Monarch Beach

Published on July 2016 | Categories: Books, Fiction & Literature, Contemporary Women | Downloads: 593 | Comments: 0 | Views: 3667
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When Amanda Blick, a young mother and kindhearted San Francisco heiress, finds her gorgeous French chef husband wrapped around his sous-chef, she knows she must flee her life in order to rebuild it. The opportunity falls into her lap when her (very lovable) mother suggests Amanda and her young son, Max, spend the summer with her at the St. Regis Resort in Laguna Beach. With the waves right outside her windows and nothing more to worry about than finding the next relaxing thing to do, Amanda should be having the time of her life—and escaping the drama. But instead, she finds herself faced with a kind, older divorcee who showers her with attention… and she discovers that the road to healing is never simple. This is the sometimes funny, sometimes bitter, but always moving story about the mistakes and discoveries a woman makes when her perfect world is turned upside down.

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Content

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations,
and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously.
monarch beach. Copyright © 2012 by Anita Hughes.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.
For information, address St. Martin’s Press,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Design by Anna Gorovoy
www.stmartins.com
ISBN 978-0-312- 64304-1 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-1-250-01584-6 (e-book)
First Edition: June 2012
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1

Chapter One

he day my life changed forever started like any other
Tuesday. I liked Tuesdays. My appointment book stayed
blank on Tuesdays. Sometimes I wondered how the other days
filled up so quickly. You’d be surprised how ladies’ auxiliary
lunches, PTA committee meetings, and library fund-raising
can occupy your time. Not to mention the karate lessons, piano, and chess club Max had after school. Like many stay-athome moms I was a full-time chauffeur for my son and
fund-raiser for his school. Tuesdays were mine. I started the
day with a yoga class, usually followed by a fresh strawberry
muffin at the Lemon Café. But this Tuesday, the Lemon Café
was out of strawberry muffins, so I did something different. I
made an unexpected visit to my husband’s restaurant and
found him in the back room with his pants down and his legs
wrapped around Ursula, his new chef. He tried pulling his
pants up before I swung open the door, but it was a glass door.
I had seen what I had seen: my tall, dark French husband

T

sticking it to his blond Scandinavian chef. I thought, how cute,
they had matching ponytails: Ursula’s was a long blond plait
down her back, Andre’s was a short black ponytail I had always found very sexy. Apparently, Ursula did, too. I slammed
the glass door so hard I heard it shatter behind me. I
jumped in my car and tore away. Black Tuesday changed everything.
I didn’t drive far. My hands were shaking, I was afraid I
would lose control of the wheel. While I wanted to kill Andre, and possibly Ursula, I didn’t have a personal death wish.
I pulled into the parking lot at the post office, threw my purse
under the seat, and started walking. I was still in my yoga
clothes, so I looked like any other mother going for a morning hike. I left the parking lot and took long strides till I
reached the lake, a walk that usually took me half an hour.
That Tuesday I made it in sixteen minutes. I sat on a bench
watching the ducks and took deep breaths. It was a beautiful
spring day. The sun was warm, the sky a pale blue, and beds
of purple and white daisies surrounded the lake. I often brought
Max here on Saturdays while Andre worked. We tossed stale
bread to the ducks. Max threw stones in the water and we
would both be quiet so we could hear the “plop” sound when
they landed.
That Tuesday the only sound I heard was my own sobs.
I sounded like a stuck pig. And I felt like a complete idiot.
What a cliché I was. Married for ten years, mother to a fantastic eight-year-old son, never suspecting that when Andre
went to the restaurant on Tuesdays to “do the books” he was
also doing the chef.
I tried blaming myself. I should have protested when Andre
2 / Anita Hughes

wanted to hire a female chef. Ursula was a former sous chef
at the Palace Hotel Dining Room in Montreux and she specialized in fondue. Andre’s restaurant specialized in fondue: cheese fondue, salmon fondue, chocolate fondue. But
if he hadn’t hired Ursula I may have found him in the supply
closet with Yvette the hostess, or Marie the cocktail waitress.
I couldn’t even blame Ursula. Andre was thirty-five. He
had olive skin and green eyes. He looked like a European
film star, and he was her boss. Ursula had only been in
California for six months. Maybe she thought it was part of
the job description. The only person I could blame was
Andre.
I closed my eyes and remembered just a few nights ago,
breezing into the restaurant on Andre’s arm on our date
night. We had been to the movies and seen The Proposal. I
loved romantic comedies where the couple overcame all sorts
of obstacles on their path to happiness. We sat in the back of
the theater and Andre slung one arm over my shoulder, and
played with the hem of my skirt with his free hand. I slapped
his hand away, pretending to focus on Sandra Bullock and
Ryan Reynolds, but I loved Andre’s attention. I loved knowing
that after ten years together, he still wanted to put his hand up
my skirt.
I remember seeing Ursula fleetingly while I waited for
Andre to give directions to his staff. Now I thought maybe
the direction he gave was “kiss me harder,” while I politely
discussed the savory flavor of fondue with one of the couples
dining in the restaurant.

o o o
Monarch Beach / 3

My sobs became hiccups and I recalled the last time my life
changed in a single day. I was eighteen, and I had arrived
home from school to find four envelopes addressed to me on
the marble table in my parents’ foyer.
“Good afternoon, Miss Amanda.” Our housekeeper swept
up my backpack. “Your parents had to go out. I prepared a
snack for you in the kitchen.”
“Thanks, Rosemary. I’m not hungry. Please let me know
when Mom and Dad come home.” I grabbed the envelopes
and climbed the staircase to my bedroom. I sat on my bed
looking at the view from the bay window. My bedroom was
on the third floor of my parents’ house. My friends rolled their
eyes when they came over and called it “the palace” under their
breath. It had a full-sized ballroom where my parents held
parties with seven-piece orchestras. In the basement there was
a separate kitchen and living room for the staff: housekeeper,
cook, laundress, gardener. I had the third floor to myself. My
bedroom took up half the floor. It had a four-poster bed and
a huge desk where I did my drawings. And it had the most
amazing view of the San Francisco Bay. On clear days I
watched hundreds of boats zip under the Golden Gate Bridge.
My father had made his money himself. He wasn’t ashamed
to spend it, and I refused to be ungrateful for the luxury that
surrounded me.
I held the envelopes printed with their college insignias
and tried to decide which to open first. I hesitated. Should I
wait for my parents to come home and open them together?
I was their only child, and they were as excited as I was to
know where I would spend the next four years. But I didn’t
know where they’d gone, or when they’d be back. I opened
4 / Anita Hughes

the envelope from Stanford first. I read the letter carefully. I
had been placed on their wait list. I took a deep breath and
opened the envelope from Rhode Island School of Design. It
was a long letter on dark gray stationery saying I had been
accepted.
I hugged it to my chest. My dream was to be a fashion
designer: not a very popular goal at my college prep school. I
had to beg my advisor to let me apply to RISD. I breathed a
sigh of relief and opened the envelope from UC Berkeley.
I had been accepted there as well. Not surprising, since the
campus was dotted with benches and playing fields donated
by my father.
The last envelope was from Parsons in New York. I held it
and closed my eyes. For the last two years I had dreamed of
attending Parsons and interning for a fashion designer, being
in the center of the fashion universe. I slit the envelope and
opened my eyes slowly. I was in. I had been accepted at Parsons. I fell back on the bed and looked at my beautiful handpainted ceiling. I felt my life was lining up perfectly like the
gold stars painted on a night sky above me. There was a
knock on the door and Rosemary poked her head in. “Excuse
me, Miss Amanda. Your mother phoned. Your parents are
almost home and they would like you to meet them in the library.”
I gathered my college letters and ran down the two flights
of stairs to the library. I sat in one of my father’s leather wingback chairs and debated how to tell my parents the news. They
would hate to see me go across the country, but they would be
thrilled. I had inherited my love of fashion from my mother. I
spent countless afternoons and weekends as a child sitting in
Monarch Beach / 5

my mother’s closet and sketching her evening gowns. As I
grew older, I would take the sketches back to my room and
make small changes; erasing a shoulder strap here, adding an
ivory bow there, until I created my own fantasy dresses.
“Amanda showed me a design today that rivals Coco
Chanel,” my mother said one evening to the ladies who arrived
for a Junior League meeting.
“Mom, nothing rivals Chanel,” I replied, secretly glowing.
“Coco Chanel was once a young girl, too.” My mother
poured my hot chocolate while the ladies drank tea in fragile
porcelain cups.
After I made polite conversation, and my mother dismissed
me with a discreet nod of her head, I ran up to my room and
looked at the sketch, wondering if it really did resemble Chanel. I vowed I would sketch and sew, and read and learn
everything I could about fashion. One day my label would be
found in Neiman’s and Bloomingdale’s and in chic boutiques
on Fifth Avenue.

o o o
I clutched my acceptance letters, thinking that day was coming closer, but my parents walked in looking like they had
seen the grim reaper. My mother entered the room first. She
wore one of my favorite outfits: a pale pink St. John suit with
gold cuffs. I looked at her face, usually so artfully made up
that she glowed from across a room. Her cheeks were white
and her eyes were swollen from crying.
My father staggered in behind her. He was over six feet
tall. He had white hair and his forehead was lined, but he
6 / Anita Hughes

usually moved with the confidence of someone who had come
from nothing and created his own empire. That day he looked
like an oversized schoolboy: scared and weak and wanting to
hide behind his mother’s skirt.
“I have the best news!” The words popped out of my
mouth.
“Your mother has some news,” my father said softly.
“It’s not my news.” My mother shot an imploring look at
my father. My parents had been married for twenty years.
They met late in life: My father was busy building his empire
and “forgot” to get married. My mother was a self-described
“debutante left on the shelf.” They found each other at a symphony gala and married six weeks later. I could not remember them ever looking crossly at each other. I never heard them
raise their voices in anger or hurt. My mother glided from
room to room of our house like a fairy godmother, sprinkling
good taste and serenity on everything she touched. My father
worked long hours but returned at night to scoop her up and
take her to dinner and dancing. I would sit at my window,
watching them roar away in my father’s latest sports car, content to be left alone, happy to have parents who idolized each
other.
“Grace, please.”
My mother looked at me seriously. “We’ve been to see Dr.
Galen. Your father has liver cancer. Dr. Galen said . . .” She
paused. I had never seen my mother without a perfect French
manicure. I had never known her to smell of anything but
Chanel No. 5. And I had never heard her unable to finish a
sentence. My friends called her the “Queen of Polish.” She
was a legend in San Francisco for her witty fund-raising
Monarch Beach / 7

speeches. Invitations to her Sunday evening “salons” were hugely
coveted.
“Dr. Galen said”—my father took her hand—“I have nine
months to live. A year if I be a good boy and stop drinking
and smoking.” His broad face broke into a smile. “But have I
ever listened to what anyone said? I can’t die. I have to see you
graduate from high school and college.”
I crumpled my college letters into tight balls. My eyes filled
with tears. We just stood there like three department store dummies. My parents and I, who had ridden camels in Egypt, who
had stared down lions in Africa, we could beat this together.
“Simon,” my mother said quietly. “Dr. Galen is our second opinion.”
I looked at my father, hoping he would tell my mother she
was wrong. When he looked at me, his eyes were wet. “The
only person who has ever made any sense in my life is your
mother. I guess she’s right then.”
I remember turning away and studying the wall of books
as if they held the answer. It wasn’t surprising my father had
liver cancer. He was of the Rat Pack generation. Like Dean
Martin and Frank Sinatra, he worked hard, played hard, and
felt immortal. Every night for as long as I could remember, he
and my mother would start their evening with a cocktail.
Dinners in our long formal dining room included a bottle
of fine wine; a tall brandy followed dessert. The nights they
went out with friends, or to social events, I knew he drank for
hours. But I had never seen him drunk. My father was a
gentleman and I adored him.
“What’s your news, honey?” my mother asked.
“I, ah, I got my college letters,” I said. I dropped the crumpled
8 / Anita Hughes

letters on the floor and watched my future roll away. I could
not miss the last year of my father’s life. New York would
have to wait.
“Don’t keep us in suspense.” My father smiled.
“I got in to Berkeley,” I said. I could go to Berkeley, and
spend weekends at home. I would be close when anything
happened.
“That’s fantastic.” My father beamed. He loved his alma
mater. We used to prowl Telegraph Avenue together on Sundays. Sometimes we would hike up to the Lawrence Laboratory and look at San Francisco from across the bay.
“I thought you wanted to study fashion, honey. In New
York.” My mother looked at me sharply.
“Well, sure, later. But UC Berkeley is a great university.
And I love the campus,” I faltered.
“Amanda, did you get into Parsons?” she asked.
“Yes, but I don’t want to go,” I replied stubbornly.
“Amanda, you’ve been talking about Parsons for two years.
You can’t put your life on hold for us. I’ll be here with your
father.”
“Your mother is right,” my father said, nodding.
“I’m not going to Parsons. I want to stay right here. ” I fled
upstairs. My parents may be pillars of strength, but I was an
eighteen-year-old girl about to lose the only man I ever loved.
I locked my bedroom door and cried until it was dark.

o o o
I sat on the bench by the lake, wishing I could ask my father
what to do after I discovered Andre and Ursula glued together
Monarch Beach / 9

with shrink-wrap. When I was nine my father and I went on
a ski trip, just the two of us, to Aspen. My mother had twisted
her ankle doing the foxtrot at the Asian Art Museum Winter
Gala, but she insisted my father and I keep our reservations and
go without her.
I remember the heady feeling of boarding the plane, the
flight attendants gushing over my father, so tall and handsome with his steel-gray hair and his easy manner.
“Can I get you anything, anything at all?” A blond flight
attendant leaned close while she adjusted my seat belt. She
seemed to be sending my father a secret signal, a discreet flutter of her eyelashes, the way she ran her tongue over her lips,
which I didn’t understand.
“I’ve got everything I need right here,” my father replied.
I saw his face close down, and he spent the rest of the flight
asking me about my drawing classes, and guessing what my
mother would do in our absence.
We stayed in a rustic chalet on the side of the mountain
with three other families from San Francisco. One night, after
a long dinner where the children were relegated to a table in
the kitchen and the adults kept flitting in and out, popping
open bottles of wine, I watched one of the women take off her
fur coat and drape it over my father’s shoulders.
I stopped in my tracks, about to join him in the dining
room, and heard the woman giggle, “Nothing feels better than
fur on naked skin.” Even before my father saw me, he took the
jacket off his shoulders, steered the woman back to her husband, and said he was going outside to get some fresh air.
I joined him on the balcony, and put my hand in his pocket
to keep warm.
10 / Anita Hughes

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