Year in Palm Beach

by Acheson, Pamela

  We go to the beach. Both of us take off our shoes and walk south for a while, then double back, leave the sand, and start walking aimlessly, enjoying the day and the scenery.

  Café Boulud appears in front of us. “Lunch seems like a good idea,” I say.

  “Lunch always seems like a good idea to you,” Pam says, “but I agree. A nice treat.”

  And it is. Afterwards, we waddle out and walk west toward the lake.

  Pam sees a small “open” sign on one of the few houses on the island that could be smaller than our cottage. A man in the front yard says, “I’m James. Please come on in. It’s an open house and nobody’s been here yet. You two are the only people I’ve seen.”

  The house is immaculate and professionally put together, but it looks more like an exhibit than a house you could live in. Everything appears to be in three-quarter scale: the doors, windows, the rooms, the coffee table and couch, even the beds. It makes our cottage look spacious.

  I bend through a doorway and say, “James, I don’t mean to be rude, but are adult humans supposed to live in this house? Aren’t these rooms a little on the small side?”

  “Well, yes, this tiny cottage was built in 1912. The current owners bought it four years ago and did a complete remodel but didn’t want to change the size. I can see the house might pose some problems for you,” James says.

  “For me? This house would pose space problems for Tom Cruise or Danny DeVito,” I say.

  James walks us outside. We thank him for the tour, wish him luck, and continue our walk.

  “Maybe he could advertise that house at the Munchkin Manners dinners,” Pam says.

  “You mean and find an extremely wealthy fourth grader.”

  The sky is still deep blue and cloudless. The town docks are mostly empty. Pam and I amble north, then head east to the ocean. We have not seen another person since leaving the open house. We take off our shoes and walk toward home on the sand, occasionally stopping to get our feet wet in the surf, and then on to our cottage. I unlock the front door.

  “Oh, the dry cleaning,” Pam says. “It seems like a different day when we picked it up.”

  I look at my watch and realize it’s four o’clock. “Well, it was five hours ago.”

  Sunday, July 25

  When an expensive mansion is sold on Palm Beach, it makes the front page of the Shiny Sheet. This morning is no exception. Pam says, “James Patterson and his wife have just bought a house on South Ocean Boulevard.”

  “Do we know where?”

  “Just a mile or so south of us,” Pam says. “It’s next to a house John Lennon and Yoko Ono used to own, and it hasn’t been lived in for a decade or so. It’s not finished.”

  “It’s a fixer-upper, a handyman’s special, Palm Beach style.”

  “Well, yes,” Pam says. “Palm Beach style for sure. Not many places you can find a handyman’s special for seventeen million.”

  “There aren’t many places you could find a spec house like that eighty-four-million dollar spec chateau either,” I say.

  “Here’s some more news you don’t want to miss,” Pam says. “A store on Worth Avenue is having a special fashion show today, for dogs. The dogs are encouraged to wear their fanciest outfits.”

  “There is something really strange about this town and all the dog stuff,” I say. “And real dogs look like dogs. They’re not smaller than cats, and they don’t wear clothes.”

  Wednesday, July 28

  The French doors are open to the pool, but the screens are closed because Duckie and Blanco are sitting on our shoulders, preening. Suddenly, the birds go nuts. They start jumping and shrieking and running around like crazy birds. Duck puffs herself up and starts making growling noises like she’s going to attack someone or something.

  “What is going on?” Pam says.

  “I have no idea.” I start looking around for the problem. Blanco has run behind the couch, still screeching. Duck is puffed up, flexing, I guess.

  “I see,” Pam says. “There’s the fox again, standing on the guest cottage roof.”

  Mr. Fox is staring at us indifferently. “I’ll get a broom and save the day,” I say. By the time I’m back with my weapon, the fox has moved on.

  I laugh and say to Pam, “Three months ago, Duck was knocking on death’s door. This morning she was ready to take on that fox. The Duckster.”

  Friday, July 30

  July is almost over. Trillion, an exclusive men’s and women’s clothing store on Worth, is having a big sale. Pam and I decide to check it out.

  When we arrive, the front door is wide open, a UPS guy is walking away, and two women are struggling with a cardboard box that is disintegrating as we watch. Water begins to leak out onto the entrance floor, and the two women lower the dissolving box to the ground to try to open it.

  A gentleman comes to the front of the store, smiles at us, and says, “Oh, sorry, just step over here.”

  We step around the mess and into the elegant space. “What kind of clothes did you order that leak water?” I say.

  He looks vaguely embarrassed and says, “It’s pasta sauce.”

  Behind us, the two women, both laughing, rescue two plastic tubs of what looks exactly like a tomato-y pasta sauce from the soggy box, which recently held ice. “David, I’m going to put these in the refrigerator,” one of them says, “and then we’ll clean up the mess at the entranceway.”

  The gentleman leads us to a rack of slacks on sale.

  Behind us we hear a woman (Tatiana, the co-owner of the store, we later learn) burst out laughing again. She’s back in front of the store, trying to clean up the mess. She cries out, “David, the hose bib just broke,” and she walks back into the store from outside, barefoot, dripping wet from head to toe, and leaving a trail of wet footprints as she heads to the back.

  The gentleman (who, it turns out, is David, Trillion’s other co-owner) is trying not to laugh because he is with customers he doesn’t know, but finally he loses it and dissolves into laughter. Soon we are all laughing.

  It’s July, business is slow, the store is a mess, and everybody is happy.

  fifteen

  “IT’S A PERFECT EXAMPLE OF THE

  LAW OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES.”

  Monday, August 2

  It’s the last month of our year in Palm Beach, our last four weeks. It is hot, but there’s the ocean breeze to keep us breathing. As much as I was happy and excited to pack up and move down, I don’t feel as excited to be packing up again. I guess that’s always the case. It’s more fun heading towards an adventure than it is heading back. The one thing I am looking forward to is taking Pam’s paintings home. They will go perfectly in our house.

  Pam’s reading to me from the Shiny Sheet. “Some guy was arrested in town yesterday driving his car on three good tires and a rim. He apparently didn’t know his car was missing its rear left tire.”

  “Maybe it’s the heat,” I say.

  We’re floating lazily in the pool when an evening thunderstorm chases us from the pool to the bumper pool room. As I’m drying off, I say, “When this table arrived last December, we didn’t know how much we’d use it.”

  “I admit I wasn’t sure about that purchase,” Pam says, “but it was a great decision.”

  “You mean if we divide the cost of the table by the hours we’ve played, it’s about ten cents a dance,” I say. “And if we can figure out where it would fit in New Smyrna, that ten cents will become five.”

  I rack up the balls and we play a few games. “Remember when we first found the sculpture garden, found Winston and FDR?” Pam says.

  “And when we first joined the gym and started playing tennis?” I say, “And Theo’s chicken-walk thing at The Chesterfield, and the Ferraris, and our friend, the iguana.”

  “And John Pizzarelli, Jennifer Sheehan, and the Royal Room?” Pam says.

  “What are we doing here, a year-end retrospective?”

  “I guess,” Pam says. “This is the last mo
nth. The year’s gone too fast.”

  “Well, one more month here,” I say. “Let’s make it our best one.”

  Tuesday, August 3

  Pam and I are at the Leopard Lounge. The bar is fairly empty, and Adam is at the piano and singing. The restaurant is also empty except for a group taking up a handful of tables at the back of the dining room. It looks like they’re having a celebration of some kind but the room is dark and it’s hard to see.

  Lou brings us a drink and a joke. “You hear the guy who owned the movie theatre across the bridge died? His funeral is Wednesday at 2:10, 4:20, 6:30, and 9:00.”

  Adam starts playing “Second Time Around,” so Pam and I head out to the dance floor. About halfway through our dance, the music changes to “Here Comes the Bride.”

  Pam says, “Let’s go back to the bar. That must be a wedding party back there. We’ll let the newlyweds have the floor.”

  Back at the bar, we watch and wait. And wait. And wait.

  “The newlyweds are a bit older than we thought,” Pam says, nodding, “over there.”

  I turn and see them slowly, very slowly, making their way over for a wedding night dance. The bride, Lou tells us, is a young ninety-eight, the groom an even younger ninety-five. They make quite a couple, dancing slowly on the Leopard Lounge dance floor.

  “‘Cougar Town’, Palm Beach style,” Pam says.

  The odds are against Pam and me dancing cheek to cheek together at The Chesterfield in thirty years. But wouldn’t that be something?

  Thursday, August 5

  It’s almost seven o’clock. Pam and I have been hitting tennis balls, and now we’re walking home. Out of the blue, Pam says, “You know, it doesn’t seem that long ago when we weren’t supposed to trust anyone over thirty.”

  “I can’t even remember thirty,” I say.

  “Even Samantha’s looking back at thirty now. It goes so fast. I don’t want to waste a moment of the time we have left,” Pam says.

  “Where did that come from?”

  “I don’t know,” Pam says. “What’s the James Dean quote?”

  “‘Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today.’” I say. “That one?”

  “Yes,” Pam says. “Let’s try to live some version of that.”

  We cross South County and Barney yells, “Mad dogs and Englishmen!”

  “Barney, check your watch. This is hardly the noonday sun,”

  Pam says.

  “Don’t care what time it is. Old coots like you two shouldn’t be running around in this heat,” he laughs.

  We wave and walk on to the cottage.

  At the door, I look at Pam. “Old coots?”

  Friday, August 6

  I wake up this morning remembering Barney’s “old coot” remark. Today is my birthday, but I don’t feel like an old coot. I feel pretty good. The birthday does, however, remind me that if I live as long as my mother, I have three years left, as long as my father, five. Not a long time, but who knows, maybe I have twenty.

  Birthday or not, it’s a regular workday. We do quit early for a long walk and then have a celebratory cookout and a bottle of champagne. Pam gets my walker for me and helps me into bed.

  Sunday, August 8

  This morning I read in the Shiny Sheet that a woman from Houston informed the Palm Beach police she is missing a bracelet she had with her during her Fourth of July visit to the island. I can’t help wondering if she knows the Greenwich woman who lost a bracelet back in November.

  I have decided for the Worth Avenue transformation we should appoint ourselves the official Worth Avenue Renovation Excavation and Construction Kibitzers and Supervisors. The town WRECKS. We’re on duty wandering Worth, checking on the renovations. The sections that are almost finished are beautiful. The resurfaced, widened sidewalks give us a glimpse of how nice everything will be when it’s finished.

  Pam and I are reminiscing again. Pam says, “Remember when you were looking for a hardware store when we first moved down? All you could find were boutiques and shoe shops and galleries.”

  “Seems like last week, not almost a year ago.”

  Pam says, “Let’s walk and do a tally of what the different shops sell.”

  About an hour later we have our results.

  Places to purchase a bottle of aspirin, zero.

  Number of shops selling ladies’ clothing, fifty-three.

  Number of shops selling bread, zero.

  Number of shops selling jewelry, thirty-seven.

  Number of shops where you can buy a six-pack of beer, zero.

  Number of shops where you can buy antiques, twenty-one.

  There are five shops that sell ladies’ shoes and seven shops that just sell purses.

  As we discovered soon after we moved to Palm Beach, shops on Worth Avenue have nothing people need, but just about everything people want.

  Tonight after our survey, Pam and I are catching the end of a Yankee game at Bice. A guy comes in the side door and looks around. All the stools are occupied except two. These two are being occupied by a huge purse and a shopping bag.

  The man says politely to the woman sitting next to these items, “Excuse me, are these your bags?”

  She turns her head. “Yes, I’m waiting for a friend.” And she turns back.

  After a few beats, the man asks, “Is your friend really, really fat?”

  The young woman’s head snaps around. “Excuse me?”

  “I asked if your friend is extremely fat.”

  “She most certainly is not!”

  “Good. Then do you think it might be possible for me to use one of the two stools you seem to be saving for her?”

  Tuesday, August 10

  Today’s mail has a reminder from a local insurance agent urging Palm Beachers to review their insurance coverage. This particular agent specializes in coverage such as a one hundred million dollar personal liability umbrella, twenty-five thousand dollars’ worth of coverage for the hiring of a PR firm to protect your reputation in case of a scandal, insurance for your staff, and, of course, special insurance to cover kidnapping expenses.

  It reminds me of the call Pam got last fall regarding our staffing needs. Anyway, I don’t need insurance today. I need boxes and to start organizing our move back.

  It looks like another Chesterfield night. We didn’t get out of our offices until late, and it’s now almost nine thirty. Time for the Leopard Lounge bar menu, specifically Bea’s chicken soup for me and a plate of lobster salad for Pam, and then a dance or two. I’ll miss being able to walk over and get Bea’s soup and a dance after working late, or even after not working at all.

  Ricky and Lucy are the servers in the dining room, and Lou and Candy are behind the bar. Lou comes over. “Let me ask you this,” he says, pointing to the dining room. “If Ricky and Lucy are working the dining room, where are Fred and Ethel?”

  After a quiet dinner, it is time to walk home. The hotel lobby always has a small jar of jelly beans near the front desk, and I usually stop by to spoon out a few. Tonight the jar is not there.

  “No jelly beans tonight,” I say to Pam.

  We are almost half a block from the hotel when the night auditor catches up to us with a small plastic cup of jelly beans. “We always have jelly beans,” he laughs. “You just have to know the right person.” I thank him.

  “You know how often something like that has happened to us this year?” Pam says.

  “I’ll bet I could list a couple dozen of these random acts of kindness,” I say. “It is not going to be easy to leave this island.”

  Thursday, August 12

  I hit some tennis balls with Todd. It’s only eight thirty, but the temperature is in the high eighties, and there’s not much breeze. After about twenty minutes, I say, “Todd, I feel a little weird. I’m gonna sit down for a minute.”

  I walk over to a bench. Todd follows. “You okay?” he asks.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m just going to sit for a minute.” I fade off
to some other planet for a few seconds. I’m brought back by the sound of sirens.

  Todd is putting a wet towel around my neck. “Thanks,” I say. “Are those sirens for me?”

  “Yeah, you worried me. Better to be safe,” he says.

  Two trucks from the Palm Beach Fire-Rescue Department arrive, and suddenly six EMT professionals and Mary Flynn, the facility supervisor, are marching onto the courts with enough medical machinery to open up a mobile hospital.

  I am extremely embarrassed, but I’m also a little scared, so I’m not unhappy to see a six-pack of trained professionals. One of the paramedics begins by checking my blood pressure and pulse, then they hook me up to a portable EKG machine that is printing stuff like a stock ticker.

  Todd hands me a cup of water. The paramedics are still checking me out ten minutes later when I see Pam walking onto the court. I look at Todd. He shrugs.

  Pam looks scared, so I smile and give her a thumbs-up to let her know I’m okay.

  “He’s absolutely fine,” one of the paramedics says as she approaches. “He should take it easy and stay out of the sun for the rest of the day, but everything seems normal.”

  Pam has several questions, actually more than several questions, but after four or five minutes she seems convinced it’s okay to take me home.

  I thank everyone, and as Pam and I are walking to the car, I say, “Our first day in Palm Beach we were met by the police. Then the firemen came to the cottage, and now, as our year is ending, I get a visit from the paramedics.”

  “Well, I’m glad we weren’t arrested, I’m glad we didn’t burn down the neighborhood, and I’m glad you’re okay,” Pam says.

  As she’s driving home, Pam says, “I was really scared when Todd called.”

  “I know. I’m sorry,” I say. “Thankfully, there’s nothing to worry about.”

  But I know Pam is still worried, and it is not lost on me that I just had a birthday, or that when my father got off a plane at La-Guardia and was walking to the baggage area, there was “nothing to worry about” then either. He dropped dead of a heart attack before he ever got his bag.