Last Summer at the Golden Hotel

by Elyssa Friedland

  “What about Greta?” she asked. Amos noticed she didn’t use their usual nickname for their daughter-in-law, which meant this was a serious conversation.

  “She serves her role. And we know Peter’s a pleaser. He knew she liked nice things, and he wanted to give them to her. But just like when he was little and decided to memorize the map of the world and the periodic table of elements, he took it a step too far. She’s probably very lonely, especially with the kids gone.”

  “I think you’re right,” Fanny said. “I can date her first plastic surgery to Michael’s first year at Harvard.” Her chair approached him from behind, and she put a hand on his waist. “Amos Weingold, you are a very intelligent man.”

  “You don’t run a hotel and observe thousands of families and not pick up a thing or two,” he said. Lord knew he wasn’t book smart. His teachers at P.S. 110 used to chase him down the hallways for his assignments. He’d learned to slip into the boys’ room at exactly the right moment to avoid discussing a C on a math test. He’d found a loyal girlfriend to cheat off whenever he could. In this way, he and Benny had been alike—though he’d taken on more of the number crunching than Benny, who’d thought they could run the place on charm alone. They’d been students of life, not Algebra II and Civil War history. This seemed to be the case with many entrepreneurs. Peter’s unbroken string of A’s had always been a marvel to Amos. Brian’s report card, which had had a more diverse representation of the alphabet, was more familiar territory.

  Fanny licked her index finger to flatten the few stray hairs that stretched across the canvas of his bald head.

  “I’m glad you got rid of that hairpiece. I like you just fine the way you are.” His wife kissed him on the cheek. She knew better than anyone what this week was doing to him. To hear his life’s work callously referred to as “dated,” “tired,” and “irrelevant,” to name a few choice words that had been thrown around, and to see decades of history, laughter, and memories—the stuff of legend, really—distilled to a bottom-line number was nothing short of heartbreaking.

  “And to answer your question from before, they charge a lot to do this goat yoga business, but we’re going for free. Because our granddaughter is going to post a picture of herself hugging a goat, and apparently that’s worth the price of five free spots in the class,” Fanny said.

  “Five? Who’s not going?” Someone had been able to opt out of this and it wasn’t him? He was in his eighties! He didn’t even know what yoga was, even though his doctor had recommended it to help his back and knees. What Dr. Browning didn’t realize, as a man in his late forties, was that you hit a wall around age seventy where you simply refused to try new things, and you didn’t feel bad about it, either. Amos didn’t actually intend to participate, but after Aimee had spontaneously given a rousing speech about how everyone should be open-minded and willing to listen to other people’s ideas, he’d felt he didn’t really have a choice about coming along.

  “Brian said he needs to work. Plumbing contractors coming in to deal with the brown water situation. And Michael’s staying back. He said he doesn’t feel well. Which concerns me, because the Rothsteins are leaving tomorrow, and he hasn’t even gotten Sarah’s number yet.” Fanny pouted. “I need to stay alive to see at least one of my grandchildren married. He’d better not tell anyone about this drama major stuff or nobody will let their daughters go out with him. Though I suppose Peter has enough to support another household.”

  Amos smiled to himself. Fanny could win the Powerball and immediately fret about how complicated the tax forms would be.

  “I wouldn’t give too much thought to Michael and the Rothstein girl, truly.” He watched for a flash of understanding, but nothing. “Fanny, are you sure you want to come? You can just rest while we go putter with the goats.” His wife looked tired. But then again, she always did. Apparently Louise had once told her that Bloomingdales bags were smaller than the ones under her eyes. This in an attempt to let the hotel makeup girl make over Fanny.

  “There is no way I’m missing the sight of Louise Goldman on her hands and knees while a goat climbs on her,” Fanny said, and rolled to the door. Amos could swear it was like she had set her chair in superspeed mode.

  “You’re right. That’s not something to skip,” he said, and opened the door for her. “Let’s go be hip. Good thing I got a new one last year.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Yogi Land Farm was about a forty-minute drive from the Golden, but it might as well have been on a different planet.

  “What is this area?” Fanny peered out the window in wonder, the way the twins used to when they took long car trips.

  Amos shared in her amazement. Along the road they saw one hippie-dippie shop after another: local jewelry, local apples, local candles, local e-cigarettes, and the kicker, a general store called the Locavore anchoring a strip of smaller boutiques. He rolled down the window and discovered the whole street stank of patchouli.

  “Did being local change its meaning since we were young?” he asked rhetorically. Local had used to mean “from the neighborhood,” and it certainly wasn’t a label you’d slap on a product to help it sell.

  “Mr. Weingold, the farm is just up ahead,” said Carlos, who was behind the wheel.

  The driver was Brian’s doing. His son was being impossibly cautious, not letting Amos drive himself even though he could see perfectly well with the eyedrops. That lamppost from the accident a year ago had been in a blind spot! And he drove a hell of a lot better than these yokels texting in their Priuses.

  But there was no point in fighting with his son, so he’d acquiesced to having one of the gardeners drive him and Fanny to the yoga class. It turned out being a passenger wasn’t too terrible. He and Fanny had sat in the back together, and Carlos had run ahead to open the doors for them. It reminded him of the fancy building Benny and Louise had moved into on Central Park West after fleeing the suburbs, where the doormen flailed around to serve the tenants, flinging themselves into traffic to hail taxis and relieving their hands of grocery bags. He wouldn’t have minded the gilded life, but Fanny was insistent they stay put in their split-level home on Long Island. We’re different, she’d insisted. Why did being different mean he had to plunge his own toilet and replace the burnt-out bulbs when Benny could just call downstairs to his super? But Amos had never pressed too hard. He wanted to keep his wife happy, and Fanny wouldn’t have liked living in a place where the women lived at their cosmetic dermatologists and lunched in fine restaurants. She wanted to play cards and see her grandchildren. And that, Amos could give her.

  “Good grief, thank goodness you drove us,” Fanny said as they approached Yogi Land. She was right. There wasn’t a space to park. Solar-powered cars and pickup trucks plastered with bumper stickers were double-parked for nearly a mile.

  “I’ll be right here when you’re done,” Carlos said, jumping to help Fanny out of the car and into her wheelchair. “Look over there. I see Mrs. Goldman and her daughter.”

  Amos made out Louise across the road. She was hard to miss in the neon pink jumpsuit and matching visor. He wondered if she was trying to attract the goats or scare them off.

  “Looking good, Grandma,” called out Zach’s voice, and Amos turned to see the pockmarked boy standing with Phoebe a few paces back from Louise. Those two were getting awfully cozy. Amos wasn’t sure what Phoebe saw in him, though he was proving to be less of a dolt than previously assumed. He wondered what Louise thought about their pairing, assuming she’d even noticed.

  Louise had not been herself since losing Benny. They’d been lucky sons of bitches, he and Benny, finding wives they were so compatible with. The downside was a small price to pay—immeasurable sorrow when your partner went before you.

  “Grandpa,” Phoebe squealed. “Thank you so much for giving this a chance. We got so lucky there was a class this afternoon. I tried to go in Brookly
n a few weeks ago, but the Health Department shut it down. Anyway, you’re going to love the goats. They are adorbs.” She linked her arm through his and kissed him on the cheek. He had missed that feeling, the warmth of his grandchildren. He would play soccer with donkeys and swim with pigs if it meant his granddaughter would show him this kind of affection on a regular basis. He looked over at Fanny and saw she was thinking the exact same thing. Weingolds came with dimples, and Phoebe’s were epic. Still, she didn’t often smile enough to bring them out to their full potential, but today she did.

  “I brought mats for everyone,” she said.

  “They don’t provide mats?” Fanny asked, shaking her head in obvious bewilderment. The notion was as absurd as telling Golden guests to bring their own towels to the pool.

  “No, Grandma. It’s not sanitary! Zach, come with me. I have to introduce myself to the teacher and get some good photos.” She bounded off to where at least seventy yoga mats in a rainbow of colors were lined up on the grass. And if his macular degeneration wasn’t acting up on him, weaving between the mats were the goats. Bleating, grass-eating, pooping goats roaming freely, climbing over people who had willingly paid for this experience.

  “Are you really doing this?” Aimee asked Louise loudly. “I have to. For Zach. But you totally get a pass.”

  “I’m not dead yet, darling,” Louise said, and Amos watched as she headed toward a spot in the front row, purple yoga mat tucked under her arm.

  “Baa-maste, everyone,” the teacher called.

  * * *

  • • •

  You’re okay! It’s okay! It’ll come out. I looked it up. Goat excrement is totally washable,” Phoebe was saying, flailing in a mad dash to locate paper towels. Many of the yogis had whipped out cell phones from their spandex and were recording.

  “Water, water. I need water,” Louise was saying. She had collapsed onto a lawn chair someone had miraculously produced, and was fanning herself dramatically with a stack of Yogi Land brochures. Zach had appeared with wet napkins and was dabbing at the pile of poop that had collected on Louise’s pants.

  “Please recycle those when you’re done,” said a random passerby in a trucker hat and Birkenstocks.

  “Excuse me,” Louise said, waving a finger at Trucker Hat. “Did a goat unload his waste on you today?”

  “Listen, lady, climate change is real. It’s more serious than cancer.”

  Uh-oh, thought Amos. Louise’s eyes went wild. He had a sudden urge to duck and cover.

  “Have you lost any friends to cancer?” she asked, rising from her chair.

  “Um, no, but—” the man stammered.

  “Well, I have. Many. So I will decide what’s more serious than cancer. And I am not ‘lady.’ I am Mrs. Goldman, and I made the Catskills what they are before you were even born.”

  “Maman, that’s enough,” Aimee said, casting an apologetic look at the stranger.

  But Louise was right. Amos wanted Aimee to stop apologizing on behalf of their generation. He was getting awfully sick and tired of the Gen-Xers and millennials and the Z’s—basically anyone who had been on this earth for less than six decades—telling him what to do. Life experience had to count for something. When he looked back on what he’d known in his twenties, it didn’t amount to a hill of beans. It was enough to build a hotel, but he’d made plenty of mistakes along the way. It was something he and Benny used to joke about—the tomfoolery of their younger years. “Remember the time we paid the washing machine repair guy up front and then he never came back with the parts?” “Remember when we double-booked comedians and then both of them refused to go on stage?” Their mistakes could fill a hundred guest books, but they became fewer over the years. Experience was the most valuable teacher, and now he, Fanny, and Louise were being directed by people who’d never held a steady job.

  Well, Amos wasn’t going to take it for another minute. He met Louise’s gaze, forging an unspoken pact.

  “Your mother is right to be upset,” he said to Aimee. And to Mr. Climate Change, he simply said, “Beat it before I get angry.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Brian

  Brian, you got a few minutes to chat, pal?” Howard Williams asked him.

  It was just before five, and Brian was heading to the dining room to speak with the maître d’ about the evening’s theme meal (A Night in Morocco) when the president of Diamond Enterprises called.

  “Uh, sure, yeah,” he said, ducking back into his office. He knew what was coming. Another shakedown. Howard would tell him that a third possible tract had been identified or that the board was demanding a lower purchase price. He groaned internally. “What’s up?”

  “Well, this is a little bit delicate, but I didn’t see how I could not tell you. After reading about the fire, I had my guys do a little more due diligence on your property. Checking on the insurance policies, safety inspections—you know, usual stuff. One of my guys—young analyst from Princeton—he’s real sharp. He went over all the numbers again and found something a bit off.”

  Off? Brian sank into his desk chair. He reminded himself this was probably another tactic employed by Howard to knock a few bucks off the purchase price.

  “What did he find?” Brian asked.

  “Y’all said your family and the Goldmans were fifty-fifty partners, right?”

  “Absolutely,” Brian said. “Split right down the middle. Like Solomon.”

  Howard cleared his throat.

  “Darlin’, could you freshen my whiskey for me?” He was speaking to someone else, and Brian was growing impatient. What time was it in Texas? “Sorry ’bout that. Anyway, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but looks like your father’s partner, Benny, was trimming a little bit of fat over the years. Well, a lot of fat. Do you get what I’m saying?”

  “No, I don’t,” Brian said. His voice was firm, but his insides were quaking. He pictured Aimee, sweet, warm, naked in his arms the prior evening. She worshipped her father.

  “What I’m saying, Mr. Weingold, is that your father’s partner was stealing from him. Big-time. Now, in light of this discovery, we’re going to have to take another good look at the books. I’m sure you can understand. Let me give you an example of what my young fella found. In 1993, Mr. Goldman took out a mortgage against the property without your father’s signature. I’m not even sure y’all own the property free and clear to sell it. Do you want to hear more?”

  But Brian had already dropped the phone.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Aimee

  She still couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen Brian alone since their evening together. She’d been more than relieved when he hadn’t joined the goat yoga excursion. Not that he hadn’t seen every inch of her already, but she honestly thought she might look better butt naked than with the clingy pull of exercise pants and a sports bra. Lycra was like a sausage casing; it sucked you in, but the fat had to go somewhere. Which meant a muffin top and bulges of back fat, in her case.

  After everyone returned from the ill-fated excursion, they dispersed to their rooms to shower. It wasn’t just her mother desperate to rinse off. Aimee had been in the midst of savasana when a baby goat had come over and licked her face.

  After freshening up (i.e. intense scrubbing with a loofah), she headed to the dining room, but found only Zach and Phoebe at the family table. It was fitting to find them there; those two were certainly acting like they already owned the place.

  Moments later, Fanny, Amos, and Louise came in together. Her mother looked to have regained her composure since the incident. Fanny was fretting that nobody had seen Michael since the morning.

  “Where’s Brian?” she asked, trying to sound casual.

  “He’s dealing with hotel business,” Amos said. “First it was toilets, now there’s some staff issue. I’m sure he’ll be in soon.”

  Aimee had no choice but t
o accept Brian’s absence and trudge her way through Chef Joe’s attempts at putting a Jewish spin on Moroccan classics, though she didn’t think matzo balls had any business floating in chickpea stew.

  Who cared if Brian was avoiding her? She wasn’t a teenager waiting to be asked to the Golden Gala. Whether Brian “liked” her or “like-liked” her was irrelevant. Relevant was taking care of her children. She really ought to check in on Scott. And make sure Maddie had made it to Florida all right. Relevant was taking care of her mother, who was still on edge post goat incident. Relevant was behaving like a wife. Relevant was seeing that a sensible decision was made about the hotel, one that was fair and didn’t rely too much on the competing interests of her husband and son. SELL! BUY! She imagined Roger and Zach yelling like stockbrokers on a trading floor.

  “Brisket vindaloo?” George offered, appearing at her side with a tray.

  “Why not?” Aimee said, defeated.

  When Brian finally showed up during dessert, he took a seat at the opposite end of the table and didn’t look her way once.

  * * *

  • • •

  Tuesday morning arrived in a most unpleasant fashion, the sound of a jackhammer drilling in the room next door. She was going to call down to the front desk to complain, only to realize after sitting up that the noise was coming from inside her own head.

  She had slept like total crap. The Ambien she’d taken had been no match for the dangerous combination of wine, spicy food, and Brian’s face appearing before her on a repetitive loop. It was after nine already. She had to meet her mother at the salon shortly. Diego, true to his word, had confirmed arrival at the hotel yesterday. Louise had promised to be there to oversee Aimee’s makeover, even though the directive was pretty clear: undo the perm and make her look like someone living in the twenty-first century.