someplace.
Which is surprisingly easy.
Weekend-home owners are too busy stoking their barbecues and sunbathing by their own pools to go traveling around. So they invite other people to visit. Ever since Pammie became Pamela she starts booking her summer guests by the first week of March. She’ll call and say, “I want you to have first dibs on the weekend of your choice.”
“Can I pick according to the other guests?” I’ll ask.
“I don’t know the other guests yet. I called you first. But you know we only invite fascinating people.”
I could name names of previous guests I’ve met at the Bendingers’ home and be hard-pressed to consider most of them fascinating, but that would be rude and Pammie’sabout the nicest human you’ll ever meet, so I said, “How about Memorial Day?”—figuring I’d get the pressure over with early in the season.
And it is pressure. I feel competitive with the other fascinating guests to come up with a fascinating hostess gift. I’ve seen what sort of items are offered up: wine coolers, coffee-table books, hand towels, beach towels, guest soaps, wooden serving trays, salad servers, picture frames, and ceramic figurines with seashore motifs. I can barely keep straight which boyfriend I’ve shown up with from summer to summer, let alone whether I already gave Pammie a makeup bag last year or was I confusing that with the hostess gift I brought to my friend Nathalynne in the Berkshires when I was still married to Evan and still friends with Nathalynne. Evan, by the way, though he could’ve afforded a summer place, never purchased one. The man is a professional mooch.
Of course, any possible value one’s supposed to obtain from a couple of days away ends up totally wiped out by the getting-to and getting-from parts of the weekend. You’ve never driven bumper to bumper until you’ve driven bumper to bumper on the Long Island Expressway on a summer Friday night.
“Nice digs,” Russell said, as we drove up the Bendingers’ stone-paved drive. He parked between a Mercedes and a Lexus. Bruce was in the front of the house playing with Victor and Mooney, the world’s two luckiest schnauzers. Bruce waved us to the left, off to the side of the house. Russell started up the car again and reparked.
“I guess Bruce doesn’t want a Zipcar logo sullying his front driveway,” I said.
There’s an entire Hamptons hierarchy of status Hamptons and so-so Hamptons, depending on whether you live on the South Shore versus the North Shore, and the South Fork versus the North Fork. Location relative to the Montauk Highway is also involved, but beyond my comprehension or interest. Pamela née Pammie lives in East Hampton, the good Hampton.
I introduced Bruce to Russell and Russell to Bruce, who shook hands while Mooney lifted a hind leg and peed on the hydrangeas and Victor pooped on the lawn.
“Boys! What are you doing!” I heard Pamela scold as she hurried out the front door to greet us, wiping her hands on the front of her tennis dress. By boys I assumed she meant Victor and Mooney, not Russell and Bruce. “No respect for my hard work.” She laughed. Pamela’s an avid gardener. I would be, too, if I had a twice-a-week landscape crew.
Bruce excused himself to procure a plastic baggie. He’s not a handsome man; he’s stout, pumpkin-faced, bald—but fastidious. Pamela once confided that he waxes his back. I could have lived a perfectly happy life without ever learning that particular nugget, but Pamela seemed to find it adorable. Bruce’s family owns half the gas stations along the Eastern Seaboard. She also finds that adorable.
“About time we met!” she said to Russell. She hugged him hello and nodded at me over his shoulder, her eyes saying, This one looks decent. “You two get the Daisy Room. It’s Molly’s favorite.” She gave Russell a quick tour of theirsixteen-room house and told us we’d have plenty of time to change for dinner. I hadn’t planned to change for
Which is surprisingly easy.
Weekend-home owners are too busy stoking their barbecues and sunbathing by their own pools to go traveling around. So they invite other people to visit. Ever since Pammie became Pamela she starts booking her summer guests by the first week of March. She’ll call and say, “I want you to have first dibs on the weekend of your choice.”
“Can I pick according to the other guests?” I’ll ask.
“I don’t know the other guests yet. I called you first. But you know we only invite fascinating people.”
I could name names of previous guests I’ve met at the Bendingers’ home and be hard-pressed to consider most of them fascinating, but that would be rude and Pammie’sabout the nicest human you’ll ever meet, so I said, “How about Memorial Day?”—figuring I’d get the pressure over with early in the season.
And it is pressure. I feel competitive with the other fascinating guests to come up with a fascinating hostess gift. I’ve seen what sort of items are offered up: wine coolers, coffee-table books, hand towels, beach towels, guest soaps, wooden serving trays, salad servers, picture frames, and ceramic figurines with seashore motifs. I can barely keep straight which boyfriend I’ve shown up with from summer to summer, let alone whether I already gave Pammie a makeup bag last year or was I confusing that with the hostess gift I brought to my friend Nathalynne in the Berkshires when I was still married to Evan and still friends with Nathalynne. Evan, by the way, though he could’ve afforded a summer place, never purchased one. The man is a professional mooch.
Of course, any possible value one’s supposed to obtain from a couple of days away ends up totally wiped out by the getting-to and getting-from parts of the weekend. You’ve never driven bumper to bumper until you’ve driven bumper to bumper on the Long Island Expressway on a summer Friday night.
“Nice digs,” Russell said, as we drove up the Bendingers’ stone-paved drive. He parked between a Mercedes and a Lexus. Bruce was in the front of the house playing with Victor and Mooney, the world’s two luckiest schnauzers. Bruce waved us to the left, off to the side of the house. Russell started up the car again and reparked.
“I guess Bruce doesn’t want a Zipcar logo sullying his front driveway,” I said.
There’s an entire Hamptons hierarchy of status Hamptons and so-so Hamptons, depending on whether you live on the South Shore versus the North Shore, and the South Fork versus the North Fork. Location relative to the Montauk Highway is also involved, but beyond my comprehension or interest. Pamela née Pammie lives in East Hampton, the good Hampton.
I introduced Bruce to Russell and Russell to Bruce, who shook hands while Mooney lifted a hind leg and peed on the hydrangeas and Victor pooped on the lawn.
“Boys! What are you doing!” I heard Pamela scold as she hurried out the front door to greet us, wiping her hands on the front of her tennis dress. By boys I assumed she meant Victor and Mooney, not Russell and Bruce. “No respect for my hard work.” She laughed. Pamela’s an avid gardener. I would be, too, if I had a twice-a-week landscape crew.
Bruce excused himself to procure a plastic baggie. He’s not a handsome man; he’s stout, pumpkin-faced, bald—but fastidious. Pamela once confided that he waxes his back. I could have lived a perfectly happy life without ever learning that particular nugget, but Pamela seemed to find it adorable. Bruce’s family owns half the gas stations along the Eastern Seaboard. She also finds that adorable.
“About time we met!” she said to Russell. She hugged him hello and nodded at me over his shoulder, her eyes saying, This one looks decent. “You two get the Daisy Room. It’s Molly’s favorite.” She gave Russell a quick tour of theirsixteen-room house and told us we’d have plenty of time to change for dinner. I hadn’t planned to change for
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