Page 8 of Bad Summer People
Jen did as she said, standing at the water for another ten minutes, arms crossed, pacing. Rachel thought she might explode from stress. She also really had to pee. Finally, Jen made her way back off the beach, leaving Rachel alone again. She waited another few minutes before creeping back to her house carefully, empty wineglass in hand.
4Micah Holt
Micah Holt knew who was fucking who. It was his gift, honed as a closeted boy, to suss out social dynamics before anyone else. He used that power, when he was young, to protect against bullies. “I know who you have a crush on,” he’d say to anyone who seemed like a threat. “And I know who she likes.” No one would beat up someone who had such precious info.
Now, out for many years, handsome and smart, beloved by men and women, Micah had no need for games. But he still saw everything. It was partly why he enjoyed being a bartender in Salcombe. He didn’t do it for the money; his parents gave him plenty. But he loved mixing drinks and getting people tipsy and hearing all their secrets.
And everyone had so many. He knew that Brian Metzner’s hedge fund had imploded this year and that he was on the verge of bankruptcy. He knew that Brian’s wife, Lisa, was into recreational drugs. He knew that Jeanette Oberman told people that her husband, Greg, was having an affair with the dog walker. That was true. But what she didn’t tell people was that the dog walker was a guy. (Micah could have told you Greg was gay; he’d come on to Micah numerous times.) And, based on what he’d witnessed that night, he thought there might be something going on with Jason Parker and Jen Weinstein.
He’d noticed them together while he was working at Rachel Woolf’s cocktail party. Jason had followed Jen back to the bathroom, clearly intenton seeing her alone, and Micah had seen him whispering something into her ear.
Jason and Jen! Micah could only imagine how big this would be if it got out. Sam, Jason, Jen, Lauren, Rachel, and their crew were about ten years younger than Micah’s parents, Judy and Eric. Micah had always looked to that crowd with admiration. The guys were hot and seemingly successful; the women were pretty and fun. They all liked to get drunk at the club. They made being an adult seem not so bad (as opposed to Micah’s mom and dad, who were generationally dull).
Micah considered an affair between Jen and Jason. Everything in Salcombe hinged on delicate social webs, and this would unravel many of them. Also, why would Jen want to fuck Jason over Sam? She was a mystery.
Micah was on his way to the beach. He’d finished up at Rachel’s (poor Rachel), swung by the club for a vodka soda, and was set to meet Ronan, the lifeguard he was hooking up with, at 10:45 by the dunes. Ronan was a beauty. Six foot three, perfect body, tanned, sandy-haired. Exactly the kind of guy Micah had always wanted, had looked at from afar with a longing familiar only to homosexual boys.
Ronan’s family had a house in Kismet, the next town over. They lived on Long Island and were less wealthy than Micah’s parents by a long shot. Ronan and Micah were the same age, twenty. They’d met last year, at a party thrown by Micah’s best friend, Willa Thomas, who lived on Anchor Walk. She’d invited all the lifeguards, and Ronan had arrived in a blue hoodie and Levi’s, bumping fists with the other straight guys. He’d locked eyes with Micah, and Micah had thought:Aha!Micah liked how retro it was—sleeping with a closeted lifeguard. It felt very ’90s, and Micah was totally into it. His group of friends at Yale were genderless, pronoun-less, and confident. Ronan was sweet and confused. He went to Villanova. Poor guy couldn’t tell his family he was gay. It was so old-school.
Micah was happy to engage in illicit acts with this gorgeous, willing man. He did occasionally feel bad, as if he were taking advantage of a lamb. But not to the point that he wasn’t going to blow him by the dunes tonight. That was definitely happening.
He crossed Harbor and continued up Marine. It was hazy and silent out. He saw a figure, a man, turn down Marine from Lighthouse, heading toward him. Probably someone coming back from drinks in Kismet or Salcombe’s other neighboring town, Fair Harbor. As he got closer, Micah recognized Jason’s shape; tall and sturdy, his arms swinging with purpose. Micah could sense when Jason caught sight of him. He slowed, his body stiffened. There was nowhere to escape to. They reached each other a few seconds later. Jason’s face was shadowed, but his black eyes were shining through the darkness.
“Hey, Micah, you heading home?” Micah couldn’t think of the last time he and Jason had spoken to each other alone. Sam was much friendlier, asking Micah about his life, cracking jokes. Jason was always just there, standing next to Sam, brooding.
“Yep, I’m done with tonight,” said Micah, lying. “I hope you had fun at Rachel’s. She always throws a good party.”
“Yes, it was very fun,” said Jason, shifting from his left to his right.
Micah wanted to end the conversation. Ronan was waiting, and Jason was acting weird. Micah assumed it had something to do with Jen.
“I’m off, then. See you later!” Micah went to pass Jason, but he put his hand on Micah’s shoulder, holding him back.
“Uh, I’d appreciate if you didn’t mention to anyone that you saw me tonight. I like to wander the boardwalks sometimes when Lauren goes to sleep. It relaxes me.”
“Sure, no problem. I totally get it,” said Micah. “I love being out at night here alone, too. Though you have to watch out for the deer. They’ll scare the shit out of you.”
“Don’t I know it,” said Jason, smiling tightly.
The two men nodded goodbye and headed in opposite directions. Micah, relieved to be free, continued up to the beach.
5Jason Parker
Jason Parker had always hated his best friend, Sam Weinstein. Maybehatedwas too strong a word. Resented, more like. Felt jealous of. Was annoyed by. No, hatedwasprobably the right way to describe it.
No one knew this. Not even Lauren, Jason’s wife, would have suspected it. Jason and Sam had been friends since they were kids. They’d met in their first-grade class at Dalton and bonded over their love of Superman. Jason was chubby and shy. Sam was not. They were at each other’s apartments almost every day after school, playing Nintendo while their moms drank coffee and watchedOprahtogether. Both Sam’s and Jason’s parents were well-off—Sam’s dad was a prominent litigator, and Jason’s father ran a company that manufactured high-end rugs. Jason’s mom and dad were happily married; Sam’s home was a mess of screaming and slamming doors and accusations of infidelity. When they had sleepovers, it was always at Jason’s. As Sam’s parents’ situation devolved, he became a constant presence in Jason’s apartment, eating every meal there, hanging out all day on the weekends. When they were in sixth grade, Sam’s mom fell into a long depression while his dad jetted off to Aspen for the winter. Jason’s parents became Sam’s de facto guardians.
He moved in, sharing Jason’s room, fighting with Jason’s sister, coming with them to Thanksgiving, traveling with them over Christmas break. Jason knew his place was to be the dutiful son and friend, so he stayed silent while it felt like Sam took over his life. Jason and Sam, Sam and Jason. Always, always, always.
Jason even had a sneaking suspicion that his mom preferred Sam to him. Sam would sit with her while she folded laundry and ask her questions about her friends and tennis game. As Jason and Sam became a package deal, it was clear who was the favorite child. But Jason was stuck with him.
Sam’s only redeeming trait—more a real estate perk than a trait—was his house on Fire Island, in Salcombe, to which he invited Jason to live with him every summer. Jason loved it out there. He loved riding his bike by himself all over town, swimming in the rough ocean, learning how to sail out on the bay. As they got older, he managed to make his own friends in Salcombe, had his own summer crushes, his own little life while living rent-free in Sam’s perfect bayfront home. He felt relaxed there in a way he never fully did at home. By the time Jason was a teenager, he’d lost his baby fat. He wasn’t quite as good-looking as Sam, but he was getting there. He grew taller and thinner, his eyes settled into his head, large and brown. Women started to look at him with interest.
At that point, they had the run of the joint themselves. Sam’s parents had finally divorced, letting him use the house, solo, as a gift for ruining his life. Sam and Jason became perma-summer-roommates, through high school, college, and into their twenties, Jason integrating himself into the community until no one could remember a time without him there.
The last summer that Jason spent with Sam in the house at 6 West Bay Promenade was when they were thirty. Jason was doing well at his private equity job, which allowed him to lean into his aggressive personality, and Sam was on the partner track at his law firm, Sullivan & Cromwell, where he worked on high-profile white-collar-crime cases. They’d both just met girls they really liked. Sam was dating Jen Paulson, a button-cute brunette, as he described her, who’d just finished her graduate degree in psychology. And Jason was with Lauren Schapiro, a hot blond snob from Northern California, who worked as a buyer at Bloomingdale’s. Jason was relatively sure he was going to marry Lauren. She checked all the boxes—pretty, from a good family, chatty, fun. They clicked in bed, and she seemed to tolerate Jason’s moodiness.
He was happy, he thought. He had a great job, an attractive girlfriend; he was young with everything ahead of him.
