It Happens in the Hamptons Page 17

  She sat on the dryer, and he yanked her legs apart, placed some freshly folded towels to cushion her head, liked he cared so much about her comfort, and laid her back. He pulled her panties aside to fondle her expertly with one hand while playing with her perky tits with the other.

  He sucked on her nipples a little to gauge her horniness temperature. The Southampton heat index was alarmingly high. She was too damn wet now. He preferred more friction, so he grabbed some socks off the top of a neatly folded pile of Charlie’s tennis whites. He used them to wipe her down a little. Jesus these neglected wives: same thing every time, zero to sixty with no effort at all.

  Just before he thought she might climax, he yanked her to the edge of the dryer. He then rammed himself into her, all rough like he liked it. He hoped she could handle it without whimpering.

  While he kept at it, he placed one hand behind her ass and one in front, tickling her lightly again to keep her motor revved high. He slowed down his ramming a bit to give her a break.

  Natalie now placed her impeccably toned calves over his shoulders to make him go deeper and grabbed onto his back like she was dangling off a two hundred foot cliff. He continued to dance his fingers on her with a feather touch. Seven seconds later, she moaned so loudly, he had to place Charlie’s tennis shorts over her mouth to muffle the noise.

  Slam dunk, indeed.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Misunderstandings and Miscommunications

  Katie called Luke about fifteen minutes after she left the docks, her voice sounding sanitized. “Sorry, Luke. Can you possibly drop Huck off at the house?”

  Luke barely knew this woman, but he very much wanted to ask her, “What the hell? Why the chilly tone?” Or, “Don’t sweat Simone. She just likes to screw with my head and keep other women at bay by shoving her body in their faces.”

  But, since he was, in fact, not remotely dating Katie, he agreed to her plan. “Yes, uh, fine. Sure. I’ll do that.”

  “I appreciate it a lot. I have the daughter of my neighbor who will be there waiting for him. Her car is at the shop, so she can’t get him. My tutor meeting is taking longer. The house is close.”

  “Yeah. Fine.”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “I don’t mind, no.” But of course Luke minded; he’d wanted to take Katie to the beach, with sandwiches, chips, and guacamole. He wanted to do something fun to celebrate his favorite season, bring them to a beach cleanup, teach her kid to understand marine life. He couldn’t help as a last-ditch chance to ask, “Do you want to meet us instead later in town or something? I could keep him until you’re ready.”

  “I can’t hear you. I’m inside the educational offices already.” And Katie’s voice trailed off. She sounded distracted, like he didn’t matter to her. Luke felt silly. Maybe it was baby fat on his arms, after all.

  “Fine,” he relented. “I’ll drop him off. What’s the address?”

  “Thirty-seven Willow Lane.”

  Luke froze. “Can you repeat that?”

  “Thirty-seven Willow Lane. It’s in town, two blocks behind the CVS drugstore. A small cottage. The number isn’t easy to find, but Huck will show you, just five minutes from you.”

  “I know it.” Even when his mom was alive, both she and Frank had forbidden him to go near that house.

  “Okay,” Katie answered. “Thanks, bye, gotta go.”

  Click.

  Luke’s sun-kissed face turned ashen. Even little Huck noticed. He tugged on his shorts, asking, “What’s the matter?”

  Luke ignored the question and walked like a zombie to the end of the dock, carrying two huge bags of gear. Huck followed him, insisting on grabbing the five children’s life jackets which engulfed him.

  “We leave those on the boat.”

  “But I want to carry something, too.”

  “The bags are too heavy for you; it’s fine. Quit it. Kids don’t know how to . . .” He felt bad for snapping at this kid, the only one who’d offered to help out all summer. Most kids were so used to nannies and housekeepers, they left behind a trail of their own snacks, expensive new Patagonia wetsuits, and designer towels swiped from the family pool basket. Luke and the guys hadn’t bought towels in years.

  Huck looked up at Luke despondently. “I just really want to carry one thing.”

  The boy could only handle two wet, heavy beach towels before getting toppled, so Luke threw them on his shoulders.

  As Luke and Huck walked up to the camp meeting area on the sandy shoreline, he knew that seeing Simone again would only bring those windy, gray clouds back. Still, he couldn’t avoid her. She was now up there parading around in her turquoise thong bikini with her glorious ass, right in front of Kona and Kenny.

  “Hey,” he muttered, planting himself and Huck onto a towel in the sand.

  “Hey.” Simone smiled like she might just blow him one more time if he asked really nicely.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, coldly.

  “Well, I was going to meet people in town, but I can stay . . .” She edged closer to him.

  Simone had left him. He’d tried. Too late. Six weeks before, Simone had returned his texts three days late even though it said, “read,” minutes after he’d sent them. She didn’t text him back because she was too busy posting photos of herself with rich assholes nuzzling their noses between her big tits. Luke knew no one made her laugh the way he could. He made her belly laugh. And still she left him. She was thirty, and looking for a man to pay for anything she pointed at, he figured. Rather than spend time with a man of sterling character, she’d end up with a dickhead philanderer.

  At that moment, Jake Chase drove up way too hot in his seventh car, a new Audi R8, with his youngest son, Richie. As the dust settled on the small group, Simone surmised this was an opportune time to lie in the late day sun rather than leave to meet her girlfriends in town as she had planned.

  Jake and Richie walked up to the guys, as Jake shouted, “Yo! Dudes!”

  Kona shot Luke a look, who, in turn, shot Kenny a roll of his eyes.

  Behind the shield of his expensive dark Persol lenses, Jake focused his eyes on the spectacle of Simone on the towel. She was slathering herself with tanning oil and writhing her body on all fours, moving in weird contortions for no apparent reason other than to practice taking it from behind.

  “We were just driving by,” Jake said slowly as if in a trance. “Richie had nothing to do, and he was upset not to have a lesson earlier. Just thought we’d check in.” Jake surveyed the beach, pretending not to notice Simone.

  Luke breathed in through his flared nostrils and thought I’m going to murder Jake if he touches her. Luke had never once sat on the beach with Simone, looking at the waves and feeling like “he had her.” Chasing her around the bedroom stuck out as the only realm where he could pin her down, physically make her writhe and succumb, like a victory he couldn’t get enough of. Once they left the bedroom, it was a constant case of failure to conquer anything. He knew he wasn’t the first man to get sucked into that fucked-up, soul-crushing pursuit of the entirely wrong girl.

  “Richie, go check out the water, would ya? Is it cold?” Jake asked.

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Daddy needs to ask these men about something that’s going on and you need to walk to the water’s edge, put your toe in, and come back. Walk very slowly.”

  “I didn’t do anything wrong, Dad!”

  “You think that matters? Go!” Richie walked to the shore with his head drooped low.

  Kona elbowed Luke in the gut. “Play nice. We need Jake. Don’t forget, he said he’d call the town board.”

  “So, I’m out here a day and I’m fuckin’ bored already,” Jake said to the instructors. “I thought I’d take some days off, be with the family. The wife wanted it that way. Not like I need to be working and pumping out more cash, heh!” He slammed Luke’s back really hard, conveying their buddy status. “Thought I’d see what you guys were up to.” He then
raised his eyebrows at Simone, who was now lying on her back, raising her hips in the air in rhythmic motion.

  “So first I have breakfast, read a little news, then I’m restless as shit, then . . .” Jake detailed his lazy day off, oblivious to the fact that the guys would themselves like to have the opportunity to enjoy a little summer boredom. Instead, they had to drag entitled kids around a bay in a shitty boat they couldn’t afford to fix.

  Kona started in. “So, thanks for that lunch. Since you do have free time, maybe you could take a morning, and we can go into the Town Hall offices when they have public grievances meetings, then, we can together lobby for . . .”

  Jake ignored Kona to study Simone, who was suddenly on all fours again, her back arched, making sure her thong was as far up her ass as possible.

  “You know guys, I came down here to show some appreciation for all your hard work in the water. And sure, yeah, let’s go to a meeting sometime. I’m busy, I mean I’m not, but I am. But I’ll find a time to go with you. Sure. Just, you know, not today.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Drop-off Drama

  “Why are we just sitting in the car?” Huck was so in awe of Luke, he didn’t want to say he thought it strange to be sitting there with no answer for several minutes. “I mean, it’s okay. I was just wondering if you want to go inside with me and see if the neighbor is there because I don’t see her now and I’m not allowed to stay in a house alone. She played with me yesterday for a little.”

  “Yeah, I think, we’ll just, uh, sit here for a minute more to see if the babysitter comes out of your house.” Luke tried to figure out his moves. Thirty-seven Willow Lane. It was too much, too strange. “Why did you guys move here? Why this house?”

  “Um, my mom said it was time for us to move East. We lived with my grandma. She died. Did you know she died?”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t.”

  “We lived with her. It made my mom sad. She said she could only be happy if we moved for the summer. So we did. Mom has a new boyfriend. I think. I’ve only met him like four times, but I know that’s why we’re here. But sometimes she says he’s not her boyfriend. Then I saw them kissing two times.”

  “Where did you see them kissing?”

  “On the porch. And once in the kitchen. It was gross. He was kind of eating her face.”

  “Okay.” Luke let that disgusting image sink in for a moment. “Whose house is this? Is it the boyfriend’s, or did your mom rent it?”

  “I think we rented it, but I think he had something to do with it. He picked it out before we came. It was hard to move and my mom was too busy to find us something, I think. But I’m not sure.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “What’s whose name?”

  “The guy, the guy who was kissing your mom.”

  “George. He’s a little bit weird, but he’s also nice sometimes, like when he buys me a donut or something.”

  “George who?” Luke asked.

  “I don’t know. He works a lot. He comes for dinner or breakfast, that’s about it. He bought me a Demolition Lab Triple Blast Warehouse once. My mom got mad because I didn’t say thank you.”

  “And why didn’t you say thank you?”

  “I told you, because he’s weird,” Huck answered.

  Luke couldn’t help but laugh. “Well, how is he weird?”

  Huck flipped his palms in the air, as if to say adults could be so stupid. “I don’t know, can’t you just tell when someone’s weird? He’s just weird. He’s not fun, but he acts like he is. Sometimes he makes me laugh a little.”

  Luke didn’t want to get out of the car. He was stalling in case Katie pulled up behind him and he’d have a chance to say hello. Or, he might get a look at the boyfriend, though he wasn’t sure that was a good thing.

  Most of all, Luke sat in an idling car in a driveway with an eight-year-old for ten minutes because this house gave him a long, historical case of fear.

  His father had told him that he must never step foot in the house at 37 Willow Lane. Luke’s mom had worked here gardening before she died; something had happened with the owner, an older man, Luke never knew what. He was pretty sure it wasn’t anything physical—rather a very bad misunderstanding.

  He’d asked Frank if she’d gotten hurt, and he said no and left it at that; it was important to stay away. In his twenties, Luke had gone to the buildings department in Southampton town to see who owned it, but LLCs and estate trusts were listed and he couldn’t tell the exact owners.

  “Can we please go inside?” Huck couldn’t wait any longer.

  “Yeah, sorry, let’s go.”

  They walked up to the front deck of the small house, Huck leading the reticent Luke. Music muffled in from the back area and Luke could see the neighbor’s teenage daughter reading and sunbathing. All of the gray wood window frames were weathered, the steps slanted with age, and walkway stones badly cracked and in need of repair. A few quaint window boxes filled with geraniums lined the windows. On the small covered entrance, a white wicker rocking swing with a tattered cushion swayed slightly in the wind.

  The hair on the back of Luke’s neck stood up. He smoothed it down. It was just too damn crazy to admit that he felt his mother’s presence. But he did.

  Chapter Thirty

  Violet Underground

  Thursday, June 29

  “You want to stop by?” Julia Chase asked Katie over the phone a few afternoons later that week. “I was going to ask you on the docks earlier but I got distracted with all the kids and equipment. I just now thought, hell, I’m going to call her and make a plan.”

  “I’m in the car, just finished a meeting.”

  “Ever had a lavender-infused martini?” Julia asked.

  “No, but it sounds good,” Katie answered, pressing her cell phone headphones into her ear. She was driving back toward Southampton in a work-fueled daze. “I could use one right about now. You’re so kind to reach out.”

  “Of course, you told me you don’t know many people here,” said Julia. “I’m terrible I didn’t push earlier, it’s on me. I’m a native.”

  “Regardless, you’re good to do it. I just finished a session with a terribly dyslexic tenth-grader, who could not get through more than ten lines of The Odyssey. By the time we got to ‘When they ate the oxen of Hyperion the Sun’ the kid was in tears. Anyway, poor kid, sorry to yammer on about work. Yes. Definitely need a break. From everything.”

  “Let me make you my favorite girls’ drink called a purple pillow,” Julia pressed. “It’s got vodka infused with lavender from my garden, a little lime, and muddled blueberries . . . medicine at sunset after a harrowing day with husband and kids or work. You’ll see. I don’t make them too strong. Just right. You want to come over now?”

  “You know, there’s this other spot if you don’t mind,” Katie told her, not in the mood to be a guest in a strange home. “It’s my little beach entrance where I walk for downtime, down at the end of Briarcroft Lane. I go at 5:00 p.m. when the sitter comes and I have a little break on Tuesdays and Thursdays. There’s this big piece of tree trunk washed in from some storm where I sit. Maybe you could just meet me out there?”

  “I actually know that tree trunk well,” Julia said, laughing. “It’s a place where I think about the messed-up elements of my life and how to plan my way out of them. See you in fifteen.”

  Katie smiled, wondering what exactly was “messed up” in the life of a woman with a glass mansion on the ocean, a super model figure, and limitless cash spitting out of her family ATM.

  This late afternoon, as Katie slammed the car door shut and walked down toward the peeling waves, Southampton felt like it belonged to her. This beach entrance was narrow, with about ten parallel parking spots on each side. A lone couple—a nice-looking woman in her thirties with a long blond braid tucked behind a sun hat, and her handsome boyfriend in swim trunks—walked off the beach laden with towels and tote bags, their faces bronzed by a long afternoon in the
sun.

  Katie left her sandals by the side of the pavement. She walked along the dunes where the sand swallowed her feet to work her calves out more.

  She walked down to the harder sand near the water to watch the light penetrate off the Atlantic. Huge sprays of mist spewed off the tops of large waves crashing on the wet shoreline. The ground beneath her shook with each pounding, curling roller. She held her forearms tight as if to give herself a hug, then placed her hands on her knees and exhaled a pound of stress.

  It was quickly becoming cooler than normal this late afternoon, and fog drifted in, covering midsummer’s heat and glare. Her four weeks in the Hamptons had passed with shifting weather patterns, summer squalls that turned into two days of downpours, the ocean flat one day and roiling mad the next. It was no longer the beginning of summer—she was in it.

  “Hey!” yelled Julia from about fifty yards down the sand. She grabbed a martini shaker from her straw bag and shook it in the air, banging around the ice and vodka inside. “I’ve got some medicine for that glum face down there!”

  Katie watched Julia plow down the beach, and thought about her own mother and how she veered toward honest, lively women as well. She’d always told Katie not to judge, not to assume that the housewives in Hood River who drove Katie insane with their P.T.A. bake sale demands weren’t offering a solid chance at friendship. Her mom would have liked Julia’s straightforward approach, just like the women Katie grew up with who held the world tightly in their clutches.

  Julia sat on the log and spread her curvy, tanned legs out, the wind blowing her blond locks behind her. She was wearing jean shorts, a bohemian light blue blouse with blue flowers in varying colors, and an indigo short poncho. She pulled two cashmere orange blankets out (they matched her vintage Porsche and she kept them in the trunk for moments like this) and placed one on the sand for Katie and another to cover her own bare legs. “Sit on the blanket, it’s more comfortable. Here, let me pour you a drink. Take a glass.”