Year in Palm Beach

by Acheson, Pamela

  “No jokes,” Lou says, “but some of us here do have a serious question: Were you two dancing to the same music as that other couple?”

  Sunday, February 28

  The tomato plants are sprouting, but it is annoying to have them cluttering up our living room. This morning the weather is warm enough that I take them outside, repot them, and line the little plants alongside our pool.

  Now Dick and I are curled up on the couch with books. Dick is reading Gone Tomorrow, a Jack Reacher I just finished. I’m reading Lifeguard by James Patterson. Part of the book takes place in Palm Beach, and some of the characters are actually our favorite Taboo bartenders.

  “Dick,” I say, “I’m reading about people at the Taboo bar. Cindy and Bobby. And those two guys who used to work there, Andy and Michael.” I hand Dick the book, open to the page. “See, they’ve been written into the story.”

  “Nice,” Dick says. “So we’ll go ask Bobby about it tomorrow night.”

  ten

  “I’M LOOKING AROUND FOR A

  WOOD CHIPPER.”

  Monday, March 1

  “So you were a star in one of James Patterson’s novels,” Pam says as we take a seat at Taboo’s bar.

  Bobby laughs. “Yeah, that’s when Michael and Andy were still here. You saw he mentions those two as well as Cindy and me. He has lunch here a lot.”

  “How did you find out you were in it?” I ask.

  “He just came in one day with four signed copies of the book, one for each of us. He’s a really nice guy,” Bobby says.

  “Well, if we decide to do a book about Palm Beach, you’ll be in it,” Pam says.

  Bobby laughs. “Okay, just be sure you spell my name right.”

  Tuesday, March 2

  Spring has definitely sprung. Daytime temperatures for the next several days are forecast to reach the high seventies. It is hard for me to believe we had all those second thoughts about moving down here. I love living here. I read in the Shiny Sheet the police have cited a man in town for “illegal spearfishing.” Illegal spearfishing two blocks from Neiman Marcus and Saks.

  Well, the town is still jumping even if some of the fish apparently are not. When Pam and I are on our walks, Worth Avenue is still crowded and restaurants are full. There are plenty of February people still in town. Don’t they know it’s March?

  This morning, the Shiny Sheet has even more photographs of people than usual at balls and parties and various charity events.

  I’m looking at all these people and I say to Pam, “This is scary. I’ve seen some of these faces so many times, I’m beginning to recognize them.”

  “I think that may be the point,” Pam says.

  I’m so obtuse. Of course that’s what these people are doing. It’s a different kind of Facebook. And along with the Shiny Sheet, you can see these same faces in Palm Beach Today, Palm Beach Illustrated, Palm Beach Life, Palm Beach, Palm Beach Society, Palm Beach Young Society, and, although it may be hard to believe, Palm Beach Pet Society.

  It’s funny, if we didn’t get the Shiny Sheet or pick up one of these magazines, we would never know any of these faces or that these events had even taken place. I don’t think I’ve seen any of these faces other than on the printed page.

  Wednesday, March 3

  We’re surviving quite well without television. In fact, we are outside more at night, we read more, talk more, and probably think more. We caught some World Series games at Bice and Taboo last fall. Otherwise, Pam and I have been TV-free.

  But this month may pose a problem. “March Madness,” the NCAA basketball tournament, is coming up. Tonight I want to try and catch the second half of an ACC Tournament game at Taboo or Bice. Pam says she’s going to check the score on her computer before we head over.

  A minute or so later, she comes out and says, “The game’s on in the office.”

  “What game is on in the office?” I say.

  “The Duke game.”

  “What are you talking? The game is on what?”

  “My computer,” Pam says.

  I follow her into the office. I have no idea what she is talking about. The game is on her computer live and in color with announcers and everything. I can’t believe it. “How is this happening?” I ask.

  “I’m not sure, but we can watch the game here if you want.”

  “If this magic can work on my laptop, we can watch it out by the pool,” I say.

  So, we take my laptop out by the pool and watch the second half. Who needs TV?

  Thursday, March 4

  I start to take an espresso outside by the pool but stop at the screen door because there is an animal on the guesthouse roof. This animal does not look friendly or familiar to me. I close the door rather quickly. I’m standing safely inside looking out when Carmen, the lady who helps us tame the chaos in the cottage each week, comes over and says matter-of-factly, “It’s just a fox.”

  Of course, a fox, why didn’t I expect that? Iguanas, pigs, foxes. Palm Beach the wildlife sanctuary.

  It’s now lunchtime and I’m at Sandwiches by the Sea picking up some soup and a sub for our lunch. Maybe a chef salad for the fox. A man and a woman come in. They are discussing what to order when the woman sees my soup on the counter. She turns to me and asks, “Is the soup any good here?”

  “The soups are homemade and all very, very good here,” I say.

  She looks at me for a second and says, “You mean for a place like this, in Florida.”

  I look at her for several seconds. “No, ma’am, that is not what I mean.” Goat Breath. “What I mean is the soups here are very, very good. Period.” Have a nice day.

  As it happens, about a week ago, I almost bumped into America’s Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, as he was coming out of Sandwiches by the Sea with a couple of bags of subs. You know if a New Yorker like Rudy gets his lunch there, the place has to be good.

  Friday, March 5

  As lunchtime approaches, Pam says, “You want to take a ride in the car? My knee’s been keeping us inside too much, and it’s a beautiful day.”

  “The car? Do we still have a car?”

  “Yes, let’s play hooky for a few hours, drive to Delray,” Pam says. “We’ll have lunch. And I can pick up some art supplies I need at Hand’s.”

  I like the part about lunch.

  I drop the top of the Corvette, and we head south on A1A. It is a lovely, leisurely drive. The speed limit is thirty-five miles an hour. Not exactly a workout for the Corvette, but a fine speed for us to be able to talk with the top down and enjoy the scenery. The drive runs south with the ocean on one side and beautifully landscaped mansions on the other. Occasionally, we cruise under canopies of trees or through a public park. No one takes this route if they’re in a hurry.

  After about thirty minutes, I turn onto Atlantic Avenue, Delray’s main drag. “Quite a change from Worth,” Pam says.

  “A lot more casual and a lot more crowded, you mean.”

  “But plenty of restaurants. Your choice.”

  I pull in and park in the lot behind Hand’s. “Let’s do Cubano,” I say. “Nothing like that in Palm Beach.” We walk over and ask the hostess for a booth inside, away from the crowds. Pam orders portobello and shitake mushrooms drenched in garlic sauce with warm pressed Cuban bread, and I pick the picadillo, a Cuban stew of ground beef, tomatoes, peppers, olives, and lots of garlic. We will have no problems with vampires today.

  Finished with our lunch, we make our way through the crowds to Hand’s, an art and office supply store that’s been in business since the 1930s. It’s one of our favorite places to shop. The people who work there are always happy and helpful.

  Pam picks up things she needs for her art class. She’s started a painting of a bird. It’s realistic and quite good. I purchase a one-million-dollar bill that looks quite authentic. Always good to have an extra million in your wallet, especially in Palm Beach.

  I’m now driving north again with the top down in cool, sunny weather. What a simple, w
onderful pleasure this is, driving around with the person I love. I don’t want to go back to work yet. Directly across from the Ritz Carlton, I make a hard left into a small shopping area.

  “What’s the matter?” Pam says.

  “Nothing.”

  “Why are we stopping?”

  I nod towards the shop directly in front of our car, the Ice Cream Club.

  “Ice cream? You want to get ice cream?”

  “Why not?” I say. “When was the last time we had an ice cream cone? Ten years ago?”

  “It was in Blowing Rock,” Pam says. “That time we couldn’t stop laughing.”

  “Right,” I say. “And neither of us can ever remember what we were laughing about.”

  I get a strawberry cone. Pam gets a chocolate chip mint, and we sit on a bench and eat our ice cream like little kids.

  Saturday, March 6

  We’re working on the plants around the pool and talking. Pam says, “You know, we’ve tried to take advantage of everything the town has to offer, the parks, dining, dancing, cabaret, museums—”

  “—galleries, exhibits, tennis, the ocean, the lake,” I say. “But we’ve still missed stuff.”

  Even in Palm Beach, you can’t have everything. I missed the Bob Newhart and Tony Bennett shows. I know Pam wanted to see the Moscow Ballet, though I’m okay with missing that one.

  My thoughts are interrupted by the sound of the phone.

  I walk inside and pick up.

  “Dad, it’s Samantha.”

  “Who?” I say. I love the sound of her voice.

  “Dad, stop. Quick question. If I come down to Palm Beach in a couple of weeks, are you and Pam going to be there?”

  “Of course. If you’re coming down, we’ll be here no matter what. Is this a vacation?”

  “I wish, but no. It would be for just two or three days, and it’s not definite.”

  “Whatever it is, we’re here,” I say.

  We talk for a few minutes, and she has to run and promises to keep us posted.

  Monday, March 8

  The morning is drawing to a close. “Are you ahead of schedule or behind?” I ask Pam.

  “Actually, ahead a bit,” she says.

  “Remember last March when we met Samantha in Tampa for the Yankee spring training games?”

  “Yes, of course,” she says.

  “Remember last week when we drove to Delray and had ice cream?”

  “Yes, I do. Where is this going?”

  “Well, it’s another beautiful day, and there’s a spring training game starting in about an hour at Donald Ross Stadium. Looks like an easy forty-minute drive north.”

  Pam says, “Give me fifteen minutes to finish up here and let’s go.”

  I’ve seen dozens, maybe hundreds, of baseball games. My first game in Yankee Stadium, I was four and my brother Cam was eight. My father took the two of us, just the men. I didn’t know what was going on, but I got hot dogs and Cracker Jack and orange soda. It seemed like a good deal.

  We’re here. I pull in and park on the grass, and we walk to the ticket window. Lots of good seats are still available. I buy a couple of tickets, and we’re in. Easy.

  The Marlins and the Twins are playing today, and our seats turn out to be right in the middle of dozens of Minnesotans. None of them seem to have any interest in the baseball game. These people are nonstop talkers, and their accents are straight out of Fargo.

  One woman is loudly explaining that she doesn’t know the name of the town she has been staying in all week, but that it’s easy to find. I’m looking around for a wood chipper when Pam nods to an empty section, lots of empty seats. We slide out and walk up the steps.

  “We’re higher up, but the game’s easier to see,” Pam says.

  “And it’s quiet,” I say. “I was not suffering those fools gladly.”

  Pam and I each get a hotdog and a beer. It’s the law.

  We know nothing about either team, but the boys of spring are hitting and catching and running. As always, I think back over a lifetime of baseball games. What a relaxing, enjoyable way to spend a spring afternoon. The Marlins win the slug fest and we make our way to the car. No crowds. No hassles.

  Driving home, Pam says, “I like going to spring training games better than going to games at Yankee Stadium or even Giant games in San Francisco.”

  “Me, too, but you’ve to go to Yankee Stadium at least once a summer. Like hot dogs and beer, it’s the law.”

  “I know, but today’s game seemed so simple, so uncrowded. More like just a game.”

  Tuesday, March 9

  Pam and I are walking over to Café Boulud for a special wine tasting event: Italian reds. It is never hard to get me to go out, but when Italian reds are in play, it is hard to get me to stay in. It’s a beautiful evening, almost balmy. As we’re walking by a tall ficus hedge, I hear a man’s voice say, “Honey, you’re not washing the car with bottled water, are you?”

  I don’t hear the reply.

  I look at Pam. “Either a very big bottle or a very small car,” Pam says.

  “What do you think it would cost to wash one of those giant SUVs with Pellegrino?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. That he even asked the question is very strange, even in Palm Beach,” Pam says.

  Pam and I cut through the courtyard and into the lounge at Café Boulud. The tasting has not quite started, so we’re just standing by the bar when I hear a man sitting behind me say, “This baby cost more than my Ferrari.”

  I turn to see what this guy has with him that could possibly cost more than a Ferrari. He’s pointing to his watch, and then adds, “It’s waterproof to thirty meters.”

  “Waterproof?” I whisper to Pam. “Are you kidding? Who’s going snorkeling or taking a dip in the pool with a quarter of a million dollars strapped to his wrist?”

  Thursday, March 11

  The tomatoes are now living outside. I’ve been out by the pool working on them, trying to keep them staked up. As I’m coming in for an espresso refill, Pam is hanging up the phone. “Who was that?” I say.

  Pam is smiling. “That, Mr. Myers, was your daughter.”

  “And?”

  “And she’s coming down for a visit in about two weeks.” Pam is still wearing a wide smile, so I say, “And?”

  “And she’s bringing Jason, a ‘gentleman caller,’ as she put it, whom she wants us to meet.”

  “Oh my. A guy she wants us to meet? Oh my.”

  “Serious, maybe. Interesting, definitely,” Pam says.

  I head out to hit some balls with Todd. Pam’s knee is still a little fragile so almost all of my tennis is with Todd, and he’s beating me up. Palm Beach drivers are still making my walks to tennis an adventure. It’s a volatile combination of the winter people driving way too fast and looking at nothing, the locals driving normally, and the tourists driving way too slow and looking at everything. But I make it to tennis unscathed, and Todd runs me around for an hour or so.

  I thank him for the abuse and drag myself over to the Gatorade machine. I’m rehydrating and watching some guy out on the soccer field taking shots on goal. He shoots, his friend in the goal rolls the ball back to him, and he shoots again. All I can see is his back, but whoever this guy is, he has a very good right foot. The shots are not wrist-breakers, but they have some pace, and he’s putting the ball right in the corners.

  Carrying what’s left of my Gatorade, I start the walk home. Passing the soccer field toward Royal Palm Way, I catch sight of the soccer player from the front. It’s Rod Stewart. That makes it two for two on Rod Stewart sightings, but still zero for two on Jimmy Buffett sightings.

  Saturday, March 13

  Pam is supposed to walk a little more each day. She’s still getting treatments twice a week and has made definite progress. We’re out and about today, just north of the bridge, at The Society of the Four Arts grounds. Pam points to people milling around in the grass in front of the library. “What do you think this is?” she says. />
  “Some kind of fair or something?” I say.

  We walk over. Homemade canopies and card tables are placed all along the edge of the lawn just west of the King Library, and all the booths and signs are homemade. “All of these things are for sale,” Pam says. “The orchids, hand-painted tablecloths and napkins, pottery. This is cool.”

  The scene is decidedly low-tech and very old-fashioned, so we fit right in. Two different booths are selling only ladies’ hats.

  “I’ll buy you a hat,” I say.

  “A hat?”

  “Yes. I want to buy you a hat.”

  Pam starts sorting through the dozens of different hats, trying one on now and then to show me. She is being silly. I love it. A floppy light blue cotton hat with a wide brim is her final selection. It really looks nice on her and quite springlike and makes us both laugh.

  We spend time browsing and people-watching and enjoying the spring weather.

  “We’ve talked about it before. There is something nostalgic, something simple, almost quaint, about life in Palm Beach,” Pam says.

  She is absolutely right, although before we moved here I don’t think either of us would have put “quaint” and “Palm Beach” in the same sentence. But living here we have discovered a parallel, low-profile universe that is the opposite of the high-profile ritz-and-glitz that we expected to find. We’ve not only discovered it, we’re somehow connecting with it.

  Tonight I want to go to Amici. Maurizio makes me laugh and (what’s new?) I’m hungry and thirsty. The restaurant and the town are still quite crowded, but tonight Pam and I actually recognize Jimmy Buffett finishing dinner at one of the bar tables.

  Beth, behind the bar, is laughing because she sees we finally recognize Mr. Buffett. He comes to the bar.

  “Dick and Pam are big fans of yours,” Beth says, “and this is the third time they’ve been here when you were here.”

  “The last time it was raining and you held the door for us,” I say rather stupidly.

  Jimmy laughs. He says something like “I was holding the door for her” and gestures toward Pam.

  “They write books on the Caribbean,” Beth says.

  This last statement opens the show. Yes, we all knew Bankie Banx on Anguilla and Foxy and Ivan on Jost Van Dyke. Somebody mentions Bomba’s Shack, and Pam tells of her first visit years ago to Bomba’s for a Travel + Leisure article. She admits she was a little surprised that the restaurant’s primary decorating theme consisted of bras dangling from the ceiling.