Florence Adler Swims Forever: A Novel

by Rachel Beanland

  It was as if the girl understood Anna’s urgency, could sense that something important was on the line. Immediately, she began plucking suits of every shape and color out of the drawers behind the counter. “Do you know your size?” she asked as she eyed Anna’s bust.

  “I don’t. I’m sorry.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said the salesgirl as she led Anna toward a dressing room in the back of the store. “Get undressed.”

  For a half an hour, the girl handed Anna one bathing suit after another. “That one you’re wearing was featured in the Atlantic City Press last weekend. Did you catch the piece Alicia Hart wrote?”

  “What was it about?” Anna asked through the curtain as she yanked the legs of a black-and-white suit down around her thighs. It wasn’t flattering.

  “Checking up on your weight before you buy a new swimsuit.”

  Anna made a face in the mirror. “I guess I don’t have time for that.”

  “Try this one,” said the girl as she dangled an emerald-green bathing suit around the edge of the curtain.

  Anna seized it at once. “It’s a beautiful color.”

  “I think it will look nice with your hair.”

  Anna was in it in a flash. “Oh, wow,” she said as she looked at herself in the mirror. She didn’t think she’d ever seen a suit so pretty. It was made of nylon, not wool, and tied around her neck, leaving her back exposed. The suit pushed and pulled in all the right places—accentuating her small waistline and breasts—but it was the color that made the biggest impression. In the suit, Anna’s ordinarily pale skin glowed.

  The salesgirl peeked her head into the dressing room, and when she saw that Anna was dressed, pushed back the curtain so she could see her properly. “You look lovely.”

  Anna stared at her reflection, from all angles, trying to see herself as she imagined Stuart might.

  “If you don’t buy that suit right now, I’m going to call my manager.”

  “How much is it?”

  “Three dollars.”

  Anna felt a stab of guilt, thinking about the money. But it was a beautiful suit, dazzling even. “I’ll take it.”

  At the counter, the salesgirl folded the suit carefully, wrapped it in tissue paper, and tucked it away in a brown box, which she tied tight with a piece of twine. Anna took the box and thanked her, then ran back to the apartment, so eager was she to lay eyes on the suit once more.

  Back at the Adlers’, Anna went straight to her bedroom. She tossed her purse on Florence’s bed and sank onto her own, where she wasted no time tearing open the box’s neat packaging. The bathing suit was as beautiful as it had been in the store, and most important of all, it had never belonged to Florence.

  Anna went to the radiator and retrieved Florence’s suit from its hiding place. She walked with it over to Florence’s dresser, rubbing the nubby material between her fingers. After she had brought it to her lips for a brief moment, she folded it carefully and tucked it away in the same drawer where she’d found it.

  * * *

  When Anna arrived at the beach tent the following evening for her regularly scheduled lesson, Stuart surprised her. “I thought we’d graduate you to the ocean. See how you do in the waves.”

  “No pool?”

  “No pool,” he said, cuffing her lightly in the arm.

  Anna liked The Covington’s pool, liked the quiet seclusion of their little bowl of water. There had to be a hundred or more hotel rooms with views of the pool deck but when she was in the water with Stuart, dusk wrapping itself around their wet shoulders, she felt protected, safe.

  “But first,” said Stuart, “can I drag you out for a drink with a bunch of the guys from my old beach tent? Everyone’s meeting at Bert’s.”

  “Is tonight a bad night?” Anna asked, thinking of the emerald-green bathing suit she wore under her dress. “We don’t have to—”

  “No, I want you to come.”

  It had been more than a month since Stuart had given Anna her first swimming lesson, and in that time, they’d never gone anywhere but The Covington’s pool. He walked her home each night, all the way to the sidewalk in front of the apartment. There had been several nights when they had walked past a crowded diner and she had been tempted to ask if he wanted to stop. But asking had always felt too forward, as if she were extending the relationship beyond its natural bounds and possibly even trying to usurp Florence’s role in his life. Florence was the one, she imagined, who squeezed into diner booths with Stuart, sipping coffee and sharing slices of pie.

  Bert’s was located on the Boardwalk, close to the Maryland Avenue beach tent, and by the time Stuart and Anna arrived, a bunch of guys and a handful of girls had already pushed several small cocktail tables together and ordered a round of drinks. Stuart procured two chairs from an empty table nearby, and Anna watched as everyone at one end of the seating arrangement moved their own chairs to make room for him. Anna felt sure people had been happily making room for Stuart his whole life.

  Stuart pulled out Anna’s chair, and she sat down in it. “Anna, this is Charles Kelly,” Stuart said, introducing the man to his left. Charles was accompanied by a pretty girl Stuart didn’t know.

  “I’m Lillian,” said the girl, reaching her hand across the table.

  Anna extended hers. “Pleased to meet you.”

  Stuart continued around the table, introducing her to a half-dozen members of the ACBP. When he got all the way around the table, he clapped the shoulders of the man who sat on Anna’s other side and said, “And this is Irish Dan, the craziest son of a gun you’ll ever meet.” Irish Dan removed an imaginary hat from the top of his head and tipped it toward her.

  Anna bent her head low, pretending to curtsy. “No surname for you?”

  “Doyle,” he said and stuck out his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “What makes you so crazy?” she asked, idly, as Stuart took a seat and ordered two beers.

  “I have a habit of reacting first, and thinking things through later.”

  “That doesn’t sound so crazy.”

  “Stuart,” Irish Dan said, raising his voice so as to be heard over the other conversations, “I like this girl.”

  Stuart smiled, winked at Anna, and said, “Me too.”

  The chairs were pushed close, and Anna was acutely aware of the number of inches that separated Stuart from her. If she moved her knee, even slightly, it might knock against his. Did he think about these sorts of things, too?

  Their beers arrived and Stuart handed Anna hers, icy cold in the bottle. “Cheers,” he said as they clinked the bottlenecks. She took a short sip.

  “You two going to the Lifeguard Ball?” Lillian asked. Anna was fairly certain Charles kicked his date under the table because a moment later, Lillian looked at him apologetically and said, “I was just asking.”

  Anna didn’t know what the Lifeguard Ball was and certainly didn’t know how to answer the question, so she was relieved when Stuart didn’t miss a beat. “I haven’t asked her yet but I’m hoping so.” Anna turned in her chair to look at him. “It’s at the end of the summer. Will you come?” he asked quietly.

  She didn’t know what to say, especially in front of so many people she didn’t know, so she just said, “Yes.”

  Stuart’s face broke into a broad smile then, and he reached into Anna’s lap to give the hand closest to him a celebratory squeeze. The touch of Stuart’s skin against hers sent a jolt through her body, and Anna wondered immediately if he’d felt it, too.

  When, instead of removing his hand, Stuart weaved his fingers through hers, Anna stopped listening to a word that was being said around her. All she could concentrate on was the way Stuart traced her knuckles with his thumb.

  They might have sat like that all night, blindly learning the contours of each other’s hands, had Lillian not declared her seat no good. “It’s dull as doornails over here. Stuart, switch seats with me,” Lillian said, already standing. “I’d much rather talk to Anna than Charles.�
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  Was Stuart obligated to play Lillian’s game of musical chairs? Anna didn’t think so but she also knew he was too polite to say no.

  “Charles, I thought you said this one liked you,” Stuart teased. He let go of Anna’s hand, and she watched, crestfallen, as he stood, grabbed his beer, and moved across the table from her. When he looked at her, from the seat Lillian had so recently abandoned, she thought he turned up the corners of his mouth, apologetically, but it was hard to tell because Anna was too embarrassed to study his face for long. Her hand burned in her lap.

  Anna had always thought Stuart handsome and had always known him to be kind but she wondered if she was giving those feelings more credence than they deserved, now that Eli Hirsch had so plainly spelled out her options. She looked around the table. Every one of Stuart’s friends on the Atlantic City Beach Patrol was a gentile. She knew for a fact that his father’s hotel didn’t rent rooms to Jews. Surely, he didn’t want a Jewish wife? Except, Anna reminded herself, he had confessed to loving Florence.

  Lillian plunked herself down in Stuart’s empty chair. “I like the view from here much better,” she said, winking at Charles. Anna was inclined to hate her, not just for banishing Stuart to the far side of the table but for the easy way she captured the group’s attention. She was so casual, so frank, so painfully American.

  “You’re German?”

  Anna nodded and took a sip of beer. It wasn’t worth explaining that she had been born in Hungary.

  “When did you meet Stuart?”

  “A few months ago.”

  Lillian very clearly wanted more explanation but what was there for Anna to tell? We were introduced by a girl who’s now dead.

  “And you’ve been seeing each other since then?”

  Anna glanced across the table at Stuart, wondering if he’d heard Lillian’s question. Charles was in the middle of a story of his own, but there was something about the way Stuart sat, upright, one ear toward Lillian and Anna’s conversation, that made Anna wonder if he was trying hard to listen in.

  “Stuart’s been teaching me to swim.”

  “Oh, so you’re not seeing each other?” Lillian persisted.

  The phrase seeing each other seemed like such a strange euphemism for dating. Anna stared at her hand—still in her lap. What could she say other than no? She shook her head.

  “In that case,” said Lillian, “half the girls in Atlantic City will sleep easier tonight.”

  “Oh?”

  “It’s true. Charles says they all fall for Stuart. A handsome member of the Beach Patrol who also happens to be the heir to a hotel fortune. What could be better, right?”

  Anna took a long swallow of beer. Lillian was unbearable.

  “There was some girl he was hung up on for a while. But I think that’s all in the past now.”

  Who was she talking about? Florence? Anna had to get away from Lillian. She drained her beer, put the bottle down on the table, mumbled something about having to use the lavatory, and disappeared into the back of the bar, where a waiter pointed her toward the water closet. After she had found the little room, she closed the door behind her with a grateful thud, threw the lock, and leaned heavily against the door’s louvered slats.

  Lillian sounded incredibly crass, the way she talked about Stuart. But was Anna any better? Wasn’t she just another girl who was trying to convince Stuart to fall in love with her? The girls Lillian knew wanted Stuart for his father’s money, and Anna wanted him for his citizenship. He probably deserved a girl who wanted neither.

  There was a light knocking on the door of the water closet. Anna felt the vibrations in her shoulder blades. “I’ll be out in a minute,” she called.

  “It’s me,” said Stuart. “What do you think about getting out of here?”

  * * *

  Outside Bert’s, the sun had begun to set and the sky looked almost lavender. Stuart suggested they walk along the beach, instead of the Boardwalk, so they both kicked off their shoes and carried them in their hands as they made their way south along the edge of the sand.

  “When we get closer to the apartment,” Stuart said, “we can decide whether we still want to swim.” Anna could tell he was being gentle with her. Usually, when it came to her lessons, there was no getting out of them. But he seemed to sense that the outing had gone poorly, or at least not well.

  “I’m sorry I moved seats,” he said.

  Anna let out a little laugh.

  “What?” he asked, smiling. “I didn’t know she’d be so bad.”

  “She’s terrible.”

  Stuart scrunched up his nose. “I feel rather bad for Charles.”

  “Charles! What about me?”

  “You’re right, you’re completely right,” said Stuart, nudging her shoulder affectionately with his. “For the record, I can’t get any girl in Atlantic City.”

  “Oh?”

  “Kitty Carlisle performed at the Nixon Theatre last month, and she wouldn’t even return my calls.”

  Anna grinned. He’d obviously heard every word Lillian had said. “You must have been despondent.”

  “I was,” he said with a grin. “Want to swim here?”

  They’d come to a spot of beach not far from Steel Pier. By the time Anna could respond, Stuart had already dropped his shoes in the sand and pulled his shirt over his head. Tentatively, she began to undress.

  “Is this okay?” Stuart asked, sensing her trepidation. “If you hate swimming in the ocean, we’ll go back to the pool tomorrow.”

  “It’s fine,” she said as she worked the buttons on her dress. She didn’t feel fine, she felt like a complete fraud. Her dress slipped off one shoulder, exposing the bright green suit underneath.

  “Anna Epstein, do I detect a new bathing suit?”

  She could feel her face flush but she made a point of giving him what she hoped was a coquettish smile.

  “Let me see it. All of it.”

  Anna skipped the rest of the buttons and pulled the dress over her head instead. “Ta-da,” she said, hoping she came off like a girl who was always buying new bathing suits and parading them around the beach.

  Stuart seemed to sense she needed reassurance. “You look beautiful.” He grabbed her hand, briefly, and said, “The suit’s nice, too.”

  Suddenly Anna wished for the dingy black bathing suit at the back of Florence’s drawer, an article of clothing that allowed her to hide in plain sight.

  “Anna, is there something else the matter?” Stuart asked.

  How much should she tell him? It was hard to know. If she shared too much, she ran the risk of him seeing right through her, of recognizing that her affection was muddied with other desires. If she didn’t share anything, how would he ever know what she needed?

  “I heard from my mother yesterday. Things aren’t looking very good for my parents.”

  “What are they saying?”

  “That there’s not enough in the bank account Joseph opened.” She held her balled-up dress in front of her chest.

  “What about the affidavit?” asked Stuart. “You said there were more letters now.”

  “The consul wants them to come from close relatives.”

  “And your parents have no relatives in the U.S.?”

  Anna shook her head. “Just me.”

  “Right, of course,” Stuart said, acknowledging his slip with a small laugh. “You couldn’t sponsor them, I suppose?”

  “I’m on a student visa.” She used her free hand to tuck a piece of hair behind her ear.

  “There’s nothing else Joseph can do?” Stuart asked.

  “He’s done so much already.”

  “How much was in the account?”

  “Twelve hundred dollars,” she said, and watched Stuart’s eyebrows jump.

  “And the consul is saying it’s not enough? That’s crazy.”

  “They told my parents they’d want to see ‘some amount’ of money in an irrevocable trust.”

  “How much?”


  “They didn’t say. But if the expectation is for them to live off the interest, without touching the principal, we’re probably talking about close to five thousand dollars.”

  Stuart let out a low whistle.

  “I know.”

  “What does Joseph say?”

  “Nothing definitive. But I’d be surprised if he can part with that much money.”

  “Few people can.”

  They stood there in silence for several minutes. If only Anna knew what to say or do to turn the evening around. It was possible that, at this point, it was already too far gone.

  “Do you know Eli Hirsch?” Anna finally asked.

  “Vaguely.”

  “I went to see him yesterday.” A sand crab scurried past their feet, and they both watched it disappear into a hole in the sand. “He thinks my best option is to forget school and try to get American citizenship. Then my parents would qualify for a preference visa, which is far easier to get.”

  “Wouldn’t your parents be crushed?”

  “My father hasn’t worked in over a year.”

  “How easy is it to get American citizenship?”

  “If I applied for permanent residency, not very easy.” Anna inhaled and forced herself to look at Stuart. “But if I married an American, it’s fairly straightforward.”

  Had she really repeated Eli Hirsch’s suggestion aloud? Anna wasn’t drunk, by any means, but the beer had left her feeling bold.

  “Is that what you want?” Stuart asked, his brow furrowed. “To marry?”

  Anna couldn’t bear to meet his eyes for a moment longer. Instead she looked away, studied the way the sand stuck to her toes. All she wanted this very instant was to put her dress back on. “I don’t know.”

  “Do you have your eye on one American in particular, or will any American do?” Stuart’s voice had a hard edge to it. Anna had never seen him angry, didn’t know it was even possible to elicit such a response from him.

  “Stuart, please.” She reached for his hand again, the same hand that had felt like it was another part of her under the table at Bert’s, but he shook it away. “Let’s just swim, okay?”