Christmas at the Beach (2 page)

“Gee-ma.” Dustin has his nose pressed against the car window. He’s madly in love with
his grandmother and knows her van when he sees it.

“That’s right. Gee-ma is here. And Grandpa and Doo will be here tonight.” It’s an
eight-hour drive down, and my dad and brother, Andrew, are bound to already be on
the road.

The garden is lush even in the winter and beautifully maintained. Our Realtor’s wife
and her gardening club of electric-saw-toting octogenarians are the ones who brought
the original 1920s garden back from decades of neglect. The leaping-dolphin fountain
sprays a welcome gush of water.

I pull in next to the low cement wall that fronts the garden and try not to notice
the
SOLD
sign that dangles over it. I was a scared, pregnant kid running to her mother the
first time I came here. Today I have a child of my own, who I love more than anything,
and a chance at building a television career. My life hasn’t turned out remotely like
I planned, but almost everything good that’s happened began right here. This is the
first and last Christmas we’ll ever celebrate at Ten Beach Road.

Two

There’s no sign of the paparazzi—I hope they’re still camped out at the airport waiting
for me to come back out—but I leave the burqa on and drape the veil over one arm just
in case I need it to slip out of the house later. I do have a few other disguises
packed away, but if no one’s figured out this one yet, I might be able to pass as
a Middle Eastern nanny or distant family member. Shrugging into my backpack, I scoop
Dustin out of his car seat and settle him on my hip so that I can carry in a bag of
camera gear.

My son’s huge brown eyes crane upward to take in the impressive house that was little
more than a ruin the first time I saw it. “Bella Flora,” I say carefully and watch
him consider the words. “You were in my tummy the first time you came here.”

“Buhfora,” he says solemnly, trying it on for size. Dustin started talking really
early, but sometimes you have to focus to figure out what he’s saying. When his smile
flashes in satisfaction he looks just like Daniel, but there’s a gentle happiness
at the center of Dustin that I envy sometimes. And an occasional gravity that makes
me think he understands a lot more than a one-year-old possibly could.

The kitchen door is unlocked and I wrangle it open, drop the gear on the floor, and
manage to close the door with my foot. My mother is there puttering and organizing,
which is not too surprising. If you look in the dictionary under the word
mother
, you’ll probably find a picture of mine. Hearing us, she turns and smiles. Dustin
gives a little squeal of happiness. I know the feeling.

I hope I look like my mother does when I’m in my fifties. She complains about gravitational
pull and all that, but she looks like a mother should, soft and warm and inviting
and maybe just a little faded around the edges. It’s only in the last year and a half
that I found out there’s a steel rod that runs right through her.

“There you are!” She hugs us both and takes Dustin out of my arms. I know my mother
loves me, but ever since I gave birth I’m definitely coming in second. “Hello, little
man,” she coos. “Would you like some juice?”

Dustin’s smile gets bigger. “Duce!”

“Sorry I didn’t get there,” she says. “Did you have any trouble getting a car?”

“No. Eet was not too hard.” I hold the veil up just beneath my eyes and bat my lashes
at her. “Although I have been in theese country many years I am still working on my
Eengleesh.”

“God, I hate that you have to disguise yourself just to be left in peace. Daniel Deranian
has a lot to answer for.”

I shrug. As much as I’d like to blame everything on Daniel, I made my choices and
I need to make the best of them. I’m learning how to navigate the circus, but that
doesn’t mean I like it. It’s kind of like having a permanent skin condition. You don’t
have to hide inside all the time. You can go out in the world with it, but you’re
always aware of it. And it colors everything. Someday I probably won’t be tabloid-worthy,
but I’ll always be the production assistant who got kicked off her very first feature
film for having Daniel Deranian’s baby.

“Where is everybody?” I ask.

“Avery and Deirdre are in the family room discussing the right spot for the Christmas
tree. It could take a while.”

Avery’s a trained architect and completely competent in construction because she grew
up on her father’s construction sites; there would be no
Do Over
without her. She’s small and curvy with blond hair and blue eyes, which annoys the
hell out of her and makes her all about trying to command respect. Her mother, Deirdre,
left for a long stretch of Avery’s life to become an interior designer to the stars
in Hollywood. My mother actually gave Deirdre mothering lessons while we were in South
Beach, but Deirdre tends to pick and choose the parts that appeal to her.

“Nicole went out for a run,” my mother continues. “When she gets back we’re going
to decorate the tree. Then we’ll have our traditional drinks out around the pool at
sunset.”

“Sounds great. Where should I put our stuff?” I’m already halfway out the door toward
the pool house when she says, “You and Dustin will bunk with me. I already set up
the portable crib.”

I turn. “But Dad’s going to be here.”

My mother shrugs and hands Dustin the juice cup. “Oh, I figured he and Andrew would
be more comfortable out in the pool house.” She doesn’t exactly meet my eyes when
she says this.

This is weird. Except for the time my dad spent on the couch with the remote glued
to his hand after he lost his job and all our money—and the time they were apart while
she helped renovate Bella Flora and The Millicent down in Miami—my dad and mom have
always slept together. I mean, I don’t know what they do in bed—that would be TMI—but
they’ve always shared one. One of my earliest memories is racing into their bedroom
and jumping between them on weekend mornings when I was little.

“That way I can help with Dustin if he wakes up at night. And Avery and Nicole won’t
have to share a bathroom with your dad. Or vice versa.”

“Okay.” I guess after you’ve been married for more than a quarter of a century, sleeping
apart isn’t exactly the end of the world. With a quick look outside to make sure nobody—especially
nobody with a camera—is hanging around, I head back to the rental car to get the rest
of our stuff, which I carry up to my mom’s room at the front of the house. Avery,
Mom, and Nicole, who are the primary owners along with Chase Hardin, the hunky contractor
who headed up the renovation and is now Avery’s main squeeze, each have a room. Deirdre,
who somehow nabbed the master bedroom the day she arrived uninvited and still hasn’t
given it up, has a huge suite all to herself.

I haul our stuff up the front stairs and I can’t help remembering the first time I
saw them. The wood balustrade was scarred and damaged, the plaster walls were gouged
and stained, and a Frankenstein monster labeled
MALCOLM DYER
was hanging over the banister in effigy. Of course, nobody knew then that Malcolm
Dyer was Nicole’s brother. If my brother ever stole everything from me, I’d do more
than help put him in jail. I’d make sure he was sleeping with the fishes or having
birds peck out his eyeballs or some other fitting cinematic retribution.

I lean out the open bedroom window and look down the beach. Sunshine glints off the
gulf and a stream of people walk near the water’s edge. Boats bob out in the distance
and a few people are fishing off the pier. Down near the Don CeSar, someone’s parasailing,
just dangling in the harness. It looks like a summer day out there, but if he’s smart,
he’s wearing a wet suit.

By the time I get down to the salon that stretches across the back of the house, my
mom has Dustin playing with a box of wood blocks and is mediating the tree placement.
Avery and Deirdre stop arguing long enough to give me hugs. Avery’s practically a
mirror image of her mother, though we’re all really careful not to point this out.
They both have chests that are too big for the rest of them, but Avery, whose first
network turned her into the Vanna White of the DIY set, tries to hide hers, while
Deirdre is all about tasteful showcasing.

“Every time I disagree with her she rubs her arm like it still hurts,” Avery complains
as she tightens the tree stand.

“I never said it hurt,” Deirdre replies, standing back to eye the tree, which as far
as I’m concerned is in the perfect spot in the exact middle of the run of floor-to-ceiling
windows. The view of the pool and the pass, where the bay and the gulf meet, is spectacular
from here.

“No, but you’re forever reminding me that you took a bullet for me,” Avery says.

“I am not.” Deirdre turns to Mom and me. “Can I help it if it aches a little bit now
and then?”

“Like when I don’t immediately do whatever she wants.”

“You never do what I want.” Deirdre rubs her arm where the bullet entered when she
threw herself in front of Avery just as the gun went off down in South Beach. I hold
on to the box I brought down with me.

Nicole Grant comes in through the French doors that open onto the loggia. She’s tall
and willowy with deep red hair and great skin. She always runs in designer running
clothes and she looks good even when she’s sweating. Her eyes are a sharp green that
can cut right through you and any bullshit you might be slinging. I’m not sure how
old she is—somewhere between forty and fifty, but I don’t know which end. She used
to be a famous dating guru and A-list matchmaker until her brother stole everything
she had in his three-hundred-million-dollar Ponzi scheme and the press got hold of
the fact that they’re related. I guess her bullshit-ometer works better on strangers
than family. Though come to think of it, it didn’t work all that well on Parker Amherst
IV, the alleged matchmaking client in Miami who was looking for revenge on her brother
and not, as Nikki thought, a wife. It was his bullet that landed in Deirdre’s arm.
And ended Max Golden’s life.

Crap
. Every time I think about Max my eyes get all wet. He might have been ninety but
he had so much life left in him. And he did take the bullet that was intended for
Dustin.

I open the box I brought down with me and pull out the menorah and candles I bought
in Max’s honor. The menorah has candle holders shaped like comedy masks because Max
and his wife Millie were once the George Burns and Gracie Allen of Miami Beach. I
set it on the mantel. Just looking at it makes me smile.

“Are you thinking about converting?” Nicole asks when she notices the menorah and
sees me opening the box of candles.

“No. I just thought we might light the candles tonight after the sun goes down,” I
say.

“I’m pretty sure Hanukkah’s already over, sweetie. It’s not always at Christmas.”
My mom says this gently like she does most things. All of us were attached to Max
and The Millicent, his cool Nautical Art Deco home that we renovated for the first
full season of
Do Over
. I wonder if they miss him as much as I do.

“Yeah. I know. But I want Dustin to know who Max was and how much Max cared about
him.” Max had already been teaching Dustin about comedy and timing. “And, I don’t
know, I just thought it would be a cool thing to do.”

“I’m in as long as I don’t have to eat potato pancakes,” Nikki says. “I’m still trying
to get rid of the pounds I put on at the Giraldis’ Thanksgiving. I’m not used to celebrating
all these food holidays.” Joe Giraldi’s the FBI agent who tried to use her to help
track down her brother. How twisted is that? He’s completely hot for an older guy
and she’s been living in Miami with him since we finished renovating The Millicent.
They’ve got something going on; I just don’t know exactly what.

“If I spend another holiday with the Giraldis, I’m going to end up on
The Biggest Loser
.”

“How was it?” my mom asks.

“It was good,” Nikki says. “If you like eating massive amounts of food and fending
off questions about your intentions. As if I’m going to somehow hurt Joe when he’s
the one who carries a gun and tries to catch bad guys.” Her cheeks are all pink, and
I don’t think it’s from running.

“Are we set?” My mother looks at the tree and then turns her steely-eyed mom gaze
on Avery and Deirdre. They nod without looking at each other. “Good.” She hands out
packages of tinsel and boxes of ornaments that I recognize from home. There are candy
canes and long strings of popcorn just like we used to make when I was little. The
box she hands me has the ornaments I made in kindergarten and elementary school.

“Come here, Dustin.” She smiles and reaches a box out toward my son. “These are yours.”
His eyes light up and I watch her help him put them on the lowest branches; there’s
a fire truck and a snowman and a palm tree that says
PASS-A-GRILLE
on it. My heart does a weird kind of thump when I realize that in a few years he’ll
be bringing ornaments home from school. My mom brings out a pitcher of eggnog and
some glasses and Dustin’s refilled sippy cup of juice. Somebody, I think it’s Nicole,
puts on some holiday music. It’s way too warm for a fire in the fireplace, but we
go to town on the tree. After a few cups of the eggnog, even Avery and Deirdre are
harmonizing to the Christmas carols.

I can practically feel Bella Flora wrapping her arms around us, gathering us close,
and telling us how much she’s going to miss us.

Three

“Come on,” my mom says after I’ve climbed the ladder and helped Dustin put the star
at the very top of the tree. “It’s almost sunset. I hope you’ve all got a good thing
in mind.” In the direst days of Bella Flora’s desperate renovation, Mom made everyone
come up with one good thing that had happened that day. Believe me sometimes it wasn’t
easy.

The sun is weakening and everyone puts on jackets and sweaters and we head outside
carrying our drinks and snacks. There’s a bowl of Avery’s Cheez Doodles; a plate of
the little stuffed hot dogs and Bagel Bites that I like; some animal crackers for
Dustin. Deirdre’s carrying a tray with caviar, crackers, and the fancy stuff that
goes on them. She’s not a big believer in roughing it.

“Seriously?” Avery rolls her eyes at her mother. If a snack doesn’t turn her fingers
orange, Avery’s not interested.

Nicole brings out a pitcher of frozen margaritas, which is not exactly the perfect
chaser to eggnog. “Hey, I know it’s Christmas, but we
are
at the beach.” No one argues with this. We’ve done a ton of sunsets right here with
Bella Flora hunkered down protectively around us and most of them have been fueled
by a frozen drink of some kind.

We settle in our chairs—the really nice wrought-iron ones that replaced the original
folding beach chairs my mom bought at a yard sale—and set the food and drink on the
little tables that go with them. Dustin plops down in the sandbox that Avery built
for him and starts digging. It’s on the loggia, which means he can’t get past us to
the pool. He likes to dig on the beach the best, but the temperature’s dropping with
the sun and I’m still keeping an eye out for Nigel and the other photographers. If
I’m lucky, they spotted a real celebrity or two at the airport and followed them.

I pull out my video camera and nobody complains. It was my video that led to our television
show on Lifetime. I get a wide shot of the sun hanging in the sky and do a slow tilt
and pan across all four of their faces.

“Okay. I’ll go first to kind of prime the pump,” Mom says. “My good thing is that
my family and my friends”—she looks at every one of us—“will all be here to celebrate
the holiday in my favorite place on earth.”

“I’m glad to be alive.” Deirdre rubs her arm and I zoom in on a loose two-shot so
that Avery’s eye roll is obvious. “And here. And spending Christmas Eve with the people
I care most about, too.” Avery’s eyes don’t roll this time. In fact, they look decidedly
damp. Or maybe it’s just the sun’s reflection.

“Well, I think having a buyer for Bella Flora is a good thing, right?” Nikki says.
“I mean, we all need the money. And we never intended to keep her.” Her whole statement
is a question, which is not at all like Nicole. She’s right, though, there was a time
when everyone assumed that bringing Bella Flora back after so many years of neglect
was all about selling her so that we could get our lives back. But you can’t work
on a house like this with your own hands and still think of it as just brick and mortar.

“She’s eighty-five years old. Nothing that goes wrong with her is inexpensive,” Deirdre
says.

“I know the feeling,” Nicole says.

Deirdre, who’s the oldest of all of us, and probably the best maintained, says, “She
needs to belong to someone who can not only enjoy her but afford to maintain her.”

That would not be us. Once the money’s split among my mom, Avery, Nicole, and Chase—who
paid out-of-pocket for the hard costs of renovation in exchange for a piece of the
profits—no one’s going to be left with all that much. And the future of our remodeling-series-turned-reality-show
is a lot less certain than any of us would like.

“Well, I’d feel a lot better about it if we knew who the buyer was,” Avery says. “How
do we know what their intentions are?”

“Oh, my God, you sound like Joe’s mother,” Nicole says. “This is the first serious
buyer we’ve had. It doesn’t matter what his or her intentions are. Besides, who’s
going to pay almost three million dollars for a house and then tear it down?”

“A rich stupid person,” Avery says. “Having money doesn’t give you taste. Or make
you smart.”

This is true. Sometimes having a ton of money can make you incredibly nasty. Take
Tonja Kay, for instance. I get that she’s pissed off at how Daniel screws around.
I mean, I wasn’t the first or last—I just happen to be the only one who’s given him
a son so far. I might even feel sorry for her if she didn’t spend her free time adopting
children and harassing anyone Daniel is attracted to.

“Well, holding on to money in today’s economy indicates a certain level of intelligence,”
Nicole points out.

It’s hard to argue with this, so we just sip our drinks. Avery has a red margarita
stain around her mouth, and her fingers are Cheez Doodle orange. Deirdre looks like
she’s ready for her photo shoot, but then I guess you eat caviar in such small doses
there isn’t much left to smear around.

My mother looks at me and I know it’s my turn. I settle the video camera in my lap
while I try to come up with a good thing other than Dustin. And the fact that although
Daniel can’t be trusted or counted on emotionally, he’s extremely generous. Which
is why I don’t have to work multiple jobs or lean too heavily on my parents to take
care of our son.

“
Do Over
’s a good thing, right?” my mother prompts.

They all look at me, since I’m the only one who’s seen the edited first season, which
is set to air this spring.

“Yeah.” I’m not really ready to talk about this, but it doesn’t look like I’m going
to be given a choice.

“That didn’t sound so good,” Avery says. “What’s the problem?”

I try not to fidget in my seat. “Well, they really played up Max’s missing son. And
Daniel’s visits to see Dustin. And Parker Amherst’s spectacular, um, meltdown. And,
of course, our, um, personal issues.” I stop talking. Everyone looks a little sick
to their stomach at the reminder that anyone who chooses to tune in—and we need there
to be a ton of them—is going to know all kinds of things about us that we don’t want
them to. “Troy kept Lisa Hogan happy.” I almost gag on the nasty network head’s name.
“But he did try to protect us. In his way.” My voice peters out. “Can my good thing
be that we could have looked worse?”

There’s an uncomfortable beat of silence.

“I’m not the good-enough police,” Mom says, just like she always does. But I can see
how worried they look.

“Your turn,” Mom says to Avery.

Avery squirms in her seat. I don’t know if it’s because she hates admitting to anything
good in front of Deirdre or something’s going on between her and Chase; Avery and
Chase remind me of the whole two dogs, one bone thing.

“Well, I do like working for my dad’s company. With Chase and his father.” She kind
of mumbles this last part. “And with Deirdre.” This last is so quiet I almost miss
it. “There’s a continuity to it that feels . . . good.” Her chin juts out and she
pops a Cheez Doodle in her mouth then chews it defiantly.

Deirdre looks like somebody handed her a million dollars. Which maybe someone has.
I mean I can’t imagine leaving Dustin, not even with my mother, to go off and have
my own life. Taking that bullet was such a motherly thing to do. Plus Deirdre’s been
groveling for a while now. I’m no expert, but it seems to be working.

The sun is pretty low now, hanging just above the horizon. Sunsets are different in
the winter—less “look at me” and more “done for the day, catch you tomorrow.” But
it’s still beautiful.

We sit in silence as the sky turns a pale gray. The shadows on Bella Flora’s pink
plaster walls deepen as the sky fades to black.

“Time to light the candles,” I say as I lift Dustin out of the sandbox and kind of
fold him over one arm so I can brush the sand off his behind. “We’re going to celebrate
Hanukkah for Max.”

“Gax!” I don’t know what my son remembers, but the name still means something to him.

Inside I put a candle in each of the eight holders then light the one that’s called
the shamas.
Sorry, Max
, I think, as I read the English transliteration of the Hebrew prayer phonetically—and
badly, I’m sure—while I light each candle, moving from right to left just like in
the video I watched on YouTube. The translation, which I also read aloud, thanks God,
who “commands us to kindle the Hanukkah lights.”

We all watch the flames flicker. Even with the comedy mask–shaped holders, the menorah
appears stark compared to the frolic of color and shape on the Christmas tree. But
none of us can look away. “I have a present for you from Max,” I say to my son. I
hand him the blue-and-white-wrapped box and help him unwrap the framed photo of him
and Max “discussing” comedic timing that I shot last summer in Miami. He stares down
at Max Golden’s weathered face, with its oversize but distinguished nose and intelligent
brown eyes. His caterpillar eyebrows are the same white as his close-cropped hair
and are raised so high they almost reach it. The smile is Max’s dazzling megawatter,
and the twinkle in his eyes is unmistakable. An unlit cigar is clenched between two
gnarled fingers.

“Gax!” Dustin pulls the photo up against his chest like he’s never going to let it
go. I plan to make sure he never does.