Nannie wiped strands of hair from Betty’s forehead. “He didn’t come back.”
Betty turned her head away, tears dripping onto her pillow and into her nostrils.
“Summer romances end, sweetheart. That’s just the nature of things like this. You’ll meet a boy when you’re at Barnard and this will all be a nice memory, I promise.”
“A nice memory?” Betty turned her head to look at Nannie. “This wasn’t just a summer romance! Abe has to take care of his mother. His brother just died. We’re going to marry one day.”
Betty thought that would shock Nannie, but she didn’t look surprised. “I know you think that.” Nannie patted Betty’s hand. “But it never would have worked.”
“You’re wrong.” Betty turned her face into the pillow. The same pillow she had once shared with Abe. She wished it still smelled like him. Did she have anything that smelled like him? Betty closed her eyes to conjure the talcum powder, hair cream, and sandalwood aftershave.
They had to let her talk to Abe.
Betty pulled her hand out from under her pillow and laid it atop her head. She opened her eyes and spotted her Miss South Haven sash folded on her vanity. She had wanted that so badly—but now it meant nothing. She’d ruined the day and the pageant for herself and everyone else. But that silly sash was now all she had of sweet, simple dreams come true. “I need to talk to Abe.”
Nannie shook her head. “That’s not going to happen, Betty. Even if he had come back, this thing between you would have to end.”
“It wasn’t going to end. He’s moving to New York when he graduates so we can be together.”
“Zaide and I never would have approved.”
Betty didn’t want to say she didn’t care, but Nannie’s stare said that she knew. “No matter how smitten you are, Betty, it was never going to happen. He’s a shegetz.”
She had never heard Nannie use that nasty word for a gentile boy. “How did you know that?”
“You don’t think we know everything about our staff?”
Too bad you don’t know everything about your granddaughter.
“But you couldn’t have known. You hired him.”
“Zaide hired him. I didn’t stop him.”
“Why did you let me go out with him?”
“I wanted you to be happy. And if I’d said no, what reason would I have given? Not that he wasn’t Jewish. Zaide promised me it wouldn’t cause a problem.”
“Abe was raised Jewish. His father is Jewish.”
“You know he’s not Jewish in the eyes of God unless his mother is Jewish.”
“You’re not even religious. Why do you even care?”
“It’s the way it is. Maybe Zaide and I have been too relaxed this summer, but we wanted you to feel grown-up while we could still keep an eye on you. My mother wouldn’t have even let me date a boy who wasn’t Jewish. She’d have sat shiva for me just for suggesting it.”
“That’s horrible.”
Nannie set her hands on her hips. “What’s not horrible is that we own a kosher resort and our customers are Jewish families. Good Jewish families who want to be with their own people. Those people trusting us and looking up to us is why you have everything you have.”
“What would people say if my granddaughter had a goyish boyfriend, or worse—God forbid? Your heart will heal, and you’ll find a nice Jewish boy at Columbia who wants a modern, pretty girl like you. You’ll earn your degree—the first in the family—have your career, and start a family.” Nannie patted Betty’s arm. “I’ll tell you what—because you’re upset, we won’t even discuss what happened to the blue dress I found all in pieces, or how you invited your parents here without telling anyone.”
Betty was stunned silent. In public she had always honored and obeyed her grandparents. But her bedroom wasn’t public. What would Nannie say if she knew what had happened right on that bed? What might be happening inside Betty?
“Knock, knock,” Tillie said.
Betty had forgotten about her parents. As much as she had wanted them there, she wished even more that they’d leave. She had wanted to impress them, not humiliate herself.
Tillie stood at the door, holding a tray of food at her waist. The one time Betty had asked her to come to South Haven, and there she was, feigning maternal affection. Or maybe attending the pageant was maternal, though Betty reasoned that Tillie and Joe figured it would be time for their annual visit anyway. Standing with the tray, Tillie looked like a cigarette girl, but with a longer skirt. Betty had never seen her mother do anything domestic, yet she looked too much like Tillie for her to seem a stranger. Would Betty look like her as she grew older? Gain that slight definition in her cheeks that were still plump and somewhat girlish? Betty didn’t mind looking like her mother. It had won her a beauty pageant, after all. But Betty would grow out of her frivolity. She would never place her own dreams ahead of the fundamental needs of her child.
Her child.
Betty saw Nancy’s face again. She was wrong. Nancy didn’t know Betty. Any fullness of Betty’s was from too many cheese Danish. She wasn’t one of those girls who needed “a trip to Europe.” Plus, she and Abe had been careful.
“Nourishment for the beauty queen,” Tillie said.
As Betty flipped to her back, the odor of scrambled eggs churned her stomach.
“I’m not hungry.”
Tillie set the tray on top of the dresser. At Betty’s bedside, her mother bowed and placed her hands on her knees. “There’s plenty of fish in the sea.” She gently pushed hair off Betty’s face.
Fish.
A tightness crept up into Betty’s throat. She wanted to scream. Cry. No—
Betty escaped from her bed, shoved Tillie aside, and ran down the hall into the bathroom, where she vomited into the toilet.
Alone, Betty sweated and shivered and purged the worst day of her life.
Soda crackers.
Betty changed into her blue terry-cloth robe that hung on the back of the bathroom door. Back in her
