Year in Palm Beach (24 page)

I leaf through the books. Eventually I find several Georgia O'Keefe paintings I really like, and settle on
Blue Morning Glories
. I put a blank canvas on my easel, rearrange my paints, put fresh water in a little cup, and start to copy it.

It's quite difficult, but by copying I begin to discover what is actually going on in the painting. I begin to see it in a way I have never seen a painting before. I see the subtle changes of color, the difference it makes when the artist chooses to use a hard line here, a softer line there. I see the painting as made up of many strokes, not as the finished product. The three hours go quickly. I am nowhere near finished with my painting.

Friday, April 23

It's so easy to go dancing in this town. The Chesterfield has live entertainment every night, The Colony five nights a week, and during the season Café Boulud three nights a week, Café L'Europe two nights, and Taboo two nights. The dance floors fill up with people of all ages.

“It's Motown night at the Polo Lounge,” Dick says. “Want to go?”

“Great,” I say. “Dinner at the Taboo bar around nine? So we get to The Colony before ten?”

I'm not a good dancer but I have fun dancing fast. Dick likes slow dancing (as do I) but he accommodates me and dances fast with me, and even gets silly with me on the dance floor. Now that my knee is better, I dance fast every chance I have.

As we walk into the Polo Lounge, the band Memory Lane begins their version of The Temptations' “My Girl.” We find a spot at the bar. The dance floor is pretty full. We join the crowd and dance to the Four Tops' “Reach Out I'll Be There,” then Smokey Robinson's “Tracks of My Tears.”

There are couples in their twenties, couples in their seventies, and every age in between. The night goes on, and the band keeps playing. We hear the music of the Supremes, Gladys Knight & the Pips, and Marvin Gaye. It is non-stop Motown. Finally, we need to rest, and find our place at the bar. But several couples far older than us keep right on dancing, so we head back to the floor.

“We could've skipped the gym today,” Dick says.

Sunday, April 25

Rain is pelting the windows. We're in our bathrobes, curled into the corners of the living room couch, with tea and biscotti, reading soggy sections of
The New York Times
and the Shiny Sheet. Blanco and Duckie, who is back to her old self, settle on opposite ends of the couch and preen.

Dick starts laughing and looks up from the Shiny Sheet. “A man walked up to two women on the public beach and asked if he could pay them forty dollars and expose himself. The ladies declined, and the guy went away.”

“Was that forty each, or forty for the two of them?” I say.

The wind picks up. Sheets of rain pound the palm trees outside the windows. Dick gets up and looks out. “The street is a rushing stream,” he says. “Remind you of anything?”

“You mean like that day last August when we first saw this house?” I say. “Seems like a long time ago. It hasn't rained like that again until now.”

Around one o'clock, the storm dies out, the day turns cool and sunny, and we go out for a walk. We stop and rest on a bench just north of the bridge. It's quiet and the air is thick with the perfume of nearby jasmine. A small boat motors by.

“Want to walk over the bridge to West Palm Beach?” I say. “Somehow, it's never occurred to me before.”

“What about your knee?”

“I have my brace on,” I say. “And we can always take a taxi back.”

We get up and walk to the bridge, follow the bridge's sidewalk to the mainland. We cross Flagler Drive and enter a city canyon, high-rise office buildings on both sides. The traffic is heavy and the noise jarring, even on Sunday.

“We just walked into a different universe,” Dick says.

In a few blocks we come to CityPlace, a dense, multi-block group of apartment buildings, townhouses, stores, and restaurants. It's teeming with people of all ages, shapes, and sizes, on the sidewalks, in the central fountain square, in the outdoor cafés.

We window shop and people watch, go into Barnes & Noble, find a couple of books we want plus several cocktail-table books on sale. We carry our heavy load to the checkout counter. Dick says, “We don't have a car.”

“Oh, right,” I say. “How stupid are we?” We put the books back. “Let's get an espresso.”

We walk outside and find a café. “How's your knee?” Dick says. “You okay to walk back?”

“Seems okay so far,” I say. “Let's try it.”

We make our way back to the bridge and start our walk over to the island. Behind us are tall buildings. Ahead are stately mansions lining the lake shore.

“That was disorienting,” I say. “Those tall buildings, all those people.”

“All that noise,” Dick says. “I didn't like it.”

“This is baffling,” I say. “How do you think we'd feel if we were in front of our old apartment on Seventy-Second and Third?”

“We went back to New York a year ago and loved it,” Dick says, “but now, I don't know.”

“Something's happening to us,” I say. “I'm not sure what.”

Monday, April 26

One side of our pool area now resembles a tomato farm. The tomato seeds Maurizio gave us are now healthy plants. Because we started the seeds at several different times, hoping to avoid that homegrown tomato phenomenon when all possible tomatoes are ready the same day, the plants vary in size. There are medium-size green tomatoes, tiny green tomatoes, and yellow flowers.

The Shiny Sheet continues to amuse us. This morning there's an article on Chateau du Puppy, a dog boutique, which is hosting a gala Champagne night and Italian buffet to thank its loyal customers. The customers may bring their owners if they wish. Also, a lady at Publix reported her wallet missing. But after a little searching it was discovered, money and credit cards intact, in a display of sweet onions.

We walk over to the lake. Two men are loading a Bentley into a van. Dick says, “Isn't that the exact same Bentley we saw them unload in November?”

“Even the cars are going back north now,” I say.

“It doesn't seem that long ago when they were bringing them down,” Dick says.

We keep walking. A woman startles us as she abruptly pulls her Range Rover over to the curb about half a block in front of us. She opens the door, jumps out, and goes over to a large hibiscus bush in the front yard of someone's house. She picks half a dozen hibiscus blossoms, returns to her car, and takes off.

“That's a first,” Dick says.

We find a bench in the shade and take a seat. There are a fair number of empty slips.

“Looks like the boats are going north, too,” I say.

Walking back home, we see Barney on his front patio, in his pajamas again, holding court. “I see the Checkers are finally coming home,” he shouts.

“No, Barney,” Dick says, “it's the Walkers, not the Checkers.”

He points at us. “Hah! You are surely the Walkers, but you are also the Checkers. The two of you are out checking on this town day and night, the two Checkers.”

There is no point in discussing it because Barney is right, as usual.

Tuesday, April 27

I start to unload the dishwasher. I hate putting dishes away in this house. Our one cabinet is jammed. I happen to love plates, and I think longingly of our uncluttered shelves in New Smyrna, with everything arranged. We left most of the plates there, but still we have too many here. I open the cabinet and study everything.

Cabinets can't get bigger, but stuff can go away. I pick two of my favorite dinner plates, two colorful plates good for around the pool, two sandwich or salad plates, two soup bowls. Everything else I put in a carton. I go find Dick.

“I've solved part of the kitchen space problem,” I say. “Come look.”

He follows me into the kitchen. I show him the cabinet. “Okay to just live with these? When guests come, we mostly go out. If we stay in, the plates won't match. Who cares?”

“This is good,” Dick says. “But are you okay not using the china you love?” Dick says.

“Well, I'll kind of miss it. But I've already learned to live without all the plates we left in New Smyrna. Anyway, it's not permanent. We'll be back there soon.”

Thursday, April 29

It's noon. I'm racing to finish up copy for a technical manual. It's been a boring bear of a project. Dick comes into my office.

“How are you doing?” he says.

“I'm just about done, another twenty minutes,” I say. Then I say, “Actually, I'm really done. I hated writing that manual.”

“So, let's get out of here for a couple of days.”

“I have my art class,” I say.

“So, we'll go tomorrow morning.”

“Go where?”

“I don't know. I'll find a place.”

“Actually, that sounds delightful,” I say. “But I don't know about leaving Duckie.”

“Duckie is fine now. Go to your art class,” Dick says. “I'll figure something out.”

I go to class, work on my copy of a Georgia O'Keefe flower, come home.

Dick says, “It took a while, but I found a simple place in the Keys; they have room for us for the weekend. Duckie and Blanco have reservations at the vet.”

“Where are we going?” I say.

“Island Bay Resort on Islamorada Key.” He shows me the website. “I think it's less than three hours from here,” he says. “Each room has a little kitchen and a charcoal grill outside. I thought we'd bring our food, make a pasta sauce one night, grill out the next.”

“Perfect,” I say.

Friday, April 30

We drop off the birds, head south to the Keys, arrive at Island Bay around two. Numerous palm trees create an overhead canopy of palm fronds and lots of shade. Hammocks hang here and there. Ten units are set along a gravel driveway that ends at the bay. We luck out and get the only one directly facing the water. It's a charming single room with a tiny kitchen and two porches.

Unpacking doesn't take long. We have almost no clothes, just food. We take an afternoon walk, sit in a double chaise by the dock and look out to distant flat, green islands. We read together in a hammock.

The evening comes, and Dick puts on Peter Cetera and makes a pasta sauce, opens a bottle of Amarone. I make a salad. We dine on one of our little private porches.

“A walk?” Dick says.

“Lovely idea,” I say.

We pour the last of the wine into our glasses, walk across the small beach out to the end of the dock. The bay is inky black and still. There are no people about, almost no lights on along the shore. We sit down, dangling our feet over the edge.

Dick shines a flashlight down into the water, revealing a world of busyness. Schools of small fish swim by. A gangly,

long-legged crab makes his way across the bottom. Dick turns the light off and the water goes black. I look up and see a black sky studded with stars. There are so many it's hard to find the constellations. “Look up,” I say softly. “It's like one of those Caribbean nights, when the sky is almost completely filled with stars.”

We both lie down on the dock and stare up at the sky for a long time.

“Remember that time at Lake Tahoe?” Dick says.

The scene swims into my head. We were at a tiny motel on the north shore of Lake Tahoe. After making dinner, we spent much of the evening sitting outside, alone on the narrow beach, the mountains surrounding the lake a jagged black border to the star-studded sky.

“You mean when we stayed at that little motel on the beach and sat out, just the two of us, like tonight, and watched a sky full of stars?”

“Right.” Dick says. “And in the morning, when we checked out, we saw the sign that said, ‘Beware of bears, don't sit on the beach in the dark.'”

“Exactly,” I say. “Think we should be worried about alligators or something?”

Monday, May 3

Pam and I spent three days and nights relaxing in the Keys, reading and taking walks during the day, driving to nearby lunch restaurants for fresh fish, and making simple dinners. This morning, we had coffee out on the dock. Then we packed up what little we had left. Our luggage this trip was mostly food and wine, and it's mostly gone. Packing was easy.

Driving back to Palm Beach, I'm thinking about interior space. Pam and I just spent several days and nights, happily, in a tiny motel room. The reason, of course, is because we had almost no stuff with us. I think maybe the relationship between stuff and space could be getting clearer for me.

We stop and pick up Duckie and Blanco and are home by noon. I pull in the driveway. As we get out of the car, Pam says, “Isn't this fun to have almost nothing to unpack?” As we go in the front door, Pam says, “Wow, this place looks much bigger today than it did two days ago.”

“After that room in the Keys,” I say, “this is a castle.”

“It's funny,” Pam says. “I guess this space stuff is relative.”

I'm pretty sure she's been reading my mind again.

Pam goes to take care of the minor unpacking and to get the birds settled with new food and water. I go into the kitchen and quietly start making Pameleggs, which are fried eggs, over easy, on an English muffin with sliced tomatoes, sautéed mushrooms, and melted provolone. It's one of Pam's favorites, and I'm trying to surprise her.

She walks in the kitchen. “Pameleggs, great. Thank you.”

So much for the surprise.

“They're going to start ripping up Worth Avenue even more next week,” Pam says. “Did you know the redo is costing over eighteen million dollars?”

“I'd have done it for fifteen,” I say, and flip over the eggs.

“After Pameleggs, let's go over and walk the avenue. Maybe do some window shopping, check on things.”