“It’s fine. We’ve got time. I’ll shop now after I drop Huck at camp. He’ll be asleep by eight anyway; he’s exhausted.” Katie looked at George’s eyes in that womanly wiles way, trying to make very clear that she’d do the same thing to his body she’d done the last time they’d fallen in bed at his Hilton Hotel on weekend sex marathon four. They didn’t need to wait a week. She wanted it, too.
“Okay, that sounds like a plan. I love home cooking. I never get it. Anything you prefer.” And George added with special emphasis, “I mean that across the board, Katie. You do what you want here. Take your time; enjoy yourself. You deserve it, what with the sad changes, you know,” he whispered, “and of course the deadbeat . . .” He twirled his hand in the air, rolling his eyes a bit, referring to Huck’s dad who sent Hallmark cards with fifty-dollar bills every six months or so.
George grabbed the orange-and-brown donut bag and handed Huck his favorite: French Cruller. “I got three more in the bag if you want.”
“George! Sugar high. Please?” Katie pleaded, knowing she’d get little reaction from either man or boy by her side.
“Too late,” answered Huck, sugary glaze plastered all over his mouth and chin.
As George laughed and ate the opposite end of Huck’s cruller, this variety being his all-time favorite as well, she knew just then, sugary glaze now stuck to his manly stubble, it was good she’d come here: he was kind, generous, handsome, not forcing her too fast into anything. All good, right?
Chapter Thirteen
Helipad Heaven
Saturday, June 10
Julia and Jake Chase landed promptly at 10:00 a.m. at the small Beachwood Lane helipad out near the Southampton jetty. The blasts of sand shot out from under their Sikorsky helicopter, announcing to all that yet another Manhattan chieftain was feverishly arriving to relax. (And that there would be hell to raise with anyone within one hundred yards if he couldn’t.) The Chase driver waited inside his shiny black Cadillac Escalade SUV on the other side of the street, license plate reading, BEACH1, (out of the Chases’ seven vehicles) to avoid the Saudi sandstorm before him.
The two pilots came out of the cockpit first. They ran with their heads hunched to avoid the thud-thud-thud of the propellers overhead, and started unloading the mounds of matching Goyard luggage for the five Chase family members. Like the driver, the family was also practiced in the art of helicopter arrival on the sandy lane helipad. They remained in their seats another four minutes to allow the windswept dirt to settle, and for the men to place their bags in the SUV.
Tote bags, larger weekend bags, a few giant-sized duffels, all marked with the distinctive brown Goyard background and the owner’s initials and varying red-and-yellow, and orange-and-pink stripes were ferried to the SUV. On the family’s last stroll down the Rue St. Honoré in Paris over spring break, they agreed it would be “so cute” if they all matched when they traveled together. Jake enjoyed not flinching at the $4,470.00 price of the smallest “Croisiere” duffel and ordered nine larger pieces in perfectly ascending sizes.
Julia Chase came out first, taking the hand of the copilot. She felt beautiful in the sunlight. It didn’t hurt that her husband had spent half his time reminding her he was the luckiest fucker on earth to have bagged her. Her honey-colored hair blew in her face. She wore tight jeans on her short, but shapely legs, Stan Smith–style sneakers from Barneys that cost six hundred dollars instead of the original ones costing eighty dollars, a white Gucci button-down blouse showing her signature, slightly too much, gorgeous, silicone-enhanced breasts, and a gray Alexander McQueen zippered sweatshirt with a jeweled skull on the back hanging over her shoulders. A snow-white bulldog named Betsy, with an S & M gold-and-black dog collar, toddled down after her, pulled by his matching Goyard leash.
Next, the eldest son, Evan Chase, peered out from the helicopter cabin, proudly assuming his twenty-year-old, urban, super douche stance. He squinted his eyes, and pulled his new Tom Ford sunglasses down from the top of his head. His black hair was overly coiffed to mimic the latest David Beckham short-on-the-sides-and-straight-up-fade-on-top style. He wore a Salvatore Ferragamo gold medallion-ed belt that matched his jeans, a stiff baby-blue button-down shirt, and bright orange J.P. Tod’s suede driving shoes.
Next came Julia’s mini-me—that young brunette, illegal-to-touch, sixteen-year-old Alexa Chase, in a crocheted miniskirt and a tight V-neck body suit that cut low on the back. She expertly maneuvered her Jimmy Choo rope platforms down the helicopter steps with ease, as the multiple Hermès enamel bracelets, and two Cartier Love bracelets clanked on her wrist (her mother had the white gold and diamond ones costing $15,600 each; hers were only yellow gold at $6,300 each).