Southampton Part III
Essay #17
We always went wine-touring for birthdays. That’s just what New York staters do. I suppose straighties probably tailgate or whatever, but my gang was too gay and over everything for such displays. The closest Tim and I ever got to a jersey was when we went down the shore for 4th of July.
The wineries around Southampton were, predictably, bougie as hell. Everything was white and airy and serene. If they had Asian Zen radio playing instead of James Taylor, they could’ve doubled as spas. The Saturday crowd was largely comprised of boomers who had nothing to do but repaint walls in their houses and wait for grandchildren. I watched as their lips touched bubble-shaped glasses, giving every appearance of listening to the sermons on fermentation.
You had to be careful not to look too turnt at these places. Maybe in the 516 that was okay. 516 was the area code that spawned 90% of my frat boys and sorority girls. It was pure flash and trash. I imagined the bar and bat mitzvahs of my clients as featuring ice sculptures and performances by T-Pain and the Maccabeats. But we were in the 631, which was the tamer and more decorous side of Long Island. The house dog was a golden retriever, not a Yorkie with a pink manicure. The family aesthetic was Seventh Heaven, not Gotti.
Last year, when entering a winery in the 631, Tim slipped on his Sperry. It was enough to convince the guy manning the door that we were all drunk. He gave us the boot, as though we were the brothers of SAE here to hogtie him and slurp Jager out of his bellybutton.
So basically, I behaved at the winery like Paul Giamatti in Sideways. Before he dumps the spit bucket over his head, that is.
As I poured the crisp, pink wine down my gullet, I felt clouds curdling in my head. Charlie was entrenched in her girlfriend. They were doing their usual do-si-do that comes around Act II (you know, “why are you being weird??”).
I wished I could have Charlie all to myself. There were many people who I felt responsible for in conversation (asking them questions, teasing out what was special about them). Then there were the people who I felt it was my job to entertain in conversation. Then there was Charlie, the Venus to my Serena in verbal volleying. She was romantic and mythological and deserving of about three Netflix specials. But why is it that these most special people are often the sparsest? Probably because they’re always in demand. You have to share them. Meanwhile, people who tell long-winded stories about their dogs or work or health without noticing your eyes glaze over, always had openings. With every passing year, I felt my patience eroding for people who let me ask all the questions in conversation. Curiosity, I sometimes wanted to shout, Cultivate it! If I could leave my mark on humanity, it would be a question mark.
Back at the house, Tim and I cozied up in the kitchen for a tête-a-tête. He was living in Binghamton for a spell, after having left the city earlier this year. His next metropolis would be Boston, which he had deemed cleaner, cuter, and quainter. He was seeing a lot of my family, especially my mom. They are very similar, both being people-pleasers, and possessed of a distinguished taste in decor.
Tim revealed that the talk back home was that Chloe, my beautiful stripper/yogi friend who had been squatting in my basement, was taking advantage of me.
I was stunned to see the same question in Tim’s eyes. I thought he adored Chloe at the dinner last month. Tim and I were both hugely in favor of a smudged mascara, tipsy approach to life. We both had Tara Reid on our coat-of-arms, under the Courtney Love lyric: “When I wake up, in my makeup, it’s too early for that dress…” If Tim didn’t think having a stripper squatter was a fun look, then it was a bad sign.
“Yeah no, I’ve been wondering, too. She’s been there like three months now?” he asked. He named about five people who had inquired about her.
I was in awe that I was the gossip. I didn’t. think I made for a good scoop. You needed a qualifier, like a stormy relationship with fights waged in public, or strong opinions that went against the millennial ethos, or habitually ditching plans at the last minute. I was too neurotic to ever stray too far off the path without reading the room and fixing my hair.
“Is Chloe coming home with you for Christmas?” he asked. He had been there for Thanksgiving, when she went AWOL, then decided not to come back to Brooklyn with me in order to stay and party.
“Yeah, she’s excited about it.” I reminded him that Chloe didn’t have her mother, and it wasn’t easy for her to go home. After all, her family was divided between Brazil and France.
The night went. We organized ourselves around the dining room table, where Jared, our glass of sweet Tennessee tea, was doing tarot readings. He has irresistible brown eyes like molten brownies. They’re almost always framed with posh, neon specs from Warby Parker. The one time he visited my overgrown backyard in Bushwick, he got excited about what was growing there. Like a rabbit, he took a handful of something, nibbled, and mused that it might be Artemesia.
Jared’s voice is soft like summer rain (yes, that‘s a Dolly lyric). He gives me strong Dolly vibes, and not just because he’s from Tennessee. It was very soothing to listen to him read us our fortunes. Well, it would have been soothing, if Tim wasn’t making snarky comments to Erin for dating a Trump voter. It came up when she asked her question about the relationship. Tim will offer a catty, funny commentary about everything homely in the room, but he cannot abide those politics. This was 2017, and the face of Republicanism was no longer a kindly Mormon and a rogue, dignified POW from Arizona. Tim felt it was incumbent upon him to air his views, even if it came at the request of no one. Ever the southerner, Jared pretended not to notice the tension.
Eventually, Erin stormed upstairs. Poppy followed her, and Tim retreated to call his Mom or something.
When I looked into Jared’s eyes, my tension lifted. He always had this effect on me. One night in the not-so-distant-future, I would whisper into his ear that I was having my first sober night out. In true southern fashion, he wouldn’t ask me what prompted such a seismic shift, or wax philosophical about who I was without alcohol (as I feared people would). He walked to the bar to get me a seltzer, and that was that.
“What’s your question, honey?” he asked.
“What’s going to happen with my book?” I answered promptly. Because I knew that’s what I incarnated for. I was here to siphon energy from magical people like my friends and transmute it into writing. Finding love and getting married were secondary accessories. (Actually, marriage was a pair of lacy, opera length gloves that I couldn’t decide was retro femme or rash-inducing).
I drew a card, can’t remember which one. Jared diligently flipped to the back of his booklet and read me the description.
The cosmos had a message for me but, like so many other things, it was drowned in transit in the whiskey crick in my brain.
