Page 48 of Summers at the Saint
“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 curaçao 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 aroundthe 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.”
