Christmas at the Beach (6 page)

Keep reading for a special preview of the next Ten Beach Road novel by Wendy Wax

THE HOUSE ON MERMAID POINT

Available from Berkley July 2014

Prologue

There had been a time, many times actually, when William Hightower would have left
rehab in a limo. That limo, sent by his record label, would have had tinted windows,
a fully stocked bar, and an eager woman with long legs, big breasts, and a talented
mouth perched on the back seat.

His release would have been celebratory and newsworthy with photographers and fans
jostling each other outside the gates so that they could snap photos and scream his
name as the limo sped by.

The articles and news stories would run for weeks after his release. Each would begin
with pictures of him on a stage surrounded by a vast, undulating sea of enraptured
fans. Back when the braid that hung down his back was darker than the night sky over
a Florida swamp. When he’d swaggered across a stage as if he owned it. As if he were
a real Seminole warrior and not a scared kid from a dusty no name town who had two
drops of Native American to every gallon of Florida Cracker blood in his veins.

Back then the alcohol and drugs were just part of the gig. They hadn’t yet slowed
his fingers or marred his voice, or eaten away the muscle and sinew that held him
together, like termites gnawing on a wood shanty. The pain of watching his little
brother leave their band, the aptly if offensively named Wasted Indian, in a hearse,
hadn’t yet been carved into his face like a name slashed into a tree trunk. Back then
the roar of the crowds had convinced him that he was alive. And destined to be young
forever.

Today the car that whisked him away from rehab had not been sent by a record company
and did not contain, drugs, alcohol or a woman, eager or otherwise. It was a muddy
brown BMW driven by his angry, tight jawed son whom he barely knew. The only one left
from that once-vast sea, the only one bound by the obligation of blood.

“Thanks for picking me up,” Will said.

A grunt was his only answer. Which was perhaps more than he deserved.

“And for arranging my . . . stay.” It was as close as he could come to admitting that
he, William Hightower, who had made and blown millions, couldn’t have afforded the
month spent at Three Palms Whole Health Center, which practiced an holistic and adventure
based approach to beating one’s demons. Not even if he’d wanted to go there.

There were no gates to drive through. No waiting press. No screaming fans. Just a
clean modern building sandwiched between a lake where he’d paddled a kayak until his
muscles burned and a pool where he’d numbed his mind and his body with lap after lap.
He was leaving far fitter than he had arrived. Fitter than he’d been since he’d played
his first gig at seventeen. He’d give the Three Palms folks one thing; they’d forced
him to clean up his outside while they’d hammered away at his interior. As if there
were anything left in there.

The hair that had once hung down his back barely brushed his shoulders; the glossy
black was streaked with gray. His face, bruised and battered by 61 years of hard living
was still dominated by a hatchet of a nose and high harsh cheekbones that the camera
had once loved. His dark eyes were framed by a spider’s web of lines, but they were
clearer than they’d ever been; allowing him to see the world around him as it really
was; stark and unrelenting.

They drove south from the hermetically sealed town of Westin, Florida in silence,
palm trees sliding by, bold blasts of tropical color climbing walls and snaking up
tree trunks. The flat morning light was unforgiving, leaving only the stingiest triangles
of shade.

In Florida City the turnpike emptied onto US-1 then onto the two-laned eighteen mile
ribbon of asphalt that locals called ‘the stretch.’ It was here that the real world
began to dissolve while paradise crooked its finger just ahead. Even on the crappiest
day ‘the stretch’ could cause heart rates to slow, stress levels to drop, and brain
synapses to fire less frantically. But today Will’s mind flitted at random as Tommy
drove sedately, his eyes fixed straight ahead. Despite the open windows the silence
between them hung hot and heavy, stuffed with things that had never been forgiven
and which Will sincerely hoped would never be discussed.

A chain link fence was all that held back the scrub and brush as they skirted the
Everglades and crossed over the Monroe County Line. Will stole the occasional surreptitious
glance at his son, who had inherited his size and coloring and who looked so much
like the younger brother he’d been named for that it hurt to look at him. He thought
about the boy’s mother, who’d been a casualty of the life they’d lived, too. So many
people gone for no good reason.

From the top of the Jewfish Creek Bridge sun glinted off the impossibly turquoise
water that flanked them and a warm salt breeze tinged the air and rifled Will’s hair.
In Key Largo scuba and bait and tackle shops began to fly by. A strip mall sign promising
Pilates in Paradise caught his eye.

The silence spooled out. Will’s eyelids grew heavy. He was close to nodding off when
Tommy said, “I talked to the bank. Then I brought in a Realtor to look at Mermaid
Point.”

Will’s eyes blinked open. This was what happened when you gave your only blood relative
power of attorney. In case of emergency. Never thinking that you might be thrashing
it out in rehab when they decided to declare one.

He’d bought the tea-table shaped key on a whim back in the early eighties when Key
West had ceased being a place to hide out, kick back and chill. When cruise ships
began to arrive and depart daily and crowds longing to be wild and eccentric planted
a flag and declared Key West their capital of crazy. Everyone he cared about had fled.
Will had only made it seventy-nine mile markers up US-1.

“I’m not interested in selling Mermaid Point.” Not his island. Not ever.

They were passing through Tavernier. Mariner’s Hospital and McDonald’s flashed by
and then they were crossing Tavernier Creek. Soon they’d be on Upper Matecumbe, the
third of Islamorada’s four keys.

Almost home
.

“Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t sell the island without doing something about
the house and the outbuildings,” his son said. “Not in the condition they’re in.”

It was Will’s turn to grunt. When he’d bought Mermaid Point it had been one of many
homes Will owned. Now it was all he had left. All he wanted to do when he got there
was stretch out in a chaise by the pool and zone the hell out. Which wouldn’t be anywhere
near as easy without a drink or a joint in his hand.

At the moment he was trying not to think about how he was going to live the next week,
let alone the rest of his life, without numbing up. He wasn’t sure his pool—or even
the Atlantic Ocean, which his pool overlooked—were big enough to swim the number of
laps it would take. He didn’t know if there were enough laps in this world to make
the need to detach go away.

“The thing is if the house and grounds could be renovated it would make a great place
for an island vacation or a corporate retreat. And you could keep the rooms rented
out all the time—I mean you’re still a name. People would pay a fortune to come stay
in a property owned and operated by William the Wild.” The tone was derisive. As if
he were relating something that he didn’t understand but he knew to be true. “You
could make a living as the ‘genial host’ of the Rock n Roll Bed and Breakfast. Or,
I don’t know, maybe we should just call it the Wild House.”

“You’re joking.” Will kept his voice even. He wasn’t even home yet. He was not going
to get worked up. Hadn’t he just spent a month trying to learn how to stay calm and
in control? “And it’s not like you’d ever get approval for a Bed & Breakfast. There’s
an ordinance against them. And a moratorium on building.”

Tommy shook his head dismissively. “That’s just semantics and small town politics.
And I never joke about money.” Of course, he didn’t. The kid was a damned Investment
Banker with a calculator for a brain. If he didn’t look so much like a Hightower Will
might have doubted the paternity test. “Unless you want to end up on the sofa sleeper
in my living room? Or an old age home for former rock stars?”

Will crossed his arms over his chest and turned an eye on Tommy. He’d used this look
to good effect with record people who’d wanted to turn him into some fancy boy crooner
when he was a rocker through and through. And with fans who didn’t understand boundaries
or personal space. “That won’t be happening.” If he’d earned anything in all the decades
played out onstage, it was privacy. “There’s no way in hell I’m sharing my island
or my home with strangers.” He shuddered when he thought of wide-eyed honeymoon couples
or worse, sad-eyed retirees in the bedroom down the hall.

You didn’t own a slab of coral rock barely tied to land if you wanted strangers anywhere
near you.

His son turned and looked at him. “Well, I’m afraid you don’t really have a choice.
You don’t have enough money to live on without using your sole remaining asset one
way or the other. You can sell Mermaid Point and the structures on it and live frugally
for the rest of your life.” His tone indicated he didn’t believe William had the ability
to do any such thing. As if he’d been born to wealth and hadn’t earned his fortune
one damned song at a time. “Or you can renovate, play the host to anyone willing to
spend the money, and at least keep a roof over your head.”

William’s throat was so parched he could barely swallow. He didn’t know how he’d made
such an obscene amount of money and ended up with so little. Or how the son who despised
him had come up with such a horrifying plan.

A drink would have smoothed things out. Would at least allow him to pretend he wasn’t
a broke, recovering alcoholic. Slowly, he reached in his pocket and pulled out a tootsie
roll pop. He unwrapped it carefully and placed it in his mouth as they passed Whale
Harbor Marina.

The Lor-e-lei whizzed by on his right. Pretty soon they’d see Bud n’ Mary’s Marina
which would make him as good as home. He sucked on the thing in silence refusing—in
a ridiculous test of will—to give in and bite into its chewy center like he wanted
to.

Danielle, his favorite group leader at the facility, had given him a large bag of
the pops as a going away present. Idly, he wondered why no one had ever invented a
whiskey-flavored version with a shot of Jack Daniels in the center. Maybe that’s what
he should do to get back on his feet. Invent an alcoholic version of the Tootsie Pop.

He turned his head to hide his smile, concentrating on the hard, sweet candy in his
mouth. Maybe an alcoholic but sugar free version so all the poor alcoholics didn’t
become diabetic on top of everything else. He crossed his arms on his chest and let
his eyes skim over the familiar surroundings as he sucked on that candy shell.

He could tell by the position of the sun that sunset was only a few hours away. From
Mermaid Point he could watch the sun rise over the Atlantic in the morning and see
it set over the Gulf every night; both were sights he hadn’t gotten tired of seeing
yet.

Back in the day he could have scribbled down a hit song on a napkin between sets in
a bar. But that was then. Before he’d turned as old as the fucking hills and lost
most everyone he’d ever cared about. This was now. And he was pretty certain that
he didn’t have so much as half a melody hidden anywhere inside him.

One

Although she hadn’t exactly planned it, Madeline Singer had recently achieved two
things that surprised her: A senior citizen discount. And the legal right to date.

Over the course of her twenty-seven year marriage, Maddie had fulfilled many roles
and been described in a variety of ways. She’d begun as a young bride, morphed quite
happily into a suburban housewife, and genuinely enjoyed the years spent taking care
of her husband and two children that followed. Two years ago, for a time so brief
she wasn’t sure it should count, she’d become an ‘empty nester’ eagerly anticipating
what she was sure would be a new and exciting phase of her life. That anticipation
had been blotted out by the discovery that she was, in fact, a Ponzi Victim; a dark
thundercloud of reality that had forever changed her, her family and her life but
which had been rimmed with a silver lining of unsuspected inner strength and sense
of purpose. She could now be described by two words that she’d never imagined joined
together. Those words were fifty-one and single.

As oxymorons went hers was nowhere near as clever as ‘jumbo shrimp,’ ‘virtual reality,’
or even ‘a little bit pregnant.’ But it did qualify her to join AARP. And, apparently,
to go out with new men.

Most of all it made Maddie more determined than ever to prove that being old enough
to get a senior citizen discount didn’t mean you couldn’t start over.

* * *

It was May in the Atlanta suburbs. The azalea bushes bulged with white and fuchsia
blooms as Madeline contemplated the For Sale sign now planted in the sprawling yard
her children had once played in. A row of deep orange daylilies marched down a gentle
slope to meet the mass of purple and red tulips that had shot up through the red clay.
The deep green leaves of the magnolia trees she’d planted to celebrate Kyra and Andrew’s
births cupped large white saucer shaped blooms.

Madeline’s pollen dappled minivan sat in the driveway crammed to capacity for the
drive down to Tampa where she, Kyra and her grandson Dustin would spend the night.
Tomorrow morning they’d caravan down to the Florida Keys with partners Avery Lawford
and Nicole Grant where they’d spend yet another sweat soaked summer transforming a
mystery house for an unknown individual for their renovation turned reality TV show,
Do Over
.

“Gee-ma!” Her grandson emerged from the open garage, his mother behind him. The one
and a half year old raced to her, his legs churning, his chubby arms spread wide.
Maddie lifted him into her arms and rubbed her nose against his. His golden skin was
soft and warm. His dark lashes long enough to brush against her cheek in a butterfly
kiss.

“Dustin!” She planted a kiss on his forehead and hugged him to her chest. When her
daughter had been fired from her first feature film for sleeping with its star, Malcolm
Dyer and his Ponzi scheme had already plunged their family into dire financial straits.
Kyra’s resulting pregnancy and conviction that it was only a matter of time until
Daniel Deranian whisked her away to ‘Happily Ever After’ had seemed just one more
crisis to overcome. Until the first time she’d held Dustin in her arms.

“I can’t believe you’re selling the house.” Kyra’s eyes were fixed on the sign. Her
arms were filled with camera gear. A diaper backpack dangled from one shoulder.

Maddie braced as she waited for one of Kyra’s pointed observations about just how
few women Maddie’s age would have had the guts to ask for a divorce. Or tossed out
some new and troubling statistic about the shocking percentage of divorced women and
their children who ended up living below the poverty line. As if their entire family
hadn’t already hovered uncomfortably above that line for the last two years. Maddie
expelled a breath of relief when Kyra fell silent.

* * *

Yesterday, which would have been her 27th wedding anniversary, had been spent packing
and finishing up de-cluttering the house so that the Realtor could start showing it.
Their history as a family in it either stuffed into boxes or discarded. “I know. It’s
hard to imagine someone else living here,” Madeline agreed. And yet if the Real Estate
Gods were bountiful, the next time she saw their house it could belong to someone
else. “But maybe a new family with young children will move into it like we did.”

Like mourners not yet ready to lay a beloved family member to rest, they observed
a moment of silence. “I don’t want to picture anyone else in our house. I’m having
a hard enough time trying not to think about the people who’ll be living in Bella
Flora.” Kyra’s hands tightened on the camera bags as she mentioned the neglected mansion
on the tip of St. Petersburg, Florida that Madeline, Nicole, and Avery had desperately
nursed back to life not once but twice. “Are you ready?”

The answer was no, not really. Even though she knew deep in her gut that divorce had
been the best, most positive option for both her and Steve, her excitement was tinged
with regret. Maddie was looking forward to going to the Keys for the first time; she
couldn’t quite believe she was going as a single woman.

She followed Kyra to the van.

“I wish they’d tell us a little more about the owner of the house we’re going to renovate.
I mean ‘high profile’ individual covers a lot of ground,” Kyra said as she loaded
the camera bags into the backseat. Their first full season of
Do Over
, which would begin airing in just a few weeks, had been shot on South Beach where
they’d renovated an Art Deco Streamline that had belonged to Max Golden, a former
Vaudevillian they’d all fallen in love with.

“Well, from what I hear Key West is party central. If we end up down there you can
hit the bars, Mom. We could go drinking together, troll for dudes.” Kyra took Dustin
and began to buckle him into his car seat. “The tabloids would eat it up. And I bet
our ratings would go through the roof. I’m surprised Lisa Hogan hasn’t already set
it up.” Neither of them were fans of the network production head who cared only about
ratings. “Who knows, you could get your own Reality TV spin off called Cougar Crawl
or something.”

Maddie looked at her daughter who seemed unable, or unwilling, to grasp the fact that
the divorce had left both of her parents happier, or at least less unhappy, people.

“Well, if I get that spin off I’ll be sure to invite you on for a cameo appearance.”
Maddie bit back a smile at Kyra’s shocked expression. “We’d better get on the road.
I told Avery we’d be there in time for dinner.” Maddie climbed into the driver’s seat
of the minivan. She averted her gaze from the For Sale sign as she backed down the
drive for what might be the last time and reminded herself that the time had come
to stop apologizing. Still the last thing she wanted to think about was partying or,
God help her, ‘dating.’ Ending her marriage had been all about making the most of
the life she had left, not the right to sashay through bars or pick up men.

Fifty-one-year-old grandmothers did not belong in the dating pool when they weren’t
even sure they remembered how to swim.

***

Avery Lawford had what some might consider an unhealthy relationship with power tools.
She’d come by it naturally, the result of a childhood spent trailing behind her father
on his construction sites, a bright pink hardhat smashed down on top of unruly blond
curls, a training wheels of a tool belt buckled tightly around her little girl hips.

Before her mother ran off to Hollywood to become an interior designer to the stars,
Avery went with other little girls to ballet and tap lessons where she discovered
she had no discernible natural rhythm or the slightest chance of learning to leap
like a gazelle. By the time her mother left them, Avery knew how to handle the business
end of a hammer and when to use a fine blade in a circular saw versus a rough cut.
The whine of a band saw, not Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, was the music that moved her.

She spent most of puberty telling herself that her mother had been nothing more than
a vessel who’d carried her father’s DNA. On the morning of her sixteenth birthday
she’d finally conceded that her height, which was nowhere near tall enough for the
size of her chest, and the blond hair, blue eyes and Kewpie doll features that resulted
in an immediate deduction of IQ points and caused strangers to talk to her slowly
using really small words were, in fact, unwelcome ‘parting gifts’ bequeathed by the
absent Deirdre Morgan.

In architectural terms Avery was a Fun House façade wrapped around Frank Lloyd Wright’s
Falling Water. It was that façade that nullified her architectural degree and the
years spent on her father’s construction sites and that had encouraged two television
networks to try to turn her into the Vanna White of the Do It Yourself set.

Avery drew a deep breath of freshly sawn wood, shook a ton of sawdust out of her hair
and smiled. It was a heady scent, filled with new beginnings, borderline heavenly,
one that conjured her father and everything she’d learned from him in a way nothing
else could.

She took in the room that had been designed for Chase’s father, who’d fallen and fractured
both his hip and femur just before she and Deirdre had moved in. The newly framed
walls, just laid hardwood floor. Windows stacked against one wall waiting to be shimmed
into their openings. She ran a hand over the shelf of a bookcase that she’d built
around the front window. The large bedroom/bath/sitting room would be warm and cozy.
Most importantly, it would be barrier free.

“It’s looking good.” Chase Hardin, who had once been a contender for the title of
most annoying man in the world, stepped up behind her, hooked a finger in the tool
belt slung low on her hips and pulled her closer.

“Yeah. The space will be perfect for your dad. He’ll be right here with you and the
boys, but he’ll have his independence, too.” She turned in his arms and looked up
at him. “I hate to leave before the addition’s finished.”

“I know. But it means a lot to Dad that you and I have been working on his new space
together.” Jeff Hardin had been her father’s longtime partner in the construction
business they’d founded and that Chase now ran.

The mother who’d abandoned Avery at thirteen had returned almost two years ago and
refused to leave. She and Deirdre had been working with the Hardins since they’d finished
shooting the first season of Do Over. They’d moved into the Hardin’s garage apartment
in January after Bella Flora sold.

Chase buried his face in her hair. “Mmmmm. What’s that perfume you’re wearing?”

Avery snorted. “I believe that would be “Tresor de two by four. Or perhaps zee Poisone
de Pine.” She tried for a French accent and failed miserably.

He nuzzled her ear. “I like it. Maybe we should bottle it.”

“Great idea. I’m sure we could sell a ton of it at Home Depot.” She laughed. “Right
next to the Drano and Commercial Cleaning Products.”

“Hey, there are a lot of men who like the smell of a woman who knows her way around
a construction site.” He nuzzled her other ear. “Of course they like her to be wearing
less clothes than you have on right now.” His hands dropped down to cup her bottom.
Which vibrated on contact.

“Wow,” Chase said. “That’s incredibly . . . responsive. I’m flattered.”

“Very funny,” she said already reaching a hand toward her shorts’ pocket, which was
in fact buzzing. “I asked Kyra to let me know when they were close.”

Pulling out her cell phone she held it up so that she could read the screen. The text
read
Amset air in HaRrin funjom.

They looked at each other. “I don’t understand it. But I know who sent it.” Madeline
Singer’s thumbs and her iPhone were often incompatible. She claimed she’d been a lot
more comfortable with her smart phone before it got so smart.

Avery peered down at the screen again to check the time. “I was so into the bookcase,
I forgot to order the pizza.” She swiped at her T-shirt. Fresh shavings sprinkled
to the floor. “I know I’ve got the delivery number in here somewhere.”

Many of the meals they’d shared with Chase, his two teenage sons and his increasingly
frail father had been delivered. Few of them had required silverware. She began to
scroll through her contacts.

“I have it on speed dial,” Chase said. “But Deirdre took care of dinner.”

“Deirdre?” She asked. “Deirdre ordered pizza?” Deirdre continued to claim that all
she wanted was to be Avery’s mother and to make up for abandoning her. But none of
her efforts to build a mother/daughter bond had included a willingness to lower her
epicurean standards.

“Not exactly. I think the appetizer is a liver pate of some kind. The main course
is pampano en papillote.”

Avery groaned. “I don’t know why your dad gave her that apron and those cooking lessons
for Christmas.”

“Hey, there’ve been four males living in this house for way too long for me to see
a downside to a home cooked meal of any kind. And he was smart enough not to give
them to you,” Chase said.

“Ha. Deirdre always has an angle. She took mothering lessons from Maddie in Miami.
Now she’s trying to become Betty Crocker. If she thinks she can turn her reappearance
in my life into some Brady Bunch reunion show, she’s crazy.”

“I agree that she has a lot to make up for. No one’s ready to pin the mother of the
year medal on her chest. But she did throw herself in front of a bullet for you,”
Chase pointed out.

This was still almost as hard to believe, as it was to dismiss. “Well, all I know
is Maddie and Kyra have been on the road for eight hours with a toddler. Greeting
them with ground up goose livers and fish cooked in a paper bag is ridiculous.” Avery
hurried through the newly widened doorway and into the family room.

In the kitchen Deirdre was arranging crackers around a mound of pate. Jeff Hardin
sat at the kitchen table, his walker within easy reach. A bowl of fancy nuts and an
opened bottle of red wine sat breathing on the counter.