VINCENT: Yeah, but you didn’t identify him as such?
EMILY: Well we certainly didn’t stand up and start searching to see who it was. We were madly in love, we kept looking at each other and kissing.
VINCENT: I bet it was some old person who just liked the idea of your young love. But isn’t it interesting that you fall right back into the Michael Christy pit as soon as you have a drink?
EMILY: I know. Vinnie, what about that thing you told me about Ursula Andress coming to New York and Nico getting me into her movie and everything?
VINCENT: We will, we’ll have a small party for you.
EMILY: Oh, for me, not for Ursula, I see. And what’s she going to do? Say oh, you’re such a lovely girl I want you to star in my next picture?
VINCENT: You have to start hanging around fancier people for your career. Emmy, if I didn’t get my license, I’m going to be morose.
EMILY: Oh you’re going to get it, there’s not a doubt in my mind.
VINCENT: I really hope I passed, because I love to drive. For me it’s one of the great sensual pleasures, like brushing your teeth.
EMILY: Vinnie, I’m sure you did pass. The inspector said fine, didn’t he? He never would have used that word, it wouldn’t have slipped off his tongue otherwise.
VINCENT: That’s what I told Marsha, but she just passed him off as courteous. You know, Emmy, I love your stories about Michael and everything, but to me it’s just a sad love affair, sad because it’s a love affair that’s over.
EMILY: Vinnie, do you realize that we saw those four deer?
VINCENT: I can’t get over it. But why was it so important?
EMILY: It was just so moving, so unusual, so extraordinary. Remember when we came out here once with Nico and saw a water rat?
VINCENT: Oh that was so long ago, the Fourth of July weekend. My Nico’s coming back tomorrow night; then I’ll be a different person, mature and adult.
EMILY: But he knows you’re not, right?
VINCENT: Want to go back to the gay bar?
EMILY: No. I’m hungry.
VINCENT: You’re hungry too? I am starved. I haven’t had any dinner yet. You know there are an awful lot of people out at this hour.
EMILY: What time is the hour?
VINCENT: I don’t know. Are we glad we went out?
EMILY: I am.
VINCENT: I am.
EMILY: You’re not hungry, huh?
VINCENT: I’m starved.
EMILY: I’m so hungry I’m suffering.
VINCENT: There isn’t even a delicatessen out here to go to.
EMILY: I’m suffering from hunger, I really am, and there’s nothing to eat but cold chicken soup. I made a fantastic salad tonight — you want to hear what it was?
VINCENT: Oh God, that’s all I need.
EMILY: Cucumber, tomatoes, scallions and lettuce, fresh dill and blue cheese dressing.
VINCENT: Are you impressed that I got you home on time?
EMILY: What do you mean, “on time”?
VINCENT: In one piece.
EMILY: I’m impressed by you in every way.
VINCENT: We were very drunk tonight.
EMILY: You were — I was never drunk. Really, I swear to God.
VINCENT: All right — I’ll put it all on my shoulders: I was completely drunk. Look, Marshie left the light on for you. Isn’t that adorable?
EMILY: She left the light on and it’s adorable, except that that’s not her house.
VINCENT: My breath is so horrible.
EMILY: So is mine.
VINCENT: Yours is not, yours is beautiful.
EMILY: Vinnie, you drove me home.
VINCENT: Oh Emmy, I’m so exhausted.
26. MARSHA AND EMILY’S LAST DAY ON THE BEACH
MARSHA: I’m not coming back here next summer, you know.
EMILY: I don’t blame you, but where else can you go? You don’t like Fire Island.
MARSHA: Oh no. Maybe I’ll go back to Europe, get a house. It’s just as cheap. It all comes down to the same old problem, being a woman alone. I mean I’d love to get a place in Norway, which Clem Nye said was the most breathtakingly beautiful landscape he’s ever seen, but I’d go nuts by myself, right?
EMILY: Nuts.
MARSHA: And I wouldn’t go to some arty Positano or Spoleto.
EMILY: They’re so faggy and terrible.
MARSHA: Decadent and stupid.
EMILY: But obviously it’s not the end of East Hampton. A lot of people are going to stay on, the ones who’ve bought houses and made all that fucking investment.
MARSHA: They’re the ones who ruined it.
EMILY: Let’s quickly dissect what the East Hampton beach scene is. First of all, there are those perennial people who come out every summer, the couples with babies who have a certain amount of money, and when they’re on the beach they’re with friends who are just like them, couples with children, and if they have guests for the weekend, they’re men who bring their girlfriends. That’s one category. Then there’s the thirty-year-old woman who’s fucked around, maybe she’s been married, she has a house out here with a girlfriend and she’s beachcombing the weekend guests, she’s looking for a man up the wrong tree. Then there are the single men who come out here in groups.
MARSHA: I haven’t seen any of that.
EMILY: I’m buoying myself up here in the sand for great action, lest I sink. He’s not bad, this bald midget with the orange shirt and the orange cigarette.
MARSHA: He’s leaving.
EMILY: That’s what’s not bad about him.
MARSHA: Do you like bald men?
EMILY: My father was bald.
MARSHA: I didn’t ask you that.
EMILY: You mean just as a sensory thing? No, do you?
MARSHA: I’m beginning to.
EMILY: It’s a good thing too. You know Vinnie’s right about this definitely being a middle-class family, coupled situation. I think the real emotional, intellectual upper class are people who don’t group to begin with. But the beach is still a nice collection of people, basically very varied, very heterogeneous. It’s nothing like say Jones Beach, where people are strangers.
MARSHA: No, it’s a personality beach.
EMILY: It’s a party, with the pretense of being a beach, a kind of fantasy charade of people’s projections. Like when I see Keira walk by, what I see is a poster-flyer of his show. Look at him. He’s walking up and down like he’s at a cocktail party. He only makes contact with people to revitalize the image he has about himself. It becomes so-and-so, Painter, or so-and-so, Author, not so-and-so who may have problems with his wife. But you still very well might meet somebody when you’re out here by yourself.
MARSHA: Yeah, if there’s anyone here to meet.
EMILY: Uh-oh, there’s what’s-her-name — Merle.
MARSHA: Who?
EMILY: Philippe’s sister-in-law. Over there — to the left and to the water. Look, her kid’s crying and she’s giving him one of her talks.
MARSHA: Man-to-man.
EMILY: “We are all grown-ups and we must be mature,” blablabla. Don’t look. She knows enough not to come over here, doesn’t she?
MARSHA: Of course.
EMILY: Meanwhile she’s coming over. You’re what they call in piena vista.
MARSHA: Where is the water coming from?
EMILY: Probably the shithead’s giving me a spraygun. This guy over here’s got an erection.
MARSHA: All right, so tell me about the life you’re going back to.
EMILY: I’m getting sprayguns like crazy here. I may be lying down any minute, I have a feeling it’s warmer down there. You want to know about my life in New York?
MARSHA: Yeah, don’t you?
EMILY: Well, I’m going to get the money people owe me, number one. I’m going to hit class and hit an agent. I’ll see what’s happening, put out feelers, find out what the story is, go up for things. Meanwhile I don’t have a dime, meanwhile I’m seeing my doctor, meanwhile I’m thinking of getting a nine-to-five job along with everything else. Meanwhile I’m spending a lot of time alone.