Most of the kids caravanned from the University of Michigan, about one hundred fifty miles away. Ann Arbor had seemed so far away when Betty was a little girl, but ever since she’d seen her first fashion magazine at about age ten—a copy of Harper’s Bazaar left behind by her mother—she’d wanted to leave Michigan for New York City. That’s where magazines were made. Nannie had said so when Betty asked.
She hadn’t read the articles at first but had lost her thoughts among the images of women in swimsuits on a windy beach—a beach not unlike her own, aside from the palm trees. Later that day, she’d read the articles, so she had a reason to keep the magazine open and on her lap. Nannie would never ask her to stop reading. Betty was a good reader, above her grade level. Someone had written those words about the fashions and fabrics and styles—of course they had: words didn’t appear by magic. The idea that this was someone’s job had ignited her imagination. Betty had wanted to be that person, have that job, from that day forward. And now in a few months she’d be headed to Barnard College in New York City. She stopped short of attributing her aspirations to her mother and credited Diana Vreeland and Harper’s Bazaar.
The only things she thanked her mother for were her hair and her figure, and Tillie had had no say in bequeathing either one.
On one of their visits, Betty’s parents had chosen to give her a Sally-kins doll, the kind with a soft body and hard, molded head and hair. Betty had already gravitated away from dolls and toward books and puzzles—but how would they have known?
Betty turned the pages of the latest Seventeen but gazed out the laundry room window. A few clouds floated by, though not enough to dim the sky or her excitement. She balanced the open magazine on top of a box of borax, flipped one more page, and read the headline: “Your Future: Where Is It?” She dog-eared the article for later. Then she dipped her hands into the pocket of her apron, knowing she’d find bobby pins and rubber bands from the summer before. Bits of lint collected beneath her nails. With the bobby pins pinched between her lips, she swept her hair off her neck, securing it into a ponytail, then off her face with pushes and twists.
Work could not be put off any longer. She fluffed the pile of blue embroidered curtains that would hang in the guest cottages once she ironed them. It was the same blue her grandfather had mimicked in all of Stern’s Summer Resort’s tablecloths, napkins, and bedspreads. Even the matchbooks and ashtrays were the same shade, a color that was “easy on the eyes and just right for a vacation,” Zaide had said. He’d dubbed it “Stern Blue.” Betty was never sure if he realized the irony.
The iron hissed its willingness to begin, and Betty laid a linen and lace panel flat on the board at her waist. The back and forth sliding motions were hypnotic. For the past three summers, Betty had been the lone ironer until the laundry girls’ shifts began.
The air grew damp with steam and crisp with the smell of warm starch. Betty closed her eyes and pretended it was the lingering scent of an extinguished bonfire. She’d been awakened by that smell throughout her childhood, as well as by laughter on the beach outside her bedroom window. When she was twelve, her curiosity and a preteen crush on a waiter named Gerald had compelled her to the window, and she realized it likely wasn’t boring grown-ups outside. She padded over and watched as shadows danced at the lake’s edge without music—at least, she couldn’t hear any—their arms in the air or around each other. Others lay close together atop blankets spread out on the sand. From that moment on Betty had wanted to be the girl a handsome boy teasingly chased across the beach, laughing with that knowing kind of smile that said, I dare you to catch me. The girl who was still dancing a slow dance in the arms of a dashing prelaw major as the sun came up, and whose evening ended at daybreak with a perfect kiss. Just like in the movies.
By her junior year of high school and after a month of milkshakes and movies with Robert Smith, Betty was secretly thrilled when Robert had carried a blanket during their usual after-dusk walk on the beach. It was so romantic, even more so because it was fall and she knew he’d put his arm around her. He’d unfolded the blanket and swung it out like a red tartan sail, and the fabric had floated down to the sand. He’d chosen a spot far from the light of her house or that of her neighbors. Soon his arm around her led to kissing, which led Robert to press his body against Betty’s so that she’d had to lie back on the blanket. She hadn’t stopped kissing him, though the wool had itched her calves, back, and shoulders as if an army of ants was running rampant on her skin. She’d squirmed, which somehow had prompted Robert to skim his hands over her blouse and unbutton it. It had been an odd sequence of sensations, but not entirely unpleasant.
Betty had later told Georgia that she’d allowed Robert to go to second base because she was sixteen and it was time. What she hadn’t told Georgia was that she’d kind of liked it.
A week later she’d set her limits with Robert when he unzipped her pedal pushers. Flustered and curious, she’d allowed him to do so; then, despite her haze, she’d lifted Robert’s hand and placed it above her waist.
“Can’t blame a guy for tryin’,” he’d said.
With a sizzling jolt, Betty opened her eyes wide. “Criminy!” She’d jammed the
