The woman says to Bobby, “We’re so excited. We’ve had so much fun in Paris. We went there for our first anniversary, and then again for our second.”
Bobby frowns and is silent for a moment, then says, “Wait, didn’t you go to Rome for your second anniversary, and then back to Paris for the third?”
The woman pauses, looks at her husband, turns back to Bobby, and laughs. “Of course. You’re right! How did I mix that up?” She pauses again. “And how can you remember my life better than I can?”
Dick looks at Bobby for a second. “Who are you, Carnac the Magnificent?” he says.
Monday, June 21
Today is the longest day of the year. When I lived in New York, I disliked winter, hated the cold and the short days, when it would be dark long before I left my office. Even in Florida, where it can be seventy degrees any given day all winter long, I still like the long days better.
I look forward to the spring solstice, dislike when the clocks go back in the fall, wait out the days of winter darkness. But I have mixed feelings about the longest day of the year. Yes, today has the most daylight, but tomorrow will have a little less, the first sign the short days are on their way.
Today is also the annual International Day of Slowness. The founders suggest taking this day to celebrate the enjoyment of slowing down, looking around, taking time to enjoy the moment. Watch a snail make its way across a leaf. Cook something from scratch. Do nothing. Pretty much the opposite of the world’s current obsession with frantic multitasking.
In some ways, Dick and I seem to be incorporating this slowed-down lifestyle into our year in Palm Beach. We spend much more time here taking walks, looking at stars, and sitting in parks. Ironically, we also get more done in a day than we used to before we moved here. We do more, yet have more time.
Our life here is simpler. Back in April, when I solved the kitchen space problem by boxing up most of our plates, I wondered if I would miss the things I put away. I forgot all about them. It has been surprisingly easy to live with just a few plates.
This, in turn, made using the dishwasher pointless, and I re-discovered the simple pleasure of washing dishes by hand. When I was a child, my father often washed dishes, and I have fond memories of him standing in front of a sink full of suds, carefully rinsing off a glass or a plate. I never understood why he seemed to like washing dishes. Now I think I do.
This afternoon I walk into a tailor’s shop to have some pants altered. A woman, probably in her early fifties, is standing in front of the mirror, and a seamstress is pinning the hem of the dress she has on. Behind her is an entire rack of clothes she has just bought that need to be altered. The price tags are still attached. About half the clothes have been fitted.
“I just have to stop now,” the woman says. “This is exhausting. It’s making me way too tired.” She makes a date to come back and finish another day. I guess that’s her version of how to celebrate the International Day of Slowness.
Friday, June 25
Ritey and Ron, friends of ours who live outside Ocala, called yesterday and asked if we’d be around tonight. He’s an oral surgeon, and they’re both headed to a conference in Miami tomorrow. We’ve only known them a few years, and just recently, Dick and Ron discovered they played against each other in a college soccer game. Ron was in the goal for Emory. Dick was in the goal for Rollins. Neither can remember who won.
They arrive about seven, and we have cocktails around the pool.
“So, Ron,” I say, smiling, “aren’t you sorry you got here too late to shop Worth Avenue?”
Ron is not a shopper. He laughs. “Right. Not my thing.”
“We might have time in the morning,” Ritey says.
Ron says, “You girls can go. I’ll be here, in the pool.”
We discuss various restaurant possibilities, decide on Renato’s. We avoid Worth Avenue because it is so torn up and head in the back way to Renato’s. Parked on Peruvian is an old Rolls-Royce roadster, probably from the late 1930s. It looks to be in mint condition. The top is down, and a white pullover sweater is casually tossed across the black leather passenger seat.
“Look at that old Rolls,” Ron says.
“The keys are in it,” Ritey says.
Indeed, in the ignition is the key, with a little gold keyring hanging from it.
“Boy, that’s out of another era,” I say. Tempting, I think.
We dine outside in Renato’s enclosed courtyard, bougainvillea subtly lighted against the stucco walls, the stars above. Then we walk over to The Chesterfield to dance and end up staying until the band packs up.
We head home on Peruvian and walk by several art galleries. A cop is standing inside one of the galleries, and Ron waves at him. Dick and I share a knowing glance. The cop doesn’t move. Ron waves again. We get closer. Ritey says, “Oh, my God, he’s not real! Or is he?” She looks carefully at the cop. “He’s not alive, right? I mean, is he? Look at his skin. This is creepy.”
We all gather around the window. Indeed, the cop is a sculpure but an unnervingly lifelike one. Dick and I were completely fooled the first time we saw him. We actually stood at the window for quite some time, periodically convinced that the guy was alive but just being still, like the Buckingham Palace guards.
Saturday, June 26
I wake late and walk out to the living room. Dick is looking at his laptop but there’s no sign of Ron or Ritey. Just then, the front door opens. Ritey and Ron walk in carrying, of all things, shopping bags.
I look at Ritey. “Ron went with you while you shopped?”
“No,” Ritey says. “Actually, Ron went shopping. There must be something weird in the water here. He bought designer jeans, a belt, a shirt.”
Ron smiles sheepishly.
“Worth Avenue’s a mess,” Ritey says. “Anyway, we gotta go.” We do hugs all around, and they’re out the door.
“Ron went shopping?” Dick says. “There must be something in the water.”
Sunday, June 27
Duckie and Blanco are in their cage, out by the pool with us. Duck is back to her old self and actually weighs more than she did before she swallowed the metal.
Dick says, “The Shiny Sheet says a resident called the police because a delivery truck drove over the grass at the edge of his driveway and damaged the lawn.” We may have to notify Interpol again.
“Such problems these people have,” I say. “Time for a walk?”
“Good idea,” Dick says.
I take the birds back inside, and out we go. The sun is strong, the temperature’s in the eighties, but there’s a light breeze and puffy white clouds create patches of welcome shade. As is usual on a Sunday, tiny open signs are in front of some houses that are for sale. The Town of Palm Beach requires these signs be discreet: no bigger than eight inches by five inches, no words other than “open,” and hung on a thin black post.
We almost miss a sign tucked into the end of a forty-foot-long, ten-foot-tall ficus hedge. The gate is open and a brick driveway leads to a two-story frame house, painted white, with black shutters.
“Want to go in?”
“Sure,” Dick says. “It looks like a Norman Rockwell-type of house, only bigger.” We walk up the driveway. As we get to the door, a woman opens it.
“Hello,” she says. “My name’s Frances. Please sign in.” We do, and she leads us through a foyer into a formal living room. “You can easily have cocktails for seventy in this room,” she says.
“Good, let’s have one,” Dick says.
Frances is silent. I look around. The room is a riot of floral prints, from the wallpaper to the silk-upholstered furniture to the pillows and drapes. Hanging on the walls are what look to be original oils by eighteenth-century masters. I move close to one to inspect it.
“Watch out,” says Frances. “There’s an alarm system. Don’t touch.”
I hadn’t intended to touch, but I do move a respectful distance away.
Frances leads us into an adjoining room and
says, “And this is for your more intimate gatherings.”
“No,” Dick says. “We’ve walked through a time-space warp. This is The Huntington Hotel bar in San Francisco.” He looks around. “Where’s Ty? Must be time for a beer.”
Frances looks puzzled, which I think she often might.
I say, “This looks remarkably like a bar we love in San Francisco. Ty Sanders has been the bartender there for years.”
Dick and I have had good times at The Huntington’s Big Four Bar, and this room brings back memories. It’s dark, with mahogany-paneled walls and leather chairs framing a large wood-burning fireplace. There’s also an L-shaped mahogany bar with leather-covered stools and a brass foot rail. Behind the bar, mirrored shelves sparkle with liquor and glasses. The only thing missing is The Huntington’s piano.
“Come see the kitchen,” Frances says. We follow her. Although it’s state of the art, it seems modest given the size of the house.
“This kitchen looks kind of small,” I say.
“Oh, this is just the family kitchen,” Frances says. “The chef prepares some family meals here, but his kitchen is down the hall.”
“Oh,” I say. “Of course.”
“The owners entertain quite a bit,” Frances says. “When they’re in town, they often have parties for fifty to a hundred people, so they built their chef his own kitchen.”
We follow Frances to a kitchen almost as big as the one in Henry and Michelle’s restaurant. A giant hood covers a wide griddle and eight gas burners.
As we leave the kitchen, four people walk in, and Frances’s cell phone rings.
“We’ll leave,” I say. “This house is way too big for us. These people might be customers.” Frances mouths the word “thanks” and we find our way out.
It’s not too long before we pass a brand-new house with a discreet open sign by the newly planted front hedge.
“Shall we?” I say. In we go. The real estate agent meets us at the door.
“I’m George. This house is brand new, never lived in,” he says. “Fifty-five hundred square feet of luxury living space. Come,” he says, “follow me.”
We walk across a polished marble floor from the foyer into the living room. The ceiling is two stories high. A grand fireplace is at each end of the room, and although there is no furniture in the house, a flat-screen TV hangs next to each fireplace.
George takes us through a formal dining room, a breakfast room, an enormous kitchen. Every room has a flat-screen TV. George shows us the full-size elevator, takes us up the wide curved stairways. Flat-screen TVs are in every room upstairs, too, including the bathrooms and dressing rooms and a long hallway.
As we go back downstairs, Dick says, “George, this house has more TVs than a sports bar.”
George smiles. “People can’t be without TV these days. This house is the future.”
I say nothing, thinking of our TV-less cottage a few blocks away.
“This is a smart house,” George says. “It’s electronically state of the art.” He walks to a control panel on the living room wall. “Every room has one of these panels,” he says. “It controls the air, the music, the lights.” He puts on his reading glasses, studies the panel, starts moving switches. Lights flash on and off: a massive chandelier, sconces, indirect lighting along the edge of the floor, pinpoint ceiling lights.
I look carefully at the control panel. Sixteen switches can be placed in multiple positions. Tiny notations under each indicate its purpose. “Ah, a cheat sheet,” I say.
“Yes, but in no time you’d know what was what,” George says.
Dick looks doubtful, but George’s enthusiasm is not to be dampened. “Not only is this house wired for sound, it’s also wired to be wireless. You can change the air conditioning settings from your car or even from your plane.”
That does it for Dick. We thank George, explain this is too much house for us. Back out on the street, grateful to be walking to our little cottage, Dick says, “Let’s see. We’re in our private jet flying back from Paris and want to make sure our bedroom in Palm Beach is cool when we arrive. If we owned that house, wouldn’t we have a butler to handle that?”
Wednesday, June 30
It’s eight in the morning. I’m in the pool, lying on a float. The sun is creeping across the north end but much of the pool is still in shadow. The circulation system is on, taking me on a slow journey around the edge. The trees above frame a cloudless deep blue sky. I relax, try to think about nothing, but also I follow my thoughts, see where they go. This is one of my forms of meditation.
This week my art class was switched from Thursday to Wednesday. This afternoon I go to my class and decide to tackle abstract painting for the first time. I set a blank canvas on my easel and put paint on it, some of this and some of that, experimenting with different brushes, different strokes, different colors.
I ask Harlan for help, but he just smiles and says to keep on going. I get into this loose style of painting a bit and realize it’s not dissimilar to the way I felt this morning, letting go and then observing where I’m going. I suddenly understand this is one of the things Harlan means when he talks to us about painting.
I find I can’t stay with the completely loose feeling for long, and after a while I take a second canvas and get out a photograph I have taken of a red hibiscus. I start to paint the flower. But the letting go feeling must still be with me because this time I start to paint my version of the hibiscus, the hibiscus as I see it, or maybe as I want to see it. Or want to paint it.
The painting becomes mine. I can do what I want. I don’t have to make the petals look the way they do in real life. I can focus on what I like about the petals. I make the petals flashier than they really are, exaggerate the size of the stamens. It is a liberating feeling, and I paint faster. The class is over long before I am ready to leave.
fourteen
“WE FINALLY JUST STOPPED COUNTING
AT NINETY-SIX.”
Thursday, July 1
I’m standing in the pool with a frozen drink resting on the pool’s edge. Pam’s lying next to me on a float. It’s almost ninety degrees. I say, “Mike and Maggie will be sailing in tomorrow. Do you think there are fireworks somewhere on Sunday?”
“Have to be,” Pam says. “We’ve already seen two shows this year. They have to have fireworks on the Fourth.”
I’m really into the ease of living here in the summer, the flow of the days and weeks. Summer has a different pace than the other seasons. Summer has always said to me, “Chill, slow down, kick back.” Summer here is no different. No Bentleys honking and blowing through stop signs this time of year.
Friday, July 2
Mike, a man of few words, and Maggie, a woman of many, are due this afternoon. Pam and I have known Mike since we were first married. Maggie arrived in the picture about two years ago. They escaped from Manhattan last year and now live in Sea Island, Georgia. Maggie’s sister used to live in Palm Beach, and Maggie has informed Pam she has a very specific to-do list: she wants to spend her days “shopping and enjoying the beach, the nights eating, drinking, and staying out late.” Pam and I have been resting up.
At about two o’clock, Mike pulls in the driveway in a vintage British racing green Triumph TR-4, spoked wheels, chrome luggage rack. “Nice ride,” I say.
“Thanks. It’s a lot of fun,” Mike says. He looks at the Corvette in the driveway. “Maybe we should drag for beers later.”
“Oh, please, Mike,” Maggie says.
I take their stuff back to the guest cottage, and Maggie declares it is time to shop. Pam says, “You guys are on your own till around five o’clock. Dick and I have to work. Go spend all your money, and we’ll see you when you get back.”
Later, Pam walks out of the office and says, “I think I hear Maggie.”
“Me, too,” I say, “but she could still be just a block or two away.”
“Be nice,” Pam says and goes to the door to let them in. “Maggie,” I say, “Pam
was kidding when she said ‘spend all your money.’ You look like a bag lady.”
Mike is just shaking his head.
“Well, you’ll want to see what I got. And I didn’t even do the avenue today, just the vias,” Maggie says. “The town is really torn up. Worth is a mess, but I didn’t mind.”
Maggie begins her show and tell, pulling things out of shopping bags. “I got these two dresses from Biba, this tunic and purse from Marley’s Palm Beach Collection, and this pair of slipper shoes, aren’t they silly, from Stubbs and Wooten. And look, I got these Limoge plates from Sherry Frankel’s Melangerie. That’s my favorite shop in Palm Beach.”
I look at Mike and say, “You know, I think some of the stores are still open. Maybe you guys could take another run at it.”
Mike, who is behind Maggie, gives me a look and apparently has some kind of hand cramp or something. One of his fingers is sticking up. “I think we’re okay for today,” he says.
“For today, we’re fine,” Maggie says. “Tomorrow, it’s Armani, Saks, Neiman Marcus, and Trillion. Can we do Motown tonight?” Maggie asks. “I want to wear one of my new dresses.”
“Take a breath here, Maggie,” I say. “How did you know there is Motown tonight?”
“I’ve done my homework,” she says.
“Not well enough, I’m afraid. You and Mike are way too old for Motown. It’s a young crowd,” I say.
“We are?”
“Maggie, he’s kidding you,” Pam says. “Of course, we can go. There’ll be people from twenty-two to eighty-two.”
“So that means there’ll be people from your age, Maggie, right up to Mike’s age,” I say. I think Mike should have that hand problem looked into.
“You have any place you want to go for dinner?” Pam says.
“We’re going to Bice,” Maggie says.
“We are?” Pam says. “Well then, we’ll change, have a cocktail by the pool, and then we’ll go to Bice.”
Year in Palm Beach Page 22
