By Francesca
My friend invited me to her rental house in the Hamptons for the Fourth of July.
Fireworks went off in my heart.
I’ve been dying to go to the Hamptons ever since I moved to New York five years ago, and I’m so proud that my friends have now reached a level in their careers where I can mooch off them.
But in order to experience this quintessential New Yorker getaway, one must endure the rite of passage that is getting there.
I left Thursday night via the Montauk line of the Long Island Railroad, or the LIRR. I felt young and fabulous leaving for my classy holiday. I carried a floppy straw hat as unofficial passport.
But the aura of glamour disappeared once I boarded, because I was sharing a train car with some of the most dangerous thugs on earth:
Teenage girls.
Two of them. A pack.
These two girls were talking very loudly, which sounds like a real Grandma complaint, but I’m telling you, they were projecting for the stage—and Shakespeare it was not. I believe they were performing the play, Talking Sh*t About Everyone.
Based on the swearing, I think it’s an early work of Harold Pinter.
While I struggled to read my book, I dug deep to summon goodwill toward these girls. They’re young, they’re having fun, I’m sure I was like that once.
“What I don’t get is like, people who say big is beautiful. Like, fat is not healthy. And you look ugly.”
Never mind. I would’ve hated these girls when I was their age, too.
When one let out an earsplitting squeal, I glanced back and locked eyes with a curly-haired woman unfortunate enough to be sitting behind them.
The woman made a face like, Can you believe them?
I returned the sentiment with eyes like, I know, right?
But then something awful happened. The curly-haired woman gave me a nod, and before I could stop her, she scolded the girls with a loud, librarian-ish, Shhhh.
The Heathers were silent for a beat before redirecting their laser-snark at the poor woman. They mean-girled her for the rest of the ride.
“Wait,” my friend interrupted as I told him the story. “Did you step in to defend her?”
“I didn’t tell her to do it!” I cried.
“But it was your validation that inspired the shush. She thought you had her back.”
“I was two rows away! I was out of the zone of responsibility!”
But he was right. Knowing I had many more stops to go, I was a coward. I had spent enough time hiding in the bathroom in sixth grade.
Mercifully, the woman’s stop came soon after, and she was free to leave and call her therapist.
Meanwhile, the girls expanded their abuse to the entire train car.
“BRR!” one girl yelled, turning shivering into an interpretive dance. “THIS TRAIN IS TOO COLD FOR US SKINNIES! ALL THESE FATTIES DON’T UNDERSTAND!”
Charming, no?
And from their endless “Are we there yet?” whining, I ascertained their stop was the very last on the line.
We can only hope they were going to the moon.
So instead of feeling young and fabulous, I spent the rest of the ride feeling both frightened and old.
Once I made it to Sag Harbor, I had a wonderful July Fourth weekend with my friends. We barbecued every food group, pretended to be soccer fans, played stupid drinking games—everything our forefathers would have wanted. But come Sunday, I had to again brave public transit back to the city.
I knew the LIRR would be crowded the Sunday after July Fourth, but this was Xtreme Train Riding. It was as if the entire population of Manhattan had squeezed into eight train cars.
Every seat was taken and the aisles were packed with people, standing room only. Even the short staircase between the upper and lower levels was stacked with squatters. One woman crouched on the stairs shot daggers to anyone who dared try to go up or down, as if they were being unreasonable.
This train would make a sardine can look like the Ritz-Carlton.
I snagged a spot to stand near the doors. For the first hour and a half, there wasn’t enough room for me to fit both legs on one side of my suitcase, so I was forced to straddle it.
The Hamptons didn’t seem so classy anymore.
Clown cars have more leg room.
I’d say there wasn’t a spare inch, but when a visibly drunk young man with a hat reading #YOLO squeezed his way to the end of our car and slurred, “Where’s the bathroom?” our collective recoil revealed a bit more space.
I bought a ticket for this?
So there was no question the train car was at capacity, but when we hit South Hampton, a mother and her teenage daughter decided they were going to fit on. Believe and you shall achieve, kids, because, somehow they did it. As I was the closest to the door, that meant we stood nearly nose to nose.
I’ve never been so close to someone I wasn’t about to make out with. If the lighting had been better, we just might have.
And this is when I realized the LIRR is the great equalizer of the Hamptons’ varied inhabitants. The mother was dripping in diamonds. Diamond-stud earrings so large they pulled at her earlobes. A chain of linked diamonds draped over her tunic as casually as a lanyard. Stacked diamond rings on her fingers, each as big as a signet ring.
Having just helped my best friend’s boyfriend choose an engagement ring, I am now a certified amateur gemologist, and by my estimation, her diamond earrings were about a gazillion carats.
I confess I was so curious about these people that when I spotted their name on their luggage tag, I Googled them on my iPhone.
Yes, standing right next to them.
Rude, I know, and risky, but if the mom turned out to be a publishing tycoon, I might try and make out with her after all.
She wasn’t.
But they turned out to be very nice. As we were practically chest bumping the entire drive, we struck up a friendly rapport. We commiserated about the slow train, our travel connections, I had an Amtrak to Philly to catch, they had a plane to Paris to board.
I have a hunch it was private.
But for the next two hours, we were all equal in the eyes of the Long Island Railroad. One train car, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.