Elin Hilderbrand: The Beach Club

Bill and Therese lived on one edge of the hotel property, in an upside-down house. The first floor had two spacious bedrooms-one for their daughter, Cecily, and one for the baby that died. The second floor had a rounded bay window that overlooked the hotel, the beach, and the sound. Therese stood at the window on this first day of May, but all she could see was a reflection of herself. It was a bad, vain habit, catching glances of herself in mirrors and windows, in the glass of picture frames, but she couldn’t keep from looking. What did she see? At the age of fifty-eight, she still fit into a silk skirt she bought before Cecily was born. Her hair was the color of ripe peaches, with one streak of pure white in front that appeared after she gave birth to her dead baby. Her mark of strength and wisdom, of Motherhood.

Above anything, Therese was a Wife and a Mother. But now her family was in danger of falling apart. Her husband suffered from heart problems and her daughter was graduating from high school and headed for college. Suddenly, Therese pictured herself abandoned, alone. Bill dying, Cecily going away, until there would be nothing in her life except her own reflection.

She had to force herself away from the window and down into the hotel lobby. When she flung open the doors, her spirits lifted. Mack crawled around on the exposed beams of the lobby, wiping them down with a damp rag. Mack in the rafters: it was a sure sign of spring.

“You got to work before I could hug and kiss you,” she said. “You got to work before I could tell you what to do.”

Mack swung around and sat with his legs dangling. “I already know what to do,” he said. “I’m not exactly new here.”

Therese flopped onto a sofa that was covered with one of the hotel’s sheets and put her feet on a dusty sea captain’s chest. “You could run this place alone, I suppose. The rest of us are only getting in your way.” She had known Mack for twelve years and he was closer to her than anyone except for Bill and Cecily. She could tell him just about anything.

“You sound so melancholy,” Mack said. “Where’s the uptight woman I know and love? What happened to the never-ending pursuit of cleanliness?”

“I’m worried about Bill,” she said. “He had heart problems this winter. Did he tell you?”

“No,” Mack said. “What kind of problems?”

It was comforting to hear a voice from above. “Problems that happen when people get older,” Therese said: “His doctor told him he could only ski the baby slopes. It wasn’t a good winter for Bill.”

“He looks okay,” Mack said. “A little pale, maybe, but okay. And his spirit’s up.”

“You think so?” Therese was concerned about Bill’s preoccupation with Robert Frost-he’d taken it up the way a dying person might take up religion-although the reading and reciting seemed to help him.

“How’s Cecily doing?” Mack asked.

“She doesn’t know about her father’s heart,” Therese said. “That’s one nice thing about having her away at school. She doesn’t have to worry. And since she’s not worrying, she’s doing quite well.”

“She wrote a letter at Christmas telling me about some Brazilian guy she met and I haven’t heard from her since,” Mack said. “Is she going to graduate or did she run away to Rio?”

The Brazilian boyfriend, Gabriel, another stumbling block. But Cecily had barely mentioned him the last two times she called home, and Therese hoped that with the end of the school year in sight, her infatuation was petering out. “Believe it or not, she’s going to graduate.”

“And College?” Mack asked.

“The University of Virginia. Hard enough to get into that she impressed her friends, and reasonably priced enough to impress her father. We’re thrilled.”

“She’ll be on the front desk this summer? She’s more than capable, Therese. If she’s going to run the hotel someday she needs to learn it.”

“Not the desk,” Therese said firmly. Mack rolled his eyes. He could think what he wanted, that Therese babied her daughter, but Cecily was still a child. She didn’t need a job that could drive even a mature, well-adjusted adult insane. “Bill hired a woman to work the day desk, someone he met at the gym in Aspen. Her name is Love.”

“Love?”

“Yes,” said Therese. “We need more love around here. Speaking of which, you noticed I haven’t asked about your girlfriend.”

“I didn’t expect you to,” Mack said.

“I can’t resist. How are things? Are you still together? Still happy?”

“Yes.”

“Still happy, but you’re not going to marry her?”

“We have no plans to get married, no,” he said.

“Wait until you see Cecily,” Therese said. “All grown up. A woman. And so gorgeous. Vibrant. Irresistible.” And headstrong, opinionated, difficult, her Cecily. Therese lifted her feet from the dusty chest and stood up. “If you marry Cecily this will all be yours. Bill would be so relieved. He loves you like a son, you know. He really does.”

“You make it sound like we’re living in a fairy tale,” Mack said. “If I marry the fair daughter, I get the whole kingdom.”

“You could rule the Beach Club kingdom.”

“I’m not marrying Cecily, Therese.”

“Well, you’re not marrying Maribel.” Therese and Mack had this same conversation every year, and she knew it irked Mack, but Therese couldn’t help herself. To her, only one course of events made any sense-Mack marrying Cecily and the two of them taking over where Bill and Therese left off. She also knew that people rarely did what made sense.

“I haven’t decided about marriage at all yet,” Mack said. “But I can tell you, if and when I do get married, it won’t be to Cecily. And if you don’t believe me, ask her. She’d rather eat glass, direct quote.”

“I won’t give up,” Therese said. She caught her reflection in a tarnished mirror, and then she pulled out her artist’s tools from the utility closet-vacuum, bucket, cleanser, and her feather duster-and started to work.

Maribel Cox knew she was the subject of gossip-among her mother’s friends at the Christian Calendar Factory, among her colleagues at the library, among Mack’s co-workers and Bill and Therese down at the Beach Club. She knew they were all whispering, “When are Mack and Maribel going to do the right thing ? When are they going to get married ?”

The truth of the matter was this: Maribel wanted to get married with a raging, fiery passion, but the only person who knew it was Maribel’s mother, Tina. Every Wednesday night, Maribel called Tina and every Wednesday night, Tina said, “Well?” Meaning: well, did Mack finally say those five little words, “ Maribel, will you marry me? ” Every Wednesday night, Maribel said, “Well, nothing.” And her mother said, “Keep the faith.”

Maribel and Mack had been dating for six years, living together for three. Maribel had found a man Afraid to Commit.

“Like mother, like daughter,” Tina said. Maribel pictured her mother: twenty pounds overweight, permed hair, smoking a cigarette as she talked on the phone. Tina herself had never been married. She met Maribel’s father at an outdoor concert, and Maribel was conceived in the woods nearby, up against a tree. Her mother never saw the man again; she’d only known him for one day.

“If he’s anything like you,” Tina was fond of saying, “he must be a great guy.”

Maribel loved her mother dearly, although this love was tinged with shame and pity. Tina worked as a supervisor at the Christian calendar factory in Unadilla, New York. Her mother didn’t belong to a church, and yet spending all day around Christian calendars, she picked up certain phrases: “Keep the faith,” and “Godspeed,” and “We are all His little lambs.” It had always been just Tina and Maribel; there was never anyone to help them out, no man in Maribel’s life growing up. Mack lost his parents in a car accident and Maribel tried to believe this was the same thing as her not having a father, but in fact, it was vastly different. When Maribel thought of her father, there was no one to picture. She was left with an empty spot inside, a part of her missing. A hole.