Beach Lane

mara discovers the rules for hamptons travel





“AH, DE HAMPTONS, BERRY, BERRY RICH PEOPLE there,” the bearded cabdriver told Mara when she told him where she was headed.

“So I’ve heard,” she agreed. Her sister Megan, the US Weekly addict, had given her the full rundown before she left. “I hear Resort is hot this summer but stay away from the Star Room—it’s so over. And try to get a table at Bamboo if you can.” As if Mara had any idea what she was talking about. For Mara the Hamptons was the episode on Sex and the City where Carrie goes to stay with a friend and accidentally sees her friend’s husband naked. Mara knew it was some sort of rich summer place, but she went to the Cape every summer—it couldn’t be any different from that, could it?

“Very, very rich people, yes. You lika Jerry Seinfeld? Billy Joel? They inda Hamptons all dee time. The guy who dated Jennifer Lopez before this Affleck. He has big party this weekend. Piff Daddy.”

“P. Diddy?” Mara laughed.

“Yeah, him. I useta drive limo for him. Big party. Big, big fireworks. So many beautiful people. So thin. All the girls, thin, thin, thin.” He angled back to appraise Mara. “You thin. You rich?”

“No, I’m not rich,” Mara said. “I’m going to be working for some rich people, though.”

“Ah, not rich. Working girl, eh?”

“That’s right.”

“Here Forty-third and Third. Jitney over there,” he said, waving toward a large silver-and-green bus with The Hampton Jitney in cheerful lettering on the back.

“Great!” Mara said, giving him the exact amount on the meter. “Here you go, thank you very, very much!” She scurried out of the cab and slammed the door.

“No tip?” the confused cabdriver asked to the empty air.

Mara ran to find another long line waiting for her in front of the Jitney. She shuffled patiently to the front, where a tough-looking middle-aged woman wearing a fanny pack stood with a clipboard.

“Name?”

“Mara Waters.”

“Waters, Waters, Waters . . . Huh. I don’t see you. Did you make a reservation?”

“Was I supposed to?” Mara asked, a little nervous.

“Sorry. This bus is fully booked. You’ll have to go standby on the next. But I doubt you’ll get on. It’s July Fourth weekend!”

“Omigod. Are you serious? I’m not going to be able to get on?”

“Not without a reservation, you’re not.”

“But—but—I didn’t know. . . .”

“Step aside, miss,” the bus madam said rudely.

“You don’t understand! I’ll be late for my job, and it’s really, really important I get to East Hampton by five. Please?”

“Can’t help you. Try tomorrow.”

Mara moved numbly to the side, shell-shocked. She had been on the road since six o’clock in the morning and now this! It was just like Kevin Perry to forget to mention the reservation policy on the Jitney. He just assumed that like everyone in New York, Mara would know the drill.

“Please—is there any way?” she asked, inching back to the front.

“I told you, miss, you’ll have to STAND ASIDE!”

“Excuse me! What’s the holdup?” asked an elegant woman in an oversized straw hat, holding a tiny lapdog in her handbag.

“No reservation,” the grouchy clipboard nazi said, pointing to Mara.

“I didn’t know. I really need to get on this bus or I’ll be late for my job,” Mara explained, her eyes welling up.

“Fine, fine, fine.” The woman sighed loudly behind her sunglasses. “You can take Muffy’s seat as long as you hold him,” she said in a martyr’s tone.

“Oh, thank you! Thank you so much!” Mara said as the lady deposited her dog and its carrier in her arms.

Harried and still a little upset, Mara was finally allowed to climb aboard the bus and take a seat. She squeezed in next to her benefactor, who promptly put on a frilly eye mask and fell asleep as the bus pulled away.

Mara looked out the window at the receding New York skyline. In Queens they passed Shea Stadium, festooned with American flags and patriotic bunting. An hour went by. Traffic on the freeway was brutal. Mara pressed her nose against the glass, counting the aboveground pools that sprouted in every backyard once they hit Long Island proper.

It reminded her of Sturbridge. She should really call Jim to try and work things out. She didn’t like leaving things the way they did, and she hated to think of anyone being mad at her. Just as she was wondering whether she could try him again, her phone began to ring.

The slumbering silence was suddenly broken by a wheezy DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DUM, DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DUM. The digitized opening bars of “Sweet Child of Mine.”

“Cell phone!” hissed her seatmate, lifting her eye mask. “Who’s got the cell phone?”

“Turn it off! Turn it off!” demanded a pinched-looking girl a few years older than Mara, looking up from her knitting.

“The noise! The noise!” quavered a bald middle-aged man holding up the latest Harry Potter novel.

Mara frantically began searching for her tiny phone inside her overstuffed backpack. A cantankerous voice thundered from the front seat. “No cell phones allowed! Will you please turn that off!” Everyone craned their necks to see who had broken the most august law on the Hampton Jitney. Fifty pairs of irritated, sleep-rumpled eyes glared in Mara’s direction. The clipboard-wielding bus madam who’d already given Mara grief for getting on the bus without a reservation gestured angrily. “You there!”

“Sorry! Sorry! I didn’t know!” Mara said, fumbling with her phone. “Hello???” She brushed her long brown bangs off her face with a hurried sweep.

“Mar! It’s me! Hey, I—”

“Jim! I can’t talk now!” she said, snapping the phone shut and cutting him off in mid-protest.

The long-haired Chihuahua in her arms stared her down with an indignant look on its pointy face.

“What’s wrong, pup?” she cooed nervously, holding up the dog close to her. As if in answer, the dog peed in her lap.

“Hey!” Mara yelped.

“Oh. He does that to some people.” Muffy’s owner yawned. “You should really have turned off your phone. Didn’t you see the sign?” she added, motioning to the image of a cell phone inside a circle with an angry red slash drawn across it.

Mara sank lower in her seat. It was going to be a very long ride.