Six

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SOUR APPLE
MARTINI

“Cassie, get over here and drink this before I have you fired!” Jake ordered, gesturing toward the mind eraser—a potent mix of Kahlua, vodka, and soda water, meant to be chugged through a straw—that was idling on the bar. “You call yourself a bartender!” he scoffed, after I’d obliged. “It took you twenty minutes to suck that down.” He was furiously banging his head along to Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” as he perfectly layered twelve shots of B-52s. “I know what you need,” he said, slamming his register drawer shut with his hip. He leaned down and pulled a bottle of Jameson out from under the speed rack and handed it to me. “By the end of the night,” he warned, “there’d better be a serious dent in this bottle.”

“I thought we only had Bushmills,” I said, thankful my old friend Jameson had made an appearance at Spark.

“I brought this from the liquor store on the way here, especially for you. I couldn’t handle seeing you gag on Patrón again.”

“Thanks,” I said, taking two disposable shot glasses out of a long plastic sleeve.

It was already after midnight and the night seemed to be flying by. Mind erasers had a way of distorting time, as did the endless stream of drink orders from our demanding clientele. Despite Jake’s ever-constant excursions away from the bar, I’d finally gotten myself into a bartending rhythm, smoothly transitioning from customer to customer and handling his absences better and better. On the way to Spark that night, I’d had my favorite cabdriver stop at Brent’s Deli in Amagansett, where I picked up my very own bottle opener and wine key. Armed and ready, this time I made sure to set up my own side of the bar so I knew exactly where everything was.

“Who puts Jack and Ketel in the speed rack?” Jake had criticized when he arrived on the scene.

“I do,” I retorted.

“Where the fuck did you learn how to bartend?” he asked.

Thankfully, it was a rhetorical question.

It was only my second night at Spark, but I was learning to hold my own. Earlier, when I’d walked in with Annie, who was newly promoted to cocktail waitress, we ran into Teddy at the entrance. I managed to impress him by mentioning that I was working on a screenplay—it turned out that Teddy was interested in film production as well. It seemed like a lot of people in the service industry had other irons in the fire.

“Can’t wait to read it,” he said. “And by the way, great job last night. You and Jake rocked it out.” His compliment buoyed my self-esteem for the rest of the night. Bartending, I was learning, was all about confidence. I invented drinks all night long. When anyone asked for a red devil or a mai tai, I winged it. As long as it turned out pink, I was in the clear.

As soon as the doors opened and people started streaming in, my antennas rose, hoping that James was among them. I kept one eye on the door so I wouldn’t miss him, wondering if he was still having dinner at Pacific East, and who had taken my place at his table.

“Two glasses of champagne,” a customer instructed just as I finished my first shot of Jameson in the Hamptons. He was an older man, with a Pierce Brosnan air and silver hair that matched the pinstripes on his Armani suit. On his arm was a girl half his age with jet-black hair and the biggest breast implants I’d ever seen. She was advertising them with an extremely low-cut halter top that made my skimpy uniform look conservative.

I dove my hand into the ice bin, pulled out a bottle of champagne, and filled two glasses. “That’ll be thirty dollars, please,” I said. He handed me a black American Express card. “Keep it open?” I asked.

“No. Close it.”

“I’m sorry, sir. There’s a fifty-dollar minimum on all credit cards.”

“We’re just staying for one drink. Do me a favor. I’m low on cash. Just charge these two glasses for me, and I promise I’ll take care of you.”

Ever since Baby Carmine had given me that $100 tip on my first shift, I’d been aware that taking care of the right customers could have surprising benefits. I returned a moment later with his credit card and receipt tucked neatly into a leather folder.

“Thank you,” he said. His girlfriend leaned over the bar as she took her first sip of champagne, resting her breasts on her arm. Glancing sideways, I saw Jake’s eyes almost pop out of his head.

The man signed and handed me the receipt. Next to tip, it read $150.

“Jake!” I called out, after making sure the man had disappeared into the crowd. “That guy left me a hundred-and-fifty-dollar tip on a thirty-dollar bill!”

“Did you see her tits?” he shouted back.

I ignored his Neanderthal remark and started rooting around in the tip jar to gather singles to make change. We had almost instantaneously run out of small bills in the register, since everyone in the Hamptons seemed to pay with hundred-dollar bills. When I turned back around to face the bar, I noticed two attractive guys in matching mint-green Lacoste shirts smiling at me, waiting for drinks. They had identical athletic-looking physiques and neatly groomed sandy-blond hair.

“Hi,” I said, smiling back at them. “What can I get for you?”

“Two Jack and Cokes,” one of them requested.

“And your phone number,” the other one added with a huge grin.

Between the shots and the frantic physical activity of the night, I’d lost my ability to muster any sort of passable retort. I grabbed the Jack from the well and swiftly made their drinks, wondering if there was a class at Wharton or Harvard Business School where all future bankers and brokers were instructed to drink Jack and Coke.

“Seriously, sweetheart, what’s your name?” one of them went on.

“Cassie,” I said. “What’s yours, sweetheart?”

“Ha-ha, I like this one,” he said with a laugh. “She’s feisty.” Then he added, “I’m Glen. And this handsome man is Tom.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said. “So tell me, did you two get together before you went out tonight to plan your matching outfits?”

They both laughed. “No way!” Tom protested. “I was wearing this shirt all day, and I came straight from Cyril’s. Then Glen over here shows up an hour later in the same damn thing. Not that I mind—imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”

“That’s bullshit!” Glen refuted. “I’ve had this shirt since freshman year.”

“Hey, Cassie, what are you doing tomorrow?” Tom asked. His cheeks were flushed and his expression hovered somewhere between a genuine smile and a drunken leer.

“Recovering from tonight,” I said.

“Well, we’re having a barbeque at our house. You can recover there. It should be fun. We’ve got a ton of liquor and steak and lobster.”

“Where do you live?”

“In East Hampton on Further Lane,” Glen chimed in.

The minute James had told me he owned a house on Further Lane, it had been imprinted on my memory like branding on the side of a cow. And that afternoon, when I’d finally awoken from a fitful sleep on the front porch, I’d called Alexis. Since my first weekend in the Hamptons, I’d been boring her with musings about James. As far as she was concerned, “marrying up” was exactly what I needed to put an end to my worries about money, and she’d encouraged my every rumination in the hopes that they would turn into reality.

“Lex!” I’d squealed. “I kissed James Edmonton and I’m in love! He’s amazing. Amazing. And you’ll never believe this—he wants to start his own production company. And he’s the best kisser ever!”

“Oh my God!” she cried. “That’s great! How did you find him?”

“He came into Spark. He lives somewhere in East Hampton. He told me where, but I can’t remember, Far Away Lane, or Furthest Lane, or something like that.”

“Further Lane?” she asked excitedly.

“Yeah, that sounds right.”

“Oh my God, that’s one of the most exclusive streets in the world,” she moaned enviously. “Seinfeld has a house there, and so do Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw . . . It’s like the Park Avenue of East Hampton. Further Lane and Lily Pond Lane are the only addresses worth having in the Hamptons. He must be loaded.”

While this detail about James thrilled Alexis, it seriously intimidated me. I thought about my summer getaway, which was not only on the wrong side of Montauk Highway, but was also serving as the Hamptons chapter of the Fiji Fraternity. James, on the other hand, was not only living south of the highway in a house that he owned, but I imagined he also had the Hilton sisters over for cocktails on a regular basis. I thought back to his father’s tasteful custom-tailored suit, Chopard watch, and brutal brush-off. Anyone could see that I was playing way out of my league. I wondered if I’d even really registered on James’s emotional radar screen—maybe I hadn’t affected him at all.

“You got a pen, Cassie?” Glen asked, interrupting my wandering thoughts.

“I got one,” Tom said, producing a platinum-plated Mont Blanc.

“Great,” Glen said as he smoothed out a bev nap and carefully wrote down their address and cell phone numbers, the ink bleeding into the tiny folds of the absorbent material. Bev naps were the papyrus of the bartending world. Soon after I’d first started working at Finton’s, my day planner had been rapidly replaced by reams of cocktail napkins that accounted for my grocery lists, to-do lists, attempts at budgeting, addresses and phone numbers of the people I was meeting, and screenplay ideas. “You can bring some friends if you want,” he added.

“As long as they’re hot girls,” Tom qualified.

“I’ll see what I can do,” I said, folding the napkin and sticking it in my LeSportsac makeup case.

“So, say around three?” Glen asked.

“Sounds good,” I said, giving them a noncommittal smile and turning to take an order from another customer. The two of them continued to hover near the bar and soon started hitting on two “fake-and-bake” local girls who looked like they were about sixteen.

I made what seemed like thousands of white chocolate martinis and Kir royales for a group of high-maintenance “desperate housewives,” and was pushing the hair back from my face when my heart suddenly stopped: James Edmonton had materialized a few feet down the bar. He looked like he’d stepped right out of the Ralph Lauren showroom, and I was nearly knocked off my feet by a surge of attraction. Still, I pretended not to see him, determined to show off my bartending finesse as I flirted with customers and skillfully shook martinis.

After a few minutes, I glanced over and feigned surprise. “Jimmy! I didn’t even see you there.”

“Jimmy?” He smiled as he leaned over across the bar to kiss my cheek. “No one’s called me that since the third grade.” As his chiseled cheek brushed mine, I caught the faintest whiff of his Bulgari aftershave. He smelled good enough to eat. “How’s your night going?” he asked.

“Great!” I exclaimed. “Much better than last night. Can I get you a drink?”

“Sure, I’ll have a—”

“Jack and Coke,” I supplied. He smiled, flashing perfectly white teeth worthy of a Crest Whitestrips commercial. I didn’t usually obsess over a man’s teeth, but James’s really were that perfect—and like everything else about him, they added to his magnetic allure.

As I started making his drink, the Burberry Plaid Man from the night before appeared at the bar, accompanied by the same group of scantily clad blonds.

“What can I get for you?” Jake asked him.

“If you don’t mind I’d like to order from her,” he said, pointing in my direction.

“By all means,” Jake said.

I walked over to the man after delivering James’s drink, hating that I couldn’t linger with him longer. “Hi, what can I do for you?”

“Honey, there are a lot of things you can do for me.” He smirked, scanning my body up and down, even as his right arm twined around the girl at his side.

“What can I get for you to drink?” I clarified.

“Bottle of Goose.”

I rang it into the computer and handed it over to him. “Three hundred fifty dollars.”

“Wait . . . that’s not all,” he said, leaning in to confer with his fair-haired entourage. “Do you sell bottles of champagne?”

I nodded.

“Veuve?” he asked.

“Yellow Label or Grande Damme?”

“Grande Damme, of course.”

I rang it in and sent a bar back to grab a bottle out of the walk-in cooler. “Okay, your total’s six-fifty.”

He pulled out a wad of hundreds and counted out ten. “Here you go, blue eyes,” he said with a wink. “Keep the change.”

I did the math in my head. “Jake!” I shouted. “I just made a three-hundred-and-fifty-dollar tip!” That was $500 in the last twenty minutes. I wanted to be sure James heard how much my customers loved me.

“You’re on a roll tonight!” Jake hollered back.

“Looks like we need another round of Jameson to celebrate!” I turned to James. “Are you interested?”

“If you can handle it, so can I,” he laughed. I grabbed our hidden contraband and poured three shots.

“Jake, this is James. James, Jake,” I said.

“Salud,” Jake said, raising his shot.

“Salud,” James and I said in unison. As I downed the shot, I reflected that Jake didn’t seem to mind switching from Patrón, to mind erasers, to Irish whiskey. He could knock back anything equally fast and without a problem. His system probably could have tolerated isopropyl rubbing alcohol.

After slamming the shot like a pro, James turned around and summoned a bunch of guys over to the bar. “Cassie, these are some of my friends,” he said as he rattled off a laundry list of first names like Taylor, Christian, and Landon paired with last names like Duke, von Furstenberg, and Lauren. They were all handsome, WASPish, Thomas Pink button-down-wearing guys who looked like they had just finished eighteen holes of golf at Shinnecock Hills. “And these two—”

“Are Glen and Tom,” I finished for him.

“You know each other?” James asked.

“We go way back,” Glen said, grasping my hand and kissing it. “Jealous, Edmonton?” James shot him a smirk.

“We actually just met,” I said. “They were trying to convince me to come to their barbeque tomorrow.”

“We figured we’d invite as many pretty girls as possible,” Tom explained. “I should’ve known this one belonged to you. How is it you know every single hot girl in the Hamptons?”

“It’d be great if you came,” James said to me, ignoring Tom. “I was going to invite you myself when I saw you tonight.”

“Cassie!” Jake called from the other end of the bar. “What the fuck are you doing? Get back to work!” I looked up and was terrified to see that an angry mob of thirsty patrons had formed, all of them wildly waving cash.

“I’ll see you guys later,” I said hastily, returning to my station and taking as many orders as I thought I stood a chance of remembering.

The night rolled on in a mad rush of drink-making, Jameson-shooting, and a series of quick interrupted conversations with James. Finally, a little after three, Annie came bounding up to the bar and held on to it for dear life. The magenta staining her lips and tongue indicated she’d been indulging in her favorite shot—a mix of So Co, Jäger, and cranberry juice, called a redheaded slut.

“Hey, Cass,” she slurred slightly, “I just closed out my last table, so I’m running over to Southampton with Teddy. He wants to check out the scene at Jet and Tavern and make sure ours is hotter. And if they have any celebs there, he’s going to try to lure them out to us next weekend—even though Liv Tyler, Kirsten Dunst, Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Uma Thurman were all sitting upstairs in VIP tonight! Can you believe it?”

“I’m so jealous,” I groaned, wiping sweat from my brow, and ignoring the Pucci-clad woman to my right who was angling for a drink. “There’s no way in hell I’m getting out of here for at least another four hours.”

I was in the middle of making my four-hundredth key lime martini when I heard Jake announce, “Last call!” Immediately afterward, he sprang up and over the bar and disappeared up the stairs toward the employee bathroom, getting lost in the sea of people trickling toward the door. I couldn’t believe twenty-four hours had catapulted by and my second night of bartending at Spark was almost over.

“Do you want me to wait with you and give you a ride home?” James asked as one of the bouncers, a three-hundred-pound man in a cheap black suit with a face like a cartoon bulldog, loomed over his shoulder.

“It’s okay,” I said to the bouncer. “He can stay. He’s with me.” I turned to James. “You really don’t have to wait. I’m going to be here forever. I have to clean up, cash out, and then wait for the waitresses, who are mentally impaired even when they’re sober. You’ll end up being here all night.”

“Then I guess I’ll have another Jack and Coke, please.”

“Seriously, you don’t have to wait with me.”

He shook his head and smiled. “Somebody’s gotta drive you home.”

“I can call a cab.”

“I’m not letting you take a cab. Can I do anything to help?”

I laughed. “I don’t think so.”

“You look so beautiful, tonight,” he said, leaning over the bar to kiss me. I could feel my face getting hot; the thrill of kissing him seemed to produce more energy than cold fusion. The surrounding bedlam of busboys mopping the mélange of liquids on the floor, waitresses prattling over credit card receipts, and drunk stragglers being forcibly removed by the bouncers faded into the distance.

“Get a room!” Jake called from the balcony of VIP.

I quickly pulled away from James and started randomly wiping down bottles of liquor and the coolers—anything to look busy. Jake returned and we bundled up our cash and adjusted our credit card tips. Just like the night before, Jake and I were cleaned up and closed out hours before the cocktail waitresses. So James and I settled into a quiet corner in the back of the dining room where we sipped Bud Lights as I waited for the waitress tip-out.

“So tell me about this screenplay of yours,” he said, offering me the Yale sweatshirt that he’d grabbed out of the back of his Range Rover.

“It’s kind of a long story,” I said.

He gestured toward the group of waitresses struggling with basic math. “I think we’ve got some time to kill.”

I glanced ruefully over at the girls. “Well, I was on my way home from a party a couple of years ago, and I saw this girl who I’m pretty sure was a prostitute get picked up by a Lincoln Town Car.”

“Uh-huh,” he nodded, listening intently.

“Anyway, it made me think,” I went on. “I complain about money or other stupid problems all the time, but relatively speaking, my life is pretty damn good. I mean, I’m sure I’ve had a million more opportunities than this girl. So on the train home to Albany, I just started outlining her story.”

“So what happens to her?” James asked. His sincere interest made me feel like I was the most fascinating woman in the world.

“That remains to be seen. I had my initial draft produced as a short by some film students at Tisch, but I want to work on how the story plays out and then expand the original script into a feature-length version. The problem is, lately I’ve been spending a lot more of my time making drinks than writing.” I shrugged.

“Well, it sounds like a great idea. I’d love to take a look at it when you finish.”

It was a beautiful morning when we finally stepped outside. The sun was rising clear and bright over Montauk Point, and I tasted a soft salty breeze as James opened the passenger door of his Range Rover.

“It’s gorgeous out,” I said, gazing out the window at the slightly hazy air. It was going to be the first really hot day of summer. “I feel like skipping bed and going straight to the beach.”

James smiled and, without saying a word, took the next right onto a rustic country road dappled with white picket fences and monstrous houses—the American dream filtered through the lens of the Hamptons—and we started driving southbound toward the ocean.

“Where are we going?”

“To the beach,” he said. “My dad lives down there.” He pointed to an old carriage road that ran parallel to the shore. “That’s Lily Pond Lane.” I craned my neck to see if I could glimpse the historic mansions that lined the shore, but each estate had manicured hedges a mile high that concealed their grounds.

Moments later we arrived at Main Beach in East Hampton. Cascading dunes sprinkled with tall spiky greenery impeded our view of the ocean as we pulled into the tiny parking lot—I wondered how the thousands of beachgoers managed to squeeze their Denalis into such a confined space. Maybe Hamptons beaches were like Hamptons nightclubs—entry was limited to rich, beautiful people who owned waterfront property.

We walked clumsily across the dunes, and suddenly the ocean roared into view. As I idled near the surf, burrowing my toes into the cool wet sand, I felt like I was standing on the edge of the earth. James spread out the blue wool blanket he’d pulled from the back of his car while I opened the two Bud Lights that I’d embezzled from Spark on my way out. There was a slight chill in the air down by the water, and I pulled my arms inside his sweatshirt. James sat behind me and wrapped his arms around me, and I snuggled back into his chest.

“Who knows, Cassie,” he said, pausing to take a sip of beer. “Maybe once my production company’s on its feet, I’ll end up producing your screenplay.”

I turned around to smile up at him. “Sound good to me.”

As the waves thundered at the shoreline, he leaned down and kissed me. I didn’t protest when he slid his hands up under the sweatshirt and lifted it up over my head, revealing my tiny halter top, which only twenty-four hours ago had made me feel embarrassed and self-conscious. But now, lying in James’s arms, my legs intertwined with his while the morning light crept across the empty beach, I felt amazingly sexy. He started kissing my neck and then began moving down to my shoulders. I ran my hands through his hair and held him to me, losing myself in the cyclone of our chemistry. But when he started to unbutton and ease off my skirt, I snapped to attention.

“Wait,” I said reluctantly, caught off guard by a sudden surge of Catholic guilt. “We shouldn’t.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “We don’t have to.”

“It’s just . . . I don’t know . . . we just . . .” My body literally ached with wanting him. But I also didn’t want to open myself up to someone I hardly knew. Deep down, I worried that flash-in-the-pan romances might be part-and-parcel of James’s M.O. I was conflicted. I wanted him, but I also wanted him to respect me.

“Shhhh,” he said, kissing me gently on the forehead and enveloping me in the blanket. He carefully pulled the sweatshirt back over my head.

My confusion over how far and how fast to go with James continued to rattle around in my mind as Annie and I got ready for the barbeque the next afternoon. I’d arrived back from the beach around nine, giddy and exhausted, and collapsed into bed. The previous night, before we left for work, Annie had figured out that if she locked the door to our bedroom from the inside, she could open it later with a butter knife. This solved the problem of coming home at seven in the morning and finding a naked inebriated jock snoring in our beds. But even as I drifted off to sleep, my brain was awash in a sea of images: James kissing me while the sun came up; James’s father brushing me off at Finton’s; James mingling up in VIP with the rest of the Hamptons elite. There was no question that I was smitten, but I worried about falling for someone whose life was so different from my own.

“. . . so Teddy has a huge cock,” Annie babbled as she scrunched L’Oreal Volumatic Full-Up Mousse into her hair. “I mean, I didn’t know what to do with it! We were in the backseat of his Jeep, and I was trying to give him head, but I kept gagging and . . .”

“Mmm-hmm.” I nodded distractedly. Annie’s sexual play-by-plays usually shocked me into incredulous laughter, but I was too busy obsessing over which skirt would look the cutest with my brand-new bright turquoise Juicy Couture tank top—hastily purchased at Scoop Beach earlier that day for a mere $98—to pay her any attention.

“You’re not even listening to me,” she complained.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “For some reason I’m really nervous about going over to James’s house.”

“Oh, come on. You have nothing to worry about. It’s gonna be so much fun. And you look adorable. I love that top.”

A half hour later, though, even Annie was awed into silence as we stood outside James’s massive front door on Further Lane, which looked like the portal to a medieval fortress. I felt like Jay Gatsby staring longingly at Tom and Daisy’s East Egg estate. Despite my nerves, though, I was determined to play it cool. I glanced down again at my new tank top—even though it had set me back almost $100, its flattering shape gave me a necessary boost of confidence.

“Cassie. Hey!” Tom said, Heineken in hand, as he opened the double doors. “So glad you could make it.”

“Hi,” I said, stepping into the foyer and discreetly looking around for any sign of James. “This is my friend Annie.”

“Nice to meet you,” Tom said. “I see Cassie follows instructions very well.”

“Excuse me?” Annie asked.

“I told her to bring her cutest friend, and here you are.”

Annie’s pouty lips spread into a big, gleaming smile. She was, by her own admission, a complete sucker for cheesy one-liners. Meanwhile, I took a deep breath and purposefully directed my eyes right at Tom.

“This is an amazing house,” Annie gushed, tilting her head back to scan our surroundings, which included a lofty entrance hall that stretched up to reveal the second floor. I followed her gaze, and for a moment the grandeur of the house distracted me. I couldn’t believe that three guys only a few years older than us could own something this lavish.

Tom led us into the dining room. “Wow, this table is incredible,” Annie said, tracing her fingers across the glass pane that protected what looked like an ancient artifact resurrected from a dig in western Europe.

“It’s actually from a castle in Scotland,” Tom replied. “James got it at an auction on one of his golf trips.”

I was trying hard to stop my mind from racing ahead and feeding me images of James sitting across from me at that very table while the two of us clinked wineglasses over a dinner we’d cooked together in his stainless steel kitchen, or of me wearing his bathrobe and making him pancakes in the morning. My eyes caught the reflected light off a wall of picture frames, and I walked over to take a closer look. The first photograph was of Tom and an older man flanked by Bill and Hillary Clinton.

“How’d you get to meet Hill and Bill?” I asked him, impressed.

“My dad’s a senator.”

“What’s your last name?”

“Pendergast. My dad’s Charles William Pendergast of Rhode Island.”

There were also photos of James and his dad posing beside George Steinbrenner, the principal owner of the New York Yankees, Tom next to Rande Gerber and Cindy Crawford, and Glen with Keith Richards.

Just when I thought I could no longer be impressed, Tom led us outside onto the marble patio where people were mingling, sipping cocktails. Beyond the patio lay an Olympic-size pool, two Jacuzzis, tennis courts, and an expansive lawn that stretched down toward the beach. On the horizon, past the perfectly landscaped flower beds and hedgerows, I could see the ocean.

“Wow, this is just a little different from our backyard,” Annie whispered. Both of us were trying hard not to look too obviously awestruck.

“Yeah, not nearly enough empty PBR cans,” I joked.

Glen spotted us and waved hello. He was flipping filet mignon and lobster tails on what Tom cheerfully pointed out was “the Cadillac of grills”—a $10,000 apparatus complete with refrigerators and separate cooking surfaces designed for seafood, red meat, chicken, vegetables, and anything else you might want to prepare. Back home in Albany, we still barbecued on an old charcoal-and-lighter-fluid camping grill we’d had since I was six. James was nowhere in sight.

“Can I offer you a martini?” Tom asked.

“I’ll just have a beer,” I said.

“Me too,” Annie agreed.

“Heineken, Stella, Corona, or Budweiser?”

“Budweiser,” we said in unison.

“King of beers,” Tom agreed. “Okay, ladies, these are some of our buddies from college—this is Taylor, Christian . . .”

As I was being reintroduced to James’s friends, I noticed a cluster of highly manicured women conspiring in one corner of the patio over glasses of white wine. They were all slender with expertly (and presumably expensively) styled blond hair. Each one of them had perfect posture and perfectly smooth, creamy skin. Their clothes were a tasteful mix of soft pastel cashmere sweater sets, Lily Pulitzer dresses, and shahtoosh shawls that draped over their narrow shoulders, revealing toned arms. Their nails were all meticulously painted a sheer pink, and the toes I saw peeking out of their Sigerson Morrison sandals matched perfectly. A strand of pearls lay elegantly around each of their swanlike necks. With dismay, I reflected on my own generic jeans skirt, dark, windblown hair, and chipped coral nail polish. My new top, which only moments earlier had seemed like sexy summer fun, now seemed unrefined and loud.

“What’s up with the Pearls Girls?” Annie whispered, shooting me a devilish look.

“Sssh,” I hissed, hoping Tom hadn’t heard.

“And this is Buffy, Abigail, Charlotte, and Rosalind,” he continued, apparently unaware of our whisperings. “They have houses over on Middle Lane, a couple of blocks from here. James’s family is really close with Rosalind’s, and Charlotte’s father and my father have worked and summered together since we were little kids. Buffy and Abigail winter in Telluride next door to Christian’s family’s chalet. It’s all a little incestuous.” He laughed.

I forced a smile at the girls. “Hi, I’m Cassie,” I said. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you too,” they responded coolly, surveying me with their pale blue eyes. I caught a hint of a southern accent from at least one of them.

“You didn’t go to Yale with the boys, did you?” Buffy sniffed. “I’ve never met you before.” As if to imply that if I was “somebody” she would certainly have met me ages ago. She had champagne-colored hair that curled upward at her shoulders and made her look like a country club mom.

“No, I actually went to Columbia,” I said, hoping to at least impress them with my educational pedigree. “I met Tom and Glen last night.”

Rosalind arched a perfectly threaded eyebrow at Charlotte as if to imply that Tom and Glen had picked me up on a street corner. I floundered to correct the situation. “But I met James a couple of weeks ago in Southampton.”

“At the Southampton Country Club?” Charlotte asked, suddenly interested. She had caramel blond hair neatly combed back and fastened with a white headband.

“Yes, actually,” I said.

“Oh, how long has your family belonged there?” Abigail asked, wrapping her pink shawl around her slim frame in the same manner Cruella De Vil donned her dalmation-fur stoles. She was the tallest of the girls and had the lithe figure of a ballerina. Her strawberry blond hair was tidily swept up into a flowing ponytail.

“Actually, I was with a friend, who’s a member.”

“Oh,” Rosalind said somewhat reprovingly. She caressed the delicate strand of pearls around her neck, which reflected the translucence of her flawless skin. “Well, is your family’s house in Southampton?” she continued. Her hair was the fairest of all and tumbled in soft flaxen waves onto her shoulders.

“Uh . . . no. I have a place with some friends in Amagansett. So, where did you all go to school?” I asked, eager to shift the attention away from me before I was forced to confess that I was from upstate New York.

“UVA,” Buffy, Abigail, and Charlotte sang in unison.

“Harvard,” Rosalind declared.

Shit, I thought.

“But Abigail and I grew up together in Charleston. And Rosalind and Charlotte grew up together in Greenwich. It’s such a small world,” Buffy explained. “The three of us ended up Kappa Kappa Gammas together in college. I think they have a chapter at Columbia. What sorority were you a member of?”

I gnawed nervously on my thumbnail—a habit I was desperately trying to break. “I actually never pledged—I couldn’t get time off from my job during rush.”

Rosalind gasped. “You worked while you were in college?”

I ripped my whole thumbnail off with my incisors and felt like crawling in a hole. Who were these girls, and why did I suddenly feel so inadequate? I needed to change the subject. “So, what do you girls do?”

“Charlotte, Buffy, and I work at Cheban/Grubman PR,” Abigail told me proudly.

“Cool,” I responded. “Rosalind, what do you do?”

Before she could answer, Charlotte volunteered excitedly, “Rosalind’s the newest muse for Calvin Klein!”

A satisfied smile played at the corners of Rosalind’s mouth as her minions chattered excitedly about her new “job,” which I couldn’t begin to wrap my head around. What exactly was a muse?

“Oh my God, Rosalind! You’re following in the exact footsteps of Caroline Bissett Kennedy, God rest her soul,” Buffy continued amorously.

I longed desperately to get away from these women and join Annie, who had wandered over to where Tom, Taylor, and Christian were tossing a football around on the impossibly green expansive yard. She was perched on the long stone wall that ran alongside the hedges, sipping her beer and swinging her long shapely legs.

“Tom, I’ll go out for the pass!” I yelled. But as soon as the words escaped my throat, it was as though the proverbial record had screeched to a stop at a crowded dance. The guys just stood there uncertainly holding the football, and I heard the Pearls Girls tittering behind me.

“Is she serious?” Rosalind’s voice carried over the others. My knees nearly buckled with mortification, and I stood there paralyzed for a few agonizing seconds until Annie saved me.

“Come on, Tom, what are you, afraid to play with a girl?” she called out. He laughed and lobbed the ball to me, which I caught easily, and threw back to Christian. I decided right then and there I was not going to let these girls get to me. Tom, Glen, and James had invited me, and I belonged there just as much as they did. I looked around hoping James had witnessed my nice pass, but he was still nowhere to be seen. I was determined to look like I was having a good time should he emerge. “Any of you guys up for a game of touch football?” I asked.

Tom pretended to chuck the ball at Buffy. She squealed with fright, ducking behind Rosalind.

“Tom, you’re such a brute!” she protested.

“What’s the matter, Buffy, you don’t like football?” he said with a wink in my direction.

“Why on earth would I play a man’s sport?” she sniffed à la Scarlett O’Hara. She turned to Rosalind, and the two shared a hushed exchange, eyeing me disdainfully the whole time. I didn’t want to be paranoid, but something told me I was the topic of conversation.

“I think it’s time for another beer,” Taylor said, spiking the football. Annie and I followed the boys back to the patio where Glen was taking orders for dinner. The Pearls Girls strolled behind us.

“I’ll have a small chicken breast—no skin, no sauce, no potatoes, no corn. And a little salad—dressing on the side,” Rosalind said.

“Me too,” Abigail said. Charlotte and Buffy nodded in agreement. Annie rolled her eyes.

“What can I get for you, Cassie?” Glen asked.

“I’ll try some of the filet mignon, and the lobster, and I’ll have some corn and a potato,” I said quietly, hoping to avoid further condemnation from the Pearls Girls—given how they felt about football, I was pretty sure I could guess how they felt about eating—but no such luck.

“A little hungry?” Rosalind frowned, her eyes concentrating on my heaping plate.

I ignored her barb. I could easily guess what had triggered their vicious behavior. Annie and I were outsiders—different from them—and had clearly captured the attention of their male friends. It was a classic case of girls being bitchy to defend their territory. I felt impotent, though, because they were James’s friends and I didn’t want to ruffle feathers.

Rosalind turned away and joined the other girls, who were now absorbed in a heated debate over the merits of cushion versus brilliant-cut diamond engagement rings—a distinction that had about as much meaning to me as quantum physics.

“Well, when Andrea got engaged to Graydon, she got a three-point-five-carat cushion cut from Harry Winston,” Abigail was saying.

“But the five-carat classic brilliant-cut ring from Tiffany that Allison got was so much more timeless,” Charlotte disputed. I looked around to Annie for support, but she had long since left to get a lesson at the grill from Tom. He had his arm around her as he explained how Wolfgang Puck handled a lobster tail. I was on my own.

I felt awkward hovering on the periphery of their group so I made one last stab at amicability. “So what brings you to the Hamptons all the way from Charleston?” I asked Buffy and Abigail.

“Well, my daddy’s always kept a place up here,” Buffy said. “He’s from Manhattan originally, and he just adores the Hamptons. I’ve been coming here since I was a baby.”

“We all live in Manhattan now, on the Upper East Side, and we come out on weekends,” Abigail added. “Where do you live in Manhattan?”

“I live in the Village and Annie lives on the Lower East Side.”

“Oh,” they said, looking bemused that anyone might actually choose to live in those neighborhoods. I cut off several small pieces of my filet hoping to eat in as delicate a manner as possible.

“You look really familiar,” Rosalind went on, scrutinizing my face. “Have we met before?”

I met her gaze. She looked familiar to me as well, but I couldn’t place her. It was hard to imagine we ran in the same circles. “I don’t think so,” I said, taking an uncomfortable gulp of Budweiser.

“I know!” she finally exclaimed, careful not to upset her brimming glass of Sancerre. “You’re a bartender at Spark. I saw you there on Friday night.”

“Yeah. That must be it.” I smiled awkwardly.

“You’re a bartender?” Abigail asked. “What’s that like?”

“You mean Spark?” I asked, confused.

“No, she means bartending,” Rosalind interjected, cocking her head to one side and flipping her hair. “It must be so difficult for you—staying up all night, serving all those people.”

“It’s not that bad,” I said. “Actually, it’s a lot of fun. I love the people I work with, and I make great money.” I managed a confident smile. I wasn’t going to let them ruin my afternoon. There was nothing wrong with my job—it was a means to an end, I assured myself.

“I’m sure you do,” Rosalind said. “In fact, girls, if I recall correctly, Cassie makes a fabulous sour apple martini.”

I smiled uneasily. Even though it seemed she was giving me a compliment, I felt like it was backhanded at best.

“Ooooh, we have sour apple schnapps and vodka in the kitchen,” Abigail said, her eyes lighting up.

Rosalind turned and looked at me levelly. “Cassie, would you do me a huge favor and run inside and mix me one of those delicious drinks of yours?”

I stood there wondering how I should deal with the situation, which had gone from uncomfortable to insulting. I wouldn’t have minded mixing a drink for a friend, but there was something about the dynamics that made me loath to do anything that might suggest I was part of the working class that had catered to Rosalind and her friends throughout their entire lives. They clearly didn’t view me as an equal. I looked around for James for the umpteenth time—I couldn’t help hoping that he’d appear at my side, put his arms around me, and pull me in for a kiss, instantly validating my presence at the barbeque.

“I guess I can do it,” I said finally. I hated that I was playing into their hands, but if James’s and Rosalind’s families had really known each other for years, being deferential to these girls—even in the face of their passive-aggressive animosity—seemed like my only strategy. I set down my plate of food and turned to walk toward the kitchen.

“Sorry, ladies,” Annie interjected, sidling up beside me and blocking my path. “But today’s our day off. If you really want a martini, you can make it yourself. It’s not that difficult, really. Didn’t they teach you to make the perfect cocktail in charm school?”

The girls erupted into insincere laughter. “Oh, isn’t she adorable? What’s your name again?” Abigail asked.

“Annie,” Annie said with an equally insincere smile, taking a step closer toward them. I put a restraining hand on her forearm, praying she wasn’t about to punch one of the Pearls Girls in her Rembrandt-white teeth.

“Hey, guys.” James’s voice cut through the overwrought air from the kitchen doorway like a shotgun blast. All of our puffed-out peacock feathers slowly settled back into place and the cat fight was averted, at least temporarily. With his slightly rumpled Polo shirt and tousled hair, he looked like he’d just woken up. I felt a happy rush of relief and anticipation—not only did he look as adorable as ever, but I couldn’t wait until the moment the Pearls Girls realized that there was something going on between us. If I was good enough to be James’s paramour, then I was good enough for them.

“James!” Rosalind trilled, mincing over to him and presenting her cheek, which he dutifully kissed. Buffy, Abigail, and Charlotte flocked behind her. He kissed them all on their cheeks and then made his way toward me and Annie.

“Hey, Annie,” he said, also kissing her on the cheek. Then he finally turned to me. “What’s up, Cass?” he said, planting a generic kiss on my cheek and then brushing past me and shouting to Tom at the grill, “There better be food left. I’m starving!”

I stared at James’s back in disbelief as he walked over to where Tom was manning the grill. He’d barely even looked at me. Only that morning we had been kissing on the beach wrapped up in each other’s arms. But now I felt like we were strangers. What had happened? Had he heard my exchange with the Pearls Girls? I looked at Annie, speechless. She gave me a sympathetic look and shrugged her shoulders.

“James, did you get a chance to talk to Elisabeth last night?” I heard Rosalind ask him excitedly as she followed him over to the grill.

“Yeah, I hung out with her for a while,” James said. “It was so good to catch up. I haven’t seen her since Marbella last summer. She told me her dad’s finally closing on that Aspen house for her.”

“I know! Isn’t it exciting? It’s literally down the road from my family’s house. This winter’s going to be the best one yet!”

Marbella? Aspen? James and Rosalind were casually mentioning places I’d read about in People magazine as the most exclusive celebrity retreats as though they were the Red Roof Inn in Albany. I stood around awkwardly, feeling stupid. I certainly had nothing to add to their conversation. How did I ever think I’d be able to ever fit into his world?

Suddenly Charlotte put down her wineglass. “Oh my goodness, what time is it?” she asked, alarmed.

Rosalind consulted the platinum Cartier watch that hung delicately on her slender wrist. “Oh my gosh!” she cried. “It’s almost five-thirty. If we don’t leave now, we’ll miss the Luxury Liner and be stuck taking the Jitney or the train!”

Without another word, they all sprang into action, gathering their belongings, which were neatly piled on lounge chairs beside the pool. In a shahtoosh-filled flash of air-kisses and Chanel quilted bags, they were headed for the door. As I watched them leave, I overheard Rosalind say to Abigail, “I don’t understand why they invited those bartender girls in the first place. . . .”

Annie, who thankfully hadn’t been privy to Rosalind’s final dig, rolled her eyes, laughing incredulously. “Are you fucking kidding me? What the hell is the Luxury Liner?”

I breathed a sigh of relief. I didn’t care how Rosalind and her friends had departed, just so long as they were gone.

“Hey, girls,” Tom called. “There’s lobster left over if you want some.”

“Come on,” Annie whispered. She grabbed my hand and marched me determinedly toward the grill, where Glen was drinking a Stella, and Tom and James were seated at the table, busily cracking open lobster tails and dipping them in drawn butter.

To my surprise, James pulled me into his lap. “Here,” he said, lifting up a forkful of fluffy lobster meat. “Have some of mine.” I took a dainty bite. He leaned in and gave me a buttery kiss—on the lips this time. “I’m so glad you came.”

“Me too.” I smiled back weakly. It felt so good to be snuggled in his lap here in this lushly landscaped yard, being hand-fed lobster as the sun sank lower in the sky. Still, I couldn’t shake the awkwardness of the rest of the afternoon and his obvious coldness toward me in front of the Pearls Girls. Was it my imagination, or had he warmed up to me the second they’d disappeared? As I accepted another bite from James’s fork, the sumptuous flavor of the rich delicacy mingled with the bitter taste in my mouth.