Christmas at the Beach (3 page)

Four

I’ve got Dustin bathed and tucked into the portable crib when the doorbell rings.
I’m thinking it’s Dad and Andrew until I hear the churning of gears and what sounds
like a revving truck engine outside. Which is pretty strange given that it’s eight
o’clock on Christmas Eve and even UPS and FedEx are probably finished delivering by
now.

“What’s going on?” Everyone’s huddled in the foyer. The front door is open and a man
stands on the front mat.

“I have a delivery. For Dustin Deranian.” He looks up from the paperwork. “I need
him to sign for it.”

“He’s already gone night night,” I say. “I’m his mother.” I scrawl my signature and
scan the garden behind him. When I’m sure there are no paparazzi hiding in the bushes
or behind our cars, we follow him outside to where a huge flatbed truck idles in the
street. There’s a house on it—one of those big wooden playhouses that kids can go
inside. Only it’s about ten times bigger than any I’ve ever seen and it looks exactly
like Bella Flora. I mean, on the outside anyway, it’s an exact replica. It’s huge;
all of us could probably stand up inside it.

“Where do you want it?”

I have no idea. The replica is strangely perfect and feels oddly personal—kind of
like receiving an anatomically correct copy of yourself completely out of the blue—and
part of me wants to refuse it. But a second delivery guy is already attaching the
hook to the crane so that it can be off-loaded. It has the biggest red bow I’ve ever
seen tied around it.

“Listen, lady, I’d like to get home in time to suit up and make an appearance before
my kids go to bed.” He has a huge beer belly and I’m sure he makes a convincing Santa.
Except for the big
MOM
tattoo on his neck.

He hands me an envelope that has Dustin’s name scrawled across the front in Daniel’s
handwriting. Not that anyone else could—or would—have sent anything this extravagant.
Didn’t I tell him we’d sold Bella Flora?

“Where do you want it?”

I still have no idea and look at the others helplessly.

“Maybe we can fit it around the pool as an additional guesthouse,” Avery says. “It
looks like it could sleep at least four.”

“If we’d had it before, we could have bumped up the asking price,” Deirdre adds.

“Do you think we can get it out back in the dark?” my mom asks.

We’re still huddled and trying to figure it out when the first flashbulb goes off.
Shit.
I pull the hood up over my head and zip up my sweatshirt, but it doesn’t cover anywhere
near as much as the burqa. The house is still dangling as the paparazzi start begging
for shots and shouting their stupid questions.

“Can you turn this way just a bit, Kyra, luv?” Nigel calls out. “Is it from Dustin’s
da? Did Daniel send it?”

I hate how they use everyone’s first names as if they’re friends who just happen to
loiter outside and take unwanted pictures. So much for time off to observe the birth
of Christ.

“It might fit on that side of the garden,” Nicole says.

“No, not anywhere near those birds of paradise or the triple hibiscus. Renée Franklin
and her garden ladies will never forgive us.”

“We can’t put it anywhere out front without blocking access of some kind,” Nikki says.

“And anywhere near the center of the garden is going to put the fountain at risk,”
Deirdre points out. The leaping-dolphin fountain is yet another original feature that
was painstakingly restored not once but twice. And this garden isn’t really ours anymore,
is it?

The flashes are still firing. The delivery guys start flexing muscle and mugging for
the cameras, all thought of Ho-Ho-Ho-ing temporarily forgotten. Given the typical
lack of hard news on Christmas Day, this over-the-top Christmas present from Daniel
is probably already going viral.

Is it possible to refuse it? Or have it delivered to my parents’ house in Atlanta?
As of January 2, when we have to be out of here, that will be my only existing address.

“Listen, we can’t really accept this. . . .” I begin.

“Sorry, lady.” Santa flashes a big, toothy smile for the photographers and does a
“hi, Mom” wave for the guy shooting video. “I’ve got to leave it. I got a premium
for delivering tonight, but I don’t get squat if I don’t complete that delivery. My
orders don’t say anything about carrying it out back or nothing like that.”

“Let them leave it here at the curb,” Deirdre suggests. “If the city gets upset, we
can just pretend we didn’t know it was here.”

“Right,” Avery says. “We’ll just act like Santa dropped it off.”

“You know Dustin’s going to love it. Tomorrow when Chase and his boys get here, we
can figure out how to get it out back.” This from my mother, whose glass always seems
to be half-full.

“Give us a few more shots, ladies!” This time it’s Bill who shouts. “We wasted the
whole afternoon and most of the evening staking out the Vinoy Hotel.” He names a restored
Mediterranean Revival–style hotel in northeast St. Petersburg. “Someone said Barbara
Streisand flew into town and was holed up in the penthouse. But it was just some female
impersonator trying to promote his new e-book.”

I do the whole turtle–pulling-into-its-shell thing and ignore them while I run in
for my keys and angle the rental car up into the tag end of the driveway so that most
of the curb is available for Dustin’s present. Once the house clatters into place
and the flatbed grinds off, we retreat back inside Bella Flora.

A text dings in on my mother’s phone and I pick it up. “It’s from Andrew and Dad.
They got a late start out of Atlanta but should be here within the hour.”

“Good,” she says, smiling. “That’s great.” I expect her to head into the kitchen to
see what she can put together for their dinner, or run out to the pool house to make
sure everything’s ready for them, but she shoves her glass toward Nikki and says,
“I think that calls for a drink or two.”

Mine aren’t the only eyebrows that go up. Madeline Singer is many things. A heavy
drinker isn’t one of them. I can count the number of times I’ve seen her more than
slightly tipsy on two fingers.

We head into the Casbah Lounge, which is one of the coolest rooms I’ve ever been in.
It’s small and intimate, with leaded glass windows, leather banquettes, and a riot
of Moorish tile covering everything from the floor to the bar and the arched pillars
and posts. Deirdre made sure it was restored to its original 1920s glamour, and whenever
I’m in here I picture Bogie toasting Bacall and saying, “Here’s looking at you, kid”
while “As Time Goes By” plays hauntingly in the background. Best of all, it’s stocked
with enough alcohol to survive a siege.

“We might as well drink up,” Nikki says, stepping in behind the bar and opening a
bottle of brandy.

Her pours are generous, but since none of us are going anywhere and tomorrow’s Christmas,
no one keeps track of who consumes what. I get the impression that my mother is drinking
more with intent than enjoyment.

“To Bella Flora,” Avery says.

We all drink to that.

“I’m going to miss her,” Deirdre adds.

“Yeah. I never thought I’d say that when we were down on our knees refinishing the
floors and sweating our asses off without air conditioning,” Nikki says.

“Or sharing that one bathroom for most of the summer,” I say.

“Or reglazing all those windows,” Mom adds, and she should know. Bella Flora has about
a bazillion windows, and she was the only one of us careful and patient enough to
take on the tedious job of reglazing.

“I can’t let myself think about strangers living in her,” Avery says.

“I know.” Nikki swallows the remainder of the brandy in her snifter and opens another
bottle.

“I could barely make myself sign the contracts yesterday,” my mother says. “But it
was so generous of the new owner to allow us to stay through New Year’s.”

“I thought Chase was going to cry,” Avery adds quietly.

“He wasn’t the only one.” Deirdre gives Avery a knowing look. This time when she rubs
her arm it looks completely unintentional.

I smile at that. Avery’s not exactly all girly girl, despite the fact that two networks
have tried to present her that way. Chase Hardin looks better in his work boots and
tool belt than a lot of guys do in a tux. But he has a soft spot for houses, especially
spectacular historically significant ones like Bella Flora.

It’s close to eleven when we hear a car out front. There’s a soft knock on the door,
and we all migrate into the foyer. My mom throws her arms around Andrew, who’s in
his junior year of college, then pecks my dad on both cheeks. I do the same and steal
a quick look outside. Flashes go off as I close the front door.

“Where did the mini–Bella Flora come from?” Dad asks after he’s greeted everyone.
“I had to put the car in a metered space.” My dad is tall and thin with hair that’s
turned more salt than pepper. He’s rumpled from the drive. His tone is distinctly
crotchety.

“It’s Dustin’s Christmas present from Daniel,” I say.

“Kind of over-the-top, isn’t it?” he grumbles.

“Not in movie-star terms,” I say automatically, even though he’s right and I have
no reason to defend Daniel Deranian.

His expression is bah-humbug, but he doesn’t argue the point. I don’t think my father
would have liked anyone I slept with. But he especially hates that Dustin’s father
is a married man who lied his way into my pants and had no interest in marrying me
when I got pregnant. The fact that he gets paid a shitload of money for playacting
and looking good is especially offensive.

“Hey, it could have been worse,” Deirdre says. “It could have been a pony.”

“We have a resident parking pass you can put on the dash.” Avery retrieves the pass
from the kitchen and hands it to my brother.

I almost ask him to tell the photographers outside that we’re in for the night so
they can go get some sleep. But then I think better of it. It’s not the deer’s job
to tell the hunters when it’s time to go home.

Nobody comments when my dad and brother carry their things out to the pool house,
but it still feels weird to me. “I can move Dustin and bunk in with Andrew if you
want to stay in the house,” I say to my dad.

“Oh, no. That’s . . .” my mother begins.

“. . . not necessary,” my dad finishes. Strange. You never really think about your
parents sleeping together until they don’t.

When my mom asks if they’re hungry, my brother perks up like he always does at the
mention of food. None of us knows exactly where he puts it all, but his metabolism
could probably light up the whole eastern seaboard. If it could be bottled we wouldn’t
have had to sell Bella Flora. Or put up with the network’s heavy-handededness with
Do Over
.

My dad yawns. “I’m really whipped from the drive. I think I’m going to go on out and
go to sleep.”

He’s gone before I can offer again. The rest of us head into the kitchen to see what’s
in the fridge, since we’ve had a lot more to drink than eat. Mini–hot dogs and Cheez
Doodles can only carry you so far.

There’s a turkey just waiting to be stuffed for Christmas dinner tomorrow, but my
mother pulls out the spiral-cut ham, a pound of deli roast beef, slices of provolone
cheese, and a loaf of Italian bread from Casa del Pane just up the beach. We settle
around the kitchen table with sandwiches. My “little” brother downs two huge glasses
of milk in a gulp each and half the tin of homemade Christmas cookies that are passed
around for dessert.

***

Upstairs, we all tiptoe around so we don’t wake Dustin. In her room, I watch my mother
set the alarm on the nightstand, climb into bed, and slip under the covers. “Good
night, sweetheart.” She yawns. “Sleep tight.” She folds her hands across her chest
and closes her eyes, but I can tell she’s nowhere near falling asleep.

I hear Dustin’s soft breathing from the portable crib and his occasional snuffle.
Dustin’s too young to understand the whole concept of getting up at the crack of dawn
to see what Santa brought him, so I don’t worry about setting an alarm or anything.

My mother’s breathing evens out, but I still don’t think she’s asleep. I can practically
feel her thinking beside me. I just don’t know what she’s thinking about.

I try to arrange my thoughts to maximize my dream potential. It’s an exercise I read
about once in a screenwriting book and that I’ve used when I’m in the middle of a
shoot. When I check the clock, it’s after midnight, so technically it’s Christmas.
But there are no sugar plums or candy canes dancing in my head. As I fall asleep,
Max Golden makes an appearance—he’s on a stage, doing a stand-up routine with his
Millie, and he’s holding the menorah we lit tonight. His smile is his megawatter,
and his eyes twinkle with mischief.

Daniel elbows onstage beside them, sexy and stubble-faced. His hot dark eyes meet
mine. His wife Tonja tries to join him onstage, but he tells her there’s no room.
She lets out a stream of profanities—and even in my half-conscious state I think how
shocked her fans would be to find out what a total potty mouth she is. I regret having
to edit out the video that Troy shot in South Beach of her swearing her movie-star
guts out in front of my son. She’s still swearing when Daniel reaches down to pick
up Dustin then shoots me this saucy half wink. It would be a really touching moment
if he didn’t send an identical wink to somebody else off-camera; someone who’s probably
awestruck and beautiful and hasn’t found out yet that she’ll never beat out Tonja
Kay, the rainbow of children she’s adopted, and the lifestyle of the rich and famous
that they live together.

My mother sighs beside me. My son snuffles in response. I teeter on the edge of sleep
until almost one
A.M.
before I finally slip over into oblivion.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Five

Dustin’s first word when he looks out the window and spies his “playhouse” on Christmas
morning is “Buhfora!” And while he smiles happily, he expresses no shock or surprise
that an exact duplicate of Bella Flora sprang up on the front curb overnight. I wish
I could remember being that age where magic can just happen.

The paparazzi are snapping away at the playhouse and the original behind it as soon
as the sun is up, and I know I’m not going to be able to keep Dustin away from it.
I toy with the idea of putting him in a disguise, but the paps all know there’s only
one toddler in this house. And I haven’t been able to find a burqa in his size.

A crowd of neighbors and early bird tourists begins to form. A Pass-a-Grille traffic
cop is trying to figure out how to hang a parking ticket on Bella Flora’s mini-me.

In the kitchen, a big box of donuts is open on the reclaimed wood table. Avery’s dunking
a glazed chocolate in a cup of steaming coffee. I know it’s not her first cup because
she’s smiling and talking—two things she doesn’t do until the caffeine kicks in. I
bought her a T-shirt for Christmas that reads,
I DRINK COFFEE FOR YOUR PROTECTION
, and I’m tempted to give it to her now.

Deirdre’s eating a small cup of yogurt and is sitting as far away from the donuts
as she can get. I’m guessing Nikki is out running; she’s kind of like the post office
that way—neither rain nor sleet nor . . . well, none of those things apply today,
when the sun already looks like a big golden ball and the sky is a robin’s-egg blue,
but you get the idea. Nobody seems to be wearing more than a light layer or two, even
though the Weather Channel is predicting that a cold front is headed our way.

My mother stands at the counter sipping coffee. The oven is already emitting mouthwatering
turkey smells. My dad’s reading the newspaper like there might be actual news in it
and not just after Christmas sale ads. I try to imagine being with someone as long
as they’ve been with each other, but my brain stalls out completely.

Dustin cries, “Gee-dad!” and launches himself into my father’s lap, thrilled to see
him but once again not surprised. So far in his world, absent fathers simply appear
from time to time.

My mother walks over and kisses her grandson on the head. “Merry Christmas, Dustin.”
She smiles.

“Murree Krimas!” Dustin says and reaches his arms out to her. She scoops him up and
settles him on her hip. There aren’t a lot of people who can compete with my mother
in Dustin’s eyes.

There’s a tap of a horn out front and a text dings in right afterward.

Chase and Jeff and the boys are out front. Are you ready to move the playhouse?

My dad leaves to get Andrew and I know it’s going to take some time, and possibly
a crowbar, to pry him out of bed.

“Do you want to stay inside with Dustin until we get it moved?” my mother asks me.
She’s untying her apron, and I notice that she’s fully dressed for the day in black
slacks and a bright red Christmas sweater with snowflakes and a snowman. I’m wearing
the first thing I pulled on, and while I wouldn’t mind staying here, I hate the idea
of hiding. Especially on such a magnificent Christmas Day. “Hold on.” I race upstairs
and change into jeans and a
Do Over
sweatshirt. I refuse to dress up for the photographers, but if I can’t avoid them
I might as well plug the show.

My dad comes back with Andrew. My brother’s face is shadowed with stubble, his eyes
are barely open, and his clothes look slept in. In fact, he may still be asleep in
a vertical, malleable sort of way. My mother puts a glass of orange juice in his hand
and slips a pair of sunglasses on his face.

Deirdre meets us in the foyer. She’s impeccably dressed in black knit pants and a
royal blue tunic sweater. She looks like she might have hair and makeup people stashed
in her room.

Avery takes one look at her and snorts. “Jesus,” she says. “She can smell a photo
op a mile away.”

“I see no reason to face the media unprepared,” Deirdre says. “They can only make
us look bad if we allow it.” She rubs her arm pointedly. “Perhaps you should go up
and . . . dress.”

“I
am
dressed.” Avery’s not hiding in those big oversize clothes anymore, but she’s not
into wardrobe coordination any more than I am. She has on jeans and a
Do Over
long-sleeved tee. “And that’s not the media out there. That’s a group of professional
stalkers.”

“Whose photographs will be on magazine and tabloid covers. And could possibly be picked
up for television.” I can see that Deirdre considers stopping there but can’t quite
do it. “You remember when you ignored my warning on the way to South Beach and you
ended up on-camera in that halter and those cutoffs?”

They both get that stubborn look on their faces. The set of their jaws is identical.
As stressed as I feel about the horde outside and what we’re supposed to do with Dustin’s
Christmas present, it takes some effort not to laugh.

We all tromp outside.

The flashes start firing. “Over here, Dustin! Look this way!”

“Give us a smile, Kyra!”

“Did Daniel send the minimansion?”

“Does Tonja know?”

“Will Daniel be here today to see Dustin?”

The whir of motor drives is almost as loud as the shouted questions. Together they
blot out the caw of gulls and the wash of the waves. They are like a pestilence. Put
on this earth to torment anyone who has so much as a brush with fame.

“Will you leave the minimansion for the new owners?”

They know so much about all of us—too much. My heart is pounding in my chest but I
do my best not to react.

Nicole arrives back from her run, sees the photographers, and tries not to huff and
puff. Chase Hardin and his father, Jeff, who used to be in the construction business
with Avery’s father, and Chase’s two sons are all over six feet, which makes them
only slightly taller than the playhouse’s gabled roof. Chase slips an arm around Avery
and tucks her close to his side. I get this weird little jab of awareness. All Dustin
has is me. How will I protect him from all of this? What will he think of being a
celebrity’s illegitimate child when he’s old enough to understand?

But as I think this, everyone assembles around the outside of the playhouse, kind
of like a human shield, so that Dustin, who’s chortling with glee, can go inside and
check it out. I go with him and I don’t even have to hunch over. We both giggle. There’s
no floor, but the inside walls are plastered and painted like a real house; there’s
a faux fireplace on one wall. It feels warm and safe. If there weren’t a mob of photographers
outside, it would be perfect.

I’m peeking out one of the floor–to-ceiling windows, trying to see past our human
wall, when I spot a familiar figure. It’s Troy Matthews, the Lifetime cameraman. At
the moment he’s standing behind the outer ring of paparazzi. The sun glints off his
shaggy blond hair. His video camera is perched on one broad shoulder. I spent the
last few months editing
Do Over
with him, but when I left Nashville yesterday morning he never said a word about
being here today. The rat.

I’m careful not to look his way, but I won’t be able to ban him from the house or
the grounds like I can the others. He’s kind of like a vampire that you have to invite
in.

I see Avery and Chase conferring. She comes inside. “Are you guys okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Here’s the plan.”

At Chase’s cue, I pull Dustin into my arms and hold on tight. Everyone else grabs
a window opening, a wrought-iron balcony, a cupola, a column—any protrusion they can
use as a handhold. On the count of three, they lift the house off the ground. The
house bobs up and down as they carry it, like an army of ants carrying a picnic basket,
up over the curb and across a lot-sized patch of grass strewn with sand and scrub,
a sort of no-man’s-land that separates Bella Flora from the path that leads to the
jetty, fishing pier, and beach.

There’s a lot of grumbling and laughing as they try to synchronize their movements
and compensate for their disparate heights. I just hold on to Dustin and do my best
to keep pace so that we don’t trip on the uneven ground or get flattened if they drop
it or whacked by a wall if we fall out of step. Once we’ve made it around Bella Flora,
the house comes to a bobbling halt. I dart out with Dustin and watch while Avery and
Chase confer about its placement. It ends up next to Dustin’s beloved sandbox, smack
up against the loggia, with its back to the gulf.

“If we were getting to stay here, all we’d need is a fence down the property line
and Dustin could play all he wanted,” my mother says.

Of course, it would have to be a see-through fence, which would sort of defeat the
purpose. This will never be a gated property. No one in his right mind would block
150 feet of prime waterfront or the spectacular view out over the gulf.

The paparazzi reposition themselves three hundred yards away as required—do they have
tape measures in their heads? This puts them on the far edge of the no-man’s–land,
and I hope they get stickers and seagull poop all over them. But the playhouse does
help block their view of the loggia a little.

I watch Dustin race in and out of the playhouse. He carries a favorite fire truck
inside and then some other toys. Troy sets up his camera on a tripod and shoots. I’ve
mostly given up trying to hide Dustin from the network camera. My famous child is
one of the reasons we have a television show at all. There’s no getting around it.
And the show’s too important to all of us for any one of us to walk.

“You could have told me you were coming to shoot today.”

“I figured you knew.” Troy is tall and good-looking, and although I don’t plan to
tell him this any time soon, he’s a really good cameraman. If we needed one besides
me, which we don’t, he’d definitely be a keeper. But we set out to do a renovation
show, and when we arrived in South Beach last spring, we found out that the network
had turned it into a reality series with Troy’s camera focused on us.

“It’s Christmas Day.” He locks his camera down, leaving it aimed at the door of the
playhouse to catch Dustin as he runs in and out. I hate that there’s nothing I can
do about it. “Could there be a better time to let you know where the next season of
Do Over
will be shot?” He says this casually as if it’s not one more slap in the face. Part
of the network’s strategy has been not revealing the house we’ll be renovating or
its address until we arrive in the city they’ve selected. Which puts a real crimp
in the ability to prep the renovation and adds a whole unnecessary layer of stress
and panic that Troy gets to capture on camera.

“Do you want to give me a small hint?” I ask because at the moment one more thing
that I don’t know and have no control over could push me over the edge.

“They didn’t tell me,” he says, and I look at his face to see if this is true. “They
think I’ve been turned by the ‘enemy.’ That I have an unhealthy attraction to you.”

I have no idea what to say to this. He did invite me to edit with him, which Lisa
Hogan, the network head, whose nickname is “the chief bitch in charge,” didn’t like.
And he did make fifteen minutes of the worst of our infighting disappear. Sort of
like that seven minutes of Watergate conversation that took place in Nixon’s oval
office that was accidentally erased.

“All I have is a sealed envelope, which is supposed to be opened when you’re all together
and on-camera.” He loosens the shot so that he can follow Dustin through the playhouse
windows. I grit my teeth.

“Time to open presents!” Mom pokes her head out to yell. Everyone troops inside. The
smell of turkey infuses the air. Christmas music is playing. Mom has a tray of orange
juices plus a couple of bottles of champagne to turn them into mimosas sitting on
the game table. A platter of donuts, mini–cinnamon buns, and muffins sits nearby.

There are a ton of presents piled under the tree. Even though it’s supposed to be
in the seventies today, someone has lit a fire in the fireplace. We start to tear
through the presents. In minutes there’s wrapping paper and ribbon all over the floor.
Troy is filming, and for once I don’t care because it leaves me free to help Dustin
open his gifts. My son is all about tools and transportation and everyone knows it,
so he gets a set of toddler-sized tools tucked into an adorable tool belt from Avery
and Deirdre, a truck pulling a speedboat on a trailer from the Hardins, and a whole
fire station complete with a pimped-out fire truck and crew from my mom, dad, and
brother. I save the kiddie video camera with its eyepiece and a zoom lens that I bought
for him for last, and my heart does this weird kind of stutter when he swings it right
up onto his shoulder like he’s seen me do a thousand times. I look up and see Troy
moving in for a close-up; he and Dustin look like dueling cameramen. I’m about to
give Troy some shit about it when I notice that his lips, which are about all you
can see behind the camera, are curved up into a genuine smile.

I look down at my son, who’s so excited he doesn’t know what to play with first, and
then around the room. I’m touched that everyone—even the teenagers—brought something
for Dustin. He does belong to all of us in a way I don’t think a child with two parents
can. This is the village that is helping me raise my child.

***

“Wow!” Chase grins when Avery opens her present from Deirdre. The lingerie is incredibly
skimpy, the barest wisps of pink silk, nude satin, and black lace. The chance of her
actually wearing any of these things seems pretty close to zero. She spent most of
our time in South Beach hiding in baggy clothes so the network couldn’t focus on her
chest all the time like the last network did. Her favorite accessories are the pink
hard hat her father gave her when she was a little girl and her father’s tool belt,
which has extra holes punched in so it doesn’t fall down around her hips.