Everything is old and preserved, just like her, I think.
“Do you know much about the historical society?” Iris asks, her clipped tone echoing in step with her boots.
“I’m familiar with it,” I say. “But I don’t know much about it.”
She shakes her head with great sadness. “Like most,” she says. “May I show you around?”
I nod, and Iris leads me to the front of the building, which sits directly on the banks of the Kalamazoo River on the opposite side of Saugatuck, whose white buildings gleam in the water’s reflection.
“This building is a simple structure in the Prairie-Craftsman style and was originally built as the village of Saugatuck’s first water pumping station, completed in 1904. It was designed by John Alvord, better known as the principal engineer of the Chicago Water System.”
It sounds as if she’s given this tour a million times, I think. Just like me on the chain ferry.
“Water drawn from several large wells at the foot of Mt. Baldhead was pumped by large gasoline engines in the pump house up to a one-hundred-thousand-gallon reservoir at the top of Lone Pine Dune north of Mt. Baldhead, from which it flowed by gravity through pipes crossing beneath the river to buildings and street hydrants in the village,” Iris says, gesturing at a series of prettily designed panels that show Saugatuck at the turn of the century. “By the 1950s, water pumping and electrical generating functions had been moved to larger locations, and the building fell into disrepair. By 1970, the building’s heavy slate roof had pushed out the walls and broken the interior tie-rods. A portion of the west wall had fallen in, exposing the interior to the elements. Windows and doors were in bad shape, and much of the brickwork needed repair.”
She stops and looks me directly in the eyes. “My husband and I offered to lease the pump house from the village as a summer cottage in return for restoring the building. We became one of the first permanent lakeshore cottage families and helped save this building from demolition. I started the historical society and museum,” she says. “This building has now been designated as a Michigan Historic Site and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.”
Iris’s expression is curious now. “I know you don’t like me, but I’m not so different from you,” she says. “We love this town. We love its history. We want what’s best for it.”
Does she mean this? I think. Or is she saying it to get what she wants?
“An exhibit here averages about $15,000 to construct, and we operate on donations alone,” Iris continues. “We want the next generation to understand our town’s history and become its next stewards.” She stops. “Like your son.”
Oh, she’s good.
“Now, what is it I can help you with before we discuss a potential deal?” she asks.
“It’s Sadie Collins,” I say.
“Yes,” Iris says. “I would be very interested in her materials. They would be of great value here.” She stops. “So, what is it you need to make that happen? I’m guessing you’d like us to ease our restrictions on your fish house.”
I look at her. “I do,” I start, “but my request is actually of a more personal nature.”
Iris lifts an arched eyebrow. “I see.”
“I can’t get her out of my mind,” I admit. “I dream about her. I worry about what happened to her. I’ve researched her online, but I really can’t find out much information. I thought maybe...” I stop. “That you could help.”
“You need my help?” Iris asks, raising her other eyebrow.
“I do.”
“Okay, then,” Iris says with a definitive nod, her two wigs sliding oh so subtly. “Follow me.”
Iris leads me to a storeroom lined with shelving cabinets with long, thin drawers. She scans dates on the front of the drawers, opens one and pulls out an old, hand-drawn map.
“This is a plat from the late 1800s,” she says. “Let’s start here. This shows division of land by family name.”
Iris lays the large plat on a desk and turns on a lamp. “Look,” she says, pointing with a polished nail to a large square of land on the lakeshore. “Collins. And here. Collins.” She continues, her voice rising in excitement. “More here, here and here.”
“Wow. They owned hundreds and hundreds of acres. How rich was her father?” I ask.
Iris goes to a bookshelf and pulls down a big, hardbound volume with an old spine. “This is a history of Saugatuck,” she says. Iris flips through the book and stops. She points at a series of old black-and-white photos. “Grover Collins owned the orchards here. Peaches, apples, all the fresh fruit that was shipped to Chicago. He also owned fishing boats. They froze fresh whitefish and salmon from Lake Michigan and sold that in Chicago, too. He was a very rich man.”
A stern-looking man in a suit and hat is standing in his orchards, arms by his side, unsmiling.
“Any idea what happened to Sadie?” I ask. I stop and pull her letter from my bag. “He forced her to get married.” I stop. “She couldn’t even make her own decisions.”
Iris reads the letter with a hint of a frown. “Like so many young women of her time,” Iris says in a voice that’s barely audible. “Like so many young women of my time.” She looks at me. “Hold on. I think I might know where to look.”
Iris leaves, and I can hear her footsteps in the museum. I look at the photos again and then return my attention to the plat on the table.
Collins. Collins. Collins.
Dragoon. Dragoon. Dragoon.
What? I think, my eyes widening.
I lean down and study the plat. The Dragoon name covers a large swath of the map.
“What’s so fascinating?”
I jump at the sound of Iris’s voice. I lean up so quickly that my head bumps the lamp on the table. “Nothing,” I say.
She walks over and lasers her eyes on the map and then me. “I knew you were a bright girl,” she says.
“Your family...” I start.
“Not my family,” Iris says, her voice cold but pointed. “My husband’s family.”
Iris squares her shoulders and looks at me, unblinking. My blood runs cold.
“I am not much of a sharer,” Iris starts, her tone softening, catching me off guard. “As you might have noticed.”
I giggle uncomfortably.
“Please,” she says, gesturing toward two chairs by a desk. “Sit.”
I do, and Iris joins me.
“Did you know I was married for over fifty years?” Iris asks me.
“Amazing,” I say. “Congratulations.”
“Save your congratulations,” Iris says, putting the book she is holding in her lap and wagging a nail at me. “Extend your condolences.”
I cannot contain my look of total shock, and I stumble over my words. “I...uh, don’t know what to say.”
“Your Sadie and I are not that different, it turns out,” Iris says. “I come from a well-to-do family in Chicago. My father was an attorney, and I wanted to follow in his footsteps. I went to college and law school, but when it came time for me to start work, my father demurred. He felt it was best I marry a man with whom I’d gone to law school, and whose father ran one of the biggest law firms in Chicago. It was an arranged marriage of sorts, you see, by both families so that their firms could merge. My family owned a lot of land in Illinois, and their family had a lot of land in Michigan. It was the ideal marriage on paper.”
She stops. “I finished top of my class, and let’s just say my husband wouldn’t have graduated had it not been for some familial influence.” A wry smile crosses her face. “There’s a lovely law library named after him.” She stops again. “I worked hard. There weren’t many women of my era graduating law school, much less top of their class. And I had so many offers. I admire people who work hard and dream big. My husband didn’t try at anything. He just expected people to fall at h
is feet. He knew that I saw through him, and so he spent his whole life trying to put me in my place.
“Do you have any idea what it’s like to marry a man who was inferior to you in college, and then have him treat you not only as if you had no dreams of your own but also as an inferior for the rest of your life?” she continues.
“I think I do,” I say.
“My husband treated me like he did his associates and our staff,” Iris says. “As if we didn’t matter. And I put up with that for nearly my entire life. I could have divorced him, of course, but I got used to being comfortable in life. Like so many women of my era, the men controlled all of the money. My husband earned all the income and invested it without consulting me. Due to his influence, I worried I could never land a job if I left him. And my family’s wealth was passed along to my older brother to manage. He was just like my husband.” She stops, leans toward me and whispers, “I popped a bottle of Veuve when they both died. I felt like such a monster.” She leans back and says with a wink, “But that’s the wonderful thing about women. We’re survivors. We outlive the men.”
She takes a deep breath and continues. “I started my own life after that. I ran committees, I fund-raised, I made this community my career. But you’ve made me realize I have treated people the same way my husband did. People dislike me as much as they did my husband.” She smiles wryly at me. “Oh, yes, I know what people say about me, what they call me.” I flush. “But you stood up to me. You challenged me. I’m not only a wee bit envious of you, Adie Lou, I’m rather proud of you, too.”
“Me?” I blurt.
“Yes,” she says. “You left an unhappy marriage. You followed your dreams. I felt like I wasn’t even worthy of pursuing my own dreams. You’ve embarked on a new life and career, which is something Sadie and I weren’t able to do. It wasn’t an easy path that led you here, it was a treacherous road. And yet you’re here. Doing things your way.” Iris stops and considers me. “You are the unconventional woman, Adie Lou.”
Iris’s voice begins to betray emotion, and I am so taken aback that I reach over and take her hand. She grips it tightly, nods her head definitively, and then clears her throat and opens the book in her lap.
“My colleagues and I did a lot of research about a decade ago on some of the original lakeshore cottage owners and their histories,” she says. “The Collins family, of course, is in here. I’d forgotten if we had included any mention of Grover’s children, but we did. Here.”
Iris hands me the book and points to a paragraph in the middle of the page. I begin to read and, as I do, tears fill my eyes. They fall—plop, plop, plop—onto the page, wetting the paper. I look up at Iris, my lips quivering. “She took her own life?” I am devastated to discover Sadie’s sad fate.
Iris nods. “They ruled it an unknown malady to save face for the parents, but decades later, her family admitted she took her own life in Chicago.” She stops. “I’m so sorry.”
Iris reaches out and pats my leg. “You’re strong, Adie Lou,” she says. “Stronger than you even know. Never forget that.”
I nod as tears trace their way down my cheeks.
“I guess,” I say, stammering, “I wanted a happy ending.”
“Then go write your happy ending, my dear,” Iris says.
I stand and, without thinking, pull Iris into a hug. She holds me closely for a moment, and then I hand over the time capsule and the Capone cow foot. “This will be perfect for an exhibit here, don’t you think?” I ask.
Iris smiles. “I do,” she says. “And I think the fish house will make a beautiful honeymoon suite, don’t you?”
TWENTY-NINE
“I don’t know whether I should admit this or not,” I say, “but this is the second time I’ve been here.”
“In your life?” Scooter asks, his eyes wide with shock. “That’s hard to believe. How did you not know about this place? It’s a Saugatuck institution.”
“Today,” I say, my voice an embarrassed whisper. “My second time today.”
Scooter laughs so loudly that the people waiting in the snaking line outside Lick Effect Ice Cream turn to stare. “You should be embarrassed to admit that,” he says, before taking my hand in his and giving me a soft kiss on the head. “Actually, you’re a woman after my own heart.”
“So far, my diet today will have consisted of a manhattan and two ice cream cones,” I say, taking a few steps forward in the alley.
“Isn’t that the base of the FDA’s food pyramid?”
“For either a child or a drunk,” I say.
“Or a drunk child,” Scooter says, unable to contain a whooping laugh at his own joke.
People in line around us turn to look at him again. “They’re wondering who the crazy man is who says ‘drunk child’ in public,” I say, nudging him with my elbow.
“No, they’re wondering who the crazy woman is who eats ice cream multiple times a day.”
We laugh in unison as the door jingles, and we finally make our way inside. As we stare into the ice cream case, Teresa spots me and waves. “Back again?” she asks. “For more ice cream or advice? Or both?”
“Ice cream only this time,” I say with a big smile. “Thank you for your time earlier today.”
She gives me a big wink. “No problem,” she says. “I’ll be around if you need any more, at least until the kids get off school and can start work.”
“By the way, I think I put out Iris Dragoon’s fire,” I whisper. I can’t bring myself to call her the Dragoon Lady anymore.
Teresa looks me over. “I don’t see any ashes,” she says. “Congratulations.”
Scooter cocks his head at me. “We’ll talk over ice cream,” I say, giving him a wink as big as the one Teresa gave me.
Scooter turns his attention to the ice cream, and my heart begins to race.
You can learn a lot about a man by the ice cream he eats, my grandmother always said.
At the Chicago grocery she and my grampa owned, my grandma observed the eating patterns of neighbors and families for decades. She knew Mrs. Hawkins wanted a pot roast every Saturday, and every ingredient Mrs. Trigiani needed for her special Sunday sauce. (“Americans call it spaghetti sauce,” my grandma told me, “but Italians call it Sunday sauce.”)
But my grandmother firmly believed—after witnessing the eating habits of men for decades—that the ice cream a man ate showed who he truly was.
Vanilla? Plain but steadfast.
Chocolate meant an all-American type of guy at heart, but one who never yearned for excitement or adventure.
Men who ate strawberry were as sweet as the fruit, but forever little boys.
Scooter leans into the case, his breath fogging the window. His eyes scan the tubs and then the labels on the case. He looks at Teresa, who is waiting patiently, holding her ice cream scoop in the air. I turn again to Scooter. He opens his mouth, and I hold my breath.
“Rocky road,” he says. “Two scoops in a waffle cone, please.”
He’s a keeper, Adie Lou, I can hear my grandma say. Adventurous, curious. Has led an up-and-down life but is an optimist who wears his heart on his sleeve.
“Good choice!” I blurt.
Scooter turns, a laugh escaping when he sees my face. “You get excited about ice cream, I can see,” he says.
I nod.
“Still a Blue Moon girl?” Teresa asks me. “In a waffle?”
I nod again.
After she makes our cones and scoops in the ice cream, Scooter and I pay and head outside. We stroll toward the river until we find an open bench. It is a surprisingly warm evening for early April, and I take a deep breath.
Spring is coming, I think. There is still a nip in the air, but for Michiganders, this is downright balmy.
“This weather makes me want to start planting my window boxes and annuals,” I say, watching the town’
s lights reflect in the water.
“You remember where you live now, right?” Scooter asks. “It can snow in early May. In fact, it usually snows for the Tulip Time Festival.” Scooter licks his cone and continues. “You can’t start planting until Mother’s Day. Right before you open for the season.”
My heart jumps. “That’s six weeks,” I say, my voice high. “Until I open.”
“You sound surprised,” he says. “Are you ready?”
“That’s like asking Marie Antoinette if she were ready for a haircut.”
“So, you’re not ready?” Scooter asks.
I stare into the water. “Can you ever be ready?” I ask. “Were you ready when you took over for your father?”
Scooter licks his cone as he considers my question. “No,” he says. “I don’t think you’re ever ready.” He stops and looks at me. “Being an entrepreneur is a bit like playing football. It requires endless preparation—exercise, drills, knowing the playbook, trusting your teammates and coaches, mental toughness and endless hours watching tape. But, eventually, you just have to strap on your helmet and go play the game.”
“I knew I should’ve watched more football,” I say with a chuckle. “But that’s good advice.” I lick my cone and look over at Scooter. “I’m already fully booked for Memorial Day weekend.”
“That’s awesome!” he yells. For some reason, his tone and football speech makes me feel as if he’s going to high-five me, but he transfers his ice cream cone to his other hand and puts his arm around me. “I’m really proud of you.”
“Thanks,” I say. “I’m thrilled. And mortified.” I lean into Scooter. “Trish talked up the inn to everyone in Chicago, I think, and my former colleagues helped me secure some great advertising and media in some influential magazines, newspapers and blogs. Best of all, the local media went crazy over the Al Capone video that Evan shot.” I stop, take a long lick on my cone and continue. “Speaking of which, I met with Iris Dragoon today. That’s what Teresa and I were talking about in Lick Effect.”
“And you’re still alive?” Scooter asks. “Fill me in.”
The Summer Cottage Page 18