Upper Tax Bracket Bathroom, or Why I don’t Deserve the Hamptons

I thought I knew what soap looked like. I was wrong.

I was staying at my Talented Friend’s house in the Hamptons, which is what one might call the Komodo dragon of luxury—somehow both three hour away on the LIRR and also a fucking dragon. Which is a metaphor I only use because I don’t know how else to capture the creature. This faraway, powerful, unbelievable thing. Something my parents would talk about after we went to bed and Architectural Digest fell open of its own volition. You just assume you’ll never see it up close. Becasue no one truly believes in their gut of guts that they’ll be the one to earn the millions, much as they think they might deserve it. And in so many of our hearts, we quietly think we deserve it. While we sit in our admin desks. Waiting. Writing. Hoping for this lotto ticket, or the next, or the next, or the next to hit. And that’s enough to stave off the knowledge that the deserving are different from the fortunate (overlap most certainly implied). And so you never think you’ll reach behind the curtain, never think you’ll watch the bank account move the factor, never think you’ll see the house in the town in the mythical place up close.

And then you do.

The loveliest parts of the Hamptons— the ones my father told me about when I was young and still learning the names and ages of soon-to-be eligible bachelors in the respective Rockefeller and Vanderbilt families— are nearly picture perfect to the descriptions you read in magazines. The houses, pristine and manicured. The hedges, tall enough to prod one’s intrigue. [Note: a hedge to a Hamptons home is like a thong to a stripper— it always leaves them wanting more, but keeps your peaks bare enough to stand proud.] And the walls, painted a clean, clear white that you can tell was chosen with a level of care most reserve for wedding dresses or waspy second husbands.

So I’m staying at a my Talented Friend’s house, and it’s a beautiful house. It’s the kind of house that makes you understand how rooms are actually supposed to look And I’m there, by the grace of god and my Talented Friend’s parents (THANKS), in a home so elegant it made me realize that I never actually understood the word “kitchen” until I saw one big enough to justify all seven letters. 

Equally beautiful was the guest suite— sorry, my guest suite. Yes, the shower in my private bathroom (yes, private) was tiled in a white marble basketweave. The towels were so white that nationalists were jealous. When I turned on the shower, the water fell like God Himself was spitting on me, or something else— but in a way that was neither derogatory nor kinky. Just holy. The pressure? Perfect. The temperature? Transcendent. I was at peace. I was glowing. I was wet.

That’s when the trouble began.

As my hair turned smooth and dark under the water, I reached for one of the many sleek bottles arranged artfully in the corner. I pumped. I lathered. Or tried to. My scalp instantly felt… slick.

I paused. Read the bottle. It was body oil.

Great. A tablespoon of probably artisanal body oil, wasted. “But don’t worry,” I thought to myself. “Oil is good for hair. It’s just a fancy hair mask now, right?”

Right you are, internal monologue. I’d read that in magazines and Buzzfeed so it must be true.

But let’s move on. Shamp— no, conditioner. This bottle is conditioner. Which will most certainly go wonderfully well with the oil that was slowly dripping onto my shoulders. Yes, I am giving myself a lovely, super-hydrating hair mask, as I am a woman of means and patience.

I start to prioritize a simpler task: body wash. I’m going to wash my body. That’s it. A simple, un-fuck-up-able goal. So I reach for a bottle, rub it over my chest. It smells luxurious, feels decadent… yet refuses to foam.

What now? What could this mystery potion possibly be?

I squint down at the bottle.

In-Shower Gel.

And below, in italics: Self Tanner.

I looked at the bottle in disbelief. Then to myself. Then to the bottle. And then, to the white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white expensive bathroom.

I know self-tanner, I know her cruel tricks. I know the orange sheets, and the orange collars, and the orange stains on denim shorts— and I did not have time for that today. 

So I’m exfoliating like my rent depends on it— because, in some ways, it does. I could wipe the tanner off, but the towels are too virginal to implicate in this situation. But the toilet paper… I start blotting myself with sheet after sheet. I’m dabbing like I’m clearing fingerprints from a crime scene, which, emotionally— again— I am. And it’s not working.

This is how I die. In a borrowed Hamptons bathroom, ruining a guest suite— sorry, my guest suite— with citrus-stained shame.

But just as I resign myself to prison or Bed Bath and Beyond—there! Behind the beauty products, like a gift from God:

A loofah.

I scrub again like a woman with something to lose or something to prove; I’m not sure which. I loofah and I loofah— and suddenly, it starts to lather. Interesting, I thought. I look at it, inquisitive. And if I looked closely, through the netting, I could almost see…

There it was. The Soap. The Soap I’d been searching for. Because for some reason, in the Hamptons, the Soap is in the loofah.

Well lathered, I was no longer melting self-tanner like the wicked witch of West Jersey. But I’m still wet, and there is still not a single surface I can risk tainting with my… me. So I make the brave, insane decision to dry myself, once again, using toilet paper.

Reader, it does not work. Not even a little.

I am getting myself as dry as a 30-year-old woman next to Pedro Pascal—which is to say, not dry at all—when I look down and realize the bathmat— the WHITE bathmat is now soaked in tanning runoff.

I jump off of it, slip, and catch myself on the sink. Which would be a relief, except I’m leaving orange fingerprints like the Cheeto cheetah whose name I refuse to look up. I scrub them away with my matted toilet paper.

I mop the floor.

I polish the chrome.

I drip.

Finally, thankfully, I hit a point of containment. My body was no longer an active threat— a state of being I can’t promise for any other weekday. But I was still wet, still tan, still living in some level of shame that shouldn’t exist outside of a confessional. I was shaking outside the shower like a wet chihuahua, terrified to touch anything but myself— and it was not the time for that.

And then I found the hairdryer.

A Brief Lesson

There are three settings on a Hamptons hairdryer:

• Hot

• Cold

• Turbo

Well, in that case.

I stood there, Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Woman, legs apart, arms raised, Turboing myself dry one ass cheek at a time. (At a distance, because I’m not a monster.)

And finally, finally—I was done. No longer contagious. No longer leaking self-tanner across the spectrum.

Clean. Dry. But defeated.

Some people say money can’t buy happiness. And sure, I believe them. The true spirit of places like the Hamptons lies in the joy of the families that live there, and no money could buy that. But it sure as shit buys body oil. It buys in-shower self-tanner. It buys loofahs that hide the fuckdamn soap. What it does not buy is clear labeling.

Or mercy.