Crestmont

by Holly Weiss

  Gracie paused on the porch of Evergreen Lodge before the evening bull session in the lounge. The air was sticky with humidity but a half moon managed to penetrate the hazy sky. She realized she was happy. The carefully crafted plan she had designed to keep her in Eagles Mere after her Crestmont summer gave her confidence.

  The boisterous laughter tumbling down from the guests on the big house porch almost drowned out the cicadas and crickets. Excitement was keen before the August water festival. Guests banded together to make a float representing the inn and the competition with the other hotels in town was fierce.

  The staff entered their own every year. This summer’s was called the SS Sundae. Eight of them had gone straight to the Sweet Shoppe to request sponsorship. The float would be decorated with huge painted ice cream cones and root beer fizzes. A lantern placed behind translucent paper would make the froth on top of the root beer float look fizzy. The crowning event would be to dock the float after the parade around the lake, and serve ice cream provided in coolers by the Sweet Shoppe to the children. Surely the Crestmont staff would win first prize for their ingenuity.

  ****

  “Broadcasting to you on this beautiful Saturday evening from Saratoga, New York. They’re waving the flag…the shot…and they’re off. Razzmatazz taking the rail. Diamond Gypper one length behind. Jazzy Runner’s a bit sluggish, taking up the rear. Up comes Swanky Sue on Diamond Gypper’s left flank. They’re tight today, but the red silks of Razzmatazz’s jockey are clearly ahead of the other silks. Razzmatazz definitely pulling ahead. But wait, folks, no collecting your bets yet. Here she comes. Diamond Gypper is streaking by. Can she do it?”

  PT, Otto, Hank, Isaiah and Jimmy crouched, heads together, around the radio. Hank’s hat was on the floor, stuffed with dollar bills.

  “Diamond Gypper wins it…and takes the blue ribbon!”

  “Knew I shoulda bet on that Gypper filly. Damn, there goes last week’s tips,” Jimmy slapped his cap on his thigh as Hank and Zeke dove into the money in the hat, dividing their winnings.

  “Thanks for the spoils, boys. Hey, Mae, now we can buy baby stuff.”

  “Yer too young to be a father,” Jimmy touted.

  “Not too young if he made the baby, boys,” Isaiah laughed.

  “Hey, Isaiah, do us all a favor and cut out that singing on the way to make breakfast tomorrow,” Otto warned. “I’m not bright and cheery like you at 5 a.m. I enjoy a good snore with my eyes closed until at least six. You’ve got no business singing that song about a roving gambler anyway. You lost bad today, too.”

  Bessie was flopped on the couch, trying to nap. Dorothy, Adelle, Mae and Olivia played whist at the card table. They stopped when Gracie came in, followed by Peg and Eleanor. Everyone piled into the screened porch to get some air, safely away from the mosquitoes.

  PT led the meeting. “Okay, we’ve got an idea and a name. Now who’s going to do what?”

  Zeke blew on his fist and rubbed his chest proudly “I brainstormed the name. SS for the ship and Sundae for the ice cream.”

  “I’ll help with the frame. I’m pretty hep with a hammer,” Isaiah offered.

  They tossed ideas around. Hank piped up during a lull. “Did you hear Swett caught two huge trout right down near the foot bridge?”

  “Isaiah’s going to put them on the menu as tonight’s dinner special.” Olivia proudly kissed her husband’s cheek.

  “Mm, mm, mm. Butter and lemon sauce to mop up with bare naked bread.” Isaiah licked his lips.

  “Ha! Swett.” Bessie finally got off the couch and flopped onto Hank’s lap. Jimmy scowled. “Bet his wife melts extra butter on top. Wonder if he has to lace her corset. One uh these days it’s gonna burst. Can ya picture it? What a sight. Hey, girlie, where’s Eric?” she teased Gracie. “Too holy to help with our float?”

  “His church is making their own. He told me all about it like a secret,” Eleanor said, sitting on her hands to make herself taller.

  “Cotton candy,” Peg announced. A room full of blank faces stared at her.

  “We can’t paint the ice cream on; it won’t look real. The Sweet Shoppe has a cotton candy machine that makes different colors. Pink for strawberry. Green for pistachio. We could mound it up like dipped cones. And make a big banner saying ‘End your evening sweetly at the Sweet Shoppe.’ They’ll pull in even more business that way so they won’t mind the added expense.” Heads nodded in approval.

  “I want a job on the float,” Eleanor pouted.

  “I don’t mean to put the kibosh on it or anything, nincompoop, but everything is pretty much done.” Peg tugged on her sister’s ear. “You’re going to have to come up with something on your own.”

  “Well, make that float strong, whatever ya do, or it’ll break yer heart. Listen to this,” Bessie jeered, waving a piece of paper. “I would hold your heart in my hands, but I am not strong enough, But in your hands, my love…”

  The Paperbag poems. Gracie’s skin crawled as she pictured Bessie nosing around the room after she had rearranged it. “Shut up, Bessie,” she growled, clenching her fingers around her wrist until she released the poem.

  “That’s it. This meeting’s over,” PT said.

  ****

  A week had passed and Gracie sat in shock on her familiar rock in the woods behind the steam room.

  A flicker behind a maple tree roused her. Eleanor wound her arms around the tree and peered around from behind it. “Are you okay, Gracie?” she asked in a shaky voice.

  “How did you know where I was?” Gracie wiped her wet cheeks hastily with the back of her hand. Eleanor came out from behind the tree, taking tiny steps as if she was afraid to break a twig on the ground.

  “I follow you sometimes but I know you like your privacy, so I never let you know…but today I heard you crying and I wanted to help.” Moving shyly closer, Eleanor asked about the letter in Gracie’s hand.

  “It’s from my sister.”

  “Lily, with the pretty long blonde hair.”

  Gracie nodded and looked vacantly off into the woods. Eleanor sat on the ground next to her. Finally, she asked, “What did she say?”

  “My father died. The funeral was last month. If they had told me, I could have gone.”

  “I love you Gracie.” Eleanor put her head on Gracie’s lap and listened to her cry for a long time.

  Then she got up and dusted off her dress. “I guess you want to be alone now.”

  She meandered back to the hotel campus, wondering if she should get her mother. Shadow meowed up at her and padded up the hill. Eleanor followed the cat all the way to the bowling alley, so she told PT instead. Excusing himself from the bowlers, he hurried down to find Gracie.

  He cupped his hands around his mouth calling out her name through the woods until she answered. Sitting down on the moss in front of her, he wrapped his long arms around his knees.

  “Eleanor told me. I’m so sorry.”

  “I thought I could block them out, PT. I abandoned them when I left home. I feel so guilty.”

  “Sounds like they’re the ones who abandoned you. I mean, somebody could have told you earlier so you could get to the funeral.”

  She hunched over, her arms draped down in front of her, and nodded.

  In an attempt to comfort her, PT filled in more details about his home life. Both parents ignored him. His mother was so busy protecting herself from his father; she had no energy left to pay any attention to PT, and when his father did notice him, he was drunk and dangerous.

  “Remember you told me how your parents made fun of you wanting to sing and all? They smacked you around by keeping you from figuring out your life. My old man used his belt. Same difference. Don’t feel guilty. It’ll kill you.”

  “I was starting to be really happy here.”

  “Then be happy. Gracie. You lost your parents a long time ago.”

  They smelled the dampness of a front coming in and walked together back to the Crestmont, stopping to watch a white deer feed
in the bushes. After saying goodbye, PT turned up the drive to the bowling alley.

  III

  “Anything amiss,” Mr. Woods had said. Broadcasting the Paperbag poems to the whole staff rankled Gracie, but Bessie had not consumed any alcohol as far as they could tell, so there was nothing to report to the Woods. Thursday was still Gracie’s day off. Grateful that Dorothy busied herself in the dining room late in the afternoon and Bessie was off doing goodness knows what, Gracie sat alone in their room, composing a letter to her mother and sister.

  The front door of the Evergreen Lodge was propped open to allow some ventilation and the housemother’s door was closed.

  Shadow brushed by Gracie’s leg. “Get out of here, silly.” Setting aside her letter, she picked up the cat and set it outside the front door, but it shot back inside the dorm. Gracie followed it down the hall into the bathroom. She heard water running.

  Bessie leaned over a sink, one hand massaging her abdomen. The other laboriously turned something over and over in the water.

  “These sheets. Can’t let Mrs. Woods know,” she whimpered. Drops of perspiration from her pale face dripped into the pink water.

  Stunned, Gracie stood there awkwardly until she realized what had happened. “I’ll get the bleach.”

  She started down the hall, stopped short, and returned to the bathroom.

  “Bessie, go lie down. Don’t try to climb up to your bunk. Use mine. I’ll take your sheets to the laundry.”

  “No. That old battle-ax’ll turn me in.”

  “Here, give them to me. Don’t worry; I know how to use the machines. I’ll go tonight when no one is there.” Gracie helped her walk back to their room and settled her in the bottom bunk.

  “Thanks,” Bessie said weakly. “I’m sorry about your father.”

  “Thanks.” Gracie said.

  “I’m even sorrier about mine.”

  ****

  “Go. Go!” William Woods waved his arms, shooing away the black clouds that rolled in from the west. He laced his hands on top of his blond head in frustration when thunder rumbled in the distance. Sid Fox stood next to him on the tennis court.

  “It’ll blow over, sir. If we get the nickel-size hail the radio predicted, we’ll just sweep it off the courts. Maybe we’ll be lucky and it’ll just rain a bit. I told Otto to get the mats ready to put on the bleachers if they get wet.”

  “Good, Sid.” William checked his watch. “We’ve got doubles on one court and singles on the other in an hour. I suppose we could start late, but they can’t play in the dark. Next year I’m putting up electric lights out here and a huge Windsor clock right there in full view.” He framed a circle with his hands against the clubhouse wall.

  The lightening and hail never came. The pros suited up to practice at 3:30 were so busy compensating for the wind that they were oblivious to the storm clouds it blew away.

  ****

  “Celeste Woodford said we have lost all gentility.” Margaret chuckled as they sat in bed that night, their books abandoned on their laps. “You should have seen her face when she saw the ladies out on the courts in their cotton frocks with their white stockings rolled to their knees. Of course, she didn’t actually go watch them play; she merely strolled down the driveway with her parasol, pretending not to notice. I doubt if she has ever seen a tennis court before in her life.”

  “Margaret, I scheduled those tournaments to coincide with our country’s most famous in Forest Hills, New York. We would have lost all clout if we had to cancel because of weather. I can’t believe the storm blew over.”

  “But it did, thank God. You were right, William. The tournaments were a huge success. I admit I was dubious at first, but you certainly pulled it off. And the clock will be a perfect addition.” She poked him in the ribs. “You asked me to remind you to call Sterling and Windsor to place the order.”

  “Yes, dear, I shall have to remember to do that tomorrow.” Wordlessly, his wife handed him a pencil and a piece of paper from her nightstand.

  William removed his arm from around her shoulders, wrote himself a note, then fiddled with the top of the sheet, folding and unfolding it over the blankets so it was perfectly even. “I had to fire Julius today. He was dithering away his time. When I asked him to mow the front lawn he told me that wasn’t his job. Worst thing you can say to your employer.”

  “I am glad you let him go. I doubt if he ever called the state about those disability payments he was collecting, but I wish you had talked it over with me first, William. If Magdalena quits over this, we will lose a valued and trusted employee.”

  “Don’t fret, Margaret. I will talk with her.” He knocked playfully on the side of her head. “I need to recalibrate your worry meter.” Trying to steer her off course, he said, “You look mighty fine in a canoe, Margaret. What a good move to ask Dorothy to hostess on Thursday so you can have a quiet paddle around the lake.”

  “You are so right, William. One can abide the banality of chatting with guests about mealtimes, amenities in rooms and the evening activities for only so long. Do you remember that letter Daddy wrote about the money in the safe? I’m trying to take his advice about finding myself some kind of respite.”

  “Your father found a gold mine when he saw Cyclone Hill. He told me he wouldn’t have had the money to both take down the trees and build the inn. God stripped the hill for him and look at where we are now. Next year we’ll have to put up a fourth sleeping floor for the tennis pros. By Jove, if Charles Lindberg can fly ‘The Spirit of St. Louis’ across the Atlantic, we can be the Tennis Tournament King of Pennsylvania. A harbinger of things to come, Margaret, my love.”

  ****

  Isaiah stuck his lower lip out blowing bugs off his face away as he drove the last nail into the wooden ice cream cone to be featured on the staff float. “What’d you say, Eleanor?”

  “Colored sprinkles on the ice cream cones. That’s my job.” Eleanor sat watching him the day before the Water Carnival, with her legs crossed on the dock, her little toy boat cradled in her lap.

  “You mean those huge colored cotton candy balls Peg wants to put on top of these fake wooden cones?”

  “Yep. But you need to paint little brown intersecting lines on the cones so they look more like the ones you actually eat.”

  Isaiah lifted her up and set her on the float. “Now you are a detail-oriented woman, Miss Eleanor Woods, if I ever saw one. And just how are you going to make these sprinkles?”

  “You’ve never seen me with scissors and construction paper. I can make anything. They’ll be ready for sprinkling before lunch.”

  Chuckling, Isaiah, put his tools back in the tool box. “I’ll bet they will. I will inform the rest of the staff that Eleanor has colored sprinkles under control.”

  ****

  The Annual Water Carnival was one of the most anticipated events in Eagles Mere. A spirit of friendly competition pervaded the town the second week of August because many civic organizations and hotels participated in the float contest. People came in droves to feast at cookouts open to the public, admire fireworks on the lake, and watch the famous flotilla.

  Individual hotels held their own festivities. Hammer in hand, William stood back to admire the poster Peg had designed for the Crestmont’s water games. Under the usual listing of swimming, diving and boating activities, she had added “Canoe Tilting, Tug of War, Swimming Races, Illuminated Floating Parade.” Her multicolored drawings of shooting fireworks added pizzazz to the poster.

  Her father had reluctantly agreed to stretch a rope underwater from the shore to the floating dock fifty feet out. The contest was to see who could pull themselves farthest on the rope while keeping their head underwater. She wanted to name it the Underwater Pull.

  “The Underwater Pull is an experiment whose future is yet undetermined,” he told her.

  ****

  Eleanor sat, telephone to her ear, lazily swinging her legs over the side of her father’s desk.

  “Miss Eleanor, you g
et off that telephone right now. I have business calls to make,” her father said, slamming the door.

  “Bye. Call you later.” She clicked off the connection and held the receiver calmly in her lap.

  “Who were you talking to?”

  “Just Dora, Papa.”

  “You put a call in to New Jersey? How did you convince the operator to do that?”

  “I pretended I was Peg ordering supplies for the carnival.”

  William recognized it had been a hard summer for Eleanor. He was preoccupied with the tennis courts, and Peg, Eleanor’s primary summer companion, was absorbed in water activities. Eleanor had her friends on staff—Gracie, Isaiah, and Sam—but no child her age was around for more than a week or two on vacation. Foregoing a punishment, he removed the receiver from her hand, set it in the cradle and said, “No more.”

  “Papa, Dora’s family is all sad now that Philip is so sick. That’s why they’re not here this year. Can we all pose on the float this afternoon so I can send her a photograph? I want to be taking a big bite out of the pistachio cone.”

  “Eleanor, that cone is going to be six feet tall. Very well, I could hold you on the step ladder and place staffers in front so no one knows how you got up there. You may be on the float for the ice cream photograph, but you may not be in the flotilla. It is much too dangerous out there after the sun goes down.”

  She jumped off his desk chair, flung her arms around his waist and bolted out the door.

  ****

  Preparations were underway all over the Crestmont campus for the evening’s celebration. Hank and Otto carried picnic tables down near the water and strung electric lights around the eating area. The Woods family made oversized blue, red and yellow ribbons with pins attached. Three extra trips to Williamsport were needed for all the food. Waitresses secured tablecloths on the picnic tables and laid out china buffet-style, covered with sheets secured with rocks, until serving time. Magdalena and her crew ironed dresses for the ladies and Olivia attached matching bows to straw hats.