How the Other Half Hamptons

by Jasmin Rosemberg

  And as she stumbled defiantly onto the Murray Hill street, she couldn’t help but laugh at her friend’s earlier forewarnings. Perhaps Rachel’s stubborn rules applied if you were chasing a relationship. But if all you wanted from a summer was some innocent fun and a wild ride, it was like she always claimed...

  Especially where guys are concerned, cardinal rules were made to be broken.

  Chapter Two

  Sinking back into an empty booth, Rachel Burstein allowed her aching feet a moment of rest. How she would ever survive an entire summer of this was beyond her.

  Rachel hated long nights of partying at trendy nightspots; she hated public (well, perhaps even private) drunkenness; and most vehemently, she hated random hookups. Basically, she hated everything that characterized a share in the Hamptons.

  But there was one thing Rachel hated more than all of these elements combined.

  She hated being single.

  And while there were no guarantees, a share was as good a way out as any.

  She knew this, because it had been her sister’s way out. Not that her sister had ever gone looking. For anything. Nearly two fated summers ago in former share house hot spot Quogue, her sister had been housemates with her now-fiancé, Gregg. It’d become a legendary tale, one Rachel had heard so many times she knew each nauseating word by heart. And while everyone was impressed when an engagement resulted from the summer fling, Rachel wasn’t surprised that this share house romance stuck. Dana had been a legendary sister, a legendary student, and a legendary financial analyst, so Rachel expected nothing less than for Dana to be a legendary shareholder. Why, legendary things just seemed to come her way.

  What Rachel was, on the other hand, was a legendary footstep follower. Actually—merely a mediocre one.

  All her life she’d strived to break into her sister’s high school cheerleading squad, her sister’s Ivy League university, her sister’s bulge bracket investment bank, her sister’s perfect world. All her life, Rachel had never quite matched these distinguished accomplishments (though she couldn’t have imagined loving UPenn any more than Michigan, and believed the atmosphere much less brutal at Bear Stearns than at Goldman). However, far worse was her latest—this event-of-the-year wedding planned for late this summer. Rachel loved Dana, of course. But she dreaded the moment she’d have to watch her beautiful sister float down the aisle while she stood fittingly (and most predictably) on the sideline—unengaged, unattached, underappreciated, and alone.

  But Rachel was intent not to let that happen.

  Rising to her feet, she carefully reexamined the bar. Surely there was at least one guy here she could date. She’d had a promising conversation with Aaron, an investment banker, earlier (how she’d kill to wind up with an investment banker). Though he’d excused himself to find a restroom, and she’d lost track of him...nearly an hour ago.

  Still, there was a swarm of suits by the bar, a few stragglers in the booths, and—

  “And then there were two,” Allison sang, interrupting her thoughts.

  “What?” Rachel asked.

  But Allison needed only to hold her Motorola RAZR phone up to Rachel’s face for Rachel to understand.

  Her eyes scanned the words, though she already knew what they’d say—especially since they were text-messaged to the friend least likely to reprimand her.

  From: Jamie

  Left the bar, C U 2morrow ;)

  Wed, May 25, 9:33 pm

  “Wow, can you believe it? That had to have been record time!” Allison exclaimed. Allison had been absent from the singles scene for the last five years (and the four preceding those...so for pretty much ever) and was just now learning the extent of Jamie’s forthright ways.

  “Can I believe it or do I approve of it?” Rachel replied, then let out a long sigh. “She’s just never going to learn. Drunken hookups never lead to relationships.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t want a relationship,” Allison suggested, recalling Jamie’s frequent claim.

  “Every girl wants a relationship,” Rachel stated matter-of-factly. And by every girl, she most of all meant herself.

  Though it wasn’t like she hadn’t been trying, endlessly, with that same determination with which she attacked everything in her life. She’d resorted to Facebook, Friendster, MySpace, and even enlisted the help of any willing friend to set her up with potential Mr. Rights. And on that count, she had succeeded, for Rachel had almost as many dates as there were nights in the week. In the way that Allison was a serial girlfriend, and Jamie a serial one-night stand, she was a serial dater. Still, all the first dates in the world did not a husband make. But just as she was about to suggest throwing in the towel in favor of a Pizza 33 stop...

  “So are you here for the Hamptons party?” asked a voice behind them.

  Turning, Rachel found herself face-to-face with one of three guys. He was oozing with personality and clenching two shot glasses. Giving each the could-he-possibly-be-my-husband once-over, she immediately assessed them as being on the older side, yet not the type of guys who seemed in any rush to settle down. Hoping she was wrong, she proceeded to introduce herself, as she’d never been one to discriminate.

  “Yup, we’re in the house. I’m Rachel,” she offered, putting out her hand aggressively. “And this is Allison,” she added, feeling the need to assist her more reserved wingman.

  “Rob, Brian, Dave,” he said, pointing to himself, then to his friends as he spoke.

  “Hey,” Allison said, turning toward Rob, “weren’t you—”

  “Yes,” Rob proclaimed, raising an eyebrow. “That was me on The Apprentice.”

  “Wait, what?” Allison replied, pushing a piece of her short brown hair behind her ear. “I was going to say Weren’t you talking to our friend Jamie before?” She flashed him a shy smile.

  “Oh...yeah.” He recovered, glancing around. “Where’d she go?”

  Why, to get ass, of course! Rachel thought.

  “She had to get up early, I think,” Allison said. Allison was always the compassionate one. But since they’d be housemates for the entire summer, Rachel imagined they’d figure Jamie out soon enough. She decided to change the subject.

  “You were on The Apprentice? Ohmigod, I totally recognize you,” Rachel exclaimed. Everyone knew the way to a guy’s heart was through his ego.

  “Yup,” Rob responded, quite eager to elaborate. “Season Two. I was only on one episode because—”

  “Patrón?” Brian cut in, offering them each a shot glass.

  “I can’t do tequila on a Wednesday,” Rachel excused, omitting the fact that she couldn’t do tequila ever.

  “You look like a tequila-on-a-Wednesday kind of girl,” Brian entreated Allison, handing her a glass. And to Rachel’s surprise, she agreed. Allison may have been shy, but she didn’t have a single mean bone in her body. That, and she was always eager to please, making her a prime girlfriend candidate. Why, she’d been single for less than fourteen days, yet Rachel would bet money she’d be snapped up again before the weekend.

  Which reminded Rachel to get down to business. “So where do you guys live, what do you do, where are you from?” No sense in postponing the interrogation.

  She soon learned Reality Star Rob doubled as a pharmaceutical sales rep; Brian was a portfolio manager (with a penchant for Patrón); and Dave, the best looking of the bunch but at least two heads shorter, dabbled in real estate. Yet there was something about his eyes that made Rachel nervous, like he was dying to rip off either her clothes or Allison’s clothes or both their clothes at the same time.

  “What about you? Were you girls in the same sorority?” Dave asked. Guys always assumed girls knew each other from their sorority.

  And on many occasions, they were right. “Well, Jamie and I, yes—we went to Michigan together, and Allison is our best friend from camp. Although she’s from New Jersey and I’m from Long Island—”

  “Where on Long Island?” Dave asked, indicating he was as well.

&nbs
p; Rachel smiled. “Plainview?” she responded, as if simultaneously probing Who do you know? But she was a pro at Long Island geography, and always welcomed someone throwing out a name.

  “Do you have an older sister named Dana?” he followed.

  Rachel froze. Any name but that one.

  “Yes...”

  Before she knew it, Dave was turning around and calling out to three high-maintenance-looking girls who were sipping wine in the corner. “Ilana, you were right.”

  Peering up from their private powwow, one of the girls, nearly interchangeable with her friends in jeans and a black shirt, rose to her feet.

  “I knew it!” the girl responded, her heels staccatoing as she approached them. Instantly the iciness on her face melted away. “Your sister was president of my sorority at Penn. We only overlapped for one year, but I love Dana! What’s she up to?”

  “She’s...great,” Rachel replied, desperately wishing they could talk about someone else’s sister. Just as she suspected, though, she was out of luck.

  “Hey, Mark,” the girl beckoned in a whiny tone to a lean, scruffy-looking guy a few feet away. Growing impatient, she flipped her hair with her hand. “Come here! You know who this is? This is Dana Burstein’s sister.”

  “So you’re the one she e-mailed me about,” he said, studying her as if, when he looked hard enough, he might find Dana underneath. “No way. I never would have guessed.”

  No one usually did, for which Rachel had grown to be monumentally grateful—even though her sister was positively breathtaking and such a statement could only imply her to be the opposite. For Dana was three crucial inches taller and naturally thinner, despite the fact that Rachel worked out and watched her weight obsessively. And while they both had similar blond-streaked hair and light eyes, Rachel had heard Dana’s features described as “softer” and “more delicate.” Plus, in contrast to her own preference for plain black clothing, her older sister had a sick sense of style and was effortlessly cool in every way, shape, and form. She was the kind of cool that made people stop and stare. The kind of cool that, as hard as she tried, Rachel knew she’d never be.

  “Wait—Dana Burstein from the Dune Road house?” someone else shouted. And before Rachel knew it, a small crowd had gathered.

  “How is Dana? That girl was a blast!”

  “She’s engaged, right? I saw the announcement in the Penn Gazette.”

  “Have you seriously not heard? Dana’s a share house success story. But her sister probably knows all the details.”

  Overwhelmed by the fan club multiplying around her, Rachel pounded back the remainder of her drink. Figures. It was just like her sister to dominate a party she wasn’t even at. But Rachel tried to be kind, since showing any malevolence toward a girl the entire room (the entire world) loved would have only made her look silly. Silly, or what she actually was, which was undeniably jealous.

  So Rachel answered every question and retold every tale, keeping a smile plastered across her face the whole time. But the question lurking in her own mind—perhaps now more than ever—was why she had even done it, why she always felt compelled to follow her sister. Why hadn’t she just found her own share house (run by someone other than Dana’s friend), her own hobbies, her own social scene, her own path?

  Still, in the course of the action, Rachel hadn’t even noticed that Aaron, the investment banker she’d met with his friend Steve earlier, had once again surfaced among the crowd. And after the commotion finally died down, he made his way over to her.

  “Where’d you disappear to?” he asked, his tone noticeably more animated than before.

  Not that Rachel was complaining. True, he was on the dorky side—a bit too thin, with wire-rimmed glasses and a bone structure so refined it was almost effeminate. But such was consistent with Rachel’s honed preferences, as she believed superhot guys never made for good boyfriends. In fact, she’d come to prefer that down-to-earth, subtle attractiveness.

  “I’ve pretty much been here the whole time,” she said, confused, but not dismissively so.

  He decided to move on. “So are you girls out there Memorial Day weekend?”

  “That’s the plan,” she responded, hoping this wouldn’t preclude his taking her phone number.

  “Well, why don’t you give me your number, just in case,” he said, flipping open his phone, thus reading her mind.

  Beaming, Rachel recited the digits clearly, and for one sole moment she was thrilled. Until she leaned over and caught sight of the name he’d keyed in to precede them.

  Quicker than you could say Patrón, Rachel felt like she’d done that tequila shot after all. For she hated high heels, she hated swapping pickup lines, and she hated leaving alone.

  But there was one thing Rachel hated more than all of these elements combined. What Rachel Burstein hated most was being: DANA B SIS

  Chapter Three

  Allison Stern had far too much baggage.

  But more important, she desperately needed to pack for the Hamptons. The only problem was, as she rummaged through her closet in attempt to select her weekend attire, traces of her failed relationship seemed to linger everywhere.

  It was bad enough that they lingered in her head. And so, just last week, she’d rid her studio of all the obvious offenders—his toothbrush, pictures she’d framed, each piece of Tiffany jewelry he’d given her for each anniversary (there’d been five in total). Yet there was one vital place that had escaped this thorough purge.

  Her wardrobe.

  Painfully unprepared, Allison unleashed the memories all at once. And all at once they struck her, taking the tangible form of her favorite garments. There was the black three-quarter shirt she’d worn on their first dinner date at Cornell. The red silk sleeveless top that spent more time on the floor than on her body. The white lacy number that witnessed his first “I love you.” And worst of all, the baby-blue tank she’d worn just fifteen days ago, when she’d told him it was over.

  Josh hadn’t done anything wrong per se, though it’d been a while since he’d done anything right. Since it felt right. Still, she cared about him more than anyone in the world, and he was undeniably her closest friend. But the more time passed (oh, how quickly it passed), the more Allison realized that “a friend” was pretty much all he was—or would ever be. And when the last of her sexual desire eventually vanished, even her body was telling her it was time to get out.

  Though how shocked he’d been when he’d come over that Wednesday to watch their favorite show, Lost. And, fielding his lost expressions, she’d nearly changed her mind, until sadistically he changed his tune.

  “I think you’re right,” he’d said, trying to save face. He always did care too much about what other people thought. “We’ve been together practically forever,” he’d continued. “We should probably try being single.”

  In the manner he knew it would, in the manner he’d intended it to, that word rattled her every nerve. For in her head, it’d sounded right. In theory, it’d sounded necessary. But now coming from his lips that night, it sounded frightening. It sounded hasty. It sounded irreversibly wrong.

  Dismissing these thoughts, as she regularly had to do, Allison exhaled one long, cleansing breath. This was just silly, she told herself, turning back toward her closet with new momentum. Everyone has baggage, she thought. The trick was not to take it with you to the Hamptons.

  But even trickier is what you actually should take when you’ve never really been in the Hamptons scene. When you’ve never really been in the singles scene. When you’re barely ready to be seen at all.

  It’d been two weeks since she’d been anointed with the scarlet letter S, and Allison for the life of her couldn’t remember how to be single. How to sleep in a bed unaccompanied. How to drift off without that last good night. How to hear one of their private jokes and not jump to dial him on her phone. How to flirt like a girl on the hunt. But not only did Allison not remember these things, she didn’t want to relearn them.


  And what good were clothes? she wondered, touching each item listlessly. Without a guy, she felt naked.

  Reaching for the phone, Allison dialed Rachel and Jamie’s number. No matter how much time elapsed, she could never imagine becoming like her friends—she just wasn’t the type to look for dates, introduce herself to strangers, or conduct endless small talk with people she hardly knew. On the contrary, she was the reserved type, the loyal type, the girlfriend type. And if she said so herself, she had come to be pretty damn good at it.

  “I’m not really having much luck here,” she confessed when Rachel immediately picked up the phone. Rachel always answered her and Jamie’s apartment phone after one ring, as she kept it by her side religiously. “I know Jamie said to bring going-out clothes...but skirts, tank tops, dresses—what exactly are we talking about?”

  “Oh, don’t stress about it. I’m sure whatever you feel like wearing is fine,” Rachel said. This was kind but hardly helpful. And while Rachel always looked appropriate and trendy enough, her clothes were muted (usually black) and rarely memorable. Fortunately, Jamie—who would sooner feed her Dolce & Gabbana obsession than feed herself—grabbed the phone from Rachel.

  “So what’s the question? What should you bring?”

  “Yeah,” Allison admitted, feeling suddenly silly. “I’ve just never really been to the Hamptons.”

  “Well, I’ve only been to my premieres and stuff,” Jamie said, her PR job having offered her a few choice excursions to the East End. “But here, I’ll run you through it—”

  Allison grabbed the nearest pen, hoping her friend would expound on every delightfully superficial, unspoken detail. And thankfully, Jamie didn’t disappoint.

  “Okay, so for the daytime, think second floor of Bloomingdale’s—Juicy, Ella Moss—or those Calypso types of cover-ups...Bring a different bathing suit for each day we’re there—repeating is like the biggest faux pas—and sunglasses you’ll wear twenty-four/seven, obviously...” Obviously. “Take shoes you don’t care about ruining in dirt—although isn’t that what the shoe man is for? Jeans, dresses, tank tops—nothing that wrinkles—and a jacket ’cause it’s not really summer yet, but bring one really nice skirt or dress just in case....” In case of what? An emergency charity event?