The Last Bathing Beauty

by Nathan, Amy Sue

  But she had to turn around. For Betty’s sake. For her own. For what was, and wasn’t, and what might have been.

  Boop shuddered, then turned.

  And after all this time, he still looked like William Holden.

  Even from a distance Abe’s blue eyes pierced her. They weren’t ordinary blue—nothing about Abe had ever been ordinary—but a special blue that matched the lake in the early morning. She shivered and her heart pounded from fear and excitement. She recognized the patter of her youth. That was Betty’s heart pounding, though decades earlier she’d painstakingly detached it from her consciousness. Now it thumped loud and strong. Betty’s heart had been part of her all along. And now it beat freely. Abe had been Betty’s heart, and his proximity enlivened her beyond the words stuck in her throat, beyond the sadness that lingered in her thoughts.

  Abe pushed aviator glasses up on the bridge of his nose. The style was both outdated and on-trend. Either way, they magnified his eyes, and Boop’s insides prickled. His circle of hair was as white as if it had been bleached. He moved toward her. He smiled and dimples emerged, deeply cushioned in his skin.

  “I’d recognize you anywhere, Betty.”

  She warmed with a flush. His voice was the same. No, it was better—deep and familiar but with the tenor of a life well lived. “No one has called me Betty in a long time.”

  “What should I call you?”

  With Abe she would always be Betty. “Betty is fine.”

  “May I sit?”

  Boop nodded.

  Abe sat, leaving a chair between them. “Where shall we begin?” he asked.

  Boop had always considered a conversation with the Abe she had known—not an old-man Abe. She had pictured him as she’d last seen him, driving away. He was not that boy anymore. But he knew what that boy had done.

  “Perhaps you can tell me why you didn’t call or write or come back to Stern’s that summer. Even to say goodbye.”

  “You never answered my letters.”

  Letters? What letters? There were never any letters. Boop began to shake.

  “You never wrote me any letters. All I got from you were a few postcards.”

  Abe shook his head as he spoke. “Betty, I wrote to you almost every day for a month, asking for your forgiveness, explaining everything. My mother lost her marbles after Aaron died; I couldn’t leave her. I didn’t go back to school, but I wanted you to go to Barnard.” Abe looked down at his hands as if examining a lifetime of wondering.

  He hadn’t abandoned her.

  “No one gave me any letters. What did they say?” Fury simmered beneath her words—what had her grandparents done?

  “They said that I loved you. That I wanted you to write to me from Barnard and tell me everything. I asked you to wait for me.”

  Boop felt woozy, as if realizing her loss for the first time. “I couldn’t go to Barnard.”

  “Because you decided to marry Marv Peck, which your grandfather was only too happy to tell me.”

  “I didn’t know you were here that day.”

  “I knew they wouldn’t tell you. I thought Georgia might, but she didn’t know about the letters. When I drove away, I knew I’d lost you. I didn’t understand why you got married so quickly. Though I remember Marv had a thing for you.”

  Boop rested her left hand on Abe’s right. “I married Marvin because—” She couldn’t say it.

  “Why, Betty? To hurt me because you thought I left you?”

  “No,” she said. “Because I was pregnant.”

  Abe swayed and grabbed the seat of his chair as if he was about to fall. “Excuse me?”

  “I married Marvin because I needed a husband. I was going to have a baby. Our baby.”

  Abe glanced at Boop’s midsection as if trying to imagine it, as if he wished to lay a hand there, innocently and tenderly, and feel a kick. “A baby? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Fire and forgotten fears burned inside her. “I tried. They wouldn’t let me. They convinced me you didn’t care. And they were going to send me away. And take the baby.” Boop recoiled at the memory of her own mother wanting to raise the baby. What if she had agreed?

  “I would have asked you to marry me.”

  Boop gasped. Her instincts had been right. “I so wanted to believe that.” She looked away, ashamed that in that moment she was wishing away the life she’d known for the one she hadn’t.

  Abe touched Boop’s face and turned it toward him. “What happened to the baby?” He gulped, cleared his throat, and looked into her eyes. “I haven’t met Hannah, but I talked to her briefly. Is she my granddaughter?”

  Boop saw tears mixed with hope. A longing sparkle had replaced the mischievous glint of long ago. “No.” She patted Abe’s hands as a way to soften a blow he didn’t know was coming. And to soften it for herself, even though she did. “I lost our baby.”

  Boop had never said it aloud. Back then it was an incident, not a hardship. She knew her grandparents, and even Marvin, had been relieved. Her grief had been swept away like sand from the porch.

  “Oh, Betty.” Abe looked away and sniffed. “I’m sorry.”

  She allowed him a few moments to grieve a child he never even knew had been a possibility. Boop understood the instantaneous and unexpected hole that a child created in your heart. She felt it now. After all this time.

  “But you were okay?” he asked.

  “Not at first,” she said. “But a year later I had my son, Stuart. I can’t imagine my life without him.”

  “I understand,” Abe said. “But still. That would have been something, huh? If things had been different.”

  “Indeed.”

  Abe cleared his throat. “Maybe this is none of my business, after so many years, but was he good to you? Were you happy?”

  Boop gulped away unexpected reticence. “Yes. I was happy.” Boop smiled at Abe, looking right into his eyes. “I’m blessed. One son, two granddaughters, two great-grandsons, and another great-grandchild on the way.” She hesitated. “But I missed you for a long time. I wondered what we might have been.” Then Boop lowered her voice to a whisper as if she wasn’t sure anyone should hear her. “I also wondered who I might have been if I hadn’t gotten pregnant. But I did.” She composed her barrage of thoughts and plucked out two. “Did you marry? Have children?”

  “I married a few years later. Nora and I were happy together for almost fifty years before she died of lung cancer. We had a good life and a lot of fun together. And I loved her. We had three daughters, seven grandchildren, and I have eight greats so far. Becca is our youngest granddaughter—she’s the one who spoke to Hannah.”

  Boop smiled at the thought of Abe’s large family. “Nora must have been a lovely woman for you to love her for so long.”

  “She was. You might remember her. She worked for your grandparents a few summers. Her maiden name was Rosen. Back then she went by Eleanor.”

  Boop smiled wide, knowing that Eleanor had gotten whom she’d wanted all along. Marvin would’ve gotten a strange kick out of that story. Boop placed her hands on her knees and braced to stand.

  “Would you like to meet Hannah and my dear friends Natalie and Piper? They’re probably in the parking lot, waiting to see if we ever come out.”

  Abe chuckled. “Becca is out there too.”

  “I hope you’ll come back to the house. We’re just ordering Chinese but you and Becca are more than welcome.”

  “I’d like that,” Abe said. “If you’re sure.”

  Boop had never been surer of anything.

  After dinner, Boop and Abe sat on the porch alone. They stared into the indigo sky, which, as always, promised a resplendent wash of color to come.

  It was time for Boop to embrace her inner Betty again, to pursue happiness without regret or guilt, as if she expected only good things to happen.

  “I don’t want to leave,” Abe said. “I got a hotel room.”

  Boop blushed.

  “No, no.” Abe laughed a d
eep, sweet laugh. “Just so I can see you in the morning. And maybe the morning after that? Or is it too much?”

  Boop gulped away her wishes as they became a reality. “It’s just right.”

  Hannah knocked on the door and then opened it, poking her head outside. “Cake and ice cream are ready. We also have blueberry pie, shnecken, and there might be a Manhattan or two in here. It’s time to party like it’s 1951.”

  Boop laughed. “We have a lot to celebrate.”

  Reconnecting with Abe after almost seventy years had been the final puzzle piece to Boop’s life. This did not disparage the years in between; it simply made the picture whole.

  If that wasn’t bashert, what was? Would Nannie agree it was meant to be? Why did Boop wonder when the answer no longer mattered?

  What mattered was that Doris had been right all along: you’re never too old to find love and throw a good party.

  EPILOGUE

  HANNAH

  A few months later

  Dusk fluttered over South Haven like a sheer curtain dangling from the sky. A white frame tent, with the sides rolled down to mimic walls with windows, draped the back patio of the Stern family home. A dozen or so guests mingled under the tent beneath the sky, all swathed in fading sunlight and illuminated by flickering candles.

  Hannah turned the front doorknob. Unlocked as usual. She tapped open the front door with her hip, and once inside, she pushed it closed with her foot. She set the box of burgundy dahlia corsages and thistle boutonnieres onto the arm of the sofa before lifting them again, eager to deliver each to its recipient. These flowers best matched fall sunsets.

  Natalie walked in from the kitchen, her ankle-length dress with a handkerchief hem made her look like a princess, the way its soft skirt sashayed when she walked.

  “How are things going here?” Hannah asked.

  “A little hectic, but now that the heaters are set up it’ll all be fine. Everything is under control. You just get upstairs.”

  “And Boop?”

  “Your grandmother is amazing. You know that.”

  Natalie spun and her skirt spun with her, which was the best part.

  Hannah waddled through the living room and up the steps to the landing, where she stood and caught her breath. She held out her left hand, as she was prone to do, and the diamond sparkled. Marriage wouldn’t make Hannah complacent; it would make her even more determined to get it right. She had trouble believing there was ever a time she doubted Clark—or herself.

  She’d relearn that lesson every day of her life if she had to.

  Hannah couldn’t believe they’d planned a wedding in three months, but Peck persistence had paid off.

  “Ready or not, here I come.” Hannah stepped inside her grandmother’s bedroom. Doris and Georgia were seated at the window.

  Boop swiveled side to side and smiled as if she held the secret to life. Hannah supposed she did.

  “Boop, you’re the most beautiful bride I’ve ever seen,” Hannah said.

  “We agree,” Doris said.

  Georgia nodded.

  Her grandmother’s skirt was the color of a ripe peach and fell to the middle of her calves in a cascade of silk chiffon. The matching shell reflected color onto Boop’s cheeks, not that she needed it. There was a natural glow to brides, even at eighty-five. Of course, that didn’t prevent Boop’s use of a shimmery lipstick. She was still Boop, after all. A rose-gold watch she had worn as a girl shifted and settled onto her wrist.

  Something old.

  Hannah held out the iridescent bugle-beaded jacket made to match Boop’s skirt and blouse. Boop had purchased her ensemble at Kleinfeld during their girls’ trip to New York. She’d slipped her arms into the sleeves. “It’s like buttah,” they’d said at the store, where they were crowded among shoppers with their entourages and tourists with their smartphones. But they were right. Like butter.

  Something new.

  Hannah removed her dress from the closet, slipped off her simple rose-colored maternity dress over her head, then reached into her bag and withdrew a strand of pearls.

  “They’re beautiful,” Doris said.

  Hannah dangled them in front of Boop. “Dad gave these to me when I turned eighteen. Will you wear them?” How many girls got to help their grandmothers on their wedding day and offer to loan them pearls? Like the necklace, Boop was a treasure.

  Boop nodded. “I’d be honored.”

  Hannah walked behind her grandmother and placed the strand over her head.

  Something borrowed.

  Someone knocked on the door. “We’re ready,” Stuart said.

  How had Hannah even doubted for a moment that he was Pop’s son? He looked just like him. Everyone said so.

  “Be down in a minute.” Hannah rifled through her purse, then motioned to the bubbes. “She still needs something—”

  “No, I don’t.” Boop strolled to the window and opened her arms. Hannah walked to her and melted into her embrace. Georgia and Doris turned, and they all looked out the window.

  And there it was.

  The lake.

  Something blue.

  Hannah’s family’s South Haven roots entangled with the dunes’ spiky brambles, glistened in pieces of smooth beach glass, and surged from between the layers of the violet-, strawberry-, and saffron-colored sky. The stories—most accurate, some embellished, others lovingly invented—dwelt safely within her. She would share the stories with her children, who would share the stories with their children.

  Hannah tugged away. Georgia and Doris stepped to the side, allowing Boop a moment alone with her lake. Then Hannah whispered, “It’s time to marry Abe.”

  The sunset radiated around Boop, forming an aura of beauty and hope. She smirked like a girl anticipating a magic trick, but her eyes sparkled with generations of wisdom. Boop smoothed her dress from her waist to her hips, something Hannah had seen her do many times, something, perhaps, that reminded Boop of the curves beneath, how they had changed—but maybe how they felt somewhat the same.

  Georgia and Doris headed downstairs. Hannah stood in the doorway holding Boop’s bouquet, the combination of flowers her grandmother had selected to evoke her favorite time of day. The small bundle was wrapped with silk ribbon the color of sherbet, replete with purple, red, and orange blooms, filled in with berries and vines.

  Boop possessed a spirit more beautiful than all the sunsets and bouquets mixed together. Her heart as brave as any warrior’s. What lessons she’d taught Hannah—taught everyone—about family, about love, about being true to oneself while honoring those around you. There was more than a house in the legacy she’d leave behind. Hannah gulped away rising emotion and tipped the flowers toward her grandmother.

  Boop accepted the bouquet and closed her eyes as she lowered her nose to the blooms. Hannah imagined her grandmother savoring not only the fragrance in that moment, but the promise of all the splendid moments to come.

  Boop lifted her head and opened her eyes.

  “How do you feel?” Hannah asked.

  “I feel like a very lucky girl.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The Last Bathing Beauty is a work of fiction, but it wouldn’t have come to fruition without some very real people, especially Charlene Klein. I met Charlene in South Haven in 2016, when I’d already written nuggets of a novel about the beauty queen granddaughter of a Jewish resort owner in 1950s South Haven, and her present-day counterpart. This is where it gets weird and wonderful. Charlene grew up in South Haven during that era and was the granddaughter of Eva and David Mendelson, owners of Mendelson’s Atlantic Hotel, a Jewish lakefront resort.

  Charlene’s generous spirit, friendship, and stories about her teenage years, as well as her present-day life, helped me craft The Last Bathing Beauty with deep insight and a profound sense of place. Every time I visited South Haven or talked to Charlene, I learned things I felt I already knew. I was, and remain, connected to this Midwestern lakeside community and its hist
ory. This is a bit odd considering 1) I am a native Philadelphian, and 2) I discovered South Haven “by accident” after falling into an online research hole.

  I no longer believe in accidents.

  I do believe in serendipity.

  My literary agent, Danielle Egan-Miller, agrees with this sentiment. She championed this story through all its iterations, and trust me, there have been many. Ellie Roth’s attention to detail provided thoughtful questions and necessary corrections. Jodi Warshaw, my Lake Union editor, saw in The Last Bathing Beauty pages what we saw—a story about friendship, love, and second chances in a unique setting—and I’m grateful for a trusting and intuitive advocate. Tiffany Yates Martin, my developmental editor, supported and guided me (even on weekends) as I polished this novel to a shine. Danielle Marshall, Lake Union’s editorial director, expressed confidence in me and in this story when I needed it most.

  Novel writing is both solitary and collaborative. Dawn Ius and Pamela Toler were the best critique partners a writer could ask for, reading many pages at a time, or sometimes one or two, and always telling me what I needed to hear. But it doesn’t stop there. Friends and colleagues always stepped up with support, brainstorming, answers, opinions, or company if I asked. Thanks to Kelly Levinson, Sheila Athens, Larry Blumenthal, Elaine Bookbinder and Jim Smith, Alice Davis, Kimberly Brock, Fern and Manny Katz, Lynda Cohen Loigman, Jamie Ford, Ann Garvin, Kelly Harms, Melanie Hooyenga, Susan Meissner, Katie Moretti, Jennie Nash, Kate Pickford, Renée Rosen, Renee San Giacomo, and Judith and Lou Soslowsky. A group hug for Carole Farley, Heidi Gold, Sheryl Love, and Rachel Resnick, for showing me (again and again) the restorative power of old friends. And I mean old in the very best way.

  Online reader and writer groups are at least partially responsible for preserving my (relative) sanity through the writing and publishing process. Cheers to Bloom, Bloom Bloggers, Readers Coffeehouse, A Novel Bee, Women’s Fiction Writers blog readers, Book Pregnant, WFWA, Lake Union Book Club, and all the talented #bookstagrammers. Last but never least, I wouldn’t want to do any of this without my trailblazing and loyal Tall Poppy Writers.