My Fair Lazy - Jen Lancaster [121]
Fletch is confused but fairly pliant. “You really need a chocolate fix that badly?”
I peer on the happenings across the street through a window almost obscured by cartoon lollipops and stacks of multicolored sweets. I don’t see anything, so I turn back to talk to him. “No, Howard Dean’s about to give a talk about his book on health-care reform in there.”
Fletch laughs so heartily that his head tilts back. “Ha! What are the odds? Why’d we have to leave? I bet that’d be fun.”
“Yeah, and that’s exactly why I yanked you out of there. I didn’t want to be disrespectful at someone else’s book signing. Terrible karma. Plus, even if you kept your mouth shut, with everything happening in the news, no one was going to believe you were there at that specific moment in that exact shirt because I can’t take my Kindle in the tub.”235
He picks up a paint bucket full of candy and looks at it quizzically. “Eh, I’m sure no one noticed.”
“And I’m sure I saw pitchforks, lighted torches, and angry villagers. We had to go; it was the right thing to do.”
What I fail to mention is, I was afraid my dinner host was in the crowd, and I don’t want to get kicked out of Authors Night before it even happens.
“Hey, look around,” Fletch instructs.
“What am I looking for?” I glance up from my Kindle.236
“Tell me what you don’t see.”
“Um, I don’t know. Monkeys? An office park? Martha Stewart flying a melting cake? What are you getting at?” What I do see is a mass expanse of shoreline ringed by mansions. Today we’re camped on Main Beach, specifically because I wanted to be near a snack bar and none of the other East Hampton beaches have them. I mean, yes, I appreciate miles of stunning vistas and loads of privacy, but is any of it really worth it if I can’t enjoy the scenery with a Diet Coke and an ice-cream sandwich?
“No one’s on the phone. And no one has tattoos. Remember when we went to Oak Street Beach last year? It was like Miami Ink meets an iPhone commercial. But here? Everyone seems to be talking to the people they’re with. It’s like, families are actually being families together. Only a couple of people are attached to their electronic devices, and the few who aren’t chatting are reading. It’s almost”—he raises one eyebrow at me—“surreal.”
There’s an extended family camped out in front of us, maybe fifteen of them in all, with at least two sets of parents, a ton of children, and possibly a nanny sprinkled in. The whole time we’ve been here, they’ve been engaged in a group project. Two of the dads and most of the kids have been working on digging a crater in the beach. They’re trying to dig deep enough to hit water. They even brought real shovels, the kind I used to threaten hipsters with at my old house.
“This place is like taking a trip back to 1950,” I say.
“It is,” he agrees. “I like it.”
We watch Project Hole until the family hits water about seven feet down. There’s a mass amount of celebrating, but once everyone’s congratulated one another, they all work together to fill in the crater. Then women collect some of the children and start hauling their gear back to their cars.
The family isn’t loud and they’re certainly polite, but they all work together so seamlessly that we can’t help but pay attention. And this is why we both hear a dad detail weekend plans to one of the little boys.
“Hey, sport, I need your help bringing the rest of the chairs to the car. We’re finished at the beach for today. When we get back to the house, you guys are going to jump into the pool to rinse all the sand off, then you’ll get dressed because we’re going to your dad’s polo match. Tonight, we’ve got a private room at the restaurant for dinner, and tomorrow we’ll hit the beach early. We’re going to leave by two because we’ve chartered a boat, and we’re going to go fishing and tubing. And then, once we’re done, your dad and I are going to try to convince the moms to stay out here another couple of days.”
And then the little boy in the SPF sun shirt says something that dissipates