Sunday morning we took our fruit bowls and cranberry and nut muffins and sat on the front porch of the Colony Hotel, watching Delray Beach wake up. We were joined by other guests, mostly couples well into their retirements; two of the men read hardcover books. The group next to us were visiting from Santa Fe, enjoying no doubt the nearness of the ocean.
A little before nine we got in the car and drove A1A north to Palm Beach. (We were meeting friends from Ohio for lunch.) The route – the loveliest of A1A, hence the loveliest in South Florida – took us past million dollar mansions, through green tunnels of shade trees, and along open stretches of the Atlantic Ocean. (I should have told the New Mexicans about it.) Driving along S. Ocean Blvd. in Palm Beach, we came upon a group of about 30 women, all in red dresses, posing for pictures at the Worth Ave. tower. We pulled over.
“What is this group?” I asked an attractive blonde (one of many).
“We’re the Palm Beach book club,” she said.
I took a few pictures and asked another attractive young woman, hoping she didn’t share the first one’s sense of irony.
“We’re a book club,” she said.
"Do you have to be young and beautiful to join?"
"We have some people in their 50s," she said smiling, "40s."
She gave me the title of the book they had recently read, a bestseller I had never heard of, and told me of all the money they had raised for charity. She explained that this was their holiday outing, and they were soon heading for lunch at the Meat Market. I told her I was an author, and gave her my card.
You never know.
