The Beach Club (23 page)

“Do you want children?”

“Children?” Vance said. “Children? Hell, no. I just want to kiss you, Love.”

Love felt if she walked to the edge of the roof she could pluck a star out of the sky and take a bite. Her dream getting closer: a child that would be hers, and hers alone.

“So kiss me,” she said.

For Mack, the Fourth of July was the busiest day of the season. Still, each of the past six years, he sneaked away five minutes before the fireworks started to watch them with Maribel. Tonight, Maribel didn’t show. It had been a week since he told her about Andrea. He’d returned to the basement apartment only once—in the middle of the day when he knew Maribel would be at work—to get some clothes and his toothbrush. Everything was where it belonged, and Mack didn’t take too much. On his way back to the hotel he drove by the house on Sunset Hill, their Palace. They were so happy in the Palace. Mack idled his Jeep out front until another car pulled up behind him. He didn’t know what to do.

This year, for the first time, he watched the fireworks with Andrea and James. They sat on the steps of their deck, Andrea drinking a glass of red wine.

“Mind if I join you?” Mack said. He sat between them. “How’re you doing, James?”

“He has cotton in his ears,” Andrea said. “The fireworks scare him. Too loud.”

“Really?” Mack said.

“Of course, you’d have to be his mother to know that.”

“Well, now I know and I’m not his mother,” Mack said.

“You’re not his father either,” Andrea said.

Mack looked at her. He’d stopped by to help James shave again that morning, but Andrea was reading and barely looked up when he walked into the room. Now her honey-colored hair was wet and pulled severely into a bun. She slugged back her wine. “What do you mean by that?” he asked. “Are you angry with me?”

“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” Andrea said.

“Why not? James can’t hear us.”

“He’ll intuit something is wrong.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Oh, Mack,” she said. “I don’t know why you told Maribel.”

“I had to tell her.”

“You didn’t have to tell her. The last six summers it wasn’t a problem. You and I had our friendship and then you went home to Maribel. And James and I went home to Baltimore. But now it’s ruined, my dear. The bubble’s burst. The spell is broken. It’s not fantasy anymore, it’s reality, and someone got hurt. You’re sleeping in an old woman’s cottage, and I’m scared to death you’re going to show up on our doorstep this winter.”

“You made it clear you don’t want that,” Mack said.

“I don’t want it and you don’t want it either,” Andrea said. She set down her wineglass and took his hand. “You’re confused. You have to make a decision about your father’s farm and your job here at the Beach Club, but you did
not
have to choose between me and Maribel. There was no decision to make.”

“Because you don’t love me,” he said.

“It’s not just me, it’s you. You love Maribel. It’s written all over you.”

“I know,” Mack said.

The sky crackled and caught on fire. James took Mack’s other hand.

“Red,” James said. “Silver. Purple. Green and purple.”

“Here we go,” Andrea said. “The Recitation of the Colors.”

“Blue and gold. Silver only. Pink, purple, green.”

Andrea sighed. “All I want is for him to grow up knowing I loved him. That I put him first. Do you think he’ll ever know that?”

“Pink and gold. White squiggles.”

Mack squeezed James’s hand. “Of course he’ll know you love him. He knows it now, he counts on it, he lives for it. I am
jealous
of James. He’s cornered the market on your love. None left for anybody else.”

“That’s not fair,” Andrea said.

“None left for me, then,” Mack said.

“Silver and green,” James said. “Blue and purple.”

“Will you still help James shave?” Andrea asked. “Will you still wave good-bye to us when we pull out of the parking lot?”

“You know damn well I’ll do whatever you ask me,” Mack said.

“I want you to get back together with Maribel,” Andrea said. “Please? I won’t be able to leave until you patch this up.”

“It’s not that easy,” Mack said. “I didn’t leave Maribel, she kicked me out. I’m not sure she wants me back.”

“Of course she wants you back,” Andrea said. “You’re Mack Petersen. Everybody wants a piece of you.”

“Red and blue and white. Red, white, and blue, Mom!” James exclaimed.

“Everybody wants a piece of me except for you.”

“Now you sound pitiful,” Andrea said.

“When you leave, will that be the last time I ever see you?” Mack said. “Are you coming back next year?”

“I don’t know,” Andrea said. The fireworks lit up her face, and then it darkened again. “Are you?”

At seven-thirty the next morning, Mack knocked on the Elliotts’ front door, something he’d never done before. If he had business at Bill and Therese’s house, which was rare, he always just let himself in. But today, he knocked.

Therese opened the door. Her eyes were puffy. “Mack,” she said. “What’s wrong? I can’t hear about a hotel emergency today. I just can’t. I want to pretend the hotel doesn’t exist. I was going to have Elizabeth check the rooms.”

“Yeah?” Mack said. Something was wrong, but Therese was funny about telling other people her problems. “I came to talk to Bill.”

Therese swung the door open. “He’s upstairs. Go on up. He needs cheering.”

“Okay,” Mack said. His hands were numb.
I should leave
, he thought.
Now isn’t the right time
. But Maribel would never take him back if he didn’t at least ask.
This is going to go well
, he thought.
This is going to be the answer to the chaos in my head
.

He climbed the stairs and saw Bill sitting at the kitchen table with his book of Frost poems open in front of him. “Hey, boss,” Mack said.

Bill looked up. “Mack,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I need to talk to you about something. But if now’s a bad time…”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Bill said. His face was pale and the translucent skin under his eyes was mapped with tiny red and blue lines. “Do you want coffee?”

“Maybe, yeah,” Mack said. He took a mug of coffee from Bill and sat down at the table. He looked at the upside-down book of poems, and wondered if there were any clues in that book about how to live.

“What is it?” Bill said. “Is it about Maribel?”

“No,” Mack said. “I want to explore a possibility with you.”

Bill was quiet.

“You know, I’ve worked here twelve seasons, and I’d like to…well, I’d like to stay.” Mack blew on his coffee but when he tasted it, it was lukewarm. “I was wondering if you’d be open to profit-sharing with me.”

“Profit-sharing?”

Therese came into the kitchen. “You want what?”

Mack spun in his chair. “It was just an idea I had.”

“What was?” Bill asked.

“Profit-sharing. You know, me getting paid based on how well the hotel does. Taking thirty percent or whatever.”

“Thirty percent.” Bill’s face was expressionless.

“Does that sound outrageous?” Mack asked. “Maybe it is, but I do a fair amount of work around here. And you see, what’s happened is my parents’ lawyer has called and I have to make up my mind about the farm, do I want to live there, or do I want to sell it.”

“So you’re telling me you’re leaving?” Bill said.

“No,” Mack said. “I’m just exploring my options. It seems like this is a good time to discuss my future. And I’d like to profit-share.”

Therese laughed, not happily. “Are we wearing bull’s-eyes painted over our hearts, Bill? Is that what’s happening? Everyone we love feels free to take a shot at us?”

“I’m not taking a shot at you,” Mack said. “I just need to think about my future. You guys are like my…my family. You know Maribel and I are having problems. I need to
do
something to make her happy.” He could feel Therese’s instant disapproval. Why had he brought up Maribel? Was it easier to make it sound like this was
her
idea? “But it’s for me, too. I have to decide about my family’s farm. Either I sell it, which I don’t want to do, or I go out there and run it, which I don’t want to do. It’s an impossible decision.”

“Are you telling us that if we don’t agree to profit-share, you’ll leave?” Bill asked.

“I don’t know,” Mack said. “If you agree to profit-share, it’ll be easier to decide.”

Bill looked at his open book. “I see the difficulty of your position,” he said. He traced his finger along the lines of the page, as though he were reading aloud. “You’re a young man who has to make a choice. I can remember myself at your age. Should I take a risk and build the hotel rooms? But I was lucky. I had a wife who supported me.”

“We can’t profit-share,” Therese said. She sat down at the table. Her orange hair hung in strings around her face and her white streak was tinged with gray, like dirty snow. “We can’t profit-share, because of Cecily.”

“I’m not asking to own a part of the hotel, Therese. I’m only asking for part of the profits.”

Therese lowered her voice. “Cecily has threatened to leave,” she said. “She informed us last night that she wants to travel through South America with the boyfriend.”

Mack remembered Cecily on the phone in the middle of the night. “
I’m dying of love for you
.” “Really?” he said.

“She
wants
us to give you the hotel,” Therese said. “She said it herself. If we profit-share, she’ll be
relieved
. She’ll think, ‘Okay, I’m free to go. Mack’s in charge.’ She’ll think we’ve given up.” Therese tapped the counter with her fingernail. “I’m
not
giving up. I already lost one child. I’m not about to lose number two. She might not go if she thinks we need her. I stayed up all night thinking it through. Cecily’s weak spot is that she loves us. But if she knows we have some new, official arrangement with you, she’ll leave.”

“You don’t know that,” Mack said.

“Therese is right,” Bill said. “I’m sorry, Mack. Under other circumstances I would consider it…but no, I’m sorry.”

I’m sorry
: Maribel was sorry but she had to kick him out; Andrea was sorry but she didn’t love him; Bill and Therese were sorry but they wouldn’t profit-share.
Sorry, Mack, but there’s no room for you
. The summer was turning into a big cauldron of sorry stew.

Therese said, “You could always marry Cecily.”

Mack was too angry and hurt for any words except the most mundane. “I have to get the doughnuts.”

Bill dropped his elbows onto the table, folded his hands, and bowed his head. “Does this mean you’re going to leave us, Mack?”

Mack shrugged. “We’ll have to see.”

Mack spent the days following the Fourth of July questioning his future. His sweat equity had turned out to be nothing but sweat—salty water—and at the Beach Club, there was more than enough of that to go around. He’d been threatened with a gun by one of his employees, his girlfriend had kicked him out, and the woman he loved didn’t love him back. Running the farm in Iowa was looking better and better. It might not be so bad—climbing up into a combine again and knowing that as far as his eyes could see, the land belonged to him. He had half a mind to call David Pringle and tell him to hire a cleaning lady because Mack Petersen was moving back. He heard the eerie, haunting voice of Nantucket calling out
Home
, but Mack didn’t know what that meant anymore. He always assumed it meant Nantucket was his home, but the other night it seemed just as feasible that the voice was telling him to go home to Iowa. It might feel good to return, Mack thought. It might feel as good as it had felt to leave.

But then, just as Mack had almost made up his mind, the Boys of Summer arrived.

“How-Baby” Comatis always made Mack feel better, because when Mack saw How-Baby, he thought about hot dogs and cold beer, dugouts, organ music, extra innings, home plate. He thought about baseball: the word that defined summertime for the rest of America. Howard Comatis was president of the Texas Rangers, and he stayed at the Beach Club every July during the all-star break. He came with his wife, Tonya, and his two baseball buddies—Roy Silverstein (VP of marketing for the California Angels) and Dominic Saint-Jean (president of the Montreal Expos) and their wives. How-Baby was in every way the group’s leader—he was a tall, muscular Greek with a full head of black hair and a bushy mustache. His wife, Tonya, called everyone baby, and she always called Howard How-Baby, whether she was speaking to him or about him, and the name stuck. Mack had a hard time thinking of Howard Comatis as anything but How-Baby.

Mack first saw How-Baby when he opened the door of Lacey Gardner’s cottage at seven-thirty in the morning. How-Baby was standing on Lacey’s tiny porch.

“Howard,” Mack said, startled. “Good morning. Welcome back.”

How-Baby held out a Texas Rangers hat. “Put this on,” he said. “We have fifty bucks riding on who could get you to wear their hat first. The other two bozos are waiting by the lobby. They have no detective skills whatsoever.”

Mack took the hat. He had three like it at home from previous years, but he’d left them in the apartment with Maribel. He creased the brim, and tried it on: a good, snug fit. “All right,” Mack said. “Thanks.”

How-Baby put his arm around Mack’s shoulder. “You’re a good kid. Come with me. I want to show you off.”

Sure enough, Roy Silverstein stood on the front porch of the lobby holding a California Angels cap and Dominic St. Jean was stationed out by the Nantucket Beach Club and Hotel sign, holding an Expos cap.

“Damn,” Roy said, when Mack and How-Baby rounded the corner. “I thought for sure Dom was going to get Mack when he pulled in. Where’d you find him, How-Baby?”

“None of your business,” How-Baby said. “Now pay up.”

Roy was short, bald and skinny. He wore a pair of madras swim trunks cinched at the waist. He reached into his pocket and pulled out twenty-five dollars. “Hey, Dom,” Roy said. “How-Baby got to Mack first. Don’t ask me how.”

Dominic crunched across the parking lot. Dominic was the most elegant of the three men. Because he was Canadian, he sometimes lapsed into speaking French, and he was the best dressed—this morning in creased navy slacks, a lemon yellow polo, and tasseled loafers.

“
Merde
,” Dominic said. He spun the cap around his index finger, then he tossed the cap to Mack. “Wear it tomorrow.”

“No, wear mine tomorrow,” Roy said.

“You stick with the front runner, Mack,” How-Baby said. “Stick with the Rangers.”

Tonya Comatis popped her head out the lobby door, her auburn beehive hair-do spun high like cotton candy. “Boys, get back to your rooms. I won’t have you competing with each other all week.” Her face brightened when she saw Mack. “Mack, baby,” she said. She kissed his cheek, leaving, Mack was sure, a ruby red lipstick mark. “Why, you look ex-haus-taid!”

“It’s early,” Mack said.

“No, I mean, you look really
tired
. You look tired to your bones.”

“Give the kid a break, Tonya,” How-Baby said. “Now, Mack, can you find us the plastic bat and a few of those Wiffle balls for this afternoon? I’m going to teach these clowns a thing or two.”

“You’d think they’d want to get away from baseball,” Tonya said. “You’d think they’d want to forget all about it. But no. They love it. They absolutely love it.”

“If baseball were a woman,” How-Baby said, “I’d marry her.”

“I’d marry her first,” Roy said.

“She wouldn’t marry either of you,” Dominic said. “You’re both too ugly.”

That afternoon at five o’clock when the beach boys took the umbrellas down for the day, the beach became a playing field. How-Baby and Roy marked the bases and the fair/foul line in the sand. Tonya and the other two wives—Dominic’s wife was a quiet blonde named Genevieve, and Roy’s wife this year wore ponytails and looked just about eighteen—pulled shorts on over their bikinis and brought out bottles of cold Evian. The teams were co-ed—usually How-Baby and the two wives versus Roy, Dominic, and Tonya, but sometimes it was How-Baby and Tonya against everyone else. One thing stayed the same: How-Baby’s team always won. He clobbered the wiffle ball into the ocean every time he was up. The first two balls were lost out at sea. “That would have been a home run at Wrigley,” How-Baby said, as he rounded the bases. “That would have been a homer at Candlestick.” Then Tonya made a rule that hitting the ball into the water constituted an automatic home run.

“I know you, How-Baby,” she said. “You’ll try for the upper decks at Yankee Stadium next, and we’ll lose the only ball we have left.”

How-Baby was amazing in the field, too. He pitched so fast the ball was a white blur. He had Roy and Dominic and the ladies swinging at air, and if they did hit the ball it was usually a crazy-spinning pop-up that fell right into How-Baby’s hands. There was a magic to the man, a magnetism that neither Bill nor Mack’s father had taught him.

Nine innings with How-Baby took about an hour. Then, the players came in from the field, Roy wiping his bald head with a handkerchief.

“The bastard doesn’t even cheat,” Roy said to Mack. “If he cheated, at least I could hate him.”

“I hate him anyway,” Dominic said. He swatted How-Baby’s behind.

“Join us for a cocktail,” How-Baby said. He wasn’t sweating or winded; he was as cool as the breeze off the water.

“Okay,” Mack said. It was after six and he’d planned to spend the evening with Andrea—it was her final night on the island and he was supposed to help James shave. Then he hoped to walk with Andrea and James up the beach, but suddenly that seemed depressing. Mack might find a perfect scallop shell or a sand dollar and he would give it to Andrea as something to remember him by, knowing full well that by the time she reached Baltimore, it would be broken or lost. Better to spend time with people who made him feel good.

Mack followed How-Baby to room 1. (How-Baby always booked room 1—there was no question how the man felt about being first.) They sat in the deck chairs. Tonya appeared with two sweating beers, and How-Baby drank half of his in one long swallow. The man lived with gusto.

“So, Mack, tell me, how was your winter?”

“It was good,” Mack said. A pale, unenthusiastic answer, but it was all he could muster—and it wasn’t a lie. The winter
had
been good; it was only since May that things had started to spin out of his control. “Maribel and I lived on Sunset Hill again, next to the Oldest House.”

How-Baby stroked his mustache. “I wanted to ask you about Maribel. I got worried when I heard you were living out in back of the hotel with an old lady. Because you know Tonya and I think you’re a marquis player, but we like Maribel a whole bunch too.”

“Everyone likes Maribel,” Mack said.

Tonya stepped onto the deck. “So we’ll see her, then?” she asked. “We’d like to take you kids out to dinner.”

“I know you’re busy,” How-Baby said. “But there’s something I want to ask you. Something big.”

Tonya swatted How-Baby on the arm. “Now you’re teasing,” she said. “Just tell him what it is, How-Baby. Tell him right now.”

“You don’t have to tell me right now,” Mack said. “Because, you see, with Maribel….”

“Okay, I will tell him right now,” How-Baby said. He finished his beer in a second swallow, then let out a strong, healthy belch. “I have a job for you.”

“A job?”

“A job, working for me, working for the Rangers. When this job opened up, I thought to myself, ‘I know exactly who I want this job to go to. Mack Petersen, that’s who.’”

Mack laughed. “As you know, Howard, I already have a job.”

How-Baby turned to Tonya and chuckled. “Didn’t I tell you that’s exactly what Mack was going to say?”

“You sure did, How-Baby. Now tell him the rest.”

How-Baby leaned forward. “Son, I know you like your job here at the hotel. And the job I’m offering you is hotel-related. This job is you setting up travel plans for the team—flights, hotel rooms, restaurants. It means a lot of interaction with the players, it means seeing the rest of the country.” He paused dramatically. “It means I will triple your salary. But you’ll still have your winters off, just like you do here. You’re free in the winter and in the summer you’re traveling, fraternizing with the biggest names in the sport, and you’re making money.” How-Baby settled back in his chair. “How can you pass that up?”

The first word that popped into Mack’s mind was
ridiculous
. The second word was
why? Why was it ridiculous?

“It sounds tempting,” Mack admitted.

“But you have doubts,” How-Baby said. “You have doubts because I’m asking you to make a major league switcheroo here. I understand that. And so I want you to think it over. I want you to discuss it with your pretty Maribel and see what she has to say.”

“We know she’s going to love the idea,” Tonya said.

“We know she’s going to love the idea because that young lady has a good head on her shoulders. She knows a winner when she sees one. After all,” How-Baby said, clapping Mack on the back, “she picked you, didn’t she?”

“Sort of,” Mack said. He felt stupid admitting the truth to How-Baby. How-Baby wasn’t interested in what Mack had lost; he was interested in winning. “Maribel kicked me out of the apartment. I made a mistake.”

Tonya tugged on her earlobe. “Another woman?” she whispered.

Mack’s neck grew warm. “Something like that.”

How-Baby slapped his leg. “I knew it,” he said. He nudged Tonya. “Didn’t I tell you Mack was in the doghouse and that’s why he was living out back? I knew it.”

“It’s worse than just the doghouse,” Mack said. “It’s complicated.”

How-Baby put his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair. “Of course it’s complicated,” he said. “It’s love. Love is the greatest thing in the world. And you’re talking to a man who’s been married twenty-seven years.”

“That’s right,” Tonya said. She kissed How-Baby’s forehead, leaving two red lips behind. “But love is hard work too.”

“Harder than pitching a no-hitter with four fingers,” How-Baby said. “Harder than playing centerfield in a hundred-degree heat. It’s damn hard.”

“Yeah,” Mack said.

“Let me ask you something,” How-Baby said. “Do you love Maribel? Do you really love her?”

Mack nodded. “Yes.”

“Well, then, let’s hear you tell the world. Go on and say it.”

“I love her,” Mack said.

“Say it louder,” How-Baby said.

“I love her,” Mack said.

How-Baby scooted to the edge of his chair. “Say it louder.”

Mack hesitated; this must be the way How-Baby motivated his players, by getting them to release their testosterone. “I love her!” Mack said.

“Say it louder,” How-Baby said.

Tonya whispered. “Louder, Mack baby, louder.”

“I love her!” Mack said.

How-Baby stood up. “Say it louder!” How-Baby screamed. “Say it as loud as you can. Stand up and say it from your guts.”

Mack faced the water. There were still a few stragglers on the beach, but so what?

“I love her!!!” he shouted. “I…love…her!”

How-Baby applauded. “That’s right,” he said. “You love her. I believe you. I believe you love her.”

Roy Silverstein came out onto the deck of room 2.

“I see How-Baby’s doing his Baptist preacher routine again,” he said.

Mack collapsed in his chair. For the first time in weeks, he really laughed. Was it crazy to even consider taking this job? He was so locked into his choice between Nantucket and Iowa, he had never even thought there might be a third option. He’d been sitting around waiting for Nantucket to speak to him—and maybe that’s what had just happened. Maybe How-Baby was the voice he was waiting for. Mack wondered what the water looked like down in Texas. If he could get Maribel back, he would find out.

Soon thereafter, Mack left the deck, shaking hands with How-Baby, kissing Tonya on the cheek, and telling them he would consider their offer.

“Worry about the girl, first,” How-Baby said. “That’s what’s important.”

Mack rounded the corner to the side deck rooms. He knocked at room 18. Andrea opened the door. Behind her, Mack saw her half-packed suitcase, but he didn’t feel as sad as he’d expected.