Year in Palm Beach (5 page)

Pam's out of the guest cottage shower (in ten) and I'm into it. Then it is time to escape the cottage and try dinner at Café L'Europe. We haven't been there in almost a year. The owners Norbert and Lidia have made this place a Palm Beach legend for thirty years. Bruce, the dining room manager, greets us at the door. Bruce has been with this restaurant for almost its entire thirty years. I look at him and think he must have started here around age five.

We settle into barstools and admire the scene. The wall across from the bar is a shimmering mosaic of shiny bottles, mirrors, carved woodwork, and two huge displays of fresh flowers. David is at the piano.

After a few minutes, Bruce takes us to a table, and I order a bottle of Veuve Clicquot. This is a tradition we started when we moved out of Manhattan. At the time I, declared, “A big move deserves a bottle of Veuve.” Since then, any big move in our life calls for a bottle of Veuve.

Rainer is the restaurant's knowledgeable and amusingly crazy sommelier. He is tall, thin, and boyishly handsome. On our last visit here, he mentioned a new lady friend, so Pam gave him a book we had written on romantic Florida escapes.

As he is opening our champagne, Pam says, “Rainer, you won't remember—”

Rainer says, “I remember you two. You are the romantic people. I love your book. Got rid of the woman.”

Pam and I laugh, I taste the champagne, we talk to Rainer for a minute or two. We order, and after dinner, we finish the last of our champagne while listening to David play his
West Side Story
medley.

Full and happy and forgetting our cottage problems, we stroll home along the Atlantic. The waves are sounding on the shore, there are warm ocean breezes, and the moon is lighting up the night sky. “This is wonderful,” Pam says.

“I couldn't agree more,” I say. And I couldn't.

Friday, September 11

I find Pam in the kitchen this morning cutting up vegetables. “I just thought I'd roast some stuff to have in the icebox,” she says. Pam and I may be the last two people on the planet who still say icebox.

“Why don't you just give me the vegetables? I'm going to put some stuff in the dryer, and if I leave the vegetables anywhere near it, they'll cook in no time.”

“Very funny,” Pam says.

The phone rings, and I pick up.

“Benjamin,” I say, “I told you never to call me here.”

There is a long pause.

“Benjamin, I'm just kidding. Where the hell have you been?”

Old Ben explains there have been problems, but that a plumber will be over today to look at the revolving toilets, the dryer vent, and the disposal. “The plumber will be there definitely no later than four,” Benjamin assures me.

We work and wait until almost six. No plumber. I call Benjamin. Get his machine. “Let's get out of the house, walk to the beach or something,” Pam says.

“Or we could hunt Benjamin down and beat him with a large stick,” I suggest.

“The beach is a better idea, I think,” Pam says.

The sky is clear. Large waves are breaking against the sand, and the water looks turquoise and tropical, almost like Caribbean water.

“The cottage is not without its problems,” Pam says.

I laugh. “Who are you tonight, the Mistress of Understatement? The cottage is driving us crazy. It really sucks.”

“Remember when we said what fun it would be to rent? Any problems, we'd just pick up the phone and someone else fixes them,” Pam says. “It's been almost two weeks; I'm just about done.”

“I am too. It's really stupid, but let's sleep on it. First thing tomorrow morning I'll call Benjamin, scream at him a little, and try to set up a reasonable, but specific, schedule. He said Saturday is a good day to get him. We'll see.”

As Pam and I reach our front door, there is a note from the plumber, that's the plumber who was to be here no later than four o'clock but still wasn't here at six. The note says simply: “Sorry to have missed you.”

Sunday, September 13

The hot water heater, which we thought was fixed, has stopped working again. That and many other inside problems have driven Pam and me outside, where we are decked out in gardening clothes, working in the little front yard. I'm planting hibiscus and Pam is spreading mulch. “Don't look now,” Pam says. “An angry-looking man is marching towards us on the sidewalk.”

The neighborhood garden patrol, I wonder. Although he has a black shoe polish dye job, this chap has to be in his eighties. He does not look at all happy with us.

Pam and I glance at each other. “What now?” Pam whispers.

I'm thinking red mulch may be illegal. Maybe we can't work outside on Sundays or we need a gardening license.

He stops about four inches from me and almost steps on my foot. “What do you two think you're doing?” the old guy says. “I'm going to have to lodge a complaint.”

I am about to answer when he laughs and adds, “You two are making the place look too damn good.”

He introduces himself as Barney. We chat and he invites us to visit him for a cocktail sometime, explains which house is his, and marches on his way around the corner.

Monday, September 14

Today, the deluge. Two guys from the gas company come to check the water heater, followed by a plumber and an air conditioner guy. Progress is being made, I think, but our cottage is getting trashed. The entire afternoon we spent cleaning was a waste of time. The white wood floors look like someone hurled vanilla fudge ice cream all over them.

Pam is close to losing it. Actually, so am I, but we have an unspoken rule that only one of us can lose it at a time. So I am pretending to be a patient, understanding adult.

It's almost seven o'clock. “I think we should go to The Chesterfield for a drink, or maybe three, and some dancing, perhaps dinner at the bar,” I say.

“Sounds good to me.”

We shower and change. As we walk out the door, Pam says, “Yikes, it's raining. Actually, it's pouring. We'll get soaked if we walk all the way to The Chesterfield.”

“Well, we've got to get away from this cottage. We'll go to Amici. It's much closer,” I say. I grab an umbrella. “Hold my hand, it's really slippery.”

We walk into Amici, a bit wet but laughing because we made it through the rain. It is lobster night so we order grilled lobsters. I'm not a big lobster eater, but once a year or so, either at a restaurant or at home, Pam and I have a lobster dinner together.

Early in our relationship, we took a five-day trip to Anguilla with some friends. Six of us stayed in an island shack with no hot water and no real kitchen, so we ate lunch and dinner out all five days, ten meals.

Pam had lobster all ten times: cold lobster, grilled lobster, lobster salad, you name it. About the third night, the Jimmy Buffett lyrics about eating her own weight up in crab meat started echoing in my head. Only with Pamela it was lobster, not crab. To commemorate that first trip and give ourselves an excuse to reminisce, we're doing our lobster dinner tonight.

Later, after finishing our lobsters, we're having an espresso and listening to beautiful live guitar music. The rain has let up a bit, and now it is falling softly on the awning above us. Occasionally, there is the sound of distant thunder, and lightning brightens the night sky.

“This is some setting,” Pam says. “What a simple, relaxing, romantic night. I could sit here with you until dawn.”

“I agree. Our nights in Palm Beach seem magical,” I say, “even if the days are still a bit of a pain in the ass.”

Wednesday, September 16

I love the hedge in front of our house for many reasons. I like looking out at it. I like that people can't look in. I like that I can sneak out in my boxers to get today's papers.

This morning our first copy of the
Palm Beach Daily News
, known affectionately on the island as the Shiny Sheet, has arrived in our driveway. We have subscribed for the year. The newspaper covers only the island of Palm Beach, and it's called the Shiny Sheet because it's printed on coated paper: the ink will not smudge the fingers, white gloves, or cashmere robes of its readers. Or in my case, boxer shorts.

After enjoying our new paper along with
The New York Times
and
The Wall Street Journal
, we settle in at our desks, a bird on each of us. No one is scheduled to come to the cottage today, which should give us one of the few uninterrupted workdays since we moved. At about ten thirty, the birds start chirping. I look out the office window and see three men wandering about by our pool. I go out to see what's happening.

“Can I help you, gentlemen?”

“No, we're good, thanks,” one of them says.

“Ah, well I'm glad,” I say, walking towards them. “Perhaps then you could help me.”

“Sure, whaddya need?”

“I don't need anything, but I'd like to know who you guys are and what you are doing on my pool deck.”

They look a little startled. “No one told you we'd be here this morning?” one of them says.

“No one did,” I say.

“Sorry. We're here to pressure wash the pool deck, the awning, and the side walkway. That okay?”

“Yes, that's quite okay. Wish we had known you were coming.”

Time to go. I put the birds in their cage and move them to the living room, away from the noise and mess of the pressure washers. Pam and I gather up our folders, red pens, and laptops and head out the door to find someplace quiet to work. There are three peaceful parks within a few blocks of the cottage. This morning Pam chooses Pan's Garden, which is next to and actually part of The Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach.

We enter and follow a pine needle path to a shady seat near the pond. “What a beautiful place to work,” Pam says.

“You think I should write to The Preservation Foundation and see if we could set up permanent offices here?” I say. “A lot more room than the office at home.”

We work for a few hours and walk home to find the pressure washing people finishing up and the birds settled down. All is quiet again.

Tonight, to escape the cottage issues, Pam suggests a romantic candlelit dinner at Renato's. Gets my vote, but when we arrive, Renato's is closed for a private party. No problem. Café Boulud, which is in The Brazilian Court Hotel, is only about a block away. Café Boulud is one of Daniel Boulud's restaurants, upscale, fancy, French.

They have room for us, and the maitre d' leads us to a table next to a windowed alcove. Soft lighting illuminates the outside planting. He says, “Tonight the chef is offering three menus, our regular menu, a prix fixe menu, and an eclectic summer menu. You have many wonderful choices.” He hands us the six menus.

Pam and I begin our reading project. I'm looking over the formal menu.

Pam says, “I bet I know what you're having.”

I think she's nuts because I don't see anything I really want to order: escargot, smoked salmon, warm gratin of peekytoe crab, octopus. These are not my favorites. Then I notice Pam's looking at a different menu. She seems quite amused.

“Look at the summer menu,” she says.

I open up the summer menu, take a look, and then laugh. “You think I'm going to have the Niman Ranch hot dog Chicago style, with coleslaw and tomatoes,” I say.

“Yes, I do,” Pam says.

“And you're going to order the Cuban. Am I right?”

I'm thinking this is very funny. Pam's wearing an Armani skirt and a Tahari jacket, and I'm in a grey linen suit. We're dining in a fancy Daniel Boulud French restaurant and we're choosing a hot dog and a Cuban sandwich.

This hillbilly thing is starting to worry me.

Thursday, September 17

There are many, many things I do not understand. Near the top of the list are the people who make appointments and don't keep them. These are the people who promise to be somewhere at a certain time on a certain day but actually have no intention of being there. This is now what we're dealing with almost every day, and I hate it.

Once again we have a morning of no-shows. It's getting tedious. But we have had hot water for two days in a row, and the deck has been pressure washed. I suppose that's progress.

Miraculously, the air conditioning contractor arrives this afternoon only two hours late. He's been in the attic, and as he's coming down the attic stairs, he says, “You need a new ultraviolet light in the filtering system. Can't get you one till next week.”

He folds up the attic stairs. “Also,” he says, walking into the living room, “you gotta get someone to seal off these vents. And the vent in the attic doesn't have any screens. This place'll be filled with birds and squirrels and mice pretty soon.”

“Birds and squirrels and mice?” Pam says.

“Maybe a snake or two,” the guy says. “But you just have to put some screening there. That'll solve that problem. I'll have the office call you when the UV light comes in.”

I walk the AC guy to the door and come back into the living room. Pam says, “Birds, squirrels, mice, and snakes? Next week?”

Saturday, September 19

This morning Benjamin, once again, is not here as he promised. Strike three. “I'm going to call Bob our crack real estate agent,” I say. “Maybe he can help somehow.”

“It's Saturday,” Pam says.

“I don't care. I'll call his cell. I'll call his office. I'll find him.” I do. “Bob, this kid Benjamin is a disaster. He's a nice kid, but he's a disaster.” I explain what still hasn't been fixed in the cottage.

“Jesus,” Bob says. “Stay where you are. I'll call you right back.”

In about ten minutes, Bob calls back. “Dick, I talked to Ben. He says he had some problems this week, but everything is now scheduled to be finished this coming Thursday or Friday. Everything.”