Eleven

____________

THUG PASSION

My swollen bladder straining against my abdominal wall, I barrelled through the hordes of oblivious dancing bodies in VIP to reach the employee bathroom. Cursing myself for drinking a hundred ounces of water on such a busy night, I pushed the unlocked bathroom door open without knocking. Teddy was inside standing with his back facing the toilet and his pants down. A slender bleached blond, wearing a skintight white Moschino crop top and low-cut Chloe jeans, was on her knees before him.

“Oh my God, I-I’m so sorry,” I stuttered, backing out of the tiny bathroom.

“That’s okay,” the girl answered, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “We’re finished.” She rose to her feet as a flushed Teddy pulled up his pants. On her tiptoes she planted a brusque kiss on his lips. “After this little favor, I don’t think I should have to wait on line to get into the club anymore,” she said with a sexy laugh before brushing past me to join her cluster of dancing friends in VIP.

“Teddy, I’m really sorry. I should’ve knocked,” I said, flustered. The air in the bathroom was thick with marijuana smoke, and Teddy slugged the rest of an Amstel Light before straightening his metallic-green tie and squeezing by me. Still overwhelmed by embarrassment, I closed the door and made sure to lock it.

As I made my way back through VIP, I promised myself I would never again barge through a closed door at Spark—you just never knew what lurked behind. I thought of Annie and wondered just how many women Teddy managed to score on any given night. Annie seemed to have tired of him (and Tom, too, come to think of it)—lately she only mentioned the wealthy Mr. Big types who seemed to populate VIP and were always responsive to her charms—but I wondered if she knew what he was up to all the same. Then again, knowing Annie, she probably wouldn’t care. I had a hard time just keeping track of her suitors.

Earlier that night, when Annie and I had arrived for work, a burly bouncer had blocked our entrance. “Sorry, girls, the back of the line is that way,” he’d barked.

“We work here,” I’d said, mildly proud that I wielded a little velvet-rope power, a true mark of distinction in the Hamptons.

I’d noticed that two separate lines had formed in front of the door, and I remembered Teddy mentioning he was bringing in a different promoter to host a Latin night on Fridays. The line on the right side consisted mostly of people of Hispanic origin who were being shepherded through a metal detector administered by unfamiliar security guards and getting frisked before being admitted. The other line looked like the typical Spark clientele: girls in Jimmy Choo stilettos, short Chip and Pepper skirts, and brightly colored Dior tanks; guys in the standard male uniform of Hickey Freeman or Ascot Chang button-downs rolled “casually” to the sleeves, and Cole Haan or Gucci loafers. While one line ended in a cursory guest list check, the other ended in a full body search.

Cassie! Can I get two Ketel cranberries?” Elsie asked. “I would’ve gotten them from the back bar, but they hired some idiot girl when they fired Kyle and she can’t bartend for shit.”

“They fired Kyle?” I asked, dressing her cocktails with limes.

“Yeah. He came in tonight all the way from Hampton Bays and when he got here they told him to go home. Teddy’s fucking some chick and he hired her friend back there. She’s a total bitch.” She put the drinks on a tray and teetered back into the crowd.

Whenever a bartender or waitress was fired, an epidemic of fear infected all Spark employees. Those of us who remained tried to determine the exact reason the employee had been dismissed, in order to avoid getting sacked ourselves. I imagined that the portentous owners had witnessed Kyle blowing lines behind the bar from their cameras at home. Still, with new faces appearing right and left, it was getting so I actually felt comforted when I saw Elsie and the girls—at least they were familiar.

I buckled down and got back to work, my arms and mind moving as fast as they could. I started making watermelon martinis for two “Lawn Guyland” girls—with thick local accents, long pink fingernails, and teased hair. Before I’d even had a chance to get the Pucker Watermelon Liqueur, I looked up to see James and Tom standing right in front of me.

“Hey, guys!” I said, lighting up and abandoning drink-making for a second while I leaned over the bar to kiss James hello. “I didn’t know you were coming!”

“We decided to stop by for a quick drink,” he said. “I don’t think we’re going to stay long. I have to wake up early tomorrow to go golfing with some guys from work.”

I shot him an exaggerated pout as I added vodka to the watermelon mix, and he laughed. “You want a Jack and Coke?” I asked, smiling.

“Sure, thanks. How’s your night going?” he asked.

“Good. It’s busy,” I said, looking around at the masses.

“Yeah, it’s crazy in here tonight,” Tom agreed.

“How was dinner?” I asked, shoveling ice into the watermelon concoction and shaking energetically.

“Good,” James said.

“Where’d you go?” I asked, handing the girls their martinis and accepting their cash.

“Nick and Toni’s,” Tom said. “It was delicious.”

“So . . .” James said, leaning in over the bar.

“Yeah . . .” I said, leaning in even closer so our noses were almost touching.

“I know you’re really busy, but I just wanted to tell you I finished reading your screenplay this afternoon, and I loved it. It was brilliant.”

“Really?” I asked. Time seemed to stop, and for a moment I was utterly unaware of the fact that I was behind a bar in front of hundreds of impatient customers. Ever since I’d given him a copy of my screenplay at Finton’s this past Wednesday, I’d been waiting with bated breath for his reaction.

“Really. I loved it.”

“Really?” I asked again, feeling the blood rush to my cheeks.

“Yes. It was amazing. I’ll talk to you more about it later, but I’m going to make some calls and see what we can do to shop it around.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. I got chills thinking about the possibilities. I wondered how far his connections actually extended in the film world, since in all of our conversations we’d never really talked about specifics. I wondered excitedly if he could actually get my screenplay produced.

“Can I get a drink over here?” a man called from a few feet away.

“Go back to work. We can talk about it later. I just wanted to let you know I loved it.” James turned and disappeared into the crowd with Tom.

I faced the angry rabble with a proud smile. In a matter of weeks I probably wouldn’t even need to bartend anymore.

“Three Ketels and sodas, two Jack and Cokes, a sour apple martini, a glass of champagne, four Amstel Lights . . .” Customers were barking, but all I could hear was “and the Academy Award for best screenplay goes to . . . Cassie Ellis.”

“Excuse me,” a man’s voice beseeched, forcing me back down to earth.

“Hi! How are you?” I asked, turning and smiling brightly at the man, still intoxicated by James’s praise.

“I’m good, thanks. How are you?” He was a grizzly-looking guy, and his red and white checkered button-down shirt was wrinkled and sloppily tucked into furrowed khakis. Not exactly the typical polished Spark fare.

“Great!”

“Can I buy a bottle at the bar?” he asked.

“You sure can,” I said. “What can I get for you?”

“Do you have Ketel One?”

“We sure do!” I bent down to the shelves stacked with vodka reserves and grabbed a bottle of Ketel, all the while dancing along to Donna Summer’s “She Works Hard for Her Money.” Spark constantly rotated in new DJs, and this one was spinning lots of my favorite 1970s and ’80s classics. “Here you go,” I said. “That’ll be two hundred fifty dollars.”

“And a Bud for me.”

“Two-sixty.”

“Ten dollars for a Bud?” he asked.

“I know. It’s crazy,” I sympathized. “But it’s the Hamptons.”

The man pulled a slapdash wad of bills out of his pocket and counted out $260 and handed it to me. Then he grabbed my hand and slipped me a hundred-dollar bill. “That’s for you,” he said. “You’re the first person I’ve ever met at these clubs who was nice to me before I dropped five Gs.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Let me tell you something. I was at Jet East last weekend, and they wouldn’t let me in to the club until I told the doorman I was willing to buy some bottles. He finally sat me at a table, and the cocktail waitress was such a bitch until I ordered three bottles of Cristal and four bottles of Ketel. Then all of a sudden I’m the most popular guy in the club. The waitresses were all over me.”

“Money talks,” I said, tossing the hundred into the tip jar.

“You got that right,” he concurred.

I watched as he walked away, wondering why so few people in the business had learned what seemed to me an obvious secret: that one smile and a little conversation could get you an enormous tip.

James walked back toward the bar and set his empty Jack and Coke cup down. “I’m heading out, Cass. Do you want me to come back later and pick you up?”

“Oh, no, don’t worry about it. Get some sleep. I’m sure Jake’ll drive me home,” I said, suppressing a little bit of surprise and annoyance. True, he’d said he wasn’t staying long, but I didn’t realize that he’d be leaving quite so soon. I attributed my feelings to PMS and put a big smile on my face, playing the role of the ultra-cool girlfriend. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Definitely. I’ll give you a call in the morning,” he said. And with another quick kiss, he was gone.

“Jake! Shots!” I called.

“You got it, babe.” And without missing a beat, Jake pulled the Patrón off the shelf, filled two shot glasses, and we knocked them back in a matter of seconds.

The rest of the night passed by quickly. At around a quarter to four, right before we were about to close, a woman struggling to walk in her six-inch heels hobbled over to the bar requesting seven shots of Jägermeister.

“That’ll be eighty-four dollars,” I stated wearily.

She tossed five twenties in my direction, slurring “Keep it.”

I picked up the money and was on my way to the register when Jake muttered under his breath, “Just throw it in the tip jar.”

“What?” I asked, confused.

“Just throw it in the tip jar,” Jake said, already starting the nightly ritual of gathering the bar mats, and clearing the bar of the cups, bottles, glasses, straws, and napkins.

Never questioning Jake’s authority, I flung the money in the tip jar. A bout of severe paranoia followed. I assiduously avoided looking at the ominous, omnipresent cameras, fearing they had recorded my theft and were at that very moment transmitting my crime to the owners. I wanted to dig $84 out of the tip jar and ring it into the register, but thought it might look even more suspicious if the cameras captured me rooting through the tips and then putting money in the drawer. But then I started rationalizing. Shalina, Teddy, and, by extension, the owners didn’t bother in the least to take care of their employees, firing and demoting us at will. I thought of the $50 shift pay I had gotten at the Fourth of July party, and that put the nail in the coffin of my guilt.

I grabbed the tip jar righteously and sequestered myself, along with James’s hooded Yale sweatshirt and a Bud Light, in the dining room to start counting.

“Your boyfriend left early tonight,” Jake commented as we sat waiting for the waitresses to tip us out.

“Yeah, he has to wake up really early tomorrow to go golf with some guys from his work,” I said, finishing my beer with a gulp.

“What a yuppie.”

I ignored his comment. “Can you drive me and Annie home?”

“Sure,” he said. “I might swing by the Talkhouse anyway.”

After the waitresses finished closing out, Annie and I bundled up our things, grabbed two more Bud Lights, and followed Jake out to the car.

“I think this is the earliest we ever got out.” Annie yawned. “I’m actually going to get a good night’s sleep.” Jake grunted his assent.

“I know, I can’t believe it’s only six,” I agreed, realizing how absurd it was that a good night’s sleep for us meant we’d gotten out of work before 7:00 A.M.

On the way home, I was tempted to ask Jake how often he took money from customers and bypassed the register in favor of the tip jar. But I fought the urge, deciding it had to be something that bartenders never spoke of out loud. See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil.

The sun was rising as we drove down Main Street in East Hampton, and people were already out and about walking their dogs and getting coffee at the Golden Pear. “I can’t believe these people are already starting their days, and we haven’t even gone to sleep yet,” Annie marveled. I looked down at the beer I was holding and felt sick. What was I doing drinking at six in the morning?

We pulled into the Animal House driveway, and Annie and I jumped out. “Crazy night, huh?” I commented to her as we walked across the dewy lawn to the porch arm in arm.

“As usual,” she sighed.

“Oh my God! I forgot to tell you about Teddy!”

“What about him?” she asked, her eyes widening.

“I walked in on some girl giving him a blow job in the employee bathroom,” I said evenly, looking to see her reaction.

She laughed. “Someone’s stealing my bag of tricks!”

“So you’re not upset?” I asked.

“Please, Cassie. He’s like the biggest loser on earth. We were just having fun.”

We approached the porch and stumbled on Travis, who was reclined in a lawn chair, making out passionately with a teeny blond wearing a pink and blue Lily Pulitzer dress that was inched up to the tops of her thighs. Her shoes, bag, and cardigan were strewn on the porch beside the chair, and the first few buttons on Travis’s shirt were undone.

“Good morning!” Annie sang out, chuckling.

“Oh . . . hey.” Travis sat up and shifted around uncomfortably.

“Don’t mind us,” I said, opening the screen door and stepping into the house. Annie and I erupted into giggles once we were inside.

“Did you see his face? He was so embarrassed!” she squealed. “Who was that girl?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think I know her. I couldn’t get a good look at her face.”

Inside, couples were strewn all over the living room floor, most of them curled up, disheveled and passed out.

“What did they have some kind of orgy in here while we were gone?” Annie wondered, noting a condom wrapper on the floor.

From where we were standing, we could hear the unmistakable sounds of a couple in the throes of sexual dealings coming from the direction of the stairs.

“Excuse me,” Annie said, stepping over the tawny-haired meathead and the girl with him. I took a deep breath and followed suit. The couple never stopped gyrating and acted as if we didn’t exist. Armed with her usual kitchen utensil, Annie jimmied the lock open.

“We’re living in a brothel,” I announced, once we were safely inside and turning down our beds.

Annie giggled through a gaping yawn.

“Next summer, when I’m an Academy Award–winning screenwriter, I’m gonna buy us a ten-bedroom house right on the ocean just like James’s,” I said, pulling the covers over my head. “And we’ll laugh about the times we lived at Animal House and had to crawl over couples having sex on the stairs.”

It seemed like the cycle of going to sleep when the sun came up, getting up midday, going to the beach, going for a few preshift cocktails, and then coming to work would never end. Before I knew it, Annie and I were back at Spark, ready for Saturday night’s mayhem. “Hey,” I said, waving at one of the doormen as I walked through the entrance.

“Hey, how are you?” he said, dragging the plush red velvet rope to its rightful position and foiling any fool’s plans for easy entry.

“I’m good. I was wondering if you could do me a favor,” I said, producing a piece of paper from my backpack. Travis and our other housemates had been trying to get into Spark all summer, but were having trouble getting past the ropes. Earlier that morning Travis had told us he needed to get in to impress the new girl he was dating, and Annie and I had promised we’d pull some strings and get him and the rest of the guys on the guest list. “Do not all come together,” I’d warned. “Come two guys at a time—max. And try to bring as many hot girls with you as you can. If you all show up as a big group of guys like you do at the Talkhouse, you’ll never get in.”

“This is a list of some of my friends,” I said, handing over a piece of loose-leaf to the doorman. “Can you make sure they get in?”

He glanced down at the list. “Travis, Brian, Scott, Mike . . . these are all guys’ names. You’re killin’ me.”

“No, there’s a girl on the list.”

He shugged. “You know how it is,” he said, handing it back. “We can’t let a group of all guys in unless they’re gonna get a table and spend a lot of money.”

“I know, but these are my roommates, and they’ve never been here before. Just put them on the list. Just once, pleeease?”

“I’ll do my best,” he said, reluctantly accepting the sheet of paper once more. “But no promises.”

“Thanks.”

I set up the front bar in record time. The doors opened at ten, and Jake hadn’t even arrived yet. Just as I was doing a final beer check, I couldn’t have been more shocked to see Martin Pritchard and Lily promenade into the bar. With the exception of Martin’s rare summer cameos at Finton’s, I hadn’t spent time with either of them since that first weekend in the Hamptons, ages ago.

“Hi, guys,” I said, knowing all too well how they’d gotten in. Lily was definitely attractive, in a conservative Pearls Girls sort of way, and while Martin was old and crusty, I was sure he’d liberally greased the doorman’s palm.

“Hello, dear,” Martin bellowed, beckoning me with his stubby right hand to lean over the bar and give him a kiss. Feeling I had no choice but to comply, I stretched across the bar and pecked him on his shriveled cheek, holding my breath to avoid his acrid, musty odor. “It’s lovely to see you.”

“Lovely,” Lily echoed, perched on a bar stool, her posture so straight and perfect she looked like she could balance twelve books on her head.

“It’s great to see you too,” I said. “How’ve you been?”

“Fine, fine, dear,” Martin answered, rubbing his protruding belly. “Just had dinner at Della Femina.”

“How was it?” I asked. “I hear that’s the best restaurant in the Hamptons.”

“Don’t believe everything you hear,” he grumbled. “It’s mediocre at best.”

I busied myself wiping down the bottles in my speed rack, while Martin went on about how his New York strip steak had been tough and chewy, and Lily’s pasta had been terribly overcooked. I looked over at Lily’s infinitesimal waist, imagining that after eating one lonely strand of linguini, she announced that she was “uncomfortably full, and couldn’t stand to eat another bite.”

“What can I get you to drink?” I asked them.

“I’ll have a Ketel tonic, and Lily would like a Ketel soda,” Martin said, placing a fifty-dollar bill on the bar. “And I believe some congratulations are in order.”

“Congratulations? For what?” I asked. I couldn’t think of any recent accomplishments, other than perhaps my hard-earned gold medal in burning the candle at both ends.

“The word around town is that you’ve been having a very successful summer,” Martin said, savoring his drink.

“Yeah,” I answered. “Spark’s been great. I’m having a lot of fun, and making a lot more money than I do at Finton’s.”

“I’m not talking about Spark, darling,” he said, raising his grizzly eyebrows suggestively.

I looked at him uncertainly. “What are you talking about?”

“My sources tell me that you’ve landed the most eligible bachelor in the tristate area,” he remarked coyly. Lily smiled down into her drink, gently stirring her straw.

I had no idea how to respond, so I nodded my head awkwardly, feeling more than a little vulnerable. While part of me was happy to know that someone in the Edmonton clan had been talking about me, rendering our relationship official, images of Martin and James Edmonton II playing golf and talking about how James Edmonton III, heir to the throne and family fortune, had taken up with a mangy barmaid instead of the prescribed socialite/heiress tortured me.

“You must be very proud,” Martin continued, placidly sipping his drink. “His father says that James usually dates quite the bevy of models and actresses but seems to have eschewed them all lately in favor of you. You must have done a real number on him. Good for you.”

“Yeah, well . . .” I stammered, feeling my face flush a dangerous shade of crimson. I only hoped he didn’t notice my eyes sparking with resentment.

“Please excuse me while I go to the little boy’s room,” Martin said suddenly, sliding his stumpy body off the stool and ambling over to the restrooms.

Lily was staring into space, her eyes vacant, and I could tell she’d had a little too much to drink. I hoped I wouldn’t have to make conversation with her. She sucked delicately on the little red stirrer straw until her glass was empty, then stood up unsteadily and leaned her porcelain arms on the bar. “I’d love another drink,” she said.

“Sure,” I said, grabbing another plastic cup.

“No plastic, please,” she interjected. “Can I have a real glass?”

“Okay,” I tossed the cup in the trash and bent down to where the glasses were stored.

“Thank you,” she said, pulling a Chanel lip palette from her Louis Vuitton clutch and painting her lips a bold shade of red. The combination of her pallid complexion, blank eyes, auburn hair, and red lips made her look like a haunted Snow White.

I handed her another Ketel soda. “Fabulous,” she said, taking a long sip.

I tried my best to occupy myself over by my register, but soon she summoned me back over. “Cassie!” she called, interrupting my stewing over exactly how, and under what circumstances, Martin had learned about me and James.

“Yes?”

“Come here,” she motioned, draping her upper body along the bar. “I need to talk to you.”

I leaned in. “What is it?”

“Don’t worry about what Martin said,” she began, elucidating a thought for the first time since she’d arrived. “He’s always saying that a young girl needs a benefactor. He’s just happy for you that you’ve found somebody who can take care of you.”

“James isn’t my benefactor, Lily. He’s my boyfriend.”

She took the straw out of her glass, then put her mouth to the rim and downed half the drink. “I know what you’re thinking,” she slurred.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

“Of me and Martin,” she went on. “But I want you to know, we’ve been together for almost two years now. Did you know that?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“We broke up for a couple of months last summer, and I dated this man in Pacific Palisades, where my parents live. He was sweet, but he was in his mid-sixties and he still didn’t have his life together . . .” Her voice trailed off.

I didn’t know how to respond, so I said nothing. Apparently Martin wasn’t her only lover three times her age. I started to walk away, but she called me back. “Cassie,” she pressed, “don’t you understand? That’s what I like about Martin. He has his act together, you know?” Her eyes were glassy and expressionless. “I’m just accustomed to a certain lifestyle. I’m not going to give that up.”

Just then Martin hobbled back to the bar. “What are you little girls buzzing about?” he asked, taking a seat and placing his hand on Lily’s thigh.

As the two of them sat stroking each other, I thought about all the young women in New York City who would rather have someone provide for them than go out and try to make it on their own. And the hordes of older men who were more than willing to raise their liver-spotted hands for the assignment. I couldn’t really blame these women for preferring Lily’s Manolo Blahniks over my ragged, flat bartending shoes that were permanently sticky on the bottoms. Still, it didn’t seem like an equitable trade-off.

My mind wandered to the previous week at Finton’s, when I’d been serving Sal and Vinny, two goomba “associates” of Baby Carmine. Sal was a nice, quiet guy who came into the bar maybe once a month and drank Amaretto di Saronno with one ice cube. Vinny was a chauvinistic pig who looked on lasciviously whenever I bent down to get his Beck’s out of the cooler.

“Sweetheart, I’ll order Beck’s all night long if you keep bending over like that for me,” he slobbered, pulling a fifty-dollar bill out of his gold, diamond-studded money clip and placing it on the bar. “That’s for you. God bless you, honey, you got gorgeous legs.”

I’d looked down at the fifty-dollar bill, wondering just how much that money was worth. He’d been slipping me big bills all night long, and while I wanted to reprove him for his lecherous comments, I found myself biting my tongue in favor of taking his money. But once the money was in my tip jar, there was a tangible shift in power. I felt like I owed him something, and he knew it.

“You give great head,” he’d said with a wide grin, after I’d poured a customer a pint of beer with a lot of foam on top. Then, “Six dollars for draft beer? Does he get a blow job with that, honey?” He knew just by the mere fact that I was behind a bar that I needed money, and he was testing me to see just how much I’d put up with as long as the tips kept rolling in. In the end, I’d swallowed his comments all night. But there had been a bar between us the entire time—very different from crawling into bed with the man who furnished your lavish lifestyle.

“Darling, I’ll have another Ketel tonic,” Martin ordered, forcing me back to Spark and the present. I grabbed the bottle of Ketel and hastily poured his drink. The crowds were starting to trickle in, and I hoped a new wave of customers would give me an excuse to abandon Martin and Lily.

“Cassie and Jake, I need to speak to you for a moment,” Shalina snapped. Jake had finally just shown up, and we hurried over to her, as she went on. “I just received a call from P. Diddy’s personal assistant. She said he’s on his way over and will be here any minute. Now, while he’ll clearly be seated at a table in VIP, a couple of his friends may choose to order some drinks at the bar. Obviously, I need you to be extremely gracious with them. P. Diddy expects to be treated like a king, and with the amount of money he spends, he very well should be.”

“No problem,” Jake said, nonplussed, while I felt a surge of excitement. There were celebrities and then there were celebrities. I’d seen Carson Daly and Nick Carter skulking around a handful of times and hadn’t been that impressed, but P. Diddy was the king of the A-listers. “We’ll have the bar back stock up on Hennessy.” Jake turned to me. “All they ever order is Cristal, thug passions, and incredible hulks.”

“Cassie, darling.” Martin was beckoning me back over.

“Excuse me,” I said to Shalina, and walked back to Martin. “Yes?”

“Lily needs another drink, dear.”

I glanced over at Lily, who looked like she needed a lot of things, but a drink was not one of them. I grabbed the bottle of Ketel One and poured her a very weak cocktail.

“So tell me,” Martin said, “has James taken you out to his mother’s home on Nantucket yet?”

James had never even mentioned that he had a mother. I’d always been too afraid to ask about her, since he never brought her up. I figured we’d get there in due time.

“Nope,” I said, forcing a smile. “Not yet.”

“Well, you must have him take you there. It’s stunning. In the divorce settlement, James’s father kept the Hamptons residence, but his mother got Nantucket. If you ask me, though, Jim got the better end of the deal. Then again, he did have Raoul Felder, the best divorce lawyer in Manhattan . . .”

Martin’s ramblings were suddenly interrupted by a screech of microphone feedback and then a booming voice that yelled: “Yo! Yo! Yo! Party people at Spark!”

I looked up from my ice bin just in time to see a ghetto fabulous entourage of about fifty parade in, led by a man holding a microphone.

“I’m Doug E. Fresh and I’m gon’ be your emcee tonight. Let’s get this party started. Unh! Unh! Unh!” he shouted, as Run DMC came blasting out of the DJ booth.

True to all stereotypes, I was immediately blinded by all the bling. It looked like Jakob the Jeweler, the L.A.-based diamond mogul who catered to the hip-hop crowd, had personally overseen the assemblage of each and every outrageous accessory now swarming around the bar.

Gaudy diamond nameplates spelling names like Deebow, Kid Funk, and T-Money were everywhere. I caught a glimpse of a colossal gold dollar sign titivated with glinting diamonds and a similarly jewel-encrusted emblem in the shape of the Cadillac seal. Every last one of the guys had at least four huge diamond studs in his ears—stones that easily rivaled those set in the engagement rings of some of the Hamptons’ richest socialites. High-end monograms—Gucci, Fendi, Chanel, Prada, Hermès, and Louis Vuitton—were emblazoned on every available surface on their clothing, and they all wore bright white sneakers. One guy was even wearing a floor-length mink, despite the 90-degree heat of the Hamptons summer.

Doug E. Fresh’s voice beat-boxed over the din of the music, while the rest of the Spark crowd parted like the Red Sea to let them pass. They were a royal procession, beating a path for their king: P. Diddy. He appeared wearing the signature diamond-encrusted Sean John shades that he’d personally designed and listening to his diamond-encrusted iPod, which, according to some show I’d seen on VH1, was worth $100,000. The way Shalina, Teddy, and even Chris were watching in nervous awe, I expected one of them to genuflect and kiss the enormous canary diamond ring glimmering on his right hand like a disco ball.

“Let’s all say a big wazzzzzzup to the man of the hour, P. Diddy! Unh! Unh! Oh, yeah!” bellowed Doug E. Fresh, chanting along to G. Unit’s “Stunt 101,” The ice in my teeth keeps the Cristal cold. . . .

P. Diddy waved at the crowd grandly, basking in the warmth of their admiration. Martin, however, was looking on scornfully. “These thugs are taking over the Hamptons,” he muttered.

“It’s horrible,” Lily slurred in agreement.

“We’ve been trying to do something about it, but we can’t seem to get rid of them, which is exactly why we’re working toward establishing Dunehampton. We need to preserve the unique feel of what the Hamptons were like before people like this could ever afford to come out here. Cassie, have you heard about Dunehampton?”

“No,” I answered, thinking that if Martin had his way, the old-money residents of the Hamptons would be allowed to shoot the “other” people trying to get in, just as they might take out a pesky deer in their oceanfront backyards.

“One town councilman had the nerve to call it ‘Richampton’ when they rejected our petition,” he went on, “but we’re not giving up. We’re going to keep fighting the town until they let us incorporate. Then we’d have voting rights. The bottom line is that most people would prefer not to be accosted by a booming microphone and out-of-control behavior. Let’s face facts, these people would rather buy their ‘bling-bling’ than feed their children. Is that the kind of people we want running around the Hamptons?”

I took a deep breath and held my tongue, but inside I wanted to throttle him. Here he was, running around, hosting orgies at his house, and yet he considered himself superior and his own morally dubious behavior acceptable simply because he came from old money. In fact, he was just as fucked up as anyone I’d ever met. The hypocrisy was so thick I felt like I could tie it around his neck and choke him with it.

“Excuse me, miss,” a member of P. Diddy’s entourage said, disrupting Martin’s sermon. He was wearing a Kareem Abdul-Jabbar throwback jersey and a thick gold chain bearing a diamond Mercedes-Benz symbol. He wore his Gucci monogram baseball hat with a gangsta’ tilt, so that only one of his big brown eyes was visible.

“Yes?” I said.

“Can I buy bottles of champagne at the bar?”

“Of course.”

“Can I get four magnums of Cristal?”

I fought the urge to gape at his request. Magnums of Cristal sold for a grand each. “That’ll be four thousand dollars,” I told him.

He reached into his pocket and took out the thickest wad of hundreds I’d ever seen, held together by a rubber band. He counted out fifty of them. “There you go,” he said, with a wink.

I did the quick math. A $1,000 tip! By far the biggest tip I’d ever gotten. Not to mention that my ring would definitely exceed Jake’s with a single sale of $4,000. I looked forward to Teddy’s reaction when we closed out.

“Thank you so much!” I exclaimed, glancing over at Martin, certain he’d be grousing to Lily about his distaste for the flagrant displays of wealth perpetuated by the nouveaux riches. But it seemed my new clientele’s presence had been too much for him—he and Lily were nowhere to be seen, though I noticed they’d left a $5 tip for me tucked under Martin’s empty glass.

I pulled four oversized champagne buckets from beneath the bar and filled them with ice, lining them up in front of me next to a multitude of polished champagne flutes. I gathered some cloth napkins together and wrapped them around the neck of each bottle, then reached for the first one to open it. But the customer grabbed it out of my hand with a flourish.

“I’ll get that,” he said. “I like to open them myself.” He expertly popped open the top and slowly poured the first glass at a side angle. He poured another, then handed one to me. “This is for you.”

He rammed his glass into mine. “Cheers.” The champagne fizzed as our glasses collided and spilled out of the flutes and onto the bar. I brought my lips to the glass and savored the delicate bubbles. I would never get over the thrill of drinking champagne that cost more than my rent.

I contemplated that the hip-hop personalities in the Hamptons really did epitomize what it meant to be nouveau riche. A lot of them had grown up impoverished in the ghetto and were now dripping with cash and Cristal. I looked around at all the diamonds and name brands they were wearing, thinking they must swathe themselves in status symbols to make up for their humble beginnings. Then, thinking back to when I’d tried on the string of pearls in Tiffany, I realized that I wasn’t much different. The second I had a little disposable income, I ran to the extravagant stores on Main Street to drape myself in expensive clothes and accessories, trying to impress James and the Pearls Girls. The main difference was that I couldn’t really afford it. In the Hamptons and New York, it was nearly impossible not to fall into the consumption trap.

Drink orders were flying left and right, so I multitasked, sipping my champagne while shaking cosmos for two hootchie mamas wearing golden glittering pasties and Daisy Duke jeans shorts—hangers-on of P. Diddy and his entourage. Before long James and his entourage of Tom, Glen, and the Pearls Girls made their way up to the bar, a surreal parody of P. Diddy’s group. When it came right down to it, the Botkier bags and Carolina Herrera ensembles sported by the old-money socialite set were interchangeable with the more overtly labeled attire of P. Diddy and his crew. A diamond and platinum watch from Cartier or a $300,000 ice-encrusted watch from Jakob the Jeweler’s—what was really separating them, except for taste? Except that, unlike the rappers, the old-money set didn’t generally feel the need to broadcast flashy monograms. Doug E. Fresh was still thumping “Unh! Unh! Unh!” and I smiled, thinking there was something highly amusing about seeing Rosalind and her friends climbing the stairs to a soundtrack of Biggie, who appropriately proclaimed, Damn right I like the life I live ’cause I went from negative to positive . . .

“Hey!” James said as he walked up to the bar. He was wearing yet another moniker of status—a perfect golden tan from a long day on the golf course.

“Hey, baby!” I said, leaning over the bar to kiss him. “Are you guys gonna hang out down here tonight?”

“No.” James sighed. “It’s Rosalind’s little sister’s twenty-first birthday, and they have a table reserved upstairs.”

“Okay. Have fun!” I called after him, trying to sound positive, but feeling a tinge of jealousy as they were seated at a table right next to P. Diddy’s contingent. A few minutes later I saw Elsie bring them identical magnums of Cristal.

My own champagne glass was empty, and I needed another drink. “Jake, are we allowed to drink champagne?”

“Of course not,” he answered, laughing. “But we’re not allowed to drink Patrón either, so who cares. As long as you don’t get caught, you’re fine.”

“I know, but they must keep track of the good champagne, and I don’t feel like drinking the cheap stuff.”

“So the Virgin Mary wants to steal a bottle of Veuve, is that what I’m hearing?”

“No!” I protested, looking around to make sure Shalina and Teddy hadn’t overheard Jake’s accusation.

“Relax, I don’t care. I’ll split a bottle with you. We work hard. We deserve it.”

“Okay, but won’t they realize a bottle is missing when they do inventory?”

“You’d be surprised, babe. This place is run so bad. They don’t keep track of anything.”

Minutes later Jake and I were raising our Veuve Clicquot, which we’d disguised as ginger ale by drinking it out of plastic cups, in a toast.

After another hour or so had passed, there was a brief lull in the crowd packed around the bar, so I took the opportunity to check my cell phone. I had ten missed calls from Travis. Without even listening to the messages, I knew he was calling because he was standing outside and the doorman wasn’t letting him in.

“I’ll be right back,” I said to Jake.

I ducked under the bar and pushed my way through the crowd until I arrived outside at the velvet ropes. I scanned the masses of people waiting to get in, all screaming about how they knew “so and so” and should be granted access. Travis and the guys were nowhere in sight.

“Hey, what happened with my friends?” I asked the doorman, fighting through the bottleneck of relieved recipients of the vaunted Spark plastic admission bracelet who were clustered around the doorway.

“I did everything I could, but Shalina was at the front, and she wouldn’t let them in. Sorry.”

“That’s okay. It’s not your fault,” I sighed.

I scanned the crowd one final time, and as I did so, my eyes landed on the man in the Gucci baseball hat who’d bought the four magnums of Cristal. He was standing next to a white limo Humvee idling in front of the ropes.

“Are you ready?” I heard him say to two of his friends as they all shook up their bottles of champagne.

“What are they doing?” I asked the doorman.

Before he could answer, they all burst their champagne open with a loud POP! and, pressing their thumbs up against the mouths of the bottles, sprayed each other with the $1,000 foam, laughing uproariously the whole time and attracting a huge crowd of spectators. Champagne splashed across the entrance and the onlookers, who cheered as the sweet fizz landed on their faces and their clothes.

“Holy shit!” I cried. “They just paid thousands of dollars for that champagne, and now they’re spraying each other with it!” Covered in the bubbles, I laughed to myself that it was the most expensive thing I ever wore.

“That’s the Hamptons for you,” the doorman chuckled.

Back inside, I poured myself a third glass of champagne and set about fielding drink orders. Soon the Veuve was gone, and I was drunk. I felt sexy and sparkling and full of life. I decided that I needed to see James immediately.

“Jake, I’ll be right back,” I promised. Normally, I would’ve been worried about taking a break at all, but that night, after selling $4,000 worth of champagne, I felt confident that I was keeping up with Jake and the pressure to “sell, sell, sell” was dramatically reduced.

I fought my way through the dancing bodies, past the VIP ropes, up the stairs, and into what many might have considered the most privileged social scene in the western world. The anthropological significance of P. Diddy and his entourage beside James and his posse was just too delicious to overlook.

“Hey, what are you doing up here?” James said when I grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet.

“Come with me,” I said, smiling and giving him my best bedroom eyes. I could almost feel champagne bubbles bouncing against the libidinal zone of my brain, and I already knew I’d definitely feel them the next morning—that’s the funny thing about champagne—you get a hangover while you drink it. Plus, I couldn’t resist flaunting my prize a little—here was this gorgeous man sipping Cristal in VIP, and he was all mine. He thought I was refreshing and beautiful and a brilliant screenwriter. And Rosalind and the rest of the girls could eat their hearts out.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“There’s a secret bathroom,” I whispered, looking around like a spy. I dragged him through the VIP area and into the vestibule that housed the office, which was empty, and the employee bathroom. Shutting the bathroom door behind me, I pushed him up against the wall and, taking his face in my hands, kissed him. I started unbuttoning his shirt, my lips moving down his chest.

“Wow!” he breathed. “What’s gotten into you?”

I was unbuckling his belt when Teddy burst through the door.

“Oh my God!” I shrieked.

“Oh, ah . . . sorry, guys.” Teddy backed away and closed the door behind him.

I turned to James, who was standing there with his shirt open, flushed. “Who was that guy?”

“He’s sort of my boss,” I said sheepishly, suddenly sober. “I guess I should get back to work.” I straightened my halter top and gave James a final kiss.

“We’ll have to pick up where we left off later,” he said, grinning suggestively and tucking my hair behind my ear. I followed him back outside into VIP, where I walked right into Teddy.

“Well, I guess we’re even,” he said, smirking.

“Guess so,” I said, briefly musing that in the bizzare world of bartending, getting busted hooking up in the bathroom during a shift was perfectly permissible.

I cast one last look at the scene in VIP, then I almost did a double-take when I saw Elsie, shirtless, straddling P. Diddy while his entourage looked on appreciatively. Wearing only a transparent pink lace bra, she had one arm around his neck and was pulsing up and down on his lap. P. Diddy couldn’t have appeared less interested as he gazed over her shoulder out onto the crowd.

“What is this, Scores?” I remarked to Teddy, referencing the famed strip club in Manhattan known for its “high-end” clientele like Howard Stern.

“What can I say?” he shrugged. “These girls know how to work it. That’s how they make their money.”

Back downstairs, I quickly slid behind the bar. Jake was rummaging through the tip jar.

“Jesus, there’s a lot of money in here,” he said, his eyes fixated on the folded stack of hundred-dollar bills.

“Well, that guy who bought the Cristal tipped me a thousand dollars,” I said.

“Cassie, this is insane,” he said, almost shaking with pleasure. “We’re gonna make sick money tonight. You know, you’re the only one I pool with.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You’re the only one I share my money with, because you’re the only one here who knows how to hustle.”

“But I thought we had to pool.”

“We’re supposed to, but if somebody gives me a hundred-dollar tip, I’m not gonna throw it in the tip jar and share it. Everything bigger than a twenty, I keep.”

“Well, that sucks, Jake. I share all my tips,” I said, growing angry thinking of all the money I could have made if I’d kept my bigger tips to myself.

“You didn’t pool all your money with Kyle when you worked the back bar, did you?”

I could feel my face go red. I felt like an idiot. “Yes, I did.”

Jake laughed incredulously. “How could you share your money with that dipshit?”

“Because that’s what I was told to do,” I snapped.

“Sometimes you gotta bend the rules,” he said plainly, “and look out for yourself.”

For the rest of the night, I watched Jake like a hawk, making sure he deposited all of his tips into the tip jar. But my closer scrutiny revealed more than I bargained for.

“That’ll be sixty-five dollars,” he said to a customer.

The man handed him four twenties and said, “Keep the change.”

Jake threw the entire $80 in the tip jar. No wonder I always made more money with Jake. Not only was he the fastest bartender in the Hamptons, he was also a rabid thief. Later on I saw him take $100 from a customer and then bend down pretending to tie his shoes, while he slipped the money into his sock.

“Hey, beautiful,” James said a little after four, just as the bouncers were starting to usher everyone out of the club. “I’m gonna go get something to eat with these guys at the Princess Diner in Southampton. I’ll come back around five-thirty and pick you up.”

“Okay,” I said, coming out from behind the bar to wrap my arms around him. He pulled me into his chest and nuzzled my neck.

“Will you stay at my place tonight?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” I said, kissing him again. Teddy apparently knew what he was doing—secret trysts in the employee bathroom really got a person in the mood. Though we had hooked up plenty of times on the beach at sunrise, we still hadn’t had sex, and I had yet to spend the night at his house. It wasn’t like I didn’t want to sleep with him. But my crazy hours had made it tough to find long stretches of time alone together, and truth be told, the old-fashioned romantic in me was enjoying taking it slow. I liked the fact that he respected me. Especially given all the casual sex and debauchery that I saw firsthand all around me.

“I’ll see you in a little bit,” he whispered, kissing me again.

I bundled up my money, grabbed a beer, and settled in a booth to start counting out the tips. Elsie, who had finally put her shirt back on, was following a man in a bright turquoise, short-sleeved, silk button-down who looked like a shorter version of Antonio Banderas, through the club toward the exit.

“So I’ll call you this week,” she said. Then she jumped up on him, wrapping her arms and her legs around his body and kissing him long and hard on the mouth. “Do you promise to come back next weekend?” she asked in a whiny baby voice, jutting her full lower lip out into a pout. “I’m gonna miss you.”

“Yeah, I’ll be back next Saturday,” the guy said before patting her on the ass and exiting the club. Elsie walked over to a table, where she immediately threw a sweatshirt on over her tank top and pulled sweatpants on under her miniskirt.

“Who was that?” I asked curiously.

“He’s just some customer,” she said, lighting a cigarette.

“Oh. I thought maybe he was your boyfriend,” I teased.

Elsie snorted with laughter. “Are you fucking kidding me? I’d never date that loser.”

“Then why did you say you’d miss him?”

“Because I want him to come back next weekend and sit in my section. He had a five-thousand-dollar tab, and he left me a huge tip. Most of these guys with money are such douche bags. If you give them a little attention, they’ll give you all their cash.”

I couldn’t see how making out with a customer and giving him her phone number constituted “a little attention,” but then again, I wasn’t really one to talk. While I never gave out lap dances, I knew by this time that I was a lot more successful behind the bar when I flirted with men and women alike. As usual when I hopped on board this train of thought, I couldn’t help thinking back to Dan Finton. I wondered what the perks might include if I actually gave him everything he wanted. Not that that was a viable option.

“So you must have done really well tonight,” I said. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how much P. Diddy and his entourage left her.

“Yeah, I did amazing. Cocktailing in the Hamptons is by far the most money you can make with your clothes on.”

You didn’t keep your clothes on, I thought. But I didn’t say it.