"Is he a guest of the hotel?"

Last evening I attended a memorial for James Sheeran, the late publisher of the Palm Beach Society Magazine. Jim was a charming, rakish ex-Marine who understood the island as well as anyone and made his living publishing a splendid fantasy. I would have lunch with him once a week and he told me all kinds of things that never made it into his glossy pages. When he told me he had only a few weeks to live, I thought what I could do to ease his last weeks a little. I told him that I planned to dedicate Madness Under the Royal Palms to him. He was deeply touched by my gesture, and I hope my book merits his name.

Jim had a great sense of humor and he would have appreciated what happened to me the afternoon of the memorial. I didn’t know the time of the event, and since the magazine was already shut for the day, I called the Colony Hotel where the early evening cocktail was taking place. “What time is the memorial for James Sheeran,” I asked. “Is he a guest of the hotel,” the receptionist asked.