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.