Year in Palm Beach (23 page)

“Starting when?” Dick asks.

“Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? How long is it supposed to take?” Dick says.

“Due to be finished in November,” I say.

“For the rest of our year in Palm Beach, Worth Avenue will be torn up? There won't be a road there?” says Dick.

“Looks like it,” I say. “I wonder if stores will stay open.”

“We'd better walk there now, take one last look,” Dick says.

We walk to the beach, then walk along Worth Avenue. I've come to take for granted the peace and beauty of the avenue and can't imagine it being overrun with steam shovels and road graders and jackhammers.

Monday, April 5

I call the doctor today. Duckie is neither better nor worse. “Which means what?” I ask.

“It's probably good,” the doctor says. “She's fighting the metal.”

I feel sorry for Duckie. I want to bring her home and cuddle her on my lap. I give Dick the news.

“So, nothing to do but wait and see,” Dick says. “Want to walk over and see if Worth's really being destroyed?”

“Yeah,” I say, and we walk over. Sure enough, jackhammers are breaking up the concrete in the first block. The noise is jarring. Workmen are all over the place, there's a big crane, heavy hoses snake along the sidewalk.

“Guess this town won't be quiet again until long after we're back in New Smyrna,” Dick says.

We walk home past the town hall, a majestic building that has been meticulously restored. “Did you know,” I say, “the Preservation Foundation raised the money to restore the town hall?”

“Makes sense,” Dick says. “I see their name in Shiny Sheet articles all the time. They do a lot for this town.”

“We use Pan's Garden a lot,” I say. “They made that garden. Maybe there's a way we can give something back.”

When we get home, I check out The Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach website and discover we can become members for a small contribution. I send in a check.

Tuesday, April 6

Today the doctor calls. Duckie is eating on her own, has gained a little weight. The doctor wants to keep her for another day or two. For the first time, I feel encouraged.

Dick goes to play tennis. I go to Publix for groceries. Up and down the aisles, people greet each other and ask when they are leaving, when they are going north. This is our eighth month in Palm Beach. The time has gone so fast. The holiday crowds and February crowds are long gone. Now the people who spend the whole winter here will be leaving soon. The town is beginning to be empty again. I like how it feels.

I come home from Publix and am putting away groceries. Dick comes home from playing tennis and helps me unload the bags.

Dick says, “Everyone at tennis was asking everyone else when they were leaving, when they were going north. The question was tossed around almost as much as the balls were.”

“That's funny,” I say. “It was the same at Publix.”

Wednesday, April 7

The doctor calls, says Duckie is a little better, we can pick her up late this afternoon. We drive there, go into the office. A nurse appears with the birds in their cage. Blanco looks healthy and greets us with a chirp. Duckie looks almost as bad as she did when we brought her in. I am shocked and can see Dick is, too.

The doctor comes out and explains Duckie is better than she looks. She tells us to give her two medicines by dropper twice a day for the next three days, and to weigh her daily on a kitchen scale to make sure she isn't losing more weight. We drive home. Duckie's on the floor of the cage, looking more like a ball of feathers than a bird. She whimpers occasionally. It's a heartbreaking sight.

“Duckie looks awful,” I say.

“Yes,” Dick says. “Despite what the doctor said, I think Duckie could be done.”

At home, Dick uses the dropper to get the two medicines into Duckie's beak. The medicine is sticky, and Duckie struggles to get away. The little feathers near her beak and all around her throat are already plastered against her face from previous doses of medicine. She eats a little. We keep both birds near us for a while, then put them to bed.

Saturday, April 10

For the next three days, we try to get Duckie to eat and give her the medicine twice a day. Dick and I trade off keeping Duckie with us, periodically putting her back in the cage for food and water.

We are supposed to stop Duckie's medicine today, but she doesn't seem better. She hardly eats and hasn't gained weight. I call the doctor, who tells me to continue both medicines for four more days. Duckie hates the medicine, but continuing with it seems necessary.

Monday, April 12

Now Duckie has virtually stopped eating. She wants nothing to do with her regular food, and I can't entice her with her favorite snacks. She normally loves strands of pasta, and I made a little batch of angel hair. She tried a bite, but that was it.

This evening Dick is trying to get the medicine into Duckie's mouth. Duckie is fussing; she's miserable. By now the whole front of her head is covered with a hardened mask of feathers glued together from the medicine. I start thinking about quality of life.

Dick looks at me. “I hate doing this,” he says. “It's been six days. Duckie's getting worse, not better. If we can't save her, she shouldn't have to go through this.”

“I agree,” I say. “We're making her miserable. Let's see if she's any better tomorrow.”

In the night I dream of my father, one of those dreams where he's alive and well and we're talking. I wake up in the dark feeling as if we've just had a visit. My father could be quite stern, but he loved his children, listened well, and was often funny.

My mind drifts to the last week my father was alive. Dick and I flew north, got to my parents' house in the early evening. My father was shockingly pale and thin, unable to get out of bed. He had no appetite. My mother, of course, was distraught.

Soon after we arrived, my father announced he wanted to have “dinner with us at the table.” My mother and I were confused, but Dick intuitively realized my father didn't want food, he wanted to experience an elegant dinner, the kind the four of us had had many times over the years.

Dick went to the kitchen, rummaged through the icebox, and quickly assembled four plates with bits of this and that, nicely arranged. My mother and I set the table. Dick then carried my father from the bedroom and sat him at the head of the table, propped up with some pillows. My mother and I took our seats. Dick disappeared into the kitchen and reappeared carrying a chilled wine bucket containing a bottle of Pinot Grigio.

My father's eyes lit up. He said, “Wow! Look at that! What a thing.” For the next half hour, we all drank a little wine, mostly left the food untouched, talked and laughed, just like the old days.

It was my father's last real dinner. He died five days later.

Tuesday, April 13

Duckie won't eat at all and is lethargic. I have her on my lap, a few pieces of angel hair next to her. She whimpers occasionally. I rub her neck and tell her the story of how she came to live with us, how she had been lost in the woods as a baby, stared at us for a long time from up in a tree, then flew down to us, determined to be adopted. I tell her she's a brave cockatiel. I think of the people Dick and I have talked to at their bedside, saying goodbye, and I start silently crying.

Then I remember an event with Aunt Jane, who died last year. There was a time a while back when she had pneumonia and was too weak to move. I sat by her bed every day at the nursing home, spoon-fed her, held water to her lips. She got weaker and weaker and then stopped eating, rarely opened her eyes. The nurses told me she was shutting down.

I was sitting by her bed, telling her how glad I was to have known her, reminiscing about this and that, basically trying to say goodbye, when suddenly she sat upright, scaring me half to death. “I'm not ready to go,” she said. “I'm hungry.” I gave her some applesauce. She lived happily for another five years, and died soon after her hundredth birthday.

I try to wish this idea into Duckie and nudge a little pasta toward her, but she doesn't want it.

Thursday April 15

Duckie still has no energy but yesterday she stared at a piece of pasta for a while and ate a little bit. Throughout the day, she nibbled. Today, she continues to nibble.

As I drive off to my art class, I feel encouraged and allow myself to think maybe Duckie will make it.

When I get to my class, I discover my teacher has left for another job. Harlan is now the teacher. He specializes in abstract art. I'm trying to learn how to paint realistic-looking birds. This won't work, I think. But he gives me good pointers on the bird I am painting.

I hurry home, anxious to check on Duck.

“How was your class?” Dick says.

“Well, the teacher's gone. The new one, his name's Harlan, specializes in abstract painting, something I can't imagine doing. But he helped me with my bird.”

“Abstract painting,” Dick says. He laughs. “Your birds are beautiful. But maybe it's time for you to start throwing paint around.”

Friday, April 16

It's late afternoon. I come back to the cottage after some errands. When I come in the door, Dick calls, “Pam, come into the office.”

I rush to the office. “Look at Duckie,” he says. Duckie is on Dick's lap, enthusiastically eating a strand of angel hair. “She started to nibble about five minutes ago, then started eating faster and faster. This is her second batch.”

“It's almost gone,” I say. “I'll go get more.”

I return with more pasta. Duckie eats and eats and eats. Then she looks up at Dick and starts chirping. She struts back and forth across Dick's lap, chirping and chirping. She looks like she's happy to be alive. It's hard to believe.

“What do you think happened?” I say.

“I have no idea,” Dick says. “But it looks like Duckie may be coming back.”

Monday, April 19

Duckie, who is now eating huge amounts of food every day and gaining grams dramatically, is on the top of the cage, preening. Blanco's perched on my shoulder while I work on the computer. It's two o'clock. The phone rings. I hear bits of muffled conversation. I keep working. Dick comes to the door.

“A hundred bucks if you can guess who was on the phone,” he says. “No, make it a thousand.”

I draw a blank.

“Our landlords,” he says. “They're coming for cocktails. Tonight. At six thirty.”

“Our landlords?” I say. “They live in Europe somewhere.”

“Yes, they do, but they're here now.”

I quickly get up and start looking around the house to see if it's presentable, start fluffing pillows and picking up magazines. Dick goes outside and sweeps leaves off the pool area.

At a quarter to six the doorbell rings. Neither of us is dressed for the evening. I give Dick a panicked look. He goes to the door while I run to the bedroom and start changing. He returns with a stunning orchid arrangement, a present from our landlords.

At six thirty the doorbell rings again. This time it's our landlords, a married couple who are much younger than I expected, and quite charming.

Over cocktails they explain they never lived in the cottage but bought it as an investment property a few months before we rented it. They've actually only seen the cottage twice, briefly, and want a tour.

I tell them we had only seen the cottage twice, briefly, before we made the impulsive decision to rent it. It's nice to know other people are as crazy as we are.

Soon they are off to dinner with friends. At the door, they tell us we're welcome to renew our lease for as long as we want. They say they hope we'll stay for many years. We agree to meet again in the summer during their next trip to Palm Beach, before our move back home. They leave.

“Dinner here?” I say to Dick. “We have that pork loin.”

“Butterfly and grill it?” Dick says. “Then pile on mushrooms or whatever we have in the icebox.”

“Sounds delicious,” I say. We go to the kitchen to prep, with Peter Cetera, of course.

“So,” says Dick, “that's why nothing was connected when we moved in.”

“Right,” I say. “Our landlords never lived here. Somebody did a cosmetic fix to sell the house, but nobody ever actually lived in the house afterwards. We were the guinea pigs.”

Wednesday, April 21

“I just got our first e-mail from the Preservation Foundation,” Dick says. He reads it to me. “The Yale University Whiffenpoofs will be performing in Pan's Garden this afternoon.” He looks up. “Remember them?”

I haven't seen the Whiffenpoofs in years, but they were a big part of my childhood. My father worked for Yale, and I dated some Yalies when I was at Bennington. Their a cappella style is such a throwback, I'm surprised they're still around.

In the afternoon, we walk over to Pan's Garden. Chairs and a simple awning are set up, and refreshments are being served.

The Whiffenpoofs are dressed in white tie and tails, with white gloves. I expect them to stick to their traditional repertoire, including their signature number, “The Whiffenpoof Song,” the one about tables down at Mory's.

Although they sing the songs I expected, they also go on to do a wonderful job on The Drifters' “On Broadway,” switch into Peter Paul and Mary's “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” and on to Michael Bublé's “Haven't Met You Yet.”

We walk home. Dick says, “I was surprised they did such a variety of songs.”

“Me, too,” I say. “It was fun.”

Thursday, April 22

I go to my art class today and finish up another bird. Most of the students are working on abstract paintings, but one student is copying a Matisse. The idea of copying a painting appeals to me, and I tell Harlan I would like to copy a painting, but I don't know what to copy. He hands me several coffee table books of art. “Find something you like,” he says.