“Mr. Rosen,” I said, approaching him, happy to see a familiar face in the unfamiliar store.
He had a coffee, a fried-egg sandwich and a notebook opened to a blank page. “Good morning.”
“Is this a good place to do research?”
“Ha, no, just has good cheap coffee and breakfast, and I’m about to head back to the city. Here take a seat, please.” He moved his satchel from the stool next to him.
“How’s the article coming along?”
“Actually, I’m coming up dry. I thought I’d get some inspiration being out here, but I’m not so sure I’ve made much progress. The locals are nice enough, but summer guests have been…” He looked at me as if to gauge if he should proceed. “Well, it’s been quite difficult to break in. As you saw, I didn’t really get anyone to open up to me.”
“People can be a bit stiff.” I cringed, thinking of Jeanie and Cecil and how word had traveled back to Harry.
“I’m not sure I’m the right person to write this, to be honest. I feel I’d be missing the real story. I need someone who’s out here for the summer and knows what’s going on behind closed doors.”
“The problem is, Mr. Rosen, all the gentlemen go back to the city during the week and I don’t know if any of them would be willing to give up their weekend hours to pen an article for you. Most of them are banker types or business owners. You could try the East Hampton paper; maybe one of their reporters could help—”
He nodded, but he was staring out the window, shaking his head. “No, no, that’s not what I need.” The intensity was back in his voice. “What I need is someone immersed in the life out here, someone who’s involved in the weekend co-ed activities and galas as much as they are in the day-to-day goings-on. That’s what people back in the city want to read about, not an outsider’s superficial observations of a Saturday afternoon.” He seemed excited all of a sudden. “It should have a little scandal, a touch of gossip, and if I’m truthful with myself it should be about the fashions, too. Everyone out here is decked out to the nines. People would read that; I know they would. And I think it should be weekly, ongoing. Yes, that’s it.” He turned to me as if about to make a big announcement. “I need a woman.”
“A woman?” I said, a little more high-pitched than I intended. “Writing a weekly column for a newspaper?”
“Yes, Mrs. Bordeaux, a woman. A lot of females are making their way into the field now.”
“I can’t think of a single woman out here who’d take on that job.”
“Surely someone wants to be heard and get paid; it’s a paying job, you know.”
“Heard, maybe, but no one here cares about getting paid.” I laughed.
He shrugged and went back to his fried-egg sandwich. I ordered a coffee and looked out the front door of the store. The sun had come out: it was going to be another beautiful day. I put my hand to my head and realized I’d left my room in such a rush to get away from Harry’s foul temper that I’d forgotten to wear my sun hat. Mine was grubby these days from several recent nature walks. I’d ask Dolly to bring one back from the city next time.
“That’s it!” I said excitedly. “I know exactly who you could interview for your first column.” I clasped my hands. “Oh, it’s perfect. If you really want to write about what people are wearing out here, sprinkled with a bit of gossip here and there, you should talk to my friend Dolly. She’s a milliner, her father owns a factory in the city and she’s very well connected.”
He nodded again but not as enthusiastically as I’d expected.
“I’m telling you, she’d make a perfect introduction to the column.”
“I don’t doubt that.”
“So then why aren’t you writing down her name?” I pointed to his notebook, but he was grinning. “What’s so amusing?”
“Why don’t you give it a try, Beatrice? Would you be willing to pen a weekly article?”
I looked at him for a moment, shocked. Surely he was kidding.
“I’m serious, Beatrice. You seem to know the right kind of details that our readers would latch on to, but you’re not so wrapped up in things that you can’t see the forest for the trees.”
“Mr. Rosen, I am flattered that you would ask, but for one thing I can’t write—”
“Really? I thought you were college educated. What did you study?”
“English literature, but I didn’t even finish my studies and I can’t write the type of thing you are suggesting. I don’t even know how.”
He scoffed.
“And secondly, my husband wouldn’t allow it; he’d think it a very unladylike profession, I’m afraid.”
“And you,” he asked, “what do you think?”
“Well, what I think is irrelevant.”
“Is it…?” He paused and for a split second my mind jolted back to Harry, so cold and abrasive, not even giving me a chance to speak. I stared into my coffee. “Well, if you really believe that, Beatrice, then maybe you’re right; maybe you’re not the person for the job,” he said.
Mr. Rosen didn’t take his eyes off me, reading me, I imagine, the way he probably did all of his interviewees, taking notes in his mind of how a person tensed up, wrung their hands or hunched during difficult questions, observing facial expressions.
“You could always use a pen name,” he said quietly.
“A pen name? You mean write it anonymously?”
“Why not? You’d have far more freedom if it were anonymous.”
“I couldn’t possibly,” I said. “It would mean risking everything, absolutely everything that my husband and I are working toward. I couldn’t betray Harry’s trust, and that of the people out here, many of whom are dear friends, potential clients or colleagues.”
“Well, that’s good. You seem like a very loyal friend and wife.” He slurped his coffee. “But I have to say you didn’t seem so dear to them last night when they snubbed you because you were talking to me, a Jewish man.”
“Oh, Mr. Rosen, they didn’t mean anything by it—”
“Maybe they didn’t. You certainly know them better than me.”
“No, it’s really just about my husband; he … he needs me to focus on other things, and spend time with him.”
“Sure thing, Beatrice, I just recall you being all alone yesterday evening, that’s all. I didn’t see your husband once.”
He was one observant newspaperman, and his facts were spot on. What would I even write about? I thought. I was no gossip columnist, and certainly not a fashion writer. I was no writer at all and I felt so awkwardly far out on the outskirts of our social group that I was the last one to know anything about what was going on.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Rosen, I can’t.”
“It’s your choice. But please.” He reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a thick white card with raised black lettering. “Let me know if you change your mind.”
8
On Monday I waited by the service entrance with my laundry bag properly tied up. Several of the staff offered to take my bag to the back room for pickup, but I told them I’d rather hand the laundry over myself, as I had almost missed her the previous week.
I decided to skip out on the beach day that the ladies were planning. It was to be very informal and no one would notice that I wasn’t there. Besides, Dolly and I planned to meet up and head to the beach later that afternoon when it wasn’t so hot.
The service entrance looked on to the tennis courts and beyond that out to the Long Island Sound. At the bottom of Manor Hill across the train tracks and right on the edge of Fort Pond was the fishing village, and I knew Elizabeth would be making her way up that hill anytime. I pulled my laundry bag across the grass, receiving offers, again, from the staff to assist me, and I sat on the grass, under a tall oak tree that I knew would be on her path to the Manor. I leaned back and began to read.
I was half a chapter in when I caught sight of her hauling the metal cart toward the Manor.
“Nice to see you again, m
a’am,” Elizabeth said.
“So glad I caught you this time,” I said. “Must be quite exhausting pulling that cart all the way up the hill.”
“Some weeks I come up with the car, but my husband had to use it today for a special delivery to East Hampton. If I didn’t get started on the washing this morning, I’d never get through it all by Thursday.”
“What does he do, your husband?” I asked as I walked alongside her.
“He’s a fisherman and he works for the post office.”
“How interesting.”
“Yes, and it’s been quite busy and exciting these last few summers when all the guests arrive. The mail service is ten times busier than the rest of the year. We’re very grateful for all the work.”
I told her I’d give her my laundry bag once she’d gathered the rest of the bags from inside.
“Mind if I tag along?” I asked when she came back out.
She shrugged. “If you like.”
I walked with her down the hill, crossed over Edgemere Street and kept walking all the way along Industrial Road, across the train track and to the fishing village. The walk and the fresh air felt good.
“You really don’t have to come all this way with me,” Elizabeth kept saying. “I’m fine now that we’re on flat land.” But I liked to hear her talk. It was comforting to imagine people living in Montauk year round, even in the winter months when it was quiet and snowing families stayed there, lived there, their kids went to school—it reminded me of home. Elizabeth told me that she and her husband had moved to Montauk from New London, Connecticut, several years earlier with her brother and his family when the channel opened up between Lake Montauk and the Atlantic Ocean. They were some of the first families to settle in the “new” fishing village, along with others who came down from Nova Scotia for the deep-sea fishing and because of the high demand for seafood in the city.
“We don’t have much,” she said, “but with a fishing fleet right at our doorstep I know me and my boys will never go hungry.”
After we crossed the railroad tracks I thought maybe I should go back. I’d never had reason to go to the fishing village until that point and I had a strange feeling I was trespassing. But since I’d come so far, part of me wanted to see Elizabeth to her front door. I was curious about how and where she lived. The houses were more like wooden shacks, lined up in a row less than one hundred feet from the shoreline of Fort Pond Bay. A single gated fence ran along the front of all the houses, making a feeble distinction between the fishing bay and the residential area. I held the gate open for her as she wheeled the cart into a dirt-filled yard.
“Can’t get the grass to grow here, what with all the salt from the ocean, and the boys bringing their bikes in and out all the time,” she said.
“What a nice view,” I said, quickly turning to look at the bay.
“Waterfront property,” she said, laughing awkwardly, standing at her door. “Can I pour you a lemonade or something?”
“Really, there’s no need,” I said.
“You must be thirsty, though,” she said. “I know I am; here let me fetch one for you.” She walked into the house, hesitating for moment as to whether she should invite me in; then she decided it would be best not to. “I’ll bring it out,” she said, gesturing to a lawn chair. There was nothing dividing one person’s yard from the next, and the small lots of land surrounding each shack seemed to be filled with junk. On closer inspection, though, they were large metal lobster traps and fishing rods that the fishermen must use, stacked up against the house. Two men walked up from the dirt road and along the side between Elizabeth’s house and the neighbors’. They were chatting and laughing, but when they saw me they went silent and glared.
“Can I help you?” the shorter of the two men asked.
“I’m fine, thank you, just waiting for someone.” They waited as if for more explanation. “My friend Elizabeth lives here. She’s getting me a lemonade.”
He nodded slowly and they continued on. I felt out of place, intrusive and uncomfortable standing there alone, so I pretended I was searching for something important in my pocketbook. When I looked up they were almost out of sight, walking around the back of the house.
Elizabeth returned with two glasses of lemonade in one hand and a baby on her hip.
“I think I just saw your neighbors walking up here,” I said.
“Oh, that was Patrick, my husband, and his friend Thomas, from the lighthouse; they came in the back door,” she said. “They’ve been working on our car. We’re really lucky to have one, but it breaks down all the time. We can’t afford to keep taking it in to the mechanic, so these two end up spending most of their days off fixing it up.”
“Oh,” I said. “They were probably wondering why I was hanging around outside his house like an interloper.”
Elizabeth blushed. “We’re not used to having summer visitors down here in the village. I hope Patrick wasn’t rude to you.”
“Not at all!”
A young boy no older than nine peeked out the front door.
“This is my son Gavin. Say hello to the lady.”
“Hello,” he said.
“And this one here is Jake,” she said, nodding to the baby in her arms.
“Can I go now?” Gavin said. “Billy and Johnny are at the train tracks already; I was waiting for you to get home. He’s had his milk.”
“You know I don’t like you and your brothers playing on those tracks,” Elizabeth said.
“We won’t be on them; I promise.”
“Okay, go on then, but send your brother down to the docks to wait for Ted London’s boat to come in and bring back a mess of cod, and tell your brothers that you all need to be back here for dinner at six o’clock.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And make sure you keep an eye on little Johnny.”
Gavin ran off and Elizabeth shook her head. “I have my hands full with four boys, but they do take care of each other when we need them to.”
“Such lovely children,” I said when I caught the baby looking at me. “How old is he?”
“Four months, last week.”
“Do you mind if I hold him?”
“Please do,” she said, handing the baby over. “This one’s a real mama’s boy. Never lets me put him down.”
I hadn’t held a baby in a long while. I’d purposely avoided the opportunity. For a while when Harry and I first started trying to have a child it had been all I could think about, what he or she would look like; would he have Harry’s blue eyes, my mouth or my button nose, as my mother used to call it? Would she be fair like me or have the tanned complexion of my husband? Would she have red hair like I did as a baby, or would it be blond like Harry’s? I imagined what it would feel like, the weight of a baby sleeping on my chest, how its hair would smell, what its cry would sound like. I once woke up from a dream where I had been nursing a baby; it was so vivid that I stood up from my bed and took a few steps toward the nursery before I realized it had all been a figment of my imagination. But after having no luck month after month I’d begun to put the idea of a family out of my head almost completely. Almost.
“You don’t have any children?” Elizabeth asked.
“No,” I said. “Not yet. But we’re trying,” I added, because that’s what people liked to hear, and that usually ended the conversation.
“Trying?” Elizabeth said as if she’d never heard that expression before. Maybe it was just us city folk who said things like that. “How hard are you trying, because I can tell you I do not try, I resist, and somehow I ended up with four boys under the age of eleven!”
I blushed, then burst out laughing. “I guess we’re not trying very hard at all,” I said, giving the baby one last little squeeze, then handing him back to his mother. “I should get back. Thank you, for the lemonade.”
9
Dolly picked up the dress I had hanging on the back of the hotel room door and hung it back in my closet. She flipped tho
ugh my dresses and pulled out a long all-white, flowing dress with cap sleeves and a jeweled empire line.
“Dee-vine,” she said.
“I can’t wear that,” I said. “That’s a weekend dress for dinner with Harry; he hasn’t even seen me in it yet.”
She raised her eyebrows. “It’s a Tuesday dress now! Wear it,” Dolly said, plugging in my electric curling iron. “Come over here,” she said, and when I walked into the bathroom she sat me down on the edge of the bathtub and started curling my hair.
“My pins are in the bedroom,” I said, standing up to get them. She put her hand on my shoulder and gently nudged me to sit down again. “Let’s try something different,” she said. She took a few curls from the right side and swept them away from my face with a sparkly silver and pearl comb from her handbag, leaving the other side to drape slightly across my left eye.
I looked in the mirror. No one wore their hair down, especially when it was long like mine, it was always curled and pinned up, but Dolly’s instincts were right—I felt pretty and young like this. The red hint to my hair got lighter and blonder in the summer months and the slight golden tan on my face from being outside so much made my hazel eyes look more dramatic, a deeper brown, not so plain and boring. Lately I’d been feeling older, as if I weren’t just twenty-seven, as if I were middle-aged already, past my childbearing years, past my prime, but when I looked at myself in this beautiful dress that I’d never worn before, with my hair loose and a few freckles on my nose, I didn’t feel that way; I felt youthful and attractive.
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