Year in Palm Beach (31 page)

Wednesday, July 21

“Did you know there were German submarines off the coast of Palm Beach during World War Two?” I ask Pam. I'm reading the Shiny Sheet.

“I think those were rumors,” Pam says. “I don't think they were, like, shelling the beach here.”

“They weren't shelling the beach, but at least twenty American ships were attacked in Florida waters, some just off of Palm Beach.”

“I didn't know the war got that close to home,” Pam says. “Your father was in the South Pacific, mine was in the North Atlantic, and the Germans were a few hundred yards east of Saks?”

“Well, sort of.”

The phone rings, and I pick up. “Dicky Boy, it's the reigning Palm Beach bumper pool champion,” Henry says.

“Madam, I think you have the wrong number,” I say.

“Ha. How're you guys doing? Look, I'm working out August's schedule. What day are you moving back?”

I say, “We're not coming back. Pam's been elected mayor. We're staying here.”

“Okay, but just in case you decide to move back, what day should I drive the truck down?” Henry asks.

“Enrique, I think you and Michele already did your part for our year, using your truck, moving us down. You guys are off the hook.”

“Stop. Stop. Stop,” Henry says. “Look, my other line is ringing. Figure out the day and let us know. We're on it.”

Pam comes in. “Who was that?”

“Henry. He and Michele want to help us with the move back.”

“That's too much. They've done enough,” Pam says. “We can rent a truck down here.”

“I agree. We'll figure it out next week.”

Saturday, July 24

In the summer, Palm Beach is definitely on island time. It is warm. It is empty. Those of us who are here year-round are not in a rush. And there aren't many of us. I love it.

Today we are walking back home from the dry cleaners when Pam says, “It's warm but much too beautiful a day to go back inside. Let's just leave the dry cleaning inside the door and walk on to the beach.”

We go to the beach. Both of us take off our shoes and walk south for a while, then double back, leave the sand, and start walking aimlessly, enjoying the day and the scenery.

Café Boulud appears in front of us. “Lunch seems like a good idea,” I say.

“Lunch always seems like a good idea to you,” Pam says, “but I agree. A nice treat.”

And it is. Afterwards, we waddle out and walk west toward the lake.

Pam sees a small “open” sign on one of the few houses on the island that could be smaller than our cottage. A man in the front yard says, “I'm James. Please come on in. It's an open house and nobody's been here yet. You two are the only people I've seen.”

The house is immaculate and professionally put together, but it looks more like an exhibit than a house you could live in. Everything appears to be in three-quarter scale: the doors, windows, the rooms, the coffee table and couch, even the beds. It makes our cottage look spacious.

I bend through a doorway and say, “James, I don't mean to be rude, but are adult humans supposed to live in this house? Aren't these rooms a little on the small side?”

“Well, yes, this tiny cottage was built in 1912. The current owners bought it four years ago and did a complete remodel but didn't want to change the size. I can see the house might pose some problems for you,” James says.

“For me? This house would pose space problems for Tom Cruise or Danny DeVito,” I say.

James walks us outside. We thank him for the tour, wish him luck, and continue our walk.

“Maybe he could advertise that house at the Munchkin Manners dinners,” Pam says.

“You mean and find an extremely wealthy fourth grader.”

The sky is still deep blue and cloudless. The town docks are mostly empty. Pam and I amble north, then head east to the ocean. We have not seen another person since leaving the open house. We take off our shoes and walk toward home on the sand, occasionally stopping to get our feet wet in the surf, and then on to our cottage. I unlock the front door.

“Oh, the dry cleaning,” Pam says. “It seems like a different day when we picked it up.”

I look at my watch and realize it's four o'clock. “Well, it was five hours ago.”

Sunday, July 25

When an expensive mansion is sold on Palm Beach, it makes the front page of the Shiny Sheet. This morning is no exception. Pam says, “James Patterson and his wife have just bought a house on South Ocean Boulevard.”

“Do we know where?”

“Just a mile or so south of us,” Pam says. “It's next to a house John Lennon and Yoko Ono used to own, and it hasn't been lived in for a decade or so. It's not finished.”

“It's a fixer-upper, a handyman's special, Palm Beach style.”

“Well, yes,” Pam says. “Palm Beach style for sure. Not many places you can find a handyman's special for seventeen million.”

“There aren't many places you could find a spec house like that eighty-four-million dollar spec chateau either,” I say.

“Here's some more news you don't want to miss,” Pam says. “A store on Worth Avenue is having a special fashion show today, for dogs. The dogs are encouraged to wear their fanciest outfits.”

“There is something really strange about this town and all the dog stuff,” I say. “And real dogs look like dogs. They're not smaller than cats, and they don't wear clothes.”

Wednesday, July 28

The French doors are open to the pool, but the screens are closed because Duckie and Blanco are sitting on our shoulders, preening. Suddenly, the birds go nuts. They start jumping and shrieking and running around like crazy birds. Duck puffs herself up and starts making growling noises like she's going to attack someone or something.

“What is going on?” Pam says.

“I have no idea.” I start looking around for the problem. Blanco has run behind the couch, still screeching. Duck is puffed up, flexing, I guess.

“I see,” Pam says. “There's the fox again, standing on the guest cottage roof.”

Mr. Fox is staring at us indifferently. “I'll get a broom and save the day,” I say. By the time I'm back with my weapon, the fox has moved on.

I laugh and say to Pam, “Three months ago, Duck was knocking on death's door. This morning she was ready to take on that fox. The Duckster.”

Friday, July 30

July is almost over. Trillion, an exclusive men's and women's clothing store on Worth, is having a big sale. Pam and I decide to check it out.

When we arrive, the front door is wide open, a UPS guy is walking away, and two women are struggling with a cardboard box that is disintegrating as we watch. Water begins to leak out onto the entrance floor, and the two women lower the dissolving box to the ground to try to open it.

A gentleman comes to the front of the store, smiles at us, and says, “Oh, sorry, just step over here.”

We step around the mess and into the elegant space. “What kind of clothes did you order that leak water?” I say.

He looks vaguely embarrassed and says, “It's pasta sauce.”

Behind us, the two women, both laughing, rescue two plastic tubs of what looks exactly like a tomato-y pasta sauce from the soggy box, which recently held ice. “David, I'm going to put these in the refrigerator,” one of them says, “and then we'll clean up the mess at the entranceway.”

The gentleman leads us to a rack of slacks on sale.

Behind us we hear a woman (Tatiana, the co-owner of the store, we later learn) burst out laughing again. She's back in front of the store, trying to clean up the mess. She cries out, “David, the hose bib just broke,” and she walks back into the store from outside, barefoot, dripping wet from head to toe, and leaving a trail of wet footprints as she heads to the back.

The gentleman (who, it turns out, is David, Trillion's other co-owner) is trying not to laugh because he is with customers he doesn't know, but finally he loses it and dissolves into laughter. Soon we are all laughing.

It's July, business is slow, the store is a mess, and everybody is happy.

Monday, August 2

It's the last month of our year in Palm Beach, our last four weeks. It is hot, but there's the ocean breeze to keep us breathing. As much as I was happy and excited to pack up and move down, I don't feel as excited to be packing up again. I guess that's always the case. It's more fun heading towards an adventure than it is heading back. The one thing I am looking forward to is taking Pam's paintings home. They will go perfectly in our house.

Pam's reading to me from the Shiny Sheet. “Some guy was arrested in town yesterday driving his car on three good tires and a rim. He apparently didn't know his car was missing its rear left tire.”

“Maybe it's the heat,” I say.

We're floating lazily in the pool when an evening thunderstorm chases us from the pool to the bumper pool room. As I'm drying off, I say, “When this table arrived last December, we didn't know how much we'd use it.”

“I admit I wasn't sure about that purchase,” Pam says, “but it was a great decision.”

“You mean if we divide the cost of the table by the hours we've played, it's about ten cents a dance,” I say. “And if we can figure out where it would fit in New Smyrna, that ten cents will become five.”

I rack up the balls and we play a few games. “Remember when we first found the sculpture garden, found Winston and FDR?” Pam says.

“And when we first joined the gym and started playing tennis?” I say, “And Theo's chicken-walk thing at The Chesterfield, and the Ferraris, and our friend, the iguana.”

“And John Pizzarelli, Jennifer Sheehan, and the Royal Room?” Pam says.

“What are we doing here, a year-end retrospective?”

“I guess,” Pam says. “This is the last month. The year's gone too fast.”

“Well, one more month here,” I say. “Let's make it our best one.”

Tuesday, August 3

Pam and I are at the Leopard Lounge. The bar is fairly empty, and Adam is at the piano and singing. The restaurant is also empty except for a group taking up a handful of tables at the back of the dining room. It looks like they're having a celebration of some kind but the room is dark and it's hard to see.

Lou brings us a drink and a joke. “You hear the guy who owned the movie theatre across the bridge died? His funeral is Wednesday at 2:10, 4:20, 6:30, and 9:00.”

Adam starts playing “Second Time Around,” so Pam and I head out to the dance floor. About halfway through our dance, the music changes to “Here Comes the Bride.”

Pam says, “Let's go back to the bar. That must be a wedding party back there. We'll let the newlyweds have the floor.”

Back at the bar, we watch and wait. And wait. And wait.

“The newlyweds are a bit older than we thought,” Pam says, nodding, “over there.”

I turn and see them slowly, very slowly, making their way over for a wedding night dance. The bride, Lou tells us, is a young ninety-eight, the groom an even younger ninety-five. They make quite a couple, dancing slowly on the Leopard Lounge dance floor.

“‘Cougar Town', Palm Beach style,” Pam says.

The odds are against Pam and me dancing cheek to cheek together at The Chesterfield in thirty years. But wouldn't that be something?

Thursday, August 5

It's almost seven o'clock. Pam and I have been hitting tennis balls, and now we're walking home. Out of the blue, Pam says, “You know, it doesn't seem that long ago when we weren't supposed to trust anyone over thirty.”

“I can't even remember thirty,” I say.

“Even Samantha's looking back at thirty now. It goes so fast. I don't want to waste a moment of the time we have left,” Pam says.

“Where did that come from?”

“I don't know,” Pam says. “What's the James Dean quote?”

“‘Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today.'” I say. “That one?”

“Yes,” Pam says. “Let's try to live some version of that.”

We cross South County and Barney yells, “Mad dogs and Englishmen!”

“Barney, check your watch. This is hardly the noonday sun,”

Pam says.

“Don't care what time it is. Old coots like you two shouldn't be running around in this heat,” he laughs.

We wave and walk on to the cottage.

At the door, I look at Pam. “Old coots?”

Friday, August 6

I wake up this morning remembering Barney's “old coot” remark. Today is my birthday, but I don't feel like an old coot. I feel pretty good. The birthday does, however, remind me that if I live as long as my mother, I have three years left, as long as my father, five. Not a long time, but who knows, maybe I have twenty.

Birthday or not, it's a regular workday. We do quit early for a long walk and then have a celebratory cookout and a bottle of champagne. Pam gets my walker for me and helps me into bed.

Sunday, August 8

This morning I read in the Shiny Sheet that a woman from Houston informed the Palm Beach police she is missing a bracelet she had with her during her Fourth of July visit to the island. I can't help wondering if she knows the Greenwich woman who lost a bracelet back in November.

I have decided for the Worth Avenue transformation we should appoint ourselves the official Worth Avenue Renovation Excavation and Construction Kibitzers and Supervisors. The town WRECKS. We're on duty wandering Worth, checking on the renovations. The sections that are almost finished are beautiful. The resurfaced, widened sidewalks give us a glimpse of how nice everything will be when it's finished.

Pam and I are reminiscing again. Pam says, “Remember when you were looking for a hardware store when we first moved down? All you could find were boutiques and shoe shops and galleries.”