“Excuse me,” Ivan whispered. “Is that Annette Bening?” He tilted his head slyly toward the register.
“I don’t know,” said the waitress. She turned to the front counter. “Hey, Annette!”
The woman at the register looked around.
“That’s her,” said the waitress.
Coffee arrived, then cheese. A phone rang. Ivan flipped it open.
“Good morning, Mr. Grande…. Yes, I have good news…. That’s right, we’ve got the
The waitress came to refill coffee. Ivan put a hand over his cup.
“…No, that won’t be a problem, Mr. Grande…. A submarine?… Yes, I’ve seen them…. No problem, ask for Yuri. I’m writing the name down now…. That’s in New York, right?…I understand completely…. We won’t let you down….”
Ivan closed his phone and stood up. “Waitress? We’ll need this to go.”
In the very back of the Moon Hut, in the history room, a waitress prepared to refill a glass of ice water. “That won’t be necessary,” said Serge, standing up and taking out his wallet.
27
It may have been December 30, but nobody told Palm Beach.
The mercury hit eighty by noon. The BBB was using a Krunkleton paperback again as a bar-hopping guide. They nursed ten-dollar drinks in the back of the Breakers.
Paige stared down at an angelfish swimming under her napkin. An orange-and-purple damsel swam the other way through coral. “I’ve heard of bars that had aquariums, but I’ve never been in one where the bar actually
“The Kennedys used to jog over there,” said Teresa, looking out the huge windows behind the bar as sea foam rolled in from the Atlantic.
“What a beautiful day,” said Maria.
“Just one more day left until the new year,” said Rebecca, raising her drink. “Here’s to a new year with old friends.”
Glasses clinked.
“What are your resolutions?” asked Maria.
“You know what? I’ve had it with resolutions!” said Rebecca. “No more resolutions!”
“That sounds like a resolution.”
“I have an idea,” said Teresa. “Let’s make antiresolutions.”
“I want to eat something fat at midnight,” said Paige.
“C’mon, let’s think big,” said Teresa.
“Let’s do something crazy,” said Rebecca.
“Yeah,” said Maria. “Really irresponsible.”
Teresa stood and grabbed her purse. “Come on.”
“Where?” said Maria.
“I don’t know yet.”
They headed back through the hotel lobby, stopped by the front desk and began going through the rack of tourist brochures. Teresa picked up and put down pamphlets. “Dreher Park Zoo, nope; Norton Gallery, nope; Clematis Concert Series, nope; Polo Club, definitely nope…”
“Wait a minute,” said Maria, slowly opening a brochure with a silver Amtrak train on the cover. “Look at this.”
“What is it?”
“A mystery train. New York to Miami. Departs New Year’s Day.”
“What’s a mystery train?”
“You know, they act out whodunits, passengers participate.”
“Oh my God!” said Maria, folding over the pamphlet and holding it out to the others. “Look at the book they’re going to perform.”
“We’re meant to get on that train,” said Rebecca. “We’ll kick ourselves if we don’t go.”
“It’s only two days away,” said Sam. “We don’t have tickets, we don’t have plans…”
“Exactly,” said Teresa. “It’s so impulsive. We’ll get oneway plane tickets, see the ball drop in Times Square like we always wanted, then take the train back the next day.”
“Hold everything,” said Maria, pointing out something else in the brochure. “Look at this list of celebrities onboard.”
“No way!” said Rebecca.
“That seals it,” said Teresa. “Now we
Teresa fished in her purse for the valet ticket. “So we’re finally going to catch up with him.”
“Look at that sunset,” said Rebecca.
They all leaned and stared out the left windows as the sun left a scarlet stripe across the bed of clouds. They could see another jet, miles away and tiny, moving across the horizon in the same direction.
Seat 24B in that other plane was ticketed to passenger Serge A. Storms, who leaned across the businessman traveler in the window seat next to him to take twenty pictures of the setting sun. Click, click, click…
The sun finally disappeared and Serge sat back in his seat. “Thanks for letting me do that. I think I got some great shots. It’s important to record every sunset I can.”
The businessman looked at Serge a second, then went back to his book.
“Yes, sir! Flying to the Big Apple! Goin’ to Gotham! Matriculatin’ to Manhattan! New York, New York, the city so nice they named it twice…”
The man took a deep breath and put his book down.
