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The forgotten beach house
A few days later I drove to his beach house near Pensacola alone. It wasn’t fancy but it was secluded. It was just right for me. No one knew. I lived there in hiding for over a year and made friends with the locals. They protected my solitude and brought me food. Then I heard your speech on the radio. After thinking about you for a few weeks, I sent you the card. So here I am, at your service. And thank you for assigning me the Queen’s suite. If I could freshen up now. It’s been a long ride.”
We stood up. That fact that she had to remind us she needed a rest, and my not suggesting it, made me feel awkward, the way I often felt in her company, like a fool out of my league, that she had a higher knowledge of etiquette and manners than we did. I apologized for this rudeness and invited her to dinner with us, asking if she’d like someone to escort her to her room.
“No thank you. I know my way around.”
Even as she walked out the door, I noticed that the pleats on the back of her dress were in perfect order and wondered how that could be, after sitting all morning in a military jeep. Sheila gave me an odd look and I knew what was on her mind.
“She deserves the Queen’s suite” I said. “We have a lot to learn from this woman, all of us, the girls, even the staff. A model of southern gentility has just graced our house with her presence. This is just what it lacked, old world culture and sophistication. Now we have someone who can host our ceremonies and greet our visitors, attend to our guests with regal charm, sparkle in diamonds like the chandeliers, arrange…”
“Luke, you need to put a leash on that imagination of yours” Sheila interrupted, or I might have to put one on you.”
She was right. I almost blushed. But from the first day I met her, long ago, only Naomi could make me feel like a fool, and act like one, the night I crashed my car into the nearest pole after seeing her again. She could do that to any man, humble them and survive any catastrophe in this world of men, without a scratch.
That evening we had dinner in our private dining room. Jim was away, working long hours to set up a hospital in Richmond. But the rest of our clan were present. Only Jane knew of my long-ago love affair with Naomi. Nancy had told her the whole story, as I revealed everything about my life to her. But Miranda knew a little also, because I told her once in our talks when we sat and read together, when she asked about ‘love’ one afternoon, that my first love was with a young woman named Naomi.
When Naomi entered the room, once again resplendent in a dark-blue, shoulder tie gown, not glittery or low-cut, but stylish and tight to her contours, sexy in a hard-to-describe way because it wasn’t revealing, yet somehow suggested exactly what it was covering up. The girls hadn’t seen anything like it ever and Miranda quickly whispered in Anya’s ear who she was.
While the butler served us a three-course meal, the girls couldn’t resist asking our new guest where she was from, and where she found such a fine outfit, such pretty earrings and bracelets.
“I seem to come by them everywhere I go” she answered. “Most are gifts but I do know that after the pandemic grew serious and shops began to be looted, people didn’t care about fine clothing, only gold and jewelry and mostly food. I was in New York City at the time and the shops I frequented put most of their stock in the basements and boarded up their show windows. The last few months I was there, I told my boyfriend I always had to go shopping underground and carry a flashlight.”
The girls both laughed at this, completely captivated by her charm.
“This was nine years ago, right before we flew off to Florida. But one thing I might add: I believe some of those caches are still there, they were so well hidden. I’d like to make a pilgrimage back soon and revisit these old haunts of mine and if I do, I’ll gladly take you two along, on a shopping spree.”
Both eagerly agreed, Miranda especially, remembering the thrill of the clothing we found in the attic of our old mansion. What fascinated me was the ease and richness of her discourse. “Who uses the term ‘pilgrimage’ to describe a shopping trip” I wondered? “She has her way with words as well as people.”
Then I mentioned that she would enjoy their company, as both were well-read in literature, bi-lingual, and eager to learn. In an informal way I was expanding their education with an hour session each evening in our library. We sat by the fireplace and talked about the books we enjoyed. She might also have fields of interest to teach and I asked if she might help out in this schooling.
She seemed to take to this idea, the company of two teenagers eager to mimic her. When she agreed they inundated her with questions. She promised a few lessons in make-up, dress and etiquette. Everything she said inflamed their imaginations, like curious children, until Sheila finally hushed them saying it wasn’t polite to pester our new guest with requests.
What enchantment was this? She could make me feel like a little boy, and I was president. She quickly had them acting like ten-year-old girls. I wondered what effect she had on Sheila.
Our table was quiet after that with small talk, coffee and dessert. But I had one pressing question I couldn’t leave alone; however impolite it was to pry.
“The account you gave us this afternoon was fascinating. I’m still amazed at how you survived the company that kidnaped you to Florida. But one part baffles me. You said that when you were alone the last year in the beach house, the locals came and brought you food each evening, making time in their busy day, with their calloused hands. I wonder how you inspired such humanity in folks so unlike you, poor farmers and fishermen and their wives. It seems to me, that in their hard-working lives, they would dislike and distrust you, being so different and privileged, a last survivor of the upper class.”
“I often wondered myself, and I had lots of time, sunning myself on the beach, to think about it. But I found from early on, from the age these young women enjoy, that people of all sorts were eager to do me favors, the rich with expensive gifts, the poor in smaller acts, like opening a door or helping me in a store. I suppose they noticed my looks. But it was never just men. It was women and children too, always trying to help me. Maybe they saw me as frail. You know the line: “I’ve always depended upon the kindness of strangers.” But I’m no Blanche Dubois and not frail at all. It’s something larger than that.
“I wondered too how that wretch of a man that abducted me commanded so much respect back in Florida. I knew how he worked himself into the good graces of General Kurtz, and won the title of ‘governor’, with all his vices. He was a loud, swaggering, lying pig of a man, please excuse my language, and by mid-afternoon hardly able to rise from his wicker couch on the veranda, he was so drunk.
When we first arrived, I thought he might be murdered and robbed. Everyone knew he had hidden gold and his title as governor meant nothing now. He had just two guards, always standing in the shadows. But his friends and cronies and everyone, even his bulldog guards, still treated him with heartfelt respect, with all his failings, approaching him on tip-toe as he lay snoring in his chair. I’d nudge him awake and he’d acknowledge their presence with the regal ceremony. I’ll give him that. He always kept up the aura and the character of a governor. He always wore a tie and dressed the part, fat as he was. He always sat at the head of the table and controlled his often inebriate guests with his loud, lordly pronouncements. They bowed and listened, kissed his hand as they left, thrilled that they were allowed a short while to bask in his royal sunshine.
“So this is what I’ve decided about human nature, and it applies to me, though I hate to say it, as much as him. People need to look up, they need someone to revere and think better and wiser than they are. They want a lord, and they want a lady to kneel before, and they feel honored when that imagined royalty deigns to acknowledge their presence, with just a touch. All he did was boast he was governor; with delusional confidence that the next president would soon be sending him to the state house in Tallahassee. He never, ever doubted his indisputable claim to that title and played the role. So did I.
“I learned to play all my rolls well. I was blessed with good looks and began as the beauty queen, at seventeen. By eighteen, with a few gifts of jewelry and gowns I became the star debutante. The doors of the finest clubs in Manhattan would open at my approach, the long lines outside gazing at me as I strolled in, not angry but feeling blessed that I passed so close. And the rich showered me with the furs and diamonds so I could dress the part, bow and kiss my hand, in all the glitter and magic of the night.
“In that same manner I arrived at the beach house in my Mercedes. At first I wondered why no one had taken it. It sat empty for years. But the locals were happy with their own little shacks. Then it dawned on me. They wouldn’t fit in or feel comfortable. It was waiting for a queen, for me, and from the moment I arrived they treated me as such. When they brought me food I would graciously nod, and they felt blessed, even more when I visited their huts along the strand when I heard one of their children was sick, to see if I could help. They loved me and I loved them. They were so sad when your boys came to take me away, standing in a crowd, the women waving goodbye in tears, even though I told them where I was going. All’s they ever did was bring me presents, even in the winter when they were hungry, part of their meager catch, apologizing that it wasn’t more. And what did I give them back, a smile.”
All of us were astounded by her story, so well told. It gave me fresh insights into human nature rife with implications, a broader way to understand them. It meant people don’t just invent their own persona. They invent a whole world and have to fill it with others, their titles and places and roles as well. They couldn’t play the serf unless there was a queen or king. So they transform others to validate their idea of themselves in this imagined drama, or it wouldn’t work. A person’s identity is not just how he pictures himself, but how he personifies and sees everyone around him. There is no role without a foil. No ‘id’ can exist in a vacuum.
“You gave them much more than a smile” I said. “You gave them something above their meager existence to live for. You elevated their dignity, made their village special, a kingdom in their minds and I’m sure all the other villages around were envious.”
“I told them, Mr. president, that I’d use my influence to help their region prosper. If you could do something for them, build some clinic nearby, or a pier for their boats, you’d be doing all of us a favor. They said they’d preserve my house forever and pray for my return.”
“We’ll do just that” I replied. “I can send some army engineers to see what improvements they might need. I’ll have a post office established in Pensacola, a regional one with a new postmaster. That will put it on the map. Besides I owe someone a promotion.”
“Thank you for that and thank you all for your gracious reception of me. I’m still weary from my long trip today and with your permission, would like to retire for the night. I’m sure that in the morning I’ll feel much better and be up to any tasks you have in mind for me.”
We all stood up as she left the table and sat down again, feeling that a pleasant, new formality had permeated our souls and bettered us.
Tom spoke first. “Myra, you have got to befriend this woman. She has so much to teach, and she’s lived through so much. She’s a survivor just like you were.”
Myra replied: “Yes, that’s true. We were both survivors through rough times. But in her case the men she was passed between were millionaires and the General and a governor. In my case it was my boyfriend, Pirate Jack, and Stalker and other Hell’s Angels. There wasn’t room for elegance and fine clothes in that crowd, though there was kindness and some humanity shown to me.”
I was surprised that Myra let out such a revelation. She never talked about her past to anyone, though Jane knew a bit. Even Tom kept it secret. Now Miranda’s eyes widened, as she gaped at her, like a different person and she was dying to know all about this new dimension to her, a book she couldn’t wait to read.
Since we seemed to be going around the table with our impressions of Naomi. Jane spoke next.
“From the stories Nancy told me, years ago, I always pictured her as a gold digger, moving from one man to the next. I knew that she broke your heart when she left after her mother’s death and that you were hopelessly in love with her. What I never understood was why she didn’t take you back when you were at the height of your fame in New York. You were probably more wealthy and far more famous than any other young man she might set her sights on. And you were already wrapped around her little finger. The fact that she didn’t, brought Nancy, then me and everyone else at this table into your life. Yet she could have reclaimed you with a single kiss.”
“I can’t clearly explain that either” I told Jane. “She might have been upset that I was surrounded with a horde of high-class hookers and drugs. But I think it was more than that because she could easily reclaim me from that dead-end life, knowing I’d do whatever she asked. There was something settled in the back of her mind. It wasn’t that she’d be no good for me. I was already in the pit of decadence and self-destruction. She could only save me from that.
“I think she believed that I wasn’t her man, far different than most. She saw my passion for books. I think she knew that once I grew out of my puppy-love, I’d abandon her. So she moved on into the world of a rich playboys, where she was fully in control. Her intellect was higher than theirs and her charm commanded them. It’s strange to think, that if she had taken me back, with my mansion in the woods, she would have had a far easier life these last ten years then all the trials she lived through. Stranger still, she’s right back here in my house again.”
As I said these musings out loud, I realized I might be upsetting Sheila, so I added: “but it’s much better things worked out the way they did. We have our four beautiful children. I don’t think she would ever have wanted one. Did you see how she hardly noticed them tonight? It’s not in her agenda.”
“But you two” looking at the girls, “you’re going to be smothered in attention starting tomorrow, so lap it up. You’ll have the finest education you could ever imagine.”
With that we adjourned. I took Sheila to the ‘Treaty Room’ one of our favorite little offices to sit and talk.
“You can see why I assigned her the “Queen’s Suite” I began. “But far more important, I hope you saw how intelligent and kind she is, not some haughty queen one might imagine. She’s offered to spend time with Miranda and Anja. We’ll know how that’s going in a few days. So don’t fear her. Befriend her and urge Jane and Myra to do the same. I’d love to see all three of you closer to her in intimate friendship than I ever was.
“From the skills she so well knows, you should have her as your personal stylist and beautician. She can expand your wardrobe and dress you for occasions. If she doesn’t do hair I’m sure she can find the one who can. We should set up a beauty salon downstairs in one of the empty rooms. I’m sure the girls would love it.”
“Maybe your right Luke. I would like to spend time with her, take her advice in her fields of expertise. I know I’ve been drab in my dress, my hair, always focused on business. Half of my secretaries pay more attention to their looks than I do. I never wear make-up or do my nails. And sometimes the thought has crossed my mind that I should, to please you. I’d stand higher in their estimation too if I did. I’ll start tomorrow. She’ll be working for me, my personal aide in all matters of dress. And we will design that salon together. I’d love to sit back in a chair and have my hair shampooed and arranged, tinted and curled and my make-up applied by an artist. You’ll see a real change in me.
“Who knows, she might become my confidant, as many beauticians are to their special customers, and if you ever give her a peck on the cheek, I’ll be the first to know, in whatever dark corner it happened.”
“Nothing would make me happier. I’ll have your complete trust, and you’ll have a very accomplished new friend. Who knows how close you two might grow. In a few months, I might be the one wondering if someone is kissing someone else behind the curtains.”
After more talk in bed that night, it turned to laughter then sweet talk, our concerns over Naomi and our love for each other were resolved.
There’s no use telling an uneventful story. Sheila did become close friends with Naomi and in a way, she transformed her, both in looks and charm into something very near to herself. This endeared Sheila all the more to me. She became more the woman, less the scientist I desired. She enjoyed this gain as much as I did. It was as if something trapped inside her for a long time had finally found a means of expression and she would run to me before dinner in her latest evening dress and spin before me to show it off, like a much younger woman. And I had to admit; she looked more beautiful than ever.
The girls, or young women under her tutelage, received an even more complete make-over, in looks, behavior and self-esteem. After all the men Naomi had wrapped around her little finger in the past, they were her latest conquests. They spent hours each day in her company, eager to run on any errand she asked, instrumental in creating the beauty salon and the first lucky customers to sit in the chairs and have their manicures and their hair done by Naomi’s trainees.
After dinner she gave them another education. There was a media room in the White House, which I had the technicians who set up a broadcast station also repair. Behind this small theater there was a trove of old movies on DVDs. At first, we only used it to entertain the children with cartoons. But as Naomi leafed through the long catalogue, she found titles she not only wanted to re-watch but which she declared were instrumental in refining the girls’ sense of identity and confidence.
I walked in one night to find the three of them in the front row and sat behind them. Naomi was giving a running commentary of the film to the girls, one on each side, soaking it in. It was a lesson on the power of charisma. They were watching a movie with Marlene Dietrich called ‘The Blue Angel’. She whispered to them as they gazed, spellbound:
“Watch how she surveys the crowd from the stage, those eagle eyes, with such a gaze of confidence that it humbles them, shreds them to pieces, yet they adore her.”
The next night I quietly slipped in and took a seat three rows behind them. The movie was underway, and they didn’t notice I was there. It was Lulu, Louise Brooks in ‘Pandora’s box’ a silent film, and all the easier for her to whisper things in their ears, and for me to hear them. She was pointing out subtleties I’d never noticed before.
“See how she twirls that string of pearls slowly and sensually into the palm of her hand, as if her palm delighted in the sensation. Every part of your body can be sensual and receive such pleasures as you train it to feel. Such wonderful sensations of the flesh is our entitled gift. It’s built into our softness. Men don’t have it but many of them know and envy this sensuality we have, and in bed they try and fail to please us. We are the masters in that realm, which men can only desire and worship. This is what nature gave us in recompense, a wealth of sensual delights for our weaknesses and the burden of childbearing. So develop it well. Teach each tingling cell in your skin how to respond and receive the light caress it craves. Your bodies and minds will transform with this sensuality into a woman no other can resist.”
The movie soon ended, and they noticed me.
Naomi began. “You were spying on us!”
“No, but I didn’t want to interrupt you. Your talk fascinated me, such intimate advice as men rarely hear. It seems valid, so I urge you and Anja to practice it and gain the magic that Naomi wields over men. Louise Brooks certainly was a ‘femme fatale’.
Naomi still seemed upset that I intruded. I wasn’t about to feel like a weasel in front of Miranda, so I set her straight.
“Look, you could have easily locked the doors to the room. Why didn’t you think of that. I’ll leave you three to your movies from now on. I’m sorry but curiosity got the better of me. I know this movie well and when I peeked through the door window I wanted to watch it again. I never imagined your talk would be so personal.”
I realized this was veering again into the apologetic, and I felt the urge to correct that.
“Miranda, Anja, off to bed. It’s late. Naomi, come with me upstairs and open that safe. With all your distractions I forgot about it.”
My tone was stern, something she’d never heard before. This must have raised some hairs on the back of her neck.
“Without me you would never get it open.”
“Are you kidding. I’m the president. I command every safe cracker in this nation. And I personally know a few good ones, friends of Pirate Jack. I think I’ll have him over for dinner this week, him and his buddies. Myra knows them all, and you’ll meet them too.”
I went straight to the wall and dropped the picture on the floor, brushing it aside with my foot, some eighteenth-century landscape, maybe a Gainsborough, I didn’t care. She put her fingers on the tumblers and had it open in a minute.
Under a stack of papers there was one brown, manila envelope, sealed with the presidential stamp. I tore it open and found a single sheet, no heading, no words, only a short list of six letter codes, three columns of them, and above each a single capital letter, ‘N’, ‘U’ and ‘K’.
Chapter One ...
