It's Hot in the Hamptons Page 4

  Caroline knew competitive horse showing was often a shady and shifty sport, and Philippe was just another sleazy player in the game. She’d warned Eddie about him and had pushed him to hire a woman she knew and liked instead. She was conflicted enough about allowing her nine-year-old daughter, Gigi, to ride in this elite sport at all, and Philippe as a trainer made it worse.

  “Your husband has created a masterpiece. You know that,” he said to Caroline, bowing slightly. “Please excuse me, ladies. I’ve got too much work to do to get ready for the party, all the crowds coming this weekend for their first inspection.” He brushed the side of Annabelle’s cheek with the back of his hand as if he were already her boyfriend, and then said softly to her, “I can’t wait to hear your plan.”

  When the women reached the end of the hallway, Caroline turned to her friend. “I came here to let you check on your cavalcade of ungodly expensive show ponies and horses, not to watch you salivate over that hopeless lothario.”

  “I’m just checking out the merchandise, not purchasing.”

  “You better not,” Caroline warned, knowing a dare only got her friend more motivated.

  The women watched Philippe at the far end of the corridor in his white breeches, caramel riding boots, and tight, navy polo shirt. Despite his accident, he had managed to keep his muscular build very powerful and solid. The way he swung his left leg around to walk gave him a slight air of vulnerability that he played all too well with the ladies.

  “Jesus, look at him,” whispered Annabelle, in a bit of a trance watching Philippe depart. Slowly, she added, “What a very, deeply, astoundingly serious piece of ass.”

  “That is the type of person who would really fuck up your little affair idea this summer. Discretion is key.”

  Annabelle chose her right to remain silent: innocent until proven otherwise.

  Caroline continued, “Discretion means not a well-known pussy hound. You need a lovely man who needs a little action: someone wealthy and single who doesn’t want your money. That is the only way your whole idea can work.”

  “I have stiff-upper-lip breeding, and I’m not falling for anyone, so it’s a little easier for me just to get laid with whomever as . . .”

  “No, you’re warped. Not whomever.” Caroline looked at her friend and smacked her shoulder playfully. “You stay away from Philippe.”

  “When I have a feeling, you know how I get,” Annabelle said. “I predict we both meet our affair-mates this weekend, even though you’re not ready to admit you’re already game.”

  “I never agreed to anything,” Caroline reminded her, not honestly sure if Annabelle’s affair pact intrigued or terrified her.

  “And besides, he’s a trainer who’s well-trained himself,” Annabelle added. “I can tell by the way his hand grazed the back of my neck. I’m sorry, but that was hot.”

  Chapter 6

  Party Prep

  Friday before Memorial Day Weekend, Sea Crest Stables, Bridgehampton

  A day after that slightly charged meeting with Thierry Moinot in Alphabet City, Marcus drove Eddie to his new real estate project in Bridgehampton. At 32 Spring Farm Lane, the gate opened on a property with undulating hills, four pristine horse rings, and four long stables. Thierry was right: Sea Crest Stables resembled an opulent Napa Valley vineyard more than a home for animals.

  Naysayers told Eddie that developing the thirty acres was risky, and finding infusions of cash had been a grueling battle. Lending banks balked, concluding that his vision for the barn was too grandiose. Investors were skittish because he wanted to build the complex on the north side of the Route 27, the “wrong side of the tracks” in the Hamptons. They pointed out that all of the important homes, south of Route 27, were owned by families who “mattered.” This estate section of town, near the ocean, allowed them entry into country clubs and parties with like-minded folk. Their stables should be close by.

  “Guys, trust me,” Eddie had disagreed. “I need thirty acres to build this dream. I found a lot on the north side: the seller is desperado, I’m telling you; we can rape him on the price.

  “And don’t forget I grew up out here and I live on Fifth Avenue now. My uncle Charlie drove me by every home out here since I was ten. He used to explain to me what land rich people buy to make them look rich, where they social climb and party, and the townhouse condos where they fuck their girlfriends. I got this, guys. You in or not?”

  As the Maybach’s wheels crunched along the cinnamon-colored pebble driveway, Eddie inhaled slowly, feeling grand self-adoration at the boldest real estate play of his career. Marcus opened his door. “I’m going to take a look around if I might?”

  “Of course, Marcus! Be my guest, rifle through anything you want!”

  Rifle through everything? This clown’s got no idea what’s coming his way. Eddie believed Marcus had chosen to drive him on occasion just to be a party to his inimitable, irresistible conversational skills. Eddie, oblivious, walked up to the main office of what he knew would become the Hamptons’ premiere equine facility, knocking every other barn off its pedestal in one short summer.

  A few celebrities, several of the wealthiest equestrian families, and one world-renowned trainer had signed up a year before Sea Crest was even finished. The stables would not only offer stalls for horses, and training lessons, but parties and championship horse shows. Rolex and J.P. Morgan had already put up purses for Saturday competitions for the best child and adult riders on the East Coast.

  A Whispering Angel rosé bar would cater to the overwhelmed Hamptons housewives, all naturally exhausted from micromanaging both the decor and snacks on their helicopters. With everything else, it was downright taxing to find brown Pratesi cashmere throws that matched the muted Ultrasuede seats, and to tell the nanny to pick up those divine homemade potato chips from William Poll on Lexington Ave! And these women would flock to the rosé bar, because, well, who didn’t need a drink after reminding their housekeepers, for the tenth time, to save the Frette powder room linen with the shell stitching only for guests, never for family.

  Eddie dictated everything from the brand of mozzarella for the caprese salads at the café (buy it at Red Horse or don’t serve it at all), to the bright purple bougainvillea whose abundant vines already climbed up the sides of the stalls. The landscaper, an old friend from fourth grade, explained that the plants Eddie coveted only flourished in warmer, dryer climates. “You can’t have bougainvillea here, Eddie,” he had said. “It’ll never work. Give it up.”

  But the image of violet blooms on dark wood had stuck in Eddie’s mind. It conjured up images of estates in the Caribbean, which, in turn, were reminiscent of the colonial tone he was after. In an Architectural Digest he’d saved from a dozen years ago, C. Z. Guest’s home in Palm Beach burst with bougainvillea everywhere, and Eddie had thrown the article at his landscaper buddy, exclaiming, “I don’t care how much this costs, or if it dies by September every year. This woman was the queen of society, and the closest to American royalty we’ll ever get. Get me those gorgeous vines, growing up every column everywhere! Fly it in from Barbados if you have to.”

  Eddie walked straight to the smaller office in the back of the main entrance. “Maryanne, listen to me: the setup for the barn party tomorrow still feels half-baked. I want it all looking like a wedding. I told you that on Monday.”

  Without looking up from the wire reading glasses perched on her pointy nose (that matched her angular limbs) the middle-aged woman behind the desk answered, “Edward Clarkson: please don’t use that tone with me.” Maryanne had been the administrator of Eddie’s middle school twenty years before and had been just as harsh back then. When Eddie Clarkson was young, teachers wrote off his need to pummel his rivals as grit. Manners were never Eddie’s strong point, in the same way doing the dishes or playing fair wasn’t his thing, either.

  “Don’t talk to me like I’m late to class again, Maryanne.”

  “I’ll call you by your full name when I want. I’ve still got
many years on you.” Maryanne refused to look at him. “Doesn’t matter if I work for you now, we agreed that you would improve the way you talk to me.” Maryanne’s pageboy gray hair was styled neatly around her protruding cheekbones, and she took a few moments to neaten up the back, stalling to regain her patience. “We’ve got one day before the guests arrive on Saturday for your big opening,” she explained, finally looking up at him. “The caterers are all here already; the tables are arriving soon. You wanted low-key class, and despite the injustice of this, may I inform you that you’re not actually the sultan of Brunei.”

  “I’m not trying for showy! You don’t get it!” Eddie responded.

  “Oooh, I get it loud and clear.” Maryanne wouldn’t indulge him.

  Though rather short, Eddie splayed his arms out on her desk like a giant. “I want this looking like a Rothschild vineyard from Bordeaux. All these rich families with little girls wanting to ride. All the Hamptons housewives who love horses and need a respite from never working a fuckin’ day in their lives.”

  No one at Sea Crest had ridden in serious competition yet, but dozens of horses and ponies had arrived earlier in the spring. They were housed in polished mahogany stalls, each with a brass nameplate engraved with the horse’s name. Eddie had built four rings outside. The inside show ring had climate-controlled viewing rooms with cushioned stadium chairs for spouses, partners, friends, and parents in the rooting section.

  Eddie had even constructed an upstairs media room set up like a sports bar with several ESPN channels streaming on large screens. He called it the “Branch Water Lounge” (the name serious drinkers from Kentucky call their whiskey). Again, he knew his clientele: bored fathers, pretending to watch their eight-year-olds jump a pony over a six-inch rail, could slip away to catch baseball, golf, or football. Many of them might need a stiff one after writing checks in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy an animal their spoiled kid would get bored of in a year.

  A designer who’d previously staged Ralph Lauren stores went to flea markets and found worn, leather viewing chairs, primary-colored horse blankets, winning chalices. Championship ribbons from horse shows Eddie had never heard of (nor had the designer) adorned the walls. At the bar, he had dozens of crystal low-balls lining shelves and he served only one whiskey, and only the best: Pinhook.

  “It’ll be fine, Eddie,” Maryanne answered calmly, looking down at her ledgers. Payroll for all the grooms and trainers was due this very afternoon, and she was busy. She took out the calculator from her desk drawer and slammed it closed. “You’ve done all you can, little rich kids and adults leasing and owning animals, and your own ponies and horses for the local kids, charging thirty-five dollars an hour for their lessons. So everyone gets to ride.”

  He slapped the end of Maryanne’s desk to get her attention. “How is the vegan juice bar, all the boosters and shots ready?” He started counting on his fingers, “I told them I want MCT oil, all of that, spirulina, chia, flax, macha, mucho probiotic, whatever-the-fuck Gwyneth Paltrow bullshit in there.”

  Maryanne looked up at him over her reading glasses. She could only shake her head.

  “Those famous women who ride, that Olsen twin—who can tell which one it is, but one of them rides—Matt Lauer’s hot ex-wife, will make horseback riding more appealing than sweating your tits off on a bike in a dark, smelly room with bad disco, don’t you think? Those candles in those friggin’ spin classes make no sense! You’re not chilling, you’re sweating your balls off! Speaking of sweating your balls off, I mean, c’mon! Think of the E. coli on the seats alone!”

  Maryanne stood up and walked over to her files, Eddie trailing her like a puppy. A folder in her hand, she turned to go back to her desk, Eddie now blocking her way. “Could you just give me some personal space and move?” She sidestepped around him.

  He paced around in small circles and jabbed at the floor with his foot. It screeched from the rubber on his new navy JP Tod boat shoes. “I want it to look rich, but like I didn’t even try.”

  “But you did try, Eddie. It’s almost all you’ve done for two years now.”

  Eddie turned his head in circles to crack his spine. He closed his eyes for several seconds. His nostrils flared as they took in more air.

  Maryanne hadn’t even started logging up costs for the feed, hay, and deliveries that would arrive any minute now. And though she vowed to work on his manners, she also knew that people don’t ever really change. As far back as his tenth-grade year, she had heard that Eddie would surf the bigger Montauk breaks when he was too young to be welcome. He’d think nothing of dropping in on the best rides from guys who considered that section of the Atlantic their sacred territory.

  In the years since, Eddie’s classmates, many of them rival surfers still pissed off at his selfish ways in the water, had become landscapers, architects, teachers, and restaurateurs. They had their own families now, from Southampton to Bridgehampton, East Hampton to Amagansett, all the way to Montauk. And the locals stayed close in the long months of winter, nursing beers in small bars, laughing about old times, and complaining about all the cheap dickheads from the city who questioned every line item on their bills.

  It made Eddie feel good—magnanimous even—to hire a few of these old friends at Sea Crest Stables. He wanted to throw them a bone, even though Caroline cautioned him against working with any of their former schoolmates.

  “The economic divide is too big now, Eddie,” she told him. “They’re going to resent you more than they will feel grateful. Don’t do it; I promise it’ll turn sour.”

  But Eddie didn’t listen to his wife. He hired an elementary-school buddy to be the landscaper in the stables’ driveway, and a painter he knew from tenth grade to do his office in gray, with French plaster, so the walls shone with a little expensive texture that only he noticed.

  And when these men earning solid middle-class incomes heard that Eddie flew violet bougainvillea in from Barbados that would die in twelve weeks, they talked. And they watched, and they waited. Something would happen to Eddie one day.

  “On the counters, let’s get CBD! Sea Crest branded CBD Chapstick, creams, ointments! CBD everywhere!” Eddie knew he was pushing Maryanne. But what did he care? He was paying her, and she stood to profit big-time if everything went according to plan.

  Maryanne slammed her hand on the desk. “You’re like a bride, Eddie Clarkson. Just breathe. You’ve developed plenty of properties since you left town. This is no different from your little Rice Krispies enterprise in school. Take slow steps, and it’ll all go according to your business plan.”

  In sixth grade, he’d bring Maryanne snacks he’d concocted when he was late to bribe her to take his tardiness off his record. Eddie the Entrepreneur (as he was known even in middle school) started an after-school Rice Krispies cart with flavors ranging from blueberry to caramel and chocolate chip. By eleventh grade, he’d hired three restaurant workers to make the treats, wrap them in plastic and ribbon, and sell them at schools along the Long Island coast and in gourmet shops in the ritzy towns. Maryanne used to tell him he’d be the next Paul Newman—except that she knew he would never give all his proceeds to charity.

  “Eddie,” she used to tell him, “if this Rice Krispies business doesn’t work, you’re going to make a lot of money with something else. One of these things is going to go big, and when it does, you’ll have to admit I told you so.”

  “You’ll be my first hire,” Eddie always answered. “You’ll watch me make my first million.”

  And back then, Maryanne, who was forty when Eddie entered the eleventh grade, had a feeling he was right, that he would actually hire her one day. He would help her get out of the school system just when she was ready to collect her pension and do something new. She was sure she would watch him make his first million. And his second.

  However, Maryanne hadn’t counted on making her own million. He threw that at her to keep everything very, very quiet. For as long as she lived.

  Ch
apter 7

  A Truck Driver Who Is Anything But

  While Maryanne and Eddie bickered in the front office, a large, white delivery truck entered the service area of Sea Crest Stables. The driver wore a Yankees cap, the brim pushed down on his face. He wished he’d grown a beard so as not to be recognized. He worried his T-shirt didn’t cover him enough, but it was hot, and he would look strange if he wore a hoodie.

  The driver and three other men stepped out of the truck near the hay lofts by the back of the complex, preparing to unload feed before the holiday weekend.

  “I have to check on something near the stalls. I’ll be back,” the driver told them, grabbing a clipboard from the truck. In a movie, he had seen an undercover investigator say you had to carry a pen and clipboard to look like you belong, and to arouse less suspicion.

  He had answered the ad for a driver of a horse supply company four weeks before, as a way to gain access to Sea Crest. He’d explained to the owner that he had been living in Colombia for a while, helping to stock the restaurant of an eco-lodge, and that he had picked up Spanish down there. Many of the grooms were Hispanic, and many of them didn’t speak English. After convincing the owner that he would be good with logistics and that he could speak to many of the laborers on the horse circuit, he got the job for the busy summer only, all cash.

  When the driver entered the stable, he paid careful attention to the navy wooden trunks in front of each stall. A brass oval nameplate of the rider was nailed to the center. The barn shipped these trunks with the horses when the riders competed in shows in Pennsylvania, Lake Placid, and Florida. Peeking inside one trunk, he found helmets, bridles, sunscreen, gloves, and spurs. A drawer that slid across the top was piled with peppermint candies for ponies, bags of carrots, show ribbons, hair elastics, bottles of Gatorade, and protein bars that had melted from the heat.