Ocean Beach

by Wendy Wax

  Nicole kept her chin high and did her best to hide her dismay. If anyone in the house—or on the planet—had been unaware that Malcolm Dyer was her brother, they knew it now. And that included Parker Amherst IV.

  The shot of Bella Flora dissolved into an exterior of The Millicent. The angle changed and Max Golden drove into frame in the turquoise Cadillac convertible and pulled into the drive. In the next shot he leaned against it, his arms folded across his chest, his face lit with a smile.

  The shot dissolved to a tuxedoed Max Golden standing in front of the microphone, an unlit cigar clutched in one hand.

  “I’m Max Golden,” he said. “My wife Millie and I moved into this house in 1950.”

  The audience applauded.

  “Millie and I did a comedy act,” he said. “Like all smart men, I let my wife do most of the talking.” He paused for a beat. “And almost all of the work.” Another pause. “She was funny. My biggest talent was smiling.” He flashed his megawatter and bowed at the resulting round of applause. “And puffing on my cigar at the right moment.” He winked and mimed a puff of the unlit cigar. “I bet you didn’t know a man could make a living smiling and smoking.”

  There was laughter. Max pointed at a man on the couch. “I see you’re surprised to hear this.” He leaned forward and struck a confidential tone. “You’re probably thinking someone should have told you this before you spent all that money on college.”

  More laughter.

  “Well,” Max continued, “I’m an unusually lucky man. Whom women find irresistible.” Behind him on the screen, shots of Max with Maddie, Avery, Nicole, Deirdre, and Kyra pulled from their time at The Millicent began to appear. “These special women are here to bring back the home that meant so much to Millie and me.”

  There were shots of the house as it had looked when they arrived. Jungle-high grass. Missing and mismatched windows. Gouged plaster. Ancient wall air conditioners. And shots of the way it was now followed by close-ups of Deirdre’s design boards and several of Pamela Gentry’s sketches. The final shots were of Max with his “women.” In the babe magnet. On the deck. Together on the couch. The very last shot was one of all of them sitting around the kitchen table having breakfast. Max was dressed in his smoking jacket and ascot.

  “I bet you thought Hugh Hefner was the only ninety-year-old man living in a house with this many beautiful women.” He puffed out his chest and gestured with his cigar.

  There was laughter.

  “Me too,” he conceded. “But believe me, I’m not complaining.”

  Like the pro he was, Max waited for the laughter to die down then leaned toward the man he’d singled out in the front. “Try not to hate me too much.”

  The crowd loved him. And Nikki could tell that the feeling was mutual.

  “So,” Max said after he’d gotten a few more laughs, “enough about me.” He flashed the smile. “It is now my pleasure and privilege to introduce the pilot episode for Lifetime Television’s newest hit series, Do Over!”

  It was after midnight and The Millicent was finally both dark and quiet. The last guest had been eased out the door at ten, after which Lisa Hogan had conducted a relatively upbeat postmortem. Once she and her entourage had departed, they’d settled around the dining room table, where they’d wolfed down the leftovers and drunk what was left of the opened wine.

  They’d toasted Deirdre on the success of the party; the preservation and design communities were excited about The Millicent’s renovation and Superior Pools and Walls of Windows had committed to sponsorships. Several other companies had promised to get back to them.

  Max was still glowing from his turn in the spotlight. Kyra and Troy hadn’t killed each other, and as far as Maddie could tell, Daniel Deranian had not shown up in disguise, though she’d come close to challenging one unfortunately mustached woman.

  Though they were pleased with the outcome, it was hard to celebrate wholeheartedly when all of them were smarting from the personal revelations and embarrassing moments that had laced the program. Meeting their guests’ gazes had been more than a little awkward. But only Steve had resorted to tight-lipped silence.

  Maddie turned off the kitchen light. Chase and Avery had left for their hotel. Everyone else had gone to bed. Despite her exhaustion, Maddie was reluctant to go upstairs where she knew Steve was bound to be awake, reliving the most upsetting parts of the program and the light in which he’d been cast.

  She moved around the darkened living room checking doors and windows even as she chided herself for stalling. The pilot program had begun exactly as Kyra had said it would, with the opening credits showing them out back at Bella Flora getting the news that they’d been offered a chance to do the show. But the show itself was often gritty; Kyra’s footage had shown them exactly as they’d been at the time—bruised and battered but desperate and determined; their bond of friendship had not been immediate but had built slowly.

  The audience had hung on every word, every unflattering shot, every groan of exhaustion, every personality clash. When the show ended, there’d been a brief moment of silence. And then a spontaneous roar of applause. If the general public reacted even half as strongly, Do Over had a good shot at building a real audience.

  But this was not a total victory. Anything that had once been secret had now been exposed to anyone with a television. Including Steve’s collapse and his inability to act. If Maddie, Nikki, and Avery were initially the victims and then the heroes of the piece and Malcolm Dyer the villain, Steve Singer was the husband and father who’d collapsed under the strain. Not even his daughter’s footage had managed to skirt this ugly truth.

  When she couldn’t put it off any longer, Madeline climbed the stairs. She hesitated on the landing, looking out through the porthole window over the yard and the sleeping neighborhood. Squaring her shoulders, she turned the doorknob and went into the bedroom. She found Steve sitting on the rattan chair in the loggia, where Kyra often nursed their grandchild.

  He watched her as she closed the door, his silence deafening.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, though she could see from his face, illuminated in the spill of lamplight, that the answer to this question was no.

  “How could I be okay,” he asked, “when the whole country has just seen me looking so completely pathetic?”

  “I doubt the whole country was watching,” Madeline said. “It was just a pilot episode and—”

  “Don’t,” he said wearily. “You know what I mean. Did they really have to make me look so bad? And did I really have to watch it in front of an audience?” He ran a hand over his face, which was dark with stubble. “Didn’t you see the pitying looks they were giving me?”

  Maddie moved to the other chair and lowered herself into it. The wall the kitchenette had been ripped from was riddled with protruding wires and capped-off pipes. It lay exposed, like the rest of them, its insides spilling out.

  “Not even Kyra had any real control over the editing,” Maddie said, forcing herself to look at him. “And as I think I told you, Do Over is more reality show than how-to show.” She swallowed. “I’m sorry you were embarrassed. None of us feel particularly wonderful about how we were portrayed.” She forced herself to say what she really thought without the usual dissembling. “But there was nothing on that screen that was untrue.”

  He snorted quietly. “I think you’re secretly glad that everyone saw what a mess I was. How you had to step up and shoulder the responsibility. Because despite all the lip service, you’ve never forgiven me. Not any more than I’ve forgiven myself. And I’m starting to wonder if you ever will.”

  She didn’t respond, but the accusation hit its mark. She was guilty of not forgiving him. And she hadn’t yet found the faith that would allow her to believe in him again.

  “You came off smelling like a rose,” Steve continued, his tone accusing. “The poor little housewife who finds out just how strong she is.” There was a nasty twist to his voice that she’d never heard before. As i
f she’d purposely presented him in the worst possible light and now the gloves could come off.

  “You were on board with us doing the show,” Maddie said, trying to push away the hurt and the anger that nipped at her heels. Her lack of faith did not give him the right to hold her responsible for all of his problems.

  “We agreed that it was a break for Kyra and a chance for us to have at least some income until you got back on your feet. Have you forgotten all of that already?” Her heart felt heavy in her chest. She couldn’t bear the unfairness of it.

  “No, and I’m not likely to with this show on the air, am I? I might not have agreed if I’d known they’d make me look like such a fool.”

  She stared at him. Easy now to act as if there’d been some other way that they’d refused to consider. Could he possibly have forgotten how desperate things had been even last fall? The fact that he’d finally gotten up off the couch and ultimately found a job had not exactly solved all their financial problems.

  “We had no other options, Steve,” she said, her hands fisting at her sides. All she wanted was to end this conversation and leave this room and go…where? “We’ve all been put under a microscope and there’s not a hell of a lot we can do about it. It’s just the nature of this kind of show. It comes with the territory.”

  There was a small ugly part of her that wanted to shout that no one but he himself had made him appear foolish. Wasn’t there some quote about how it was better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt? At the moment he sounded like a bloody idiot.

  “Maybe if you hired a younger more energetic Realtor to try to sell Bella Flora, we’d have enough money to walk away from the show,” he said. “Chase said there’d been some interest, but no offers. Franklin must be almost as old as Max.”

  “Midsummer isn’t exactly prime time for Florida real estate,” Maddie replied, stung by this additional criticism and Steve’s flagrant dismissal of John Franklin, who’d been selling Pass-a-Grille real estate for most of his eighty-plus years. Was there anyone he actually approved of?

  He looked at her as if he was waiting for something, but she couldn’t imagine what. She’d offered what she could, but she was not going to apologize for things that were beyond her control. Not anymore. She’d been so glad that he and Andrew had come down; now she wished she hadn’t forced the issue.

  “So,” she said, too tired and too hurt to put a complete sentence together.

  “So, I think I’ll go ahead and drive back to Atlanta tomorrow,” Steve said. “It’s a long drive. We’ll go right after breakfast.”

  She didn’t speak right away because she couldn’t summon the right words as an unfamiliar rage built inside her. He would whisk Andrew away, not bother to spend time with Kyra and his grandson—or her—because his feelings were hurt and he felt embarrassed? Because viewers now knew that when their world had crumbled, Steve had fallen apart and she had not?

  Neither of them had forgiven or forgotten, and her attempts to pretend otherwise had gotten them nowhere. At least nowhere good.

  “You can leave Andrew here,” she finally bit out. “He has no reason to rush back to Atlanta and the real work’s getting ready to start. We can use an extra pair of hands and some additional muscle.”

  Too angry to stand still, she wheeled around and went to the dresser to yank out her pajamas. In the bathroom she pulled her robe off its hook. The last place she intended to sleep was anywhere she’d have to look at Steve. She didn’t think she could bear to hear his breathing.

  “I wouldn’t worry about waiting for breakfast,” she said when she reached the door. It took serious effort to force herself to turn around and look at him, wrapped up as he was in his injured pride. “If you don’t see the kids before you go, I’d at least leave them a note. So they don’t think you left because you don’t give a crap about anyone but yourself.”

  He looked surprised at both her words and her tone, but Maddie had already wrapped her hand around the doorknob. She’d tiptoed, she’d cajoled, she’d done everything she could think of to protect his feelings. But all his promises, his insistence that he understood that she had grown strong because she’d had to, even his claims that he respected her for it, were complete and utter bullshit.

  “I know you, Steve,” she said. “And I see that even now you think you’re entitled to an apology. So, how about this: I’m sorry that I’ve been afraid to put our futures completely in your hands and I’m sorry that I can’t pretend none of what happened, happened.” She drew a deep breath, but there was nothing cleansing about it. “Frankly, nothing you’ve said or done tonight inspires me to take that leap. Believe it or not, everything is not always all about you.”

  Her hand turned on the knob. “And don’t forget that note,” she said. “I don’t want our children to realize that they’re nowhere near as important to their father as his ego.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  It was midnight and still early in South Beach party terms. The strip of Ocean Drive hotels was awash in neon, but their nightclubs and sidewalk cafés were just sputtering to life when Avery and Chase checked into the Clevelander Hotel. The fabulous Art Deco bones of the late-thirties structure stretched over a sleekly remodeled interior and had been joined to newer buildings so that the property anchored a whole block of Ocean Drive.

  Avery accepted the welcome package from the desk clerk and laughed when he informed them that they were free to use the contents in any order they deemed fit.

  “What’s so funny?” Chase asked, pocketing the room key card.

  She drew him away from the desk and opened the package to show him their choices.

  “Ah…” He smiled, contemplating the drink tokens, condoms, earplugs, and aspirin. “Only a partial dilemma.” He shot her a wink. “I’m not ready to go to sleep yet and I definitely don’t have a headache. Should we flip a coin to decide between the other two?”

  “I think not.” Avery had been bone tired when they left The Millicent. Her jaw ached from talking and smiling, her back throbbed from standing so long in high heels. But now that the party was behind them, she could feel the exhaustion begin to lift. “We should get a drink. Because we have all night together.” A thrill of anticipation shot through her. “And all day tomorrow. And the night after that.”

  She’d been too preoccupied with the house, getting everyone settled, making it through the party without having a wardrobe malfunction, to even let herself think about having so much time alone. “We’ll have lots of opportunities to use the condoms. And I’m pretty sure we’re not going to want to come downstairs again for a drink anytime soon.”

  “There’s always room service.” Chase’s voice went husky.

  “True,” she said, feeling the warmth in his voice course through her. But let’s get a drink first.”

  Chase handed their bags to the bellman along with a tip. “Can you take these to our room?”

  “Absolutely. The pool bar’s right through that door.” He nodded to the corner of the lobby. “And we have a fourteen-screen sports bar and a nightclub. There’s a description of each in your packet.”

  They stepped outside to the pool area, which dominated the corner of Tenth and Ocean, their gazes drawn by the neon bar and a flying-saucer-shaped structure fashioned out of concrete. The umbrella’d tables along the front sidewalk were almost full, but the music and the party atmosphere at the pool bar were just cranking up. They carried their drinks to a small bar-height table where they could watch the cars and people parade up and down Ocean Drive, their clothes almost as bright as the hotel’s neon lights and the stars that shimmered over the Atlantic.

  Any one of the people who packed the bar could have easily won a spot on an episode of America’s Next Top Model. Their bodies were spectacularly formed, their skin smooth and taut. No matter how hard she looked, Avery didn’t spot a single muffin top, unintentional hair, or wrinkle. Compared to the bits of shiny fabric that passed for
their clothing, Millie’s dress and Avery’s cleavage appeared downright sedate.

  At first she felt old, which was not something that normally occurred to her thirty-six-year-old self. And then she began to feel invisible to everyone but Chase, which was actually incredibly liberating. The way he looked at her—and only her—his blue eyes all smoky, was almost as intoxicating as the drinks of which she’d somehow lost count.

  He signed the tab and lifted an eyebrow in question, then led her through the gyrating throng, across the terrazzo’d lobby, and into the elevator, all to a pulsing beat that infused the hallways and echoed in the elevator.

  In their room they fell onto the king-size bed with abandon, Avery giggling over the gift condom, both of them eager to put it to use.

  Midway through their lovemaking Avery realized that the sound track of music and partying was not in her head, but was seeping through the hotel’s hallways, insinuating itself beneath the door.

  She and Chase were naked and entwined. His sweat-soaked body melded to hers as he moved inside her. The tension built. She was close, so close she could feel the tiniest of tremors. With a whimper she wrapped her arms and legs more tightly around him. Her nerve endings pulsed with—

  There was a shout. The blare of car horns. A curse in a language she didn’t recognize.

  Her brain stopped speeding through the tunnel and instead began trying to identify the language. She didn’t think it was Spanish. Knew it wasn’t French. Wondered if it might be something Slavic.

  Avery’s eyes flew open. Her body slowed. Damn.

  “What?” Chase asked. “What is it?” He lowered his weight onto his forearms, but his eyes remained shut and his body remained tightly clenched against what had, until a moment ago, seemed like an inevitable orgasm.