Florence Adler Swims Forever: A Novel

by Rachel Beanland

  “It’ll be dark soon,” he said, looking up at the sky and then back at her. “I think we’ve lost our window.”

  Anna bit her lower lip. How had she made such a disaster of this?

  “Can you make it the rest of the way home?” he asked. “I told some of the guys I might try to meet back up with them when we were through.”

  Through? She nodded vigorously, wanting badly for him to know she was fine, although it didn’t look like he was waiting for an answer. He had already scooped up his shirt and shoes and begun walking back down the beach. Anna watched him get smaller and smaller, wondering if at any point he might glance over his shoulder to find her still standing in the same spot. But he never did.

  August 1934

  Gussie

  By the time Anna and Gussie arrived at the beach, on Saturday morning, to watch Atlantic City’s annual pageant swim, a hundred or more swimmers had been corralled behind the start line.

  A few ACBP lifeguards had cleared a wide path to the water’s edge. Now they patrolled either side with their arms outstretched. “Move back!” someone called, so Gussie and Anna and several hundred other spectators took a half-dozen large steps backward.

  More lifeguards were stationed in rescue boats along the course, ready to disqualify swimmers who cut corners or dive for the ones who had overestimated their own abilities. It’d be easy to do so, as the course was challenging. Swimmers entered the water in a mad dash at States Avenue and, presuming they didn’t get a fist or a foot in the face, swam out into open water, where the waves could be especially unforgiving. The rule was that the swimmers had to make a sharp turn at the orange buoy and swim 220 yards north to Garden Pier. Only after they’d rounded the second buoy, past the pier, could they return to shore.

  Gussie scanned the course, looking for Stuart. He wasn’t at the start line but it was hard to tell if he was in one of the rescue boats. A few guards dangled from Garden Pier, where they had a bird’s-eye view of the race and could holler at the swimmers below, but Gussie couldn’t make out their faces from this far away.

  At precisely ten o’clock, a man with a megaphone stepped up to the start line and welcomed the swimmers and spectators to the event. The crowd cheered, and Gussie clapped her hands excitedly. She looked over at Anna, whose arms were folded across her chest. She had never looked so miserable.

  At breakfast, Gussie had pleaded for someone to take her to the pageant swim but no one had been inclined to do so. “Not this year,” her grandmother said, resignedly, as she passed Gussie the lox.

  “But we always go,” Gussie complained, and the grown-ups just looked at each other.

  Finally, her father, who was making a rare appearance at the apartment, broke the silence, “Gus-Gus, we always go because Florence always swims it.”

  “So?” said Gussie, “I like it no matter what.”

  Gussie had always liked attending the pageant swim but it was particularly thrilling last year when Florence had won the whole thing. Gussie and her parents and grandparents had gone down to the beach to witness the spectacle, and everyone had screamed and carried on as Florence made her way out to sea. Gussie could no more pick out her aunt, among the dozens of swimmers, than she could the beak of a bird in the sky but she had continued to yell, “Go Florence!” as the family hurried down the Boardwalk to watch the finish. When Florence emerged from the water, she offered the crowd a thousand-watt smile then ripped off her cap, waving it above her head triumphantly. She’d beaten all the girls, including the girls she’d swum with for the Ambassador Club and the WSA girls who had come down from New York. Mayor Bader gave huge silver trophies to the six best swimmers, three men and three women, and Gussie loved hearing her aunt’s name called last.

  “I’m not going to be able to see,” Gussie said to Anna after a tall man in a straw hat moved in front of her.

  “You’ll be fine.”

  Gussie darted in front of the man just as a gun went off and the swimmers—both men and women—stampeded past her, a flurry of arms and legs flying over the sand.

  Last year, Florence had been near the back of the pack but it hadn’t mattered one bit. By the time the first women arrived at the buoy, she was already in the lead.

  “Were there this many people here last year?” Anna asked when the last of the swimmers had thrown themselves into the waves and the crowd had quieted slightly.

  “More,” Gussie said. The answer didn’t sound right but she liked the idea of the race being better—in every possible way—when Florence had been in the water and her family had been on the sidelines. If Anna didn’t believe her, she didn’t let on.

  Gussie could tell Anna liked the race because, as they walked toward the pier, she kept asking questions about it. She wanted to know why the race was called a pageant and what the prize was and how this year’s crop of swimmers compared to previous years’. Gussie answered what she could. When she didn’t know the answer, she just made something up. Anna couldn’t expect her to know everything.

  Gussie dragged Anna toward Garden Pier. The pier was lined with shops on either side of its central promenade but the main attraction was the pier’s flower beds, which were crowded with exotic plants and dotted with gazebos and even a small pond. At the end of the pier sat a large exhibition hall that blocked Anna and Gussie’s view of the ocean.

  “Shouldn’t we just wait on the beach?” asked Anna. “That way we’ll be sure to see everyone exit the water.”

  “There’s a bit of pier around back,” said Gussie as she navigated the crowded promenade. What she didn’t tell Anna was that she thought it likely Stuart would be at the end of the pier. It’s where he had stationed himself last year, after he’d seen Florence off at the start.

  When they had made their way behind the exhibition hall, Gussie scanned the crowd, looking for Stuart’s head of blond hair. It took several minutes before she spotted him, standing amid a big group of lifeguards who were whooping and hollering over the railing.

  Gussie raised her hand in the air and called to Stuart, and she thought she saw him turn his head but then Anna tugged at her hand to let a group of children pass, and by the time she had a view of the railing again, Stuart had disappeared. Where could he have gone? Surely, he’d seen her?

  A terrible thought occurred to Gussie. Could Stuart be avoiding her? Her stomach grew queasy. It had taken her the better part of a week to work up the nerve to ask him to marry her, and she had spent an entire afternoon painting the pair of sea horses, which she had forgotten to explain, when she gave the rock to him, were actually Stuart and Gussie. If she had explained, he might have asked why she’d painted sea horses instead of people, and she didn’t want to get into that. Everyone knew it was extremely difficult to paint people who looked like people. Sea horses were much easier. How often did anyone see a real sea horse up close? Not very often.

  Sea horses or no sea horses, Gussie had been pleased with Stuart’s response to her proposal. She hadn’t expected them to marry immediately, so she wasn’t put off by waiting until she was grown-up. But maybe all his talk about marrying her when she was older was just his way of saying no. Like how, when she asked her mother if she could buy penny candy at Fralinger’s, the answer was always “Later.” Could it be that he didn’t really want to marry her at all?

  When Anna eventually let go of Gussie’s hand, Gussie circled back around the exhibition hall, toward the promenade, to see if she could catch Stuart. It seemed unlikely that he’d pop into one of the shops on the arcade but maybe he had gotten stuck talking to someone on his way back to the beach. She checked the amphitheater and each of the little gazebos near the pier’s entrance before she realized that she’d forgotten about Anna, who would be furious with her for wandering off. Gussie turned around and hurried back toward the rear of the pier but had only made it as far as the front of the exhibition hall when she heard her name being called repeatedly. She turned to see Anna running frantically along the promenade.

&nb
sp; “I’m here!” Gussie called.

  Anna stopped in her tracks and looked around the pier wildly. Gussie could tell it was taking her a moment to locate her voice, amid all the commotion, so she called to her again. “Over here!”

  When Anna laid eyes on Gussie, her face flooded with relief but then it was as if a curtain came down over her features. Her eyes narrowed and her mouth pinched shut. She walked straight over to Gussie and without saying a single word, slapped her across the cheek.

  No one had ever slapped Gussie. She was so surprised by what Anna had done that she didn’t even think to cry out.

  “I thought you had fallen off the pier and drowned.”

  “I was just looking for—”

  “I’m not finished.”

  Gussie rubbed her cheek.

  “I am sorry you are having a rotten summer. A rotten year, really. Hyram, Florence, your mother’s hospital stay, your father. You don’t deserve any of it.”

  “I was just—”

  “I said I wasn’t finished. You have every reason to be angry and your grandparents have every reason to want to coddle you. But when you are with me, you will never disappear like that again. Do you hear me?”

  Gussie was too embarrassed to say anything, so she just nodded. Was it possible that everyone on the pier had heard Anna’s rebuke? How many of them had witnessed the slap? Gussie felt her face grow warm and suspected her cheeks were flushed. Anna looked at her for what felt like ages and then did something unexpected. She grabbed Gussie by the shoulders and pulled her close.

  Anna’s body was warm and damp with perspiration but being locked in her arms wasn’t an entirely unpleasant feeling. Her embrace wasn’t so different from that of Gussie’s mother. Or even Florence. Their hugs had always felt sturdy and sure. Gussie rested her head against Anna’s shoulder and allowed the pounding in her chest to slow.

  “What’s wrong with my father?” she finally asked.

  “Oh, forget I said anything,” said Anna as she pulled back to get a better look at Gussie. “If we hurry, do you think we’ll still make the finish?”

  The fastest swimmers had already arrived on the beach by the time Anna and Gussie exited the pier and made their way back onto the sand. The swimmers stood with their hands on their knees, catching their breath, and enjoying the occasional pat on the back from an excited spectator. “Well done!” Gussie shouted in the direction of three girls in Ambassador Club swimsuits.

  “Is that their uniform?” Anna asked, nodding her head toward the bathing suits all three girls were wearing.

  “Yes,” said Gussie, giving Anna a curious look. It was an odd question, and Anna seemed struck by the answer.

  There was still time to cheer on the finishers in the middle of the pack, and most definitely the stragglers, so Gussie and Anna spent the next quarter of an hour screaming at the breaking waves and the people who rode into shore on them.

  As Gussie cheered, she thought she could hear Stuart’s voice, strong and deep, over the collective shouts of the crowd but she didn’t dare turn around to find him. Partly, she worried she’d upset the peace—so newly established—between Anna and her. And partly, she didn’t like the idea of looking at a person who didn’t want to look at her.

  When the last of the swimmers had reached the shore, the race’s dignitaries began testing the megaphone and clearing their throats. A man in a three-piece suit stepped gingerly onto the podium, which was just a large wooden box decorated with flowers and bunting. “Who’s that?” Gussie whispered to Anna as the crowd surged forward but she simply shrugged.

  Now it was harder to ignore Stuart, who stood directly in Gussie’s sight line. She caught his eye, and he gave her a small wave and a half smile. Her heart swelled. Maybe he had liked the marriage proposal just fine and she had worried for nothing.

  Gussie looked over at the podium where last year’s winners—three men and two women—had gathered. Were they going to be asked to announce the awards? Distribute the medals? Gussie felt Florence’s absence sorely then and reached for Anna’s hand, expecting a gentle squeeze of acknowledgment.

  But Anna wasn’t paying any attention to Gussie, and her hand hung limp by her side. Anna was looking at Stuart, and when Gussie turned back to him, she realized that his eyes, which looked sad and maybe slightly confused, were locked on Anna’s.

  Surely Stuart didn’t love Anna? In Gussie’s opinion, Anna wasn’t always even all that likable. Stuart had told Gussie on the beach that day that she was free to marry someone her own age but he hadn’t said anything about himself. She hadn’t even considered the fact that Stuart might fall in love first, before Gussie had a chance to grow up. Her heart started to beat hard in her chest and she crouched down in the sand so she could think more clearly.

  Gussie was so distracted that she might have ignored all the speeches entirely but for the mention of her aunt’s name. Florence Adler. She looked up at the podium. What had the man with the megaphone said? Now he was asking people to bow their heads, to observe a moment of silence.

  “What did he just say?” Gussie whispered, rising to her feet.

  “He said the committee wanted to honor Florence’s memory.”

  “What does that mean?” she asked, rubbing her cheek, which still stung.

  Anna was already pulling her in the direction of the apartment. “It means everybody knows.”

  Esther

  After Anna and Gussie had left for the pageant swim and Isaac had made his own hasty escape, Esther washed and dried the breakfast dishes and put them away.

  In a fortnight, the renters would be gone, back to Philadelphia, and she and Joseph could move back into the house on Atlantic Avenue. For several years, Joseph had advocated keeping a set of pots and pans, some dishes and flatware, even some sheets and towels at the apartment. But each summer, when it came time to close up the apartment, Esther packed everything up anyway. She preferred to believe that, by the following year, they might be able to say no to the rental income and see what the summer breezes felt like on their own front porch.

  Esther knew she would never move past Florence’s death—not really—but if she could distance herself from the apartment, where her daughter had most recently lived, she thought she might be able to think more clearly. By Labor Day, she’d have returned Gussie to her parents and Anna would also be gone. Esther craved an empty house and, more than anything, the chance to be alone with her grief.

  “Joseph,” Esther called down the hallway to the living room, where she knew her husband had to be hiding behind a newspaper. “Would you mind going downstairs and getting me a few of the packing crates?”

  She listened for a response but didn’t hear so much as the rustle of a page.

  “I thought I might pack up some of Florence’s things.”

  He still didn’t answer her—she was sure her request had surprised him—but a moment later she heard the click of the latch on the front door and his footsteps on the stairs. She moved into the bedroom her girls had once shared and tried to ignore the evidence that Anna was now the room’s only occupant.

  Esther took a deep breath and began opening the drawers of her daughter’s dresser. She scooped up the clothes and undergarments and swimsuits and moved them, in big armloads, over to the bed, where she could get a better look at everything. In the jumble, she spotted Florence’s old Ambassador Club suit—so well-worn the black wool looked gray. She held the suit to her face as she considered the pile of clothes in front of her. What would she do with all these things? Keep them? She doubted Fannie would fit into any of them, not after a second baby. She stopped herself. Third baby. Anna had a slim waist and could probably wear almost everything but giving Florence’s clothes to her was out of the question.

  Joseph appeared in the doorway, carrying a stack of three empty crates. He set them down on the floor beside Florence’s bed. “Do you want help?”

  Esther placed the swimsuit on top of the dresser and looked around the room. What s
he wanted was her daughter back. She thought about telling him that but instead she just said, “I’m fine.”

  She moved one crate onto the bed, reached for a camisole, refolded it, then placed it at the bottom of the crate. Did Joseph plan to hover in the doorway all afternoon? She wished he would leave her alone but, to her disappointment, he wandered over to the dresser, opened a drawer, and removed a pair of motorcycle goggles Florence had retrofitted for her swim around the island.

  “It was a smart idea,” he said. “Dipping the goggles in paraffin.” The wax had begun to flake off in large chunks, and he picked at a piece that hadn’t yet pulled away from the leather.

  Esther let out a short sigh. “A lot of good it did her.”

  “She made it around Absecon Island.”

  “And that should please me?”

  “It pleased her.”

  Esther held on to the crate in front of her with both hands.

  “You’d do it all again?” she asked, tentatively. “Teach her to swim, encourage the practicing and the competitions? Knowing how this all ends?”

  “Of course not.” He moved around to the other side of the bed, picked up a pair of stockings, and began to fold them. Her heart sank. He clearly intended to stay.

  “Not like that,” she said, reaching for another pair of stockings just like the ones between his fingers. “Fold them in half first. Then roll them.”

  Joseph looked at her, his eyes so full of pity it made her want to scream, but did as he was told.

  He bungled three pairs before he spoke again. “There wasn’t any part of you that enjoyed watching what she could do in the water?”

  Esther unfurled the hosiery Joseph had folded and refolded it to her liking. Had Esther gotten something out of Florence’s swims? She had certainly never enjoyed the helpless feeling she got when her daughter was out in the open water. But, in small ways, Esther supposed she had enjoyed Florence’s triumphs. She had liked complaining to the grocer that her daughter was eating her out of house and home. He would weigh a big bunch of bananas or a bag of glossy oranges and cluck agreeably. She liked the way the mothers of the younger girls in the Ambassador Club always made a point of asking, whenever they bumped into Esther, how Florence was doing at Wellesley. Esther would recite as many lines from Florence’s letters as she could remember, fully aware that the news would be reported back to the girls on the team. She wondered whether, if she ran into those women now, she would tell them to keep their precious daughters out of the water. She could picture Florence rolling her eyes at that.