Year in Palm Beach (2 page)

He meets us in the hotel lobby, and we head out for a second inspection. Both cottages have pluses and minuses, but there is no question the small cottage right in town, the wildly colorful one, is our choice.

We discuss the specifics of the lease, agree to terms, and write a check for the deposit. The lease will begin in three weeks, on September 1. Bob will mail it to us.

It's noon and we're ready to go for it, a year in Palm Beach. We'll figure out the details later. We have no idea what an effect this whimsical decision will have on the rest of our lives.

Bob drives us back to The Chesterfield and we quickly pack up.

“My clothes are still wet from yesterday,” Dick says.

“Mine, too,” I say. I look in a drawer and find a plastic laundry bag. “Here, we can put the wet stuff in this.” I collect our soggy shoes and put them in a second bag. They look ruined.

We check out, get in the car. Dick's behind the wheel. In just a few minutes, we're driving over the bridge to the mainland.

I think of how symbolic this bridge is for me. Driving down from New Smyrna, crossing this bridge always means we're really here, the escape's beginning. Going home, it's the passage back to real life. Yet I don't know if we're going back to real life this time. It seems unreal that the next time we drive over this bridge, we'll be moving here.

Soon, Dick pulls onto I-95 and we begin our way north. We're both quiet for a long time.

Finally, Dick says, “Well, that was an interesting two days.”

“You mean Friday morning we hadn't thought of moving anywhere, and now it's Sunday afternoon and we have a cottage in Palm Beach? It's bizarre.” We both laugh. “I can't quite get my head around what we did,” I say. “It seems normal one minute, and the next minute I think I must have dreamed it.”

We both go quiet again. I watch the mile markers whiz by. I think back over our life together.

When I met Dick, I was working in New York and grieving over a loss. He was grieving over a lost marriage. I was living in a small apartment, trying to remake my life. He was living in his office, doing the same, and painfully adjusting to life as an every-other-weekend dad. He has a daughter, Samantha, grown now and living and working in New York. I never had a child.

When Dick and I met, I had no interest in getting into a relationship. Neither did he. But apparently our lack of interest was irrelevant. Though we both fought it in the beginning, we fell in love, spent our first month mostly outside of time, doing things like meeting for lunch at noon and finding ourselves at the same table in the same restaurant at eight at night, still talking nonstop.

Since then, we've had our ups and downs and crossed a lot of bridges, but our life together, at least for me, has been a wonderful adventure. We've moved many times, and every move has been exciting. I thought we'd never move again and I feel giddy at this change of plan.

We reach our exit and drive over another bridge, this one leading to New Smyrna, a barrier island like Palm Beach, but different in all other ways. New Smyrna's a laid-back T-shirt-andsurfboard beach town. Driving over this bridge always means we're home. I wonder if I'll miss it.

We coast down our driveway, pull up in front of the house, get out of the car. Our house is in the middle of two acres of oak and palm trees. We've planted flower gardens here and there. The only sounds I hear are birds singing. Two red cardinals frolic in the birdbath.

“I can't believe we've decided to leave this place,” Dick says, looking around.

“Crazy, huh? Wonder what'll happen to the vegetable garden we just planted.”

“The rabbits will be happy.”

We take our overnight bags and wet clothes into the house. Our cockatiels, Duckie and Blanco, greet us, chirping wildly. I go let them out of their cage. They climb to the top, and Blanco hops on my shoulder. “You guys are in for an adventure,” I tell them.

Dick and I unpack, go through the mail, water the plants around the pool, and generally busy ourselves with returning-home rituals. Palm Beach fades away as the evening arrives.

Around seven o'clock, Dick asks, “How about pasta tonight?”

“Sounds delicious,” I say. “I'll make a salad.”

We go into the kitchen. Dick puts the iPod in a dock and sets it to Peter Cetera who, years ago, for reasons unknown, became our standard background music for cooking together. I like to cook. My mom taught me early, and by the time I was nine I knew how to fry an egg over easy, make béchamel sauce and vinaigrette dressing, and stuff a turkey. I think Dick likes to cook even more than I do, and although we prepare dinner together, he usually creates the main course.

I designed this kitchen just for us. Everything has a place and there's plenty of counter space. Tonight, Dick scrambles some sausage, adds onion and garlic, chops up some tomatoes, and gets a sauce going.

I cut up vegetables and wash some arugula; make a dressing of mustard, garlic, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil; then go set the table out by the pool.

Dick comes to the door, holding a bottle of wine. “How about an Amarone, to celebrate?” he says.

We dine outside, savor the Amarone, and have a brief swim after dinner.

“I'm exhausted,” Dick says.

“Me, too.” We carry the dishes in, put them in the sink to soak, and fall into bed.

But I don't fall asleep right away. Instead, my thoughts turn to Aunt Jane. She was my father's older sister, one of five children, the last to die. I got to know her well when I moved to an apartment near hers in Manhattan soon after college. We'd been close ever since. In her later years, she asked me to take care of her, and moved into a nursing home near our house when she could no longer live in New York alone.

That was over ten years ago. For a decade I saw her, or Dick did, almost every day. Earlier this year she turned one hundred, still happy and healthy. She recently died peacefully in her sleep. Even though she was a hundred years old, it was a shock to have her go. I miss her a great deal. But now Dick and I are completely free to go just about anywhere, for as long as we want. The freedom feels good. I drift off to sleep.

An unsettling dream wakes me, but I can't remember it. The room is dark. My bedside clock tells me it's five, way too early to get up. I turn over, pull the covers around me. As I close my eyes, the memory of renting a Palm Beach cottage jolts me awake. Yikes! What have we done? Anxiety replaces yesterday's thrill. What if we can't rent this house? Do we want strangers living here? Can we just pick up and leave? Palm Beach is fine for a vacation, but for a year? What if we hate living there? I start to sit up, and Dick says, “You awake, too?”

“Yeah. I feel kind of panicked.”

Dick laughs. “You mean because strangers are going to live in this house? And we won't like living in Palm Beach? And we don't want to go anywhere for a whole year? That kind of thing?”

“In a nutshell.”

He sits up and turns on his light. “Are we crazy?”

“I don't know. We were awfully impulsive.” I turn on my light, fluff the pillows so I can sit comfortably. “The thing is, well, I mean, there are so many things.”

“Might as well get up,” Dick says. “Tea or espresso?”

“This morning I need tea. Something calming.”

Dick goes off to the kitchen. I slip into a robe and follow him, put some biscotti and slices of banana and apple on a plate.

We settle in the corners of the living room couch. It's beginning to get light outside, and I can just begin to see the flowers planted around the pool.

“This all seemed so frivolous and fun yesterday,” I say.

“That's because it was frivolous and fun yesterday. Today it's buyer's remorse. Or actually renter's remorse.”

I look around. “The space here is wonderful. Do we really want to leave the house we remodeled to be our dream house to live in a tiny cottage?”

“And do it for a year?” Dick says.

“I don't know. That seems like an awfully long time to live in something so small.”

“And a year could be way too long a time to live in Palm Beach,” Dick says.

I think about this. All we really know about Palm Beach are the bars and restaurants. We don't know what the town is like. We have no friends there.

“You mean, like, what would we do day to day?” I say.

“Right.”

“How do you feel about renting this house, letting strangers live here? There's a lot of nice stuff they could wreck,” I say.

“You mean like the Rookwood pottery,” Dick says. “Or all the plates you like. Or the pool table. Or the art on the walls.”

“We could put the good stuff away.”

“I suppose.” Dick says.

“Also, what about leaving our friends for a year?”

Suddenly, the idea is becoming more and more unappealing. I think of our relationships here, all our friends, our dentist, our doctors, Priscilla at the bank. We could come back to see friends or for doctors' appointments, I suppose, but we couldn't stay here if our house is rented.

“Have we made a mistake?” I say.

“I don't know,” Dick says. “I'm getting something to write on.” He goes into his office and comes back with a notepad and a pen.

Duckie and Blanco start chirping. “I guess we woke the birds,” I say. “I'll go get them.” I go into my office, where they sleep, uncover their cage, and open the door. They both hop onto my shoulders, and we all head into the living room. Dick has made more tea and drawn a two-column chart.

“Negatives on the left,” he says. “Positives on the right.” Duck hops off my shoulder, walks over to Dick's lap, and starts preening. We start by listing pros and cons. Dick fills in the columns as we talk.

“How're we doing?”

Dick makes a quick count. “It's about three to one we shouldn't go.”

“Wow. That's depressing. Let me see.” I move next to him to take a look. The chart is heavy on the negative side. It makes clear the move is impractical, impulsive, perhaps even foolish. The cottage is too small, the risk of renting out our furnished house is too big, and we have absolutely no idea whether we'd like living day to day in Palm Beach. Not to mention that having three weeks to simultaneously move and handle our work commitments is a ridiculously short amount of time.

“Well, yuck,” I say. “They must have put something in the water down there.”

Dick says, “Let's take a walk.”

I put the birds back in their cage, and we head over to the beach. The surf's up, and surfers are paddling out to catch the next big one. A platoon of pelicans swoops low and flies just barely above the waves, looking for breakfast. The wind is fairly strong, coming right off the ocean, and the distance is a haze of salty air. I love this beach. We walk about a mile north along the water. Neither of us says a word.

“Head back?” Dick says.

“Okay.” We turn around and make our way south, still silent. I've been turning things over and over in my mind. Each time I come to the conclusion we shouldn't rent the cottage in Palm Beach, the decision feels wrong. The truth is, I want to go, no matter what.

Finally, I say, “I don't care if the move is impractical; I want to go.”

“Mrs. Practical wants to go even if it's totally impractical?”

“It doesn't feel right not to go.”

“Well, I want to go, too,” Dick says. “We're too young to just write books and tend to our vegetable garden.”

“And we're too old not to do this. Plus, it'll be fun in a year to come back to our dream house.”

“I'd better call Alex, see if he really can rent this house,” Dick says.

We leave the beach and walk toward our house.

“So, we're going to do it,” I say.

“Yup, it's going to be fun,” Dick says. “And scary.”

“I like fun and scary.”

Dick calls Alex as soon as we get home. Alex is confident he can rent the house, probably for a little more than we were expecting. I start making lists of all the things we need to do, forwarding the mail, setting up a phone in Palm Beach, and so forth. Dick walks around the house, making a list of what we need to bring. The cottage is partially furnished. We'll need to fill in the blanks with stuff but leave enough so this house is adequately furnished for renters.

I know some people hate to move but I love it. Packing up isn't my favorite activity, but I like the experience of living somewhere that is new to me, adjusting to the inside of the house, the unfamiliar rooms, and exploring the neighborhood, finding out where to do errands, the best routes for long walks. I feel the thrill of the unknown, just as I have every single move in my life.

“Shall I call Michele and Henry, give them the news?” Dick says. Henry and Michele are good friends who we met when they opened the Spanish River Grill in New Smyrna a decade ago.

“Yes,” I say. “Actually, see if they want to have dinner tonight here or at Spanish River. We can tell them then.”

We get to the restaurant around eight and relax at the bar while Henry and Michele take care of restaurant business. Around eight thirty, the four of us settle in at a table. Henry orders a bottle of red, pours each of us a glass.

We hold up our glasses and say “Sim Sala Bim” in unison. It's been our standard toast since we first met, although none of us can remember why.

Dick tells them of our impending move, with me adding details, and Henry and Michele asking question after question. Once they get over being astonished, Henry insists if we're leaving town for a year, he's going to be the one to move us.

“The truck I have for the restaurant,” he says. “It'll be perfect. Everything will fit.” He laughs. “I'll make it fit.”

“Henry, you can't do that; you've got a restaurant to run. Your plate's full already,” Dick says. “Excuse the expression.”