The Beach Club Read Online Free PDF Page B

“You’re right. It is.”
     
    Vance Robbins stood six feet and one half inch tall, which was the same height as Mack Petersen. He turned thirty years old on March 22, and so did Mack Petersen. They were exactly the same height and exactly the same age.
    “Like twins,” Maribel once made the mistake of saying. Vance and Mack were not twins. First of all, Vance was black and Mack was white. Secondly, Vance was a bellman and Mack was the manager.
    Vance had hated Mack for twelve years. Twelve years ago, Vance was a high school graduate on his way to Fairleigh Dickinson in the fall, and he lined up a summer managerial position at the Beach Club with Bill Elliott over the phone. Bill was supposed to be waiting when Vance got off the ferry, but Mack cut in and replaced him. It was pure dumb luck—Mack got off the boat first and he was the right age, he had the right look, and Bill took him to the hotel instead of Vance. It wasn’t until an hour later that Bill returned to the wharf to get Vance—and by then Mack had infiltrated the joint. Bill claimed Mack had better experience because he’d worked on a farm—a farm , for God’s sake—and he wasn’t leaving for school in September, and so Mack got the manager’s job. Vance was Mack’s equal in height and age, but returning to the Beach Club in the spring and seeing Mack made Vance only too aware of how they weren’t equal. Vance was a black sheep, an evil twin, a kid who got off the boat thirty seconds too late. A bellman.
    “Hey, Vance! Good to see you, man! How was your winter?” Here was Mack now, clapping Vance on the back, pumping his hand. Mack ran his palm over Vance’s smooth skull. “You shaved your head…it looks great. You look, I don’t know, intimidating.”
    “Thanks,” Vance said. He couldn’t help smiling. He expected Mack to say shaved heads weren’t acceptable at the Beach Club. Vance caught himself and tried to scowl. This was how it happened every year. He spent all winter despising Mack and then when he showed up in the spring, Mack was disarmingly nice, cool even, and Vance was forced to abandon his hatred. But not this year. This year Vance was going to hang on to his hatred with both hands.
    “Man, how was your winter?” Mack asked. “How was Thailand? Did you get laid?”
    “Of course,” Vance said, and again, he couldn’t help smiling. When he pictured himself on the beach at Koh Samui or under the capable massaging hands of Pan, a nineteen-year-old Thai girl with long, shiny black hair, he wanted to give up every detail. Mack, he knew, had spent all winter on this gloomy rock. “Thailand kicked ass. I rented a bungalow on the beach for six bucks a night.” He nodded toward the hotel. “Closer to the water than room eleven and a hundredth the price. I got massages that lasted well into the night. I ate banana pancakes and grilled fish every day.”
    A young guy with dark curly hair holding a shovel approached them. “That sounds like paradise,” he said. “Where were you, California?”
    “Thailand,” Mack and Vance said at the same time. Their voices were indistinguishable. Vance shook his head.
    “Thailand,” Vance said again, on his own. The familiar acidity of hatred filled his chest, and he popped two Rolaids. In the summer, when Mack was around, Vance ate hundreds of them.
    “Vance, this is Jem. I hired Jem yesterday. Jem, Vance Robbins, the head bellman.”
    Vance took another look at the kid as he ground the chalk between his molars. He was too handsome but probably impressionable. Easy to boss around.
    “Jem, like in To Kill a Mockingbird? ” Vance asked.
    Jem nodded. “Not many people get the reference.”
    Vance stuck out his hand. “Pleasure,” he said.
    Mack ran his palms over Vance’s noggin again. “I missed you, man. How come you didn’t send me a postcard?”
    Vance shrugged. Why the hell did Mack like him so much? Why couldn’t he take a hint?
     
    Vance and Jem started digging out the