But with twenty-plus years of experience under my belt, I refuse to switch industries. I can’t afford that kind of pay cut. With the mortgage and college tuition and Hope’s teeth and our vital therapy sessions with brilliant, out-of-network you, money is tighter than a virgin’s pussy.
Forgive my crudeness, Dr. K. I’m quite distressed. In case you were wondering, insurance doesn’t cover dental implants, which come in around $3,500 per faux tooth. My daughter is currently making do with dental flippers.
So, here I am. I lost my job in April and I’ve spent the summer working my ass off to find a new one, and no one will hire me, and my wife thinks I’m a worthless piece of shit, and maybe I am, Dr. K. Maybe I am.
But I do know that life is short, and I need this weekend. I need it for my own red-blooded sanity. I confided in my buddy Todd, my colleague—ex-colleague, I should say—and he told me Gurney’s in Montauk is the place. Right now, I need to be at the place.
So, back to this morning. I was making a bet with myself about the blonde in front of me at the Gurney’s check-in desk. A woman can look amazing from behind and then she turns around, and, yikes, the front of her washes your fantasy down the drain. A “butter face,” Todd calls such girls （everything “but her” face）。
Anyway, I was really getting into this internal debate, but before I could settle on a firm hypothesis, I got my answer. The blonde whipped around, and her face reminded me of the pretty girls in high school—big doe eyes, supple skin, small nose. A combination that is simple and astonishing at once. She looked directly at me for a split second that jolted my nerves awake, that hushed every sound in the room and in my head so that all I could feel and hear was Yes. Her.
All too quickly she resumed her conversation with her friend, a lanky brunette. The girls （they were more like girls than women; mid-twenties, I guessed） brushed by me with their rolling suitcases in tow, and I caught a whiff of something sweet and young and expensive. I heard the brunette mumble something about Aperol spritzes by the pool.
The man behind the desk at Gurney’s was calling to me. “Sir, please step forward.”
I heard his voice but somehow didn’t register the words until he’d repeated himself a third or maybe a fourth time, and the woman behind me jabbed my shoulder and said, “Go.”
Go. People in New York and the Hamptons always want you to go. To live in this part of the world, you have to keep moving. Maybe that’s why Heather and I never survived here.
If the concierge was annoyed with my delayed reaction, he didn’t show it. He was tan and cheerful and well rested, effusing good health and Matthew McConaughey vibes. All that vitamin D. He checked me in to my Superior Ocean View room, the most basic room Gurney’s offers, and it’s still costing me $1,080 a night. Not a small charge （more than four sessions with you, Dr. K）， and if Heather knew what I was doing, she’d send a pack of wolves after me. But like I said, I really, really need this.
I changed into swim trunks and a short-sleeved button-down （Heather got it for me on sale somewhere—she says short-sleeved button-downs are in）。 I grabbed my key card and the new David Baldacci novel and headed to the pool. I didn’t have a set plan, but for the first time in a long time, I was filled with an almost youthful optimism.
Everything about Gurney’s is decadent—all clean lines and shiny surfaces and crisp aromas; the opposite of our split-level in the suburbs of New Haven, with its squeaky floors and peeling wallpaper. The pool at Gurney’s is perfect, an oasis of turquoise surrounded by plush chaises on a sunny deck overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. I closed my eyes and felt the warm rays on my face and imagined I was fifteen again, not yet with Heather, the possibilities stretched in front of me in their expansive, limitless might.
When I blinked my eyes open, I was back in the present, and there she was, the blonde, just as I’d hoped she’d be, lounging on a chaise clutching a glass of something neon orange that could only be the coveted Aperol spritz. She was a vision in a white bikini, revealing a curvier frame than I’d expected—certainly curvier than skin-and-bones Heather.
The brunette friend lay on the adjacent chaise, using one hand to twist her long dark hair into a pile on top of her head. In the other she held an identical orange drink. The brunette was hotter than I’d realized. She had a Mediterranean vibe that reminded me of that sexy anchor on Access Hollywood. I stepped toward them.
“I’ve never seen a cocktail that color,” I said before I lost momentum. I knew that if I lost momentum, I’d stop myself, and I’d never go through with any of it.
I recognized the shift in their facial expressions—another creepy old dude hitting on us—and almost turned around, almost decided to abort the nonplan. But then the blonde smiled at me, and it lit up her whole face, and I remembered that even though I was forty-six and long out of the game, I still had a full head of hair, almost none of it gray, and that I was handsome in a way that Heather always said transcended age.
The brunette had a bored, slightly aggravated expression on her face that told me she wouldn’t dream of screwing me, so I turned my full attention toward the blonde. Because if I’m being honest, Dr. K, there was more to the reason I’d come to Gurney’s. I’d come to Gurney’s to cheat on my wife.
“Haven’t you ever had an Aperol spritz?” the blonde asked. Her voice had a mesmerizing quality, sweet and singsongy. “It’s all we drink in the summer.” She knocked her head toward the brunette, who was now busy scrolling through her phone.
“I haven’t. But I’m sold. Be right back. By the way, I’m Burke.”
Now, Dr. K, you know I don’t drink. And as much as I could’ve used a bit of liquid courage right about then, I wasn’t going to wash twenty-two years of sobriety down the drain. So I walked over to the bar, where I asked for a virgin Aperol spritz. The bartender looked at me like I’d just told an epic joke.
“Oh, you’re like, serious?” he said when I continued to stare at him, waiting. More Matthew McConaughey vibes. “I don’t think I can make a virgin one?” His voice spun the sentence into a question.
I drummed my fingers across the mahogany bar top. “Grapefruit juice and soda water, then.”
“Right on, dude.” The bartender gave me a knowing look, like we were in on a secret. Which, in a way, we were.
I paid for the drink and then wandered back over toward the girls.
“No spritz?” the blonde asked.
“I decided to stick with my regular old greyhound.”
The brunette rolled her eyes.
“Vodka or gin?” the blonde asked.
“Vodka.” I willed the dishonesty out of my voice.
I stood there like an idiot and sipped my mocktail, wondering if I should sit, or if I should wait to be asked to sit. Heather may not be wrong when she says I have terrible game.
“You want to sit?” The blonde finally nodded toward the empty chaise to her left. “Cheers.” She clinked her glass against mine, and I held her eyes, wide as saucers and almond brown.
I soon learned that the girls’ names are Skye and Andie, the blonde and the brunette respectively. They’re childhood best friends from a much wealthier part of Connecticut who now live in the city, and they’re in Montauk for a “quiet girls’ weekend.” As the alcohol hit their bloodstreams, they revealed more. I learned that Skye is a freelance editor for young-adult fiction, and that Andie is some kind of dietitian based in Brooklyn, which didn’t surprise me. Her scrawny body looks like it survives on healthy shit like tofu and broccoli.