A Palm Beach Scandal--A Novel

by Susannah Marren

  “I’m so happy,” I whisper. Then at once there is the heaviness of Elodie and James. Of guidelines for their baby, but my pregnancy, not theirs, weighing down the world as I know it. I have to tell him this second, so he knows. We’re moving fast; he’s about to be inside me.

  “Tyler, please.”

  He rolls away from me, waits a beat. I can’t tell if he’s annoyed, frustrated, finds me a tease, too emotional. The Tiffany mantel clock, a gift from my grandma Renata on my fourteenth birthday, ticks. Christina keeps it running, as if my bedroom is a shrine of some sort, a place that can only turn back time. Tyler runs his hands over my shoulders.

  Everything would be much easier if he weren’t in my life, if I didn’t care. Then giving up nine—actually, ten—months of my life for Elodie wouldn’t be as complicated.

  “Please, make love to me and later I’ll explain.”

  “Explain what?” His bald head, sexy, lovely, shines from the streetlight that seeps through the blinds. He stands up, puts on his boxers, like a lead singer first on-stage—that minute when the theater dims and the audience pauses for the brightness to follow. “I’ll wait until I’ve heard you, Aubrey. We’ll wait.”

  I start feeling around for my nightie, as if the charm and seduction are being drained away. Tyler kneels down and picks it off the floor. I dress and sit up, missing him already.

  “Does what you have to say have anything to do with Elodie?”

  He comes back to the bed, turns on the lamp on the Biedermeier night table. We both blink, then sit facing each other. It reminds me of a breakup, a fight, a loss.

  He waits, the way my grandpa used to wait for me to tell him what episode at school made me cry.

  “Elodie and James. They want me to have their baby, to be artificially inseminated and give birth. My sister, she’s been plagued by infertility for years. She has lost babies, miscarried. You know about the last one, but there have been a few. One time the baby had no heartbeat. I can help her, I should help her, except there’s you. Us.” I look away, toward the wall that had shadows when I was in grade school.

  Tyler stands up, cracks his knuckles, walks to the window. From the back, he is an action figure on a billboard poster. I take the cotton-weave throw from the bench at the end of the bed to tug across my shoulders.

  “What’d you tell them?” he asks while facing away.

  I start rocking my body without meaning to, my knees pulled close to my chest. I visualize us not living together, moving apart, packing up a few things. Mostly I’m afraid of what it would be like without Tyler. Without his energy, his smile, the jokes he repeats—a tendency I usually can’t stand, yet with Tyler it’s all right.

  “I told them I’d do it. My sister—she’s been miserably unhappy, she’s been too sad for me to bear.”

  I go to where he stands, to touch his face. He keeps looking out. Then I hold him as tightly as I can. He doesn’t move. I try to lift his arms so they circle me. They seem unsteady, not strong and solid, not usual.

  “I feel for your sister and for James, what they’re going through. My sister miscarried twice before my nephew was born. Must be awful for Elodie.”

  “That’s why I said yes, because it is devastating for her.”

  “Uh-huh.” Tyler sighs, exhales. “Why didn’t you tell me what’s going on? I mean, I’m at the miscarriage point in this. That’s the news I’ve had.”

  “At first I thought I’d say no, then I processed it. I waited because it could ruin the rest. I was clinging to us.”

  I keep looking around my childhood bedroom, murky in the lamplight. “My body will change, sex will be different—it will be safe sex for them, for Elodie and James. I can’t drink—not that I do, but it’s forbidden. I can’t smoke weed or an occasional cigarette. Music can’t be too loud, when we are at gigs—I’m afraid I might have to leave after a short time.”

  “It’s okay. I wouldn’t drink or smoke weed or cigarettes, if this happens. No second-hand anything.”

  That he would do that, that he would care enough.

  “And be okay, in the world you’re in, the places you go?” I ask.

  “Yeah, it would be fine. I’d make it fine,” he says. “I’d start a trend.”

  We both laugh at that.

  Could he be this nice, this decent? The kind of person my mother and sister are always touting. Inherently nice guys are at a premium; sludges and goops are plentiful, easy to come by—wasn’t I always tripping over them? Until Tyler.

  “You’re being very generous, Aubrey. It is an undertaking.”

  “I know. Mind-boggling.”

  “Sure, it’s a lot. We’ll adjust,” he says.

  Out of nowhere, Tyler has decided to join me on this alien journey. I could warn him, quote the nurse practitioner about waves of nausea, fatigue, nights when the incessant beat of our bands will make me afraid for the baby, for my body. Instead, I listen to the clock ticking while he runs his hands across his head as if he still has hair there.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  He leans over and whispers, “I’m not going anywhere. You’re not getting rid of me that easy. I might not fit into this town, but I fit with you.”

  He locks his hands with mine; we’re entwined, shipmates. Only the two of us at an inlet where the ocean meets the bay.

  The kissing starts again. He is gentle undressing me, charting the rest of our night. A fierce longing begins, like nothing I have ever known.

  CHAPTER 14

  ELODIE

  Beyond the paned windows of the Literary Society, the daylight changes by early January. Some afternoons, like today, clouds dunk and rise, blown by the wind off the ocean. In the past few minutes, a rainstorm has churned up. Palm trees totter and people duck their heads as they hurry toward the main building. Two staff members are putting the finishing touches on the suffragette display. Pictures of Emma Pankhurst, Susan B. Anthony, Alice Paul, and Lucretia Mott are framed and mounted to the wall in the rotating exhibit area of the gallery.

  I watch mothers leading their preschoolers and kindergartners after Reading Hour has ended, lulling them toward the elevator on the children’s floor. Zachary, Katie’s son, runs up to me and taps my hand.

  “Aunt Elodie, are the dinosaur books okay for me to take out? Mom says there are more interesting books, but I like the carnivores.”

  “Of course it’s okay, Zachary. I know how much you like Tyrannosaurus rex, but let’s check out the herbivores today, too.”

  “Herbi what? Do they have names?” He looks up at me with his brown eyes. Although his hair is cut in a clean, preppy style that Katie loves, today it has grown out. I predict that Zachary will be brainy, alluring, and kind always.

  “Heribivores. They were plant-eating, not like the carnivores, who ate meat—meaning they ate other smaller animals. The meat eaters are Tyrannnosaurus rex and the Abelisaurus. Herbivores only ate trees and vegetables. They had names like Dracorex and, well, let’s see, Argentinosaurus.”

  “You know a lot!” Zachary claps his hands together.

  “I do because of you! I read up for when we are together.” I smile at him. “Come, let me take you to Elizabeth, the librarian, who will show you the new dinosaur collection. There’s a National Geographic book that has tons of information.”

  I try to engage Katie while she’s in deep with the Academy crowd. Their voices thud:… at the Chases, no, only the committee … Who is the chair?… Aspen, not Vail … a better kid camp at the Ritz in Cancún … the Arts and Media Ball, the Winter Ball … size 6 after months of dieting … Yes, Kors from last year … only a tummy tuck, Botox for the hair … a new nanny … They huddle near the foyer; a few are browsing the stacks with their children.

  “Katie?” I motion to her.

  She looks over at us.

  “I’m taking Zachary with me,” I say.

  “By all means.” She returns to the group, her voice louder. “I only worry with my hours at the hospital if there aren
’t after-school classes.”

  Ella Smythe, a disarming four-year-old, lingers by the classics stacks, holding on to The Dolls’ House, by Rumer Godden. I overhear her mother, Dorothea, discouraging her from taking the book.

  “You’re too young, Ella. Wait a year or two, darling. At least.” She holds a few Amelia Bedelias in her hands. “These are better for today.”

  Ella does the “good girl” nod and places her right hand on the second book. Although I imagine myself guiding Ella to the sitting area to read the first few pages of The Dolls’ House, I don’t have my usual level of small child/baby lust. I’m able to admire her while believing I, too, will have a chance one day with my own. I walk back to Laurent Hall.

  The thrill of this afternoon—where our guest is the famed transgender memoirist and poet Maisie Natters. I cannot believe she’s come to Palm Beach; I cannot believe that members of the Friends of the Society are welcoming her. Now that the reading has ended, women are piling into the reception area, smoothing their hair, reapplying lipstick. Maisie is off at the grand oak desk, ready to autograph, appearing pleased. I see Nadia Sherman from Palm Beach Confidential among the crowd. Her photographer is getting shots of the women waiting three-deep for their signed copy of Maisie’s latest poetry collection, Confinement.

  “Ever since you told me about Maisie Natters, Ah’ve become a fan,” Allison Rochester says in her Southern drawl. Her flowered dress is subtle, with a wide skirt. Extremely stylish, of course—in clothes that are not identifiable. “Ah want my daughters to know about her. Ah read her first collection, Labyrinth, and was astonished.”

  “She was my teacher my last semester in grad school.” Katherine Harrison, Faith’s daughter, joins us. We stand by the oak bookcases, which look darker with the sky dull outside. The rain keeps up. “My friend who was at Columbia with me is in town and we’ll take Maisie the airport later.”

  “You did it, Katherine! You coaxed her to come to Palm Beach,” I say.

  “Laurie and I did it—with you, Elodie.”

  “Well, it took over a year. And it’s true what I said during my introduction. Without you, it wouldn’t have happened.”

  I watch Laurie hover over Maisie, thinking back to the fall, when I miscarried at our kickoff reading. How warm the morning was on the terrace, how afraid I was that the guests would be distracted by the scene I made. Today Lara Mercer commented on it.

  “Elodie, here you are, no flu this afternoon. Wasn’t that the problem? Thank goodness you’ve recovered.”

  I smile that Palm Beach smile and move on.

  * * *

  Maisie’s silvery hair and black linen dress make her seem very grave compared to today’s uniform. Not that anyone is in brightest colors, due to the weather report—pastels are safer. Yet I’m attentive to style in another way—as if I’m seeing it through the lens of Maisie herself. Not about the dress code or who has the courage, as Mrs. A. and Priscilla do, to carry blazing shades (kelly green and hot pink) of Nancy Gonzalez skin bags. Women dress for women, Veronica has been telling me since I was six years old. Rather, I view it through Maisie’s lens, someone who has taken drastic steps to present as a woman. However the female journey occurs, I doubt many of us escape the demands of looking good, costuming ourselves as a message to the world.

  “Fabulous, so impressive.” Veronica appears. “A perfect day to listen to a reading, to be lost in the words. I’m expanding my book list, adding poetry to women’s fiction.”

  “A great idea, Mom,” I say. “You’re the one who encouraged us to be eclectic readers.”

  “Agreed!” Mimi echoes. She’s behind my mother, shadowing her. Their jowls have fallen exactly the same amount, although Mimi has had two mini lifts, lower face. My mother is into these odd face exercises, which she’s been doing on and off for years. Aubrey and I imitated her when we were alone together, sticking out our tongues and stretching our necks in front of the mirror. Then we howled at how ludicrous it was. Once, Mom caught us at it and said, “Laugh now, girls—wait until the day comes when you discover how little elasticity you have in your jawline and neck.”

  “Living in Palm Beach,” Aubrey added.

  “That’s right.” Veronica had bobbed her head.

  * * *

  A kind of hope fills the room as more fans swirl around Maisie Natters. What she writes about—women trapped in the patriarchy until they escape—isn’t very Palm Beach by any means. That women seem moved by her words, her story. “I am childless and motherful,” she read at the end of her presentation.

  “Veronica.” Adienne Lamsed, who celebrated her ninetieth birthday last week, puts her tissue-thin fingers on my mother’s wrist. “You know we admire your daughter when we show up for a transgender poet. I mean, isn’t that why we came today? Plus that suffragette section on display!”

  “The talent, that’s why we are here,” says Priscilla, who shows up for everything. She looks up from her iPhone. “Sorry, posting on Instagram. I’m writing, ‘We are hooked on poetry and talent.’ Hashtagging the Literary Society.”

  “We support Elodie,” Aubrey says. My sister has come in from nowhere. The rain must have gotten heavier, as her hair is wet and flattened to her head. Laurie notices and comes quickly toward us, carrying a clean dish towel from the Literary Society’s kitchen. When she hands it to Aubrey, my sister pats at her hair and neck as if she’s auditioning for a shampoo ad.

  “Laurie, thank you,” she says. “The rain, it’s loathsome.” She smiles in every direction. Her drenched dress is transparent; she is ravishing. Why is she this late?

  “You missed it!” Priscilla says. “The crowd stopped whispering, talking through, you know, someone’s lecture. They were wowed. And she’s trans. A trans poet and memoirist.”

  “We love Maisie Natters,” Faith Harrison says on her way out, back to Vintage Tales. Once guests leave the Society, they’ll go to her shop in this weather.

  Patsy Deller nods. “Especially when she read about women sleepwalking through life. We’re pumped up—it’s those lines about the patriarchy.”

  No one says anything, then Aubrey laughs. “That’s right. Exactly.”

  She looks at me and we exchange forgiveness. She to me for being late and missing the actual program, and I to her for asking her to show up.

  * * *

  Escape is in the air when Aubrey and I leave earlier than I thought possible. An elegant brininess settles over the entire island after the rain.

  “I bet there’s a rainbow,” Aubrey says when she sits down in the passenger seat of my Mercedes. I toss books and files to the backseat. “Sorry, I’ve just got so much going on at the Society, my car is a slum, or an extension of—”

  “Look, there it is! A rainbow over the Intracoastal.”

  We both look to the west. “It’s dreamy,” I say.

  “Promising.” She kicks off her Jack Rogers wedges. They are waterlogged and leak a little on the mat. I remind myself I’m not James and do not make a fuss.

  “Where’s your car?” I ask.

  “I went to Mom’s first, left it there. I came today because we should get the pregnancy test results by this afternoon,” Aubrey says.

  I keep driving. “You mean from Dr. Noel? Did you stop there?”

  “I did.” My sister opens the windows and starts Sirius radio surfing. Why isn’t she saying more? I should ask her the obvious—if she took a pregnancy test at Dr. Noel’s, or whether she did a home kit first.

  I peer at her. “You might have gained a pound or two. I thought with your dripping-wet dress that you looked, I don’t know, chesty.”

  “Chesty? Ha! Not likely.”

  “But do you know anything?” I ask.

  She stops at Bruce Springsteen blaring “Thunder Road.” A live concert performance with background noise. The song winds down and Aubrey starts fiddling and finds “We Gotta Get Out of This Place,” by the Animals.

  “Elodie, remember when Mom used to play this for us? Listen,
the lyrics are almost ahead of the tune. I was in third grade, wasn’t I?”

  “Aubrey, why did you drive up?” I pull up to the gate and push the code.

  “We’re waiting to find out the news. I wanted to be with you.”

  The news. I don’t say this has been on my mind nonstop, it is only the first go-round and we don’t want to be too optimistic. I don’t warn her what a tough way it is to live, waiting every month.

  “Oh, Aubrey, thank you. You are so good to have driven up for this!”

  The private gate swings open more slowly than usual. It could be the rain. The house that we grew up in looks tired and overused today.

  “We should know soon,” Aubrey says.

  My sister and I make our way into the garage.

  CHAPTER 15

  ELODIE

  Through the living room windows, we stare at the rain slashing the Intracoastal. The ocean is almost invisible to the right, the fog is so low. Aubrey turns on the wall sconces; the room is illuminated in a gold tone. Our parents, such fans of classic turn-of-the-century Palm Beach architecture, have used Jasmine Reese as their decorator. How our mother studied every lamp and side table, every shadow and pool of light. If I had on my blue-light computer glasses, the room would be deeper, a lime gold perhaps.

  “Creepy, isn’t it?” my sister says. “It’s not even five o’clock, and look at the colors.”

  “I know,” I say. “The weather is dampening everything, muting everything.”

  The rain pounds away at the house and gardens; the bougainvillea are drenched, soggy. In Palm Beach this heavy a rain is an insult. No one ever quite adjusts.

  “It’s really odd to be here without anyone,” Aubrey says. “Where’s Christina?”

  “I don’t know, probably at Publix, food shopping.”

  “Why don’t they use Fresh Direct?” Aubrey asks.

  “Why? Because they want to touch the fruit, push at the honeydew. Have you just met our parents?”