Ocean Beach

by Wendy Wax

  Kyra wanted to tell him that he shouldn’t have bothered, that she wanted him to leave, but his fingers had moved from Dustin’s soft cheek to the baby’s fist, which rested on her breast. A shudder rippled through her as the baby’s fingers opened briefly then wrapped around his father’s.

  It took several long seconds to slow her heartbeat and find her voice.

  “I don’t understand what you want,” she said finally. “You’re living with your wife and your children and you think it’s okay to show up here whenever you feel like it? This isn’t a game, Daniel.” She paused, trying to swallow the rise of feelings she’d thought she was free of. “You’re just making a bad situation harder.”

  “I don’t actually know what I want,” Deranian said, a note of surprise in his voice. “I mean I know what I’m supposed to want, what I’ve always wanted.” He reached out and slipped the baby blanket out of the way. “But I don’t see why those things have to be mutually exclusive.” The fingers of his free hand trailed across her skin. “I’d like to be more to you and Dustin than a bank account.”

  The old-man face moved closer to hers and her eyes fluttered shut. She heard the rustle of clothing as he leaned over her. When his lips covered hers, her arm stole up around his neck and the three of them were connected. She said his name, but what she’d meant as a protest came out on a sigh.

  Her brain knew and remembered all of the reasons she’d had to give him up. Her heart seemed to have developed a worrisome case of amnesia.

  Monty’s at the Miami Beach Marina was noisy and redolent of boat fumes and fried seafood. Island music played in the background and there was plenty of sun-kissed skin to look at, but it was the view out over Government Cut to the south and the Port of Miami and downtown to the west, where the sun would soon set, that drew the crowds. Well, that and one of the longest happy hours on South Beach, one that Nicole, Avery, Deirdre, and Maddie were currently availing themselves of. Kyra nursed a single glass of wine while Dustin sat in his carrier on the table apparently enjoying the music and the warm breeze off the water.

  “Okay,” Avery said, settling back in her chair. “This is definitely the life.”

  Maddie had to agree as she watched yet another expensive-looking speedboat filled with tanned thirtysomethings nudge up to the docks. Out in the channel, powerboats and sailboats of all sizes passed by. Here at Monty’s a mix of tourists and locals sipped drinks and ate seafood.

  “I can’t believe Troy actually thought I’d leave Dustin with him,” Kyra said as she handed back the squishy baseball that the baby had almost dropped in the mound of smoked-fish spread. “He seemed to think Dustin belonged there watching baseball with the guys.”

  Dustin squished the baseball Troy had given him at the sound of the cameraman’s name. A coincidence, no doubt, like early smiles that were actually gas.

  “He is good with him,” Madeline said. “And apparently he has young nieces and nephews he babysits for.” She dabbed at a trickle of drool that had slipped out of Dustin’s mouth and the baby flashed both of his new teeth at her.

  Kyra shot her a look. “Since when are you defending him?”

  Since Daniel Deranian showed up, Madeline thought but did not say. An unwanted and argumentative cameraman seemed a far safer choice than an intrusive and potentially irresistible married movie-star father. “I’m not defending him. I just think he could probably be trusted to keep an eye on Dustin for an hour or two in a pinch.” She reached for a popcorn shrimp and popped it into her mouth. Beside her, Deirdre squeezed lemon over their order of calamari. Apparently in the grip of a fried-food frenzy, they’d also ordered a loaf of onion rings. Everyone but Kyra was drinking “painkillers,” the happy hour specialty, which so far seemed to be delivering on its claim.

  “I need you all to give me any final names for the premiere-party guest list,” Deirdre said as they munched and drank. “The invitations have started going out, but we have plenty. And I’m also planning to do a phone follow-up.” She looked at Nicole. “I invited Giraldi, and I hope he’ll feel free to bring along any other good-looking FBI types. And I know Chase and his father are coming down.” Now she turned to Avery. “Are they bringing the boys?”

  “Unclear,” Avery replied. “And I’m also not sure where everyone’s going to stay.”

  It was just a matter of weeks until D-day. Steve had finally texted that he and Andrew were coming. “I know,” Maddie said. “I’m not sure how Kyra and I are going to fit Steve and Andrew in with us and the baby, either.”

  “Maybe we should approach one of the local hotels about putting up some of our overflow in exchange for an on-air mention,” Nicole said. “Lisa Hogan and a few others are coming from the network, aren’t they?”

  “They are and I’m on it,” Deirdre said.

  “Well, if that doesn’t work out, maybe we could fit the younger guys into the pool house with Troy and Anthony,” Nicole said.

  “I don’t know,” Maddie said. “I keep asking if they’re okay in there. And they keep talking about how awful it is. It’s easy to forget about, given the way it’s been swallowed up by those hedges. But we haven’t even set foot inside and there’s not really time to deal with it before the party.”

  “We’re going to have to deal with it at some point,” Avery said. “From the outside it reminds me of the hollow tree the Keebler elves live in in those commercials. But if we could clean up a bedroom and a bath for Max, we could move him out there when work starts on his room.”

  The onion-ring loaf arrived and they ordered another round of painkillers. Kyra, who would nurse Dustin before putting him to bed, was still working on her glass of wine.

  “Speaking of Max,” Maddie said, glad his name had been introduced. “I don’t want to betray a confidence, but while Nicole and I were helping him clean out his closets, we discovered that he and Millie had a son.”

  “Really?” Deirdre asked, surprised. “He’s got all those pictures of Millie and the celebrities they worked with. But I don’t remember seeing any children.”

  “Where is he now?” Avery asked. “And why isn’t he helping Max? Did they have a falling-out?”

  “No,” Maddie said, still amazed that this could be true. “Apparently he disappeared from their yard when he was only a toddler. They never found him.”

  They drank in silence for a few moments as the sun began to sink in the sky. The loaf of onion rings gave off a heavenly aroma, but nobody reached for it.

  “Gosh, that’s awful,” Avery said, stealing a glance at Deirdre. Maddie half expected her to say something about parents abandoning children, but if she was thinking anything of the sort, she kept it to herself.

  “Right before Millie died she made him promise that he’d get the house ready for their son and that he’d try once more to find him,” Maddie explained. “He disappeared back in 1961 without a trace. Millie had a miscarriage right after.”

  “Wow.” Avery took a long sip of her painkiller, but although the music floated around them and the sunset was proving to be an impressive one, the party atmosphere had fled.

  “I’ve been wondering if we might be able to help in some way,” Maddie said.

  “It’s bad enough to be knowingly separated,” Deirdre said. “It’s hard to imagine how painful that kind of loss, that not-knowing must be.”

  Maddie considered the women she’d met only a year ago and with whom she’d been through so much. “I was thinking that tonight, instead of searching for a good thing to toast, we might brainstorm what we could do to help Max try to find out what happened to his son.” She took a sip of her drink. “I mean I know we’re all kind of overwhelmed with getting the house ready, and the premiere party, and our own…situations. But…” Her voice trailed off, suddenly sounding unsure.

  “But we can make the time to at least see what we can find out,” Nicole said.

  “What about Giraldi?” Deirdre asked Nicole. “Do you think he might be able to help or at least give us s
ome direction?”

  “I can ask,” Nicole said. “I thought about it the other night, but I wasn’t sure that Max would appreciate me sharing his private life.”

  “Do you think we should ask his permission first?” Kyra asked. “I think there are sites where adopted kids looking for their biological parents post.”

  “But their child wasn’t adopted, he just disappeared,” Avery pointed out. “And we don’t have any idea if he’s alive.”

  “Maybe we could get the story on Cold Case,” Kyra said. “I saw some chatter online about a Dr. Phil episode with a guy who was a ‘locator.’”

  Maddie pulled out the yellow pad she’d stashed in Kyra’s diaper bag and began to jot down notes. “I think putting Kyra on the Internet makes total sense, and asking Giraldi to see if he can talk to anyone about the case file and the original investigation would be good. But I’m not sure we should say anything to Max until there’s a reason to. I’d hate to get his hopes up and then come up with nothing.”

  “I agree,” Deirdre said. “Even if we don’t find him, even if all we do is find out what really happened, there’s value in that, right?”

  They raised their glasses and toasted Max and their new mission, but Maddie couldn’t help wondering if unearthing information now, assuming they could, was really a good idea. She looked at her daughter and grandson, and thought of Andrew; she could remember all of their births, the instant love and overwhelming connection she’d felt. If one of them had been ripped out of her life, would she want to know if her child were dead? Or would she rather die believing her child was safe somewhere? Anywhere? Was horrible certainty really preferable to even the smallest glimmer of hope?

  Chapter Eighteen

  Nicole got up early to run before the sun went into what she’d come to think of as “bake” mode. As she jogged eastward toward the beach on that June morning, she scanned the early morning sidewalks. Sometimes the remains of the previous night’s partying were still evident: the sequin-clad woman she’d spotted one morning sleeping upright on the bus-stop bench next to a disapproving elderly couple; the pair of designer high heels abandoned on a dirty sidewalk as if someone had simply stepped out of them and kept going.

  On more than one occasion she’d spotted young, overdressed women exiting clubs and hotels obviously wearing last night’s party clothes, doing what in her day would have been called the walk of shame. Except none of them looked even remotely ashamed.

  She’d partied in some of these same hotels and clubs back in the nineties when she was building her business, though, of course, the clubs and whom they attracted had changed. She crossed Ocean Drive and jogged onto the beach, trying not to think about how long ago and far away her prime party days had been.

  She tried to vary her run, but still saw plenty of other regulars along the way. She was always slightly braced for Giraldi to appear, and chastised herself regularly for the way her pulse and heartbeat kicked up in anticipation every time someone came up from behind. Ditto for the stab of disappointment she felt when it wasn’t him and the jogger passed her.

  Each day the temperature and humidity level inched upward and the breezes grew warmer. The air-conditioning installation had proven trickier than expected, but she clung to Hendricks’s promise that the system would be functional well before the premiere party, which was now less than two weeks away. Deirdre had smiled and shown Hendricks the sign she intended to plant in the front yard citing his company’s commitment and involvement—whether the air-conditioning was working or not. A promise that had had John Hendricks doubling the size of the installation crew and promising to finish the job himself if he had to.

  Unlike Deirdre, who seemed able to talk almost anyone—except her daughter—into pretty much anything, Nicole had clearly lost not only her business and her reputation, but her persuasive “touch.” She simply couldn’t seem to get Parker Amherst to sign on the damned dotted line. Or, more importantly, to write her a check. Oh, he’d smiled over the stack of photos she’d shown him and even picked out a few women whom he agreed he’d like to meet, but the only thing he’d actually committed to was attending the premiere party. During which Nicole intended to get his signature on both contract and check. Or die in the attempt.

  Nicole ran north for thirty minutes before turning back. When she reached The Millicent, the driveway was littered with cars, trucks, and vans. The only one missing seemed to be the network crew’s. She entered through the kitchen and found Maddie, manning her version of command central, with its gurgling coffeemaker, bagels and cream cheese, and always-filled bowl of fruit.

  Deirdre was busy taping renderings and floor plans of the proposed kitchen to the wall so that the premiere guests could see what was planned and had indicated her intention to do this all over the house. Avery had already informed them that the “heavy lifting,” as she’d put it, would begin after the premiere; she’d absolutely refused to close up walls or spend time, energy, or money on cosmetic repairs for the party that they’d just have to rip out again.

  Max was seated at the banquette near Dustin’s high chair. A battered manila envelope sat on the glass tabletop and he was sorting through a large stack of photos as Kyra filmed him.

  “Good morning.” Nicole greeted the assembled group, then poured a glass of orange juice and rooted around in the pantry for a granola bar. She was sweaty and in serious need of a shower, so she slid all the way into the far end of the banquette nearest the window. “What’s going on?”

  Maddie brought her cup of coffee to the table. “I asked Max to show us pictures of the house from back in the day—I thought it might be nice to put together a series of them for each room as a sort of counterpoint to Deirdre’s ‘future’ boards. That way people at the party could see the past, the present, and the future.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Nicole said.

  “Thanks.” As always, anything resembling praise brought a blush to Maddie’s cheeks. She reached for the envelope. “The house envelopes have some original receipts in them too. We’ve been playing around with the idea of posting what decoration used to cost versus now as a sort of incentive for potential sponsors. Deirdre’s going through them.”

  “I’m crossing my fingers there’s something in there that will give us a clue about the foyer chandelier,” Deirdre said, coming over to join them. “If there’s any paperwork and the stars align, I’d like to have it repaired.”

  Maddie saw Avery brace for an accusatory glare or worse, but Deirdre refrained.

  Max spread out the photos and began to sort through them. “This is…was…Aaron.” His hand trembled as he held up a photo for them to see. “Millie always called him her valentine. Because he was born on February fourteenth.”

  The photo was a black-and-white that had faded to gray-on-gray; the corners were dog-eared. It showed a sturdy, dimple-armed toddler dressed in overalls and a striped T-shirt. He had a head of blond Dennis the Menace hair clearly inherited from his mother and his father’s megawatt smile. A 1950s toy fire truck was held up against his chest in a “mine” gesture.

  Max laid the photo on the table and began to sort through the others. “Some of these were taken out around the pool three or four months before Aaron disappeared.” He positioned them so that Deirdre, Nikki, and Maddie could see.

  Nicole looked at the first black-and-white photo. In it, Millie, who wore a sleek maillot, stood in the shallow end of the pool holding on to the canvas ring that Aaron floated in. Max began to set the photo aside, but Maddie stopped him.

  “Who’s that?” She pointed to a second woman in the photo. She was considerably taller than Millie and had an angular body without an ounce of extra flesh, but her suit was almost identical to Millie’s. She sat on the edge of the pool, her legs dipped into the water. Her pixie haircut framed a gamine face.

  “Pamela Gentry,” Max replied. “She was Millie’s interior-designer friend. She and Millie worked on The Millicent together.” He hesitated for a moment.
“They were good friends for a time.”

  He began to pass over another pool photo, but Deirdre, who’d perked up noticeably at the mention of the interior designer asked to see it. It showed Pamela and Millie barefoot and still wet from the pool. They both wore terrycloth cover-ups and similar oversize sunglasses. Aaron stood between them. Each held one of Aaron’s chubby hands.

  “We had lots of couples we were friendly with both in and out of the entertainment business, but for a while Pamela was Millie’s closest friend.” He shifted in his seat. “She was single and she sat for Aaron now and then when a babysitter didn’t show or we’d have some last-minute booking.”

  He sighed as he stared down at the photos. They’d faded over the years, but the contrast between the women was still marked; the interior designer’s angular features and whip-thin body reflected a tightly leashed intensity that was absent in Millie’s warmer, curvier face and form.

  “Hmm,” Deirdre said. “Maybe we should invite Pamela to the premiere party. The design people would eat it up.”

  “I don’t even know if she’s still alive,” Max said. “I haven’t seen Pamela in fifty years.”

  “Why not?” Maddie asked.

  “Millie and Pamela had a falling-out. I…really don’t know what happened, Millie wouldn’t talk about it. I heard later that she’d moved away—to somewhere in the Midwest. Chicago, I think.”

  Deirdre picked up another photo. It was of Millie and Pamela again. In this one, they were lounging in chaises by the Millicent’s pool. Both of them wore polka-dot bikinis. A concrete wall rose behind them. An old-fashioned life preserver emblazoned with the words SS MILLICENT hung on the wall. “I think we still have that life preserver somewhere.”

  Avery wandered into the kitchen. Her hair was streaked with plaster dust. She wore a baggy T-shirt with cutoff sleeves. Her tool belt hung low on her hips. She opened the refrigerator and stood in front of it, most likely sucking up the refrigeration as opposed to contemplating its contents.