Ocean Beach Read online

  PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF WENDY WAX

  TEN BEACH ROAD

  “Showcases three women who rise above their shattered realities with grace, determination, and a little elbow grease.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “If you loved Jennifer Weiner’s Fly Away Home for its wise and witty look at the lives of people grappling with personal setbacks…then try Ten Beach Road…[a] warm, wry novel.”

  —St. Petersburg Times

  “A lovely story that recognizes the power of the female spirit, while being fun, emotional, and a little romantic.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “Fun…heartwarming…[this] dynamic, fast-paced story is a loving tribute to friendship and the power of the female spirit.”

  —Las Vegas Review-Journal

  “A near-perfect summertime read…beautiful setting and lovable characters…full of laughter, heartache, secrets, loyalty, and courage.”

  —Night Owl Reviews

  “Funny, heartbreaking, romantic, and so much more…This story about recovery and restoration on so many levels is just delightful!”

  —The Best Reviews

  “Wax keeps the plot twists coming…Great escape reading, perfect for the beach.”

  —Library Journal

  MAGNOLIA WEDNESDAYS

  “Wax, the author of The Accidental Bestseller, writes with breezy wit and keen insight into family relations.”

  —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

  “An honest, realistic story of family, love, and priorities, with genuine characters.”

  —Booklist

  “Bittersweet…Vivien’s an easy protagonist to love; she’s plucky, resourceful, and witty.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Atlanta-based novelist Wendy Wax spins yet another captivating tale of life and love in this wonderfully entertaining book.”

  —Southern Seasons Magazine

  THE ACCIDENTAL BESTSELLER

  “It’s a definite must for any beach bag this summer…Wax does a fantastic job giving readers an insight into the cutthroat world of New York publishing, and the story provides inspiration to budding novelists.”

  —Sacramento Book Review

  “A wise and witty foray into the hearts of four amazing women and the publishing world they inhabit. This is a beautiful book about loyalty, courage, and pursuing your dreams with a little help from your friends. I loved this book!”

  —Karen White, New York Times bestselling author of Sea Change

  “A warm, triumphant tale of female friendship and the lessons learned when life doesn’t turn out as planned…Sure to appeal.”

  —Library Journal

  “A terrific story brimming with wit, warmth, and good humor. I loved it!”

  —Jane Porter, author of She’s Gone Country

  “A wry, revealing tell-all about friendship and surviving the world of publishing.”

  —Haywood Smith, New York Times bestselling author

  “Entertaining…Provides a lot of insight into the book business, collected, no doubt, from Wax’s own experiences.”

  —St. Petersburg Times

  Titles by Wendy Wax

  OCEAN BEACH

  TEN BEACH ROAD

  MAGNOLIA WEDNESDAYS

  THE ACCIDENTAL BESTSELLER

  SINGLE IN SUBURBIA

  HOSTILE MAKEOVER

  LEAVE IT TO CLEAVAGE

  7 DAYS AND 7 NIGHTS

  OCEAN

  BEACH

  WENDY WAX

  BERKLEY BOOKS, NEW YORK

  BERKLEY BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL,

  England • Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin

  Books Ltd.) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) • Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community

  Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive,

  Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) • Penguin Books

  (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2012 by Wendy Wax.

  “Readers Guide” copyright © 2012 by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Cover design by Rita Frangie.

  Cover photo by George Shelley Productions / Getty.

  Book design by Kristin del Rosario.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  BERKLEY is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  The “B” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Berkley trade paperback edition / July 2012

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Wax, Wendy.

  Ocean Beach / Wendy Wax.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN: 978-1-101-58099-8

  1. Dwellings—Remodeling—Fiction. 2. Dwellings—Conservation

  and restoration—Fiction. 3. Female friendship—Fiction. 4. Reality

  television programs—Fiction. 5. Family secrets—Fiction. 6. South

  Beach (Miami Beach, Fla.—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3623.A893O24 2012

  813’.6—dc23

  2012007084

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ALWAYS LEARNING

  PEARSON

  This book is dedicated to Zena Adler

  with love and gratitude.

  You are missed.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  No book springs completely from the imagination. There are always so many things to learn and understand before, during, and after the writing has begun. Although the Internet is a great tool, for me there’s nothing as satisfying as talking to people willing to share their knowledge and expertise.

  This time out I’d like to thank Jeff Donelly, Public Historian, Miami Design Preservation League, for that first phone conversation and for pointing me in the right direction as I considered where on South Beach my story should be set.

  Thank, you, too, to Sharon Hartley, author and tour guide, for that first personal tour and Amanda Bush at the MDPL for funneling me to the right people.

  Eternal gratitude goes to Lori Bakkum and Nate Miller of Retro Home Miami, who shared their knowledge and passion for the area, got me into some incredible homes, and answered every question I threw their way, sometimes more than once. Thanks also go to Julien Bergier of DN’A Design & Architecture. I knew as soon as we drove up to the Lenox house that I’d found The Millicent.
Who knew that a day that began with a seagull treating me like its personal port-a-let could turn out so well?

  A special thank you to Karen Kendall and Don Moser for helping me experience the location more fully. I’m still smiling about our adventures, but my lips are sealed. “What happens in South Beach stays in South Beach.”

  Thanks to Tito Vargas and Rob Griffin for sharing their knowledge of construction and to Rebecca Ritchie, interior designer extraordinaire, for her contributions to the look and feel of The Millicent.

  Thanks are also owed to Sergeant Andres Varela, Special Victims Bureau, Miami-Dade Police Department, Debra Weierman of the FBI, as well as to the ever knowledgeable and always generous members of crimescenewriters.

  Any and all mistakes are my own.

  My thanks also go to charitable donors Lisa Hogan and Pamela Gentry who won the right to lend their names to characters in this book. I’m not sure why such generous people tend to end up as such unpleasant characters—I can’t seem to help it. Just ask Tonja Kay.

  As always, I’m greatly indebted to authors Karen White and Susan Crandall for their friendship and insights. And for always taking my calls. (I think.)

  Thanks also go to my agent Stephanie Kip Rostan for being the calm voice of reason and for always having—or finding—an answer.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Epilogue

  Ocean Beach

  Prologue

  Millie couldn’t bear to see her husband cry. He really didn’t have the face for it. Or the experience. When you made your living making other people laugh, tears weren’t a part of your repertoire. In all the time she’d known him, she’d only seen Max cry once. And that had been more than fifty years ago.

  She, on the other hand, had become an expert at tears. But she’d also become an expert at hiding them.

  “You’re too old to cry,” she said. “And I’ve got better things to do than lie here letting you drip tears all over me.”

  He smiled, as she’d intended. “What? You’ve got somewhere else you have to be?” He used the beleaguered tone he’d played to the hilt onstage. The one that said, See what I have to put up with?

  She reached up to wipe a tear from his weathered cheek and her eyes closed briefly. Who knew how heavy eyelids could be? “Yes, I do. I’m just waiting for that tunnel of light you hear about. Then I’m out of here.” She tried for a sassy tone, but even moving her lips took effort. “I’ll finally have the spotlight to myself for once.”

  Max smiled again. It was the smile she’d always thought of as his megawatter. A heart could break from that smile.

  “You’ve always been the star, Millie,” Max said. “Always. I was just the lucky guy who got to stand next to you.” He swallowed thickly. “I don’t want to be here without you.”

  The weight of good-bye hung over them. She cupped his face in her hand, ready to go. Except for one thing.

  “Promise me you’ll look for him one more time, Max,” she said. “It’s easier to find people now. Like on TV. That woman was missing for thirty years.”

  She stared into his eyes, using the last of her strength to will him to do what he’d refused even to talk about for so long. “Promise.”

  Finally he nodded. “I will, Millie.” He took the hand that had fallen to her side and gave it a squeeze just like he had the first—and every—time they’d stepped onto a stage together.

  “And get the house fixed up,” she said. “He’ll never recognize it the way it is now. I want you to get it ready. You know, for when he comes home.”

  She held on to his hand as long as she could, treasuring its warmth and comfort. Wanting to take it with her. “Do you promise, Max?”

  A tear ran down his cheek. She watched it fall. Felt it land on their clasped hands.

  “I promise.”

  Chapter One

  Never let them see you sweat.

  Nicole Grant, former dating guru and A-list matchmaker, knew it was a bad sign when the philosophy you were living by came from a deodorant commercial. As words of wisdom went, they were nowhere near as lofty as “Nothing succeeds like success” or quite as motivational as “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” But as she stood in the archway of Bitsy Baynard’s Palm Beach dining room struggling not to wipe her damp palms down the sides of the vintage Valentino cocktail dress, those words were pretty much all she had.

  No one in that room knew, or would ever know, that she’d spent a good chunk of her remaining cash on a salon cut and color, or that her makeup had been applied for free at a Saks Fifth Avenue cosmetics counter after she’d made a show of cursing the airlines and pretending abject horror at arriving in Palm Beach without a cosmetics case.

  She squared her shoulders and made her way through the formal dining room to her seat, thanking the goddess of the gene pool that at forty-six she still had an air of command, a graceful neck, and her trademark cheekbones. A lifelong running habit and a recent, if unwelcome, bout of physical labor had prevented her once-speedy metabolism from sputtering to a stop.

  Bitsy’s table had been set for twenty. As she’d promised, her guest list had been culled from the appallingly short list of Palm Beach residents who had not lost money to Nicole’s brother, Malcolm Dyer, who had recently checked into a medium-security prison for the criminally greedy.

  Bitsy had assured her that none of the guests would bring up Malcolm’s Ponzi scheme, which had bankrupted Nicole as completely as it had its hundreds of victims. But as they took their seats Nicole could feel their eyes on her like motorists unable to drive by a car wreck without slowing down to take a look.

  Nicole raised her chin and welcomed their glances; every one of them was a potential client or a possible referral source. She smiled her thanks to Bitsy when she saw the seat that she’d been assigned. It was next to Helen Maryn, a divorcée whose first husband had left her for a well-known jockey and whose second had fled to a Tibetan monastery to find himself, a search so consuming that he’d still been looking three years later when Helen had found and divorced him.

  Helen Maryn’s face was round and pink and she bore an unfortunate resemblance to Miss Piggy. But while her physical attributes appeared skimpy, her net worth did not.

  “So are you like the Millionaire Matchmaker?” Helen asked when the first course had been cleared away.

  “Yes,” Nicole replied with a friendly smile. “But without the four-letter words and the funky-haired staff.”

  Or the money and fame. All of which her brother had stolen.

  “Nicole brought Bertrand and me together,” Bitsy said helpfully with a smile for her husband, who had proved to be far more than a worthwhile investment. “She has a lot of high-profile marriages on her résumé. But she’s very discreet.”

  Nicole threw Bitsy a smile of affection and grat
itude. Bitsy and Bertrand’s match had been one of Nicole’s most satisfying achievements. Of the hundreds of wealthy and celebrity clients she’d found mates for, only Bitsy had not rolled up her welcome mat once Nicole’s relationship to Malcolm Dyer had become public.

  A fine bead of perspiration broke out on Nicole’s upper lip and she reminded herself yet again that she was not to blame for Malcolm’s crime. She was not her grown brother’s keeper. The federal government had claimed that job.

  She maintained her smile as the trout à la russe was served, and willed herself to enjoy it. She didn’t foresee a meal prepared by a Cordon Bleu chef anywhere in her near future; there was no way she was going to waste it.

  “And she’s part of a new television show on Lifetime,” Bitsy continued. “A home renovation program. She and her costars redid Bella Flora, a great Mediterranean Revival home that they own over on the west coast of Florida. And now they’re going to do a place down on South Beach in Miami.” She turned to Nicole. “What’s the show called, Nikki?”

  “Do Over.” Which was what she was hoping the show would turn into. “The pilot airs July first,” Nicole added, seeing no need to mention that this opportunity would involve another backbreaking summer sweating over a house under the unrelenting eye of a video camera. Or that this time she and Madeline Singer and Avery Lawford would be laboring on a house that didn’t belong to them and that they hadn’t seen so much as a picture of.

  Nicole reached for her wineglass. “If the pilot does well, the Miami episodes will air next spring.”

  If it didn’t, sweating in front of others would be the least of her problems.

  Across the table an eagle-eyed woman followed their conversation. Leaning forward, she offered up what might have been a smile if plastic surgery had left her any control of her facial muscles. “It must be impossible to find clients now,” she said. “I mean, your company doesn’t really exist anymore, does it?” Her tone should have been accompanied by a raised eyebrow, but this method of emphasis was no longer available to her. Both of her eyebrows arched upward in a perpetual state of surprise.