Chapter 26
By late Saturday afternoon on the day of the Beach Bash, Traci was on the phone in her office, frantically trying to stave off a chain of minor disasters that threatened to ruin the event.
“Traci?”
Charlie Burroughs’s expression was glum. He sat down in the chair opposite her desk and gestured to his cell phone. “We’ve got a shituation down at the beach club.”
She sighed and disconnected. “What is it now?”
“Just got off the phone with Gary in maintenance. Someone flushed an entire roll of toilet paper in each of the commodes down at the beach club.”
“Oh God. What do the plumbers say?”
“Plumber. Singular. It’s just Marvin, and he says it’s not good. Six plugged-up commodes. We gotta shut the bathrooms ’til it’s fixed. And he doesn’t know how long that will take.”
“Okay,” Traci said. “Plan B. Call Cindy over at Royal Flush. Ask her if they can get us some portalettes delivered to the beach club ASAP.”
“That ain’t gonna be cheap,” Charlie said gloomily.
“We’ve gotta have bathrooms down there. Other than toilets, how’s everything else looking?”
“Okay. They’re setting up the tables down there now.”
“Mrs. E?”
Felice, the new chef, stood in the doorway of her office, holding a small bowl covered with plastic wrap.
Charlie bristled. “Felice? Now is not a good time.”
Traci waved away his objections. “Hi, Felice. Come on in, but please tell me you don’t have more bad news.”
Felice stepped into the office and held out the bowl, removing the plastic wrap. Inside were a handful of grayish, foul-smelling shrimp.
“Gah!” Traci pushed the bowl away.
“The whole order is like this,” Felice said angrily. “I called that Tommy Betz and told him we’re not paying for this mess. He hung up on me. I went down to the docks in town myself and bought some fresh stuff right off the boat.”
“Good thinking,” Traci said.
“We need a new fishmonger,” Felice said.
“Felice?” Charlie said. “Let’s just get through tonight. Okay? Monday, you and I will have a talk with Tommy. I’m sure he wouldn’t intentionally send us bad shrimp.”
“That’s what you think,” Felice said. She turned and left.
“I know you hired her, Traci,” Charlie started, “but I don’t think that girl grasps how important our business relationships are. The Betzes have been supplying our fish since—”
“Happy Beach Bash Day!” Madelyn Eddings swept into the room, clutching her ever-present planner. “Wanted to let you know the flowers for the centerpieces were just delivered and they are stunning, if I do say so myself.”
“Centerpieces?” Traci eyed her sister-in-law warily. “What happened to just using pineapples and palm fronds on the tables, like we always used to do?”
“Traci, must you cling so tenaciously to the clichés of the past? Wait until you see what I’ve done. Three different kinds of orchids, bromeliads, tuberoses. It’s absolutely heavenly.”
“And I bet the florist bill will be hellish,” Traci snapped, out of patience.
“The Saint is a five-star hotel, and we must give our guests a five-star experience,” Madelyn said, waving away her sister-in-law’s objections. “And now, I’ll just scoot along down there to supervise, and then I’ll see you out front at five.”
Traci and Parrish stood in the entryway to the hotel lobby, dressed in coordinating Hawaiian-print dresses, their arms full of leis. The plan was that promptly at five, the doors would be opened and they would begin greeting their guests and offering the leis.
“About your text,” Traci told her niece. “How worried should I be?”
“Not here,” Parrish whispered, as one of the valet parking guys jogged past. “Have you seen my dad? Or Madelyn? Shouldn’t they have been here by now?”
“Madelyn came by the office earlier…” Traci said.
“And here she is now,” Parrish said, nodding as her stepmother approached. “Jesus! Will you look at what she’s wearing? I swear, I can see the tops of her nipples.”
“Oh my,” Traci whispered back.
Madelyn Eddings’s dress was made of the same eye-popping floral fabric as the other two women’s dresses, but that’s where the resemblance ended. Her own dress was a short, shirred, skin-tight tube of fabric, and her breasts spilled aggressively over the top. She wore beaded orange sandals with five-inch heels.
“Traci-Wacy! Parry-Warry. Look at you two,” Madelyn exclaimed, clapping her hands in glee. “Totes adorbs.”
“Yes,” Parrish deadpanned. “Just look at us. Can I ask you a question, Mads?”
“Of course.”
“What happened to the rest of your dress? And also, how do you plan to walk on the beach in those fuck-me pumps?”
Madelyn’s smile vanished.
“Parrish! Such a potty mouth. For your information, I won’t be here that long. I just dropped by to be part of the family welcoming committee.”
“Where’s Dad?” Parrish asked. “I thought this was supposed to be an all-hands-on-deck family-fun day.”
Madelyn shrugged. “Ric has a scheduling conflict. He sends his regrets.”
“How’s it looking down on the beach?” Traci asked, as Charlie walked up wearing his own Hawaiian shirt.
“It’s all good,” Charlie assured her. He looked over at Madelyn and blushed violently. “Hi, Madelyn. Is Ric coming?”
“Big meeting with investors,” Madelyn said, shaking her head.
Charlie motioned for Traci to give him her armful of leis. “I swear, everything is under control. Why don’t you get a glass of prosecco and try to relax?”
“Relax? What’s that?” Traci’s stomach was in knots. Coming out of the pandemic, they’d canceled the annual Beach Bash for the past three years. This was her first time running it without Hoke by her side, and she was quietly terrified. The back of her dress was already clinging from perspiration, despite the fact that they were standing inside in the air-conditioning.
She stepped forward as Charlie unlocked the heavy carved wooden doors. A swirl of tropical-garbed guests quickly flooded into the lobby, and Traci, Parrish, and Madelyn began greeting them and placing leis around their necks.
A couple in their early fifties approached Traci and her niece. The husband wore a violently patterned Hawaiian shirt, baggy Bermuda shorts, and a wide-brimmed straw hat. His wife was reed-thin, with a deep, leathery tan. She was wearing skin-tight white jeans, kitten-heeled sandals, and a low-cut embroidered Mexican cotton shirt.
“That’s the Logans,” Traci whispered. “He’s vice president of our bank…”
“I know,” Parrish replied. “The lifeguards all call her Mahogany. I got it.” She turned to the guests. “Palmer! Sherry! So good to see you again.” She draped leis over their necks. “Sherry, have you signed up for next week’s tennis clinic? We’ve got a new coach, and just between us, he is smoking hot!”
Traci turned to her niece after the guests had moved on. “You were born for this, you know.”
By seven, the party was in full swing. Four hundred and fifty guests in varying versions of beach attire dotted the beach and pool area. The servers, dressed in their coordinating tropical-print dresses and shirts, busily circulated, offering appetizers and drinks. People wandered around, seated at cloth-draped tables, or standing, sampling the Low Country boil and barbecue, drinking and catching up. Traci mingled among the guests, gritting her teeth every time someone patted her shoulder and asked, in a concerned voice, “How are you doing?” It had been four years, and although she appreciated the thought, she was really tired of the pitying expressions.
By eight, the steel drum band had swung into faster-tempo music. Guests had discarded their shoes, and couples and singles were dancing, barefoot, in the sand and on the tiled pool deck. Children splashed in the water and raced around, faces sticky from the ice-cream sundae dessert bar.
Traci stood in front of the pool house, glancing anxiously at the darkening sky. Sunset was an hour away, but purplish-black clouds loomed on the horizon. “It’s gonna rain. I just know it. Things were going too good.”
“Maybe not.” Charlie handed her a plate of food. “C’mon. Eat. You need to taste the barbacoa pork. That spicy pineapple salsa is great.”
Parrish joined them. “I can’t tell you how many members have come up to tell me how much they like Felice’s food.”
“Good to hear,” Traci said. She popped a bit of pork in her mouth and chewed. “You’re right. Really good. So different from Mehdi’s food.” She turned to Charlie. “I think we need to do whatever it takes to keep Felice happy, which means finding some new vendors.”
“We can talk about that later,” Charlie said.
Just then Garrett and KJ passed close by with trays of the signature Saint cocktail that Felice had concocted for the event. Parrish snagged two cups and handed one to her aunt.
Traci took a sip and gasped. “Wow! What the hell is in this? I don’t want anyone getting pie-eyed here and then getting in a collision on the way home.” She looked around, then discreetly dumped the remainder of the drink in a potted palm.
Parrish took a gulp from her own drink. “Oh, don’t be such an old lady, Traci. I think it’s awesome. Fruity but not too sweet. Anyway, they’re offering a nonalcoholic version too. Most people are being responsible. They’re behaving themselves.”
“Oh yeah?” Traci pointed to the beach, where Sherry Palmer, aka Mahogany, had ditched her shoes and was now twerking with a wide-eyed Garrett, whom she’d yanked onto the dance floor as he passed by with an empty drinks tray. Her husband watched, stormy-faced, as his wife grinded against the waiter’s crotch.
“Oh my God,” Parrish yelped. “I just snorted cura?ao and passion fruit all over myself.”
“Maybe you better go rescue poor Garrett,” Traci said.
Parrish’s merry expression darkened. “He’s a big boy. He can handle himself.”
Traci studied her niece and was about to say something when she heard the low rumble of thunder, followed by a jagged bolt of lightning.
“Crap! I knew it,” Traci said.
A lifeguard’s shrill whistle sounded, the music stopped abruptly, and an announcement came over the club’s public address system: “Everyone off the beach and out of the pool, please.”
Guests began to move toward shelter as fat, warm raindrops began to fall.
“Rain plan is a go,” Traci said as she turned to her niece.
But Parrish was already sprinting toward the beach, helping the lifeguards and servers herd guests toward cover.
By nine, the beach and pool had been cleared out. A few die-hard guests huddled together under the shelter of the pool house, but the majority had left, leaving around sixty people crowded around the hotel lobby, grumbling about the long wait for their parked cars to be returned.
Colonel McBee approached Parrish, who was standing behind the guest relations desk, working the phone, frantically trying to summon the island’s few cabs for guests who hadn’t been able to call a rideshare.
“Miss Eddings,” he boomed, holding up a waterlogged garment. “My wife’s dress is soaked. She’s upstairs in tears. Absolutely inconsolable.”
Parrish counted to three before replying. “Colonel, I’m sorry, but here at the Saint, we don’t actually have any control over the weather. Now, how can I assist you?”
He shook the dress at her, spraying rain droplets onto the desk and her computer monitor. “You people can reimburse me for the cost of this dress, of course. It’s my wife’s favorite designer, and she paid good money for it in New York.”
Back in the Reagan administration, Parrish thought, eying the limp cotton dress.
“And also, the rain forced us to leave the party before we were served our desserts, so I believe we are owed at least a partial refund of the fifty-dollar ticket price, which, of course, was an outrageous amount to spend on such a paltry dinner offering.”
“A refund?” Parrish took a deep breath. This old man was going to break her, she knew it for sure. “I’m sorry, Colonel, but I’m not authorized to offer that. What I can do is send your wife’s dress out to the cleaners, and I’ll see if the kitchen can’t send something sweet up to your room as soon as things settle down here.”
“Absolutely not acceptable,” he snapped. “Where is your aunt? I need to speak to her immediately.”
“Mrs. Eddings isn’t available right now,” Parrish told him. “But I’ll let her know about your concerns.”
By ten, the lobby had cleared and the rain had stopped as abruptly as it had begun.
“Afterparty,” one of the valet guys, named Juan, whispered to KJ. “Tell the others. At the Shack.”
“Where’s the Shack?” KJ asked.
“Ask Garrett, and tell him to grab a golf cart to help carry the booze.”
“Afterparty,” Angela, one of the room service servers, whispered as she passed Olivia, who was walking up the beach with an armload of foil-wrapped trays of leftovers. “And bring that food, okay?”
“Where?” Livvy asked.
“The Shack,” Angela said, hurrying away before Livvy could ask for more details.
She found Parrish as she was heading for the lobby door. “Hey, where are you going?”
“Home,” Parrish said wearily. “But all the golf carts are out, so I guess I’ll have to walk back to the dorm.”
“That’s because everybody’s taking them to the afterparty. KJ just passed me on the way there with a cooler full of punch, but he promised to come back for us.”
“Not me,” Parrish said. “I’m toast.”
“Oh, come on,” Livvy urged. “Loosen up and live, right?”
KJ pulled the cart alongside them. The back was loaded with coolers and stacks of foil-wrapped food trays. “Get in, losers,” he called cheerily. “Partayyyyyy!”
Parrish laughed despite herself and hopped onto the back seat. Livvy pulled out her phone, leaned in, extended her arm, and shot a selfie of the two of them, grinning in their matching flowered dresses and leis.
The golf cart bumped and rocked as it left the paved road and swerved onto a mud-soaked path through a dense thicket of palmettos and kudzu-draped pines.
“Do you know about this place, Parrish?” Livvy asked.
“It used to be the landscaping shed. When I was a little girl, my friends and I used it as a clubhouse, until Granddaddy found out we’d made a bonfire to cook hot dogs, and in the process, nearly burned the place down. He padlocked it, but a few years later, when I was in high school, we used a hacksaw to open it back up. We used to hang out here and drink and smoke weed and… you know.”
“Ohhh,” Livvy said.
“The good old days,” KJ put in. He slowed the cart and pointed to a clearing ahead, where a motley crew of the Saint’s staffers stood around a small fire, clutching beers and Solo cups. People were swaying to loud rap music and a pungent haze of smoke drifted their way. “Smells like teen spirit!”