SKIPPER'S COLD SHOWER

Friday night. Skipper Johnson drives out to Southampton, where he has arranged to meet friends at Basilico: four women, all in their late twenties, who work at Ralph Lauren, and who,

to the naked eye, are indistinguishable from one another. Skipper finds their bland prettiness comforting, as well as the fact that there's a small herd of them. It means that he doesn't have the burden of trying to keep one of them entertained for the evening.

They drink Pine Hamptons at the bar. Skipper pays. At eleven o'clock, they go to M-80. There's a crowd outside, but Skipper knows the doorman. They drink cocktails out of plastic cups. Skipper runs into some friends—the modelizers George and Charlie. "I've got twelve girls staying at my place this weekend," George boasts to Skipper. George knows that Skipper is dying to come over, so he purposely doesn't invite him. Two of the models begin throwing cocktails at each other, laughing.

At two a.m., one of the girls gets sick in the bushes. Skipper offers to drive them home: a ranch house just before you get to the good part of Southampton. They have a case of beer in the refrigerator, nothing else. Skipper goes into a bedroom and sits on the bed with one of the girls and sips a beer. He lies down and closes his eyes, slipping his arm around the girl's waist. "I'm too drunk to drive home," he says in a puppy dog voice.

"I'm going to sleep," the girl says.

"Oh, please let me stay. We'll just sleep. I promise," Skipper says.

"Okay. But you have to sleep on top of the bed. With your clothes on."

Skipper complies. He falls asleep and begins snoring. Sometime in the middle of the night, the girl kicks him out to the couch.

Saturday morning. Skipper drives toward his house in East Hampton and decides to stop off to visit his friends Carrie and Mr. Big in Bridgehampton. Mr. Big is shirtless in the backyard, smoking a cigar and watering the plants around the pool. "I'm on vacation," he says.

"What are you doing? Don't you have a gardener?" Skipper asks.

Carrie is smoking cigarettes and reading the New York

Skipper strips down to his boxer shorts and dives in the water hke a cartoon character, with his knees bent at right angles sticking out to the sides. When he comes up for air, Mr. Big says, "Now I know why you can't get laid."

"What am I supposed to do?" Skipper asks.

"Have a cigar," says Mr. Big.

MR. BLATCH IN LOVE

Saturday, Halsey Neck Lane. Stanford Blatch is sitting by the pool, talking on the phone and watching his brother's girl-friend, whom he hates, trying to read his New York Observer. He's talking in an especially loud voice in the hope that she might go away. "But you have to come out," he says into the phone. "It's ridiculous. What are you going to do? Sit in the city all weekend and work? Get on the seaplane. I'll pay.

"Well, bring the manuscripts. You agents, you work too damn hard. Of course there's plenty of room. I have the whole upstairs."

Stanford hangs up. He walks over to his brother's girlfriend. "Do you know Robert Morriskin?" When the girl looks at him blankly, he says, "I didn't think so. He's the hottest up-and-coming literary agent. He's adorable."

"Is he a writer?" she asks.

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 863