Christmas at the Beach

by Wendy Wax

  Back then the alcohol and drugs were just part of the gig. They hadn’t yet slowed his fingers or marred his voice, or eaten away the muscle and sinew that held him together, like termites gnawing on a wood shanty. The pain of watching his little brother leave their band, the aptly if offensively named Wasted Indian, in a hearse, hadn’t yet been carved into his face like a name slashed into a tree trunk. Back then the roar of the crowds had convinced him that he was alive. And destined to be young forever.

  Today the car that whisked him away from rehab had not been sent by a record company and did not contain, drugs, alcohol or a woman, eager or otherwise. It was a muddy brown BMW driven by his angry, tight jawed son whom he barely knew. The only one left from that once-vast sea, the only one bound by the obligation of blood.

  “Thanks for picking me up,” Will said.

  A grunt was his only answer. Which was perhaps more than he deserved.

  “And for arranging my . . . stay.” It was as close as he could come to admitting that he, William Hightower, who had made and blown millions, couldn’t have afforded the month spent at Three Palms Whole Health Center, which practiced an holistic and adventure based approach to beating one’s demons. Not even if he’d wanted to go there.

  There were no gates to drive through. No waiting press. No screaming fans. Just a clean modern building sandwiched between a lake where he’d paddled a kayak until his muscles burned and a pool where he’d numbed his mind and his body with lap after lap. He was leaving far fitter than he had arrived. Fitter than he’d been since he’d played his first gig at seventeen. He’d give the Three Palms folks one thing; they’d forced him to clean up his outside while they’d hammered away at his interior. As if there were anything left in there.

  The hair that had once hung down his back barely brushed his shoulders; the glossy black was streaked with gray. His face, bruised and battered by 61 years of hard living was still dominated by a hatchet of a nose and high harsh cheekbones that the camera had once loved. His dark eyes were framed by a spider’s web of lines, but they were clearer than they’d ever been; allowing him to see the world around him as it really was; stark and unrelenting.

  They drove south from the hermetically sealed town of Westin, Florida in silence, palm trees sliding by, bold blasts of tropical color climbing walls and snaking up tree trunks. The flat morning light was unforgiving, leaving only the stingiest triangles of shade.

  In Florida City the turnpike emptied onto US-1 then onto the two-laned eighteen mile ribbon of asphalt that locals called ‘the stretch.’ It was here that the real world began to dissolve while paradise crooked its finger just ahead. Even on the crappiest day ‘the stretch’ could cause heart rates to slow, stress levels to drop, and brain synapses to fire less frantically. But today Will’s mind flitted at random as Tommy drove sedately, his eyes fixed straight ahead. Despite the open windows the silence between them hung hot and heavy, stuffed with things that had never been forgiven and which Will sincerely hoped would never be discussed.

  A chain link fence was all that held back the scrub and brush as they skirted the Everglades and crossed over the Monroe County Line. Will stole the occasional surreptitious glance at his son, who had inherited his size and coloring and who looked so much like the younger brother he’d been named for that it hurt to look at him. He thought about the boy’s mother, who’d been a casualty of the life they’d lived, too. So many people gone for no good reason.

  From the top of the Jewfish Creek Bridge sun glinted off the impossibly turquoise water that flanked them and a warm salt breeze tinged the air and rifled Will’s hair. In Key Largo scuba and bait and tackle shops began to fly by. A strip mall sign promising Pilates in Paradise caught his eye.

  The silence spooled out. Will’s eyelids grew heavy. He was close to nodding off when Tommy said, “I talked to the bank. Then I brought in a Realtor to look at Mermaid Point.”

  Will’s eyes blinked open. This was what happened when you gave your only blood relative power of attorney. In case of emergency. Never thinking that you might be thrashing it out in rehab when they decided to declare one.

  He’d bought the tea-table shaped key on a whim back in the early eighties when Key West had ceased being a place to hide out, kick back and chill. When cruise ships began to arrive and depart daily and crowds longing to be wild and eccentric planted a flag and declared Key West their capital of crazy. Everyone he cared about had fled. Will had only made it seventy-nine mile markers up US-1.

  “I’m not interested in selling Mermaid Point.” Not his island. Not ever.

  They were passing through Tavernier. Mariner’s Hospital and McDonald’s flashed by and then they were crossing Tavernier Creek. Soon they’d be on Upper Matecumbe, the third of Islamorada’s four keys.

  Almost home.

  “Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t sell the island without doing something about the house and the outbuildings,” his son said. “Not in the condition they’re in.”

  It was Will’s turn to grunt. When he’d bought Mermaid Point it had been one of many homes Will owned. Now it was all he had left. All he wanted to do when he got there was stretch out in a chaise by the pool and zone the hell out. Which wouldn’t be anywhere near as easy without a drink or a joint in his hand.

  At the moment he was trying not to think about how he was going to live the next week, let alone the rest of his life, without numbing up. He wasn’t sure his pool—or even the Atlantic Ocean, which his pool overlooked—were big enough to swim the number of laps it would take. He didn’t know if there were enough laps in this world to make the need to detach go away.

  “The thing is if the house and grounds could be renovated it would make a great place for an island vacation or a corporate retreat. And you could keep the rooms rented out all the time—I mean you’re still a name. People would pay a fortune to come stay in a property owned and operated by William the Wild.” The tone was derisive. As if he were relating something that he didn’t understand but he knew to be true. “You could make a living as the ‘genial host’ of the Rock n Roll Bed and Breakfast. Or, I don’t know, maybe we should just call it the Wild House.”

  “You’re joking.” Will kept his voice even. He wasn’t even home yet. He was not going to get worked up. Hadn’t he just spent a month trying to learn how to stay calm and in control? “And it’s not like you’d ever get approval for a Bed & Breakfast. There’s an ordinance against them. And a moratorium on building.”

  Tommy shook his head dismissively. “That’s just semantics and small town politics. And I never joke about money.” Of course, he didn’t. The kid was a damned Investment Banker with a calculator for a brain. If he didn’t look so much like a Hightower Will might have doubted the paternity test. “Unless you want to end up on the sofa sleeper in my living room? Or an old age home for former rock stars?”

  Will crossed his arms over his chest and turned an eye on Tommy. He’d used this look to good effect with record people who’d wanted to turn him into some fancy boy crooner when he was a rocker through and through. And with fans who didn’t understand boundaries or personal space. “That won’t be happening.” If he’d earned anything in all the decades played out onstage, it was privacy. “There’s no way in hell I’m sharing my island or my home with strangers.” He shuddered when he thought of wide-eyed honeymoon couples or worse, sad-eyed retirees in the bedroom down the hall.

  You didn’t own a slab of coral rock barely tied to land if you wanted strangers anywhere near you.

  His son turned and looked at him. “Well, I’m afraid you don’t really have a choice. You don’t have enough money to live on without using your sole remaining asset one way or the other. You can sell Mermaid Point and the structures on it and live frugally for the rest of your life.” His tone indicated he didn’t believe William had the ability to do any such thing. As if he’d been born to wealth and hadn’t earned his
fortune one damned song at a time. “Or you can renovate, play the host to anyone willing to spend the money, and at least keep a roof over your head.”

  William’s throat was so parched he could barely swallow. He didn’t know how he’d made such an obscene amount of money and ended up with so little. Or how the son who despised him had come up with such a horrifying plan.

  A drink would have smoothed things out. Would at least allow him to pretend he wasn’t a broke, recovering alcoholic. Slowly, he reached in his pocket and pulled out a tootsie roll pop. He unwrapped it carefully and placed it in his mouth as they passed Whale Harbor Marina.

  The Lor-e-lei whizzed by on his right. Pretty soon they’d see Bud n’ Mary’s Marina which would make him as good as home. He sucked on the thing in silence refusing—in a ridiculous test of will—to give in and bite into its chewy center like he wanted to.

  Danielle, his favorite group leader at the facility, had given him a large bag of the pops as a going away present. Idly, he wondered why no one had ever invented a whiskey-flavored version with a shot of Jack Daniels in the center. Maybe that’s what he should do to get back on his feet. Invent an alcoholic version of the Tootsie Pop.

  He turned his head to hide his smile, concentrating on the hard, sweet candy in his mouth. Maybe an alcoholic but sugar free version so all the poor alcoholics didn’t become diabetic on top of everything else. He crossed his arms on his chest and let his eyes skim over the familiar surroundings as he sucked on that candy shell.

  He could tell by the position of the sun that sunset was only a few hours away. From Mermaid Point he could watch the sun rise over the Atlantic in the morning and see it set over the Gulf every night; both were sights he hadn’t gotten tired of seeing yet.

  Back in the day he could have scribbled down a hit song on a napkin between sets in a bar. But that was then. Before he’d turned as old as the fucking hills and lost most everyone he’d ever cared about. This was now. And he was pretty certain that he didn’t have so much as half a melody hidden anywhere inside him.

  One

  Although she hadn’t exactly planned it, Madeline Singer had recently achieved two things that surprised her: A senior citizen discount. And the legal right to date.

  Over the course of her twenty-seven year marriage, Maddie had fulfilled many roles and been described in a variety of ways. She’d begun as a young bride, morphed quite happily into a suburban housewife, and genuinely enjoyed the years spent taking care of her husband and two children that followed. Two years ago, for a time so brief she wasn’t sure it should count, she’d become an ‘empty nester’ eagerly anticipating what she was sure would be a new and exciting phase of her life. That anticipation had been blotted out by the discovery that she was, in fact, a Ponzi Victim; a dark thundercloud of reality that had forever changed her, her family and her life but which had been rimmed with a silver lining of unsuspected inner strength and sense of purpose. She could now be described by two words that she’d never imagined joined together. Those words were fifty-one and single.

  As oxymorons went hers was nowhere near as clever as ‘jumbo shrimp,’ ‘virtual reality,’ or even ‘a little bit pregnant.’ But it did qualify her to join AARP. And, apparently, to go out with new men.

  Most of all it made Maddie more determined than ever to prove that being old enough to get a senior citizen discount didn’t mean you couldn’t start over.

  * * *

  It was May in the Atlanta suburbs. The azalea bushes bulged with white and fuchsia blooms as Madeline contemplated the For Sale sign now planted in the sprawling yard her children had once played in. A row of deep orange daylilies marched down a gentle slope to meet the mass of purple and red tulips that had shot up through the red clay. The deep green leaves of the magnolia trees she’d planted to celebrate Kyra and Andrew’s births cupped large white saucer shaped blooms.

  Madeline’s pollen dappled minivan sat in the driveway crammed to capacity for the drive down to Tampa where she, Kyra and her grandson Dustin would spend the night. Tomorrow morning they’d caravan down to the Florida Keys with partners Avery Lawford and Nicole Grant where they’d spend yet another sweat soaked summer transforming a mystery house for an unknown individual for their renovation turned reality TV show, Do Over.

  “Gee-ma!” Her grandson emerged from the open garage, his mother behind him. The one and a half year old raced to her, his legs churning, his chubby arms spread wide. Maddie lifted him into her arms and rubbed her nose against his. His golden skin was soft and warm. His dark lashes long enough to brush against her cheek in a butterfly kiss.

  “Dustin!” She planted a kiss on his forehead and hugged him to her chest. When her daughter had been fired from her first feature film for sleeping with its star, Malcolm Dyer and his Ponzi scheme had already plunged their family into dire financial straits. Kyra’s resulting pregnancy and conviction that it was only a matter of time until Daniel Deranian whisked her away to ‘Happily Ever After’ had seemed just one more crisis to overcome. Until the first time she’d held Dustin in her arms.

  “I can’t believe you’re selling the house.” Kyra’s eyes were fixed on the sign. Her arms were filled with camera gear. A diaper backpack dangled from one shoulder.

  Maddie braced as she waited for one of Kyra’s pointed observations about just how few women Maddie’s age would have had the guts to ask for a divorce. Or tossed out some new and troubling statistic about the shocking percentage of divorced women and their children who ended up living below the poverty line. As if their entire family hadn’t already hovered uncomfortably above that line for the last two years. Maddie expelled a breath of relief when Kyra fell silent.

  * * *

  Yesterday, which would have been her 27th wedding anniversary, had been spent packing and finishing up de-cluttering the house so that the Realtor could start showing it. Their history as a family in it either stuffed into boxes or discarded. “I know. It’s hard to imagine someone else living here,” Madeline agreed. And yet if the Real Estate Gods were bountiful, the next time she saw their house it could belong to someone else. “But maybe a new family with young children will move into it like we did.”

  Like mourners not yet ready to lay a beloved family member to rest, they observed a moment of silence. “I don’t want to picture anyone else in our house. I’m having a hard enough time trying not to think about the people who’ll be living in Bella Flora.” Kyra’s hands tightened on the camera bags as she mentioned the neglected mansion on the tip of St. Petersburg, Florida that Madeline, Nicole, and Avery had desperately nursed back to life not once but twice. “Are you ready?”

  The answer was no, not really. Even though she knew deep in her gut that divorce had been the best, most positive option for both her and Steve, her excitement was tinged with regret. Maddie was looking forward to going to the Keys for the first time; she couldn’t quite believe she was going as a single woman.

  She followed Kyra to the van.

  “I wish they’d tell us a little more about the owner of the house we’re going to renovate. I mean ‘high profile’ individual covers a lot of ground,” Kyra said as she loaded the camera bags into the backseat. Their first full season of Do Over, which would begin airing in just a few weeks, had been shot on South Beach where they’d renovated an Art Deco Streamline that had belonged to Max Golden, a former Vaudevillian they’d all fallen in love with.

  “Well, from what I hear Key West is party central. If we end up down there you can hit the bars, Mom. We could go drinking together, troll for dudes.” Kyra took Dustin and began to buckle him into his car seat. “The tabloids would eat it up. And I bet our ratings would go through the roof. I’m surprised Lisa Hogan hasn’t already set it up.” Neither of them were fans of the network production head who cared only about ratings. “Who knows, you could get your own Reality TV spin off called Cougar Crawl or something.”

  Maddie looked a
t her daughter who seemed unable, or unwilling, to grasp the fact that the divorce had left both of her parents happier, or at least less unhappy, people.

  “Well, if I get that spin off I’ll be sure to invite you on for a cameo appearance.” Maddie bit back a smile at Kyra’s shocked expression. “We’d better get on the road. I told Avery we’d be there in time for dinner.” Maddie climbed into the driver’s seat of the minivan. She averted her gaze from the For Sale sign as she backed down the drive for what might be the last time and reminded herself that the time had come to stop apologizing. Still the last thing she wanted to think about was partying or, God help her, ‘dating.’ Ending her marriage had been all about making the most of the life she had left, not the right to sashay through bars or pick up men.

  Fifty-one-year-old grandmothers did not belong in the dating pool when they weren’t even sure they remembered how to swim.

  ***

  Avery Lawford had what some might consider an unhealthy relationship with power tools. She’d come by it naturally, the result of a childhood spent trailing behind her father on his construction sites, a bright pink hardhat smashed down on top of unruly blond curls, a training wheels of a tool belt buckled tightly around her little girl hips.

  Before her mother ran off to Hollywood to become an interior designer to the stars, Avery went with other little girls to ballet and tap lessons where she discovered she had no discernible natural rhythm or the slightest chance of learning to leap like a gazelle. By the time her mother left them, Avery knew how to handle the business end of a hammer and when to use a fine blade in a circular saw versus a rough cut. The whine of a band saw, not Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, was the music that moved her.