“Does he have a girlfriend?”
“He left that out of our ten-second conversation. I was walking to the tennis court. He passed by and introduced himself. I assumed he was heading to the Palace. It was after lunch.”
The Palace was the largest cabin on the property, but also the most run-down. It housed twenty boys, dormitory-style, and it was more like a barracks—with bunk beds, running water, toilets, showers, and sinks—than the typical Stern’s cabins, which were more like the hotel rooms Betty had seen in movies. The Castle was the almost-as-bare-bones dormitory for the female staff, and was separated from the Palace by the staff mess hall. The boys were forbidden from visiting the Castle, the girls banned from the Palace, but with the buildings out of sight from the main house (meaning Nannie) and set apart from the guest cabins, Betty suspected that was an unenforceable rule.
“So, we have a deal?”
“If it goes for all of us,” Georgia said.
“Of course! Let’s cross our hearts.” Betty drew an invisible X across her chest with her finger. They’d been crossing their hearts since grade school. It was the most serious promise they could make.
“Girls!” a voice yelled from across the lawn. It was Chef Gavin, who’d worked at Stern’s since as far back as Betty could remember. A tall man with broad shoulders, Chef Gavin boasted a belly that suggested he liked his own cooking. Nannie never trusted skinny cooks. Even Mabel, who worked in the kitchen (and helped Nannie with everything), was round like Mother Goose in Betty’s favorite childhood book. Chef Gavin traveled to South Haven each summer from the Miami Beach hotel he worked in during winter, while Mabel had grown up in South Haven like most of the kitchen and housekeeping staff. Nannie set the menu, including family favorites and recipes from well-loved cookbooks. She managed everything alongside Chef Gavin, but she also counted on him to add his Miami flair to her Michigan menu. Nannie claimed it set Stern’s far apart from—and above—the other resorts.
“What are you doing standing there? Hurry! I need your help!” Chef Gavin flailed his hands in the air.
The girls ran to the kitchen, Betty’s heart pounding. Had something happened to her grandmother?
“Come inside! It’s a disaster! Look!”
Betty held her breath and stepped into the kitchen’s prep area, a rectangular space lined with stainless-steel counters, which now were covered with dozens of silver trays filled with an impressive array of canapés. She glared at Chef Gavin. “You scared me! I thought my grandmother was dead on the floor!”
“We’ll all be dead if these canapés aren’t garnished in the next twenty-five minutes. Katherine and Hazel didn’t show up tonight. Get your aprons, girls.”
“Not tonight,” Betty said, stepping back. “We’re hostesses. That’s what my grandmother wants. She did not want us working in the kitchen. Look at our clothes!”
“You can do this stark naked for all I care; it just has to get done,” Chef Gavin said.
“There’s at least a thousand of them,” Georgia whispered.
Betty did not need to be reminded. She had spent several summers with carrot-stained fingers from peeling curls for gefilte-fish nuggets. Many times she’d stabbed herself with plastic mini swords meant for the garlic-stuffed olives or with multicolored toothpicks as she pierced hundreds of cocktail franks and sweet-and-sour meatballs, not to mention the skewers she’d poked through the cocktail lilies: slices of bologna wrapped in a cone shape with a pickle spear sticking out of the middle.
Tonight, Betty had thought she and the girls would be noshing and chatting, not stabbing and stuffing.
“I have brisket, carrot tzimmes, and baked mackerel to finish, and your grandmother will be here any minute. I will not be the one who disappoints her, Betty. Will you?”
Betty jolted from her daydream and slammed into her birthright.
“No,” she said.
Chef Gavin nodded once and walked to the far side of the kitchen.
Betty would never let Nannie down. If she had been there, Nannie would have been the first to pull on an apron over a fancy dress and decorate a thousand canapés. They all knew it.
Betty lifted three clean Stern Blue aprons from the hooks beside the door and handed one to each of her friends.
“I’ll never look at parsley the same way again,” Doris sighed. She squeezed onto the bench outside the kitchen and leaned on Betty. Then Georgia, on the other side of Betty, also leaned in. If one of them stood, the others would fall.
“We did a good job,” Doris said.
“Not too good, I hope,” Georgia said. “Remind me to stay the heck home next Tuesday.”
“I’m sorry,” Betty said. “You both look so pretty, and now our hands smell like garlic and we’re in here instead of out meeting boys.”
“Do you ever think about anything besides boys?” Georgia asked.
“Yes, you know I do. I have plans. But this summer, well, that is the plan. Oh, and to win Miss South Haven.” Betty laid her head atop Georgia’s, which rested on her shoulder. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”
“Just don’t make it up to us with canapés,” Doris said.
An unfamiliar deep voice drifted out from the kitchen window. “Good job tonight, girls.”
They turned around, but no one was there. “Wouldn’t it be swell if that was Abe?” Doris whispered to Betty.
She crossed her fingers.
The next morning, when Betty heard Nannie’s light footsteps outside her bedroom door, she pulled the blanket over her head. The door opened.
“It’s time to get up.”
Betty nodded and knew the blanket around her wiggled enough for her grandmother to feel acknowledged. The door didn’t click closed, but Betty heard Nannie walk downstairs. Zaide’s voice permeated the soggy morning air.
After the front door closed, Betty sprang out of bed. She looked out the window and spotted Nannie and Zaide walking away from the house. All she really saw were umbrellas, two black circles, one slightly ahead of
