Page 34 of Endless Summer: Stories
And yet, the visions Shooter has of this future fill him with exuberance. On the way home from Jake’s that night, Shooter drives the Camaro through a residential neighborhood, and he and Celeste inspect the homes.
“I like that one,” Celeste says. “That one right there.”
The girl has taste,Shooter thinks. The house she has picked out is low-slung and modern with a sexy curved front porch. The yard is an artfully lit landscape of gravel and cacti (nothing to mow, Shooter notes). There’s a tall fence around the backyard, meaning there’s a pool and, likely, an outdoor bar, maybe even a pizza oven. If not, they can put one in.
Is the house for sale? Why, yes, there’s a discreet sign with a broker’s number. Shooter writes the number down, then spends another long moment staring at the front of the house. It’s like looking into a crystal ball.
In his crystal ball, he sees Celeste hired as the assistant director of the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens, and nearly as soon as she is hired, the zoo is given an enormous donation that’s earmarked for a primate exhibit, specifically for silverback gorillas, and this becomes Celeste’s project. She loves the job, loves her coworkers, and flourishes in her new role in the community. She is asked to join the Palm Springs Chamber of Commerce. She starts going to a barre studio in Palm Desert. She shops for clothes at the Trina Turk boutique and she looks so stunning in the clothes that they ask if she would be willing to model for them at a fashion show at L’Horizon to benefit the Bob Hope USO. Celeste says she would be honored.
Shooter shifts the primary locus of A-List from New York to Palm Springs. The golf, the swimming pools, and the weather can’t be beat. He works out a deal with Frank, and all of the executives stay on the concierge floor at the Ritz. Shooter still has to travel, but no more than one week a month. Celeste isn’t lonely, because her parents, Bruce and Karen—Shooter has been invited to call them Mac and Betty—now live in the east wing of the house.
How does Shooter feel about living with Mac and Betty?
It’s a dream come true.
No, seriously.
Mac does every bit of handyman work that’s needed around the house: He paints the trim, he cares for the pool, he washes Shooter’s car. He works at Wil Stiles twenty hours a week and spends most of his paycheck buying clothes for himself. Shooter can say one thing: The guy likes to look good.
Betty, meanwhile, is in charge of feeding everyone, a responsibility she does not take lightly. The retro, midcentury vibe of Palm Springs is perfectly suited to Betty’s culinary style. The very first thing she makes for Shooter is a layered meat loaf, which is essentially an inside-out hamburger: the two meat layers sandwich a filling of savory bread crumbs, celery, onion, and herbs. It’s the most delicious meat loaf Shooter has ever eaten. He also loves the potato salad gelatin mold Betty makes to go with it, which initially he declared too pretty to eat—it was a wreath of creamy potato goodness studded with pimiento-stuffed olives and pale green chunks of cucumber and garnished with long, slender scallions.
“Did you eat like this growing up?” Shooter asks Celeste as they stand together at the sink doing the dishes. Shooter washes and Celeste dries because when Celeste was growing up, Bruce and Karen took those respective roles. After dinner, Bruce and Karen walk through the neighborhood hand in hand because Karen has grown fond of the desert sky at night. Sometimes they stop in at the Bigelows’ house down the street for a cordial. Last week, the Bigelows invited Bruce and Karen over for fondue.
“Sort of,” Celeste says. “She’s definitely gotten more into it since we’ve moved here.”
Right,Shooter thinks. Karen created something called a Luau Wheelbarrow Ice Bar that was a fruit phantasmagoria in a wheelbarrow full of ice—blackberry sorbet in hollowed-out cantaloupes, watermelon and strawberry kebabs, and lots and lots of pineapple. It was so visually stunning that Shooter took pictures.
He has gained eight pounds.
Sometimes when he is entertaining the executives, he will mention that he lives with his girlfriend and his girlfriend’s parents and he will roll his eyes, which always evokes groans of sympathy. But the truth is, Shooter loves having Bruce and Karen around. They are… parents, real-life, hands-on parents, the kind Shooter never had growing up. He can spend an hour passing Bruce tools as Bruce reupholsters some swivel barstools he found at a yard sale, and he can let Betty push a third slice of her black-magic cake (made with canned tomato soup!) on him… because this is what he’s been missing his entire life.
He is happy.
He is whole.
He pulls himself away from his imaginary crystal ball when he feels Celeste’s hand on his arm. She yawns and then he yawns; they are not quite adjusted to the time change. Back in New York—and on Nantucket—it’s two o’clock in the morning.
“Should we go back to the hotel?” Celeste asks.
The next day, they relax by the pool. Celeste is reading a novel calledThe Heirsabout a wealthy family on the Upper East Side of Manhattan (gulp), and she’s laughing every few pages—in recognition? he wonders. He also wonders if it’s a novel Benji recommended or maybe even bought for her. Benji is an avid reader; he was always impressive when he talked about books, even in high school at St. George’s. Shooter has brought along a copy of Malcolm Gladwell’sThe Tipping Pointthat he borrowed from the concierge floor so that Celeste wouldn’t think he was a complete illiterate; he has no intention of reading it.
Instead, Shooter watches Celeste read. He notices the slight curve of her lips, the concentration that tenses her forehead, the movement of her eyes. Celeste told him the story of how Karen knows Bruce so well that she can tell when he’s faking sleep. Shooter wants to know Celeste that well, and better.
He drifts off.
He dreams it’s April. Coachella. Shooter has a group of fifty executives in from Hungary and Bulgaria. Fifty is a large number, but… Coachella. Shooter decides to do the previously unthinkable and marry his professional and personal lives: He invites all fifty gentlemen to the house for a barbecue.
It’s funny—over the years, Shooter has come to understand that the biggest asset of the company is himself. The clients like him; they think he’s fun and charming and suave. Near the end of a retreat, they often start peppering him with personal questions: Is he married? Does he have a girlfriend? Is she hot? Where does he live? What does he drive? Shooter has become skillful at deflecting such inquiries. This tactic has created a kind of mystique, but really, Shooter doesn’t answer the questions because he knows his clients will find the answers disappointing.
But now—now the executive group appears at the front door of Shooter and Celeste’s midcentury showpiece, and Shooter escorts them back to the pool, where Bobby Darin is crooning on the sound system, where Celeste is beaming and radiant in a Lilly Pulitzer patio dress, holding an ice-cold martini, where Bruce is manning the grill, wearing an apron over his orange-and-green psychedelic paisley pants, and Karen is offering the gentlemen cubed-cheese-and-salami kebabs, each one garnished with a cherry tomato that’s garnished with an olive. In Karen’s world, the garnishes have garnishes.
“Let’s get this party started!” Shooter says.
Just then he feels a disruption to his right. Someone has taken the chaise next to his and is blocking his sun. Shooter opens his eyes, blinks. Is he still dreaming?
No.
It’s Benji.
