Year in Palm Beach (20 page)

Finished with our lunch, we make our way through the crowds to Hand's, an art and office supply store that's been in business since the 1930s. It's one of our favorite places to shop. The people who work there are always happy and helpful.

Pam picks up things she needs for her art class. She's started a painting of a bird. It's realistic and quite good. I purchase a one-million-dollar bill that looks quite authentic. Always good to have an extra million in your wallet, especially in Palm Beach.

I'm now driving north again with the top down in cool, sunny weather. What a simple, wonderful pleasure this is, driving around with the person I love. I don't want to go back to work yet. Directly across from the Ritz Carlton, I make a hard left into a small shopping area.

“What's the matter?” Pam says.

“Nothing.”

“Why are we stopping?”

I nod towards the shop directly in front of our car, the Ice Cream Club.

“Ice cream? You want to get ice cream?”

“Why not?” I say. “When was the last time we had an ice cream cone? Ten years ago?”

“It was in Blowing Rock,” Pam says. “That time we couldn't stop laughing.”

“Right,” I say. “And neither of us can ever remember what we were laughing about.”

I get a strawberry cone. Pam gets a chocolate chip mint, and we sit on a bench and eat our ice cream like little kids.

Saturday, March 6

We're working on the plants around the pool and talking. Pam says, “You know, we've tried to take advantage of everything the town has to offer, the parks, dining, dancing, cabaret, museums—”

“—galleries, exhibits, tennis, the ocean, the lake,” I say. “But we've still missed stuff.”

Even in Palm Beach, you can't have everything. I missed the Bob Newhart and Tony Bennett shows. I know Pam wanted to see the Moscow Ballet, though I'm okay with missing that one.

My thoughts are interrupted by the sound of the phone.

I walk inside and pick up.

“Dad, it's Samantha.”

“Who?” I say. I love the sound of her voice.

“Dad, stop. Quick question. If I come down to Palm Beach in a couple of weeks, are you and Pam going to be there?”

“Of course. If you're coming down, we'll be here no matter what. Is this a vacation?”

“I wish, but no. It would be for just two or three days, and it's not definite.”

“Whatever it is, we're here,” I say.

We talk for a few minutes, and she has to run and promises to keep us posted.

Monday, March 8

The morning is drawing to a close. “Are you ahead of schedule or behind?” I ask Pam.

“Actually, ahead a bit,” she says.

“Remember last March when we met Samantha in Tampa for the Yankee spring training games?”

“Yes, of course,” she says.

“Remember last week when we drove to Delray and had ice cream?”

“Yes, I do. Where is this going?”

“Well, it's another beautiful day, and there's a spring training game starting in about an hour at Donald Ross Stadium. Looks like an easy forty-minute drive north.”

Pam says, “Give me fifteen minutes to finish up here and let's go.”

I've seen dozens, maybe hundreds, of baseball games. My first game in Yankee Stadium, I was four and my brother Cam was eight. My father took the two of us, just the men. I didn't know what was going on, but I got hot dogs and Cracker Jack and orange soda. It seemed like a good deal.

We're here. I pull in and park on the grass, and we walk to the ticket window. Lots of good seats are still available. I buy a couple of tickets, and we're in. Easy.

The Marlins and the Twins are playing today, and our seats turn out to be right in the middle of dozens of Minnesotans. None of them seem to have any interest in the baseball game. These people are nonstop talkers, and their accents are straight out of Fargo.

One woman is loudly explaining that she doesn't know the name of the town she has been staying in all week, but that it's easy to find. I'm looking around for a wood chipper when Pam nods to an empty section, lots of empty seats. We slide out and walk up the steps.

“We're higher up, but the game's easier to see,” Pam says.

“And it's quiet,” I say. “I was not suffering those fools gladly.”

Pam and I each get a hotdog and a beer. It's the law.

We know nothing about either team, but the boys of spring are hitting and catching and running. As always, I think back over a lifetime of baseball games. What a relaxing, enjoyable way to spend a spring afternoon. The Marlins win the slug fest and we make our way to the car. No crowds. No hassles.

Driving home, Pam says, “I like going to spring training games better than going to games at Yankee Stadium or even Giant games in San Francisco.”

“Me, too, but you've to go to Yankee Stadium at least once a summer. Like hot dogs and beer, it's the law.”

“I know, but today's game seemed so simple, so uncrowded. More like just a game.”

Tuesday, March 9

Pam and I are walking over to Café Boulud for a special wine tasting event: Italian reds. It is never hard to get me to go out, but when Italian reds are in play, it is hard to get me to stay in. It's a beautiful evening, almost balmy. As we're walking by a tall ficus hedge, I hear a man's voice say, “Honey, you're not washing the car with bottled water, are you?”

I don't hear the reply.

I look at Pam. “Either a very big bottle or a very small car,” Pam says.

“What do you think it would cost to wash one of those giant SUVs with Pellegrino?” I ask.

“I don't know. That he even asked the question is very strange, even in Palm Beach,” Pam says.

Pam and I cut through the courtyard and into the lounge at Café Boulud. The tasting has not quite started, so we're just standing by the bar when I hear a man sitting behind me say, “This baby cost more than my Ferrari.”

I turn to see what this guy has with him that could possibly cost more than a Ferrari. He's pointing to his watch, and then adds, “It's waterproof to thirty meters.”

“Waterproof?” I whisper to Pam. “Are you kidding? Who's going snorkeling or taking a dip in the pool with a quarter of a million dollars strapped to his wrist?”

Thursday, March 11

The tomatoes are now living outside. I've been out by the pool working on them, trying to keep them staked up. As I'm coming in for an espresso refill, Pam is hanging up the phone. “Who was that?” I say.

Pam is smiling. “That, Mr. Myers, was your daughter.”

“And?”

“And she's coming down for a visit in about two weeks.” Pam is still wearing a wide smile, so I say, “And?”

“And she's bringing Jason, a ‘gentleman caller,' as she put it, whom she wants us to meet.”

“Oh my. A guy she wants us to meet? Oh my.”

“Serious, maybe. Interesting, definitely,” Pam says.

I head out to hit some balls with Todd. Pam's knee is still a little fragile so almost all of my tennis is with Todd, and he's beating me up. Palm Beach drivers are still making my walks to tennis an adventure. It's a volatile combination of the winter people driving way too fast and looking at nothing, the locals driving normally, and the tourists driving way too slow and looking at everything. But I make it to tennis unscathed, and Todd runs me around for an hour or so.

I thank him for the abuse and drag myself over to the Gatorade machine. I'm rehydrating and watching some guy out on the soccer field taking shots on goal. He shoots, his friend in the goal rolls the ball back to him, and he shoots again. All I can see is his back, but whoever this guy is, he has a very good right foot. The shots are not wrist-breakers, but they have some pace, and he's putting the ball right in the corners.

Carrying what's left of my Gatorade, I start the walk home. Passing the soccer field toward Royal Palm Way, I catch sight of the soccer player from the front. It's Rod Stewart. That makes it two for two on Rod Stewart sightings, but still zero for two on Jimmy Buffett sightings.

Saturday, March 13

Pam is supposed to walk a little more each day. She's still getting treatments twice a week and has made definite progress. We're out and about today, just north of the bridge, at The Society of the Four Arts grounds. Pam points to people milling around in the grass in front of the library. “What do you think this is?” she says.

“Some kind of fair or something?” I say.

We walk over. Homemade canopies and card tables are placed all along the edge of the lawn just west of the King Library, and all the booths and signs are homemade. “All of these things are for sale,” Pam says. “The orchids, hand-painted tablecloths and napkins, pottery. This is cool.”

The scene is decidedly low-tech and very old-fashioned, so we fit right in. Two different booths are selling only ladies' hats.

“I'll buy you a hat,” I say.

“A hat?”

“Yes. I want to buy you a hat.”

Pam starts sorting through the dozens of different hats, trying one on now and then to show me. She is being silly. I love it. A floppy light blue cotton hat with a wide brim is her final selection. It really looks nice on her and quite springlike and makes us both laugh.

We spend time browsing and people-watching and enjoying the spring weather.

“We've talked about it before. There is something nostalgic, something simple, almost quaint, about life in Palm Beach,” Pam says.

She is absolutely right, although before we moved here I don't think either of us would have put “quaint” and “Palm Beach” in the same sentence. But living here we have discovered a parallel, low-profile universe that is the opposite of the high-profile ritz-and-glitz that we expected to find. We've not only discovered it, we're somehow connecting with it.

Tonight I want to go to Amici. Maurizio makes me laugh and (what's new?) I'm hungry and thirsty. The restaurant and the town are still quite crowded, but tonight Pam and I actually recognize Jimmy Buffett finishing dinner at one of the bar tables.

Beth, behind the bar, is laughing because she sees we finally recognize Mr. Buffett. He comes to the bar.

“Dick and Pam are big fans of yours,” Beth says, “and this is the third time they've been here when you were here.”

“The last time it was raining and you held the door for us,” I say rather stupidly.

Jimmy laughs. He says something like “I was holding the door for her” and gestures toward Pam.

“They write books on the Caribbean,” Beth says.

This last statement opens the show. Yes, we all knew Bankie Banx on Anguilla and Foxy and Ivan on Jost Van Dyke. Somebody mentions Bomba's Shack, and Pam tells of her first visit years ago to Bomba's for a
Travel + Leisure
article. She admits she was a little surprised that the restaurant's primary decorating theme consisted of bras dangling from the ceiling.

We all swap stories and outrageous memories of the Willie T, a floating saloon off Norman Island in the British Virgin Islands. Pam, Jimmy and I are all laughing like a bunch of expats at some island beach bar. Except we're this sort of square old couple, and Jimmy Buffett is, well, Jimmy Buffett.

Sunday, March 14

This morning I was up early and set all the clocks to spring forward. I'm scanning the Shiny Sheet's special advertising section on “Health and Beauty Solutions.” I've noticed this section from time to time but have never really looked at it. I say to Pam, “Have you seen this beauty section?”

“The one with ads for liposuction and body sculpting and boob jobs?”

“That's the one,” I say. “But I was reading somewhere else the other day about adjustable breast implants.”

“Adjustable?” Pam says. “You mean you can adjust the size of your boobs to fit your mood?”

“I guess. And they also had six-pack ab implants, male pectoral implants, calf implants, dimple creation, nipple enlargement, and, my favorite, the Brazilian butt lift.”

“Instead of getting your butt lifted today,” Pam says, “why don't we go see the inside of one of those houses we walk by all the time?” She shows me a picture of the house in an ad. “There's an open house here today.”

“That isn't a house, it's a mansion,” I say. “Do you think it's okay just to go and look?”

“Why not? The real estate agent has to be there anyway, and how many people that go into these open houses actually end up buying them do you think?”

“Probably none,” I say, “and it'd be fun to see the inside. I'll have my butt lifted another day.”

A little after noon, we're walking up the impressive driveway to an expansive two-story white stucco house. At the entrance, double doors, arched and ornately carved, open into a two-story round foyer with marble floors.

Inside, the real estate agent, Stephen, greets us, and we sign in. He ushers us into a living room with a twenty-foot ceiling and more marble floors. “This, as you can see, is a serious house,” he says. “Notice the two fireplaces, one at each end of the living room.”

“Notice them?” I say. “You could fit a Volkswagen in each of them.”

“And you could easily have a cocktail party for a hundred in this room,” Pam says.

“Yes, it is a gracious house for entertaining,” Stephen assures us.

Across the room, two-story wall-to-wall windows and several sets of French doors look out to a flagstone patio, a pool with an elaborate fountain at one end, and manicured flower beds.

The rest of the house is just plain huge. A wide stairway out of
Gone with the Wind
rises to the second floor, but there is also an elevator, not a little elevator, a hotel-sized elevator. Upstairs are two guest bedrooms, each with its own elaborate bathroom.

Then we come to the master suite, which actually makes me laugh, it is so ornate and over decorated.