One Fifth Avenue - Candace Bushnell [28]
Picking up speed, the seaplane lifted off the water. They flew over Queens, over endless rows of tiny houses, and then straight up the middle of Long Island Sound, which sparkled as brightly as the diamonds on Annalisa’s watch. They turned south over the rocky white lip of the North Fork, past the green pastures and cornfields. Then they were over water again, and the plane was descending into an inlet.
Billy Litchfield tapped Annalisa on the shoulder. “This is a patch of paradise,” he said. “I’ve been everywhere, and it’s as beautiful here as it is in Saint-Tropez or Capri or any other place you can think of. It’s why the Hamptons will never be over, no matter what anyone says.”
The plane taxied to a pristine white dock. A lawn as perfectly manicured as a golf course sloped up a long hill, at the top of which sat an enormous shingled house with turrets that appeared to be made of pink stone. On the lawn next to the dock sat two golf carts.
Sandy Brewer met them on the dock. His most distinct feature was his name; without his name, he was disturbingly indistinct, with hair of no particular color and nondescript features. “Connie said to have you go straight up to the house,” Sandy said to Billy. “She’s having some problem with the dessert. I thought I’d take Paul and Annalisa on a tour of the property.” Billy was driven away in one of the golf carts with the luggage.
Annalisa got into the back of the second golf cart. Paul sat in the front with Sandy. Sandy drove casually, turning back to talk to her. “Have you ever been to the Hamptons before?” he asked.
“I haven’t, actually,” Annalisa said.
“We’ve got fifty acres here,” Sandy said. “It’s an enormous amount of land. Connie and I just bought a ranch in Montana with a thousand acres, but Montana’s different. If you don’t have a thousand acres in Montana, you’re a loser. In the Hamptons, you can have five acres and it’s perfectly acceptable—you might even be a member of the Bath and Tennis in Southampton. But Connie and I don’t like those kinds of places. We like to be private. When we’re here, nobody knows it.”
An hour later, after they were shown the two pools (one Olympic, one shaped like a pond with a waterfall), the guesthouse, the private zoo and aviary, the greenhouse where Sandy oversaw the cultivation of rare species of tulips, the miniature horse and goat barn, the three tennis courts complete with bleachers, the baseball diamond and basketball court, the children’s Victorian summerhouse, the indoor squash court, the winery with state-of-the-art concrete casks, the five-acre vineyard, the orchard and vegetable garden and koi pond, Sandy ushered them into the house. Two grand staircases flanked the foyer. Paul went off with Sandy to talk business. A Guatemalan woman motioned for Annalisa to follow her up the stairs. They passed an upstairs sitting room and several closed doors. Annalisa was led into a room with an enormous four-poster bed and two bathrooms. French windows opened onto a balcony overlooking the lawn and the ocean. Her suitcase had been unpacked; her paltry supply of clothing for the weekend looked incongruous in the enormous cedar closet. Annalisa stepped inside, inhaling the odor of the wood. I’ve got to tell Paul about this, she thought, and went downstairs to find him.
Instead, she discovered Connie, Sandy’s wife, and Billy Litchfield in a sunroom done up with pink silk chaises. “I’m sure you feel horrible,” Connie was saying to Billy.
“Excuse me,” Annalisa said, realizing she’d interrupted a tête-à-tête.
Connie sprang up. She was once a famous ballerina and wore her blond hair long and straight, hanging nearly to her