Year in Palm Beach (15 page)

Driving home, I flash back to when Pam and I first dated. I'd just gotten divorced and had been living in my office for almost a year. All I owned was a couple of suits, a sport jacket or two, some slacks, and a bunch of tennis clothes. She lived in a tiny Manhattan apartment and didn't own much more. Neither of us owned a car.

Now we have two houses full of stuff. Just how does this happen?

Tuesday, January 5

The temperatures have suddenly dropped since yesterday, and even colder weather is coming soon. I need to find some socks and maybe a sweater.

I'm walking back from tennis today, and as I turn onto Hibiscus I see, about a block away, a tall guy dressed in a dark pinstripe suit and a fedora. He is holding one end of a leash.

As he gets closer, I see that on the other end of the leash there is a rather large pig. The pig is decorated with a little pink bow on its tail and tiny blue bows on its ears. As they pass, the man raises his hat and says, “Good afternoon.” A moment later, I watch them both get in the driver's side of a Lexus. I find this scene a bit strange, but what do I know? The pig probably finds me strange. Actually, the guy walking the pig is probably the strangest of the group. Maybe it's the year of the pig.

Later, I tell Pam about the pig. Around six-thirty she says, “I've been thinking about that pig. Let's go to Renato's and get some pork chops tonight.”

“That's a little strange,” I say.

“I know. I was kidding, but let's go anyway,” she says. The town is suddenly quiet again. Not quiet like October, but certainly quieter than it was over the holidays. Renato's courtyard has several empty tables, but it seems a bit chilly so we decide to sit inside. Brad seats us, and Luciano arrives with a Peroni and a champagne.

As Luciano finishes telling us the specials, four people next to us get up to leave. One of the men looks familiar, but I can't figure out why. Suddenly, Brad materializes, the way he does, and says, “We hope you had the time of your life here tonight. Always a pleasure to see you again, Mr. Cunningham.”

“Of course,” I say to Pam, “that's Billy Cunningham.”

“Billy who?”

“Right, sorry. Back in the day, Billy Cunningham played high school basketball in Brooklyn, then went on to North Carolina, and then the NBA. He is one of the NBA's fifty greatest players, a class act.”

Pam smiles. “I knew all that.”

Monday, January 11

This morning the temperature has dropped down to the forties. Pam and I take a quick walk over to the docks to catch up on our DOPES duties. The yachts now fill every slip, and it is apparently too cold for our sunbather.

Heading home along Brazilian, we see two men in the distance walking towards us. Four people walking on the same side of a residential street is a crowd in Palm Beach. The first man is walking with two of those small, silly-looking Chihuahuas with bows and ribbons and jewelry. He smiles and says, “Happy New Year,” and we respond in kind.

The second man, who is still about thirty yards away, is fairly tall and has his sweatshirt wrapped around his waist like a kid walking home from the playground. Even from this distance, the walk is unmistakable. His fellow senators might remember the walk from the Senate floor. I remember it from a rather different floor, the floor of Madison Square Garden.

“You know who this guy is coming towards us?” Pam looks ahead. “Should I?”

“It's Bill Bradley,” I say. “The guy who used to play basketball for the Knicks and then was a senator?” Pam says.

“The same,” I say.

As he is about to pass us, I say, “Happy New Year, Mr. President.”

He smiles, nods his head, and says, “And Happy New Year to you both.”

After he goes by, Pam says, “He was a senator. Why'd you call him Mr. President?”

“Because,” I say, “back in the early seventies, when number twenty-four Bill Bradley was helping the Knicks win two championships, his teammates nicknamed him Mr. President. I just wanted him to know people remember those times. I guess I was trying to thank him.”

“I knew that,” Pam says.

Tuesday, January 12

Tonight there has been a shift from the hall of fame to the hall of shame. Pam and I are sitting at the end of the very busy bar at Bice. The town is filling up again.

Next to me a young lady, cute as a button, starts talking to us. “You guys look cold. Isn't this weather freaky? I'm originally from Connecticut, but this is really cold for down here. My condo doesn't have any heat. I used to have one on Worth. It had heat. You guys live here all the time?”

She's reminding me of those early FedEx commercials where the guy talked so fast. I'm starting to get a headache. Actually my teeth are starting to hurt. Thankfully, she wanders to the other end of the bar. Philippe comes over to us, grinning, and says, “She's some piece of work, huh?”

I look at him. Philippe smiles. “Don't you guys know who you've been talking to?” He says her name.

“Who?”

He says her name again and explains, “She's one of Tiger Woods's friends.”

“Well, I've never heard of her, but I'm happy she's moved along,” Pam says. “She could certainly talk.”

Talk? I felt like I was being beaten up. “Let's get out of here and have a quiet dinner at home by the fire, just the two of us.”

We walk home briskly along Peruvian, passing Club Collette. The Club Colette Bentley Barometer is hovering around ten.

Wednesday, January 13

Overnight, Mother Nature sends south Florida record-breaking cold, news which the media pounce on like snow leopards. The frigid weather makes newspaper, radio, and internet headlines (and, we assume, TV). Reports tell of snow in Florida, freezing temperatures, orange crops being destroyed, farmed fish freezing to death, frozen iguanas falling out of trees. Frozen iguanas falling out of trees?

“I don't need this media blitz to tell me it's cold,” Pam says. “You mean because the fireplace is roaring, the heat is set at eighty degrees, the electric fireplace is blasting in the bedroom, and it is still freezing in here?”

“Our blood is way too thin for this.”

To my horror, I realize our outdoor plants must be hosed down and the more fragile ones, like the orange tree and the lemon bush, covered, to prevent damage from the possible freeze.

“I'm going out to hose down the plants outside. Maybe move and cover a few.”

“I'll help,” Pam says. “We'll only be out half as long.”

So, looking quite ridiculous, suited up with layers of clothing, various scarves, and some mismatched gardening gloves, Pam and I uncoil two hoses and begin our mission to save the planet, or rather our planting. Pam works her way up the west side of the pool. I work my way up the east. We meet at the north end. There, on the ground next to a fishtail palm, looking very much like it has just fallen out of the tree, is an iguana. It is not a big one. Maybe two feet from tip to tail.

“Is it dead?” Pam asks.

“Can't tell.” I pick it up carefully by the tail and carry it to a sunny area of the pool deck to warm up. Pam leaves a hibiscus flower for food and a little saucer of water within reach. “Let's see if the sun warms him up.”

“I'll come out later to move him to keep him in the sun,” Pam says, “if he's still here.”

Pam has moved our visitor twice to make sure he stays in the sun, but now the sun is setting. We go out to see how the iguana is doing. “He's moved a little. He must be alive,” I say, “but he won't make it through the night out here.”

“No, he won't. It's supposed to get much colder. Let's move him into the guest house,” Pam says.

I move the iguana, and Pam moves the water and hibiscus into our tiny guesthouse. “We'll sacrifice our bumper pool games for a night or two to see if we can save this guy,” I say, “although I'm not sure if we're Dr. Kildare or Dr. Kevorkian.”

Thursday, January 14

Early this morning, Pam and I check on our guest. I think we're both expecting to attend an iguana memorial service sometime later in the day. The water and the hibiscus are right where Pam left them. The iguana, however, is nowhere to be seen. This is a very small guesthouse, with really no place to hide.

“He's got to be under the futon,” Pam says.

I get down on the floor and look. “Nope. And he's not under the bumper pool table. Or the bureau. Or the bookcase.”

“This is really weird,” Pam says.

I move the futon away from the wall. Nope. Yep. “Here he is. He's not under the futon, he's clinging to the back. Got to be alive to do that,” I say.

I carry him back to his untouched water and hibiscus. Our new friend's eyes are open and he's somewhat more responsive.

Pam checks on him several times throughout the day. His eyes open and close a couple of times. He moves a little bit. That's it. This is going to be his second night in a heated environment. I think if he doesn't get better by tomorrow, he's done.

Friday, January 15

Pam makes some tea, and the two of us walk out to see about the patient. Déjà vu. The water and hibiscus are there but the iguana is nowhere in sight. “Can't fool us,” I say and walk right to the back of the futon. “Nope, he's not here,” I say.

Pam starts laughing. We start a search. “This is unbelievable. There is no place for this iguana to hide in here,” she says.

We finally discover our friend clinging to the inside of a cloth draped over a table. He doesn't seem to want to let go, so I leave him there. He is definitely alive.

The weather warms up considerably during the morning. A noontime check reveals that the patient has left the tablecloth and moved to the floor. He's quite still at the moment, but he's been moving around more so he must be doing better. It's time to put him back outside in the sun and whatever will happen, will happen.

I move him to a warm area by the pool. Pam and I both go out to check on him after lunch. Our iguana is gone. We check the nearby bushes and trees, but he is nowhere to be seen.

“I feel a little like Tony Soprano when the ducks left,” I say. “He's happily back home with his family now,” Pam assures me, “and the weather is supposed to warm up. He'll be just fine.”

Sunday, January 17

Pam and I are in The Society of the Four Arts Chinese Garden. A quiet pond forms the centerpiece. Water lilies are in full bloom, and a school of koi are chasing each other around the water lilies. The garden is filled with papyrus, bamboo, and flowering jasmine.

Pam goes over to read a plaque on the wall and says, “Dick, you've got to read this.”

I walk over, put my arm around her, and read over her shoulder. When we're both finished, the Master of Understatement observes, “I guess gardens are important to the Chinese.”

“I guess,” Pam says. “They feel a person cannot even ‘grasp the reason for existence' without gardens.”

“I'm not sure about that,” I say, “but I like the part about having a ‘quiet space free of tension … an aid to contemplation.'”

We sit on one of the benches. We're quiet. Pam and I have spent more time in parks and gardens down here than anywhere else we've lived. But then, the whole island is a garden. We're always surrounded by beauty here. I think we're both happier, more relaxed.

I feel that tonight, to relieve my separation anxiety from the iguana, Pam and I should visit Taboo. Hugh and Bobby are behind the bar. Two women are admiring the koi's cousins swimming around in Taboo's large tank. Hugh points out a new arrival, a tiny puffer fish. One of the women asks Hugh if he has to take care of the fish and clean the tank.

“Are you kidding?” he says. “Those fish would be dead in two days if I were in charge. Tanks A Lot comes and does everything.”

Two seats away, a third woman chimes in. “Oh, aren't those people wonderful? They designed a floor-to-ceiling custom tank for me right in the middle of the wall-to-wall bookcase in my library, filled it with all kinds of fish and plants, and now they take care of it. I don't have to do a thing! They even rake the sand at the bottom of the tank.”

Raking the sand on the bottom of a fish tank is a job I never thought about.

Wednesday, January 20

This morning's Shiny Sheet reports, “Police were called to a condominium after the manager discovered there had been rummaging through a doorman's desk.” Rummaging? Was this first-or second-degree rummaging, I wonder?

We had a day or two of milder weather, but it's gotten cold again, so before we go out tonight, I check the pool deck to see if our iguana is back. He is not. Maybe Pam was right and he is happily back home with his family. We bundle up and run the several blocks to Taboo for dinner. Luck is with us, and Kevin says someone can seat us right next to the fireplace. Michael, super server and
Godfather
scholar, takes us to the table.

As we're sitting down, Pam says, “Aren't you freezing?”

“Warm as toast,” I lie. “Look at these people coming into the restaurant. They're not cold. They're not even wearing coats. You're wrapped up like Nanook of the North and you're cold? You're a wuss.”

“Whatever. I am freezing,” she says.

“Pam, I'm goofing,” I say. “No one else in Palm Beach walked here tonight. They leave their properly heated house, get into a warm car, get out of the car three feet away from the front door, then walk into the restaurant while somebody else parks their car. We walked three blocks in an icy wind. You're not a wuss and, trust me, I'm not warm as toast. I'm freezing, too.”

“You're a wuss,” she says.

Dinner is over. Pam and I are both finally warm, so of course it is time to go outside again. Parked in front of the restaurant are three Ferraris in a row—an old red 308 GTS, a red F430, and a magnificent dark blue Scaglietti with tan hides, a valet parker's dream come true.