Shrimp with Louis and Katarina
“You haven’t looked at the ocean? He hasn’t shown you the beachfront apartments? Oh boy, some people wouldn’t live in a country club if you gave it to them free! It’s a whole different thing. Isn’t it? It’s a whole different thing. Not for us honey?”
Asked Louis to his wife, gravely concerned Tim and I were making the biggest mistake of our lives.
“No, of course we wouldn’t live on the ocean,” Kat answered. “Who heard of such an idea? Where would you go for golf and tennis every day? How could we live on the ocean?” she replied like he had asked her to dig up her grandmother and breathe life back into her corpse.
“Well, you join a club for one thing.
What’s wrong with joining a good club that has great golf and tennis?” Tim provided both the answer and then posed another question.
“There are plenty of great clubs nearby Kat. You don’t know what you’re talking about - there’s that great one the Silverman’s joined that costs a bloody fortune, and the miserable bastard doesn’t invite me to play golf there anymore.” Louis laughed.
“You’d pay $80,000 to join his club? You told me the place stinks and they have no idea how to run a proper club, but just laze around and drink Martinis,” said Kat.
She dismissed the fabulous beachside golf club, who with a few Martini drinks, sounded like they had their priorities just right to me.
“No, I didn’t say that, I said…”
“Forget what you said, the fact is there are plenty of great clubs around all begging for new members. That’s the least of my worries. The question is do you want to drive to the club? That’s the point.” Tim laid down another question, so difficult that for a moment there was a brief silence.
“What’s wrong with driving?” I just had to ask.
They all looked at me with horror, as if I had exploded, and then instantly forgave the question because I was foreigner and really didn’t know.
“You don’t want to drive,” she whispered like I had committed a huge faux pas. “Not to a club.”
“You see, the point of being in Florida is that you fall out of bed and get to the courts early before it gets hot. Now, you can’t make an 8am game if you damn well have to have to start driving down the I95 to get to tennis!” S banged the table, and the waiter ran over.
“It’s not that far. You’re not going all the way down the 95. Who plays at 8am? It doesn’t get warm until February and you can play until 10am.” Louis told him.
“Bull! I never play after half past eight, it gets hot by ten, and that’s when you finish,” explained Kat.
“You’re both full of crap. The fact is you have to park then check in for a court. By the time you get some balls, it’s a whole bloody mess!” Tim declared.
I watched, I listened, I learnt, but I wanted to see for myself.
Driving to a tennis club in a convertible Mercedes under blue skies, in a club that served Martinis didn’t put my blood pressure up too much, but that was going to be saved for other things that I had not yet noticed in paradise.