How the Other Half Hamptons Read online

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2008 by Jasmin Rosemberg

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the US Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  5 Spot

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com.

  First eBook Edition: June 2008

  ISBN: 978-0-446-53757-5

  Contents

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Five Signs You’re in a Summer Share House:

  To my parents, who guided me, encouraged me, supported me, and never once stopped believing in me.

  Acknowledgments

  I’m a bit of a writing cliché (or as luck should have it, a success story). After toiling away in a cubicle, I did what every aspiring novelist is told never to do: I quit my day job. I’d thus like to thank all the family, friends, and co-workers who stood by me when I moved home and set upon this journey—everyone who understood why I had to, everyone who truly believed I could do this. And to any aspiring novelists out there, I urge you, don’t ever pay mind to the statistics.

  In this business, I’ve learned that writing a novel and having the wrong agent is hardly different from not writing a novel at all. For this reason, I am utterly indebted to my writing’s tireless champion, Paula Balzer, who saw something in me at the age of twenty-four, back before this book was even conceived. She is kind, candid, and available (not just because she set up shop near my parents’ house), and has given me the greatest gift I ever could have hoped for—the chance to fulfill my dream.

  I couldn’t have envisioned having a better first publishing experience, and Grand Central Publishing has far surpassed my every expectation: My editor, Emily Griffin, is efficient, meticulous, and nothing short of an editorial superwoman; my publicist, Elly Weisenberg, so creative and enthusiastic, you’d have thought this novel her own. My sincerest thanks go out to them, to Caryn Karmatz Rudy, Tareth Mitch, Linda Cowen, Laura Jorstad, Miriam Parker, and the entire 5 Spot team.

  I’m grateful to everyone at the New York Post (or formerly at the New York Post) who gave me the opportunity to write a column that would open more doors than they’d ever know: particularly, Faye Penn, John Lehmann, and Farrah Weinstein. I’d also like to thank Richard Johnson and Bill Hoffman at “Page Six,” and Jared Shapiro at Life&Style Weekly, for their support.

  I am fortunate to have such a loyal group of friends who’ve stuck with me through beach weather, ski weather, and every climate in between: Ali Jacobs, Ali Lasky, Alyssa Kessler, Amy Meyers, Betsy Rudnick, Blake Rose, Danielle Schwartz, Farah Goldstein, Jamie Dyce, Jessica Civitano, Katerina Zervas, Leslie Napach, Meri Strickon, Shari Mancher, Stacy Schwartz, Stephanie Baskin, and Tara Fougner. Also (while listing their names would double this book’s length), thanks to the many share house members, nightclub affiliates, publicists, and friends who made my Hamptons experience worth writing about.

  My younger sister, Kacey, was this novel’s first reader, and is the person on the planet who knows me best (yet loves me anyway). Thanks for schlepping the uncondensed manuscript throughout Prague, for listening to endless book rhetoric, and for breaking up my monotonous routine with a story (or silly dance move). I know you will be a fantastic lawyer (and with any luck, a literary contracts one).

  This book (or anything I’ve done in my life) would never have been possible without the guidance, encouragement, and generosity of my parents, who raised their daughter to believe that she could do anything. I bet they never imagined the girl who was so eager to leave home and embrace city life at seventeen would, years later, ask to return (and remain, for slightly longer than any of us ever anticipated). Thanks for giving up your dining room table, for rescuing me (when I was stranded in the Hamptons, and time and time again) and for never once, not even for a moment, doubting me. You are my role models, my support system (emotionally as much as financially), my entire world. You’ve given me more than any child deserves, more than I could ever repay, and I’ll never stop wondering how I got so lucky.

  Prologue

  It starts with a party, unlike any you’ve been to before. A party that goes something like this:

  Just imagine you are riding in a crammed elevator.

  Imagine you are doing so in a city as heavily populated as New York, where hundreds of people come in and out of your life on a daily basis and one space-squandering body is nearly interchangeable with the next.

  Now imagine this same elevator has just slammed to a halt.

  You let your eyes wander around, curious to see who is standing beside you. You wonder what it will be like once you’re trapped with these individuals, and begin to scrutinize every detail of their appearance for signs of what to expect. You notice other people similarly scrutinizing your appearance, as is only fair, because you are suddenly in this together.

  Then picture this group in a Manhattan bar, replace “involuntarily” with “voluntarily” trapped, and welcome to a Hamptons meet-and-greet party.

  The time of choice: happy hour on a weeknight. The location of choice: a local dive in a neighborhood like Murray Hill, where 99 percent of the participants already coexist in adjacent doorman buildings. The crowd of choice: anyone willing to fork over upward of two grand for a single bed in a five-person bedroom on (alternating) summer weekends.

  And, newcomers, beware: anything you say, do, drink, dance on, or go home with will forever be held against you. Worse yet, it will define you.

  But don’t worry. Even though Memorial Day weekend is almost upon you, you will have anticipated this moment for weeks. The entire neighborhood will have been thinking the same, reflected by the growing crowds at New York Sports Clubs, Hollywood Tans, and the bathing suit section of Bloomingdale’s. Preparing for a summer in the Hamptons is quite a daunting prospect.

  Now, you’re probably thinking: the Hamptons—private yachts, exclusive clambakes, Bridgehampton Polo Club matches, dinners at Nick and Toni’s, and nauseatingly elitist company. Not even close.

  What twentysomethings take part in each and every summer is an experience perhaps even unknown to Hamptons regulars. This underground practice is not only illegal but also cultivates a camp-like culture distinctly its own.

  Prepare to enter the Share House.

  The concept is surprisingly simple. One business-savvy individual—known as the “house manager”—rents a house for the summer, crams each room with as many beds as will (un)comfortably fit, and sells off individual shares for about a million times their agg
regate value. (Think of buying an old car and selling off the parts—at, say, twenty-five hundred dollars per tire.) However, without this middleman cleverly partitioning the price, small groups of young professionals would never have access to such an illustrious vacation home.

  Complete with pool, Jacuzzi, basketball court, volleyball court, and tennis court, by day this house is a playground for tanning, swimming, sports, and socializing. By night, nearly forty shareholders and their guests will compete to shower, primp, pre-drink, and eventually pass out in the confines of this ten-bedroom, five-bathroom abode. (You do the math.)

  Of varying age, career path, and alcohol tolerance level, each of these mass-migrated Manhattanites is there under the pretense of meeting new people, getting a little color, and escaping the stresses of city life.

  Each is also most likely to be single.

  As a result, this share house will play host to drunken escapades, public nudity, hot tub hookups, hideous hangovers, explosive arguments, emotional bonding, and juvenile mischief.

  And it will be the best time of your life.

  Chapter One

  Jamie Kessler had never been one to play by the rules. Especially where guys were concerned.

  She’d flirted with the teaching assistants who marked her exams in college. She’d kissed doormen to jump the line at coveted nightclubs. She’d hooked up with guys who hadn’t even suggested taking her to dinner (in fact, she rather preferred it that way).

  So there may have been only one cardinal rule at any Hamptons meet-and-greet party. Yet somehow, within the first five minutes, she was already contemplating breaking it.

  “Well, why not?” she’d earlier challenged when her more conservative friend Rachel warned her to not, under any circumstance, go home with any guy from this party. Their disagreement was hardly a shock, as she and Rachel found themselves at odds about practically everything.

  “Because then you have to spend the whole summer in the share house avoiding him,” Rachel said, directing her words more at Jamie than their newly single friend Allison. “Or having every other guy avoid you, because you already hooked up with one of his friends. Is it really worth it?”

  “I guess not,” Jamie had agreed. And she really had been convinced. Until, of course, she spotted Jeff.

  There may only be one cardinal rule—but there is also only one incontrovertibly hot guy at any Hamptons meet-and-greet party. And predictably, within the first five minutes, nearly every girl in the bar realizes it.

  Not that any of these girls posed a particular challenge, Jamie thought, giving a cursory glance around the neighborhood watering hole DIP.

  Three generic girls—with identical dark straightened hair, Seven jeans, Gucci purses, and scowls—nursed white wines in the corner. Holding court at the bar yet edging toward the dance floor was a perky pair of girls who were definitely not from New York, which was discernible as much from their enthusiasm as by their beverage choice: cosmos. And tucked into a booth all by herself was a pasty redhead who looked like she was awaiting a shot in a doctor’s office.

  Jamie smiled. She definitely had this one in the bag.

  “I’ll be right back,” she told her friends, who were chatting with a pair of investment bankers (a ubiquitous type in Murray Hill, yet one she’d personally never found appealing).

  Then in that fearless and haphazard way she had of approaching people, Jamie tossed back her tousled brown locks, abandoned her half-full vodka soda, and started toward the bar.

  “So, are you doing this house?” she said to the most attractive guy she’d seen in...days. In doing so, she noticed but ignored the glares of the far less aggressive girls sipping wine in the corner. There were always girls glaring at her from the corner.

  “If I wasn’t, I am now,” he said, shifting a pair of entrancing blue eyes to hers.

  Managing to remain unfazed, Jamie evaluated the prospect before her. With a too-symmetrical face, cocky disposition, and looks he seemed much too aware of, he practically had ASSHOLE etched across his forehead. He was her type to a T.

  “Seriously,” she pressed, with a playful smile. “I’m not sure I’m sold yet.”

  But her companion apparently was sold. “Well, my buddy Mark runs this house,” he began, his eyes dipping into her cleavage. “I’ll make sure he puts us on the same weekends.”

  “Then I definitely won’t do it,” she joked, glad she’d worn the red shirt. She averted her eyes and looked longingly toward the bar.

  “What are you drinking?” he asked, not missing a beat.

  “Grey Goose and soda,” she replied, even though her original soda had been mixed with well vodka.

  “Done,” he said, turning back toward the line. Satisfied, Jamie stepped a few feet away from the crowded bar, mostly to ensure that no one stepped on her brand-new peep-toe Louboutins.

  She peered over at Rachel, who was conducting one of her marathon conversations with investment banker number one, and Allison, who seemed surprisingly entertained by investment banker number two. Allison was probably just being polite; after breaking up with her boyfriend of—four years? five years?—pretty much her entire existence, she wasn’t easily entertained these days.

  “Excuse me.” Jamie felt a sudden tap on her shoulder.

  “Are you here for the Hamptons party?” asked one of three guys in their late twenties standing behind her, his forwardness clearly fueled by alcohol. While none of the three was overwhelmingly attractive, each was appealing enough, with the boyish look and charm of a fraternity guy who had never grown up.

  “What Hamptons party?” she said, then cracked a smile when she saw their expressions change. “No, I’m kidding. I’m Jamie.”

  “Good one.” He chuckled a bit, noticeably relieved. “I’m Rob, and this is Brian and Dave.”

  “Nice to meet you,” she said, giving each of the guys a could-I-possibly-hook-up-with-him once-over as she shook his hand. Rob was tall with a winning smile but thinning hair; Brian was jolly and teddy-bear-like; and Dave, the best looking of the bunch, was on the short side, with flirtatious eyes that Jamie didn’t fully trust. “So,” she continued. “Are you...”

  “Yes. I’m the guy from that reality show,” Rob confessed, tilting his head smugly.

  Jamie looked at him questioningly. “I was going to say Are you all friends from school? But, um, what reality show?”

  “You know, The Apprentice?” he said, his voice rising a notch. “Just don’t let it get out. I don’t want to be stalked by girls all summer.”

  “Oh, that’s so funny,” Jamie replied. That’s so funny was what she said when she didn’t really know what else to say.

  “But yeah, we all went to Maryland together. Class of 2008,” Brian joked, then abandoned the small talk completely. Though perhaps that’s what happened when you got into your late twenties. In your late twenties, you tended to more immediate concerns. “Patrón?” he asked.

  “Always,” Jamie answered, never one to turn down free alcohol or undivided male attention. Maybe she’d been selling this share house idea short. “To a great summer,” she toasted after he handed her a glass, then threw back the shot so fluidly she even surprised herself.

  But the real surprise awaited her when she returned to the bar to dispose of her empty shot glass, and found her drink bearer standing not only with her Grey Goose and soda but also next to one of the wine sippers.

  “Thanks,” she replied, accepting the drink. Then she turned confrontationally toward the girl, whose features would actually be pretty if they weren’t pursed so tightly. “I’m Jamie,” she announced, in her sweetest too-late-he-bought-me-a-vodka-soda voice.

  “Ilana,” the girl mumbled before flipping her hair and slowly retreating.

  Smart girl, Jamie thought. Once again in the clear, she picked up where they’d left off.

  “So have you done this house before?” she asked, curious where a guy this catalog-worthy had been hiding.

  “I’ve been out th
ere the last five summers,” he told her. Which made him—hopefully—under forty? “But we have a sick house this year, in Southampton. And we picked a much better-looking group of girls...”

  “What do you mean, you picked?” she asked, though it was hardly inconceivable that a guy who looked like this could have his pick of whatever he wanted.

  “We held interviews at Mercury Bar, to screen any groups that found out about it through the e-mails. But you must know Mark, then?” He gestured toward a tan, unshaven guy with longish hair, whose confidence alone indicated his position as house manager.

  “My roommate’s older sister knows him,” Jamie said, her eyes lingering on Mark a moment longer. “They did a Quogue share together back in the day.”

  “Oh, Dune Road? That summer was a blast.” A spark of recognition lit up his already iridescent eyes.

  Okay, she had to ask. “So how old are you exactly?” Not that she’d ever discriminate...

  “Twenty-nine,” he said. “And you?”

  “Twenty-three.”

  “Do you think twenty-nine is too old?” Those eyes found hers again.

  “Too old to...talk? Not at all,” she replied with a wink.

  He took a deep breath. “So I guess you’re going to want to know where I live, what I do, where I’m from, right?”

  “Not particularly,” she admitted, feeling the Patrón rushing to her head. She leaned closer and went in for the kill. “What if what I want doesn’t involve talking?”

  It took him a few seconds to digest her bluntness. “You’re trouble,” he said with a wicked grin, repeating the phrase many guys before him had used to describe her. Then, just as many guys had similarly done before him, he conceded.

  “I live a few blocks away, Thirty-fifth and Lex,” he suggested. He was standing so close to her now, she could smell the traces of that morning’s cologne. “Why don’t we just get out of here?”

  I thought you’d never ask, Jamie said to herself.

  Throwing back the remainder of her drink and pounding the empty glass down a bit harder than she’d intended, Jamie obediently followed her new friend. (Was it Mike? Jon? Had she even asked at all?)