The Dating Bender Read online

  “No problem-o, babe. I leave for LA in a week. That’s why I wanted to hook up this weekend.”

  Not even smart enough to lie. But I realized I was no better. I was incapable of finding a suitable fling.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Standing on the corner of 40th Street waiting for the Jitney, I vowed to enjoy the ride and my upcoming stint at the beach. I looked forward to replacing the hideous memories from my one-year anniversary romp to the Hamptons with something more pleasant.

  The welcoming green-and-white Jitney bus pulled up to the curb. It looked much classier than the Peter Pan Bus. I slipped into my seat and pulled out Glamour for a relaxing read. Unfortunately, someone sat down beside me—she looked nice enough, but after all the phone sex, I had no energy left for idle chit-chat. Also, ever since the Janey incident, I was gun-shy when it came to befriending the women of Manhattan, so I looked out the window to discourage conversation.

  Once you got out of the hub of the city, cruising down the Long Island Expressway via bus granted magnificent views. Rolling hills, glimpses of the ocean, gigantic maple trees, and the sweet smell of serenity beamed through the tinted windows. Travel and Leisure magazine had dubbed the Hamptons the “must-see” destination of summer. I overheard the barista at Starbucks say the only way to survive the swelter this time of year was to escape the city. Then he charged me six bucks for a triple-shot latte.

  Despite my attempts at repelling people, I soon let down my guard and found myself bonding with my seatmate, a native New Yorker named Shannon, who was also of Irish-Catholic descent, and single. The perfect travel companion. We could commiserate about being on the brink of thirty. How did this happen? Oh yeah, marriage, divorce, binge dating, moving home, boom.

  The conversation flowed along as smoothly as the rolling countryside. I felt a connection with her that I hadn’t felt since I left Candy back in Colorado. And she seemed sane, at least so far. I hoped it stayed that way.

  “Sam, you should totally join a share house. It’s the only way to experience the Hamptons.”

  A foreign concept at first, but she soon made sense of it.

  “Think of it as summer camp for adults. A bunch of single people rent a gargantuan-sized house to play in for the weekend, all summer long.”

  “Sounds fun. Is it crazy expensive?”

  “Not our house. Plus, you can do a half or quarter share if money is tight. You’d still get to come out every other, or every few weekends. It’s a blast.”

  Sounded like an ingenious way to extend college camaraderie, but with class and style.

  “I’ll think about it for sure.”

  We both got off the bus at the Sag Harbor stop. It wasn’t nearly as muggy as in the city. Instead, a refreshing sea breeze cut through the heat and my new wispy-banged haircut.

  “There are even a few spots left in my house. You should check it out. We’re having our annual deck party in a couple of weeks. Stop by.”

  “Thanks, it sounds cool. I do have a place to stay with my job, but the party sounds fun. I’ll try to come.”

  “Just text me. It’d be cool to see you there.”

  ***

  Two weeks into the shoot, I had yet to see how ordering ice and stamps constituted an “on-set” job. My role was more about sitting in an un-airconditioned hovel of an office for twelve hours a day than working on the actual production set.

  The fact that my workspace dwarfed even my apartment was remarkable. It was just big enough to contain an archaic wall phone, a yellow tablet, and an empty soup can filled with gnawed pencils. I spent Thursdays through Sundays manning base-camp, as Marjorie liked to call it. Then she’d remind me I was getting the “production experience of a lifetime,” a point she repeated no less than three times a day. These entertainment people knew how to sell the dream.

  In reality, I worked for free and lived like a small mouse without the cheese. My job duties consisted of fielding frantic calls from Marjorie, who was lucky enough to be working on the real film set. Just when I started to fear death by boredom, it would be time to head back to the city to work with Crazy Molly. Perhaps I needed to analyze why I surrounded myself with crazies, or maybe it was me who was the whack job?

  A day in the life of an intern meant duty called at 5:30 a.m., by which time I’d entered my closet of a workspace to answer the phone with a screaming person on the other end.

  “Sam, the ship is sinking! We’re going down. We are not on schedule—and we need ice, can you go get it?” was a typical Marjorie rant. Then she’d remember she couldn’t release her prisoner and say, “Wait, who would watch the phone? Stand by, I’ll call you back.”

  Cell phone, anyone? Then I would hear all the film action and bustle in the background, which only cemented my pissy attitude. I feared that listening to the director shout “cut” through the phone line would be as close as I’d ever get to being part of the production.

  Marjorie suffered from a Napoleon complex. She was short, overly bossy, and had a bad mustache. The fact that she was a woman did not preclude her from this categorization.

  When midday boredom set in, I’d perform my “make the phone ring” dance. Once in the throes of a moon-walk maneuver, I bumped into my milk-crate-tower-of-a-desk, toppled it, and broke two half-eaten pencils with my butt on the way down. I still worried about lead poisoning.

  My phone trilled to Michael Jackson’s “Beat It,” a retro ringtone I had selected specifically for Marjorie, who tempted me to use the one-line zinger every time she called. It was a sanity-saving technique I snagged from O magazine. Oprah had recommended a more meditative song, but for me, the throwback tune centered me enough to answer the phone in a pleasant way.

  “Samantha, where is the goddamn ice? I asked you to get it two hours ago. Where the hell are you?”

  “Um, you told me not to get it yet, to wait until you called back with orders,” I said.

  I could hear her breathing heavily and knew I needed to act fast.

  “I would love to get you ice, just tell me where the set is and I’ll get it to you ASAP.”

  “Oh right, never mind. Just stay where you are. You’ve got work to do. You better not be mocking me. This is the job of a lifetime. Don’t ever lose sight of that.”

  I sat and stared at the corked walls for another three hours and reflected on my summer social plans until I realized I didn’t have any. Then, an hour before the end of my shift, I had a brain burst: tonight was Shannon’s deck party.

  While my days at the office had yet to morph into the career-defining event I’d hoped for, the party could cement my social life for the summer. I rang up Shannon on the bat phone.

  “Hey there, it’s Sam. I’d love to go to the party if the offer is still open.”

  “Totally. I can’t wait for you to meet everyone. You’re gonna love it. Why don’t you come over early and get ready with us? I’ll text you the address.”

  “Thanks, that would be great.”

  This was a bonus considering my internship quarters were nothing more than a tent by the beach with limited access to running water. Not even close to the idea of glamping as depicted in Glamour magazine.

  It turned out my office was a fifteen-minute bike ride away from Shannon’s. I tried not to get too sweaty, but since temps had climbed to ninety-five degrees and one hundred percent humidity, I was drenched by the time I arrived. No worries, I told myself: this would give me ample cause to shed my pink polo shirt and replace it with my cotton jersey candy-striped tank dress—light and loose, without being trampy.

  I skidded into Shannon’s driveway and assessed the property. The grounds were just short of enchanting, and conjured images of a Ralph Lauren-styled polo match, complete with a field of tightly cut grass and manicured bushes. Ancient oak trees lined the perimeter of what turned out to be an otherwise drab-looking mega-house.

  Shannon had mentioned that she stayed in the cottage behind the main house, so I pedaled until I hit the back of the
property and parked my wheels under the apple tree. I freshened up my look by flitting my bangs back and forth while spritzing them with water (a tip from Elle magazine), and lapped up my sweat with the back of my backpack. Shannon opened the door.

  “Sam, you look adorable. Good for you getting in some exercise before all the cocktailing.”

  “Thanks again for inviting me.”

  As she talked, I wondered about a could-be future with a potential new best friend. She would make a perfect wing woman—fun, down to earth, and we looked nothing alike so hopefully we wouldn’t attract the same guys. Shannon’s flowing dark brown locks softened her ivory complexion and sizable height. And best of all, no signs of neurotic behavior so far.

  “No problem. Trust me, you’ll never want to leave. I’ll take you on a tour of The Mansion,” she said.

  She led me up to the main house. It was a mansion, albeit a dumpy one. It had seven bedrooms varying in size and appointment, furnished with mainly bunks and cots and squishy, soggy Astro-Turf-like carpet in each of the bathrooms. The living room wasn’t much better with three futons and a card table. More than a whiff of mildew bounced off the walls. The cottage seemed much more appealing as it sat across from the sprawling pool and lounge area.

  Shannon made introductions along the way. The men were a bit older, in their late-thirties—your typical Peter Pan types, except they lacked one important criterion—smoking-hot good looks.

  “Oh, don’t worry about them, they’re completely harmless. They’re like brothers, but sweeter.”

  After we finished the rounds, she led the way back to the cottage. On the outside, the structure reminded me of the childhood lake house where my extended family and I spent our summers—some of the more pleasant memories of my youth. It was an adorable blue and white A-frame with a loft area where Shannon stayed.

  “Hey, if there’s still room in the house, count me in,” I said. “My workplace housing turned out to be a little more ‘roughing it’ than I had envisioned.”

  “That’s so exciting. We have an opening in the cottage. We’ll have so much fun,” Shannon assured me.

  We spent the next hour getting primped and ready to go. Shannon even helped me fix my hair and make-up, which were in dire need of an extreme makeover.

  “Let’s hit the deck party. The men await!”

  The scene was beachfront bliss with ripples of beautiful boys poised in front of the crashing summer surf.

  Shannon caught my stare.

  “Yeah, I know. Unbelievable, right?” she said.

  “That’s the understatement of the summer.”

  A few minutes into the party, I locked eyes with a stud perched on the railing of the deck. With one glimpse at his beyond-buff body, I knew I could be headed for trouble with this crowd. A fling was mine to be had.

  Buff Boy, as Shannon nicknamed him, was not exactly age appropriate at thirty-nine, and the sun had not been kind to his face, but his body was built like a stallion right on up to his long sturdy mane of Jared Leto-like ombre hair. And the way he moved—his swaggering hips reminded me of Justin Timberlake shaking his thang. Buff Boy was every bit as “equipped,” minus the mouse ears of course. And the sexy Long Island accent was an added bonus. I couldn’t stop my cheeks from blushing. The fact that he flirted with every girl in The Mansion did not squelch the embers of my fantasy.

  “Hey, Shannon, what’s his story?”

  “Well, he’s a fixture in the Hamptons. Everybody loves him. That hair is something, isn’t it? Since he and his brother grew up here, they’ve mastered the art of the summer fling. They’re also our neighbors,” she said. “Everyone has tried to bag him. A few were lucky or unlucky enough to have succeeded. Poor Leslie over there,” Shannon tossed her chin toward a mousy blonde waif, “turned borderline stalker after their brief liaison last summer.”

  “Oh my God, she looks as crazed as this girl I met when I first moved here, frightening.”

  “And just so you know, there’s a lot more where he came from. The beach is swarming with manly delights,” she said as she poured me a glass of sparkling rosé.

  I would pace myself. I had all summer. Sometimes you had to be patient and practical to get what you wanted. At least that’s what Marie Claire always said. Hooking up with a soon-to-be neighbor might not be the best idea. I vowed to enjoy his biceps from afar. Showing restraint, that would be a first.

  Shannon introduced me to one of her friends, Evie, a younger girl who apparently liked to let her cleavage do the talking when it came to conversing with men. She had a great, albeit risqué, fashion sense. After a brief chat, she left us to get another cocktail.

  “She’s super nice and fun once you get past her need to be the center of everyone’s attention,” Shannon explained. “Her ability to reel in men with her near-perfect boobs never fails.”

  Evie soon returned with a watermelon mojito in hand. I observed how she used her position as an investment banker to her advantage, balancing high-level financial discussions with flirty looks and a low-cut dress. Despite the revealing nature of her outfit, she got annoyed when three different guys made googly eyes at her chest as she chatted them up about mergers and acquisitions. Though her outfits suggested otherwise, men weren’t supposed to gawk at what she dubbed “the kittens.”

  Evie could be the sex factor of our trio. It would be impossible to try and compete with her plunging peacock-blue sundress, so I might as well befriend her. She completed her look with an oversized brimmed sun hat and coordinated sunglasses. The Audrey Hepburn of the Millennial generation.

  Mojito make-out moments ran rampant around me, so I settled into a wicker rocking chair and noticed the unfamiliar sound of chirping birds, something I’d missed since my move to the concrete jungle. The blue jays were almost as engaging as the boys romping around on the croquet field. Men in Oxford shirts and madras shorts, accented with chiseled chins and gorgeous tans, were sights I could get used to here in the Hamptons.

  Though my professional life had staggered, things were heating up on the social front. I pledged to redirect one-quarter of the time spent on work matters into my dating life just as Elle magazine suggested.

  I tried to look relaxed as Buff Boy sauntered toward me. His sexy tresses danced in the breeze, as did his exposed pecs. He had managed to slip off his shirt on the way over. It was hard not to gawk at his Usher-like abs. His butt-hugging jeans were equally alluring. His sensual moves put him back on the top of my fling wish list. Hubba, hubba.

  By the time his tanned bare feet hit the deck planks, five party girls surrounded him and clung to him like a wet suit. Bagging him might be more challenging than I thought. Not that I was interested. How charming, Samantha. You’ve left a marriage to mingle with a man-child. Pleated khakis and sweater vests begone!

  He eventually settled against a pillar across from me. I switched my focus back to the birdies because the intensity of his gaze frightened me. Was he flirting, or did I have something stuck between my teeth? I prayed for the former.

  I sipped my drink slowly in an attempt to seduce him with my slurp. Shannon and Evie bantered about last year’s deck party in between vodka shots. By the time I’d polished off my drink, Buff Boy had flipped his steely gaze in my direction until Serena, a fiery redhead, lurched up behind him and tickled his chin. A bit forward in my book. Was she a scorned hook-up from last summer, still pining a year later? Note to self: do not become this girl.

  I repositioned myself, boobs forward per Evie’s instruction. I needed to look open and available for Buff Boy. Not that I planned to give in to my urges—nor would he ever be interested in a recovering Catholic like me.

  I played it coy all night, close but detached. Then a highly intoxicated Evie sashayed over to me. She sizzled with each step. I could learn a lot from her.

  “Sam, you can’t sit there being passive. If you want to make something happen, take charge!” she said as she accidentally grazed my elbow with her left boob. Her tits began thei
r assault on Buff Boy.

  She dragged me over to him. “I would like to introduce you to my Midwestern friend, Samantha,” she said. As a native New Yorker, she considered anybody not from the island of Manhattan to be a Midwesterner.

  “Midwest, eh? Nice,” he said in that silky Long Island accent.

  His dark brown eyes twinkled down on me. And down they went, since he was so damn tall. He had the physique of a body builder and lifeguard rolled into one. My life as a production intern was looking up.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  According to Shannon, The Mansion was split between a younger and older crowd. Since we fell into the former group we were written off by the latter as nothing more than boy-crazy party hounds. Considering last night’s no-sleep kamikaze bender, they weren’t totally off base.

  The party was still buzzing at 5:30 a.m., a fact that crystalized when I realized I was going to be late for work. I covered my crazy hair with someone’s ratty baseball cap, tripped over a pair of distressed underwear on my way to find my bike, and bumped into Shannon and Evie along the way.

  “Bye, guys, see you later. This was a blast, but I’ve got a movie to make!”

  The only thing more important than getting to work at that moment was making a pit stop at SagTown coffee, just barely within biking distance. It would make me even later, but I was desperate.

  As I waited in line with the two ginormous open-mouthed lion statues glaring at me, I realized two things. The first being that I’d forgotten to change out of my party dress from the night before. The second was that Buff Boy stood at the front of the line. I attempted to hide behind one of the snarling monsters, but ended up knocking into a tray of low-carb bran muffins.

  I tried to act cool, but when he smiled at me, I dropped my work bag. Packs of condoms and Jelly Bellies poured onto the floor. Marjorie had demanded that I keep a stash of both in case the director needed a quick fix. Scampering to stop the candy from rolling in his direction, I prayed for composure. Prayers are lost on you at this stage of your life. Sweat slid down my face as Buff Boy walked toward me.