"This is going to be a great summer," Peter said. Peter's house was everything Lynelle had promised. It was a converted farmhouse on three acres of manicured lawn, with six bedrooms and a decorator perfect interior. As soon as they arrived, Peter got on his cell phone and started screaming at the gardener about his apple trees. Janey ignored him. She took off her clothes and walked naked out to the pool. She knew he was watching her through the sliding glass doors. When she got out of the water, he stuck his head out. "Hey baby, is the heat turned on in the pool? If it isn't, I'll call the guy and scream at him.”
"It's on," she said. "I think we should figure out what parties we want to go to this weekend." She took out her own cell phone and, still naked, settled into a cushiony deck chair and started dialing.
In mid-May of the summer Janey was to turn thirty one (her birthday was June first, and she always told everyone she was a "summer baby"), she went to the nightclub Moomba three times in one week. The first night was a party for the rap artist Toilet Paper. She stood in the middle of the room with one hip pushed out, letting photographers take her picture, then someone escorted her to a table in the corner. Joel Webb, the art collector, was there. Janey thought he was cute, even though everyone said he'd had a nose job and cheek implants and liposuction and wore lifts in his shoes because he was only five foot four. But that wasn't the problem. It was his house. For the past three years, he'd been building a big house in East Hampton; in the meantime, he'd been renting what Janey considered a shack—a run-down three-bedroom cottage.
"I need a girlfriend. Fix me up with one of your gorgeous friends, huh?" he said.
"How's your house coming?" Janey said.
"The contractors promised it would be done by July fourth. Come on," he said, "I know you can think of someone to fix me up with.”
"I thought you had a girlfriend," Janey said. "Only by default. We break up during the year, but by the time summer comes, I get so lonely I take her back.”
Two nights later, Janey showed up at Moomba with Alan Mundy, whom everyone was calling the hottest comic in Hollywood. She'd met Alan years ago, when she was doing that film in Hollywood he was a nobody then and had a tiny part in the movie, playing a lovesick busboy. They sort of became friends and sort of stayed in touch, talking on the phone about once a year, but Janey now told everyone he was a great friend of hers. Her booker at her modeling agency told her Alan was coming into New York on the sly, so Janey called his publicist and he called her right back. He'd just broken up with his girlfriend and was probably lonely. "Janey, Janey," he said. "I want to see all the hot places. Tear up the town.”
"As long as we don't have to patch it back together when you're done," she said.
"God, I've missed you, Janey," he said.
He picked her up in a Rolls Royce limousine. His hair had been dyed red for his last movie role, and he had an inch of black roots. "Whatcha doing now, kid?" he asked. "Stffl acting?”
"I've been acting every day of my life," Janey said. Inside the club, Alan drank three martinis in a row. Janey sat close to him and whispered in his ear and giggled a lot. She had no real interest in Alan, who in actuality was the kind of geeky guy who would work at a car wash, which was exactly what he used to do in between jobs before he became famous. But nobody else had to know that. It raised her status enormously to be seen with Alan, especially if it looked like they could potentially be an item.
Alan was drunk, sticking the plastic swords from his martinis into his frizzy hair. "What do you want, Janey?" he asked. "What do you want out of life?”
“I want to have a good summer," Janey said.
She got up to go to the bathroom. She passed Redmon Richardly, the bad-boy southern writer. "Janey, Janey," he said. "I'm soooo glad to see you.”
“Really?" Janey said. "You were never glad to see me before.”
"I'm always glad to see you. You're one of my good friends," Redmon said. There was another man at the table. Short brown hair. Tanned. Slim. Too handsome. Just the way Janey liked them. "See? I always said Janey was a smart model," Redmon said to the man.
The man smiled. "Smart and a model. What could be better?”
"Dumb and a model. The way most men like them," Janey said. She smiled back, aware of the whiteness of her teeth.
"Zack Manners. Janey Wilcox," Redmon said. "Zack just arrived from England. He's looking for a house in the Hamptons. Maybe you can help him find one.”
"Only if I get to live in it," Janey said. "Interesting proposition," Zack said.
Janey went upstairs to the bathroom. Her heart was thumping. Zack Manners was the huge English record producer. She stood in line for the bathroom. Redmon Richardly came up behind her. "I want him," Janey said.
"Who? Zack?" He laughed. "You and a million other women all over the world.”
"I don't care," Janey said. "I want him. And he's looking for a house in the Hamptons.”
"Well ... you ... can't ... have ... him," Redmon said.
"Why not?" Janey stamped her foot.
Redmon put his arms around her like he was going to kiss her. He could do things like that and get away with it. "Come home with me tonight.”
"Why?”
"Because if d be fun.”
“I'm not interested in fun.”
"Ditch that geek you're with and come home with me. What are you doing with a geek like that, anyway? I don't care if he's famous. He's still a geek.”
"Yeah, well, being with a geek like that makes men like you more interested in me.”
"Oh, come on.”
"I want to have a good summer," Janey said. "With Zack.”
Janey and Alan left half an hour later, after Alan accidentally spilled two martinis. On their way out, they passed Redmon's table. Janey casually slipped her hand into the back pocket of Alan's jeans. Then she looked over her shoulder at Zack.
"Call me later," Redmon said loudly.
II
Janey Wilcox heard about Harold Vane, the billionaire, in the bathroom of a club. That was two years ago, and even though Harold had turned out to be a little squeaker of a man, with his shiny round head and his ever-shiny shoes (he made the servants polish his Docksiders to a high sheen), he was one of the best summers. "I've got to find a man for the summer," Janey was complaining to her friend Allison when a voice from one of the stalls shouted out, "Harold Vane.”
Harold had a stucco mansion on Gin Lane in Southampton. There was a long green lawn in front of the house, and a shorter green lawn in the back, edging down to the dunes and the beach. There was a sit-down lunch with wine and two courses on both Saturday and Sunday, a cook, and a man called Skaaden who mixed cocktails and discreetly served the food from silver platters. The grounds could be entered only through a wrought-iron gate with the letter "H" on one side and "V" on the other. Harold had a security man v\ ho dressed like a gardener but carried a gun.
"Don't you worry that one of these guys is going to figure out what you're up to?" Allison asked. This was at the beginning of the Harold summer, when Janey had invited Alison (who had a share in a tiny house in Bridgehampton) over for the day.
"What do you mean?" Janey asked, thinking about the gardener.
"Using them. For their summer houses.”
"I'm a feminist," Janey said. "If s about the redistribution of wealth." They were lying on chaises by the pool, and Skaaden kept bringing them glasses of iced tea.
"Where is Harold, anyway?" Allison asked. She had bulging gray eyss—no matter how you made her up, she would never be pretty, Janey thought.
She had been waiting for Allison to ask the question. Allison was a sort of professional best friend to the rich and famous; as soon as she left, she'd probably call up everybody and tell them she'd been lunching at Harold Vane's house, and that they were now good friends. In fact, Janey expected that after she and Harold broke up at the end of the summer, Allison would continue to pursue his friendship. She'd invite him for drinks, and when she saw him at parties, she'd put her hand on his arm and whisper jokes in his ear to make him laugh.