Copyright © 2014 by Lila Perl.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher.
Please direct inquiries to:
Lizzie Skurnick Books
an imprint of Ig Publishing
392 Clinton Avenue #1S
Brooklyn, NY 11238
ISBN: 978-1-939601-37-7 (ebook)
Contents
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Here we are again at Shady Pines, which is really just a fancy name for this smallish summer hotel that everybody calls Moskin’s.
We crunch into the gravel parking lot, my father at the wheel of the 1939 Packard and my mother beside him. She’s checking her hair and makeup in the windshield mirror because her female cronies are sure to be scattered around on the lawn. Or they might be seated at card tables on the broad wraparound porch of Moskin’s main house.
Am I still talking to either one of my parents? It’s not clear. All I know is that I’ve been sitting here in the back seat in stubborn silence ever since we left the Bronx three hours ago.
My mother breaks the stillness between us. “Here comes Ruthie. Act like a lady instead of a spoiled child. How composed and mature Ruthie looks. There’s a daughter that Minnie Moskin can be proud of.”
Ruthie is a lot older-looking than last summer. She’s still pale and moonfaced, with a button nose and gray eyes. Her short-cut taffy-brown hair drapes her cheeks. But Ruthie has a “settled” air about her. I think she’ll probably look the same as this when she’s thirty-eight, forty-nine, even in her sixties. Right now, of course, Ruthie and I are the same age, twelve.
“Isabel,” Ruthie says softly, putting her head through the open window of the back seat. She’s already said hello to my parents, greeting them politely as “Mr. Brandt” and “Mrs. Brandt.” The Moskin family has been getting Ruthie ready to play the part of the perfect hotel hostess since she was eight. In fact, this year Ruthie is officially known as “the governess.” She will be in charge of the younger children of the hotel guests, leading them in games and sports and even overseeing them at mealtimes in the children’s dining room.
As soon as my father and one of the busboys from the grownups’ dining room have emptied the car trunk of our luggage, Ruthie and I stroll off toward the room I’m going to occupy this year. We walk with our arms around each other’s waists, heads together.
“Don’t be mad at me,” I beg, “about not wanting to come to Moskin’s this year. It has nothing to do with you and me. It’s really about my being too old for this place. There’s not much for me to do here, with you working full time. But they refused to send me to camp. Every time I ask for anything my father gives me the same excuse. ‘This is 1942. There’s a war on!’”
“Well,” Ruthie says philosophically, “there is. Everything’s changed since Pearl Harbor. We don’t even have a band this summer. A couple of the fellows from last year had such low draft numbers that they’re already in uniform. And the others have gotten much better jobs, at least until they get drafted.”
“I know, I know. You wrote me.”
I think longingly of the four young “college men” who were so tantalizing to me last summer when I was only eleven. Miltie on the piano, Pinkie on the drums, Lou on the trumpet, and Bob on the saxophone—tall, dark, handsome Bob—who would have been my choice if I hadn’t been nearly ten years too young for him.
“Soon all the boys will be in the army serving overseas,” I lament. “Then what?”
“Then we’ll just have to wait for them to come back,” Ruthie says resignedly.
“They won’t all come back,” I reply darkly.
We’ve reached the steps of the long, narrow wooden porch of the “Annex,” a row of eight guest rooms, one of which will be mine and one my parents’. Ruthie looks off into the distance. “I have to get back to work. I’m taking the littlest kids on a nature walk at two o’clock. Want to come along?”
“Um, no thanks. Tonight, though, what’s on for tonight?”
“Dancing in the social hall,” Ruthie says. “To the jukebox. We could practice the Lindy.”
I nod, a little. Ruthie and I aren’t much good at the Lindy. We tried it last year and didn’t get very far. Besides, it won’t be much fun trying to jitterbug to the music from a machine. More and more, I’m at war with this war.
There’s a knock at my door, which is instantly shoved open by my mother. She’s already changed into shorts and a knit polo shirt. This is her customary daytime outfit when we’re in the country. Also, she’s wearing ankle socks with white leather oxfords that have Cuban heels.
“You haven’t changed yet, Isabel? Are you planning on returning to the city or what?”
“I wish I could, and you know it.”
My mother sits down on one of the twin beds, which is covered with a worn-looking white candlewick bedspread.
“Isabel, I don’t want any trouble these next few weeks. Your father has just about had it and he’s ready to explode. Here you are at Moskin’s, away from the baking sidewalks and the stuffy apartment. You have Ruthie, one of your oldest friends. You’ve known her what—four, five years. Get into your bathing suit. Go down to the lake. I’ll be on the porch of the main house if you want me.”
She’s gone.
I stare critically into the mirror above the scarred wooden bureau. The furnishings at Shady Pines aren’t exactly new or fancy. After all, this isn’t the Plaza Hotel on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. And now, with the war on, goods for the home front are already beginning to get scarce. It’s hard to get everyday