Florence Adler Swims Forever: A Novel

by Rachel Beanland

  “Maybe,” said Vic. “Or maybe all of those nice parcels of cleared land are going to slowly sink into the swamp.”

  Isaac cringed, thinking about Orange Grove Estates and the plots he and Jim had sold for Blackwell—not a single one of them cleared. He imagined the knotweed and saw grass eventually wrapping its way around the tennis court, until the netting all but disappeared.

  “This guy, Jim, who’s arranging the purchase, he knows Florida. Has worked in the business for fifteen years now, first in sales but now as an appraiser. If he says this property’s undervalued, then mark my words—it’s a good buy.”

  “If you say so. But the way I see it, there’s plenty to invest in, right here in Atlantic City.”

  Isaac drained his glass, willing the meeting to be over. “In Atlantic City, thirty dollars won’t buy you a big enough lot to put a shack on. You buy forty or fifty acres in Florida, that’s a lot of land.”

  “Yeah, but Atlantic City isn’t going anywhere.”

  Isaac signaled for the check.

  When Jim had offered Isaac this deal, he had known Florida wouldn’t be an easy sell. Not like it was in ’23 or ’24. Plenty of people had lost money on land deals in Florida, and those who hadn’t had lost their shirts when the stock market crashed three years later. The country was still recovering, and Atlantic City, for all its playful pretense, wasn’t any different. Vic had been a good prospect, partly because Isaac knew that neither the Florida boom nor the crash of ’29 had touched him. At that time, all Vic’s money had been tied up in bootleg liquor.

  “I think you’re making a mistake,” said Isaac.

  “Maybe.” Vic didn’t look convinced.

  “If you change your mind, you’ll need to act fast. I’m talking to several interested parties right now but held off on taking anyone else’s money until I knew what you were doing.” This was, of course, a lie. Isaac had talked to everyone he knew, and only a handful of them could be termed interested. Three other people, besides his father, had put up money, and Isaac wouldn’t have dreamed of telling any one of them to wait on Vic Barnes.

  Isaac had less than three weeks to get the rest of the money together. If the binder expired before he could close on the property, he’d lose his deposit, and there would be little, if anything, Jim could do to help him. It was one thing to lose his own savings but he’d put his father’s money toward the deposit, too. The idea of watching the money from that Campfire Marshmallows can disappear made Isaac’s stomach roil.

  Vic stood to go, gestured toward their glasses—Isaac’s empty, Vic’s second glass untouched. “You’ve got these?”

  Isaac nodded, begrudgingly, as Vic patted him on the shoulder. “See you around,” Vic said.

  Isaac watched Vic walk out of the bar and across The Covington’s lobby. He reached for his wallet, paid the bill, then decided there was no reason to let Vic’s drink get poured out, so he picked up the glass, sweaty in his hand, and took several large sips. Condensation spilled onto the table in big, fat drops.

  As Isaac held the glass up to his mouth, he saw a familiar-looking girl cross the lobby. Anna? Her hair was wet and hung down her back—he’d never seen it like that—but it had to be her. He watched her walk toward the bank of doors that led out to the Boardwalk. She was with a man, but Isaac couldn’t make out who he was. From the back, he almost looked like Stuart. Esther would be fit to be tied.

  Isaac drained the glass, put it down on the table, and hurried to catch up with the pair. Why hadn’t he thought about Stuart before? The ne’er-do-well son of one of Atlantic City’s richest hoteliers would be the perfect investor. All the money in the world and no practical experience doing anything besides sitting on a beach. Stuart was holding a door for Anna when Isaac called to them both from the far side of the lobby.

  Anna stopped, turned. Stuart studied the lobby’s expanse, looking for the source of the sound. When they saw that it was him, Anna looked discomfited but Stuart seemed relieved.

  “Isaac, good to see you,” said Stuart, extending his hand. Isaac shook it, then ushered them both through the door and out into the night air of the Boardwalk.

  “Been swimming?” Isaac asked Anna, with a nod toward her wet head. What he really wondered was whether they’d just come from a hotel room.

  Anna didn’t answer him, so Stuart did. “I’ve been teaching her the basics.” He grinned at her, then added, “She’s a quick study.”

  “That’s great,” said Isaac, trying hard to come off sounding like an affectionate older brother, a difficult feat considering he had barely spoken to Anna in the four months she’d been living with his in-laws. When Isaac went over for dinner, Esther was always there, ready and able to carry the conversation.

  “And you?” Anna asked.

  “Met someone here for a drink.”

  Anna and Stuart offered empty acknowledgments, then looked at each other.

  It was at least a fifteen-block walk back to the Adlers’ apartment, and Isaac’s apartment was four blocks past that. If Isaac accompanied them, he’d ruin everyone’s evening—that much was clear. He needed to get Stuart alone, but not here. If only Isaac had been a little kinder to him all along. It wouldn’t be so awkward now.

  “You still rowing in the mornings?” Isaac asked Stuart.

  “I try to.”

  “I’d love to come out with you one of these days. See Atlantic City from a new perspective.” Isaac didn’t see how the view could be much different from what he saw from the end of Steel Pier, but he hoped the excuse sounded plausible. Anna didn’t look as though she bought Isaac’s enthusiasm but Stuart was more generous. If he was suspicious of Isaac’s motives, he didn’t let on.

  “Anytime. You never know—I might turn you into a rower.”

  “You going out tomorrow?” Isaac asked.

  Even Stuart looked baffled now. “Sure am.”

  “Maybe I’ll come.”

  “I’ll be out on the beach at six.” Stuart gestured toward the stretch of sand directly in front of The Covington. “Right over there.”

  Isaac raised his fingers to his forehead in a mock salute. “Aye aye, Captain.” Then he looked up and down the Boardwalk, desperate for an excuse to take his leave. “I’d love to walk back with you both but I promised Fannie I’d pick her up some macaroons from Segal’s.”

  Anna and Stuart weren’t even capable of feigning disappointment. “Of course,” both of them said at the same time. As everyone said their good-byes, Isaac studied Stuart carefully. The trick to being a good salesman was being able to correctly identify people’s desires. If Isaac was to have any hope of selling Stuart on Florida, he had to figure out what Stuart cared about. He didn’t know much about him, but there was something about the way Stuart looked at Anna, as they turned to go, that gave Isaac a decent place to start.

  * * *

  Isaac had had two drinks—downed in quick succession—when he suggested tagging along on Stuart’s predawn row. Now, in the sober light of the early morning, he wondered why he had thought the excursion seemed like such a good idea.

  He waved at Stuart as he neared the rescue boat, and once he was within shouting distance, called out a buoyant “Ahoy!” It was important, he thought, to convey as much joviality as the early morning hour allowed.

  Stuart put two sets of oars and a rescue can into the boat. “Do you prefer the bow or the stern?”

  Isaac hadn’t considered the fact that Stuart might expect him to row. Once or twice, last summer, he’d seen Stuart and Florence taking the boat out, and Florence had always sat motionless at the front. Was that the bow? Growing up forty miles inland, Isaac had never needed to learn the parts of a boat. “I don’t have a preference,” he said to Stuart.

  “Let’s get her out in the water and then you can take the bow.” Stuart tapped the front of the boat.

  Getting the boat in the water was no easy feat. It looked simple enough when the lifeguards pushed it off its wooden rollers and into the ocean bu
t, in actual fact, the boat was a heavy beast. “You take this thing out on your own? I’m impressed.”

  “I do, but when you’re by yourself, there’s no room for error.”

  The same was true for swimming, Isaac supposed. Look at poor Florence. Isaac didn’t like to think about Florence much, had tried, in the six weeks since her death, to push her from his thoughts. She had driven Fannie mad at times, but he’d always thought her perfectly fine. A little brash. And maybe too excitable. But she was a good daughter and a doting aunt. He realized, now that she was gone, that she’d also acted as a useful buffer, drawing some of Joseph and Esther’s attention away from Isaac’s own small family.

  “The key to keeping water out of the bilge is to heave the boat out onto the crest of a wave, as fast as you can,” said Stuart as he watched the water. “Push it into the curl of a wave and you’ll damage the boat.”

  Isaac gripped the edge of the boat and waited for Stuart to give a command.

  It came a few seconds later. “Go!”

  Stuart leaned into the other side of the boat and Isaac could feel the boat’s inertia begin to shift. Isaac dug his heels into the sand and pushed hard until the boat began to move, slowly at first and then faster. His ankles were wet and now his knees. He worried he’d soon be in over his head. “When do we get in the boat?” he yelled across the beam.

  “Now!” Stuart heaved himself over the edge and into the stern of the boat, then reached down, gripped Isaac’s hand, and pulled him up and over the side. Isaac grabbed for the forward thwart but could make no attempt to sit down until they’d made it through the breaking waves closest to the shore and out into calmer water. When they had both found their seats, Stuart handed him a pair of oars.

  “I didn’t think to ask but do you swim, Isaac?”

  Isaac was clinging so tightly to the frame that he was sure he’d left permanent marks where his fingernails had pressed into the soft wood. He made a conscious effort to loosen his grip and fold his hands more casually in his lap.

  “I’m all right,” said Isaac, which didn’t exactly answer the question. Stuart eyed him cautiously.

  “What you’re going to want to do is slip the oars into the oarlocks.”

  To think that he had to add rowing to this mix. It seemed unlikely that, between trying not to fall out of the boat and trying to propel it forward, Isaac was going to have any time or energy to talk about the Florida deal.

  “You want the paddles to enter the water like knives. Pull hard when they’re at ninety degrees, and then give yourself time to glide.”

  Eventually Isaac got the hang of it, and his confidence grew. It wasn’t so bad being out here. In fact, it was nice. All the familiar noises of the shore—the dings of the Boardwalk amusements, the blasts of the lifeguards’ whistles, the organs that played on the piers—fell away, leaving only the sound of lapping water against the boat.

  “It’s so quiet,” said Isaac. “I can see why you like it.”

  Stuart didn’t say anything, just kept rowing. He seemed content to let silence sit between the two of them, which wasn’t going to do Isaac any good. He tried a different tack.

  “So, Anna’s doing well with the swimming?”

  “I think so. Considering she’d never swum until a few weeks ago.”

  “She’s a pretty girl.”

  “Yes,” said Stuart tentatively, as if he wondered where Isaac was going with the comment. Isaac wished he knew. He just knew he had to bring the conversation around to Stuart’s hopes and dreams and—eventually—Florida.

  “It’s a shame about her parents.”

  “Shame?”

  “How they can’t get out of Germany.”

  “Oh?”

  “Their visa application keeps getting denied. Or at least that’s my understanding.”

  “What’s the issue?”

  “Aside from the fact that the American consulate probably has it out for Jews?” Isaac could see Stuart wince, so he tried to temper his remarks. “I don’t know the specifics.” If Isaac wasn’t careful, he was going to inadvertently sell Stuart on investing in the American Jewish Committee.

  For the next half hour, Isaac concentrated on rowing the boat in a straight line. He didn’t make another attempt to steer the conversation until they passed Absecon Lighthouse and Stuart gave the signal that they were going to turn around. The Covington was a tiny dot on the beach, barely distinguishable from the Traymore Hotel next door.

  “All of these beautiful beachfront properties,” he said. “They’re really something, aren’t they?”

  Stuart nodded, appreciatively.

  “I give a lot of credit to men like your grandfather. They arrived on a barren beach—nothing more than a railroad station next to a pile of sand—and imagined what Atlantic City might become. They were geniuses, all of them.”

  “It was actually my great-grandfather.”

  Isaac didn’t skip a beat. “Even more impressive.” A seagull cawed overhead. “That’s the way it was in Florida, when I lived down in West Palm Beach.”

  “You were down there for how long?”

  “Five years. Worked for a great guy—selling real estate.”

  “What brought you back up here?”

  “When the bottom fell out of the market in ’26, there was no more work.”

  “You liked West Palm Beach?”

  “I would have stayed forever if there’d been a job for me. The area’s beautiful. It’s what I imagine Atlantic City was like fifty or sixty years ago. Still rife with opportunity.”

  “Not since the crash, I suppose,” said Stuart. It was the perfect opening for Isaac’s pitch.

  “You’d be surprised. A lot of investors foreclosed in the fallout, and the banks are finally trying to off-load all those properties. Or you’ve got investors who’ve been sitting on land for the past eight years, watching the prices plummet, and are ready to sell even if it means taking a loss. My friend tells me that buyers are getting big parcels of land for a song. Everything’s so undervalued.”

  Stuart raised his eyebrows and bobbed his head, as if he were taking it all in.

  “I’m actually thinking about buying some property myself. West of West Palm Beach. A big citrus farm near Lake Okeechobee. It was bought by a developer who went under. My friend’s got me a deal, paying thirty dollars an acre. You can get a lot of acreage at that price.”

  “Would you move down there? Build on it?”

  Isaac shook his head. “I don’t think I’ll ever get Fannie out of Atlantic City. Not after—”

  Florence. Definitely not the best topic to bring up right now. Stuart looked at Isaac, then out at the horizon. “Right.”

  “The beauty is, you don’t need to move down there to make money. The prices are going to go up.”

  Stuart reminded Isaac to adjust his oars. The sea was getting rough.

  “I’ve actually got a few friends going in on it with me. It’s a big enough parcel of land—a hundred acres—that it makes sense to buy in together.” Isaac swallowed and then went for it. “It might even be something you’d be interested in.”

  The Covington was coming into clearer focus, and Isaac watched Stuart look for it among the other grande dames that lined the beach.

  “If you’re anything like me,” said Isaac, “you want something that’s yours. This might be—”

  Before Isaac could get the rest of the sentence out, a big wave crashed over the side of the boat and sent him flying into the ocean. The water swirled around him and he panicked, unable to tell up from down. He flapped his arms and kicked his legs, desperately trying to appropriate a swim stroke but he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t orient himself. Is this what Florence had felt like, frightened and alone in a dark cocoon of briny water?

  Isaac felt something bump against his back. Was it the boat? A piece of driftwood? He tried to grasp it, couldn’t. But then he felt someone grab him from behind and realized Stuart had found him—miraculously—in the nubilou
s water. Stuart pulled Isaac to the surface, where he grabbed a large mouthful of air before being pushed under the water again and rolled onto Stuart’s rescue can. The can buoyed him back up to the surface and he held it tight while Stuart pulled him over to the boat, which had drifted a dozen or more yards away.

  “Hold on,” Stuart yelled as he hauled himself into the boat, then quickly reached down into the water and grabbed Isaac under the armpits. “I’m lifting on three. One, two, three.” Isaac felt his weight shift, his belt catch on the lip of the boat, but he was too exhausted to help Stuart in any way.

  The boat had taken in at least six inches of water, which lapped against Isaac’s leather loafers—now ruined. Stuart didn’t say a word as he rowed the rest of the way back to the Kentucky Avenue stand. Isaac’s oars remained still—perched in the oarlocks—while Isaac stared at the sky and tried to collect himself. He would have liked to break the silence, once he recovered himself, but he wasn’t sure where to begin. After Stuart drove the boat onto the beach, Isaac stood, carefully, and tried a simple “thank you.”

  “Sure,” said Stuart as he popped the cork plug on the bottom of the boat to let the water drain.

  Isaac began to panic. He couldn’t let one badly timed wave kill his chances with Stuart. He reached for his wallet, forgetting that his cards would be useless, also soaked through.

  “You can find me at the plant,” he said, after he’d shoved the wet wallet deep down into his pocket, “if you’d like to learn more about that opportunity in Florida. I’d love to—”

  “You’re something,” Stuart said, interrupting him. “You nearly drowned out there.” He positioned the rollers in front of the boat and instructed Isaac to lift.

  “I know. And I appreciate what you did, saving me.”

  “Here’s what I’d appreciate,” Stuart said, when the boat was up and they’d begun pushing it back to the stand. “I’d appreciate you remembering that, while I may be a nice guy, I’m not a complete idiot.”

  Isaac stopped pushing. “I never said you were.”

  “We’ve known each other for almost a decade, and you’ve never spoken more than two words to me. On the day you decide to take up rowing, you also have a cockamamie real estate deal you want me to—what—invest in? Pitch to my father? You know I don’t actually have access to any cash?”