kona. With no one to talk to, Katie turned to walk back to the van until Luke and her son got out of the water.
She felt a tap on her shoulder. “Wow. He got you to come to beach night.” Kenny grabbed a beer from a cooler on the sand and twisted the top off for her. “Take it. Relax. Come meet my wife.”
“Seriously, I’m fine.”
Kenny knew better. “You don’t look fine.”
“I’m good.”
A girl still in her short wetsuit had walked by her on her way to a cooler in the back of a pickup next to Luke’s van. As she grabbed two more beers, she said, “Hey, I’m Sarah. I don’t think we’ve met.”
“I’m Katie.”
“Are you here with Luke?”
“Yeah.” Katie took a big breath to act all relaxed. “I mean, he’s just a friend. We’re here for the summer, my son and I. He had asked me to come to this cookout you guys do here on Wednesdays I guess.”
Sarah looked at Katie like she was lying. “Yeah, we just kind of come here and chill. Great you could come.”
“Don’t mind her,” whispered Kenny. “She’s best friends with Luke’s old girlfriend Simone. She was just sizing you up. Let’s get you situated.” He smiled kindly, and put his strong arm around her shoulders.
“Thanks, Kenny. I’m good.”
Luke startled them by grabbing Katie’s waist from behind, soaking her with his wetsuit. She laughed and pushed him away. He felt good against her, despite the soggy cold. She then raised her eyebrows unnaturally high, said in a high-pitched, chipper voice, “Let me dry off Huck and put him in new clothes. Then I’ll come back to the fire and we can grill a hot dog. Sound good?”
The nighttime descending fast, Huck, having eaten half his weight in chips and hot dogs, now sat between Luke and Katie on a huge tree log that lay beside the bonfire. The threesome suspended their grilling sticks for the marshmallows above the roaring coals. The gooey white stuck to their hands, and the hot melted chocolate dripped all over their jeans. A small cast-iron pan at the edge of the fire held bubbling strawberries.
Luke mushed a marshmallow onto a graham cracker with a block of Hershey’s chocolate on it, placed another graham cracker top of that, then dipped the sides into the strawberries. Luke then held Katie’s chin with the palm of his hand so the mess wouldn’t drip everywhere. She took a huge bite that caused the whole creation to crumble into the sand. Luke put his arm tightly around her shoulder. “That’s how you’re supposed to attack one of these. I like it. Let’s make another.” He looked at her for a long time straight in the eyes, like he was going to kiss her right then.
A few moments later, Katie’s perfectly caramel-crusted marshmallow fell into the flames. Luke laughed and started to hand his to her, rubbing his shoulder hard against hers.
“You’re too gallant,” said Katie, marveling at his masterpiece in the glowing firelight. “I couldn’t, yours is too perfectly cooked. I’ll start another.”
“Take it. Here.” He tapped her knee with his.
“I’m not taking yours, Luke!” She grabbed the sandy bag of marshmallows and stuck one on the edge of her stick. “I’m gonna start again, that’s the whole point, patience and then, reward!”
Suddenly, a massive ball of flesh brushed Katie’s cheek, and then a hand grabbed the marshmallow out of Luke’s fingers faster than a frog would catch a fly with his tongue.
“Well, then I’ll take it,” Simone said, sitting down on the other side of Luke. She placed his perfect marshmallow he’d made for Katie onto a graham cracker. Then she started licking the melted sweetness off the sides in round circles, as if she were in the prelude moment of what would become an epic blow job.
“What are you guys doing down here?” Simone asked.
Luke didn’t look her way. “What do you mean, ‘what are we doing down here?’” Then he shook his head in disbelief. “I’ve come here every week. All summer. Ever since I was like fifteen years old. Why wouldn’t I be here?”
“Whoa,” Simone answered sarcastically. “Sorr-eeee. I just meant like the whole family down here. I’ve been doing the bonfire my whole life too and I was just, like, how come the newcomers, you know? Not that it isn’t nice to have anyone—I’m just starting a conversation is all. Relax, Luke. Hey, Katie.” She stretched her head around Luke and Huck to face her competitor in the ring head-on. “You want to come meet my girlfriends? We brought some wine. You might like that better than beer; most girls do.”
“Hey, all. What’s up?” Kona barged in. “Simone, why are you sitting by the fire? You always say the smell ruins your clothes? How come you’re not with your girls?”
“I’m waiting for Jake Chase. I told him you all would be down here. He was looking for you guys by the bay and the docks.”
“C’mon, Simone! That’s so foul. Why would you tell him that?” Kona demanded. “Shit. Now we have to talk to him.”
“Why is that so hard?”
Kona cocked his head sideways at Simone—and then grabbed her elbow and lifted her off the log. “Hey, Simone, let’s get a drink. I got something to show you.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Kona,” she challe
nged.
As if on cue, Jake’s $120,000 silver Defender Land Rover, a vehicle most often seen barreling through the Tunisian Sahara in the Paris-Dakar rally, bounced up and down over the bumps in the luscious Southampton sand. Jake had bought it to replace the Scout that had been destroyed in the sand earlier in the summer. He tried to maneuver it in the tire tracks, just as his driver waiting in the parking lot had instructed him to do, but the car proved to be too powerful. So he swerved left and right until he skidded in the sand just inches from Kona’s Jeep. Kona had stood up a few moments before, as he had a sense this guy wasn’t going to slow down in time. Thankfully he did, and Jake jumped out of the front seat as if he’d just parachuted out of a plane onto Omaha Beach.
“Whew, that was intense,” Jake shouted to the group, as he saddled up to his newfound posse. “Jesus, that thing is hard to steer. But it’s great. Just great. Handles brilliantly in the sand. So useful on a night like tonight. Don’t know how I lived without it.”
As he waddled over to the group, he thought, Why the fuck anyone would want an airplane engine full of exhaust and noise in their ears is news to me. No shock absorbers, a ride where you hit your head on the roll bar, I don’t understand. Plus you can’t control the fucking thing because it slides right and left if you’re not driving in tracks like a jet locked onto a target, not to mention your fucking driver has to come to the parking lot to get the air in the tires down.
At this point, a dozen of Luke and Kona’s friends were sitting tightly together on towels and low chairs around the fire. Jake stood behind Luke’s friend who painted houses for a living, grabbing his shoulders in a hard Spock treatment. “Hey, buddy, you wanna move over for me, can you do that?” Jake sat down on the other side of Simone and made sure his thigh touched hers. She, in turn, brushed her ample bosom (everything was ample on Simone—thighs, ass, tits, lips, hair,) onto Jake’s thigh as she grabbed a few marshmallows from the bag.
“So, hey, can’t believe I’m out during the week,” Jake yelled to anyone around the circle who could hear, trying hard to think of a joke to make them laugh. “You know, I’ve always wanted to spend a July week here, working on my thigh tone, taking some spin classes with all those dykes that flock to them. Nothing against lesbians! I’m as politically correct as the next guy, just, you know, their short hair, kinda, maybe they should grow it a little?”
All the local guys and their girls around the fire looked at Luke and Kona, wondering why they had invited this kook. Several shook their heads visibly. Kenny stood instantly. “Hey, guys, I’m gonna roll out.”
Luke rolled his eyes at Katie, whispering, “She’s such a nightmare, why would she ask him here? It’s not his place.”
“So I actually took a class!” Jake yelled out to no one in particular. “It was awful. Who needs Soul Cycle classes with those teachers yelling at you, all the candles and shit, right?? I like nature! The fire! I mean, I like hanging out with people like you, who run on the beach and shit, right? You just fuckin’ work out in the outdoors, you bike on the roads, you swim in the sea right here? I love the beach, I mean the sand is getting ground into my ass, but fuck it, I even like that!”
Reminding himself these guys probably didn’t have a caterer down here, or even, fuck, a server of any kind replenishing the drinks, Jake looked behind him impatiently at the setup: empty chip bags and smoldering hibachis lined on two pickups, two coolers with three Coke cans and two beer bottles, a Tupperware pan of mostly devoured seven-layer dip, the refried beans getting crusty and the guacamole now brown, grocery store baggies of hot dog buns, and three flat hamburger patties on wax paper, now being eaten by flies.
“Anyone got a pitcher of tequila or something? I could use a drink. Some margaritas on the rocks, who’s got . . . you guys hear about that Moët Ice Impérial champagne they launched recently? It’s very bubbly, you’re supposed to drink it with ice like hip-hop stars do on their yachts in France. Champagne is really fuckin’ tasty with ice, forget the name of the drink they call it. Don’t want you to think I’m not macho, but I like it. Ever tried it? I could bring a case next week?”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Take Back the Night
Luke blared a happy Red Hot Chili Peppers song from several summers ago on the way home. He wanted to boost the mood back to where it had been when he was driving down to the beach at sunset, then cozying up to Katie in front of the crackling embers, when she’d actually pushed up against him for a fleeting moment.
The night had mostly unfurled as he had planned: playing in the water under the moonlight, introducing Katie to his way of life a bit outside camp, and constructing his expertly executed s’mores for her just as Frank had taught him. He’d expected for that charged moment to start about now, when he’d feel like a teenager, trying to figure out how to kiss her good-night. Her eyes, the way she walked, her soft voice, her kind way—all of it made him think of nothing but her. Yet the good planning had gone south—instead of Katie included in his clan on the beach, she felt repelled by Simone, and so much by Jake, that she’d stood abruptly and said it was time to go.
When they arrived at her cottage, the sitter came out to Luke’s van and asked Katie if she needed help getting Huck to bed.
“Yeah, that would be great. My car is actually out by the beach still, and I should go get it with our friend here,” Katie answered, careful not to disclose the name of the man driving for fear the sitter would tell George.
Luke noticed that Katie was cagey with the sitter, and he wasn’t so stupid he didn’t know the reason. He was only grateful to get her out of the driveway, because the 37 Willow Lane cottage gave him creepy shivers.
As Luke drove backwards out of the driveway, he placed his right arm on the back of Katie’s front passenger seat, and his fingers touched her right upper arm. She moved her shoulder slightly away, but he pushed his fingers into her flesh a bit.
She turned to him. “I just need my car.”
“I know.” He felt it was now or never. The guy she was with was clearly in the city.
“I thought I might be going out tonight so I asked the sitter to just wait, and that I’d pay her,” she said. “I wasn’t sure Huck would be with me, or what we were doing.” She hoped he’d just pull over and kiss her already.
While he drove, Luke looked down at her thighs, her right knee bouncing against the van door to the music. Her legs were spread out in an inviting way he was sure she didn’t mean. But, damn, they looked firm and fleshy all at once. Her shorts were riding up the seat, so they pinched the flesh on her inner thighs in a way that made him very much want to touch her. Feeling a rise in his pants, he pulled his shirt out from his stomach so it covered his midsection. “Who were you going out with when you booked the sitter? I thought you said you had nothing planned tonight. Do you usually get a sitter when you are there?” Luke asked.
“Just some women I met who were having wine at the vineyard tasting, from the tutoring place, they do it every week.” Katie answered slowly, as if there weren’t any plans with him in her mind when she booked the sitter. “The neighbor needs the work and she’s been great, so I wanted to give her some hours and I thought maybe . . . I don’t know, Luke.” She paused, deciding to get real. “Honestly, I don’t know what I’m doing here. In Southampton. In your van. I mean, I’m getting my car. I do know that.”
Luke turned up the volume on a corny Justin Bieber song he hated admitting he loved. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, trying to come up with a suave riposte to her dangling question. He wanted to change the station to find something cooler, but the beat of the song was good.
At least he’d made some progress: he’d succeeded in washing away that ugly Jake and Simone scene. Now, he had Katie captive, no kid in the car. They had time on their hands with the sitter chick planted in Katie’s living room. Back on some sort of track here. Just how to get her alone somewhere and out of the van? His shack was fine, but not necessarily the kind of place you want
to bring a woman first off; he’d rather lie on the beach. In college, he’d had an old Yukon, and during the summers he’d put a futon in the back and would open the back trunk and the sunroof when he’d drive a girl on the beach. This musty van functioned for his job with all the boards and coolers, but didn’t do wonders for seducing women.
They were now mere minutes away from her car. Luke tried to make it seem normal that he was now driving about eight miles per hour, so that he could avoid being seconds away from having to drop her off. Suddenly, he pushed on the accelerator and boldly drove past her car, down three lanes, and up a short dune hill with a drive-able dusty path. In front, the peaks in the small waves sparkled in the moonlight. It was a hill where surfers checked the surf break sandbar before deciding whether to suit up and go in. Katie didn’t say anything while he put the van into park. She let him hum away, while he tried to figure out how to get her on the beach.
“Do you want a drink?” he asked. “I have iced tea, or a beer, a half bottle of wine in the cooler . . . or, way in the back, a couple hundred warm mini boxes of apple juice?” That made her laugh, which settled him down a little.
“Sure. I wasn’t drinking much on the beach earlier because I didn’t know if I was driving somewhere or what, but sure . . . I’ll have a little glass of wine.”
Luke opened the back door and got a blanket, his bottle of wine, and two coffee mugs, which he cleaned out with some ice and a filthy, sandy towel. Then, he reached into the front window and turned the keys. “Hey, let’s go look at the moon for a little, then I’ll drive you right back to your car.”
Katie bit her bottom lip hard. “Sounds good. I love wine and moons.” Wine and moons? “I meant, like plural nights with a moon or like lots of wine kinds.” Lots of wine kinds? Ashley back home would tease her over these fifteen-year-old nerves rising up.
It Happens in the Hamptons Page 21
