Then she slid her hands up his chest and around his neck. This time he touched open lips to hers. She crushed against him as the sweet kiss accelerated. Abe was skillful and passionate, not boyish or clumsy.
She drifted, oblivious to time, unaware of the surroundings. Then she recognized the taste. Mint.
Betty’s insides fluttered. Abe had planned to kiss her all along.
She pulled away and kissed Abe’s cheek, his chin, the tip of his nose. She rested her head on Abe’s chest. He lay back on the sand and she remained there, listening to his heartbeat. Did all hearts pound so loudly?
Summer stretched in front of her, but at the same time the season wasn’t very long at all—just three months. How could it be that just days after she met him, she’d found a piece to her puzzle? And not just any piece—a corner piece, one that secured her to everything else in her life.
And just like that, she knew.
I love him.
It felt the way she believed it should. Safe and strong. Urgent and patient. Overpowering and liberating.
He traced his hand down her back. She laid her arm over him, pulling Abe as close as she could. Her next breath emerged as a sigh. She could be closer.
It wouldn’t happen tonight, but it would happen. Abe would be her first.
She wanted him to be her only.
Chapter 9
BETTY
On Saturday night, traces of perfume and hair spray sailed around the dining-room-turned-nightclub. Cigarette smoke draped the air like a morning mist. Diamonds sparkled on wrists and necks, satin shimmered on bodices and lapels. Live trumpets blared, saxophones swooned, drums thundered.
Betty swept her hands behind her waist that had been cinched inside her pale-blue taffeta dress. She locked her fingers and stepped backward to the wall. Just one dance with Zaide and then she could go. Nannie had promised Betty could leave before midnight.
Her grandparents whirled around the dance floor as if stand-ins for Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, though in the dimmed room the spotlight remained on the Rudy Mazer Orchestra. Nannie and Zaide wouldn’t have had it any other way. They spent the off-season booking top-notch entertainment. Fellow resort owners cursed Nannie for her charm and Zaide for his shrewdness, but the guests boasted to their friends and family and strangers on the beach. “Boasting boosts business,” Zaide often said.
In her mind, Betty swapped out her grandparents for her and Abe, decades from now, a lifetime behind them. She imagined his broad shoulders filling a tuxedo jacket destined for dancing, not waiting tables, and herself in the aubergine organza gown with a trumpet skirt and an illusion neckline that was both alluring and sophisticated—the one she’d seen in Vogue. No matter how flattering, there would be no more modest pastel dresses with layers of petticoats once she entered college. She tapped one foot and closed her eyes, pretending she’d been transfixed by the music.
She visualized Abe leaning down to kiss her, and the way his mouth stayed parted when she removed her lips from his neck. Her heart rate quickened, and blood rushed through her veins. She remembered the piercing gazes they’d shared on the lawn, in the main house, by the tennis court earlier that day.
“May I have this dance?”
The voice did not belong to Zaide.
Betty opened her eyes. “No, thank you, Marvin.” He smiled anyway. Had she blushed? Could he know what she’d been thinking?
“My mother calls me Marvin.”
“No, thank you, Marv. I’m actually waiting for someone.”
Marv turned toward the dance floor, then back to Betty. Zaide was waltzing with Mrs. Levine.
“Since no off-duty staff is allowed in the nightclub and your grandfather looks busy . . .” Marv cocked his head. “I’m sure Abe wouldn’t mind if two old friends shared a dance.”
Betty would mind but she heard Zaide’s voice in her head: Give the guests what they want. Did anyone care what she wanted?
“What about Eleanor?”
“What about her?”
“Won’t she mind?”
Marv shook his head and smiled but didn’t smirk. “No, she won’t mind.” His tone was mild, without insinuations or demands. Then he held out his hand. “Please.”
Betty nodded. It was just one dance.
And it was one dance with Marv. They whirled around the dance floor to “Till the End of Time.” It was one of Nannie’s favorites, but a little old-fashioned for Betty’s taste, which made it perfect. The band played some new music, but mostly catered to the guests her parents’ and grandparents’ ages.
As the song ended, Zaide walked toward them wearing his new midnight-blue semiformal dinner jacket, a fashionable match for Nannie’s peacock-colored dress, even when she was on the far side of the room directing cocktail waiters.
He dominated the crowd, guests stepping aside as if nudged. There was never a sideways glance or distasteful sneer. Of course, her grandfather was handsome, but it was something else for Betty to see the reaction to his stature and good looks, to realize that even at sixty-two he garnered the attention of men and the admiration of women. A cluster of guests—female guests—pressed to the side to make way for Zaide, as if it was their pleasure to stop talking and smash their evening gowns together like cotton rags. Betty thought perhaps it was. “Come back and have a drink with us?” one woman said. And why shouldn’t she? Zaide always had a jovial anecdote or kind word for every guest. For the women he sprinkled compliments the way Betty had sprinkled daily fish food for a carnival goldfish.
Zaide patted the sheen from his forehead and slid his handkerchief into his pocket as he struck the shoulder of Mr. Horowitz with his other hand like they were old college pals.
Abe would be just as smooth when he was older, Betty was sure of it.
“May I cut in?” Zaide asked.
Marv released his hand from Betty’s waist but maintained a light hold on her right hand, which he placed into her grandfather’s left. Even after an enjoyable Lindy Hop, repugnance settled into Betty’s
