Ocean Beach

by Wendy Wax

  “No,” he said. “I know this has to happen. And I’d rather do it now. With you.”

  “Come sit down, Max.” Nicole stepped toward him. Grasping his elbow, she led him to the turquoise chaise and helped him settle into it.

  “Yes, you sit right there,” Maddie said. “We’ll take things out one at a time and you can decide what you want to stay, what you might be ready to part with, and what you might want to donate.” She put out two boxes—one she labeled KEEP/MILLIE and one she labeled DONATE. Nicole opened a garbage bag and hung its plastic drawstring over the other closet’s knob.

  “Okay,” Maddie said, more cheerily than she thought any of them felt. “Now we’re in business.”

  Max’s smile remained in place but there was something uncertain in his eyes. Maddie leaned over in the guise of adjusting a lamp shade on the nightstand and whispered in his ear. “We can stop anytime you want to, Max. We don’t have to finish everything today.”

  Nicole was right beside her, pretending to straighten a picture on the wall. Between them they formed a protective curtain. “If you want or need to stop, just say…‘bagel and cream cheese’…and we’ll be the ones to call a halt.” She smoothed the lapel of Max’s smoking jacket. “Okay?”

  He nodded. “I’m not sure how I’d work that into the conversation,” he said, smiling as Nicole had clearly intended. “I don’t think I’ll have any reason to. But thanks.”

  They began to work their way through the closet, each pulling out two hangers at a time and holding them up for Max’s perusal.

  It was possible that they obscured Troy’s line of sight just slightly, but the cameraman didn’t complain. Maddie understood why when she looked up and saw him swinging his camera lens between Kyra at work and close-ups of Max’s face.

  The clothes were glamorous and expensive. Maddie was amazed at Max’s ability to remember when they’d been purchased and where Millie had worn them.

  “She bought that for New Year’s Eve at the Fontainebleau, 1963,” he said of a one-shouldered gold lamé gown. “We opened for Joey Bishop.”

  The next was black and strapless. “May 1965. It was a roast for Jackie Gleason.”

  A bright pink sheath had been purchased for dinner out with Meyer and Teddy Lansky.

  Max’s eyes lit appreciatively over some of them and misted at others. Maddie was struck anew at how close Max and his Millie had been. It had been just the two of them, working and living and loving together. Her own eyes moistened as she thought about Steve and how far apart they were now in so many ways. She’d thought that once he was back on his feet, their relationship would right itself. Instead a chasm had opened between them that she didn’t know how to bridge.

  “Maddie?”

  She looked up to find Nicole looking at her expectantly. “I’m sorry?”

  “I was just saying it’s too bad Millie was so petite. I’d be offering everything I have for these dresses right now if I thought I had a prayer of squeezing into them. This one’s a Chanel.” She pointed to a mint-green suit. “And look at this fabulous pillbox hat. It’s so Jackie Kennedy.”

  “Millie loved to dress up and to shop. In fact, R. H. Macy didn’t enjoy shopping as much as Millie did.”

  Maddie and Nicole smiled.

  “I used to get a rim shot after that line.” Max motioned with his cigar. “And a big laugh.”

  Maddie would have laughed then, except for the sadness etched on Max’s expressive face. Her gaze slid to the portable rack, which bulged and sagged with Millie Golden’s clothing. Not a single item had been discarded.

  “The thing is, I just can’t give her dresses to total strangers who won’t appreciate them.” Max looked down in his lap. “She would hate that.”

  “They look like they might fit Avery,” Nicole said. “With just a small alteration in the bust.” She held a garment up so that Madeline could see it. “Unfortunately, I can just see Avery strapping her father’s tool belt on over this Halston,” she added with a grimace.

  “I don’t want Millie turning over in her grave,” Max said. “They’re beautiful and one of a kind. Just like she was.”

  There was a silence as they contemplated Millie’s wardrobe.

  “They should go to someone who can appreciate them and wear them.” Maddie reached out to adjust some of the hangers. Opening one of the shoe boxes on the bed, she lifted out a spectacular pair of evening slippers that shimmered gold in the light and had a shiny Plexiglas heel.

  “Oh, my goodness,” Nikki breathed. “They look like they should belong to Cinderella. They’re so tiny. I’m not even sure I could get my big toe in.”

  Maddie straightened as the idea struck her. Quickly she pulled down the remaining shoe boxes and a large plastic storage container of fabulous hats. “Is there a local theater you could donate them to, Max? Or even a series of regional theaters who might put them onstage where they belong?”

  “That’s a great idea,” Nicole said. “They and Millie would continue on in the theater that way.”

  Max sat up a bit straighter. “I like it,” he said. “I like it a lot.”

  “Even if they couldn’t use an entire outfit, they might be able to use part of one,” Maddie said.

  There was a clatter on the roof. Troy signaled to Anthony. “Thanks, Max,” he said, ignoring Kyra. “They’re starting on the roof. We’re going to go see what Avery’s up to and get some exterior footage.”

  Kyra kept her camera up in front of her face; it was unclear whether she was still shooting or not. Maddie continued to open boxes as the Lifetime crew left. Each pair of shoes was more gorgeous than the last. “I’d consider having a few toes lopped off to wear some of these,” she said, only half joking. “I think we should pull a couple of outfits for Avery and save them for the right occasion.”

  “I know just the ones,” Nicole said, stepping closer to the rack.

  Maddie pulled a hard-backed chair up to the closet opening and stepped on it so that she could see all the way to the back of the shelf. Stretching up on her toes, she grasped the edge of another large clear plastic container. Once she’d worked it to the front of the shelf, she got a better grip and handed it down to Nicole, who laid it on the bed and lifted off its lid.

  Inside, there were several padded manila envelopes with the word House written across them, which she set aside for future inspection. Next came small cardboard boxes of sixteen-millimeter film, each carefully labeled with the date and venue. “Oh my gosh,” Maddie said. “This one says ‘Us on The Honeymooners.’ Did you really work with Jackie Gleason?”

  “We did,” Max said. “And somewhere there’s a small clip of Millie on I Love Lucy. I think she played Ethel’s younger sister.”

  Kyra moved so that she could kneel at the end of the bed. She braced her elbows on the bedspread to steady the camera.

  Nicole pulled the film boxes out so that Max could see the labels. “We should find a way to run these during the premiere party,” Nikki said. “I bet Troy or Anthony could transfer them to digital. And we could get the network to provide some big-screen TVs.”

  Max beamed.

  A layer of tissue-paper-wrapped boxes came next. Maddie unwrapped the first one, a delicate bone china with a woman’s face painted on the lid. She turned the box over so that she could see the stamp. “It’s Limoges,” she said. “And look, there’s a whole collection of them.” She unwrapped the boxes and set them gently on the bed.

  Next she unwrapped a sterling-silver dresser set. “Oh my gosh,” Maddie said as she held up the hairbrush, comb, and mirror. “These are beautiful. I feel like I’ve been let loose in a treasure chest.”

  “Millie used to keep them on her vanity.” Max reached for the intricately patterned handle of the brush. “I never really thought about what had happened to them.”

  At the bottom of the box Maddie found a zippered plasticine bag, like something a sheet set might come in. “Hey, what’s this?”

  Gently she removed the
contents; a stack of baby clothing that included tiny baby booties and nightgowns in shades of blue. A hand-knit sweater and cap that had taken on the shape of the threadbare stuffed bunny rabbit that had been wrapped inside it. Three small boxes of film had been rubber-banded to two dog-eared photo albums with pale blue covers. One word had been scrawled across the plastic in black Magic Marker in a decidedly feminine hand.

  “Max,” Madeline said, glancing up at the comedian. “This seems to be full of baby things.” She peered more closely at the name, trying to make it out. “I think the name is ‘Aaron.’”

  Max’s face went white as Madeline handed the photo albums to him. He took them carefully and held them almost protectively in his lap.

  “I didn’t realize,” he said. “I didn’t know Millie had kept his things.” His voice quavered. “Because I couldn’t bring myself to talk about him. I made her stop too.”

  “Who’s Aaron?” Nicole asked.

  Max looked up from the albums to meet their eyes. Kyra moved closer, practically lying facedown on the bed as Max caressed them with his gnarled hands.

  “Aaron disappeared from our front yard in 1961. When he was three. We were never able to find him.” His voice broke and his hands tightened on the albums. “Aaron was…he was our son.”

  Nicole stood in front of the warped and wavy mirror trying to decide whether she was underdressed or overdressed. Or even whether it mattered.

  Deep down she knew that a date, even something as innocuous as a dinner, with Special Agent Joe Giraldi was a very large mistake. All day she’d promised herself that she would simply text him her apologies, tell him something had come up, that she was sorry but she couldn’t make it. Even while she was helping to clean out Max’s closets, part of her mind had been worrying about how to handle the invitation, a worry that had been knocked aside briefly by Max’s startling revelation.

  Maddie had flung her arms around Max, immediately wanting to lavish him with love and make him feel better. Nicole had been unable to stop thinking about the boy Aaron. She and her brother had mostly raised themselves after their father had died and their mother had had to work two and three jobs at a time to keep food on the table. But at least they’d known who their parents were and had some semblance of family. How frightened would a boy of three have been by being picked up by a stranger, if that was what had happened? And what would he have remembered of his parents—assuming he’d survived the abduction?

  Nicole drew herself back to the present and told herself to stop dithering. It was too late to cancel now and so she dressed quickly in a vintage Emilio Pucci mini dress with a plunging front and back and inverted Empire waist. The bold geometric graphic in yellow, orange, and white worked perfectly with a pair of ankle-strapped cork wedges that would garner attention without looking like she’d tried too hard.

  She chastised herself for the little thrill of anticipation she felt when the doorbell rang precisely at eight. Kyra’s voice floated up the stairs to announce Giraldi’s arrival a few minutes later, but Nikki made him wait while she applied a second coat of coral lipstick and considered then rejected several pairs of dangly earrings. Plucking a short-sleeved white shrug out of a drawer, she folded it over her arm and scooped up a neon-orange leather clutch.

  It was eight-fifteen when she flipped off the light in her room and smoothed her hair back over her shoulders so as not to obscure the plunging V of her neckline. On the stairs she tilted her chin up to smooth out the lines of her neck and felt her lips tilt upward of their own accord. She walked sedately down the stairs reminding herself that this was just a dinner with an attractive man. Of whom she had no expectations and from whom she wanted nothing.

  But though she walked carefully in the high wedge sandals, her heart skipped on ahead.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Giraldi picked Nikki up in a 1960 356 Porsche Speedster, which was just one of what turned out to be many surprises that filled the evening. He opened the door for her with a slight bow and a smile.

  “I thought you drove a Jeep,” she said as he handed her into the butter-soft leather seat.

  “I do.” He shrugged as if it were no big deal. “The Jeep’s a workhorse. This is for fun.” He turned the key in the ignition and the car purred to life. “You’re not the only one who likes vintage.”

  AltaMare was a small and very intimate restaurant on the western end of Lincoln Road. At the front desk the hostess greeted Giraldi enthusiastically and ushered them to a perfectly situated table in a quiet corner. The waiter, who also seemed to know him, nodded approvingly while Giraldi asked Nikki for her input then ordered a bottle of wine he thought she would like along with an appetizer of grilled octopus with ferro and saffron aioli. He did both of these things effortlessly, without an ounce of insecurity or a hint of pomposity.

  “What?” he asked after she’d taken a first sip of the crisp Chardonnay then considered him closely.

  “You’re a wine connoisseur and a foodie.” It wasn’t a question but an observation, one she was having trouble coming to terms with. “Did you take James Bond classes at FBI school or something?”

  “Hardly.” His laughter lit up his eyes and softened the harsh angles of his face. “And I almost never chase down bad guys in a tux or ask for my martinis shaken, not stirred. I just like a good meal and a nice bottle of wine now and then. It’s not a calling or anything.”

  Nikki settled back in her chair and smoothed the cloth napkin the maître d’ had placed in her lap. “Fine. Then tell me about your business trip. Who do you have in your crosshairs now?”

  He smiled. “No one in particular at the moment. I’m actually part of a new unit working on profiling potential financial criminals.” He didn’t add “like your brother,” but then, he didn’t need to. “There are indicators that can be identified if you’re looking for them.”

  It took her a while to realize that that was all he was planning to give her as he smoothly changed the subject and began to ply her with questions about the house and the show. With his attention riveted on her, Nicole found herself telling him things she hadn’t even realized she’d been thinking about: the unexpected bond between Max and Dustin; how Kyra and the Lifetime cameraman locked horns at every turn; what it was like to watch Avery hold off Deirdre. Even the way Maddie got quiet when her husband’s name was mentioned.

  She nattered on all the way through the fabulous appetizer and her second glass of wine, stopping just long enough to listen to the waiter describe the entrées and the day’s special. The dining room was tastefully decorated, the atmosphere upscale. The service was impressive but not intrusive.

  Giraldi ordered a second bottle of wine, but it was the way he focused on her, how carefully he listened, that kept the words flowing. Over a main course of hogfish with a romesco sauce and baby-arugula-and-artichoke salad, she told him about Parker Amherst IV, relieved as she did so that she was still clearheaded enough to edit out her desperation to land this client who wasn’t technically a client yet. “I’d love to relaunch Heart, Inc.,” she said as she practically lapped up the meal. “At least to a certain extent.”

  Giraldi didn’t scoff at the idea, nor did he offer false assurances. But his attention remained riveted on her, his dark eyes telegraphing his interest.

  “Here, try this.” Giraldi placed a forkful of grilled Bûcheron on the edge of her plate. “But save some room for dessert. They serve a deconstructed tiramisu that is completely worth running an extra couple of miles to work off.”

  Nicole savored each bite of the hogfish, which she was glad was not as large as its name implied. “This is delicious,” she said, enjoying the moment almost as much as the food. “But I don’t know about dessert. I think the last time I ate this much was Thanksgiving. Maddie invited me to Atlanta and practically force-fed me one great meal after the other the whole time I was there.” She looked down at her plate and was shocked to find it empty. Ditto for the wineglass, though it didn’t stay that way for long. �
�I went with them to the hospital that night when Kyra went into labor.”

  She had been ridiculously grateful to be so welcomed into the Singers’ home and included in the holiday that she’d so often spent alone. But it had made her realize just how disconnected she was in the world. Especially with her only living relative in jail. Where unfortunately, he belonged.

  Under Giraldi’s warm gaze, Nicole almost told him about Max’s missing son and even Deranian’s reappearance, neither of which was her story to tell. She stopped talking, appalled at the amount of information she’d divulged and how much more she wanted to share; she whom her first husband had referred to as “the Sphinx.” “I can’t tell if I’ve had too much to drink or you’re the best interrogator ever,” she said, glad that her words remained unslurred.

  “I’m thinking it could be a little bit of both,” he replied easily in that straightforward manner that had once pissed the hell out of her but that now seemed oddly attractive.

  “Are you an interrogator?” Nicole asked.

  “I have some training,” he replied. “But I try not to use it on the civilian population. And I rarely use it on a date.”

  “You’ve got skills all right,” she said, intentionally ignoring the word date and only realizing after she’d spoken how her observation could be interpreted.

  He didn’t leer or turn her comment into a double entendre like so many men would have. Nor did he try to rush her through the rest of the meal and out of the restaurant to claim what some men might have thought of as their due after an expensive meal.

  But as he joked with the waiter and introduced the chef when he came out of the kitchen to say hello, and even as she gave in and shared the dessert that was every bit as heavenly as he’d promised, Nicole couldn’t help thinking about those other skills Giraldi undoubtedly possessed. And if she dared allow herself to experience them. Or whether his pursuit of her could possibly be as straightforward as he professed.