Free Year in Palm Beach by Pamela Acheson, Richard B. Myers

it from there.”
    Dick says, “We don’t have a car.”
    The salesman looks at Dick like he fell off a turnip truck. “Oh,” he says. “Well, do you want me to hold the chest for later, when you come back with your car?”
    Dick says, “No, I think it’s easier if I just run home and get my hand truck.”
    The salesman looks at Dick as if he’s speaking Swedish. Dick walks to get the hand truck and is back in five minutes. The three of us get the chest onto the cart. It’s a bit awkward, but Dick manages to roll the cart along and we make our way home.
    Barney, the old fellow with the dyed black hair, spots us and, in a clipped, Long Island Lockjaw, says, “In Palm Beach one walks silly little dogs with berets. One does not walk old sea chests!”
    A few seconds later, Craig, the owner of Palm Beach Fitness, passes us.
    â€œWhat are you guys, hillbillies?” he says. “This is Palm Beach. You can’t be rolling furniture around in the streets.”
    Dick says, “Maybe we are the Clampetts, after all.”
    Sunday, October 18
    Today’s my birthday. Dick’s birthday is in August, and I’m ten months older than he is, so for two months each year I can tease him we’re the same age. Yesterday I was pensive, vaguely wistful, as I usually am the day before my birthday, reflecting on the passage of time, on the fact this was the last day I’d ever be that age.
    I’ve been this way ever since I was little. I may have been happy about turning eleven, but at the same time I was a little wistful about leaving ten. I thought about “don’t blink” long before Kenny Chesney wrote the song. I knew I’d blink and be in college, blink and be starting a career, blink and be forty. Now time’s going so fast I’m trying not to blink at all.
    Dick and I don’t give each other birthday presents but we do like to take birthday trips. This year I wanted to stay home, home being Palm Beach. We’re already on a trip in a way, a year-long one.
    I got a present in the mail yesterday from Sophie, my sister. She’s an artist and lives in Connecticut. We’re close and usually e-mail frequently, though weeks can go by without communication. This morning I open the beautifully wrapped package. Inside is a collapsible vase, for use when traveling. Indeed, it’s very flat and thin. The note with it reads, “Although it’s meant for traveling, I thought this little vase might come in handy in that tiny cottage you’re in.”
    I fill the vase with water and it stands upright. I go outside and pick a geranium and place it in the vase. It looks beautiful. Sophie’s right. I don’t need to wait until traveling to use it. I begin to wish all sort of things were collapsible—frying pans, stew pots, large platters, colanders, bicycles, even cars. I look around the room. How easy storage would be.
    This evening I want to have my birthday dinner at Café L’Europe. We shower, dress, and walk to the restaurant. We both say hello to David, the piano player, and I pat Walker, David’s big brown poodle, then Dick and I take a seat at the bar. David takes a break and comes over to join us. He’s wearing black pants, a black shirt, a tan sport jacket, and sunglasses. His hair is swept back, and he looks as if he drove to work on a motorcycle. Hopefully, he didn’t. David’s been blind since birth.
    Although Dick and I usually stop and chat with David for a few moments when he’s at the piano, this is the first chance we have for real conversation.
    â€œSo,” Dick says, “I guess you’ve just started playing the piano?’’
    David laughs. “Just had my third lesson.”
    â€œSeriously,” Dick says, “how long have you been playing?”
    â€œSince I was three,” David says. And so begins a fascinating fifteen minutes. It turns out that David