Year in Palm Beach (33 page)

“Why don't you two come over to our house for dinner,” I say. “We're just going to grill some shrimp and chicken and make a green salad. There's plenty of food.”

“No, we can't do that,” Maddalena says. “We are the ones who invited you.”

“Look, it's no big deal,” I say. “We'd love to have you, but we certainly understand if you have other plans. No pressure.”

They look at each other, Fabrizio says, “We accept, but I'll bring the wine.”

The four of us spend the rest of the evening by our pool sharing conversation, laughter, and three outstanding bottles of Italian Sauvignon Blanc, which we learn the Italians simply call Sauvignon. It is almost midnight when we say
buona notte
.

“We shall do this every August,” Fabrizio says.

“That is an excellent plan,” I say, “but unfortunately our lease ends this month.”

“Well, then you must sign a new lease! We expect you for dinner at our house one year from tonight.”

Friday, August 20

We walk home from Scotti's this afternoon loaded down with a second batch of cartons for the move. Back in the cottage, we stack the new ones with the others in the yellow room. There are probably a dozen or fifteen cartons now, all empty. We have promised ourselves we will start packing today. No excuses.

“You want to start packing?” I say.

“Not really,” Pam says.

“Want to take a walk to the beach?”

“Maybe a short walk to the beach.”

We walk over and drop down in the sand. We're both quiet.

“We don't want to leave Palm Beach, do we?” Pam says.

“No,” I say, “I don't think we do.”

“We don't want to move back to our house,” Pam says.

“Our dream house.”

“You mean the one we've been perfecting for ten years? The one with two great offices? A perfect kitchen? All that space inside and out?”

“That house is great,” Pam says.

“I know it is,” I say. “It's not that we don't want to go back there. It's that we want to stay here.”

For the next hour, sitting in the sand, Pam and I talk. Then we're both quiet for a while. We came down here basically on a lark. We had sort of been captive in New Smyrna because of Aunt Jane, and when she died, we were free in a certain way and wanted an adventure. Now we don't want the adventure to end.

What's more, if we hadn't gone back on Wednesday to check on the house, we'd probably just be packing up in a week or so and moving. And then what would have happened? All this stuff is a perfect example of the law of unintended consequences.

Pam stands up and stretches. “I think somewhere in the back of my brain I've known this for a while,” she says.

“We both have. But it's like when we first fell in love and couldn't admit it to ourselves or each other,” I say, “because we both knew it could never work out.”

“Well, it did work out. Quite well,” Pam says. “Can staying here work?”

“Why not?” I say. My answer surprises me.

“Why not?” Pam says. “Let me count the ways.”

Back at home, we both get on floats in the pool. “This is another fine mess we've gotten ourselves into, Ollie,” Pam says.

I laugh. “Ten days left on our lease, and now we decide we don't want to leave.”

“It might have been easier if we'd figured this out a little sooner. I don't see how we can make it work.”

“We can make it work if we really want it to, but right now about the only certainty in this equation is that the landlords want us to stay,” I say.

“So first we have to find out if we can rent our house in New Smyrna again.”

“Alex'll have a pretty good idea,” I say. “I'll give him a call.”

I come back out to the pool. “Alex sounded confident that he could rent it and maybe even sell it. He's going to do some research, make some calls, and get back to us.”

“Sell it?” Pam says. “Oh, my.”

Sunday, August 22

Pam, Duckie, Blanco, and I are reading the Sunday papers in the air-conditioned living room. It's already in the mid-eighties outside. The phone rings and Pam picks up. It is obviously Alex. Pam seems quite happy with whatever he's telling her. She says, “Thanks,” and hangs up.

She then picks up the Book Review section and pretends to read.

“What, are you crazy?” I say. “What did Alex tell you?”

“Oh, that,” she says. “Well, he says he knows he can rent it unfurnished on an annual basis, but he also said we should hold off renting because he showed it once this morning and has two clients who want to see it early this week.”

“Two clients who, what, may want to buy it?” I say.

“That's what he says.”

“And he knows he can rent it?”

“That's what he says.”

“Scary stuff,” I say.

“We should probably check with Bob,” Pam says “and go online. See if there are any new rentals on the market down here.”

“Good idea. We should know what's out there,” I say. “But it's got to be in town.”

“For sure,” Pam says.

“I can't call him now, and tomorrow I know you've got to finish that project,” I say. “So I'll do the research tomorrow and report to you at cocktail hour.”

Monday, August 23

It's evening, almost seven o'clock. I'm out by the pool with the Mamas and Papas. Pam comes out. “I just e-mailed that article. Do you have any news for me?”

“I've got a real estate report for you,” I say. “You want the short version?”

“Definitely.”

“There are seven comparable rentals available at this time. Four we saw when we were looking last year and we hated them. There's one that's almost okay, but it doesn't have a pool. Then there are two that are possible but they're almost as far north as the Breakers.”

“I think that's too far out of town,” Pam says.

“I agree,” I say. “Whoever said ‘location, location, location' was absolutely right.”

“In fact, if I had to pick an exact street and an exact block,” Pam says, “it would be exactly where we are right now.”

“So, if we're going to stay here, we're going to stay here.”

“So, why don't we see if we can really stay here,” Pam says. “Let's dry off, take the Mammas and Papas inside, and go through this cottage room by room, closet by closet, drawer by drawer, and see if we actually want to live in this space, this cottage.”

We start our tour in our bedroom. We decide the room is small, the closet space smaller, but agree we both like the room a lot. It's cozy and relaxing.

Pam heads into the living room. “I love this room,” she says.

I'm following her in. “The pink took me a while to adjust to,” I say, “but I do like the room. It works for us.”

“We call it coral, not pink,” Pam says, “and the tray ceiling, the fireplace and the bookcases make it my favorite room.”

Moving though the swinging door to the kitchen, I say, “Well, it's small.”

“And it's ugly,” Pam says. “But, you know, since it's a galley kitchen, it works.”

“A galley kitchen,” I say, “remember the galley on the boat? What happened to us?”

“What do you mean?” Pam asks.

“We lived on a boat for two years that was about the size of the little guest cottage. Yet somehow we had plenty of space. Then what happened? Where did we get all this stuff? Why do we need it?”

“You're right,” she says, “and we have three times this much stuff back in New Smyrna.” Pam walks over next to me, tilts her head, and looks up. She says, very slowly, “You know, all the stuff that made this year special, all the stuff that makes our life in Palm Beach special, that makes our life together special, well, none of it is stuff.”

Well, that was easy. It only took us fifty-one weeks to figure out we want to live here, in this cottage, and that we have way too much stuff that we don't know what to do with. I guess we're not what you would call “quick studies.”

Tuesday, August 24

The stuff discussion continues over breakfast and soon turns into a specific “things” discussion. “If we sell the house or rent it unfurnished,” Pam says, “do we just get rid of all the furniture and things?”

“We don't want to store it. Samantha doesn't want it,” I say. “So the answer is probably, if it doesn't fit in this cottage, it's history.”

“My aunt's bureau? Your dad's desk? The pool table? How can we do that?”

“What do you think I was thinking about last night instead of sleeping?” I say. “The bureau and the desk will fit in the cottage. The pool table won't.”

“The dining room table won't, either,” Pam says. “Do we really want to do this?”

“Let's take a walk, see if we can answer that question,” I say.

We walk over to the lake and sit under one of the giant banyan trees. We talk for almost an hour, and it's helping. We are getting clearer. Pam and I are coming to the same conclusion. Finally, Pam says, “We do want to move down here. We both love living here. It's okay to get rid of those things in New Smyrna.”

“I think it is okay, and it's probably time,” I say. “To paraphrase what you were saying last night, the best things in life aren't things. And yes, we both love living in Palm Beach.”

“Okay,” Pam says, “there's just one more question, and we should think about it today and sleep on it tonight. It's the big one.”

“You mean, do we really want to walk away from our dream house?” I say.

“That's exactly what I mean. That would be a huge step.”

Wednesday, August 25

We didn't exactly “sleep on it.” In fact, we didn't exactly sleep. But we're now sitting together on a chaise out by the pool, and it's getting light. The birds are still asleep, the newspapers still in the driveway.

“We agree we have too many things, too many clothes, too many books, too much furniture,” Pam says.

“And we agree that our house in New Smyrna is a better living space for us than this cottage,” I say.

“That's right,” Pam says, “but it's not about the house or the stuff or the things or the space. It's about our life together, and our life has been better in Palm Beach.”

“For whatever reasons,” I say, “what is outside our house in Palm Beach is more important to us than what is inside our house in New Smyrna.”

“So, we'll be okay if we sell the house?” Pam says.

“Better than okay.”

“Gee, what a struggle to figure this out,” Pam says. “Want to e-mail the landlords?”

“Yes, I do,” I say. “And then I want to take the day off, eat lunch out, and walk around our town.”

I e-mail the landlords and tell them we would love to stay for another year, then Pam and I spend the day wandering around Palm Beach. We have a quiet dinner by the pool with Jamie Cullum, and for the first night in close to a week, we both sleep.

Thursday, August 26

No answer from our landlords. Pam assures me there's nothing to worry about.

Friday, August 27

No answer from our landlords again today. I assure Pam there is absolutely nothing to worry about.

Saturday, August 28

We are having tea and grapefruit juice with the birds in the yellow room. We all go to the office. Pam checks her e-mail and says, “Good, our landlords answered.” She pauses. “No, not good.”

“What?”

Pam reads, “‘Sorry, do not wish to extend lease as requested. Will call Monday to explain.'”

I slump down on the couch. “What the hell does that mean?”

“I don't know. I don't get it,” Pam says. “They said we could have the cottage forever. They practically begged us to stay. They said they weren't going to rent it to anyone else. What could have changed that?”

“It could be anything. Sickness, divorce, something to do with their kids,” I say. “But the wording is weird. What does ‘do not wish to extend lease as requested' mean?”

“I don't know,” Pam says, “but it's going to be a long forty-eight hours before we talk to them and find out.”

Tuesday, August 31

It has been three days since our landlords' baffling e-mail, and about twenty-four hours since we had a very long conversation with them and found out what their e-mail meant.

This is our last night of our “year in Palm Beach,” night 365. Pam and I want to end our year the way it began: A drink at Taboo, dinner at Renato's, and a dance at The Chesterfield.

Taboo is so quiet you can almost hear the fish. We watch our favorites as they cavort around the tank. We have a drink and chat quietly for a while. The Yankees are up six to three in the eighth. We finish and walk slowly down to Renato's. Dinner at Renato's is as sophisticated and special as always. Uncharacteristically, we are the last to leave. Only an hour and a half left before our year in this alternate universe is over.

After a glass of champagne, a toast, and a few dances at The Chesterfield, it's time to head home. As we did three hundred and sixty-five nights ago, Pam and I do not head to the elevator. Instead, we walk through the lobby and the courtyard and out onto the street.

Our year in Palm Beach, the one-year lease on our cottage, will end in twenty minutes or so—and then our new three-year lease will begin.

Our landlords' e-mail “sorry, do not wish to extend lease as requested” turned out to be a misunderstanding about the terms of the lease. Pam and I had asked for a one-year extension. They wanted three years. Three was fine with us.

We hope to sign another lease and another and another. Perhaps some day in the distant future, Pam and I can both be laid to rest in Via Mizner next to “Johnnie Brown the Human Monkey.”