Betty’s stomach churned—from fear or from the baby, she didn’t know. What she did know was this baby would never have to wonder about love, or wish for it. Betty loved him or her already.
But maybe Abe’s love was like her parents’ love, contingent on convenience, conditional and logistical.
Or, for some reason she had yet to understand, perhaps Betty was the kind of girl who was easy to leave behind.
Chapter 25
BETTY
Georgia skedaddled out of Betty’s house as soon as they heard rumblings downstairs. She promised to return the next day.
Betty huddled on her bed with pillows and blankets and a lifetime of stuffed animals. Precisely where the baby lay inside her, she didn’t know. Instead of patting her stomach, she rubbed wide circles, to cover all her bases.
What was her family doing downstairs? How long were they going to keep her waiting? Were they expecting her to present herself? Who willingly walks into a fire?
Maybe her grandparents were contacting Abe. The act of marrying a non-Jewish boy was something they’d overlook, come to accept in time, but having a baby without a husband just wasn’t done. She had heard about married college students. They could set up house in Ann Arbor while Abe finished school, and then it would be Betty’s turn. They could even marry in Detroit, if that was easier for Abe’s mother. She had just lost a son, but now she’d gain a daughter-in-law, a grandchild. Betty knew she and the baby wouldn’t be a substitute for Aaron, but the woman deserved some happiness.
A few minutes later Nannie walked into the room, pulled out the vanity stool, and sat with a thud instead of her usual grace. Betty steeled herself for a verbal thrashing.
Nannie’s face was long and drawn, making her look worn, beleaguered, even a little sloppy, as if she’d just dressed and hadn’t yet smoothed her dress or tamed and pinned her hair.
“I’m sorry,” Betty said.
Nannie shook her head and clicked her tongue. “Zaide and I are so disappointed, Betty. Our dreams for you were so big, but that hasn’t changed. You’ll go to Barnard, as planned. This is just a delay.”
They’d found a way for her to have everything!
“Zaide has gone to tell the staff you’re suffering from exhaustion, and that no one is to bother you. That buys us some time.”
“Time for what?”
“Mother to the rescue.” Tillie, now in a crisp white linen skirt suit, stood in the doorway. Her mother looked sterile and cold, sounded sharp and flippant. She didn’t look forlorn at all; the maternal woman carrying scrambled eggs had vanished.
And since when did she refer to herself as Mother? Tillie’s short toffee-colored curls tamed every hair in place. Her red lipstick had been reapplied with precision. Attention to fashion detail was the only thing Betty liked that she had inherited from her mother. Tillie sat at the edge of the bed, barely indenting the bedspread. “I’m ready, Betty. We’re ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“Joe and I—your father and I—we got it wrong with you, but we’re ready to be parents now.”
“You’re having a baby?”
“No, darling.”
An army of invisible ants stretched across her back, a warning. “Then what?” Betty lurched back and away. The touches, the gentleness, the motherly words. They crystallized. “You want my baby?”
“Yes. We want him, or her, to be our baby. Mine and Joe’s, I mean, mine and your father’s. We would move back here for good.” Tillie looked at Nannie. “Just like your grandparents have always wanted. And the best part is you would be the baby’s sister. No one would ever have to know.”
Vomit rose in her throat. This was not the time for evening morning sickness, but throwing up on Tillie seemed what she deserved. Betty turned away, the ache in her chest threatening to split it open.
Tillie scooted closer, like an advancing army on the attack. Betty stood and retreated until she was against the open window. She breathed deep to settle her stomach and held the sill so tight she could have sworn splinters were working their way into her palms.
Tillie stretched out her arms, as if measuring the space between them. “You’d get to go to college next year, Betty. Right to Barnard as planned. Your grandparents would have me and Joe here helping with the business, and I’d get to be a mother. Everybody wins.”
Betty released the sill, forcing her hands to her sides. “You wouldn’t know how to mother a rag doll. You couldn’t raise a pet, let alone a baby. Isn’t that right, Nannie?”
Nannie stared at the floor and didn’t lift her head or her eyes to look at Betty. This was the grandmother who had sewn her clothes and bandaged her knees and sung her to sleep. The grandmother who had convinced Betty she could be best dressed and most likely to succeed. The grandmother who had helped Betty apply to Barnard, who said she could be anything from a beauty queen to a fashion editor. Betty crossed her wrists low in front of her belly. At that moment, she knew with unwavering certainty where her baby was growing, and the bile in her throat turned to fire.
Tillie glanced at Nannie, then back at Betty. “Would you rather the baby be raised by a stranger?”
Betty tipped back her head, forced herself to guffaw, then looked at Tillie. “You are a stranger. You’re also a lunatic. Stark raving mad! Nannie would never agree to this.”
“Oh, darling,” Tillie whispered.
“Stop arguing,” Nannie yelled. “Betty, it’s the only way.”
The words hit her like someone had pelleted her stomach with rock-hard snowballs. It couldn’t be. There was no way her grandmother thought Betty would give away her baby to Tillie or to anyone. How had Tillie convinced her?
“Nannie, what did she do to get you to think this was a good idea?”
Nannie looked away and then back at Betty. “She didn’t do anything. It was my idea.”
“No!” Betty screamed. She folded over, crushed by pain. How much more could she take? “Get out,” she shouted. She lifted the night-table lamp, yanking the electrical plug from its outlet.
Tillie leaped toward her and grabbed her arm, twisting the lamp from Betty’s grip. “Sit.”
Betty sank to the edge of the bed, less out of compliance than of fatigue. She heaved and sobbed her words. “I need to tell Abe.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Nannie said. “If he were a Jewish boy, it might be different.”
“Why do you care what people think? I’m your granddaughter. This baby will be your great-grandchild.”
“And I’m doing this so he or she doesn’t grow up a bastard. I’m doing it because I love you. This is the way it works; we marry our own. No matter what.”
“Abe’s parents didn’t think so.”
“And look at the mess that’s made of things.”
“This baby isn’t a mess. It doesn’t have to be. I know Abe will do the right thing when he knows.” Betty needed to find a way to talk to Abe.
“There is no right thing,” Nannie said.
“Says who?”
“I say.” Zaide stood at the door without entering the room.
“Ira, I have it under control.”
“I could hear her downstairs. Voices carry. I will not have anyone thinking my granddaughter is having a nervous breakdown.”
She couldn’t have a breakdown, she couldn’t have a baby, she couldn’t have Abe.
“You do have choices,” Zaide said. “We just hope you make the right one, Betty.”
She wasn’t his bubbeleh anymore. But he said she had choices.
“Now keep your voices down.” Zaide left the doorway.
Tillie sat next to her. “Here are your options. And you’d be wise to count your lucky stars, because most girls don’t get choices. There’s a home for Jewish unwed mothers on Staten Island in New York. It’s the best place for girls in your situation. You can go there and have the baby and either this child can stay in the family, or a stranger can adopt it. Or . . .” Tillie locked the latch on the bed
room door and then stood against it. Betty didn’t know if her mother was keeping Betty in or keeping others out.
“Or what?” Betty asked.
“Or we can get rid of it. There are real doctors who will do it.”
“That’s illegal!”
Nannie turned away and said nothing. For the first time in her life, Betty thought Nannie a coward, or worse.
“That’s your answer if I don’t want you to have it? Some mother you’d be.”
“Your grandparents aren’t going to allow you to have a baby and live here. And they aren’t going to support you in a life somewhere else. What kind of life would you have unless you’re married to a Jewish man? We’ll make it like this never happened.”
Betty hadn’t felt the tears until that moment. They streamed down her face in anguish that transformed into resolve.
Betty pushed Tillie aside—in every way. She unlocked her bedroom door, sprang from the room, and ran downstairs.
Zaide was sitting in the kitchen, not looking up at Betty. “You have until the end of the week. Tillie will take the train with you to New York on Saturday. Until then, you will stay at home and recover from your bout with exhaustion and pretend everything is the same. Everyone will think you’re going off to Barnard.”
“I’m calling Georgia.” Betty wasn’t asking permission. The boldness surprised her more so than her grandfather.
“No need to tell your friends about your predicament. The fewer people who know, the better.”
But the girls already knew, thank goodness. They were the only ones who would help her.
That evening, with her bedroom door open, Betty lay in bed, recovering from actual exhaustion and shock. Georgia rustled through childhood keepsakes at the back of the cedar closet in the corner of the room.
“Found it,” she said.
Betty’s child-size tackle box would transform into the perfect makeshift treasure chest. It had once served as a symbol of tomboyish fun and her bond with Zaide. On the banks of the Black River he’d taught her to bait a hook, to jiggle a lure, and to cast a fishing line. He’d taught her silence and patience and how to reel in a big one.
As Betty unlatched and opened the metal lid, she was accosted not by nostalgia but by indifference. The box still held a few hooks and lures, but they might as well have been bottle caps or broken pencils.
“I can’t believe they want you to give away your baby, but I guess that’s what girls do.” Georgia rolled the Miss South Haven sash into as tight a coil as possible and placed it inside, wedging it into the main compartment, then shutting the lid.
“Not this girl,” Betty said.
“They’re putting you on a train.”
“Not if Abe comes here first.”
“And how are you going to make that happen?”
“I’m not,” Betty said. “You are. Just go to Western Union and send a telegram that says I’m unwell. Then Abe will come.”
“I can’t, Betty. You know that. Your grandparents know everyone. And whoever they don’t know, knows them. The telegraph operators read the telegrams in order to type them. Someone will tell just to get on your Nannie’s good side.”
“But if you send it, at least he’ll know something is wrong.”
“You shouldn’t have to do this.”
“Of course I shouldn’t have to. They should let me go to him.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“You shouldn’t have to chase Abe down to be with him. Or beg.”
“Wouldn’t you do anything to be with Mr.—I mean—Sam?”
“Anything? No.”
“Then it’s not love.”
“I’m not going to fight with you, Betty, but I want what’s best for you and it’s not him. And it has nothing to do with not being Jewish or even that he got you into trouble. It’s because he didn’t come back. If Abe shows up because he thinks you’re sick, is that really what you want? And then you’ll tell him about the baby? Do you want him if he’s only ‘doing the right thing’?”
“Yes, I do!” Betty huffed. The person she had been—unfettered, joyous, hopeful, most likely to succeed, Miss South Haven—flashed before her eyes. She lay on her stomach, buried her face in her pillow that smelled like Cheer, and screamed all of her dreams away, except the one about her baby.
Finally she sat up, her throat raw, her voice quiet. Georgia was watching her, waiting. “I know you don’t want to,” Betty said, “but will you do it anyway?”
“Do what?” Nannie asked from the doorway.
Georgia clamped her lips. Betty stammered. “I asked Georgia to send my regards to Marv. Apparently, people are concerned about my well-being.”
“And I’m not nuts about him, but I’ll do it, because Betty is my best friend.”
The next morning Betty waited for Georgia. She didn’t show up. Betty sat by the window in her bedroom, avoiding her parents until she couldn’t wait any longer. She trudged downstairs and telephoned the resort, hoping her grandfather didn’t answer the phone. As Betty relayed her nonchalant message to Anita at the front desk, Georgia knocked on the front door and Joe let her in.
The girls walked upstairs in silence. This time Betty shut her door.
“I think your grandmother followed me,” Georgia said. “She was at the Western Union office when I arrived and interrogated me about the telegram I was there to send, so I left. You’re going to have to find another way.”
Betty took meals in her room when she could stomach them. Her parents and grandparents wanted to send her away and then steal her baby. She couldn’t bear to be in their presence; it was hard enough to be in the same house.
As her anger snowballed, it gathered fear and sadness. She was an adult and they thought they could make decisions for her; they thought she’d hand over her and Abe’s baby and go to college a carefree coed. Betty knew that was an impossibility for her heart, but could they force her? Not if she had Abe by her side.
Not if they were married.
That night Betty forced herself to stay awake well past midnight. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the only way, and once Abe knew he’d be glad she’d awakened him. She crept down the stairs in her bare feet in the dark, padded to Zaide’s office, and shut the door behind her without making more than a faint click. She would have to whisper, but the switchboard wouldn’t be crowded with voices. Nor would she likely know the overnight operator.
Betty carried the phone behind the desk, where she sat on the floor, guarded by bookcases. She lifted the receiver to her ear and placed her index finger into zero.
The office light turned on, blinding her.
“Go to bed, Betty.” It was Tillie, unglamorous with her hair in a kerchief and no makeup. “Just hang up and I won’t tell your grandparents.”
Betty stood in defeat, but just for the moment. “You couldn’t be a good mother so you don’t want me to be one? Is that why you’re stopping me? You say you love my father. Well, I love Abe. I don’t care if it’s not perfect, or expected, or right.”
“You should care. It won’t be good for the baby to be raised under those conditions.”
Betty seethed. This woman who had ostensibly dumped her was suddenly concerned with propriety and conditions? How did Tillie know what was right for Betty or a baby?
“I know you won’t find this hard to believe, but when we had you, Joe and I weren’t ready to be parents. That’s why you grew up here. It was best for you. Don’t you think it was hard for us? That it’s still hard?”
“No, I don’t.” Even if it were true, it was too late for Betty to ever believe it.
“That just shows you how little you know about being a mother,” Tillie said.
Was Tillie claiming to love Betty? That made her feel as nauseated as morning sickness. “You don’t really believe you’re fit to be anyone’s mother, do you?”
Tillie snatched the phone from Betty. “You should have gotten knocked up by a Jewish boy. At least then we’d be planning a wedd
ing.”
The next morning Betty faced facts. Nannie stopped Georgia from sending a telegram. Tillie thwarted her telephone call. A letter to Abe would arrive after she’d left for Staten Island, but at least he would know about the baby. Abe could come and rescue them both. Staten Island was all the way out east. He’d have to drive or take the train, leave his mother, miss classes.
But what if weeks or months passed and he didn’t come? What if it wasn’t just the distance that stood between them but the fact that he didn’t love her anymore? Had he ever?
Didn’t he wonder where her letters were? The last letter she’d written was a few days before the pageant. Wasn’t he worried? Even curious?
Sadness washed over Betty. She wanted to climb into bed and never get out again. But this wasn’t only about her anymore. There was a baby inside her who needed a father—and to make that happen, she’d need a husband.
Betty walked to her desk and pulled out a sheet of paper.
She clomped down the stairs and through the living room, folded paper in her hand. As she glared at her mother, swear words tickled Betty’s lips. But that would accomplish nothing. Maybe Tillie and Joe were the ones suffering from exhaustion, since they’d been charged as her guards, or maybe it was Betty’s self-assuredness, but neither of them rose from their seats, asked where she was going, or tried to stop her. She pushed through the front door and allowed it to slam behind her.
A minute later she sat on a beach bench and slowed her breathing.
Betty smoothed her green polka-dot dress, glad she’d chosen something feminine and cheerful, yet modest. Glad it still fit. She combed her fingers through her hair and rested her hand on her stomach.
I’m doing this for you.
Betty tapped on the door of Stern’s Summer Resort cabin 7A. It was one of the most premium cabins on the property, its wood siding painted to match the sand, with two small bedrooms, and a sitting room that faced the lake. She noticed the movement of the panel curtains and remembered when her worst days were washing and pinning the lace.
A moment later the door opened.
“Hey, Betty Boop. I was hoping I’d get to see you before we left.”
The Last Bathing Beauty Page 25