“Oh God, Peru,” Hayes laughed. “Desmond, remember Peru?”
Desmond looked back from his position in the front seat and grimaced. “Fucking crazy bastards.”
Somewhere around Fifth Avenue we lost the last of the fanatics and then proceeded down to Twenty-third and the FDR Drive unscathed. But my mind was still on Paris and the promise Hayes had made.
It took us forty-five minutes to get to Sag Harbor via seaplane. The flight out was calm, the skies clear, and the views traversing Long Island’s North Shore sublime. Sprawling mansions and fields of green, the colors vibrant and exaggerated like a David Hockney. He held my hand the entire trip, squeezing it at times, and the gesture seemed so natural and comfortable, one would have thought we were an established couple and not two mismatched people navigating an illicit arrangement.
I smiled to myself at one point during the ride, somewhere over Sands Point.
“What’s so funny?” he asked, leaning into me close, his nose buzzing my neck.
“I could be your mother.”
“You find that amusing now, do you?”
I nodded. “Just a little.”
He smiled, wry. “I’m going to make you forget that… if it’s the last thing I do.”
The house in Bridgehampton was a sprawling nine-thousand-square-foot shingle-style manse on 3.3 acres of manicured lawn, complete with pool, pool house, tennis courts, a putting green, formal gardens, and home theater. Naturally, it was fully staffed. We would want for nothing.
But what impressed me most was the D’Amatos’ contemporary art collection: Cy Twombly, Kara Walker, Damien Hirst, Takashi Murakami, Roy Lichtenstein. I found myself salivating at everyturn. Furthermore, it was well curated. Not cluttered or intentionally ironic, but all coexisting beautifully. Each piece allowed to breathe in its own space. The D’Amatos not only had taste; they had restraint.
“What’s the wife’s name again?”
We were in our bedroom, an airy suite with views overlooking the putting green and the stretch of lawn extending to the pool. On the far wall, above the sitting area, was a framed pigment print of Kate Moss, taken by the legendary Chuck Close.
“Sylvie… Sylvia… One of those. Do you want me to introduce you?” Hayes was lying on the chaise longue, watching me unpack.
“I’d like that. Yes.”
“Where is she getting her art?”
I did a quick mental compute. “Mainly Gagosian, and probably some auctions.”
“Like that?” He nodded toward the Moss photo.
“No. That’s Chuck Close. He’s with Pace in New York. She probably bought it from them or at auction.”
“Is that Kate Moss? She looks weird.”
“It’s the process he uses,” I explained, “like a daguerreotype. The way you can see every pore on her face. Age spots that the naked eye probably can’t even pick up yet.” I made my way back across the room to the closet.
The Close piece was haunting. Mostly because Kate was my age. She couldn’t have been more than thirty in the photo, and yet I could see everything that she would become. Everything that I,we, probably already were. I wondered if Hayes could see it, too. The opposite of youth.
“I used to love her as a wee lad.”
“Yes. Well, who didn’t?”
“Come here,” he said. It was the way he said it. I knew that we’d stopped talking about Kate. That we’d stopped talking about art.
I made my way over to him, and he extended a languid arm, his hand wrapping around the back of my thigh, beneath the hem of my dress.
I did not speak as his fingers moved up my leg, arriving at my underwear, slipping beneath the fabric. “Hiiii.”
“Hi.” I smiled.
“I missed you.”
