FLEX TIME 2 0 1 3 C reat i v e W r i t i ng P r i z e
The winner of the 2013 Brunswick School Creative Writing Prize is Samuel Zuckert ’13, for his short story “The Royal Palms,” published in The Oracle, the school’s literary journal, in the spring. To read additional stories and poems in this year’s issue of The Oracle, visit BrunswickSchool.org/oracle13/
The Royal Palms B y Sa m u e l Z u c k e r t ’ 1 3
T
he royal palms hung over the pool deck, like a giant canopy,
Bordeaux. But after dinner he would have to go up to bed — he was never
as guests began to trickle out of the cast-iron doors that led
allowed under the palms after dark. His parents would drink and dance
from the foyer. Men in linen suits passed crystal glasses to their
with their friends late into the night. Occasionally his father would send
wives, who wore long sundresses. Young Wilcott watched the
Henry, their driver, to Port St. Lucie to hire a quartet of talented black jazz
scene play out from his nursery window. Through the palm leaves he
musicians to entertain them. The festivities would stretch late into Palm
could see his father excitedly greet guests, pretending he hadn’t just seen
Beach’s warm winter evenings, long after Wilcott was tucked in under his
the gentlemen earlier that day at morning tennis and afternoon golf. His
blanket up in the nursery.
mother, splayed out on a deck chair, smoked a long cigarette, surrounded by other ladies. The ocean water lapped against the limestone sea wall, as it always did during the winter tides. The pool deck was lit with torches placed in the soil beds of the palm trees that surrounded the pool. The family’s houseman, who wore a white Bermudian officer’s coat, passed out martinis on a silver tray. “Come on, Willy. It’s time to go to bed,” his nurse,
Wilcott learned to swim in the pool under the palms. George,
Willy and his friends would climb up the trees on all four corners of the pool and jump in at once.
Mrs. May, called. “One second,” Wilcott replied. He loved observing his parents’ parties. At Christmastime he was allowed to go
the lifeguard from the Bath and Tennis Club, would come over and instruct him. As Wilcott grew older, he would have friends from the Palm Beach Country Day School over to swim after school. His friend Teddy recommended that they climb up one of the palm trees and jump from there into the pool. It was great fun. Sometimes, Willy and his friends would climb up the trees on all four corners of the pool and jump in at once. Mrs. May would bring out lemonades and tell them to “be safe.” Under those royal palms, Wilcott threw his first party of his own. It was a small gathering with 20 of his friends who
downstairs in his slacks and school tie and be treated as an equal among
had graduated into the upper school. All the boys came over in their
his parents, elder cousins, grandparents, and family friends. They
graduation ties and the girls in their white dresses. That night, the boys
would make him a place at the table with a small glass of watered-down
eventually shed their ties and navy sport coats, and the girls did the same
www. br uwww nsw i .cksc b r u nsw h ool i cksc . orgh oo l . org 09
09