A Palm Beach Scandal--A Novel

by Susannah Marren

  “Fine, Mom.” Elodie sounds calm.

  A dampish air penetrates; the Carrier air-conditioning that our father highly values isn’t kicking in. I look up at the Arthur Merton Hazard painting beside the Antoine Blanchard. My entire life, I have known these as our mother’s selections. Since today is not a normal drop-by, my mind fills with doubts about snooping in their home, deeper doubts that our father isn’t our father. How could he not be? Don’t my sister and I have our height from him, our acrobatic nature? Our fingers are long like his; the three of us sneeze in the sun, not so our mother. When her hair frizzes in the humidity, Dad’s doesn’t, nor ours. If he taught us how to think, how to achieve excellence—and Elodie clung to those lessons more than I did—aren’t we his to teach? What about being disciplined enough to work out every day? He set the example with his fifty push-ups every morning, a habit from his army days.

  “Elodie, don’t you and James have some sort of plan for tonight?” Mom asks. Her voice for a millisecond is persistent and worn. Her forehead is not moving because she was at Demi Dexter’s office ten days ago and is freshly Botoxed.

  “Isn’t your night a busy one?” Is our mother asking why we are there?

  “James is taking Raphael, who works in his office, to the drinks part and I’m meeting them afterward, when Aubrey heads south,” Elodie says.

  “Ah, I see.” Now she is pleased that everyone is set in place.

  Elodie’s gaze is on me, then on the paintings. I resist reading my iPhone to know the exact hour. We have a tight plan if Mom and Dad would only leave the house. Another pang of doubt—we shouldn’t be doing this. Isn’t it obvious how our phenotypes (having looked it up yesterday) play out, how our family is divided—and it makes sense? I resemble Mom with our right-brain responses. Mom breezes in and out of events with her social skills on high alert; everyone calls her a delight. Few would say that about Dad, who is more remote, despite his appeal. I, too, like Mom, am on the friendlier, warmer side of the family; we are maniacal about pleasing. Not so Elodie or Dad. Elodie is left-brained, like Dad, a brooder, someone who stews first, speaks after. Neither is cozy but they are dignified. They’re both foodies, they know about wine. Why are we second-guessing? Elodie and I have made an egregious mistake in believing the 23andMe tests.

  “You girls are entitled to be alone together. I’m hoping the wardrobe for Aubrey is coming along.” She beams at us.

  “It is,” I say. “You look nice, Mom,” I add, nervous, sorry.

  “That she does.” Dad emerges in his Peter Millar button-down shirt and Brooks blazer—he wouldn’t dare not look like this. He kisses Mom’s head—he’s that much taller. Until now, I’ve always been grateful that Elodie and I got our height from our father. Except thanks to 23andMe, our lifelong belief is smashed to pieces.

  “We should go, Veronica,” Dad says.

  Elodie nods. “Yes, Mom, first in, first out at every party. Isn’t that what you taught me?”

  “She taught me to be on time,” I say.

  I glance at Elodie. Were we raised with disparate messages?

  “Girls.” Dad faces us. “Are we holding you up?”

  “We’re going through old dresses.” I hope to be convincing. “Then I’ll go back and Elodie has her whatever.”

  “Ah, finally emptying a few cupboards, racks of old clothing.” Mom smiles. “Clothes can be sorted and added to the pile that Elodie began a few weeks ago. There is a RealReal pile, a Goodwill pile, and a Housing Works pile.”

  Dad places his right hand on her forearm, as if she needs to be steered toward the door. Maybe he always leads her. Tonight we know they’re a posturing couple, secret keepers. Our parents have lied our entire lives. Doesn’t that make every step false? I stop myself; that might not be fair.

  “Are we nothing but the repository for your remnants, shoes, and purses?” Dad says.

  “Only a man would say ‘purses,’ not ‘bags.’” Elodie laughs a half-genuine laugh. Mom winks. I wink back. For a millisecond, it’s as it should be, the smiling Cutlers in Palm Beach.

  Dad looks at his tank watch, then gives us a longer look. Does he know what we’re about to do? That would be impossible. “We’re off.” He checks his watch again. “Veronica?”

  Above them, the crystal chandelier that they bought a few years ago to “brighten things up” flickers. Together they whisk down the curving staircase. Seriously, they’re sharing every step. Their togetherness strengthens with time and age. Who are Elodie and I to question that?

  “You’ll put on the alarm when you leave, Elodie?” Dad asks.

  “I will, Dad.”

  My sister would know about the alarm; she would know that after our mother swerves across the marble entryway, there is a one-minute lag before the heavy front door closes. After another lag of about forty seconds, then the purr of their Bentley as it cruises down El Brillo Way to the A1A.

  * * *

  “His office first,” Elodie says. I follow; the low lights are sickening. Again, I’m nauseous.

  “Elodie?”

  She pauses at the doorknob. “Want me to get crackers, ginger ale? You have a ghoulish hue, I mean to me. Others would say you’re fine.”

  “No, I have saltines. I carry them everywhere. I wanted to ask before we go in, before we raid Dad’s office, why we were never allowed inside when we were little.”

  “When you were little,” Elodie says. “I was old enough, but Dad was strict and Mom said nothing. She said to leave it alone. She said there was nothing for us in Dad’s office.”

  We both sort of snicker over that. “I hope that’s the case,” I say.

  “During the season, you used to beg Veronica and Simon not to go out. Sometimes I’d cancel plans or ask friends to come over so you weren’t left alone with Christina.”

  “Yeah, I know.” I take a saltine from my pocket and start nibbling, knowing no one is allowed to have food in this part of the house. “No bread crumbs, no Hansel and Gretel, I promise.”

  “Finish it here,” Elodie says, “in the hallway.”

  Standing together in the low lights, I polish off the crackers. I want Elodie to wave a wand, make the 23andMe reports vanish.

  “We should never have done the DNA test.”

  “I don’t know about that.” Elodie is staring at me. “You know what I remembered when we were outside Mom’s dressing room? How you would go in there when you were four, maybe five while she was fussing and rushing to go out.”

  “I loved it. Remember how she would let me try on her necklaces? There was her David Webb necklace with malachite, and then she’d let me teeter around in her highest heels,” I say.

  “Oh yes. I was busy getting ready to be with my friends. You used to come into my bathroom in time for the makeup and hair,” Elodie says.

  “Yeah, well, the night I broke Mom’s black-and-white pearl necklace—you know, the one Dad bought her in Paris—I ran into your room for cover.”

  Elodie frowns. “Dad was pissed. He said Mom should have given you toys, not her jewelry, to play with. No one actually got upset with you. Ever.”

  “No, no one,” I say.

  We both laugh. Elodie touches my wrist. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  Our father’s office is a library within his library. A holy place in this house, including the books that are his taste only. None of Mom’s or our collection—Edith Wharton, Margaret Atwood, Kate Atkinson, Kate Chopin—are on these shelves; they are in the library on the first floor. History books, including titles by David McCullough, Candice Millard, and Nathaniel Philbrick, are lined up in alphabetical order. Does every man in Palm Beach do this? Does Tyler like books enough? Not these books, which somehow increases my queasiness. The other men who have similar books to our father’s are Tiffany’s and Tabatha’s fathers, and James keeps talking about the library he’ll have in their new house. Another male library/office that looks like it’s been photoshopped. Same color wood, titles, the order of it. B
ut our father is in this room every morning from seven to eleven, mostly. Working on his newest buildings, expecting his managers to report in. Followed by a round of sports, then the Veronica and Simon Show by evening.

  “Their life, wow—they don’t dare buck a trend,” Elodie says.

  “I know. Decades of their secret. I feel terrible for them.”

  “For them?” Elodie’s eyes narrow.

  “Well, for us, too, yeah, but they had to protect their secret,” I say.

  “Or chose to,” Elodie says. “Don’t you feel that, too, Aubrey?”

  Across from the bookcases are framed pictures for the family story. There is the day that my parents brought me home from the hospital where we’re haloed together. Elodie and me at Wellington for my first riding lesson—she’s helping me put my helmet on. A surprise birthday brunch for Mom when she turned forty, at the house. Dad stands behind her on the terrace, cumulus clouds and the Intracoastal behind them. Elodie is holding my hand, her head tilted away from us.

  “I know they’ve lied to us,” I say.

  “How about to the world?” Elodie touches Dad’s impeccably neat desk. I wonder if he could work as a private detective or for the FBI.

  “I’ve never been in here without Dad,” I whisper.

  “No, I haven’t, either. Why would we?”

  “It’s creepy.” I look at the other side of the wood-paneled wall. Framed newspaper articles about Dad’s real estate ventures over the years, pictures of him winning a golf tournament at Longreens, another at the Harbor Club. Our parents at every black-tie opening dance, surrounded by their inner circle. More of this manifold fiction has to be on my sister’s mind, too; her eyes are still narrow.

  “Let’s go through the usual papers first.” Elodie opens Dad’s left desk drawer. She practically tosses out their passports, global entry cards, membership cards for clubs wrapped in a rubber band. “Predictable.”

  I tap at the hidden door that covers the safe. “I know the combination.”

  “You do? How come?”

  “Dad once gave it to me years ago. I doubt he expected that I’d memorize it,” I say.

  “Mom doesn’t have it,” Elodie says. “Dad gives her a watch, a ring, one of those necklaces, earrings when they go out—that’s how they do it. She kind of orders it up.”

  “Completely freakish,” I say. “I don’t know how we can be searching. I swear I’ll have nightmares.”

  “We know enough to need to know more,” Elodie says. “No nightmares, I promise.”

  She checks her iPhone. “Shit. James is texting about tonight. We’re due at a dinner at Justine’s. Now he wants me to show up at the Storeys’ for drinks first, a business thing. Let’s hurry up.”

  My hands shake. I’m more nauseous. I check my phone, since Tyler has our night planned. First we’re going to T-Bar to hear a male vocalist whose music combines country with hip-hop. Although Tyler has told me his name, age, about his current songs, it’s a blur. From there we’re meant to hear my latest find, Larina L, a singer with a clear voice who does retro/pop. I heard her at Grapevine, a karaoke bar, a week before the in vitro. “You’ve been excited about her for months,” Tyler said last night. Instead of being brave and texting him this minute to suggest he go alone to both gigs, I decide to wait. There is a slight chance that I’ll feel better when our spying is over, that I’ll rally. I push aside my latest angst, that amplified music could hurt our baby.

  My sister comes close enough for us to kiss. She places her arms around my shoulders and pulls me in. “I know, I know.”

  The lock is stiff and strong when I start turning. A trespasser, an interloper, I move the numbers to the combination. With the third number, a seven—Dad’s favorite number—I open the heavy metal door. Jewelry boxes and Redweld folders are neatly arranged. There are so many of both. To the left are Dad’s papers, orderly, categorized. There are promissory notes, stacks of cash—at least ten or fifteen thousand dollars’ worth that look freshly minted—stocks, bonds, documents for the London condo. Across from these is Mom’s jewelry, what she trots out for the opening dances and fund-raisers.

  My sister takes our father’s reading glasses from a small tray and puts them on.

  “We should try to find our birth certificates or see if there is some hidden stash of something. Some reveal.” I feel dirty.

  Elodie takes a color-coded file and opens it on the desk, scooping a manila envelope out of it. “It’s dated 1974.”

  I panic, my heart thumps. It can’t be good for the baby. “Or maybe we should quit, just not do this. I mean, we’re snooping around and—”

  “Not yet.” Elodie has the envelope in her hand; small welts are starting on her neck. “For now we keep going.”

  I take the envelope from her as if I’m interested. Once it’s in my hands, it feels radioactive. “Let’s put it back,” I say.

  Elodie is surprised. “Why? No, we’re not.” Then she takes it from me, forcefully.

  “Aubrey, we have to. Nothing should take long, I mean, we’re in the damn vault.”

  “I’m sick to my stomach,” I tell her. “Seriously sick.” Too sick to fight my sister.

  The French antique mantel clock ticks annoyingly—possibly it is the loudest of the clocks in the house. Hasn’t it ever bothered my father when he is working?

  “I’m cold,” I say. “Tyler must be waiting to hear from me.”

  “Only a few more minutes.” Elodie rubs my arms, like a mother would—absentmindedly, caring. She’s rooting around, moving papers cautiously. “We’ll get you more saltines or green tea the minute we’re finished.”

  The librarian in my sister is systematic. She flips through a Redweld from when our father closed on two buildings in Jersey City in 1993. Although I was little, I remember how much the deal mattered, how hard Mom said he worked to make it go through. More real estate files. Elodie puts them back and finds another Redweld with our birth certificates. She opens them like she’s wearing plastic gloves. “There’s nothing. Both of us were born at New York Hospital, both times Veronica and Simon signed.”

  “See?” I say. “It’s all good. We should go.”

  Elodie rereads the paperwork and folds them perfectly. “I don’t know, I don’t buy it.”

  “Elodie,” I say. “We’re their children. There is no other father in our lives, no matter what you find.”

  The song “Who’ll Stop the Rain” begins over and over in my head. Musicians my father has played for us for decades. Bruce Springsteen, John Fogerty, the Doors. Is Linda Ronstadt like the only female vocalist he played besides Carly Simon or Carole King? Next up is “L.A. Woman”; Jim Morrison’s voice fills my brain.

  Elodie forges on. “We’ll see what else there could be.”

  Photos of the long dead, including Mom’s aunt Clara, and Dad’s uncle Charlie, are in the second file.

  “Don’t you remember Mom going through pictures with you? She did with me.” I start sleuthing through the photos, as if we’re spies for a happy cause. “Remember Dad’s aunt Aurora?”

  “She has nothing to do with our search,” my sister says. A five-by-seven-inch envelope falls out of a folder marked “Miscellaneous.” Elodie takes out a photograph of our parents at a table with three other couples. The men are in army uniforms.

  “Okay, so this reads on the back that it’s Philadelphia in 1970.”

  “I have no idea who these people are,” Elodie says.

  “Could Dad have been on leave? Mom looks pretty dressed up. See how young they are.”

  Elodie roots through the envelope again and pulls out a card. In her loopy half script, half print, Mom had written “August 18, 1974. Simon, I love you.”

  She hunts around in the folder and finds a slip of paper, part of a letter, torn off.

  “This is from Dad,” I say. “His handwriting is always in tighter letters.”

  “He isn’t a natural; even a line or two on a birthday card is awkward.”


  Elodie hands it to me. “What’s this? ‘… as long as we know. By February we’ll…’”

  “Weren’t they married in March 1975? There has to be more to Dad’s letter.”

  Elodie’s fingers flash along. “Jesus, there’s got to be something else.”

  She hands me the folder; I touch it like it might ignite. I shake it and what’s left spills onto the floor, another envelope, a few photographs. First one of our very pregnant mother standing in front of a fireplace, our father scowling at the camera.

  I read the back. “You, it’s you, Elodie, in 1978. Mom wrote ‘We are a family.’”

  Elodie takes it from me. “I’ve never seen it before, have you?”

  “I’ve seen this one.” I lift it up. Our mother is very pregnant with me. She stands by the Seventy-ninth Street Boat Basin in New York. Elodie, who is eight, is looking over the water, waiting. Our father is smiling.

  “That’s the same as the one in Mom’s Christofle frame. By her nightstand. Jesus,” Elodie says.

  “Elodie, please.”

  “Something was awfully wrong,” she says. “Maybe there was an affair, no joke. See Dad in that first picture—he looks furious.”

  “Two affairs,” I say. “Maybe by the second time he was better about it.”

  Elodie claps her hands together; then I do. We begin to laugh heedlessly.

  “Fucking off the charts,” she says.

  We stop laughing; we are horrified, petrified.

  “Maybe she loved your father more than she loved mine. Or Dad hand-picked him?” Elodie is rattled.

  “Don’t, please, don’t.” I cover my face. “That’s deviant.”

  “Maybe that’s why Dad favors you. You know he does. No matter what I achieve, he’s delighted with you, Aubrey.”

  “He doesn’t favor me, Elodie, he treats me like the one who needs help. For you, it’s effortless—whatever you do. So Dad, really everyone, expects it of you. I sort of float around. I mean until recently I did.”

  My sister starts to pace while she listens. “It must have something to do with the real father—something that’s always there for him. Because Veronica doesn’t hand us separate ‘parcels’; she never has. She’s fair and she sees who we are.”