There had been a good bit of debate between Gussie’s mother and grandmother over what to do with Gussie while her mother was on bed rest. Remaining with her father, Isaac, had turned out to be out of the question. Gussie knew this because she had overheard Esther tell Fannie so in precisely those words. “Gussie remaining at your apartment is out of the question.”
Gussie was sure her father would balk when he learned that her mother intended to send her to live with her grandparents for the summer but, as her mother’s confinement neared, not a word was said about the plan, one way or the other. The day before Fannie was to be admitted to Atlantic City Hospital, she packed Gussie’s summer clothes and bathing suit, some of her books, her jacks, and coloring pencils away in an old suitcase. The bag sat in the apartment’s narrow hallway, a boulder that Isaac had to step over to get to the kitchen. When Gussie could no longer stand his silence on the subject, she begged, “Father, can’t I stay with you? Here?”
“Gus-Gus,” Isaac said, as if he were going to give her a straightforward response, “what in the world would we get into, knocking around by ourselves?”
Gussie had begun to wonder if her entire life might be rhetorical—no answers for any of it—when Florence pulled her back to the present, “Remember, knees and heels together. If you’re a mermaid you can only move your feet. I mean, fins.”
Gussie pushed off the sandy bottom and scooted through the waves, using her arms to steer and kicking her tail fiercely. Always, she was careful to keep her chin above water. “How do I look?” she called over her shoulder, but Florence wasn’t watching her, wasn’t even looking in her direction. Instead, she sat in the breaking waves, studying the shore.
Gussie circled back, waved a hand in front of Florence’s face. “Let’s pretend you’re the mermaid in the glass tank at Steel Pier, and I’ll swim from Australia to save you.”
“Why do I need to be saved?” said Florence, who still looked very far away. “Don’t I like my life at the Pier?”
“You want to be free to swim about in the ocean, silly.”
Florence turned to face Gussie then, giving her niece her full attention. “Yes, you’re quite right. I nearly forgot.”
When Florence and Gussie returned to the chairs Joseph and Esther had rented, they found Anna sitting on a blanket, alone.
“Your parents went for a walk,” Anna said to Florence, completely ignoring Gussie.
Florence motioned for a small, pleated bag, within arm’s reach of Anna, and Anna passed it to her. As Florence rooted through it, a red bathing cap escaped. Gussie reached for it and handed it to Florence, who waved it away, one hairpin already in hand and three more in her teeth. While Florence pulled her short, brown hair away from her face, Gussie held the rubber cap in her lap, admiring it. Her aunt always had the prettiest things. Tiny stamped divots ran across the cap’s surface in neat rows. Each one reminded Gussie of a starburst.
“Are bathing caps required at this beach?” Anna asked.
Florence mumbled something through her pursed lips but it was unintelligible on account of the pins, so Gussie answered for her. “Not anymore.”
Anna exasperated Gussie but for no real reason. She was quiet and a little hard to understand but she was also perfectly nice, and even pretty—with dark brown hair, green eyes, and pale skin that was unlikely to get any darker if Anna continued to wear drab cotton dresses to the beach.
“My hair just gets in my eyes when I swim,” Florence said after removing the last pin from her mouth.
“Very good,” said Anna, but the word good came out sounding more like gut. Anna’s English was close to perfect but her accent was heavy, and sometimes her words came out slowly, as if her sentences were a string of taffy. Often, Gussie didn’t have the patience to wait on them. Gussie’s mother had told her to be kind—that she should try to imagine what it must be like for Anna to be in a new place, so far from her parents, but Gussie wasn’t inclined to be sympathetic.
Gussie heard a high-pitched whistle followed by a “heigh-ho!” and turned to watch Stuart Williams leap from the Boardwalk onto the hot sand.
“Have you abandoned your post?” her aunt shouted at him as he raced toward them and grabbed Florence up in a hug. Anna and Gussie stood to greet him, too.
Gussie thought Stuart was very handsome. He didn’t look anything like the men in her family, or any of the men at the synagogue, for that matter. He had clear, blue eyes and short, blond hair, and in the summer months, his skin tanned to a golden brown. He wore the same blue suit that all the Atlantic City Beach Patrol lifeguards wore—a wool one-piece with a white belt and the letters ACBP stitched across his chest.
“Dan said you were here, so I had to come see the siren of the sea for myself.” He rubbed the top of Gussie’s head with his fist and extended a hand toward Anna. “I’m Stuart.”
“Stuart, this is Anna from Germany,” said Florence. “She’s staying with my parents for the summer. Until she goes to college.”
“Good to meet you, Anna from Germany,” he said with a smile. “Where are you going to school?”
“New Jersey State Teachers College.”
“Ah, in picturesque Trenton.”
“He’s a wisecrack. Don’t pay him any attention,” said Florence to Anna, conspiratorially. “Trenton’s fine.”
Stuart’s eyes were shiny and bright. “When’d you get back?” he said, returning his attention to Florence.
Florence put a finger to her lips, as if she were doing a complicated arithmetic problem. “Three or four days ago?”
“And this is the first I’m seeing you?
