Monarch Beach Read online

  “Tell you what; I’ll order room service.” I walked back inside and picked up a leather-bound menu. “How about starfish-shaped chicken nuggets with baby peas and carrots?”

  “I’ll take room service.” My mother came into the living room. She looked tiny next to the piano and the large canvases of art on the wall. “Get me a salmon please, with broccoli.”

  “How about some bread or mashed potatoes, Mom.”

  “I think I’ll mix a martini, would you like one?” She walked over to the bar and scanned the bottles of alcohol.

  “No, I overdid the gummi bears. I’ll never fit into a bathing suit. Go easy, Mom. You need fruits, grains, vegetables.”

  “Nonsense, I need a drink!” She filled her glass and sipped it carefully.

  “Delicious. A toast.” She turned to Max, who was playing with the TV remote. “To my darling grandson and my beautiful daughter: May we have a summer of fun, and may all our dreams come true!”

  I closed my eyes, wishing for my mother to be healthy, my son happy, and for the slide show of my pathetic husband to stop playing in my head.

  While we waited for our dinner, I started making the suite feel like home. I insisted my mother take the “presidential” bedroom and its en suite bathroom. The bathroom was a work of art: white marble floor with gold inlay, circular Jacuzzi tub with gold faucets, and an ornate shower with one wall of glass. I felt a little more comfortable in the “guest” bedroom, which had a sitting area, a lacquered desk, and a giant mirror propped up against the wall. Its bathroom was still enormous, but I put Max’s no-tangle shampoo in the shower, and his racing car toothbrush and Batman toothpaste on the vanity, and it felt more familiar.

  I peeked into the living room and saw Max mesmerized by an episode of Ben 10 on the plasma screen. I could hear my mother on the other side of the suite humming a Frank Sinatra tune. I snuck out to my private balcony and sat down on the wicker love seat. The cushion was so soft I thought I might never get up. I inhaled the salt air, trying to fill up the dead space that existed between my chest and my stomach. “You stupid bastard,” I said aloud. “How dare you ruin this vacation? Get out of my fucking head.” When I tried to look at the view, all I saw was Andre.

  Room service would be here any minute, and if I didn’t eat, my mother wouldn’t either. “We’re going to have a dinner so succulent it will make your fondue taste like wallpaper paste,” I said to the night air. “And if the bellboy is cute I’m going to pinch his ass.” But I knew my heart wasn’t in it. I still didn’t notice other men. I put that on my mental to-do list. “Look at other men like you mean it.” I slammed the balcony door shut and went to find Max and my mother.

  Max was standing at the dining room table peeking under giant silver domes. “Mom, our food is here. Five different kinds of mustard! That’s more than Dad has in his restaurant. And this bread is awesome, try the hummus; it’s made with sun-dried tomatoes.” All the years of hanging out with Andre at La Petite Maison had made Max gastronomically wise beyond his years.

  “Mom, come join us. Your salmon smells delicious,” I called to my mother.

  “No one does salmon like the St. Regis.” She came in from the hall. “Amanda, the bellboy left an itinerary of tomorrow’s events. How about surf lessons for Max and Beach Yoga for you?”

  “What about you?” I replied, watching as she toyed with sautéed broccoli.

  “I’ll think of something. The bellboy was cute, by the way. UCLA student. His name was John.”

  “Mom.” I motioned to Max, who still thought his parents were happily married.

  “For me, of course. He’s only a few decades younger than me.” She laughed. “Anyway, with a steady diet of sun and martinis I expect to get younger every day.”

  “Go easy on both, Mom. Promise you won’t drink before six p.m.” I bit into my scallops.

  “Don’t spoil my fun. That salmon was divine.” She pushed away the huge white dish that held her entrée. “Let’s see what we have for dessert.”

  The dessert tray held four chocolate-covered strawberries and six ice cream bonbons. “Amanda, this one has a caramel center. You have to try one.” My mother pushed the bonbons toward me. When it came to dessert my mother was like a child: She craved chocolate, and she could eat whipped cream by the spoonful.

  “No, absolutely not.” I shook my head. “I am wearing my new pink-and-green bathing suit to the beach tomorrow, the one Stephanie insisted I buy.”

  Max giggled. His chin dripped vanilla ice cream. He was a happy eight-year-old boy who thought he was on a dream vacation with his mom and his grandmother while his father stayed home to work. I wasn’t going to spoil it for him, though I wondered how Andre was spending his first night of freedom. Did he have another woman in our bed? Was she the new hostess or one of the regular female customers with pouty collagen-injected lips? Would she drink my organic coffee in the morning? Would Andre make her an egg-white omelet for breakfast?

  “Mom, are you crying?” Max asked, puzzled.

  “Only because I am so happy to be here, with the people I love best in the world.” I hugged him in a way that always embarrassed him.

  “You forgot Dad,” he said.

  “Right. And Dad. Now let’s get you in the shower and into bed. The faster you get to sleep, the faster those surf lessons will be here.”

  While Max was in the shower, I called Stephanie.

  “Is it heaven on earth?” she asked.

  “I feel like a movie star or a princess,” I sighed.

  “Then why do you sound so miserable?” she asked. “Zoe, put that down. Glenn, did you give her those marbles? She’s too young to play with marbles. She’ll swallow one. I am not being paranoid, I am being a mother,” Stephanie snapped. I imagined her with the phone pressed to her ear, moving around her kitchen.

  “You sound busy, we can talk tomorrow,” I said.

  “I would much rather hear about the Presidential Suite than deal with a husband who just gave our daughter a lethal weapon.”

  “A marble is not a lethal weapon.” I smiled.

  “It depends whose hands it is in. Why do you sound so depressed?”

  “Because I miss Andre. When will I stop being in love with the stupid bastard?”

  “You don’t love him, Amanda. He is completely unlovable. You just lust after him. We are going to find you a new man, even if I have to fly down there and pass your cell phone number out to every man on the beach with a flat stomach and a decent head of hair.”

  “I don’t want a new man, Stephanie,” I said for the thousandth time.

  “You don’t know what you want. Have a shot of brandy, go to bed, and wear your new one-piece tomorrow.”

  “I’m going to look like a watermelon,” I grumbled.

  “Pink and green are the colors for swimwear this season. Zoe! Do not put the marble in your ear. Amanda, I have to go. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  I hung up the phone and took the new bathing suit out of my suitcase. I placed it on the chest of drawers and said aloud: “Okay, you and I are going to have fun.”

  * * *

  The first two weeks of vacation passed in a blur of activity. Each day started at the beach: surfing for Max, Beach Yoga or Beach Boot Camp for me. Afterward we indulged in breakfast at the beach club: fresh strawberries with brown sugar, oatmeal pancakes, papaya juice. A couple of days we rented bicycles and explored the beach trails. One day Max convinced me to try jet skiing, which was half an hour of terror and five minutes of fun. Max often went to Kids’ Club and I headed for the gym. By evening we were exhausted, sunburned, and starving. We usually ordered room service for dinner and ate it with my mother, who spent most of her time in the Presidential Suite listening to classical music in surround sound.

  One night we sat on our balcony, observing a party on the Grand Lawn and sipping our cocktails. We were beginning to feel like we belonged: easing into the daily routine of life at the resort. Max drank his favorite St. Regis concoct
ion, a Strawberry Surfrider: strawberry ice cream, milk, and a chocolate wafer shaped like a long board. My mother and I sipped Lemon Drops made exactly the way we liked them, with two olives each and a dash of salt.

  “Guess what, Mom, tomorrow is the monarch butterfly release. I get to hold a butterfly.”

  “What fun. Who told you?” I picked at a plate of celery sticks that curled like flowers.

  “Erin at Kids’ Club said it’s the coolest. You hold a butterfly and make a wish and then let it fly away. I know what I’m going to wish for.” Max’s cheeks held new freckles and his hair was bleached white by the sun.

  “Well, don’t tell me or it won’t come true.” I hoped he wished for something simple like a new surfboard or Frisbee.

  “Sure it will. I wish Dad could come down and join us all summer. I want to show him I can surf.” Max finished his drink and unwrapped a St. Regis mint.

  “How about you, Amanda? What do you wish for?” my mother piped in. For the first time in years she did not resemble a sparrow. Her hands looked pinker without holding their habitual cigarette. She wore her hair loose at her shoulders and she had exchanged her Chanel suits for Michael Kors cotton dresses.

  “I’m too old for wishes. Maybe Erin can take you and I’ll go to the gym and work off tonight’s dessert.” Each night my mother and I tried a different dessert. I told myself I did it for her, to fatten her up. But the butterscotch sundae, the chocolate parfait, and the pecan ice cream that we had sampled were little bits of nirvana.

  “Please come, Mom. Erin said they have champagne for the grown-ups and those little sandwich things without the crust.”

  “Max, how do you know so much? You sound like a St. Regis pro,” I said with a smile.

  “I think you should go,” my mother chimed in. “You never know who you’ll meet.”

  I gave my mother a look that said “not in front of Max.” “How can I pass up free champagne and those sandwich things without the crusts?” I said aloud. “But afterward you spend the afternoon at Kids’ Club, and I’ll hide out at the gym.”

  “Cool. Wait till you see my butterfly. I’m going to name him before I let him go. What do you think of Oscar?”

  “Sounds like a goldfish,” I replied, glad that we were on to the safe subject of naming animals, always one of Max’s favorite games.

  “What do you think, Grandma?”

  “I’ll have to wait till I meet this butterfly.” My mother wrapped a St. Regis cashmere blanket around her shoulders.

  “You’re going to come?” Max beamed.

  “No, I think I’ll watch from here. Come up after and tell me everything.” My mother looked straight at me. Like Stephanie, she thought if I just met a new man, all my problems would disappear. Unlike Stephanie, she thought the hotel was a better place to meet men than the beach.

  Each morning while Max slept, she would read the calendar of daily events and remark: “I see Morgan Stanley is in-house today.” Or, “They’re holding a lunch on the Grand Lawn for regional directors of Chase Manhattan.” Every few days, a couple of hundred men employed by Fortune 500 companies would check in, moving in packs of dark suits and white shirts; their cell phones jammed to their ears and their laptop bags slung over their shoulders. I would pass their huddled groups when I crossed the Grand Lawn, and some of the men were cute in a clean-cut, corporate way. But I felt nothing. Even when I overheard a slow southern drawl, or a clipped Boston accent, even when I checked and they weren’t wearing a wedding ring, I couldn’t get myself to smile flirtatiously or nod hello. I was an asexual clod, a walking wax figure.

  Andre called every night at six p.m. He purred my name when I answered the phone. “Ma cherie, Amanda, je t’aime. May I please speak to our darling Max?” The first few nights I was almost brainwashed. Andre couldn’t stand to be away from us. He would appear at the double doors of the suite any minute clutching two dozen roses and a blue Tiffany box with a diamond eternity ring. After the first week, the calls grew shorter. Andre would cut Max off mid-sentence. Andre needed to take the bread out of the oven or put the finishing touch on a dessert. I realized they were “duty” calls. Andre’s attorney probably told him to check in with Max every evening. He called at six p.m. so he could have the rest of his night free: to flirt with the Ross housewives who came into the restaurant on a girls’ night out; or to go to one of the hip singles bars in Mill Valley and sit at the counter, waiting for the woman next to him to comment on his French accent, which was still unbearably sexy after all these years. At first he said he would be down to visit in a few days, then at the weekend, but he hadn’t appeared. “The restaurant is so demanding in the summer” was his excuse to Max. I knew it was the string of women with thick lips and long legs that kept him tied up.

  Max went inside to finish the game he had saved on his Wii, and my mother retreated to her bedroom to watch The Young and the Restless, which she had TiVo’ed. I sat on the balcony watching the party on the Grand Lawn move into full swing. A band played eighties surf tunes on a specially constructed stage. Stations of food lined each side of the lawn. Guests wearing Hawaiian shirts and Bahama shorts wafted from station to station: filling their plates with steak and shrimp and caviar. I could hear the clink of glasses, clapping, and drunken laughter.

  In the morning the stage and the tables would be gone, whisked away by the hotel crew who worked all night like Santa’s elves. I wasn’t ready to join the mixers or the sunset cocktail hours. I couldn’t imagine strapping on sandals and spraying my wrists with Obsession to go mingle and flirt. But at least I could enjoy the fun from my balcony.

  * * *

  There was an excited buzz in the lobby when I took the elevator downstairs the next day. Little girls in party dresses ran in circles, and boys wearing collared shirts stood awkwardly, sipping lemonade. Gloved waiters dispensed flutes of champagne and rounds of hors d’oeuvres.

  “Mom, over here.” Max waved to me. He wore a St. Regis Kids’ Club T-shirt and green boardshorts.

  “The other boys are dressed up,” I admonished him.

  “They’re just here for the butterfly release. We’re here all summer.”

  “You could at least brush your hair.” I ran my fingers through his hair, which had grains of sand stuck in it and was sticking straight up from his head.

  “Overrated,” Max scoffed and headed out to the balcony.

  I grabbed a flute of champagne from a passing waiter, trying not to feel that even my son didn’t need me anymore.

  “Always have a bit of food when you drink champagne during the day.”

  I turned around, thinking it was a waiter with a plate of sandwiches, but it was a man wearing Bahama shorts and a navy ribbed sweater. He had steel-gray hair, blue eyes, and a thick jaw. His nose had a serious bump in the middle but somehow the overall effect was attractive.

  “Then I would have to spend the rest of the day in the gym,” I replied.

  “The secret is protein. You can eat as much protein as you want and never gain an ounce.” He took a steak tartar on toast from a silver tray. He had big, suntanned hands and no wedding ring.

  “Eat this.” He swallowed the steak in one bite. “You never gain a pound. Go with the cucumber sandwiches, it’s off to the stationary bike.”

  “Cucumber is good for you,” I said. This man was at least ten, maybe fifteen years older than me, and his body was stocky, unlike Andre, who was all long legs and slim chest. But over my flute of champagne he looked sexy in a prizefighter kind of a way.

  “Cucumber is fine, it’s the slab of butter they put under it that’s not. Also the white bread, nutritional value of cardboard.”

  “You sound like a diet book.”

  “I own a restaurant. I know a little about food.”

  “Oh, God.” I choked on a strip of steak.

  “Did I say something wrong?”

  “You own a restaurant.”

  “It’s not a crime. We sell seafood, not heroin.” He smiled, which mad
e his nose look more crooked.

  “My husband, well, soon to be ex-husband, owns a restaurant.” I wanted to bite my tongue as the words slipped out. Couldn’t I have my first conversation with an attractive man without mentioning Andre?

  “Is it a breakfast place that serves greasy bacon? Did you leave him because of too much fat in the diet?” We were standing in the lounge beside the twelve-foot doors that opened onto the balcony. I glanced at Max stuffing his mouth with popcorn.

  “No, it was the too many women in his diet.”

  “Ah, sorry. Edward Jonas.” He held out his hand.

  “Amanda Blick.” We shook hands. I remember the first night I met Andre and he kissed me on the cheek. I felt so special and sexy. I’m sure these days his first-nighters get a wet kiss on the lips. Followed by an invitation to lie down and open their legs.

  “Here for the weekend?”

  “For the summer.”

  “You picked a nice place to lick your wounds. I went through my own divorce five years ago. It seems like a rite of passage these days, like getting your first bout of acne. No one escapes it.”

  I relaxed and took another sip of champagne. “It hurts,” I said honestly.

  “It turns your life upside down and rips your heart out. I was an entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles with a home in Pasadena, a swimming pool, two great kids, and a Porsche 911.”

  “And?”

  “All gone. The wife got the house. The kids wanted to stay with her, and who can blame them? Their first dog is buried in the garden. Their Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys mysteries are in the attic. They’re both in college now but they spend their summers at home. A swimming pool is a big draw for parties.”