A Palm Beach Scandal--A Novel

by Susannah Marren

  “I married you because I love you.” James drags his chair to mine. It thumps, making a screeching sound on the patio. “I want children—at least a child. Life would feel incomplete without one. I know I’d be a great father, you’d be a great mother.”

  I cough, take a sip of Voss water from my glass.

  “I was just out of college when my father died. He was very dedicated to me and to my mom. I want that chance, that experience,” James says. “Look at you and your mother and Aubrey. Don’t you want to raise a child based on what you’ve had with your family, what you do for kids at the Society?”

  “What happened with your father is terribly sad. I know he was outstanding. You should be a father, James.”

  The umbrella over our table almost topples in a mini wind squall that’s come out of nowhere. I notice one of the bikini-clad women—a tourist—spreading her towel out on her lounge chair while the sun dips and resurfaces. Carefree, unencumbered. Why didn’t I at least harvest my eggs?

  What was I thinking—what were we thinking as a couple? I don’t dare acknowledge our miscalculation, that when we were first married I was pregnant. It was too soon, so James and I made a decision together to abort. Is he remembering, lamenting that my being fertile is no longer possible? Again the anguish of knowing I’m late in the game.

  “This is how I feel, Elodie. I want you that much, with children. I want to be a father.”

  When he puts his hands on my forearms, they are like bricks. I try to shrug away from him. He is supposed to talk about the value of us, a “running for office” duo. James is the husband who keeps trim and hasn’t lost his hair. I do my best between hot yoga and the elliptical, the Lake Trail with my mother and mother-in-law. My hair is so glimmery lately, it’s as if I stole it from Aubrey. Both James and I exude a calm. He should make a pledge about our life together working with or without children.

  “Elodie?”

  He straightens up, inches away, suddenly confused. Is he mistaking the lunch with me, his wife for better or worse, with a meeting at ANVO? There at his company, he gets to push for progress without opposition, without glitches. He brought ANVO to South Florida, where it keeps growing, focusing on the commercialization of drugs in certain areas of the country or why the research on inflammatory disorders matters. I profit from his style, his conviction at ANVO. His promises, from front-row seats to Bruce Springsteen on Broadway to a surprise long weekend in Nassau to flying Mario Vargas Llosa to the Literary Society after I mentioned my hope, happen pronto. Yet he can be humble, and when we are at dinner with friends, he boasts about my lineup of writers, not his latest projects. While James views most of life as a negotiation, I don’t forget his private side. That’s what I’m after, what I need. Which James is the one sitting with me at lunch?

  “I want us to have a child however we can.” He looks to the east, although the ocean isn’t visible from where we are. We hear the waves crashing.

  “So this is what we could do.” He stops and holds up his hand, reminding me of the crossing guard in junior high. “Dr. Noel said she’s performed thousands of in vitros with donor eggs and she’s arranged gestational carriers for couples. She recommends ART—artificial reproductive technology.”

  Our server comes back with the tray in one arm and does an overly dramatic swirl as she places it on the stand behind James. She begins to unload it, putting a small bowl of salad dressing and an undressed plate of kale in front of me. Swiftly she puts James’s already-dressed kale Caesar at his place setting.

  The outdoor restaurant is filling up. More women in Eres bikinis with matching sarongs tied around their waists are fanning themselves with their menus. Mostly they use their aviator sunglasses—in pink or rose color—as hair bands, pushing their long, spirally hair off their foreheads. Three women have small children and husbands who hold the younger ones in their arms. Maybe they planned their families together—a toddler and a kindergartner per unit. Did they have tummy tucks after their pregnancies? Or did they do sit-ups for months to drop their post-partum fat? I’ve overheard women whispering about both at the Literary Society. Fat that is earned. A grandmother—truly, she’s a “glamma”—looms to the right of the second husband. Her manner indicates that she’s been at a few outdoor resort lunches with her young grandchildren and their clueless parents. My mother and Mimi start zigging through my head. Everybody’s got something that doesn’t fit—Mimi’s warning against the illusion that most women are privileged and satisfied.

  “Jesus, what would our mothers say?” I ask.

  “I’m not thinking of our mothers, I’m thinking of us.”

  “Now that it’s on my mind, I can’t stop. I’m sorry. It’s that my mother’s Palm Beach side would try to hide the whole thing. You know how she can be and your mother is sort of the same. I imagine she won’t like this plan either. One day we show up with a baby and everyone says, ‘Wow, you weren’t pregnant. What happened?’”

  “Your mom is such a cheerleader for you, she’d make up some tall tale,” James says.

  As he points this out, I realize how deeply James wants a baby. How important a conversation we are having, how he is searching for a solution.

  He is staring at the young families about to order fries and hot dogs for their children. “Maybe we should go.” He starts eating quickly, while I can’t swallow.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  James is the closest to tears since the days when he first spoke about his father. His jaw is set, but he needs to be held. I get up from my chair and go to him. I kneel beside him and whisper, “James, listen…”

  ”No, not really okay,” he says.

  I rise and put my hands on the back of his neck, where his skin is warm and strong. He lifts his right arm and motions for a check. The manager catches this and races over, his blue-and-melon-striped tie billowing in the wind.

  A table over, two little girls begin their orders.

  “Chicken fingers and fries!” the first, who is about five, shouts out. She is chewing on her braid and her bathing suit looks sopping wet.

  “One burger! Two milk shakes!” The second little girl, who is possibly seven, also shouts, “Extra ketchup!”

  She holds up an iPhone and the younger one squints to see the screen.

  “Girls, say please.” The mother comes along in her sarong and bikini top with a towel in her hand. “Who is too wet to be eating lunch without changing first?”

  Our server looks into the distance, sighs. It occurs to me that she might not have any children after all.

  CHAPTER 4

  ELODIE

  “It is only a shell—a facade so far,” I say to Aubrey as we face both the ocean and the Intracoastal. We stand outside the scaffolds that lace together our house-to-be.

  “Yeah, but look at the view, Elodie!” Aubrey points to the west, where the sun is setting. Streaks of orange and gold mix with a dusky sky. “And a private beach!” She pivots her head to the east.

  I know she’s trying her best to cheer me up, remind me of what I have and not what I’ve lost. Along the shoreline, low waves roll in, scant and steady.

  “I know it’s dazzling,” I say. “Especially this time of year.”

  “Plus, the season is starting,” Aubrey says. “Mom and Mimi are making plans and talking wardrobes.”

  “You and Tyler should come to the Rose Ball at the Shelteere. As our guests.”

  Aubrey laughs. “Can you honestly imagine Tyler there? Besides, we’ve got eight bands to hear before Christmas and three festivals, including Rakaskella and EDC Orlando.”

  I convinced my sister to come with Tyler tonight. The allure being that the walls are in, so we can do a walk-around. As if she cares or covets any part of this five-bedroom Palm Beach house. How we choose to live has to be far-fetched to her, although familiar.

  “I know. But please remember you’re invited, if you change your mind. I’m glad you’re around more these days,” I say.

  Wheneve
r she comes to Palm Beach, lithe and lean, with her flowing skirts and flip-flops, the chic younger Cutler sister is welcomed. I’m back, up from South Beach, she posts on Instagram.

  “Maybe you and Tyler want to come to a black-tie or two, sit at our table.”

  “I’d like that, Elodie, but most nights, like I said, we’re with bands or singers—for the gigs. Tyler really can’t get away and I should be there, too.”

  “Sure, I get that.” I mustn’t push her too far. Except my mother and I want her in Palm Beach and she resists. This has been going on ever since Aubrey graduated from college; she never bought into coming back to this narrow island with its linear view of life.

  Aubrey tilts her neck forward, part sea horse, part dancer, to look at James and Tyler, standing at the dock. James and I only met Tyler at my parents’ house an hour ago. When he walked in with his frayed jeans and wrist tattoos, I watched my mother’s intake at lightning speed. I wish I had been able to tell her what Aubrey has confided in me, that she has found refuge. Tyler is kind to her and attentive to his work.

  “You are sworn to say nothing about him,” Aubrey insisted beforehand. “I want everyone to meet him and decide.”

  What remains in the ether is Aubrey’s known pattern. After three months she tosses a man out like rotted fruit, only to drag in another version of the same guy. “Fungible,” that’s what James calls Aubrey’s men. Until now. Tyler and Aubrey have been together eleven months. When he hired her to scout out bands in Miami for his company, Lambent Music, he was working in Los Angeles. There was no office and she was the sole employee. Veronica and I were astonished by how seriously Aubrey took her job, how determined she was to hear the singers, especially women vocalists. The night that he got to South Beach, they met at the Dance Room. Aubrey claims Tyler was splendid. At first they flew back and forth on weekends to be together. Then Tyler decided he could bring performers to Florida as well as find talent in the area. A few months later they hired four full-time people and took office space on Lincoln Road.

  Still, she held back from introducing him to us, tough graders that we are. I see where Aubrey is going with this, that our approval matters less than he does. That she doesn’t care if Tyler isn’t more sophisticated or that our family will judge his every move. That’s why I catch my sister’s eye and wink. I do the smallest thumbs-up ever, the kind I taught her when she was in eighth grade at the Academy and searching for subtlety.

  Aubrey does the same, smiling. The guys come close to where we stand.

  “What do you think?” I open my arms wide, convey the space of our house-to-be.

  “Wow. It will be something.” Aubrey pauses. “I read somewhere that houses are a big deal in a relationship. One of those monumental changes. A stressor.”

  “Totally,” I say. “Katie Kutin sent me these anxiety texts, because after she started building her house on the ocean, she thought she’d lose it. I take what happened to her as a warning.”

  “I’m not so sure that putting these ideas out there was friendly.” James sounds annoyed.

  “She’s my best friend. If she can’t express what happened with her house—the truth about it—who can?” I ask. “She was trying to help me.”

  “Right, but her work as a physician is grueling, Elodie, that’s a big part of it. Plus three children,” James says.

  “Not that Katie’s saving lives can be compared to cultural programming, yet I believe her experience was separate from her kids and her career. She said that building a house is a black hole.”

  James checks his iPhone. The sun streaks across the horizon as it sinks. Quickly we’re at nightfall.

  “How’s her little boy—what’s his name?” Aubrey asks.

  “Zachary. Adorable. Really, I try to spend time with him, since he’s my godchild. He comes with Katie to the Literary Society. When Katie’s on call—every other weekend in the ER—I sometimes take Zachary and Matt keeps the younger ones—with the nanny. Zachary’s five and easy—a book lover, too.”

  “Isn’t their new house like right around the corner?”

  I feel my sister’s question is skewed. Is she asking if we live on the same molehill?

  “Yes, two streets over; she’s on Kings Road. She says that once she moved in, she was enticed. Then chained to the house and finally it’s an albatross. With some strange seduction that keeps going.”

  “That’s grim,” Aubrey says.

  We can’t help laughing. The men look at us. James of the clean-cut, chestnut-hair, broad-shoulder brigade, Tyler of the shaved-head, ripped-torso, dissenter squad.

  “Hey, it’s going to be quite a house. Just like our digs,” Tyler says.

  Digs. There is a slight freeze; then James says, “Elodie, you’ve been to Aubrey and Tyler’s place, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, in October. When I had Columbus Day off. Mom had me bring duvets from Lucille’s on South County.”

  “Duvets?” Tyler asks.

  “They’re in the guest room closet,” Aubrey tells him. “I didn’t put them out yet. I haven’t even opened them.”

  “Although it was an emergency delivery from Veronica,” I say.

  Aubrey and I know what Veronica perceives as critical, including when one of her daughters is moving into a new place. James, too, gets her style. Tyler stands outside our invisible circle—he’s only just arrived. But how would he fit in? Will he ever fit in? He has walked into a period of our lives when James and I are filled with talk of kitchen cabinets, silent-flush toilets, or social aspirations and the ambushed subject: parenthood. When we lived on Riverside Drive and 101st Street with our dog Cupcake, an Airedale terrier, who could have predicted we would move back to Palm Beach within a year? I want to set my little sister free of any expectations—let her see where her life takes her. I’d like to whisper in her ear, Come and go. Be a visitor. Do not get caught in the web.

  Although I haven’t asked him, plausibly Palm Beach meant little to Tyler before he met Aubrey. Tonight he must be saturated. Before he had time to recover from cocktails at our parents’, a true Veronica and Simon Show, James practically dragged us to our house, which is not much beyond skeletal. Except for the square footage, coming in at eleven thousand, large enough that one needn’t boast about it, the size is obvious. The copious closets and vast bathrooms seem obscene. Somehow the contrast of our home in the estate section with Aubrey’s rental apartment in South Beach, decorated in Ikea, feels like we’re braggarts, show-offs.

  “C’mon, we’ll walk you guys around,” James says. “Before it gets too late.” James holds up a bottle of Chianti and hands me four plastic cups. With his free hand he dips into the metal storage chest. The workmen have stationed it near what will be our front door. He produces a battery-operated lantern and two ancient-looking Eveready flashlights.

  “Are those from Green’s Pharmacy?” Aubrey asks. “Dad had them in the garage when we were growing up, didn’t he, Elodie?”

  I nod. “For hurricanes.”

  James hands Tyler a lantern and shines his own over the scaffolding and property.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “We don’t have to do a tour. Does anybody need a tour?”

  “We’re here, might as well.” James does a circle of light over the Intracoastal. A jagged shadow falls over our faces. Aubrey, my little sister, is exquisite.

  “Right, right. Sometimes when we’re here, we can’t quite believe it. That we’re doing this. Building this,” I say.

  “What a house. Great for a brood of young kids.” Tyler points to where the grand staircase will be. “Sliding down the banister!”

  No one speaks for a beat. I imagine that my sister hasn’t filled Tyler in, given him the gory lowdown. I hold my empty wine cup out to James for a refill. He pours one for each of us. Then Aubrey clears her throat, takes Tyler’s hand. “Tyler’s right. It’s amazing.”

  Again no one speaks. I try to read Aubrey’s face in the darkness. Who could blame her for wanting to head to Sout
h Beach now, skip the dinner, escape.

  James holds up the bottle of Chianti. “Who wants more wine?”

  Aubrey and I shake our heads, like we’ve rehearsed it, while Tyler thrusts his cup toward James. James pours as if he is a dashing host and we aren’t using plastic at a construction site. A future where he’ll stand on our stone veranda, pouring Patrón into our Tiffany Diamond Point highball glasses.

  “Hey, good with me.” Tyler polishes off the wine.

  For extra light he opens the flashlight app on his iPhone. He and James are ahead, male warriors on a mission. I stare at the two men as they stand together, both over six feet tall.

  “We should be careful,” I say, avoiding the periphery, where one could fall two floors. I place my right hand below my belly button, as if I’m still pregnant. I tiptoe around, pointing to the scaffolding. “It’s rickety.”

  James places his hand on my elbow. Tyler motions toward what will be the sunroom and a guest suite. He asks in a boom-box voice, “Up there, are those the bedrooms?”

  The bedrooms. Including the nursery. Aubrey is watching in the dimness. Maybe it’s the first time in my life that she doesn’t seem in awe of me for anything. She comes close and slips her hand in mine.

  “We should go—skip dinner. I’m the designated driver.… Tomorrow morning we have an early—”

  “Wait, wait,” James says. “I’ve got one question for Tyler. About the audio system?”

  “Sure, I can recommend a few. Bose is great. People say you hear every nuance, every drumbeat.”

  “Excellent.” James is pleased.

  Aubrey and I are quiet. Then she asks, “What’s the architecture going to be?”

  “Well, it’s a new house, we plan to create it in the style of Howard Major—an early-twentieth-century Palm Beach architect,” James says.

  “What Mom calls ‘tropical classic,’” I say.

  I view us from Aubrey and Tyler’s stance. Are we nothing but a younger version of the Veronica and Simon Show? Why else build this place? Four blocks to the north our parents have similar views and their own double-vaulted entryway. James and I have been a team for this—geared to match the essentials, which include a library, sunroom, patio with an infinity pool, access beneath the A1A to our own beach and cabana. When I began planning the garden, the shrubs mattered. So did purple cornflowers. After reading four books on indigenous plants, I knew I’d stick with bougainvillea, yarrows, and beautyberries. Only a few months ago I had more zeal for floor plans and decor than I do today. Before the miscarriage.