I’ve been to Jesse’s house only once before, as a guest of Brett’s, who is such a regular you could pick out her preferred lounge chair. Hint: It’s the one with the slightly sunken middle. We drank Casamigos by the pool (I got Jesse’s hydrangeas very drunk) and ate swordfish prepared for us on the grill by Hank, who Jesse refers to as her friend but everyone knows is her Jeeves. The Montauk community was sure Jesse Barnes would demolish the original Techbuilt home when she bought it in 2008, but she ingratiated herself when all she did was remodel the kitchen and add a pool.
We park in the dirt driveway, next to the white crew van and Jesse’s vintage Land Rover. Jen’s Tesla looks downright villainous on the humble property, the car of a collector come in from Gotham to repossess the land from farmer Ted, blithely unaware he’s sitting on a multimillion-dollar lot. Thanks to the New York Post’s steadfast reporting, I know that a rolling meadow used to separate the end of the drive from the seventy-foot drop to the sea, but that the bluffs have eroded, little by little some years, in honking wet chunks during others. Jesse has had to file an emergency application with the East Hampton Planning Department to have the home moved one hundred feet back from the abyss. Lucky for me it has yet to be granted.
The crew has moved the picnic table from the shallow end of the pool to the deep, in an attempt to game the sun’s position and mitigate the glare off the water. Marc is covering all of the cameras with beach blankets, keeping them out of direct sunlight so that they’re not too hot to handle. The PAs are setting the table with platters of food and Lisa is halfway through uncorking a dozen wine bottles so that we do not lose a moment to our drinking, which is a production trick to keep the cast from realizing they’ve had too much. The act of stopping to open a new bottle can make you take stock—How many have I had? Might be smart to drink a glass of water. Anything smart is bad, when it comes to production purposes.
Jesse does her part by reading A Little Life beneath an SPF-coated umbrella—clearly, she has been expecting me. It’s a dexterous insult, I’ll give her that. The same month The New Yorker called out the subversive brilliance of Hanya Yanagihara’s novel, Kirkus likened the third book in my fiction series to a Lifetime movie-of-the-week, right down to the contrived dialogue.
Jesse notices us and bends the page. Her Bettie Page paleness and black jeans swan in the face of the beach babe aesthetic that rules out here, and I think we are all grateful for it. Imagining Jesse in a swimsuit is like imagining your parents having sex. Her bare feet are embarrassing enough.
She walks over to meet us, removing her sunglasses in a way that implies I should do the same, so that we can have a proper gal-to-gal chat. I leave my big black Pradas right where they are.
“I don’t know what you hoped to accomplish by coming here,” Jesse says.
Lisa sets down the wine opener and joins Jesse at her side, a punky yeah, what she said expression on her thin, jowly face. All that weight loss only to look ten years saggier in her eHarmony profile picture. Being a woman is like the lottery. Yes, some sad sack is destined to win it, but the odds are very against that sad sack being you. No matter, most of us will continue to try, and most of us will continue to hear someone else’s number called, year after year.
“You know you can’t be here,” Jesse says to me. “We were willing to let you try it last night but you’ve proven yourself to be untrustworthy and honestly, Steph? A little bit unstable. I hope you are getting the support you need for your mental health.”
From the person who has stomped all over my mental health in steel-toed Dr. Martens. How does she not hear herself?
Vince slips his hand into mine in an act of courageous spousal support. Even his hand feels like it’s been in another woman’s hand. I turn to him with a brave smile, though I can feel my contempt for him in my fingernails. “Vince?” I ask in a tiny brave voice. “Will you just give me a moment to speak to Jesse and Lisa in private?”
He doesn’t let go.
“I need to do this on my own. Please.” I give his hand a measured squeeze, stifling the urge to bend his fingers back until they snap.
Vince sizes up Jesse and Lisa like schoolyard bullies, with a look that says if they try anything, he will be right over there. He lets go of my hand and wanders off. Dumb fuck. Pretty fuck. But so, so dumb.
“I’m just asking for an opportunity to take ownership of what I did,” I appeal to them when it is just the three of us. “Please. Brett’s not here so I can tell you everything that really happened. Do you want to hear about that or do you want to hear whatever vanilla lie Kelly has come up with to protect her sister?”
I know Jesse has heard the whisperings—insulting, frankly—that my fight with Brett was really about the affair we had while she lived with me. Ha. Maybe if she lost thirty pounds. Didn’t seem to bother Vince.
Jesse stares me down, torn. She doesn’t want to see Brett hurt, but she also wants her money shot for the season. She turns to Lisa to recruit her ever-valuable second opinion.
“It could be a powerful moment,” Lisa says, to the complete surprise of nobody. Nothing would make Lisa happier than seeing me lay bare Brett’s lies on camera. She will be thrilled, then, to learn that Brett’s lie is so much worse than what she thinks it is. Just hand over my mic pack, I think, and everyone gets hurt.
Jesse sighs. Her decision is obvious, but she has to act a little bit pained so as not to look like a total turncoat to her very best vagina. She nods at Vince, over my shoulder. “And what is he doing here?”
“I thought we might address the rumors about him and Kelly,” I say. “That could be a powerful moment too, right?”
Lisa snorts, genuinely tickled. “Someone found her ballsack.”
Jesse returns her sunglasses to her face so that I can’t witness the childlike excitement in her eyes. Christmas morning has come early for Jesse Barnes. “Let’s just do it. We’re here. Why not? We don’t have to use it if it doesn’t work.”
As the kids are saying these days—yas, queen.
Everything settled, we wait by the car until Lisa gives us the cue to approach and greet Jesse.
“Oh, Jen!” I smack my idiot head. “Pass me the keys. I left my lip gloss in the cup holder.”
“Your lips look—”
“Pass me the fucking keys, Greenberg!”
Jen does so, begrudgingly, and I dive back into the car, climbing around on all fours and reaching under the seats in a one-woman search party for an unmissing tube of Rouge Pur Couture. I time it perfectly, waiting for Lisa to give us the go-ahead before I shut the door, so that Jen loses her opportunity to ask for her keys back. I am wearing a darling, tropical-printed Mara Hoffman wrap dress with deep pockets—I bought it for today, figuring pockets always come in handy—and I slip the keys inside. So far, everything is going off without a hitch. I do wish Brett could have been here, but just because things don’t go according to plan doesn’t mean they can’t work out for the best. Done is better than perfect is something my editor used to say to me when I needed more time with my manuscript but she wanted it now, so she could publish it now, so that she could make money now. Apparently, it’s a Sheryl Sandberg quote.