Best Beach Ever

by Wendy Wax

  “Yes,” Renée said. “Do you have a few minutes?”

  “Of course.” Nikki surrendered as gracefully as she could. She did not point out that there was no reason Sofia and Gemma couldn’t have stayed while she did so. Resistance was futile. Luvie was already wheeling them back toward the cottage.

  Inside, she grabbed a bottled water from the drinks cooler, careful not to look at even the photos of the ice cream sundaes and banana splits that decorated the soda fountain. Renée and Annelise motioned her back behind the gift shop counter, where an assortment of battered cardboard boxes dotted the terrazzo floor.

  “You ordered more items for the gift shop?” she asked, confused by the sisters’ air of excitement. And the fact that the gift shop, such as it was, was already full to overflowing.

  “No, but we think we may have found some.” Renée reached into an open box and pulled out a black and pink one-piece bathing suit, which she handed to Nikki. The label identified the maker as Catalina. The original price tag was still attached.

  “Oh, my God,” Nikki said, turning it reverently in her hands to look at its back detail. “This is vintage 1950s pinup-style. The straps are removable.” The second suit was a draped sheath covered in teal, navy, and white circles with a back zipper and neck tie. “This is a Rose Marie Reid with a snap-in shaper.” The last Renée handed her was a gold lamé number that appeared identical to one she’d seen Marilyn Monroe wearing in a long-ago movie. Bathing caps with large bright rubber flowers and turbans piled high with artificial fruit à la Carmen Miranda. “Where on earth did you find these?”

  “In our attic,” Renée said with a laugh. “John was looking through some of the boxes that had come from the Sunshine and he found these.”

  “And these.” Annelise opened a large manila envelope and withdrew a stack of 8x10 black-and-white photos. The first was a wide shot of the Sunshine Hotel pool back in what Nikki knew had been its heyday. A petite woman with white skin, delicate features, and a halo of blond hair had been captured stepping out from the shaded patio that surrounded the main building. She wore a sleek one-piece black bathing suit, its halter top tied behind her neck, and high-heeled sandals. The pinup-style suit and cat-eye sunglasses screamed 1950s.

  “Isn’t that . . .”

  “My mother,” Annelise said.

  “And this is me.” Renée pulled out another photo that showed a tall, dark-haired teenager in a gingham-checked two-piece bathing suit that showed off long legs, a few inches of midriff, and a budding, coltish figure. The girl carried a flower-covered straw beach bag and wore a broad-brimmed straw hat.

  “And here’s a shot of me.” Annelise presented another glossy black-and-white photo. Though she couldn’t have been more than three or four, Annelise was wearing kitten heels with fluffs of fur and a one-piece bathing suit that had been designed to look like a drum. “It was red, white, and blue. I wore it every Memorial Day and Fourth of July until I couldn’t squeeze into it anymore.”

  “As I remember it, you wore it every day for years until it finally fell apart,” Renée said. “There’s Nana.” She pointed to their grandmother, who had been the heart of the hotel and beach club and who, with their grandfather, had raised Renée and Annelise after their father died and Annelise’s mother disappeared. A tragic mystery that had finally been put to rest during the hotel’s recent renovation. In the picture, Lillian Handleman stood in front of an ancient stand-up microphone with a sheaf of papers in one hand.

  “Nana used to put on fashion shows. Friends, family, and hotel guests modeled clothes from local women’s shops. She always did the commentary,” Annelise added. “I think it started out as entertainment for the guests, but at some point she started carrying and selling beachwear.”

  She pulled out another photo of their grandmother standing at the podium.

  “These are really special,” Nikki said, oddly energized by the simple fact of their existence. “There are a lot of companies that produce retro imitations, but these are originals, and having these photos and knowing the history behind them only increases their value.”

  “How valuable are they?” Renée asked.

  “I really don’t know. That would require some research.” The last time she’d thought about vintage clothing in dollar terms was when she’d been forced to sell most of what she’d acquired after her brother’s Ponzi scheme left her broke and unable to save Heart, Inc.

  “Do you think we could sell these here in the gift shop?” Annelise motioned to the boxes.

  “That’s something else that would have to be looked into. You’d have to find a way to market to vintage enthusiasts. That might work better online or in another type of location,” she said, thinking now of the pieces that Bitsy had brought her that she still couldn’t fit into.

  The sisters looked at each other. Renée nodded slightly then turned to Nikki. “Do you think you might have time to do some of that research?”

  Nikki’s mind began formulating excuses. Her lips were poised and ready to form the word “no” when she realized just how much time and effort she’d been putting into doing absolutely nothing (if you didn’t count counting lettuce leaves and calories). This, at least, would be doing something.

  “I’d be glad to do a little homework,” Nikki finally said. With Mary Poppins constantly on call, Nikki had nothing if not time.

  * * *

  • • •

  Maddie answered her cell phone on the first ring. Which was something you could do when you’d spent the last six hours clutching it in one hand as if it were an appendage. She was so sure that it was Will returning her call from last night that she didn’t even glance at the caller ID. It took her a moment to recognize the voice on the other end.

  “Maddie? Are you there?” There was the clearing of a masculine throat that did not belong to William Hightower. “It’s Troy.”

  “Oh.” She tried to mask her disappointment.

  “I wondered if you might be available for lunch.” She still hadn’t responded when he added, “I’m at the Don. Out near the pool.”

  There could be little doubt whom and what he would want to discuss. Or that Kyra would consider any conversation with Troy a betrayal. But she had some idea what it might have cost Troy to reach out, and it wasn’t in her to reject his invitation. Nor could she spend another minute doing nothing but waiting for Will to return her call.

  She walked the short distance to the Don CeSar and found him at a prime table with a view of the pool and the gulf. He stood to greet her then pulled out her chair. When she glanced at the half-empty glass in front of him, he said, “Margarita on the rocks. Will you have one?”

  Before she’d finished nodding he’d waved the waiter over with a friendly finesse that made her wonder how he’d hidden the polished manners that now seemed such an inherent part of him.

  “Thanks for coming.”

  “My pleasure.”

  “So.” One eyebrow arched upward. “I’m not sure if you noticed, but the whole confession thing didn’t exactly go the way I hoped.”

  “Yes, we noticed.” She squelched the laugh that threatened.

  “No, it’s all right. I’d be laughing right now myself if that had happened to anyone else.” He shook his head ruefully. “What’s really funny is that I’ve been waiting so long to be outed.

  “My family knew Bitsy’s. I think she and my aunt went to the same boarding school. My family’s in timber, too, sawmills. But I guess Matthews is a common enough name.” He drained the last of his drink and handed it to the waiter when he arrived with two more. “You’d think that someone who was waiting to be exposed might have been better prepared. But . . .” He shrugged. “Your daughter does not like me one little bit.”

  “As you pointed out yourself, Kyra doesn’t know you at all. And that’s not exactly her fault.” Maddie took a sip of her drink. It was cold and
tart, and it was quite a relief to be thinking about something other than why she was here instead of Mermaid Point and her own general lack of direction. “Why have you been pretending to be a cameraman?”

  “I am a cameraman. A good one.”

  “But you’re not the uneducated, lacking-in-financial-resources, clinging-to-a-network-job individual you presented yourself as.”

  “Not exactly,” he conceded with a small smile. “But close enough.”

  “And you chose that over the family business because?”

  “Because I didn’t like all the strings that were attached. My brothers and sister think I’m crazy. They’re all in the business or living off it. Everyone considers me the ‘black sheep.’” He air quoted.

  The waiter returned to take their lunch order, and Maddie watched Troy’s face and manner. He seemed so comfortable in his own skin, not at all the hostile nemesis that Kyra had been at war with.

  “So, not to be too personal,” Maddie said, her curiosity mounting. “But you refused to go into the family business, they cut you off, you had to support yourself, and now you don’t?”

  He ran a hand through his thick blond hair. He’d removed his sunglasses, and his blue eyes were bright and earnest. “I did refuse to go into the family business, but I was never actually cut off. I inherited money from both sides of the family, some of it in trust, some not.”

  Maddie watched his face. “I just never wanted to live the way my family did. I wanted to earn my own way. Freedom was always more important to me than comfort.”

  The food arrived, but though he busied himself assembling the parts of the hamburger and putting ketchup on his fries, he seemed in no hurry to eat. Maddie took a bite of her BLT sandwich as gulls wheeled in the sky above them. On a nearby dune a stand of sea oats swayed lightly in the breeze.

  “I went to the Salvador Dalí Museum on the waterfront downtown yesterday,” Troy continued. “It’s a gorgeous building. And apparently houses the largest collection of his work outside of Europe.” He cut his burger, set down the knife on the edge of his plate. “But the thing is I’m just as happy seeing a Dalí in a museum. I don’t have a need to own one.”

  “You make it sound so simple,” Maddie said after a couple more bites of her sandwich. “But I don’t think there are many people who would ignore that kind of money.”

  He pinched a few fries from his plate and chewed thoughtfully. “I earned enough to drive the car I wanted, buy a boat, live decently—but I chose to be judged by the work I did. And so I left my tux and prep school manners behind and presented myself the way most cameramen would. I didn’t need all that money. I didn’t plan to ever touch it. Until . . .” He hesitated and she had the impression he would have backtracked if he could.

  She folded her hands in her lap and waited.

  “Until I realized how much Kyra and Dustin needed it. How much saving Bella Flora meant to her, to all of you.” He looked aghast at the admission. She saw a hint of the old Troy’s impatience flicker over his face. That impatience seemed to be aimed inward. “God, that sounds so sappy.” He exhaled a large breath of air.

  “No. I think that was incredibly generous of you, Troy. I’m grateful that you did what you did for my daughter and grandson. But surely you can see that at least from Kyra’s perspective, it all just sort of came out of left field. Deception is a slippery slope. She was deceived by Daniel and look where that’s led.”

  “I get that I should have said something sooner. But how exactly do you tell someone you’re not really the overly competitive, jealous, impoverished asshole you’ve shown yourself to be? Well, I am a little competitive and I can be an asshole on occasion, but I don’t understand why she can’t see Daniel Deranian for what he is.” He took a pull on his drink and picked up another fry.

  “Men who are larger than life can be hard to resist.” She knew this firsthand. “And, of course, we want to believe the best about the people we’re drawn to.” Though she had done just the opposite with Will, hadn’t she? Instead of sharing her feelings and uncertainties so that he could understand them, she had simply fled.

  “So what do I do now?” Troy asked simply. “Seeing as how I’ve mucked this up so spectacularly.”

  “Truthfully, most men would look elsewhere,” Maddie said. “But then it seems pretty clear that you’re not most men.”

  “My family would agree with you. But I don’t think it would be a compliment.”

  “I think being your own man is a good thing,” Maddie said. “Now that you’re actually being yourself, you have to find a way to reveal that self to Kyra.”

  “And how am I supposed to do that?” Troy appeared genuinely perplexed. “I’ve already tried to explain once and all I did was make things worse.”

  Maddie finished as much of the BLT as she had room for and drained the last dregs of her second margarita. She felt markedly clearer than when she’d arrived, and hoped it wasn’t just because of the alcohol. She hadn’t yet figured out her own life or her relationship, but listening to Troy had clarified one thing.

  “You can’t build a relationship on words or excuses or explanations,” she said. “The time has come to do what even writers, who deal in words all the time, struggle to learn: show don’t tell.”

  “And that means?”

  “Don’t waste another breath trying to tell Kyra how you feel. Figure out how to show her your real self and your true feelings. In the end, I don’t think it’s the grand gestures that will win her heart. She doesn’t need a showboat like Daniel; she needs a man who loves her enough to put her first in all of the little everyday ways.”

  Eighteen

  So far so good. As mantras went, the phrase felt wishy-washy. Underachieving. Nowhere near as motivational as I can and I will, as powerful as be strong, be brave, or as philosophically biblical as this too shall pass.

  Despite its lack of affirmational properties, “so far so good” was the phrase Kyra lived by. The phrase that sounded in her mind after every good take and anytime a potential meltdown was averted. She’d repeated those four words out loud when each three hours of Screen Actors Guild–allowed daily work were complete, and again when they slid into the back of the black SUV for the drive to the cottage at the end of the 4.5 hours Dustin was allowed to spend each day on set.

  So far so good had gotten her through the drive back to Winter Haven and the last two days of filming. Which had been a little less perfect than last Friday’s first take of the first scene.

  At the moment, she sat where she’d been placed an hour ago, out of camera range but close enough to Dustin that they could see and hear each other. So far, one take had been completed. It had been followed by what turned into a half-hour discussion between Daniel and his Lighting Director, the Director of Photography, and the Dolly Grip. This was followed by a fifteen-minute debate with wardrobe and continuity over whether one of Dustin’s sneakers should or should not be untied during the scene.

  “Okay, everyone, we’re back in!” Brandon shouted.

  Kyra held her breath as take two commenced. Takes three and four followed. So far Dustin had gotten his lines and his moves right on each take, but Kyra could see his attention and his energy level beginning to flag. Daniel had blown his lines in the first two takes, slightly mangled them in the third, and made it all the way through the fourth. Tonja, playing his wife, Jenna, had nailed each word, each look, each nuance, delivering her lines with a flawless believability in each and every take that was impossible not to admire.

  A hush fell as she and Daniel viewed the previous take, not once but twice. A brief but emphatic conversation ensued. It was ultimately Tonja who addressed the crew. “I’ve asked if we can try that one more time. Dustin was spot on. But I think I could have handled that exchange a little more brightly.” She turned back to Daniel. “And I believe your line is actually . . .” She looked to Maureen, the vet
eran Script Supervisor, who read the line aloud.

  “Right,” Daniel muttered to himself as makeup dabbed at his face and the key lights were once again adjusted. “All right, here we go for take . . .” Daniel looked to his First AD.

  “Five.” Brandon raised his hand with all five fingers extended. “Going for five! Stand by!”

  The actors moved into position. Tonja placed her arms around Dustin as she had the previous four times. Christian Sommersby stood on his mark just visible through the hotel’s glass front door. Daniel stepped back into the shot between Dustin and Tonja, and gave a nod.

  “All right!” Brandon called out. “Lock it up. Quiet on the set! Roll sound . . .”

  Kyra held her breath as the scene played out. So far so good. So far so good? Once again Dustin got his lines and his bit of action right, but she could see the tightening of his shoulders, the too-careful way he held himself as he prepared for the next take, and the take after that. Saw the flicker of fear in his eyes as they flew to Tonja’s face afterward to see what she thought. If Daniel hadn’t yet realized he wasn’t the only one calling the shots, his son was beginning to. And so were the more experienced members of the crew. No matter how politely Tonja attempted to frame it.

  When they broke after take seven so that the crew could set up for the next scene, Kyra took Dustin back to the trailer for a potty break and a few moments to decompress. He sat now on the couch, sipping a cup of white grape juice. “Wanna run my lines again,” he said with a determined set of his chin that she’d learned to dread.

  “You’re fine,” Kyra said. “You know them. You’ve been doing so great today.”

  “Wanna practice!”

  She closed her eyes. So far so . . . Her mantra was interrupted by a quiet knock on the trailer door. When it opened, Daniel stepped in. He looked tired, frayed around the edges. Far more vulnerable than she’d ever seen him. She’d never realized how attractive that kind of softness could be.