(Editor’s note: This article was originally published on May 20, 1996.) Janie Wilcox has spent every summer for the past 10 years in the Hamptons, and has never rented a house or paid for anything, except the occasional jitney ticket. In the early 1980s, Janney was enough of a model to become a sort of tepid celebrity, and the tepid celebrity landed a role (“the thinking man’s sex symbol”) in one of those action movies. She never acted again, but her lukewarm fame was established and she discovered very quickly that she could get her stuff.
Every spring, Janie went through the process of choosing a home for the summer. Or rather the choice of a man who has a house for the summer. Janie didn’t have money, but she found that it didn’t matter as long as she had rich friends and could get rich men. The secret to getting rich men, which many women never discovered, was that getting them was easy, as long as you had no illusions about marrying them. There was no wealthy man in New York who would refuse regular employment and leisure company without restrictions. Not that you want to marry any of these guys, anyway. Every rich man she was with turned out to be a weirdo or a pervert, so by Labor Day, she was relieved she was able to end the relationship.
In return, Janie got a nice house, and usually the use of the man’s car. She liked sports cars the most, but if they were too sporty, like a Ferrari or a Porsche, it wasn’t good because a man was usually obsessed with his car and wouldn’t let anyone drive it, especially a woman. The guy she’d been with for two summers, Peter, was like that.
Peter had a blonde haircut and was a famous entertainment lawyer, but he had a body that could rival lingerie models. They were set up on a blind date, although they met more than a dozen times at parties over the years. He asked her to meet him at his house in the West Village, because he was too busy during the day to decide which restaurant he wanted to go to. After she rang the bell, he left her waiting in the street for 15 minutes. She didn’t mind, because the friend who fixed them up, a socialite who went to college with Peter, kept stressing how nice his old house on Parsonage Lane in Sagaponack was.
After dinner, they returned to his house in the city, ostensibly because he had to walk his dog, Choo Choo. She spotted a picture of him in a bathing suit at the beach hanging on the refrigerator door. He had stomach muscles that resembled the underside of a turtle. She decided to have sex with him that night.
It was the Wednesday before Memorial Day, and the next morning, as he was noisily making cappuccinos, he asked her if she wanted to go out to his house for the weekend. She knew he was going to ask her, even though the sex had been some of the worst she’d ever had (some awkward kissing, then sitting on the edge of the bed, putting a condom on and sticking it in), but she was grateful he’d asked her so quickly.
“You’re a smart girl, you know,” he said, pouring cappuccinos into two enamel cups. He was wearing white French boxer shorts with buttons down the front.
“I know,” she said.
“I mean you had sex with me last night.”
“We’d better get him out of the way.”
“Women don’t understand that men like me don’t understand that time To chase them.” He drank the foamy coffee, then carefully washed his cup. “It’s fucking boring. You should do all your friends a favor and ask them to stop playing those stupid girl games. If the girl doesn’t break up by the second or third date, do you know what to do?
“no.”
He pointed his finger at her. “I’ll never call her again. Fuck her.”
“No. That’s exactly what she doesn’t do. Fuck her,” Janie said.
He laughed. He approached her and cupped one of her breasts.
“Maybe we’ll spend the summer together. Do you know what I mean?” He said. He was pressing her chest.
“Oh,” said Janie.
“He plants?” He said. “I love them. I’ll call you.”
When he didn’t call by Friday, she began to have doubts. Maybe he was completely full of shit. She called Blair, the kind of socialite who fixed them up. “I’m so glad you guys made it,” Blair said.
“But he didn’t call. It’s 12:30,” Janie said.
“He’ll call. It’s a bit strange.”
“Put a lid on it.”
At 1:30, Janie called Peter’s office. He was in a meeting. I called twice more, and at 2:30, his secretary said he left for the day. I called the town house. His machine kept snapping. Finally, he called her at 3:30. “A little worried?” he asked. “I called 11 times, according to my caller ID.”
They went out to the Hamptons in his new Porsche Turbo. Zhou Zhou, A Bichon frisee With blue bows in his knot, he had to sit on her lap, and keep trying to lick her face. All the way, Peter kept making his hand into the shape of a gun, pretending to shoot other motorists. He called everyone “fucking Poles.” Janie tried to pretend she thought it was funny.
Stop to refuel at Hess station in Southampton. That was a good sign. Janie always loved that gas station with the attendants in their white and green uniforms. There was a line of cars for gas. Peter got out of the car and went to the bathroom, leaving the engine running. After a few minutes, the people behind her started honking the horn. I slid into the driver’s seat just as Peter came running out of the bathroom, waving his arms and shouting, “You fucking Polish, don’t touch my car.”
“Huh?” She said looking around in confusion.
He opened the car door. “Nobody drives my fucking car but me. Do you understand that? Nobody touches my car. It’s my fucking car.”
Janie slid out of the car. She was wearing high-heeled sandals (making her an inch taller than him) and skinny jeans, and her long brown hair hung straight over a man’s white button-up shirt. She pushed up her sunglasses, realizing that everyone around her was now staring at her, and she certainly recognized her as model Janie Wilcox, and was probably starting to recognize Peter as well. “Listen, Buster,” she said to him. “Put a lid on it. Unless you want to see this bit.” incident In the papers on Monday morning.”
“Hey, where are you going?” he asked.
“Where do you think?” She said.
When she got back to the car, Peter said, “Sorry about that,” and rubbed her leg. “I have a bad temper. I explode. I can’t help myself. You should know that about me. Maybe because my mother hit me when I was a child.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Janie said. She adjusted her sunglasses.
Peter exited the gas station. “You’re so hot, baby. You should’ve seen all those other guys looking at you.”
“Guys always look up to me,” Janie said.
“This is going to be a great summer,” Peter said.
Peter’s house was everything Blair promised it would be. A converted farmhouse with 10 acres of pasture, six bedrooms and the perfect decor. Once they arrived, Peter used his cell phone and started yelling at the gardener about his apple trees. Janie ignored him. She took off her clothes and went out naked into the pool. She knew he was watching her through the sliding glass doors. And when I got out
“It started,” she said. “I think we should figure out what parties we want to go to this weekend.” She took out her cell phone, settled herself, still naked, into a comfortable chair and began calling.
Pravda nights
In early May of this year, Janie went to Pravda three times in one week. The first night was a concert by Damien Hirst’s Dead Cow Man. She stood in the middle of the room with one hip thrust out, allowing photographers to snap photos of her. Joel Webb, the art collector, was there. Janie thought he was cute, even though everyone said he had a nose job and cheek implants and was wearing his shoes.
But that wasn’t the problem, the problem was in his house. It wasn’t exactly a home yet. For the past three years, he has been building a large house in East Hampton; Meanwhile, he was renting what Janie considered a shack—a rundown three-bedroom shack. “I need a girlfriend. Set me up with one of your great friends,” he said.
“How’s your house?” Janie said.
“The contractors promised it would be done by the Fourth of July. Come on, I know you can think of someone to fix me up with,” he said.
“I thought you had a girlfriend,” Janie said.
“Only by default. We broke up during the year but come summer, I’ll take her back.”
Two nights later, Janney appeared on Pravda with Eddie Winters, who everyone was calling the hottest comedian in Hollywood. She met him years ago, when she was filming her movie, and he was a nobody at the time, and he had a small role playing a lovestruck bus driver. They kind of became friends and kind of kept in touch, talking on the phone about once a year, but now Janie tells everyone he’s a great friend of hers. Her agent at her modeling agency told her that Eddie was coming to New York on the sly, so Janie called his publicist, and Eddie called her immediately. He had just broken up with his girlfriend and was probably lonely. He said: “Jani, Jani.” “I want to tear up the city.”
“As long as we don’t have to fix it again when we’re done,” she said.
“Oh my God, I missed you, Janie,” he said.
He took her in a Rolls Royce limousine. His hair was dyed red in his last film role and he had black roots growing out. “What are you doing now, boy?” he asked. “Are you still behaving?”
Inside the club, Eddie drank three martinis in a row. Janie sat near him and whispered in his ear and laughed a lot. She actually wasn’t interested in Eddie, who was personally the type of geeky guy who would work in a video store, which is exactly what he was doing before he became famous. But no one else had to know that. It raised her status significantly to see her with Eddie, especially if it seemed like they could potentially be an item.
Eddie was drunk, sticking plastic martini swords into his curly hair. “What do you want from life, Jenny?”
“I want to have a good summer.”
I got up to go to the bathroom. I’m over Cabot Duncan, the bad Southern writer. He said: “Jani.” “I’m so glad to see the yew.”
“Really? You were never happy to see me before.”
“I’m always happy to see you,” Capote said. “You’re one of my closest friends.” There was another man at the table. Tanned. slim. Very handsome. Just the way Janie loved them. “Look, I always said Janie was a smart model,” Capote told the man.
I smile. “Smart and exemplary. What could be better?”
“Stupid and a model. The way most men like her,” Janie said. She smiled as she realized the whiteness of her teeth.
“Zack Manners, meet Janie Wilcox.” Capote said. “Zach just arrived from England. He’s looking for a house in the Hamptons. Maybe you can help him find one.”
“Only if I can live in it,” Janie said.
“Interesting suggestion,” Zack said.
Janie went upstairs to the bathroom. Her heart was beating. Zack Manners was the huge English record producer. I stood in line for the bathroom. Cabot Duncan came up behind her. “I want him,” Janie said.
“Who? Zack?” He laughed. “You and a million other women.”
“I don’t care,” Janie said. “I want him. He’s looking for a house in the Hamptons.”
“Well… you… can’t… have it…” Capote said.
“Why not?” Janie stamped her foot.
Capote put his arms around her as if he wanted to kiss her. He can do things like that. “Dump that geek you’re living with and come home with me. I don’t care if he’s famous. He’s a geek.”
“Well, being with a freak like that makes guys like you more interested in me.”
“Come here.”
“I want to have a good summer,” Janney said. “With Zack.”
Janie and Eddie left after half an hour, after Eddie had poured two martinis. On their way out, they passed Capote’s table. Janie stuck her hand into the back pocket of Eddie’s jeans. She looked over her shoulder at Zack.
“Call me later,” Capote said loudly.
