Page 3 of Bad Summer People
Lauren cringed at the thought that Braeburn’s stain had even reached childless Rachel Woolf.
“It was,” said Lauren. “Thankfully it’s behind us now. We have a new headmaster, Mr. Wolf, and the school is now in good—heavily vetted—hands.”
The boat was chugging along, cutting through the water at a clip. The ferry ride took about twenty minutes from Bay Shore, on Long Island, to Salcombe, just the right amount of time to switch your mind from city to beach mode. Brian was still rattling about his family ski trip, and Lauren looked back to check on Amelie, content to stay silent as Myrna pattered on about nothing. Like father, like daughter.
Rachel was checking her phone; Lauren thought she caught sight of a dating app—men’s smiling faces—before she quickly put it down.
“Have you been playing much tennis?” Rachel asked. Rachel was seriously competitive about tennis, though she wasn’t very good, and always wanted to know who’d been practicing over the winter and how much. The yacht club held annual doubles tournaments for its members, and Rachel was determined each year to win. She and her partner, Emily Grobel, generally made it to the semifinals or finals before being knocked out by one of the stronger teams. Lauren wasn’t an amazing player, but she wasn’t terrible. She’d been on her high school team and had a decent backhand and a terrific lob. Rachel, who played all year round, resented that Lauren could pick up a racket after months and easily play at her level.
“Not really,” said Lauren, truthfully. This year she’d gotten really into the Tracy Anderson Method. She’d had to schlep all the way down to a studio in midtown for it, so hadn’t had the time to join her usual leagueat Roosevelt Island. “But I’m planning to take a few lessons this week to get back into it.”
“There’s a new pro at the club,” said Rachel. “I took a lesson with him last weekend. His name is Robert, and he is totally hot.”
“Who’s hot?” Brian leaned over, having heard them during a brief pause in his own monologue.
“You, Brian, of course,” said Rachel, giggling. All the wives hated how much Rachel flirted with their husbands, but no one said it out loud.
“Yeah, I’ve been working out, maximizing body profits, investing in myself,” he said. Lauren couldn’t tell if he’d realized Rachel was kidding. Brian turned back to Jason, launching into another earful about his Peloton obsession.
“The pro was at some fancy country club in Florida before this. I’m not totally sure what he’s doing up here now, but he’s definitely going to be a favorite with the women,” said Rachel. “Plus, he already helped fix my janky serve.” Rachel was known for her janky, loopy serve.
“Looking forward to meeting him,” said Lauren, bored of the conversation. Why was Rachel annoying her so much? She was in for a long summer if she couldn’t even stomach a boat ride with her. Rachel sensed Lauren’s disinterest, so she dropped a nugget of gossip to lure Lauren back in.
“Did you hear about the Obermans?” Rachel bent closer to Lauren, lowering her voice.
Lauren shook her head.
“They’re splitting up. Apparently, Jeanette caught Greg having an affair with their dog walker.”
“Their dog walker? How weird,” said Lauren.
“She’s also an aspiring actress, I think,” said Rachel. “Anyway, Jeanette will be out here with the kids, but Greg is spending the summer in exile. He’s trying to work it out, but Jeanette wants nothing to do with him.” Lauren had always thought Jeanette and Greg hated each other. She must have been right.
The boat lurched, pulling into the dock in Salcombe. It jutted out from the bay, one hundred yards long, crafted from the same boardwalkthat laced the town. Lines of old-fashioned wagons were locked up near the end of the dock, waiting for owners to pile them with the summer’s goods. Lauren felt relief. She’d made it.
She took Arlo’s iPad from him (“Mom! I wasn’t done!”). Jason helped gather Amelie and the rest of the bags. The view from the top of the boat encompassed the entire shoreline of Salcombe, including the bay-beach area—a square of sand and a lifeguard chair, perfect for little kids to search for crabs and take seaweed-y swimming lessons—plus the yacht club and surrounding bayfront homes. People were pulling wagons and riding their bikes, and a small crowd had gathered to greet the arrivals. It could have been 1960 or 1990 or 2022. That’s what Jason said he liked best about the island, that sense of timelessness, that nothing had changed, that the modern world didn’t exist. Lauren was fine with this so long as they had fast internet and good satellite TV.
“I’m going to have some people over for drinks tonight,” said Rachel as they disembarked. “Are you guys free?”
“Sure,” said Lauren. “Sounds great.” Why not just rip off the Salcombe Band-Aid on their first night? Silvia was coming on the next boat, and Lauren would have to get it over with at some point. As they stepped off onto the dock, Rachel forcefully tugged Lauren’s arm.
“Look! There’s the pro, Robert,” she whispered into Lauren’s ear, too loudly to not be overheard. Rachel physically turned Lauren’s head toward a man standing in front of them, carrying two tote bags filled with groceries and wearing a white polo shirt and khaki shorts. Lauren could only see his back. He was about Jason’s height, maybe six foot two, with light brown, close-cropped hair. He walked like an athlete, fully in control of his body. Lauren noticed how nicely tanned his legs were. Someone called his name to say hello—Lauren couldn’t see who—and he turned to look for who was greeting him. Instead, he made eye contact with Lauren, meeting her gaze with deep blue eyes, a straight nose, and a smile of perfectly white teeth. She looked away immediately, pretending to be searching for something in her bag, and he walked on down the dock toward the yacht club.
“See, I told you he was hot,” said Rachel with a giggle. “He’s coming tonight to my house for drinks—we can flirt with him there.” Lauren felt her cheeks flush. She rolled her eyes playfully at Rachel and started to think about what she was going to wear.
2Robert Heyworth
Robert Heyworth was not as rich as he looked. He’d grown up in Tampa, the third in a family of three boys, all super athletic. His oldest brother, Mack, played baseball, making it to the minors, and his middle brother, Charlie, ran track for the University of Florida. Mack was now a contractor, married with two little girls, and Charlie was a mortgage broker, married with a son and a baby girl on the way. They all still lived in Tampa, near his mom, a retired schoolteacher. Their father, handsome in his youth like his sons, had been a cop. The boys were all gorgeous—tall, lanky, their eyes sparkling.
Robert’s thing was tennis, always had been. There were public courts down the road from his house, a tidy, squat, white ranch with palm trees out front, and he’d walk over every day and hit with whomever was there. When he was nine, a coach teaching a local rich kid noticed Robert had talent and had recruited him into a program that met daily after school. He’d given Robert’s parents a discount, a big one, and from there, Robert was absorbed into the tennis circuit, competing in USTA tournaments around the state, his mom toting him to and fro. All his friends had been tennis friends, and his girlfriends in high school were tennis girlfriends. It was basically all he thought about aside from schoolwork, occasionally, and sex, constantly. At his peak, when he was seventeen, he was ranked third in Florida in his age group. Good, yes, but not enough to go pro. Oddly, Robert had been sanguine about this. He’d heard too many stories at that point about ATP journeymen, paying their way to lose in tournaments around the world, to not want that kind of life. He’d alwaysseen tennis as a means to an end, a way to get out of his middle-class life. He thought his brothers were stupid for choosing track and baseball (he thought they were stupid for other reasons, too); people who played tennis hadmoney.He’d had no interest in being a cop like his dad. He loved his parents but felt superior to his family. He was so good-looking, so talented in his sport, he walked with such grace for a teenage boy. He felt he was destined for better things.
But when he’d graduated from Stanford, fresh from his full-ride scholarship, and his mixed record playing as number five singles, and his recent breakup with Julie Depfee, whose connections Robert had been banking on, he’d been at a loss. What now? He didn’t know anything other than tennis. He’d met friends’ fathers along the way, powerful guys in their industries who might be willing to get Robert an entry-level gig if he’d asked. Otherwise, his major, history, was a joke in terms of anything lucrative. He’d thought Stanford was going to be his golden ticket, but he hadn’t capitalized on it soon enough; he’d been head down, playing tennis, tennis, tennis. And then it was over. He was just as dumb as his brothers were, apparently. This thought caused Robert physical pain.
He’d met Julie when they were sophomores, and they’d dated for two years, during which Robert had been exposed to the kind of wealth that they don’t tell you about when you can’t afford to go anywhere on vacation other than Disney World. Julie’s father was a venture capital guy who’d gotten in early at PayPal, LinkedIn, Yelp, and Uber, among others. They owned homes in Atherton and the Hamptons and Sun Valley, and apartments in London and Paris. They flew private. They had a staff. Julie was beautiful, blond, willowy. Robert had never had a problem getting girls—they flocked to him. Men, too. It wasn’t just about his face and body. He was cheerful and easy, and he knew how to look at people, reallylookat them, in a way that made them melt. But even he was surprised that Julie made it her mission to lock him down, to make sure he was hers. She was out of everyone’s league.
They’d met at a house party, one of the rare ones Robert had attended—he couldn’t drink during the tennis season, so going out waspointless. But he’d been dragged there by his roommate, Todd, who promised he’d get to meet the rarefied crowd there, the rich kids (Stanford was filled with rich kids, but these were therichkids). Julie was there with her group of lackies, carbon copies but not quite as pretty as she, and when they’d started to talk, or, rather, she’d started to talk, Robert had immediately fallen for her magic. They’d slept together that night, in her room in an off-campus house that was leagues nicer than Robert’s childhood home. They were inseparable after. Julie attended all of Robert’s matches, and he accompanied her home for holidays and long weekends. During the summer, they’d lived at her parents’ house in the Hamptons, loafing about, hanging at the pool, and eating out on her dad’s credit card until Robert had to go back to California to start early practice.
Robert had thought that maybe they’d get married. He’d known it was a silly idea—they were only twenty-one. But he loved being with her, and more importantly, he loved her life. It was so easy. He fit in with her friends and family. Most of them didn’t know he didn’t come from money. He was a handsome tennis player at Stanford; people assumed what they wanted to. And Julie had liked that he was middle-class. It wasinterestingto her. Though they never went to visit his family. He wouldn’t have her to that ranch house, no way. It was all too embarrassing.
