Guests of August

by Gloria Goldreich

  She had never taken such liberties during the long summers of her high-school years when she worked at the inn. She had considered herself lucky to have a job, to collect her pay envelope each week with her name, Louise Wallace then, neatly printed in Joseph Abbot’s fine hand. Evan’s parents had always paid her in cash, had always factored in any overtime. They were fair and more than fair. She had never resented working for them and had even felt a frisson of pride to bike up the inn’s wide circular driveway and slip on her blue and white checked gingham uniform, the stiff fabric always smelling of Clorox.

  Mount Haven Inn had been a refuge, a world at a remove from the shabby farmhouse where her mother sat gloomily at a kitchen table littered with crumbs and unwashed dishes, turning the pages of grease-stained magazines, and her father slammed doors as he rushed in and out, now grabbing a beer, now cursing because a cow was sick, or because his combine needed repairing. He reeked of sweat and bitterness. Because he never bothered to wipe his boots, the faded linoleum was streaked with manure until Louise wiped it up but the smell permeated the house, mingling with the sour odors of her mother’s cooking.

  At Mount Haven, simple and functional though it was, everything was spotless.

  Fresh flowers filled the vases, the fragrance of freshly baked bread and simmering stews wafted from the kitchen to the reception area. Floors were washed before the first guest stirred in the morning. Louise would scurry through her work in those days, listening to the cadence of Prudence Abbot’s voice and imitating it softly as she ran the vacuum cleaner or pushed the broom. She had carried dishes into the dining room and lingered at each table, straightening a saltshaker, filling a water glass as she listened to the guests’ conversations. They spoke of books they had read, plays they had seen, a much-anticipated concert. The Goldners and the Epsteins, schoolteachers from New York, discussed integration, civil rights. Their sons, Daniel and Simon, lanky college students, slyly and affectionately imitated their parents, now and again winking at Louise, inviting her complicity. She always smiled back, shyly, tentatively.

  And in the evening, when Louise had finished helping with the dishes, there was Evan, the Abbots’ son and Louise’s high-school classmate, waiting for her. His own chores were done, croquet mallets and balls in place, the vast lawn mowed, the battered rowboats and unpainted canoes tethered to the dock. At day’s end his dark hair was damp and his sun-tanned face aglow. He stood beside his bike which leaned against her own. Side by side, they rode through the town in the soft evening air, pausing always in the wild meadow near the cemetery where the grass grew high before they reached her parents’ farm. There, Evan removed a thin blanket from his bicycle basket and they lay down beneath the huge oak that obscured them from view. His hands were gentle upon her skin, his lips soft and sweet against her mouth. Leaves danced overhead as their bodies moved toward each other.

  Later they talked, spoke mockingly of the guests whom they both actually admired, traded plans for their separate futures. The year of their high-school graduation, they realized that this would be their last summer together. Louise had saved her money and enrolled in an evening secretarial course in Portsmouth. During the day she would be salesgirl in the Five and Dime store, a job she had been promised by a friend of her aunt’s. She would perhaps work there for a year and then move to Boston. She had heard that a pretty girl with office skills could get a really good job in a classy office. And she was pretty, long-legged and slender, her light-brown hair falling in silken folds about her heart-shaped face. Evan was Dartmouth-bound, a tall handsome boy at the top of their high-school graduating class. His father wanted him to be a lawyer, his mother wanted him to be a doctor, but all he wanted to do was read and read and read.

  ‘I’d be happy just sitting in a library for the rest of my life,’ he told Louise, who nodded in understanding. He would change his mind, of course, but that would never be her problem.

  When autumn came they would say goodbye and embark on their separate futures.

  And then, suddenly, their futures were not separate at all. She missed one period and then another. Her breasts swelled and the doctor in Portsmouth, to whom she gave a false name, confirmed her worst fear. She was pregnant. They were going to be parents, Louise Wallace and Evan Abbot, two months out of high school. Her parents were enraged. The Abbots were pale with shock but quietly quiescent. They knew where their duty lay. Disappointment was not alien to them. Their son would, of course, do the right thing. He would stand by Louise and so would they.

  Evan and Louise were married at the inn, late in October, after the last of the guests who checked in to admire the foliage departed and before the hunters and the skiers began to arrive. Louise understood then that her life would always conform to the seasons of the inn. Her parents did not come to the wedding. They sold the farm to a developer and moved south, never giving her their new address. Evan enrolled at the University of New Hampshire, praised its library and commandeered a prize carrel in the stacks. In the end their baby was stillborn. Perhaps he could have then gone to Dartmouth and perhaps she could have retrieved her Portsmouth/Boston agenda, but neither of them made a move. They were married; all past plans were forfeit.

  Evan retreated into his books. He had realized his dream. He could and would read for the rest of his life. Year after year, he selected courses randomly, studying for his own pleasure. Louise learned then that he did everything for his own pleasure. He had neither academic or professional goals, and nor did he require any. The inn was his birthright. It would be his home forever. Just as his parents had managed it, doling out his allowance, so Louise would manage it, doling out whatever money he might need. Her ideas for the inn’s betterment did not interest him although he listened patiently as she suggested possible changes, new upholstery for the lounge, a ping pong table, pinball machines to amuse the children and bring in extra revenue. Quarters added up.

  Her ideas pleased his parents, with whom she had forged an affectionate closeness.

  They appreciated her interest in the inn. It compensated for their son’s indifference. Prudence taught her the intricacies of the business, the ordering of food, the laundering of linens, the mysteries of billing, of juggling reservations and dealing with staff. Joseph Abbot gave her a book entitled The Hospitality Profession.

  ‘We are more than innkeepers,’ he said. ‘We are hosts. And like all good hosts we value and welcome our guests, regardless of race, color or creed.’

  He was a serious church-going man who read deeply and translated his thoughts into action. Alone among the innkeepers in that part of New Hampshire, he and Prudence judged their guests only on their proper behavior and their ability to pay. Louise Abbot understood him to be saying that Negroes and Jews would never be denied reservations at Mount Haven Inn and she accepted his words as a mandate.

  ‘You see, it’s all worked out for the best,’ Prudence told Louise one day. ‘Evan would never have been able to manage the inn on his own. He’s simply not interested. And you catch on so quickly. And you care. I recognized that when I hired you.’

  Louise nodded, although she knew that when Prudence hired her to wait tables and clean bedrooms, she could not have anticipated that she would marry her son or that she would hold Louise’s hand as she suffered one miscarriage after another. She could not have foreseen that Louise would, one day, shorten the skirts of her own dark dresses, pin Prudence’s brooch to collars bleached to a snowy whiteness, tie her hair back and stand behind the reservations desk smiling her welcome at incoming guests.

  Prudence Abbot died of pancreatic cancer a week after Evan graduated from the University of New Hampshire. At the end of that summer Joseph Abbot suffered a heart attack as he sat at his desk neatly writing his employees’ names on the envelopes that contained their wages. Evan and Louise Abbot were the new owner/proprietors of Mount Haven Inn. With great foresight Evan’s parents had made certain that he and Louise inherited jointly.

  But it is, of course, Louise
who manages the inn, darting from the reception desk to her small office, dashing to the kitchen and racing upstairs to see to the bedrooms. Evan does exactly the same chores that he had done as a boy; he mows the lawn, keeps track of the sports equipment, smiles engagingly at the guests and then disappears with a book. Dartmouth had been denied him but he remains a perennial student. He earned his bachelors at the University of New Hampshire and then a masters in economics and another masters in philosophy. He thinks of studying linguistics, perhaps learning Arabic. He is a swimmer, afloat on a sea of learning with neither the need nor the intention to come ashore.

  Louise, small wrinkles carving their way about her eyes and at the corners of her mouth, her feet fitted for orthopedic shoes even before she reached middle age, has accommodated herself to the role thrust upon her during that summer of carelessness. She accepts reservations, assigns rooms, consults with the kitchen staff about the menu, the seating in the dining room. It is Louise who will greet the August guests due to arrive that day. It pleases her that they are, almost all of them, regulars who have been coming to Mount Haven Inn since the days when Prudence and Joseph stood in the doorway to welcome them. She is especially pleased that after an absence of some years, Daniel Goldner is returning. Without his wife, which also pleases her. Laura Goldner had never wiped the mud off her feet when she entered the inn, had never thanked a waitress or a chambermaid, had stayed in her room when the other guests socialized on the lawn. She may be a good dancer – Nessa Epstein had shown Louise a glowing article about her in a magazine – but she had not been a good guest and Louise doubts that she is a good wife to Daniel. Not that it is any of her business, although she admits that she has always had a soft spot for Daniel. He had taken time out each summer to walk with her, to listen to her modest ambition, to speak of his own determination to become a writer. He had understood that something had gone terribly wrong during those last August weeks of her too swiftly abbreviated girlhood and when he heard of her marriage to Evan, he wrote a sweet note which she placed in the album that contains too few such notes. Really, he deserved a better wife than a woman who seldom smiled and spent a great deal of time looking in the mirror. Louise shakes her head in self-admonishment. She has no business speculating about someone else’s marriage.

  She glances again at her watch and wonders which of the August contingent will be the first to arrive. She ticks off their names, checks them again against her register. The Templetons to whom she has assigned the adjoining suites; the Edwardses who requested a larger room this year for their children; Helene and Greg always content with the cheapest room without a private bathroom; the Epsteins who need an extra parking space for their cars; the Currans who are always so late to pay, and, of course, Daniel Goldner. Poor Daniel.

  She sighs and goes to the door, opening it just as the Edwards’ car pulls up. Hastily, she removes the white apron and sets her lips in a thin smile.

  ‘We’re here!’ Susan Edwards calls to her as she opens the door of the car.

  Louise Abbot nods. She repeats the words Prudence Abbot had murmured to each new arrival, words she has made her own.

  ‘Welcome to Mount Haven Inn,’ she says and walks slowly down the steps, her hand extended.

  TWO

  Polly Syms watches the arrival of the Edwards family from the kitchen window. She braces herself, anticipating the hiss of Louise Abbot’s voice, alert to the rapid clack of her employer’s steel-capped shoes against the hard wood of the reception area. She has often thought that Louise should be advised to wear sneakers so that she might better take her staff by surprise, but it won’t be Polly Syms who tells her that. She needs this job which she has, by some miracle, held for three years and she is going to need it every summer until she finishes college. Two more years. Six more months. Twenty-four more weeks. The count soothes her and she summons a smile when Louise taps her way into the kitchen and shrilly calls her name.

  ‘Polly. Guests are here. Get out there and help them with the luggage,’ Louise commands.

  Polly nods, knowing that there is no point in telling Louise that she is employed as a waitress and sometime chambermaid and not as a porter. It is Louise Abbot’s creed that all her employees are created equal and endowed with the inalienable right to do whatever job needs doing at any particular moment. She has explained to her staff, at less stressful moments, that she does not ask them to do anything she did not do herself when she waited tables and cleaned bedrooms and bathrooms at Mount Haven, reminding them that she still does her share whenever necessary. Another thing that Polly will not tell Louise Abbot is that the village girls quit without notice or arrive too late and leave too early because she is so irascible and so demanding, her sermonizing so irritating. ‘And so damn boring!’ one brief hire had protested before she quit to work the check-out counter at Hannaford’s Market. She might add that it would also be helpful if Louise occasionally said ‘please’ or ‘thank you’. But of course, Polly will not say that either.

  ‘I’m on my way,’ she assures Louise and hurries to the door.

  ‘Polly – do you happen to know where Mr Abbot is?’ Louise calls after her.

  ‘I haven’t seen him,’ Polly lies.

  She knows full well that Evan Abbot raced through the kitchen, a thick book in his hand, and disappeared into the small brick outbuilding beyond the swing set as soon as he heard the Edwards’ car pull up. Not for him the unloading of luggage, the cacophony of greetings.

  ‘Well, maybe when you’ve helped with the luggage you can see if you can find him. Is the lemonade ready?’

  ‘On the counter,’ Polly says, pointing to the large crystal pitcher with slices of lemon and fresh mint floating atop the pale yellow liquid which is, in fact, made from a mix. Louise is, as always, concerned about appearances and it is important to her that newly arriving guests be greeted with glasses of fresh lemonade even if the lemonade is not exactly fresh.

  The Edwards children are already clambering in and out of the huge SUV, its stereo system still blasting the music from ‘Hamilton’ as they unload.

  ‘Hey, Polly!’ A friendly, casual greeting from Annette, always amiable and why shouldn’t she be? What is there to disconcert that slender, clear-eyed girl whose very clean, soft brown hair falls to her shoulders in shimmering swaths, the braces newly removed from her very white teeth, her features even, her skin smooth? Polly has seen girls like that at university, girls from prosperous families aglow with wealth and unchained to part-time jobs, free to ski every weekend. Such girls do not work summer jobs, nor do they worry about an anemic mother and a father who lives in fear that the plywood factory that employs him will close. Polly knows that if she and Annette Edwards attended the same school, they would eat at different tables or, more likely, Polly would be ladling food on to Annette’s plate as she moved down the cafeteria line.

  Polly extends her hand out to soft-voiced, handsome Dr Edwards, noting that his dark, thick hair is graying at the temples, almost exactly matching the smoky grayness of his wide set eyes. Broad-shouldered and muscular, he moves slowly, carefully, avoiding sharp-edged cartons and suitcases, piling the brightly colored soft duffle bags into a mound. She understands his caution. He is a surgeon, always conscious of his hands. He shakes Polly’s hand, his skin very smooth against her own.

  ‘How’s school coming?’ he asks. ‘Did you ace organic chemistry?’

  ‘I did.’ She blushes, pleased that he remembers that she is pre-med, pleased that he recalls how nervous she had been about organic chemistry.

  ‘Good for you.’ His congratulatory smile creases his craggy face and Polly trembles with pleasure.

  Susan Edwards, her arms laden with clothing, moves toward them and stands between Polly and her husband. She brushes a stray tendril of silver hair from his forehead, an affectionate and proprietary gesture.

  ‘It’s good to see you, Polly,’ she says.

  ‘Thanks. I’m glad you’re back, Mrs Edwards,’ Polly replies.
/>   ‘Oh, please call me Susan. Can you take these?’

  Polly takes the load of jackets and sweatshirts, swaying slightly under their weight.

  ‘Hey, Polly. Great to see you.’

  Jeremy Edwards jumps off the car’s tailgate. He tosses two soccer balls on to the path and hefts three tennis rackets and a croquet set entombed in its battered carton which will be set up on the lawn, played with once and promptly forgotten. He makes his way through the maze of suitcases and backpacks, trips over the largest carton and drops the croquet set.

  Wooden balls, their colors faded, careen down the path and he races after them as Annette rolls her eyes, inviting Polly to share her contempt for her impossibly clumsy twin. Polly shrugs to indicate her complicity and notes that Jeremy must have grown almost four inches since last summer and that Annette herself is both taller and thinner, her features newly sharp, her forehead high above pale, carefully plucked and arched brows.

  ‘Hey, didn’t you cut your hair, Polly?’ she calls. Polly nods and touches the golden layers of her new bob. She wonders if Annette can tell that she used a rinse and is suddenly sorry that the beautician persuaded her to choose a color that is really too bright.

  Laden with clothing, she turns as Matt Edwards, always her favorite of the August kids, jumps out of the rear seat clutching his two fat Harry Potter books and hurls himself at her.

  ‘Polly, Polly, we’re back. Isn’t that great? We’re back! Is Donny here yet? What about Paul?’

  ‘No. You guys are the first to arrive,’ she says but even as she speaks another car pulls up and Helene and Greg Ames tumble out.