Elin Hilderbrand - The Castaways

The Sagamore was cool and white and filled with avant-garde objets d’art. The concierge was a lean Frenchwoman named Geneviève who had platinum blond hair in a geometric cut. Upon their arrival, she handed out lasciviously pink raspberry caiprihanas, along with ripe pieces of mango dipped in sea salt. Geneviève led them through a secret passageway to a space-age elevator that jetted them up to the penthouse suite.

The penthouse suite was all white, as promised, with mirrors and sleek, cutting-edge electronics. There were four identical white bedrooms lined up to overlook the ocean. Each bedroom was dominated by a king bed iced with butter cream and dotted with fondant pillows. The bathrooms were white tile and white marble threaded with gold. There was a living area with white leather sofas and high-design glass tables; there was a “kitchen,” which consisted of a fridge to store the liquor and a counter on which to cut the lime wedges and spill the snacks. Addison did both things in short order.

The place was heaven-not just heavenly, but heaven, as in the place Jeffrey wanted to go to when he died. Always when he checked into a hotel, his first instinct was to make love to his wife, and he had that instinct right now. He led Delilah wordlessly into their white bathroom, peeled off her winter clothes, and began to kiss her.

“Do you love it here?” he asked.

But she was too happy to answer.

Later he lounged on the green-and-white-striped canvas furniture on the impressive penthouse balcony, drinking a Corona, inhaling the view across the white beach and the ocean as if it were a drug.

He did not remember every hour of the vacation as clearly as those first hours, but he did remember certain things. Sprawling with Delilah on the white-cushioned papasan by the shimmering turquoise pool, debating the pros and cons of going to war with Iraq with Addison, who lay next to a sleeping Phoebe in the neighboring chaise. All the women-and the men-around the pool were beautiful. They were thin and tanned and wore designer sunglasses and sleek bathing suits and white, flowing coverups. They spoke French or Portuguese, they kissed on both cheeks, they ordered the huge salade Niçoise for lunch and ate only the olives. They ordered cold, sweating bottles of white wine and drank them the way Jeffrey and the others drank water (which came in cylindrical glass bottles that cost twelve dollars apiece). It was hot in South Beach, eighty-seven, eighty-nine, ninety-four. Delilah was Mediterranean, she turned brown as a nut in one afternoon, but Jeffrey was a farmer. He respected the sun, he knew what it could do. He dunked frequently in the pool, he drank four bottles of the expensive Dutch water, he moved under the umbrella to play dice with Greg and the Chief.

They always tried to fit in wherever they went, to respect the sense of place. In Vegas they had gambled and driven to see the Hoover Dam. In London it was Buckingham Palace and the crown jewels. At the Point, in Saranac Lake, they canoed and hiked and cooked over a fire. In South Beach, it was clear from the beginning, they did not blend. They were as obvious as a pack of grizzly bears-the unhealthy pallor, the flab, the Red Sox hats to shield their eyes from the sun. Andrea, in her black tank suit, did actual laps in the swimming pool, and their fabulous European fellow guests watched her with undisguised interest, as though she were some kind of curious wildlife.

A woman doing the butterfly stroke in the pool!

The ladies went shopping on Lincoln Road. They were in and out of BCBG, Ralph Lauren, Lilly Pulitzer, AG, Lucky Jeans, and a bunch of boutiques that sold sequined dresses and over-the-knee white snakeskin boots. All the women bought new sunglasses at Aspen Optical, even Andrea, who couldn’t have told you whether Tom Ford was a fashion designer or a car salesman; even Tess, who couldn’t afford them. The new sunglasses were big and round, with gold bling decorating the sides. The women put on their new sunglasses and mugged for the Chief’s camera.

“We’re getting there,” Delilah said.

They had to change their internal clocks. They drank triple espressos in the morning, skipped breakfast, took a nap by the pool, drank iced tea and expensive Dutch water, picked at a light lunch (did they even serve carbohydrates in South Beach?), walked on the beach, shopped frivolously, savored a café con leche at the Cuban place on the corner, called the kids to check in, then…

Then the day began. They opened Coronas and slipped in wedges of lime, the girls popped champagne and filled up slender flutes, they toasted one another, they took deep, grateful drinks. They showered and lounged on the impressive balcony while wearing the hotel’s waffled robes. They snacked on sesame sticks and sliced mango with sea salt. It was seven-thirty, the sun was setting, they made love discreetly behind closed doors while “getting dressed.” Greg played Buffett and James Taylor’s “Mexico” and then, once the sun set, he swung into Sinatra and Bobby Darin and they all gathered in their silk and sequins, heels and perfume, ready to leave for dinner. Their reservation was at nine o’clock.

Nine o’clock! At home they would have eaten pot roast at five-thirty, been finished and cleaned up by six, had the kids in bed with stories by six-thirty, and been back down with the dishwasher churning at seven, while outside snow piled up or the wind screamed like a woman in agony. Some nights they watched reruns of The Sopranos, some nights they rented movies, some nights they crawled into bed at seven-thirty with the latest David McCullough tome and fell asleep after ten pages. Some nights they cleaved to each other and made love despite being weighed down by the layers of flannel, chenille, and goose down. Every night, save for the ones when they gathered at the Begonia, they were fast asleep by nine o’clock.

But not in South Beach! In South Beach they arrived at the threshold of the restaurant at nine o’clock and were escorted to their table, where they sat, without deviation, in this order: Phoebe, Addison, Tess, Greg, Delilah, Jeffrey, Andrea, the Chief. They were a strand of DNA, repeated, then repeated again. They ate things like sushi and soft-shell crabs in a Meyer lemon reduction, and they shared desserts with passion-fruit foam and honeycombed pineapple. They drank wine at dinner and ended with shots of Sambuca or sips of tequila. And then, feeling happy-happyhappy and ready to go, they cabbed it to a nightclub. At the first nightclub, BED, the doorman had their names on a list, provided by Geneviève, and they were whisked past the waiting mob (made up mostly of teenagers, Jeffrey noticed; truly, to fit in in South Beach, they needed to be twenty years younger). They were shown to an alcove with two cocktail tables pushed together and four ultrasuede cubes where they could sit, should they want to sit.

They looked out over the dance floor, at more gorgeous Europeans lounging on round beds in the midst of a sea of gyrating young bodies.

Jeffrey ordered a bottle of champagne and a bottle of Grey Goose and tonic and lemons. A beer for the Chief (twenty dollars) and four bottles of Icelandic water. They came with a dish of salted cashews, presumably complimentary, delivered by their preternaturally beautiful (though scowling) cocktail waitress. She poured everyone a drink with disdain. (She knew their type-married thirty- and forty-somethings, probably with a stable of kids back home, wherever they lived, Peoria or East Bumblefuck, Idaho.) Jeffrey took a sip of his ice-cold vodka tonic with a twist and declared it an elixir of youth. He was ready to dance.

They let loose in a wild, free, sexual way. Jeffrey had never moved his body like this in public. There had been some crazy parties at Cornell, of course, but this was elemental, tribal, it was a trip to the moon. Jeffrey was released. Was he thirty-eight? The father of two small boys? The owner of a hundred and sixty-two acres of permafrosted land? It didn’t matter. He took off his jacket, slid off his tie, unbuttoned his shirt. He was sweating, he was breathless, he was dancing, he was living!