Southampton Spectacular (2 page)

One of the boys sitting in the passenger seat glanced at her. “This isn’t the way to – ”

“Quiet.”

They sped along in the dark. Devon took a right onto Halsey Neck, then back onto Ox Pasture, and then all the way back toward First Neck. After another minute she seemed to have had enough. “Okay,” she said suddenly, when they came to the stop sign at the intersection of Ox Pasture and First Neck. “On our way.” She pulled back onto First Neck more slowly, and they headed off, past the Meadow Club and then the Beach Club, and then they were on the back roads, cruising with the Atlantic Ocean just to their right, on their way along Gin Lane. She kept the car at a safe cruising speed; the way here was narrower, with more turns.

“Very good,” Devon said loudly, over the whistle of the wind passing over and through the convertible. “Let’s talk about some strategies for next time.”

The boys stayed quiet. This girl was unpredictable, and it seemed best not to interrupt, even if no one knew what she was talking about.

“I can’t speak for all girls,” Devon went on, “and I’m only fourteen, but if you want I can tell you what
I’m
looking for in a boy.”

They waited, none of them daring to acknowledge how precious such information might be. These were not boys who had met with success in their romantic lives so far. They were brash and awkward and full of false confidence, and they had trouble figuring out what to do with a night off from work. They always tried to come off as tough – with the slouching posture and the suitably baggy, dirty clothes and the odd cigarette – but none of them would have minded an actual girlfriend one of these days. And sooner rather than later.

“We didn’t know you were that young,” the former driver said quietly, trying for an air of superiority. And failing.

“Right,” Devon said, without looking at him. “My friends and I are tooling along on ten-speeds, but you guys thought we were in our twenties.”

“Well. Sixteen at least, I mean look at – ”

She slammed on the breaks, and the three boys in back grunted in hurt surprise as their seat belts dug into them. The two in front next to Devon faired worse; they were both flung into the dashboard. They cursed and groaned as they returned to their seat, but Devon seemed not to notice. “Cut it out,” she said, her voice still light and easy. She could have been scolding a boyfriend for teasing her too much. For giving her too many flowers. “Okay?”

She waited a beat.

“Okay,” they all said.

“Okay,” she said, and they were moving again. “Do you want to hear this or not?”

All five of them, dutifully: “Yes.”

“Good,” she said, and nodded. “First thing, very important: don’t be scary. Or weird. This business of coming up to me in a pack will never fly.” She shook her head. “It’s terrifying. Yes, you should
have
friends, and yes, you should let me
see
you with friends… but when you come up to me, do it on your own.” She glanced at the two boys next to her in the passenger seat, and she frowned with disapproval. “Look at the pair of you, with your tank tops and your biceps and your hats covering your eyes. It’s awful. I want to run away. And really, the hats are probably fine when you’re just with each other, but the way you’re wearing them is terrible. If you want to talk to me, I need to be able to see your eyes. Otherwise I end up thinking you’re either scared or hiding something, and neither one is any good. I want those eyes.”

They tried to avoid actually nodding along; they didn’t want to seem too eager. And they didn’t touch their hats. But they were secretly pleased – deeply, deliciously, embarrassingly pleased – that she had mentioned their biceps. So they were taking careful mental notes.

Eyes. All yours.

“Next, be good at something,” Devon said. “It almost doesn’t matter what it is. Just be really, really good at it.”

One of the boys in back couldn’t help himself. Maybe because his biceps hadn’t been explicitly noticed. “I’m the best card player here,” he blurted out.

“Jackass,” said the two boys in front, at once. The others in back punched him. “Jackass,” they said to him. “Jack.
Ass
.”

Devon waited for them to settle down. They came to another stop sign, and she was able to stop and turn, and address them as a group. She spoke in a lower voice. “Finally,” she said, “you should be nice to me in some kind of risky, almost idiotic way.” She smiled for the first time. A sincere, hopeful smile. And suddenly they realized that they were not talking to a peer. That despite her confidence and her skill behind the wheel – not to mention her looks – this really
was
only a fourteen-year-old girl. A girl who was hoping for a boy who would someday, somehow find it within himself to act like something besides a moron around her.

“Whatever you do, it should be something for
me
,” she added. “Something
I’ll
think is nice. Not something to impress your friends.”

“We need an example,” the former driver said immediately. They were feeling almost good now. They were having a conversation, just chatting about something that was important to all parties involved. She was smiling at them, and she had noticed their muscles; they were practically friends. The other boys nodded, their hesitation gone. This was essential stuff. They didn’t want the lesson to end without examples. What was a good way – an
impressive
way – to be nice?

But Devon shook her head sadly, and their hearts sank. She urged the car forward, and now she had to speak up again over the engine noise. “I can’t help you there,” she said. “It doesn’t work like that.”

They knew she was right.

But now they were thinking. Planning. They kept their hats pulled low and their neutral expressions firmly fixed on their faces, but their minds were racing. They would come up with something perfect. Some wonderful, thoughtful, ultra-risky gesture. They would find a girl their age, some girl who was in all respects
exactly
like this unbelievable chick behind the wheel, and they would bowl her over with an act of staggering niceness, and everything would work out.

They drove on in silence for another few minutes, and there was peace in the car as each boy made his plans. They could hear the crash of the ocean waves to their right, just underneath the wind and the contented purring of the engine. When Devon pulled into the driveway after a few more directions from the boy in back, they were sorry the drive was over.

“Okay,” Devon said. “Out.”

They climbed out, still fearful of her legal hold over them. The threat of the DUI. But they muttered and complained and adopted slouching poses of defiance after the fact. “You can’t take my car,” the former driver said, trying to regain some semblance of authority.

“You can pick it up at the police station,” Devon said, and before they could argue she had spun the car around on the gravel stones and pulled away, roaring into the black distance.

“Piece of work,” one of them said, the admiration clear in his voice.

The others said nothing. They trudged into the house, wondering how they would live this night down to each other later on, when the spell of the dark was gone.

In the Suffolk County branch police station of Job’s Lane in Southampton that night, a young girl with dark brown hair and strong eyes presented herself to the officer at the front desk. The officer needed a moment to understand what the girl was asking for, perhaps because the request was strange. Or perhaps because the girl was striking. Not that a seasoned officer would ever be distracted by a girl of fourteen.

But still.

“I’m dropping off a car, and I need a ride home,” she said again, speaking very slowly.

“Whose car is it?” the officer asked.

“Some boys’,” she said, with an unconcerned toss of her hand.

“How did you get it?”

“They gave it to me.”

The officer put his pen down and shook his head as if he had misheard. “What?”

But the girl just looked back at him, implacable.

The officer tried another approach. “Do you have a license?”

“No. That’s why I need a ride home.”

“Then how did you get
here
?”

“In the car. But that’s illegal.”

The officer put a hand on his head and began tapping with one finger, as though hoping to give this information time to settle more firmly into place. Finally he seemed to come to a decision. “I’m going to arrange for you to get a ride home,” he said, as though making the proposal himself.

Devon gave him a smile, and the night turned a little bit brighter.

“Thank you,” she said.

The Beach Club’s official name – the line printed at the top of the stationary at the cafeteria check-out and the beach-umbrella stand – was The Bathing Corporation of Southampton. This name could be found stenciled in blue, along with a small seahorse crest, on the white china in the cafeteria, on the large gray awning at the front entrance, and on the dense cotton shag of the inexhaustible supply of towels by the pool. But the name everyone used was simply the Beach Club, which better reflected the effortless luxury of the place. There were no adornments at the Beach Club. You walked up the short brick staircase at the front entrance off the road by Agawam Lake, passed under the little awning, and then came upon exactly what you expected: an immense, immaculate pool surrounded by deck chairs and umbrellas and chaises. There was a man sitting behind a desk on a raised platform at the entrance to the club, and as you passed by he lifted his head long enough to smile, confirm that you were a member, and return to his work. The front desk man never consulted a list, or frowned in a show of concentrated recall, or impeded your progress in any way. He would perhaps smile a shade more brightly if it had been three or four or ten years since you had last come to the club – because you hadn’t been able to get out of the city as often as you’d have liked, or because you’d been on a Bermuda kick lately – but the front desk man was unaffected by time. He knew you. He knew your spouse, and your children, and your nanny. Anyone he did not know was directed (or escorted), with no discussion at all, back down the stairs.

If you decided to sit by the pool once you came in, you found that there were just enough chairs and chaises. Because there were young men in blue shorts and white polos who added and removed chairs and chaises as necessary, drawing on a reservoir of such things hidden behind a door with a seahorse crest. These helpers did not rush about like ball boys at Wimbledon, or stand ostentatiously at attention, waiting to pounce. They appeared as needed, and walked with easy purpose, and smiled and chatted with you if you made eye-contact. And then they vanished.

The pool itself was kept absolutely free of leaves and potato-bugs by an older man who was seldom seen, because he would never have been so rude as to pass a trash-collection net through the water while members were swimming.

To the left of the massive area enclosing the pool, there was a wide gap in the wall. If you headed through this gap and walked the twenty yards along the brick path, you came upon the lockers, which were organized into long, countless rows where the children liked to play games of chase and hide-and-seek that often ended in tears because the rows went on and on, and it was easy to lose your bearings; even an adult could suddenly feel alone and lost among the lockers.

It seemed as though sinister things might go on here, in this unnatural quiet.

When you had changed into your bathing suit, and if you had had enough of the pool, you headed up the large staircase to the mezzanine level, where the snack bar and the cafeteria were located, and where the view of the Atlantic was unobstructed. The snack bar served standard beach fare, burgers and fries and soda and ice cream, and was favored by the younger members. The cafeteria, on the other hand, looked simple enough when you walked inside, but there were details to be appreciated: the blueberry and corn muffins had been made that morning, and the turkey had been baked only an hour ago. The lobster and shrimp were straight from the local shop, and the fruit was fresh that day, every day. When you had finished piling your tray with too many things – slices of cheesecake and pecan pie, especially – you walked to the end of the dessert cases and then paused for just a moment in front of another desk man. This man knew your name without asking, of course, but he could also calculate, inside of three seconds, the exact total of your lunch bill. Yet there was no register, no exchange of cash or credit. He scanned the items on your tray, his eyes moving from one plate to the next with machine-like precision, and then, with a pencil, he took a quick note on his Bathing Corporation stationary. “Thank you,” he said, and then sent you on your way. There was never a line at the cafeteria.

In any case, many of the younger members preferred to avoid the main cafeteria altogether. They chose instead to eat at the snack bar, where there was another, smaller overlook, or down on the beach itself, or on the shaded mezzanine above the pool, where they could avoid the scrutiny of their parents and could call down to their friends below. Sometimes they would call down to the pool lifeguard, who was an overqualified teenager plucked from the local high school swim team, and the only bored employee at the club. The children loved the pool lifeguard, and the pool lifeguard hated the children. They pestered him and called him names. They waited for him to fall asleep and then put ice cubes down his shorts. They pretended to drown, and then, when he did not respond, they threatened him with legal action at the hands of their lawyer fathers and mothers and cousins.