life, the Fire Island way

I know, I know, it’s an awful lot of pho­tos, but it was SO BEAU­TI­FUL in so many dif­fer­ent ways that only this mot­ley assort­ment can rep­re­sent to me our 24 hours on New York’s most beau­ti­ful island. And no, I’m not prej­u­diced, I’m mere­ly speak­ing from my vast expe­ri­ence of… OK, just this one New York island, but trust me, it’s nir­vana. Or maybe that’s only if you vis­it Alyssa there.

Of course I must digress and con­fess that the day since our depar­ture has been, well, all too event­ful. Poor Avery came home from our morn­ing excur­sion on the beach say­ing, “I’m just not feel­ing my best,” and I could hear its echo from sum­mers past. Not one sum­mer pass­es with­out her Twen­ty-Four Hours of Doom, char­ac­ter­ized by a rea­son­less, low or high, sum­mer fever. Thank good­ness the Fates chose our depar­ture day rather than our arrival day for her short-lived malaise. So she has spent the day hud­dled up in the car or on her bed, suf­fer­ing brave­ly. But I’m get­ting ahead of myself.

We hopped on the fer­ry at Bay Shore on a hot, hazy Fri­day. After buy­ing our tick­ets, we suc­cumbed to fried moz­zarel­la and Cajun fries at Nick­y’s Clam Bar, and so should you! The fry guy behind the counter said, “I’ll trade you all that stuff for that cake you got there in your bag,” ges­tur­ing to my lemon bars, a present for Alyssa and fam­i­ly. “I can’t do that, but I’ll pay you,” I said, and then when he gave us our food, I cut off a brown­ie-sized piece of lemon bar and gave it to him. “You did­n’t need to do that! I was just jok­ing!” he blus­tered in embar­rass­ment, so I waved and went on to eat our fried treats. After them, how­ev­er, I craved a piece of pep­per­mint gum, so back I went to Nick­y’s, and bought my gum. “You’re the lady… that was the BEST THING I ever ate!” he explod­ed. “I’ll buy you that gum! You sure did­n’t need to do that! You have the best weekend!”

On the fer­ry we were sur­round­ed by peo­ple much younger, much more tanned, much more care­free than we, but no one else had Avery, and no one else was going to stay with Alyssa, so too bad for them! No sun­block, of course, which turned out to be the watch­word of the day and John and I emerged that evening quite hot-faced. Avery, for some rea­son, is nev­er sun­burned. Ever. Every­one, includ­ing the Mad Dog Leila, met us at the fer­ry, and we schlepped our scant belong­ings home, remem­ber­ing the small, dear, grassy side­walks, no cars! Bicy­cles every­where, rid­den by the most eclec­tic group of peo­ple you can imag­ine: fake William F. Buck­ley, Jrs., fake Hen­ry Louise Gates, Jrs., real hip­pies, gay cou­ples of both sex­es walk­ing every sort of dog under the sun, chil­dren run­ning each oth­er off the path, old peo­ple car­ry­ing small string bags of pro­vi­sions from the mar­ket. To their house, white walls, win­dows every­where, easy fur­ni­ture, an open kitchen, and a Jacuzzi!

I had brought mac­a­roni and cheese and sausages for lunch, so we imme­di­ate­ly tucked in. Annabelle, Avery’s friend since they were 2 1/2, seemed momen­tar­i­ly shy with us, but I soon real­ized it was the very same brand of teenage (almost) reserve and wait-and-see that Avery and her Lon­don friends show. They share a qui­et enjoy­ment in each oth­er’s com­pa­ny, a rela­tion­ship they both describe as “sort of cousins.” Cousins in the non-voli­tion­al mode of friend­ship: their moth­ers are best friend­s/­would-be sis­ters, so they are cousins! Plus, hap­pi­ly, they gen­uine­ly like each oth­er, in the ran­dom, gen­er­al way peo­ple do when thrown togeth­er for fun, twice a year. Gone is the Elliot ver­sion of friend­ship, which with John man­i­fests itself in being upside down most of the time, alter­nate­ly crack­ing up and threat­en­ing to cry! We all remem­bered the duel of all duels, which involved Elliot being wrapped by John in duct tape and… end­ed in the t‑shirt Elliot was wear­ing hav­ing to be CUT OFF with scis­sors. Men­tal note: nev­er duct tape a child, even dressed.

We trooped down to the beach and installed our­selves with every con­ve­nience: all the beach chairs Steve had valiant­ly car­ried against the mas­sive winds (“no umbrel­las TODAY!” Elliot announced with lit­tle-boy rel­ish at crazy weath­er), shov­els to dig with, Leila and her leash, snacks and water and tow­els. John imme­di­ate­ly dis­re­gard­ed the notices against swim­ming and took both girls with him. I pan­icked and wet-blan­ket­ed until final­ly John said defin­i­tive­ly, “Don’t be a killjoy,” which put the fear of God in me: I nev­er want to be a killjoy! So I went swim­ming too. The intense­ly salty water, putting what you get in an oys­ter shell to shame! The sheer fear of being over­whelmed by a wave, remem­ber­ing to duck if you just want­ed to wait it our rather than RIDE it out! The float­ing, mag­i­cal feel­ing of buoy­an­cy and wild­ness. I take so few risks in my life these days that the feel­ing I might be swept away in clear view of my hus­band and child was quite exhilarating!

A long walk the length of the beach, watch­ing a kiteglid­er per­form amaz­ing feats. So I decid­ed to per­form my own amaz­ing feats, join­ing the girls in cart­wheels. I should have stopped there, but no, Annabelle and Avery, with ves­ti­gial mem­o­ries of their child­hood with me in the park in New York, chant­ed, “Front walkover, front walkover!” Well, the first one land­ed me on my bum, the sec­ond one scarce­ly bet­ter and the third: injured some use­ful ten­don in the bot­tom of my foot! Limp­ing still, how embarrassing.

We all took turns in the addic­tive out­door show­er! The next fea­ture of Red Gate Farm, John promis­es. Where to put it, next sum­mer? There is some­thing about show­er­ing under the real live sky that is quite poet­ic and won­der­ful, ris­ing far above mere sham­poo and con­di­tion­er. Gor­geous. Then to town, Alyssa, John and me on foot, the girls and Elliot tak­ing an inde­pen­dent route on their bikes. “I’m not sure I remem­ber how to do this!” Avery qua­vered, waver­ing slight­ly on her bor­rowed bike. “Sure you can,” John said non­cha­lant­ly, “it’s like… rid­ing a bike.”

Slight delay (in which I had them all kid­napped, Alyssa say­ing briskly to me, “There are no kid­nap­pers on Fire Island,”) dur­ing which it tran­spired Elliot had fall­en off his bike. Annabelle came run­ning up to us, pant­i­ng out the sto­ry. “He fell in front of the mar­ket, and a nice lady came out and asked if she could help, and we intro­duced our­selves, and she asked Avery if she was stay­ing here, and Avery said no, just a night before she went back to Lon­don, and then the lady said, ‘Is your moth­er Kris­ten? Tell her I said hi, from the PS 234 Book Fair.’ ”

Does­n’t that take the cake? Of course she is an old friend who worked with me on the Book Fair and then took over the chair­ship when we moved. Just proves my long-held belief in not mis­be­hav­ing because if you do, the lady at the mar­ket giv­ing a band-aid to your friend’s son will see you doing it. Or close enough.

Cri­sis avert­ed, we cruised the town of Seav­iew, buy­ing plen­ty of can­dy, scop­ing out all the sweat­shirts we’d buy if need­ed anoth­er sweat­shirt even SLIGHT­LY more than we need a hole in the head. Gaz­ing at all the bars, the “LIVE MUSIC TO-NITE” signs, the testos­terone-poi­soned young men and smok­ing young ladies, toss­ing their hair… “Did you ever have a bar sum­mer?” I asked Alyssa, and we real­ized that we as adults missed that par­tic­u­lar joy, hav­ing been mat­ed up with our to-be hus­bands very, very young. And nev­er looked back. Well, almost never.

Home in a leisure­ly fash­ion, try­ing to read the clouds as they scud­ded over the dunes, the town, the ocean. Would it rain? Would Hur­ri­cane Bill show his face? The girls jumped into the hot tub, albeit only warm, and Elliot raced around with the hose, threat­en­ing them. The dog barked wild­ly, we poured cock­tails and ate my new favorite treat, Had­don House Tomo­lives, although where I’ll ever find them again, I don’t know: they’re pick­led tiny toma­toes! We feast­ed on bar­be­cued sala­mi, cut in nice thick slices, hot and spicy, and then chick­en and flank steak faji­tas with grilled pep­pers and onions: HEAV­EN! A brief attempt to eat out­side, and then when we real­ized our chil­dren were don­ning sweaters in the blaz­ing heat to avoid the mos­qui­toes! we moved inside.

The culi­nary rev­e­la­tion of the weekend?

Alyssa’s Parme­san Corn
(2 ears per per­son, this recipe serves 4 easily)

8 ears sweet­corn, bro­ken in half
1/2 cup parme­san, grated
1/2 cup (1 stick) but­ter, melted
pinch sea salt

Drop the corn in boil­ing water and cook for 4 min­utes, then drain and toss with the cheese, but­ter and salt. Per­fec­tion, glut­tony and indulgence.

*********************

What does it take to be a tru­ly tal­ent­ed host­ess? I can describe Alyssa. She makes it seem as if her great­est joy would be some­thing she could do for you, and it would be effort­less. Tow­els, food, cold drinks, books you did­n’t even know you want­ed to read, all appear in your hands, while she dis­pens­es her typ­i­cal New York­er wis­dom on all cur­rent events, food fads, upcom­ing weath­er, find­ing time to tell you what already knew: name­ly how remark­able, nay UNIQUE your child is, out­strip­ping even her wildest expec­ta­tions as to how remark­able your child would turn out. When she went off to the mar­ket on an emer­gency bike ride for a toma­to, she called to Avery, “Want to come?” and my heart sim­ply melt­ed with joy at hear­ing their non-stop chat­ter as they rode away. Not every­one can treat a child with such unself­con­scious warmth. It’s all done with com­plete relax­ation and love and ease. A true tal­ent. It’s why I love her.

We stayed up to look at pic­tures of mutu­al friends grown far too tall, on Alyssa’s com­put­er, the girls and Elliot crow­ing in dis­be­lief. “THAT’S DUN­CAN??” They all tucked into Alyssa’s peanut but­ter brown­ies and ice cream and I acknowl­edged how sun­burned I had got, and John suc­cumbed to sleep. Would you believe that our stay put Alyssa on the couch for the night and she did­n’t MIND? That’s friend­ship. The girls shared a room, cozy like old-days sleep­overs. To think that when she was three years old, Avery was hap­pi­ly spend­ing half her week­end nights in Annabelle’s bed­room, while Annabelle was just as com­fort­able in Avery’s house. Just dear, dear memories.

In the morn­ing, I was the last up but Annabelle, and John report­ed his ear­ly-morn­ing hang­ing-out with Alyssa. Luck­i­ly I am a very secure per­son or else I’d be mas­sive­ly jeal­ous at his paeans of praise… but come to think of it, it’s only a mat­ter of who prais­es her the most, him or me! How love­ly to be with her. Out to the beach which we could in fact HEAR far before we could SEE it. The waves much, much high­er than Fri­day, pro­hib­i­tive­ly so in fact, I can­not imag­ine swim­ming. But I got some won­der­ful sandy pho­tographs, although my mem­o­ry of this par­tic­u­lar­ly glam­orous shot of Avery is a bit spoiled by her telling me now, “I was start­ing to feel odd then…” The storm was com­ing in from the west, odd­ly, since we were expect­ing the hur­ri­cane from the East.

A real New York bagel brunch com­plete with smoked salmon, scal­lion cream cheese, toma­toes, red onions, a mel­on, you name it. Cucum­ber vine­gar sal­ad, all the New York favorites. Then the haul back to the fer­ry… and reluc­tant good­byes all around. Elliot brave­ly said good­bye to all his fam­i­ly and pre­pared to board the fer­ry with us: caught just in time! How I hate the watch­word of this and all sum­mers: “Good­bye!” I won­dered idly what it would be like to have a life where every­one I loved was in one place, where no one ever moved away, where I nev­er in fact moved away… how impos­si­ble it is to imag­ine, when so much of our emo­tion­al ener­gy is spent greet­ing, appre­ci­at­ing, say­ing good­bye, reac­cli­mat­ing, adjust­ing, antic­i­pat­ing. I bet if I did­n’t do all that, I could real­ly accom­plish some­thing. But it’s my life.

To Bay Shore and the Ital­ian Pork Store! I’m not kid­ding, it’s Frank and Mari­a’s pride and joy, and I acquired the most love­ly pork ribs and pork mince there, in advance of our din­ner with Jill and Joel (more good­byes). If you’re in Bay Shore, go there. Most­ly, it’s the name that made me hap­py. Tell it like it is!

Home in a tor­ren­tial rain­storm, via the mag­i­cal Throg’s Neck Bridge with its far-away views of our much-missed Man­hat­tan, with Avery doz­ing uncom­fort­ably most of the way, a slight fever mak­ing her mis­er­able. We were SO hap­py to pull up in the dri­ve­way at Red Gate Farm, and… get ready for the next din­ner crowd! But that’s anoth­er sto­ry. Thank you, Alyssa and fam­i­ly, for a sub­lime, unfor­get­table 24 hours. We’ll miss you, as always.