A Palm Beach Scandal--A Novel

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  For my family

  Silence may be as variously shaded as speech.

  —EDITH WHARTON, THE HOUSE OF MIRTH

  Tell me all, and be sure that I will never let you go, though the whole world should turn from you.

  —LOUISA MAY ALCOTT, JO’S BOYS

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER 1

  ELODIE

  Aren’t the women always rushed? Even if they appear to be graceful, ambling along the limestone path to the courtyard, it’s actually a quiet frenzy. More members of the Palm Beach Literary Society file in, the usual glossy and cultured forties to sixties crowd heading toward their tables, chattering among themselves. They are followed by the septuagenarians and octogenarians at a more measured pace. What is fresh are the twenty- to thirtysomethings—daughters and granddaughters of members. Each fixates on her iPhone as if there is no slightly bumpy ground to navigate. Every woman is dressed for her decade. Favored colors—sage green, buttermilk yellow, auburn, deep blues, and purple, left over from last season—show off the preferred designers: Oscar, St. John, Dolce, Kors, McQueen, Etro. Whatever their age, the sunlight flits across their faces as they search for their assigned tables. Women fan themselves with their programs, seeming eager to begin. As they assemble I pray no one trips or is displeased with her assigned location.

  At the entrance of the main building, I stand in my peplum dress in blues and greens, and illusion pumps, welcoming the women. I watch how they half wave at one another. I wave back at everyone in a wide sweep. Too earnest, Elodie, my mother would warn me. Among the guests for today are loyal members, new members, probable members. For the latter two, I’ve scheduled this as an eight-thirty breakfast. “Awfully early. I mean, who in Palm Beach will be finished with their holistic Pilates, a Zumba water class … an early tennis match by then? It’s unheard of!” Nan Payton, the head of the board, said when the invitations were mailed. Snail-mailed.

  Except for women who work, I had explained. And this morning Demi Dexter, the most in-demand cosmetic dermatologist this side of the bridge, Halley Hennes, a social worker for the VA Medical Center in West Palm, Tanya Lessinger, a public defender, and Maritza Abrams, the matrimonial lawyer chosen by wives, not husbands, are the first to sit down. Their wrought-iron chairs tip imperceptibly into the sodded earth; each straightens her shoulders and turns to beckon women she hasn’t seen before. Five—no, six unknown guests walk toward this table. Colleagues perhaps, out-of-towners from farther north than Jupiter, as far south as Lauderdale. Their nods and greetings are quiet—it is an early hour, no matter what my intention.

  As their bodies wobble in their seats, I miss New York City, where I once worked at the St. Agnes branch of the public library on the Upper West Side. It was a diverse group in every way—men came, too, to hear novelists, essayists, screenwriters. This morning’s event is pegged the “Literary Ladies Breakfast.” Men could come, in theory, but they seem to prefer golf, tennis, or going straight to the office. I double-check, without spotting one male among us. From across the courtyard, the doyennes at Rita Damon’s table observe the newcomers warily.

  The next tier of professionals is more predictable—a specific Palm Beach career crowd. Margot Damon, Rita’s daughter-in-law, and Peggy Ann Letts, both real estate agents at the Bailey Group. Kimberly Shawn, interior designer. Allison Rochester, who recently began working at High Dune, her husband’s hedge fund, selecting worthy causes to support. Betty McCarter, whose shop sells bone china and sterling-silver trays for the finest homes in the estate section. Coiffed and polished, they huddle as platters of mini croissants and mini pastries are passed. Although they have lived here for years, their accents become interfaced. Miami natives remain heavy on l’s and vowels, Southern drawls never dissolve, and a Bostonian cadence rises above the rest.

  Last to be seated are those whom I know best. Ardent readers and lecturegoers who come to the library several days a week. There they pluck from the shelves and make requests from the waiting list. These include my mother and mother-in-law, who come together to anything and everything that is offered. As director of events at the Palm Beach Literary Society, I’ve fought for classes for children, adults, and seniors. There are six librarians whom I supervise, and we share this point of view. Instead of the old template of a private club, we have pushed for free programming. Still, this is an institution founded in 1925 by several Palm Beach matrons and designed by Maurice Fatio during his Italian Renaissance period. Change comes slowly. Long-standing members remain a steadfast clan, champions of this morning’s fund-raiser. To avoid stirring things up, we have selected a guest today who is respected and veritable.

  And it’s a sold-out event. If I add this to our Best-Selling Authors Series, we have a compelling list. Lately I’ve been braver about following my instincts, wanting to mix it up. I’m proud of my endeavors, my choices for the Literary Society. I’ve brought in more poets, songwriters, an expert on Shakespeare and women, incendiary playwrights, and political writers. Yet I haven’t forgotten how I was watched when I first began. Let Elodie prove herself to the board, heighten an intellectual curiosity, attract admired authors, a calendar of events.

  “Elodie?” Laurie, my assistant, tucks her wispy hair behind her ears. “I think it’s time.”

  The chitchat is waning. I look around. The literary critic and feminist Julianne Leigh, this morning’s speaker, floats toward me in her boho chic persimmon maxiskirt and tan fringed suede booties.

  “Oh, sure. Am I holding things up?” I ask.

  When Julianne reaches me, Laurie and my mother both take their iPhones out for a photo op. Julianne and I oblige, arms around each other’s waists, our smiles radiating toward the tables. “Quite a crowd,” she whispers although her microphone isn’t on.

  “I’m thrilled,” I whisper back. “Thank you.”

  I go over my introductory notes in my head, although I know exactly what my words will be, since I’m a longtime fan of Julianne’s.

  “Please, ladies, take your seats.” My voice is clear. I notice that although we are outdoors, there isn’t much air circulating. It could be the humidity—uncommonly high for November in Palm Beach. We should have held the event inside, where the air-conditioning is endless. Except for the setting—twelve tables among the allamanda bushes, birds-of-paradise, and Dombaya. Julianne Leigh hovers at the edge of the front row, waiting for my introduction to begin.

  “It is meaningful that everyone is here today for our annual kickoff 2018/19 Distinguished Lecturer Series.” I lift the glass of water left on the inside ledge of the podium for the guest speaker. I take a sip and go on.

  “I have long admired Julianne Leigh, ever since I first read her work when I was in college. Today she will discuss how the writings of Stevie Smith and Elizabeth Bishop have influenced her. She’ll talk about Smith’s humor, whimsy, and seriousness, and offer her insig
hts into Bishop’s evocative language that describes atmosphere and place. I cannot imagine a better critic than Julianne to interpret these works. And I know that she’ll set us straight on that famous line of Smith’s, ‘I was much too far out, all my life. And not waving but drowning.’”

  Applause as Julianne approaches, a whiff of her Guerlain La Petite Robe Noire preceding her hug. I gag, as if I’ve never been overwhelmed by a scent before. Swiftly I recover and meet her embrace. We swap eye contact, our resident intern snaps a photo, more applause.

  As I step down, onto the lawn, I’m light-headed. I move away from the podium toward my mother’s table as if it is a goal line, suddenly nauseous. The sun shines too brightly and the clank of coffee cups and silver trays being placed on the tables sounds too harsh. I put my hand against my waist, flat although I’m fifteen weeks pregnant—after three miscarriages, nothing matters as much as my baby’s beating heart. My nausea turns to a kind of cramping across my entire middle to my back. I look out at the crowd, whose focus is entirely on Julianne. She begins by describing her ascension in the writing world as if it might be as easy as learning to ride a bike. She is captivating, melodic. I move myself along, daring to stare in one direction. My mother, in front to my left, gets up from her chair so quickly it falls onto the grass. She is staring at me with pity in her eyes.

  A sharp pain begins to radiate, this time from my back, sharp enough that it sweeps over me. Whatever air there is dissipates and stylish women on the terrace and in the lavish gardens seem far off, almost photoshopped into a vagueness.

  “Are you all right?” Laurie comes to steer me beyond the rosebushes where I’m standing, immobilized. I’m sure I’m answering, yet I can’t hear a sound.

  “Elodie!” Another person appears. Reassuring, steely. My mother. “Someone, help Elodie. We need help,” she says.

  Next I hear a woman, perhaps from the last row, shout, “Call an ambulance.” Someone puts her hand up, says, “I did.” Another woman says, “I’m a doctor.” Her words are promising—aren’t they? She’s suddenly there, taking my pulse, guiding me onto the grass. I couldn’t be losing this baby, my baby girl. Not this time, not again. Then the bleeding begins—unlike anything I’ve ever known.

  CHAPTER 2

  ELODIE

  I look at James and remember what Aubrey, my younger sister, always says: James is a ten. You married a ten. Aubrey’s imprimatur has no positive effect—things feel imbalanced. I stare at the tiny gold triangle pattern on my hospital gown and then up at the ceiling cracks. Although this is a different room than my last time at South Palm Hospital, the paint, an off-gray dull finish, is identical and splinters in the same places. The single window is sealed and the panes are filmy, while the air-conditioning drones on.

  James’s face seems dry and tight and he is pacing. His own level of ambition and investigation won’t allow defeat in any portion of life. He has an MBA from Harvard. He’s the CEO of ANVO, a biotech start-up. He is accustomed to solutions—he is a negotiator, and this isn’t easily negotiable. Instead, he is merely a husband who will pace in his wife’s hospital room after her fourth miscarriage in a row. A pregnancy that was convincing enough that we dared dream of our baby, due in May—in time for summer. He is another man completely from the one who kissed me this morning, when I was wrapped in a towel and he was almost out the door to his office.

  “Our baby will be very clever,” he’d declared last night. We were in bed. I was rereading War and Peace and James was reading a book about quantum physics.

  “Our baby girl,” I said. News we learned last week and have yet to tell anyone except for my mother and my sister, who so get it. Next week, at the sixteenth-week point, we planned to tell Mimi, James’s mother. He wanted her to know at the same time as my mother, but I had to keep it sacred for as long as possible.

  “Every mother deserves to have a daughter,” my mother said when we learned the sex of our baby. James saw how pleased I was when I repeated this to him. Although he might feel that every father deserves a son, especially since he has been fatherless these last twenty years. Who knows what the odds are of having a son? How about just having a child?

  “It’s been a long haul,” he said when we were seated at Bice, waiting for our friends the Shieldses and the Harwoods to meet us. “You’re forty, I’m forty-three. I worry about you, your body. Is it fair to have children—for them to have old parents?”

  I might have argued that this seemed calculating and that once our new house was finished, many children could live there. That there are plenty of couples having babies at our ages. As if I didn’t know James’s strategic plan from the night that he’d tapped me on the shoulder and introduced himself. It was thirteen years ago at the Campbell Apartment in Grand Central, during a massive train delay. While we waited for hours, we sat at the bar, trading dreams of success and children. We were so young, it was a theorem. Two years later we were married and I thought perhaps we should take care of it at once—have two children in two years. If there was no model time to have a baby, this seemed like a solution. James didn’t like the idea; he said we deserved time as a couple first and we were both trudging ahead with work. Somehow together we let it go. At first I almost kept quiet on purpose. Then when James honed in, there were issues. If only we had done this at the right time in our lives.

  Carly Shields and her husband, Wally, were being brought to our table. To the left and to the right, tables were being filled with people we know. Besides, I’ve always gone along with my husband’s logic; I’ve always appreciated it. We share the canvas, paint in the same palette—that’s what James and I do. Later when dinner was over, I decided not to go deeper, knowing this would be my mother’s tact.

  “Can we go home? Now? I’m so wiped out. I want to be in my bed.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetie, they said you might need to be transfused—they’re monitoring you.”

  “A transfusion? But I thought…”

  “Let’s not worry about that yet. Can I get you something? Soup, applesauce?”

  For the first time since we began the process of starting a family, of trying to do the most natural thing in the world, James seems desolate.

  “No, thanks. I’m fine. Nothing. Please, don’t worry,” I say.

  I wonder if it is afternoon yet. How the time moves in this hospital reminds me of a long delay at an airport. Hours eked out until your flight takes off.

  “Is my mom on her way?”

  “She should be.” James frowns at his iPhone. “I got her text.”

  Earlier today my mother gave a half smile of approval (she never completely smiles anymore because she says her face has “dropped”). What has happened since then isn’t for her. I ought to do something—fix my braid, which has come undone, find a lipstick. I am terrified of how disappointed my husband is; I dread my family’s view of me.

  “A sip of water?” James holds up the Styrofoam cup with a straw in it.

  I shake my head. He moves to the window and pauses as a distinctive patter is heard from down the hallway. A clicking of heels against the tile that could produce one of three women—my mother, my mother-in-law, or Dr. Noel. I am hoping it is not Mimi, James’s mother. He must sense this, because his face relaxes when Dr. Samantha Noel appears. For a moment I believe she’ll save me, turn the day around, pledge a full-term pregnancy for me. Her pearls and the neckline of her dress show beneath her crisp white lab coat with her name embroidered across the left breast pocket.

  “This almost took, Dr. Noel,” I say. “I was almost in the clear.”

  “I know. I know.” Dr. Noel clasps her hands together; her bangle bracelets clink before she lifts the scratchy sheets. “May I take a peek?”

  I keep talking. “Well, when this is over, when I’m better, I can try one more time.”

  Dr. Noel blanches, pauses. “I’m sorry, Elodie, I don’t think it’s prudent. I’m advising against any more in vitros. I don’t think you should become pregnant again
.”

  I know that she is speaking to me—her mouth moves in this fixed, tapered way. What she says makes little sense. This has happened before but I have recovered. I tried again, the in vitro took, and I was having a girl.

  Dr. Noel is poking around while I’m panicking.

  “James? That’s not right. That’s not what we’ll do. It’s not our idea, because…”

  He stands at the head of the bed and rests his hands on my shoulders. I keep repeating the word no.

  “No, no,” I say again.

  There is the weight of his hands for what seems over a minute. He quiets me without a gesture.

  Dr. Noel sighs. “We’ve talked about the statistics. How a woman over forty has a five percent chance of becoming pregnant each cycle. IVFs help, of course, yet they aren’t miracle workers—we’re dealing with the age of the egg. Elodie, please listen. I am advising you against any more procedures—I’m not confident that you can carry a baby to term.” Her voice is terse, final. But isn’t she like that? There isn’t much compassion coming from Dr. Noel.

  James keeps rubbing my shoulders. Dr. Noel stands near him, as if they’re team players consoling a fallen teammate. Had I tried earlier in my marriage for a child, I might never have walked into Dr. Noel’s ultra-pacifying office filled with melancholy. Dr. Noel, who stands behind her desk to shake hands at every office visit. Like an ad for Shutterfly, a framed picture of her three children, twin girls and an older boy, sits on the corner of her desk.

  Light that streams in from the window facing west bounces near me. I attempt to hold my arm up, the one that isn’t strapped to an IV, to stop the noise, the wrong answers.

  Dr. Noel’s lips are thinner than usual when she pulls herself up straight and discreetly finishes the exam. “I will have you monitored for the afternoon.”