Page 62 of The Castaways
They always tried to fit in wherever they went, to respect the sense of place. In Vegas they had gambled and driven to see the Hoover Dam. In London it was Buckingham Palace and the crown jewels. At the Point, in Saranac Lake, they canoed and hiked and cooked over a fire. In South Beach, it was clear from the beginning, they did not blend. They were as obvious as a pack of grizzly bears—the unhealthy pallor, the flab, the Red Sox hats to shield their eyes from the sun. Andrea, in her black tank suit, did actuallapsin the swimming pool, and their fabulous European fellow guests watched her with undisguised interest, as though she were some kind of curious wildlife.
A woman doing the butterfly stroke in the pool!
The ladies went shopping on Lincoln Road. They were in and out ofBCBG, Ralph Lauren, Lilly Pulitzer, AG, Lucky Jeans, and a bunch of boutiques that sold sequined dresses and over-the-knee white snakeskin boots. All the women bought new sunglasses at Aspen Optical, even Andrea, who couldn’t have told you whether Tom Ford was a fashion designer or a car salesman; even Tess, who couldn’t afford them. The new sunglasses were big and round, with gold bling decorating the sides. The women put on their new sunglasses and mugged for the Chief’s camera.
“We’re getting there,” Delilah said.
They had to change their internal clocks. They drank triple espressos in the morning, skipped breakfast, took a nap by the pool, drank iced tea and expensive Dutch water, picked at a light lunch (did they even serve carbohydrates in South Beach?), walked on the beach, shopped frivolously, savored a cafe con leche at the Cuban place on the corner, called the kids to check in, then…
Then the day began. They opened Coronas and slipped in wedges of lime, the girls popped champagne and filled up slender flutes, they toasted one another, they took deep, grateful drinks. They showered and lounged on the impressive balcony while wearing the hotel’s waffled robes. They snacked on sesame sticks and sliced mango with sea salt. It was seven-thirty, the sun was setting, they made love discreetly behind closed doors while “getting dressed.” Greg played Buffett and James Taylor’s “Mexico” and then, once the sun set, he swung into Sinatra and Bobby Darin and they all gathered in their silk and sequins, heels and perfume, ready to leave for dinner. Their reservation was at nine o’clock.
Nine o’clock! At home they would have eaten pot roast at five-thirty, been finished and cleaned up by six, had the kids in bed with stories by six-thirty, and been back down with the dishwasher churning at seven, while outside snow piled up or the wind screamed like a woman in agony. Some nights they watched reruns ofThe Sopranos,some nights they rented movies, some nights they crawled into bed at seven-thirty with the latest David McCullough tome and fell asleep after ten pages. Some nights they cleaved to each other and made love despite being weighed down by the layers of flannel, chenille, and goose down. Every night, save for the ones when they gathered at the Begonia, they were fast asleep by nine o’clock.
But not in South Beach! In South Beach they arrived at the threshold of the restaurant at nine o’clock and were escorted to their table, where they sat, without deviation, in this order: Phoebe, Addison, Tess, Greg, Delilah, Jeffrey, Andrea, the Chief. They were a strand ofDNA, repeated, then repeated again. They ate things like sushi and soft-shell crabs in a Meyer lemon reduction, and they shared desserts with passion-fruit foam and honeycombed pineapple. They drank wine at dinner and ended with shots of Sambuca or sips of tequila. And then, feeling happy-happyhappy andready to go,they cabbed it to a nightclub. At the first nightclub,BED, the doorman had their names on a list, provided by Genevieve, and they were whisked past the waiting mob (made up mostly of teenagers, Jeffrey noticed; truly, to fit in in South Beach, they needed to be twenty years younger). They were shown to an alcove with two cocktail tables pushed together and four ultrasuede cubes where they could sit, should they want to sit.
They looked out over the dance floor, at more gorgeous Europeans lounging on round beds in the midst of a sea of gyrating young bodies.
Jeffrey ordered a bottle of champagne and a bottle of Grey Goose and tonic and lemons. A beer for the Chief (twenty dollars) and four bottles of Icelandic water. They came with a dish of salted cashews, presumably complimentary, delivered by their preternaturally beautiful (though scowling) cocktail waitress. She poured everyone a drink with disdain. (She knew their type--married thirty- and forty-somethings, probably with a stable of kids back home, wherever they lived, Peoria or East Bumblefuck, Idaho.) Jeffrey took a sip of his ice-cold vodka tonic with a twist and declared it an elixir of youth. He was ready to dance.
They let loose in a wild, free, sexual way. Jeffrey had never moved his body like this in public. There had been some crazy parties at Cornell, of course, but this was elemental, tribal, it was a trip to the moon. Jeffrey was released. Was he thirty-eight? The father of two small boys? The owner of a hundred and sixty-two acres of permafrosted land? It didn’t matter. He took off his jacket, slid off his tie, unbuttoned his shirt. He was sweating, he was breathless, he was dancing, he was living!
And he was not alone. There, like satellite planets coming in and out of his orbit, were Greg, Phoebe, Delilah, the Chief, Tess—and a guy Jeffrey didn’t recognize, an interloper who was getting awfully close to Phoebe. Jeffrey was aware of this much, and he was about to ask the guy to step back. Phoebe could not be counted upon to protect her own airspace; she seemed not even to notice this guy.
Then Jeffrey realized the interloper was Addison without his glasses. He had taken his glasses off, he was sweating too profusely, they would slip off, the dancing was so wild, they would fall off. The reason the interloper kept bumping into people was because it was Addison, the sight-impaired. He could not see a damn thing without his glasses, and Jeffrey wondered what it felt like to be dancing in a blur of bodies, to be reliant on sound, smell, touch. Jeffrey wanted to be Addison.
Just then a cry went up and Jeffrey was nudged in the ribs. He turned. It was the Chief, pointing. Across the dance floor there was an elevated stage with two poles. There were two women dancing, three women, four women.
“Look at the girls!” the Chief shouted.
The girls, the women—Delilah, Phoebe, Tess, and Andrea—were all up onstage, spinning around poles, lifting their legs, throwing their heads back. Phoebe was the most beautiful of the four women, and the best dressed, in a short go-go number of red-and-orange fringe. But she was the weakest dancer—spaced out, she was a cross between a Deadhead and bad Twyla Tharp. Tess was adorable and Gidgety in her white pants and navy striped nautical top; she had been born to do the twist. These two used their good judgment and hopped down from the stage into the arms of the strapping black bouncers. This left Delilah and Andrea. Jeffrey—and everyone else on the dance floor—was mesmerized. They danced separately with their poles in a surprisingly erotic way (okay, Delilah had watched a lot ofSopranosepisodes this winter, but where had Andrea learned to pole-dance?). Then they came together in a sensual, crowd-pleasing moment, and Jeffrey felt aroused, then disturbed. The only two women he’d ever made love to—well, it was powerful to see them together like that.
They kissed once, briefly but passionately, and Jeffrey’s heart stopped, went into free-fall, then started again, pounding in sync with the bass. The Chief whistled, then pounded Jeffrey on the back.
“Look at our girls!” The Chief’s tone of voice said it all: this was enough fantasy to last him the rest of his life!
As for Jeffrey, well, what was he to think? How to process this? The only two women he had ever loved had kissed each other. Jeffrey’s past and his present, his present and his future… he wasn’t sure what was going on inside him.
Addison said, “What just happened?”
He couldn’t see. He’d missed it!
Jeffrey kept dancing. He spun around, he put his hands in the air. Those were his women, this was his entourage. They either fit in or stuck out, he was either not himself or more himself than he’d ever been before. He was hot and more than hot, he was warm, finally warm. This had been his idea. His idea! He was in heaven. They all were.
ADDISON
Are you going to tell him? Are you going to tell him you love me?
I’m afraid.
I’m afraid you won’t get it.
The $9.2 million deal closed without a hitch, and Wheeler Realty received a check for $368,000, half of which went into Addison’s pocket. Normally this would have been cause for celebration (corporate and personal), but Addison was distracted.
What to do with Tess’s cell phone?
He had flat-out lied to the Chief. Addison was by no means an honest person—he was a real estate agent, after all, prone to stretching the truth, and he had for six months concealed his affair with Tess. But something about looking Ed Kapenash in the eye and flat-out lying about Tess’s phone instilled fear and shame.
Should Addison come clean? Tell Ed that yes, he had the phone? Show Ed the text messages? Tess was afraid—of the water, of Greg, of something more nebulous? There was no way to figure out what had happened on the boat. The Chief had one idea; Addison had another. Should Addison confess to the affair? What would that help? It would help nothing, he decided. It would only hurt.
