The Sea Star

by Nash, Jean

  Yes, she should have been happy, but she wasn’t. She missed Jay, the excitement of working with him, his tireless vitality, his wisdom, his humor, which lightened even her heaviest burden. But most of all, she missed his strong arms around her, the sensuous warmth of his mouth moving erotically on hers.

  Was he never coming back to her? She couldn’t bear it if he didn’t. Jay had expanded her world. She needed him to share it with her. With him, the bud of her life had opened into glorious blossom. Without him, all her joy and expectations lay in dry withered heaps about her heart.

  At the beginning of March, with no advance notice, Augusta arrived at the Sea Star with the intention of staying the month. Susanna was dismayed. She didn’t want her mother here, snooping about, asking questions, noticing Jay’s absence and making indefensible remarks about it. She telephoned Dallas and asked if Augusta could stay with him at Peter’s Beach, but, evasively, he said that she’d probably be more comfortable at the Sea Star.

  Thwarted, Susanna said crossly, “I told you that place was sordid. If you don’t want Mother to stay there, it must be worse than I thought.”

  “It may not be as respectable as the Sea Star,” Dallas said tightly, “but at least I still own part of it, which is more than I can say for you.”

  Susanna slammed the receiver down on the switch hook, but she was angrier at herself than at her brother. He’d said no more to her than she’d been saying to herself. She had been a fool to let the Sea Star slip out of her hands. Dallas needn’t have taunted her with a fact that continually tortured her.

  There was no alternative. Augusta stayed at the Sea Star. She took up residence in the north tower apartments as if she had never been away. To Susanna’s relief, she dined alone in her rooms her first evening there and breakfasted in bed the following morning. In early afternoon, however, Susanna’s respite came to an end.

  “Darling, let’s walk to the Boardwalk,” Augusta suggested. “It’s such a lovely day. I want to fill my lungs with ‘the elixir of life.’”

  Teddy Addison, standing nearby at the reception desk, said with a laugh, “I see you’ve read Susanna’s advertisement, Mrs. Weston. Is that what enticed you to come to Atlantic City?”

  Augusta smiled, her eyes on Susanna. “That and other things, Mr. Addison. Susanna, come, let’s walk on the Boardwalk together,” she coaxed. And absolutely refused to take no for an answer.

  It was a beautiful afternoon. Although it was early March, the temperature was near seventy, and when the pair reached the Boardwalk, the sparkle of sun on water dazzled the eye. Augusta, in a holiday mood, suggested they ride in one of the wicker rolling chairs with a whimsical swanlike neck. They climbed into the conveyance, assisted by a white-coated “pusher.” As they rode along beneath a brilliant blue sky, Susanna breathed deeply of the crisp sea air and was almost glad she had been forced into coming outdoors.

  “I wish Ford had come with me,” Augusta said, “but he was too busy. That fiancé of yours is a demanding taskmaster.”

  Susanna mentally gritted her teeth. Augusta’s subtlety was slipping. “You don’t waste time, do you, Mother? I was wondering how long it would take you to start harping on Jay.”

  “I haven’t the least intention of ‘harping’ on him,” Augusta said pleasantly. “In fact, Ford and I dined with him several times in New York. He really is the most charming gentleman. He spoke often and highly of you, Susanna. I do believe that your marriage is going to be a great success.”

  Susanna’s heart soared. Had all her fears been foolish? She asked in a rush, “How was Jay? What did he say about me? Did he tell you when he’s coming back here?”

  Augusta regarded her keenly, as if the spate of Susanna’s questions had been an answer to one of her own. “He’s looking as handsome as ever,” she said. “It’s hard to believe that such an attractive man has remained unmarried all these years. Ah, well, he is wrapped up in those hotels of his. By the way....” Her tone changed, alerting Susanna. “Do you know about Alan Devlin, Jay’s manager in Baltimore?”

  “Yes,” Susanna said warily. Now what was Augusta up to? “Jay told me the entire story.”

  Augusta appeared confused. “But he doesn’t know the entire story.”

  “What are you talking about, Mother?”

  “Mr. Devlin is dead. His body was discovered floating in Chesapeake Bay.”

  “Oh, good heavens!” Susanna exclaimed.

  “He was severely beaten, the police say. When Jay heard the news, he and Ford went to Baltimore to speak to the authorities.”

  Susanna was staggered. “Do the police have any clues?”

  “Not that I know of. Mr. Devlin had no kin in Baltimore. He’s originally from New York. Ford said he was one of Jay’s most capable men.”

  “Who could have done such a horrible thing?” Susanna asked.

  Augusta shook her head. “I’m sorry I brought up the subject. I thought you knew about it. Let’s not talk about it anymore. Tell me about your wedding. Have you set a date?”

  Susanna was glad of the change of subject, but she couldn’t suppress one last shudder at the thought of the murder. With an effort, she said, “Mother, if you dined with Jay and talked with him, you know very well I haven’t seen him since the holidays.”

  “But surely you correspond with each other?”

  “Of course we do, but we’re not going to discuss something as important as marriage in a letter.”

  “I see,” Augusta said, and it appeared she saw a great deal more than Susanna had imparted.

  “Knowing you, though,” Susanna said, “I’ll wager you plagued Jay to name a wedding date.”

  Augusta’s laugh was a confession. “I may have mentioned it in passing.”

  “And what did he say?” Susanna held her breath.

  “He said he couldn’t do that because it was your place, not his, to tell me such important news. I assumed from the way he spoke that you had decided on a date, but I see I was wrong. Well, no matter, darling. When Jay returns to Atlantic City, you can begin making definite plans. I could tell just by talking to him that he’s as anxious to be married as you are.”

  As anxious to be married as you are. Augusta, who was most skeptical of Jay’s intentions, was convinced that a marriage would take place! Susanna was so elated by this unexpected turn of events that she completely forgot about Alan Devlin’s mysterious death. For the next few weeks, she performed her daily duties on wings of joy. Jay was coming back to her. She had no doubt of that now. Before long, perhaps in autumn, she’d be his wife, and by autumn of next year, she might be mother to his son. What a glorious, heavenly, exhilarating prospect! Surely no one in the world was as fortunate as she.

  Her letters to him now rang with a lighthearted optimism.

  “The Sea Star is prospering,” she wrote in mid-March. “Teddy is a wonder! I admire him so much. And to think, when I first met him I was so rude to him.”

  Susanna sang Teddy’s praises in all her letters to Jay. She so much regretted her conduct on first meeting him that she went out of her way to assure Jay she now accepted him. The truth was, she more than accepted him. She liked him. Teddy was a first-rate hotelier, personally trained by Jay, and to work with him was both an experience and an education.

  Little by little, he and Susanna were updating every last inch of the Sea Star. As more and more changes took place, Susanna was astonished that she hadn’t noticed how much the hotel had deteriorated. Now, new tables and chairs replaced the scarred ones in the restaurant, and there were new pink tablecloths to match the menus. The guest rooms were spruced up with fresh coats of paint and new draperies and bedspreads. Best of all, there were guests galore to fill the cheery rooms!

  “I’m tired out!” Susanna said to Teddy one day as they ate a hasty lunch in her office. “We’ve never been so busy in the winter, nor have we ever redecorated this extensively.”

  A pleased grin accentuated the sharpness of Teddy’s fox-clever features. His
russet hair and alert dark eyes added to the look of quick-witted energy. “Work generates work,” he said, “which generates business. Jay taught me that, Susanna. There’s not a smarter operator than Jay in the whole United States.”

  Susanna glowed with pride for Jay and with a warm rush of gratitude toward Teddy. How loyal he was to his employer, unlike that perfidious—and unfortunate—wretch who had stolen Jay’s money. She’d never mentioned that incident to Teddy. Their present friendly intimacy prompted her to do so now.

  “Teddy, did you know Jay’s manager in Baltimore who embezzled from him?”

  Teddy looked up from his dish with a puzzled frown. “Alan Devlin? You say he embezzled from Jay? When?”

  “I’m not sure when he started doing it, but Jay learned of it around the holidays. Devlin had gotten the hotel so deeply in debt that Jay almost lost it. Didn’t he tell you about it?”

  “No, he didn’t. How very curious.”

  “He’s dead, you know.”

  “Alan’s dead?” Teddy put down his knife and fork. “I don’t believe it. What happened?”

  Susanna told him what little she knew, but she regretted bringing up the subject. If Teddy didn’t know about the embezzlement, it might be because Jay had been too embarrassed to tell him. “I thought you knew,” she said sheepishly. “Please don’t tell Jay I told you.”

  “I won’t if you say so, Susanna, but I’m bewildered about the embezzlement. Alan was one of Jay’s best men. Jay had so much trouble opening the Majestic that he wanted someone tough to manage it, someone he could trust to handle any difficulty.”

  “Jay did trust him, which is why he’s so upset about what happened.”

  “Yes,” Teddy said. “That would upset anyone. Still....”

  “Yes?” Susanna urged when he fell silent.

  “I can’t help wondering why Jay never told me about it. I’m also wondering who’s managing the Majestic now. You see, Alan and I both wanted the job. Jay gave it to Alan because he was older and had been with him longer than I had.”

  Susanna was now doubly sorry she’d brought up the incident. Teddy must resent the fact that he was buried at a modest seaside guest house while another man, perhaps less qualified, had been given a challenging position at a metropolitan luxury hotel.

  “Teddy,” she said encouragingly, “Jay may have installed a temporary manager at the Majestic, and now that the Sea Star has become so prosperous, he’s going to transfer you to Baltimore.”

  “Yes, maybe,” he said, but he didn’t sound convinced.

  Nor could Susanna think of a reason why he should be.

  If Teddy harbored any bitterness toward Jay, it wasn’t evident in his work. At the end of March, he and Susanna launched a vigorous advertising campaign designed to attract vacationers from all over the country. Newspaper advertisements showed buxom beauties in clinging bathing costumes, urging readers to “Come to the Sea Star Where Neptune’s Daughters Frolic Daily.” Below this enticing headline, festivities were listed, including the Easter Parade in April, the dedication of the New Longport Speedway in June, and the floral parade in August, with Mayor Franklin P. Stoy judging the pageant of decorated rolling chairs.

  “How sorry I am to be missing those grand affairs,” Augusta said to Susanna on the day of her departure from Atlantic City, “especially my favorite, the Easter Parade. I wish I could stay longer, darling, but Ford insists that I come home.”

  They were at the depot with Dallas, waiting for the New York Limited. Susanna smiled at her mother amiably and sincerely. Augusta, on her good behavior, had been a pleasure to be with. Susanna was astonished to realize that she wished she weren’t leaving.

  “We had a nice visit, didn’t we, Mother?” she said softly.

  “Oh, my dear!” Augusta’s eyes behind her veil grew misty. “If you only knew how happy it makes me to hear you say that. This month with you has been an answer to my prayers. For the first time since I’ve come home, I truly feel I have my girl back.” She paused, then asked searchingly. “I do have my little girl back, don’t I?”

  An emotion close to love stirred in Susanna, but she didn’t know how to answer. This past month with Augusta had been enjoyable and free of strife. Susanna no longer felt the deep anger and resentment toward her mother that had initially plagued her. But would the gash in their relationship ever be fully mended? She wasn’t sure, so she merely said lightly, “Mother, I’m not a little girl anymore.”

  “No, you’re not.” Augusta cupped Susanna’s chin with a hand. “You’re a beautiful, intelligent, and purposeful young woman. I couldn’t be prouder of you, darling. You’re going to be a perfect wife for a man like Jay.”

  Dallas, leaning against an iron column with his hands in his trouser pockets, made a soft sound of derision.

  “Don’t mind him, Mother,” Susanna said, irritated. “Dallas is convinced I’ve seen the last of Jay.”

  “Why should he think that?”

  Reluctantly, Susanna explained that she had transferred ownership of the Sea Star to Jay. She didn’t say why she had done so, nor did Augusta ask her reasons. Under ordinary circumstances, Susanna would have thought that odd, but now she was only grateful to be spared a merciless interrogation.

  To her further relief, Augusta said sternly to Dallas, “You have nothing on which to base your assumption, young man. Why have you worried your sister? She has enough on her mind without fretting about her fiancé’s intentions.”

  Dallas straightened up and stared at her. Susanna stared at her, too. Not once since Augusta’s return had she ever spoken a harsh word to her son. But when Susanna looked at Dallas, she had the distinct impression that something other than Augusta’s scolding had stunned him. His look was hard and reproachful, and it was coldly incredulous, like Jay’s look when he told Susanna about the man who had played false with his trust.

  She had no chance to try to interpret that puzzling impression. At that moment, the New York Limited roared into the station. A flurry of farewell kisses and embraces and loading Augusta’s baggage onto the train followed. Afterward, when the train had disappeared from sight and Dallas was escorting Susanna to her carriage, she found herself pulling a handkerchief from her purse and dabbing at her eyes.

  “What’s this? Tears?” Dallas’s tone was openly mocking. “I would have thought you’d be dancing in the street to see her go.”

  “Oh, hush up, Dallas,” she said, embarrassed. He had every right to think that, but Susanna didn’t like being reminded that in the past she’d been less than kind to Augusta. “Mother’s changed since she’s been married.”

  “She hasn’t changed,” he contradicted her. “You’re the one who’s different, Sunny. Over the past year you’ve behaved so uncharacteristically that I don’t even know you anymore.”

  “What are you talking about? I haven’t changed. I’m the same as I always was.”

  “Are you?”

  His pointed tone gave her pause. Had she changed? It was possible she had. But so had Dallas, so had Augusta. People changed. That was life. If Dallas thought she had changed, Susanna suspected it was for the better. She was older now, wiser. She wasn’t the naive country bumpkin she’d been a year ago.

  Thirteen

  Atlantic City’s first Easter Parade had been held on the Boardwalk in 1876, the year of America’s centennial. Borrowing from New York City’s annual fashion promenade on Fifth Avenue, the Hotel Owners Association decided that a similar spectacular might draw an early vacation crowd to Absecon Island.

  Susanna had been only a year old when the first Parade was held. When she was a little girl, Augusta used to tell her how she had dressed her for the occasion in the finest hand-embroidered smock and bonnet, with white lisle stockings on her chubby legs and high-buttoned shoes on her dimpled feet. Augusta’s dress had been a lovely confection of white pleated chiffon over grape-colored silk. Her hat was a wide-brimmed affair with grape velvet ribbons, and on Susanna’s pram blanket she plac
ed small clusters of silk grapes and leaves.

  “We were a Gainsborough portrait,” Augusta had told her. “There weren’t many people to admire us, though. Your father and the Association had provided ‘Easter Special’ trains to handle what they thought would be an overflow crowd. Only a hundred or so people actually attended.”

  But by century’s end, Atlantic City’s Easter Parade was as popular as its predecessor in New York. The Atlantic City Review and the Daily Union reported that tens of thousands of vacationers attended the celebration and that many were people whose names were listed in their native cities’ social registers.

  Now, in 1900, in tribute to the first Parade of the twentieth century, the promenaders outdid themselves. Paris gowns in every gem-brilliant color sparkled beneath a diamond-white sun. Roses or violets crowned chic chapeaux, “suggesting an exaggerated flower bed,” as one newspaper noted. Parasols of radiant hues bobbed above those pretty hats like gracefully swaying blossoms in a Lancashire garden. It was the most fashionable turnout the city had ever hosted.

  To her regret, Susanna didn’t attend the Parade that balmy Sunday in April. Augusta had gone home at her lonesome husband’s insistence, missing her favorite Atlantic City celebration. All the Sea Star’s guests were on the Boardwalk, so Susanna was taking advantage of the free time to start refurbishing her quarters in the south tower. With the hotel looking so spruce, her rooms seemed doubly shabby to her. This was the perfect opportunity to begin a long-delayed project.

  She was emptying out an old chest of drawers. Wearing a dress that had seen better days and a bandanna to protect her hair, she was a sorry contrast to the elegantly gowned ladies parading on the Boardwalk. Catching sight of her dust-smudged face in the vanity mirror, she laughed and said aloud, “What a fine figure you cut, Miss Tatterdemalion!”

  “To me,” said someone from the doorway, “you look like a lily of the field. ‘Even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.’”