Year in Palm Beach (13 page)

Dick smiles. “Christmas tree decorations?” he says.

“No, no, no,” I say. “I'll just put them around the orchids in the yellow room.”

Friday, December 11

Santa's supposed to deliver the bumper pool table between nine and noon. I'm excited. I don't know why. It's just a bumper pool table. We graduated to billiards a long time ago. But I remember how much fun we had with that little bumper pool table in our early days.

At eleven the doorbell rings. The driver gets the crated bumper pool table off the truck and into the guest cottage and leaves. It's our job to uncrate it and put it together.

We get to work. As usual, opening the packaging turns out to be the hardest part. Assembly is relatively easy: just four thick legs bolted to the top. After half an hour and a few mild expletives, the table is ready. It fits in the cottage. Playing on one side could be a little dicey, even with these short cues, but it looks like there's just enough room.

However, there's no time to try. Deadlines are looming. Dick gets us a sandwich from Sandwiches by the Sea. We eat at our desks, work the rest of the day.

By six the office is a mess, with paper everywhere, but the projects are finished and ready to go. Dick carries the packages over to the Fed Ex drop box while I put the office back in shape.

“A game?” I say to Dick when he returns. “Fifty bucks I beat you,” Dick says.

“Make it a hundred,” I say, “and you're on.” We go out to the cottage, set up the balls, start playing. Or not. Billiards has been our game for many years, and it's played on a table over twice the size of this one. We hit the balls too hard. We're terrible.

“What's happening?” I say. “How can we be so bad? We used to play this game.”

Dick, the resident game guru, starts laughing. “That was a long time ago. We gotta slow down. Forget the bet. Forget the bumpers. Try the angles.”

We try to play, fumble everything. “Did we make a mistake to buy this?” I say.

Dick laughs. “We'll be okay. It's just going to take a while.”

Saturday, December 12

The outdoor thermometer is hovering around eighty. The sky is cloudless. I'm behind the guest cottage at my gardening table, potting some geraniums. Dick comes around the corner.

“Feels like summer,” he says. “Burgers and dogs tonight? Potato salad?”

“Great idea,” I say.

“I'm off to Publix,” he says. “We need charcoal and rolls.”

“I'm about finished here,” I say. “Okay if I come?” Dick drives us north to the store. Christmas trees are stacked along the front of the building, wrapped in twine and arranged by size. The air smells like pine trees.

Dick says, “Wow, doesn't that aroma take you back?”

“Ummm,” I say.

Not many people are inside and we're home in no time. I go to the kitchen and start boiling potatoes for the potato salad. The door to the living room is open, and I see Dick standing there, looking up. He reaches as high as he can with his right hand.

“What're you doing?” I say. “Measuring,” he says.

“Measuring?” I say. “Measuring what?” His hand isn't touching anything. Then I say, “You mean, for a tree? Are you thinking of getting a tree?”

“Well, I was just wondering how tall a tree we'd need if we got one.”

“Which would be?”

“Eight or nine feet,” he says.

“We gotta go,” I say. “There weren't many big ones left.” I turn off the potatoes. “But how'll we get it home? It's not like we have one of those giant SUVs.”

“We'll tie it to the top of the Audi. Not a problem,” Dick says.

I grab a ball of twine and some scissors, and we're off. Dick goes to find the man in charge of trees, and I choose one. I pull out my tree-tying supplies. The man laughs and says, “Boy, you guys come prepared. Most of these people in Palm Beach, they expect a miracle. They drive up in their Mercedes two-seater and expect to just drive off with a ten-foot tree.”

He gets the tree onto the top of the Audi and expertly ties it down. We cautiously drive home, branches brushing the wind-shield. Dick takes the tree to the side of the house. It won't be going inside until tomorrow. There's some furniture rearranging to be done.

Sunday, December 13

After lunch, we clear a space in the living room for the tree. Yesterday when we got the tree, we both forgot all about things like tree holders and decorations and lights, so we go over the bridge, find everything plus four poinsettias for outside the front door, and get to work. Dick puts the tree into the holder, and we arrange the lights and hang up the little glass balls. Dick places the two birds up high. The tree looks festive.

We are going to have a civilized Sunday at Café L'Europe, but first Dick and I have our third try at the bumper pool table. We're getting better. Even the annoying bumpers are occasionally becoming useful. And old memories are coming back.

“Remember when we got that first bumper pool table?” Dick says. “We had it in the end of that little living room in that funny house we rented.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I had no idea how to play. But then we started playing with Rick and Betsy.”

Dick says, “Remember how that first year the four of us played almost every other Saturday, sometimes until three or four in the morning?”

“Remember when Samantha was little, and you and she were playing, and she had your Dad's hat on, and maybe his coat? She looked like Minnesota Fats,” I say. “And remember when Lee and Ann visited, and you beat Lee badly. So the next morning we get wakened before dawn by the clacking of pool balls. We go downstairs, and there's Lee, furiously practicing his shots.”

“I still miss Lee,” Dick says.

“I miss him, too.”

I think of Lee, and remember how much fun he was. He was Dick's dearest friend since seventh grade. He died when he was forty.

Monday, December 14

Both birds need their wings and nails clipped again. Luckily, they now have their papers in order. I call Jay at Birds off Broadway, who tells me the woman who clips will be in this Saturday. He signs us up for eleven o'clock.

Somehow, in the middle of December, hibiscus, impatiens, ixora, and vinca are flowering all at once. Everywhere, bushes and hedges and flowerbeds are covered with blossoms. Everywhere, that is, except around our pool. Today, walking home from the dry cleaner, I see a landscaper working at the edge of the sidewalk.

“Hi,” I say. “Do you have any idea why the plants all over town are blooming at the same time?”

He laughs. “The winter people want flowers when they arrive, so we give them flowers,” he says. “This time of year we fertilize like crazy, make the plants bloom.”

Blossoms on demand. It seems nobody has time to wait for anything to grow in Palm Beach. I've seen entire yards ripped out—trees, bushes, everything, right down to bare dirt.

Then gardeners arrive with truckloads of replacements, and plant mature trees twenty or thirty feet tall, ten foot-high trellises of blooming bougainvillea, hibiscus bushes covered with blossoms, beds of colorful flowers, lush green lawns. Within a few days, the grounds look completely different, and as if they've been there forever.

Friday, December 18

A mixed salad is on the table, next to a covered plate of marinating chicken breasts, pounded with garlic. The Beatles are playing on the iPod. Dick lights the charcoal in the grill, and we sit by the pool, sipping pinot grigio and waiting for the coals. Dick bought more poinsettias this week and arranged them around our table. It amuses me we have a Christmas tree and red poinsettias for the holidays.

I start thinking about Aunt Jane, who passed away this year. We spent the last ten Christmases with her. She was in a nursing home a mile from our house. Dick or I stopped by every day unless we were traveling, and often the three of us would have afternoon coffee.

But Christmas Day was always special. She would wear one of her nicest dresses, and we would come over, bringing fresh coffee and cookies. We'd go down to the library, joining other residents and their families. I'm going to miss celebrating the holiday with her.

“It's going to be strange to spend Christmas Day without Aunt Jane,” Dick says. “I miss her.”

“Are you reading my mind?” I say. “I was just thinking that same thing.”

“Oh sure, copying me again,” Dick says. “And it's going to be weird not to spend Christmas night with Henry and Michele,” I say. “We must have spent the last five Christmas nights with them.”

“Maybe they could come down,” Dick says.

“I miss them,” I say. We haven't seen them since the move. Their restaurant has kept them too busy to leave town. “If they left New Smyrna by five or five thirty on Christmas, they'd be here by eight thirty. That's the same time they used to arrive at our house. Let's call. They could leave here as late as two the next day and still get back in time to open the restaurant.”

“Might work,” Dick says. He gets up to examine the charcoal. “These coals need some more time. I'll go call.”

In a few minutes, Dick returns.

“Nobody there, of course,” he says. “It's Friday. They're both at the restaurant. I left a message.”

Dick puts the chicken on the grill and we spend a quiet evening outside at home, with a half moon peeking through the trees, and the sound of waves breaking in the distance, and the occasional distant noise of a train.

Saturday, December 19

I get the birds' traveling cage out, and Dick and I take Duckie and Blanco to their clipping appointment at Birds off Broadway. It's across the bridge, in a part of town we haven't been to, but conveniently just ten minutes away. Rita and the birds get along famously, and we make another appointment for two months from now.

As Dick is driving us home, my cell rings. It's Henry. “Henry,” I say. “You guys coming?”

“We can't,” he says. “Christmas Day is a mess this year. And we've got to be at the restaurant early the day after. We'll miss you. But we'll get down there after the first. Promise.”

We chat for few minutes, then say goodbye.

“So,” I say to Dick, “It's you, me, and the birdies.” In recent years, Aunt Jane has been the only family member I have seen on Christmas. My sister and two brothers live in New England and like to stay there for Christmas. My father died over a decade ago. My mom is healthy and energetic, likes to travel, and spends Christmas on cruises where the weather is warm.

Dick's only family is Samantha and me. Samantha spends Christmas with her mom. Dick's mom died three months after we were married, his father two years after that. Dick's brother, Cam, was killed in a car accident when he was twenty. Dick was sixteen.

“Here's looking at you, kid,” Dick says. “It'll be fun with just the four of us. I hope it gets cold. We'll have a fire in the fireplace on Christmas morning.”

“We'll have to get stockings for the birdies,” I say. Dick gives me a look.

We're driving over the bridge, back to the island. There is almost no traffic.

Dick says, “When do you think the winter people actually come here? It's the week before Christmas and Palm Beach is still pretty quiet.”

“I was wondering that myself,” I say.

Dick pulls the car into the driveway and gets the birdcage out of the back seat, and we walk toward the house. “Look in the window. Doesn't the tree look nice?” he says.

“Yeah,” I say. “Now that we have a tree, and poinsettias by the door, don't you think we need a wreath?”

Dick rolls his eyes. We take the birds inside, drive to Publix. No wreaths. We go over the bridge to various stores, and all the wreaths are gone. Maybe next year we'll try earlier, I think.

Next year? Try earlier? What am I thinking? It occurs to me a florist might have a wreath. I call Flowers of Worth Avenue. No problem. One will be ready Tuesday.

Monday, December 21

It's eleven o'clock in the morning. Dick comes back from a trip to the post office. “You won't believe what's going on outside,” he says. “It's just like Thanksgiving. People are everywhere. South County's full of traffic. Cars are honking again.”

“So people are finally here,” I say. “I want to see.” We go over to Worth Avenue. People are walking in twos and threes and fours. Tiny dogs peek out from carriages and purses. Palm Beach is bustling. How did all these people get here overnight again? It's a little unnerving.

Dick and I hop in the car to get supplies from Publix before it's too late. It's already too late. The parking lot, valet parking, and all the spaces on the nearby streets are full. I tell Dick I'll try again early in the morning.

Now I worry about being able to get a haircut. Lena's the one person who understands my hair and she could be fully booked. Back home, I call Hair Classics. Adriana, Lena's daughter, answers the phone. “It's a good thing you called now,” she says. “I just got a cancellation for this afternoon. Otherwise, Lena's booked solid until the first week in January.”

Tuesday, December 22

“Listen to this,” Dick says. He looks up from the Shiny Sheet. “Twice last night, at two different restaurants, a valet parker brought the wrong car to a customer, and the man drove off, not noticing it wasn't his car. What's the guy thinking? Gee, I thought I drove my Bentley here, but I must have driven the Aston Martin instead?”

The phone rings. Dick answers. “Yeah, yeah,” he says. “Great. Terrific.” He hangs up. “Henry and Michele are coming for Christmas,” he says. “They'll get here around six that night.”

The phone rings again. The wreath is ready. We walk to pick it up. It's decorated with holly and small gold balls and a red and gold ribbon. It looks festive on our front door.