“What should I do if I’m really not sure?”
“You should go home and talk it out with Clark.”
“But not until after we eat,” Doris said as the oven timer dinged, and the four women pushed back their kitchen chairs and stood.
Hannah removed the cake from the oven and set it on a wire rack to cool. Boop didn’t bake much—her harmless resistance to one vestige of housewifery—but thanks to Nannie she had all the correct equipment. Doris found the cake knife. Georgia gathered plates and forks and napkins. Boop whisked lemon juice into powdered sugar until it transformed into a shiny glaze.
Hannah drizzled the glaze over the cake and carried the pan to the table. Everyone sat, and Hannah served.
“So, did you end up ‘going with’ that guy Abe? Isn’t that what you called it?”
“She did,” Doris said. “He was a good-looking boy. Dimples, right?”
Boop huffed. “Must you, Doris?”
“He was, but it’s irrelevant,” Georgia said. “We were young. Everyone was beautiful or handsome.”
Not true.
“Do you have any pictures?” Hannah asked.
Boop shook her head. “Not a one.” At the time she didn’t think it mattered.
“What happened between you?”
Boop revised her revisionist history. “It just ended.”
“And you started going with Pop after that?”
“She did,” Doris said. “Marvin was like her knight in shining loafers.”
“Ixnay the opinions, Doris,” Georgia said.
Hannah smiled at Boop. “I don’t mind. Without Abe, you wouldn’t have ended up with Pop. There would be no Dad, no me, no Emma, no twins. It had to happen for all of us to be here.”
In almost seventy years Boop hadn’t thought of it that way, that the events of that summer had served only as her circuitous pathway to Marvin. That he had been her destiny all along.
Even during good times—and there were many—Boop had always believed she and Marvin were each other’s runner-up. What if she’d always been wrong?
“No matter how you ended up with Pop, I’m glad you did. Obviously.” Hannah laughed.
“Me too.”
“Do you know what happened to him?”
“What happened to whom?” Georgia’s voice rose and she dragged out the m sound.
“Abe. Who do you think?”
Boop’s heart pattered. Mentioning Abe in the past or thinking of him in private was one thing, but talking about him as if he were part of her present? She had stopped doing that a long time ago. She’d locked the vault and thrown away the key.
“How on earth would I know about him now?” Boop asked.
“People are always looking up their old boyfriends and girlfriends online. I can check for you, if you want.”
“That seems a little meddlesome, Hannah.” But it piqued Boop’s interest anyway. Was it wrong? Who could it hurt? Silly question. It could hurt her. He might have forgotten her. He might have no memories. He might be dead. He was probably dead.
“That’s what the internet is for, Boop! Aren’t you curious?”
“No, she’s not curious,” Georgia blurted.
But questions fluttered inside Boop like a flung deck of cards. Could it really be that simple? Why hadn’t she thought of it before? She knew how to use the internet. “Well, maybe a little curious now that you mention it. But don’t do anything. Not unless I ask. The last thing I need is a surprise.”
Chapter 7
BETTY
Betty loved summer Shabbos. The aroma of chicken noodle soup floated into the dining room on a magic carpet of sweet brisket, roasted hen, and just-baked challah. Her stomach gurgled as she walked to her grandparents’ table in the center of the room, set with simple silver candles, a pewter kiddush cup, and a bottle of Manischewitz Concord grape wine. Georgia called it the Jewish holy trinity.
“Good Shabbos, bubbeleh,” Zaide said.
“Good Shabbos, Zaide.”
“You look very pretty tonight,” Nannie said.
“Thank you.” Betty wouldn’t have considered her seafoam circle dress with the white wing collar worthy of notice, but along with her new white gloves, it was appropriate for Shabbos. And it was pretty enough for Abe.
“My girls sure are lookers.” Zaide stood at attention, his natural stance, as the guests flowed into the room. On Shabbos Zaide didn’t schmooze, or maybe he schmoozed less. Most of the meal he stayed by Nannie, his own Shabbos queen. Once, Betty had seen Zaide pat Nannie on the bottom.
“Ira!” Nannie had said.
“It’s a mitzvah on Shabbos, Yetta.”
She looked up at Zaide and waggled her finger. Betty could have sworn Nannie winked. It was years before Betty understood what Zaide had meant, and then she didn’t really want to think of her grandparents being romantic, even if it was a mitzvah.
Tonight, Nannie, Zaide, and Betty were to dine with the Goldblatt family—Mr. and Mrs. Seymour Goldblatt from Indianapolis, along with their sixteen-year-old twins, Marsha and Marna, who wanted all the details of Betty’s senior year.
Mrs. Alice Goldblatt, nicknamed Mrs. Gallbladder by the staff, crowed about extensive dietary restrictions, though no one at the resort had witnessed an attack during an entire decade of summers. Still, when the Goldblatts arrived for their three-week stay, Chef Gavin prepared ample portions of boiled chicken and steamed vegetables at every meal, as requested. But every day, after feasting on a platter of bland, medicinal food, Mrs. Goldblatt finished off her family’s plates in full view of the other guests and staff, right down to wiping the fattiest bits of chicken skin in gravy. She tucked Danish into her handbag each morning and shnecken into her evening clutch. Rumor swelled one summer, something about a cheese blintze found between the sheets.
Maybe Mrs. Gallbladder had thought that was a mitzvah.
Betty loved this craziness as much as she loved the familiar view of her lake. These were her people, her family. She knew their quirks and foibles, and they’d watched her grow up—more so than her own parents, who feigned interest no more than one weekend a summer during a break in their performance schedule. That’s when they showed up in South Haven, gussied up and gorgeous, both of them.
