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dinner, but fortunately I’d brought along some extra sandals.
    Russell and I unpacked in our daisy-drenched bedroom—the wallpaper, curtains, and furniture, all in the same insanely cheery pattern. It’s like a drugged version of something you’d see on the cover of Architectural Digest. After settling in—Hamptons talk for “unpacking”—we were instructed to meet in the lanai—that’s what Pammie and Bruce call their covered porch furnished with three full-size sofas and a table long enough to hit the border of Westhampton. When you own more than a seven- or eight-room house, you start making up names for the overspill rooms.
    Downstairs in the lanai-porch-living-room-type room, we were subjected to nonstop food. Cocktails were offered. Snacks were offered. Bowls of steaming pasta and heavy plates of grilled vegetables were offered. That’s the main activity at one of Pammie’s weekends. Food. And conversations about the food. I couldn’t even tell you who was staying in the Tulip Room or the Lily Room or the Pink Carnation Room. I was too busy eating.
    By Sunday morning, lying together beneath our daisy-design quilt, I turned to Russell and asked, “You up?” His response was somewhere between a growl and a snore. On weekends he has a completely different morning personality from his up-and-at-’em, go-getter workday personality. He looked a mess with his hair scrambled and his sleep mask askew. I was happy for Pammie in her shiny Pamela life. My girlfriend was nice.My boyfriend was nice. Lying with my boyfriend on my girlfriend’s four-hundred-thread Frette linens was nice. On paper, my life was perfectly nice, but something felt off. Not always. But more often than I wanted to acknowledge.
    It would sneak up on me, this nagging sadness, a wistful sense of longing. People were dying of cancer, blind, deaf, sick, starving, and there I was thinking I even had the right to not be happy? Really, Molly, what’s wrong with you? I was with this lovely man who somehow considered me wonderfully likable. Count your blessings, Molly.
    Russell stirred and lifted his mask. Awake now, he pulled me closer, and I soon felt better.
    *  *  *
    The big event of the weekend, besides sex and indigestion, was the Sunday luncheon the Bendingers were hosting for forty of their favorite neighbors. Here’s the secret about the Hamptons: devotees are willing to plop down sizable chunks of change to build mega-mortgaged homes, in what used to be a giant stretch of potato fields, because of the air. It’s not normal, everyday breathe-in-breathe-out air. It’s not even normal ocean air. It’s lighter, fresher, infused with a magical silver light. The beaches sparkle, the wide green lawns sparkle, the people and their conversations about food sparkle. Air like that’s worth celebrating, so everyone throws parties. Especially the Bendingers.
    “Anything I can do to help?” I asked Pamela before the luncheon guests arrived. “Skim the pool? Fold napkins intoswans?” I should have offered to help with valet service. I couldn’t believe how many cars showed up from people who lived a few blocks away.
    Cocktails were served and hors d’oeuvres passed on the patio. Harry Connick Jr. played on the built-in speakers overhead. Russell was having a marvelous weekend. I’d watched him play badminton and croquet, sunbathe and swim laps, and ask the other guests how they slept the night before. If anyone complained about a bad back, he’d promptly produce a business card. I admired his opportunistic drive, found it mortifying but admirable. As we stood together next to the crudités table, with Russell sipping a gin and tonic, me sipping a vodka tonic, he whispered, “Everything’s so fancy here.”
    “Yeah? Well, I knew Mrs. Fancy when she was still spending Saturday nights barfing into a toilet bowl.” I waved cheerily over at Pammie. She was speaking with a man wearing dubious pink pants and a polo shirt. “Let’s mill