His twin, Peter, took after their parents in the looks department. He was short, like their father, and had the same mousy hair and eyes that were mostly pupil with only a narrow ring of brown as their mother. It was such an unfortunately mundane collection of features that his face was hard to place. He was frequently reintroducing himself to people outside of the hotel. Brian may have cannibalized the attractive genes in the womb, but Peter had gotten the lion’s share of the brains and ambition. While Brian was causing mischief in the hotel, making out—and often much more—with the daughters of guests and staff, Peter was completing math workbooks and tracking the stock market because he’d invested his bar mitzvah money in blue chips handpicked by some of the hotel’s Wall Street clientele. And when his brother wasn’t studying his portfolio and talking GDP with the old men playing pinochle, he was staring at Aimee Goldman.
Aimee Goldman. What would she think about selling the hotel?
The last time Brian had seen her was six months earlier at Benny’s funeral. She’d looked good, considering the occasion. Upscale suburban mother was a style she wore well. In contrast, Angela was a messy-bun-and-jeans woman, but to be fair, there weren’t many places that demanded formal attire in their neck of the woods, where BYOB could mean bring your own BB gun. Aimee had never really been his type when they were growing up. She was serious—not quite as much as born-middle-aged Peter, but she’d definitely needed a little extra convincing to be naughty. They’d had a sprawling resort as their personal playground, and yet Aimee and Peter were such sticklers for the rules, worried they’d mess up the furniture or get caught stealing ice cream from the industrial freezer. The irony was that after so many years of being reckless with his future inheritance, he was the one overseeing the place, while his brother and Aimee barely gave the Golden a second thought.
He supposed Aimee was nominally involved as Special Advisor. Or was her title Creative Director? When she came with her family for the last two weeks of summer, she would stop by Brian’s office and ask for an update. How were reservations looking? Was the town still making trouble about the garbage dumps by the highway? How serious was the racetrack odor problem? Brian didn’t resent reporting to her—if anything, talking to Aimee about the business was invigorating. The staffers cared, but there was nothing like speaking to a fellow owner, someone born at the Golden, who carried its essence in their blood. When Aimee would leave with her family, it would reinforce just how lonely Brian was in Windsor without the company of his brother and childhood friend. He was never supposed to be here for this long.
When Brian had agreed to take on the CEO role, it had been understood to be a temporary move. He’d had wounds to lick, and the Golden seemed like a safe place to do so. If anyone was going to take over the hotel permanently, it would be his brainiac brother or artistic Aimee. Peter was a numbers wizard and Aimee was visually gifted, and he—well, he was good-looking and charming, but that was only a fraction of what was needed to run an empire. Melinda had actually said that to him when he’d mused about who would take over for Amos and Benny.
Brian had met his ex, Melinda Roth, at the hotel. It seemed everything in his life could be traced back to the Golden. She was the first and only woman Brian had ever had to chase. Melinda had been staying at the hotel with her aunt and cousins for a week while her parents were overseas. Long hair the color of wheat spilled over her muscular shoulders, and she liked to keep her light green eyes hidden behind oversized sunglasses. She was from California. It was the first time Brian had ever met someone from the West Coast, and she might as well have been from another continent: That was how exotic someone from outside the tristate area appeared to him. Instead of being impressed that he was a Weingold, like most people he encountered, she rolled her eyes and said something snarky. “So you’re just gonna take over this place instead of doing your own thing?” What could he do after that? He was hooked.
Brian liked the challenge she presented. If Melinda was initially attracted to him, she hid it well. Eventually, his charms and relentless pursuit wore her down. He flew her out to the hotel the summer after they met and did everything in his power to impress her. A famous magician was performing in the ballroom, and Brian arranged for Melinda to be sawed in half. He filled her room with roses. He had the chef deviate from the typical menu to create a health-conscious California menu. He regaled her with decades of the choicest hotel gossip: Melinda knew who shtupped who and where and when, and which guests paid their bills in cash and who never paid at all. When he proposed a year later, she said yes.
Melinda and Brian settled in Brentwood, a thirty-minute drive from where she’d grown up in the Valley. Fanny had cried for days when he announced their plans to move west. By this point, Peter had already made it clear he was going to law school, and Aimee was engaged to Roger Glasser, who was in medical school in the Midwest. Nobody from the second generation was stepping up to run the hotel. For heirs apparent, they were a pretty apathetic lot, though Brian never had any guilt about shirking hotel management. What would he be able to contribute, especially while his parents and the Goldmans were still vibrant? His father talked a big game about wanting to pass on the Golden legacy, but he and Benny were resistant to any suggestions from the younger generation. Snowboarding, happy hour, a rock wall—these were just a sampling of ideas shot down without genuine discussion.
After they married, Brian took a job working for Melinda’s father, who owned a string of car dealerships in Southern California. Dick Roth was all about Brian learning the business from the bottom up, so he put Brian on the showroom floor for a year. It wasn’t glamorous work—as a Weingold he felt more employer than employee—but he obliged to please his father-in-law. Besides, the back seats of the roomier SUVs had ample space for daytime snoozes. Shortly after settling into a new home and job, Brian discovered that Melinda was pregnant. He found the double-line stick at the bottom of their kitchen garbage pail when he was looking for a bill he’d accidentally tossed. He was surprised she hadn’t told him, but what did he know about women? Melinda was the first woman he’d ever truly loved. Everything else was just quick one-nighters at the hotel and sloppy sex in his college dorm room. He’d figured she planned to share the news over a special dinner. Maybe she’d hint at it with a meal of baby carrots and baby lamb chops. Not that she ever cooked. Fanny didn’t care for his wife’s lack of domesticity. And Melinda didn’t appreciate her mother-in-law inspecting her pantry and freezer and then sending three large boxes filled with prepared meals packed in dry ice, with notes explaining how to warm them up and suggesting side dishes.
The hours on his feet at the dealership could be grueling, and one day he left work early because of a splitting headache. He hoped his father-in-law wouldn’t find out. The man was about as enthusiastic about Brian as Fanny was about Melinda. On the West Coast, the Weingold name and the Golden Hotel just didn’t have the same cachet as in the tristate area. Melinda’s family were the big shots here. If Dick Roth liked you, he could get you a brand-new Mercedes C500 before it hit the showroom floor. Brian wondered sometimes why he couldn’t have fallen in love with one of the girls from New York or New Jersey who were pushed at him, like Peter had. He’d married a girl who hung around the hotel from the less affluent bungalow colonies in the area. Greta was suitably awed by Peter’s pedigree and liked the idea of joining a family that would score her a front-row seat at the Rodney Dangerfield performance.
Melinda’s car had been in the driveway when he arrived, which made Brian happy. She was rarely home during the day when he called—always running to an exercise class or shopping. He took the stairs to their bedroom two at a time after he couldn’t find her on the ground floor.
“Oh, shit” was the first thing he heard when he pushed the door open. Melinda’s bare back, with its constellation of freckles, told him everything he needed to know. She was straddling somebody, but Brian couldn’t see who. It didn’t matter. Even in that mo
ment of discovery, he’d realized the identity of Melinda’s lover was irrelevant. His wife had hopped off and wrapped herself in a sheet, suddenly concerned with modesty.
The man in bed with his wife turned out to be Randy, the muscly contractor who had been doing some kitchen renovations for them. Brian had just given the guy a few extra bucks because he was pleased with how quickly the work was progressing. Now he understood why Randy was the first contractor in history to actually report faithfully to his job. Later, at a dive bar, Brian babbled to a sympathetic bartender that if only someone at the Golden had put out, his father wouldn’t have had to bribe and chase down the plumbers, air-conditioning repairmen, and pool guys.
“Let’s talk in the kitchen,” Melinda said while Randy fumbled for his clothes. Brian followed her wordlessly downstairs as Randy called out, “I’m really sorry, Brian. By the way, the countertops will be in next week.”
“What about the baby?” Brian asked the minute they were alone. “I found the test in the garbage.”
“It’s not yours.” She said it with so much certainty that he’d known it to be true.
A month later, he was in divorce proceedings, unemployed, and homeless. Amos and Fanny sent him a ticket home. He spent a month feeling sorry for himself in his childhood bedroom, listening to Paul Simon and smoking cigarettes out the window, until his father told him it was time to get his act together. He’d put on ten pounds from inertia and letting his mother feed his heartbreak.
“I could really use your help at the hotel,” Amos said. “The bungalow crowd is sneaking into the shows at night. And you know we always look the other way when guests fill their pocketbooks with food, but lately they’ve been coming to breakfast with empty suitcases. Come up for a few months and help me straighten things out.”
They’d both known it was a lie. Amos and Benny were in their prime. Occupancy was high, but well managed with a large and capable staff. Amos was meticulous about keeping the grounds and physical plant tip-top, and Benny had been well connected with the talent that kept the guests entertained in the lounges nightly. It was true some of their competitors had been starting to struggle, but since the Golden had been built in 1960, decades after its peers, it had had a genuine competitive advantage. The facilities had been fresher and the clientele younger. Brian had been about as needed as an appendix. But he’d gone. What else was there to do? He had no other skills.
Would his parents have ever encouraged him to work at the hotel if they’d foreseen its eventual demise? Could they even see it coming, or was it like missing the aging process on your own body? Each new gray hair hardly stood out; an extra wrinkle barely made a dent.
But Brian saw it all.
Mrs. Shirley Schoenfeld sitting in her usual spot, her wheelchair parked next to a potted plant she claimed offered nice shade. Next to the soda machine, Archie Buchwald, skin crinkled like linen, reading the newspaper upside down. Sal Rosensweig was telling one of the maintenance crew in his usual boom that his grandchildren were coming up for the week. In addition to suggesting to Sal that he adjust his hearing aid, Brian had the unfortunate task of relaying that Sal’s grandchildren had just emailed to cancel their visit.
“Brian, you wanted to see me?” Lucy Altman said, appearing at the check-in desk. Lucy was an intern from the Cornell School of Hospitality, which seconded a junior for an internship at the Golden every summer. Aimee had been the one to suggest the program, which she’d discovered when college touring with her daughter, Maddie. When Brian had asked Maddie if she planned to attend the Hotel School, as it was commonly known, she’d said, “I don’t think young people should specialize so early. I’m seeking a less vocational education.” It had taken a lot of restraint for Brian not to audibly groan.
Lucy was no better. She talked about how “cute” and “quaint” the Golden was and how she just loved “rural America,” while simultaneously twisting her nose ring and using Snapchat. She was still arguably the most qualified person to have applied to work at the hotel in ages. Her résumé didn’t have a single typo and had come attached to an intelligent, if not overly inspiring, cover letter. Lucy had written how eager she was to work at a place with “a retro vibe” and to “make a real difference,” as though the hotel were a charity organization and not a for-profit business. It didn’t actually turn a profit, but that didn’t mean that wasn’t the goal.
“Hi, Lucy. There’s going to be an owners’ meeting this weekend. I need your help getting the place shipshape. Please make sure my parents’ room is in perfect condition, and Mrs. Goldman’s cottage as well. Aimee Goldman might be coming with her kids, so please make sure she has two of the best connecting rooms, and put some fresh flowers in there, too.”
“And your brother?”
“I’m not sure yet,” Brian said. Peter hadn’t texted him back, which was infuriating. Why did the care of the entire hotel have to fall on his shoulders alone?
“Is this about the casino offer?” Lucy asked. That was another thing about millennials and Gen-Zers. They had no boundaries.
“The families meet regularly to discuss the hotel,” Brian said firmly. “Usually we do quarterly phone calls. This time, well, looks like everyone just missed the place.”
“Okay, because a lot of the staff is really nervous. I mean, everyone knows the Golden Hotel is the last of its kind still standing, and you know how these people rely on—”
“Lucy,” Brian stopped her. “I know all about it. Tell everyone to relax. Now, we need to duct-tape some of the sofas in the lounge before my parents and Mrs. Goldman arrive. Do they make duct tape in clear? Also, I’m told only three of the toilets are working in the ladies’ room. And I know it’s going to be a scorcher this week, so let’s get the AC units cleaned out and—”
“Brian,” Lucy interrupted him. “It’s going to take a lot more than duct tape to get this place spick-and-span. You said Aimee’s kids might be with her?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Um, they probably aren’t going to be happy that the Wi-Fi is out.”
“Really? When did that happen?” Brian asked.
“Three weeks ago,” Lucy said. “I put a sticky note on your desk.”
Lucy used a rainbow-colored sticky notepad. There were so many colored squares on Brian’s desk that together they resembled a Mondrian.
“I’ll have to look into that,” Brian said, trying to remain calm. “Or maybe you can handle it?”
“Sure. Also, one of the bungalow folks said nobody has cleaned the goose poop in the pool for at least—”
“I’m aware of the goose excrement situation.” He was not actually aware. “I’ll get maintenance on that.”
Lucy appeared embarrassed on his behalf, suddenly very interested in her Birkenstocks. Don’t they teach you goose poop cleanup at Cornell? he wanted to ask.
Brian checked his watch. It was almost lunchtime. He wanted to speak with Chef Joe to make sure all of his parents’ favorite foods were on hand for the week. If there was one thing he was certain of from a lifetime at the Golden Hotel, it was that thorny matters went a lot more smoothly on a full stomach.
He also needed to check the dishes and glasses to make sure the chipped ones weren’t served at the family meal. Showboating for his own family—sad but necessary. He thought about something he’d once read in the newspaper. Theater producers would give out free tickets to fill the audience when investors were attending the performance. Where could he find a set of likely Golden guests to fake high occupancy? He imagined renting a few Coach buses and filling them with residents of nearby old-age homes.
“That’s all for now, Lucy,” Brian said. She gave him a tentative thumbs-up and backed away.
A new email pinged on his computer screen. A message from his brother.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he said aloud.
Chapter Two
Aimee
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nbsp; While walking through the automatic doors that slid open to the Scarsdale ShopRite, Aimee Goldman-Glasser squeezed her eyes shut for a beat and said a silent prayer: Please let me not run into anyone. She pushed a wobbly cart through the produce department, not bothering to check the apples for bruises or the melons for firmness before slotting them into plastic bags. So far, she’d made it past the vegetables and fruits and the specialty salad dressings and dips without seeing any of the mothers from around town. Aimee had been strategic about her timing. Instead of grocery shopping at her usual hour, 9:30 a.m., after barre class and coffee klatch, she’d waited until the late afternoon, when most of the women she knew were either wrapping up social lunches or at home starting to think about prepping dinner. Others were still at work, shielded by cubicle walls or the thick glass of a windowed office. How Aimee would love to hole up in an office and never come out. Not for meals. Not for fresh air. Not for anything. She did “work”—but remotely—and if she was honest with herself, the consulting she did for the Golden Hotel averaged about three hours a month, hence the air quotes.
She swung her cart in the direction of the refrigerated dairy section, grateful for the blast of cold air. Aimee was sweating through her thin silk blouse. It would need to be dry-cleaned, like the bulk of her fancy wardrobe necessitated. It seemed the more expensive the label, the more care had to go into maintenance. It should really be the opposite. Well-made threads should be able to withstand a simple spin in the washing machine and a tumble through the dryer. Their household dry-cleaning bill was the kind of ridiculous expense that was absurd if she thought about it in isolation, but wasn’t so large as to cause her to change her habits. Until now. Now she might be forced to reconsider many things she’d once taken for granted, like the name-brand grocery items she was carelessly adding to her cart without giving the generic versions a second glance.
Last Summer at the Golden Hotel Page 3