Stuart led them to the doors of The Covington, almost directly across the Boardwalk from the beach tent, where a man in a purple jacket with gold buttons held the door open for them. “Evening, Mr. Williams,” he said to Stuart.
“Evening, Henry.”
“Do you come here often?” Anna asked, when they were through the door and making their way across the lobby, which was very grand.
Stuart gave her a funny look and let out a small laugh, “Not if I can help it.”
Florence had said something about Stuart’s father owning a hotel, but Anna had naively assumed she meant one of the little kosher hotels that lined Atlantic City’s side streets. Well, maybe not kosher, but at least small. She had pictured a narrow, three-story building with perhaps a dozen rooms and an elderly hotel proprietor who spent his days pointing tourists toward the beach. Surely, this couldn’t be the hotel Florence meant?
“They let you use the pool?”
“Sort of,” said Stuart as he grabbed her arm and steered her toward the elevator.
“Second floor, Cy,” he said to the bellhop, when the elevator doors opened and they stepped inside. This had to be his father’s hotel, Anna decided. How else would Stuart know the name of the bellhop?
When the elevator doors opened on the second floor, Stuart gestured for Anna to get out. “Cy,” he said as they stepped off the elevator, “I’m not here.”
“Didn’t see you,” said the bellhop.
Anna saw a small sign that read ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICES but Stuart led her in the opposite direction, down a long, carpeted corridor, dotted with club chairs and cocktail tables. Long, heavy curtains hung in the windows, which was too bad because they obscured the view of the beach, on one side of the hotel, and a large Italianate terrace on the other. Halfway down the corridor, they came to several sets of French doors, each of which led out to the terrace. “After you,” said Stuart, holding one of them open for her.
The terrace was lovely, nestled between the hotel’s two tall towers like a precious gem. At its center was a large swimming pool, and surrounding the pool was a little cabana and an abundance of lounge chairs, potted plants, and statuary. On the far side of the pool, stairs led from the terrace down to a lawn of perfectly manicured grass, completely enclosed by a tall ironwork fence.
“It’s hard to believe I’m still in Atlantic City,” said Anna.
“It’s a whole different world, all right.”
Scattered around the terrace were the last of the day’s bathers and a handful of people, already in their evening wear but committed to having a poolside cocktail before dinner.
“Are we allowed to be here?” Anna asked Stuart as they put their things down on a lounge chair in a quiet corner of the terrace.
“Is the pope Catholic?” said Stuart, which Anna tried her best to interpret before giving up. Sometimes American expressions made no sense at all.
Stuart slipped off his shoes, walked over to the swimming pool, and dove in. Anna worried he’d hit his head on the bottom of the pool, but he popped up smiling a moment later. “Come on in,” he called to her.
Anna’s hands shook as she went to unbutton her dress. Why ever had she thought swimming lessons would be a good idea? She was uncomfortable at the thought of standing before Stuart in nothing but a borrowed bathing suit, and she was terrified to get in the water. Surely it would have been less painful to avoid the ocean for the rest of her life. Anna pulled the dress down around her knees and stepped out of it, her back to Stuart. Then she took more care than necessary to fold the garment. When the dress was neatly put away and she’d shoved her hair into a cap, there was nothing left to do but turn around and make her way toward the pool. She kept her eyes on the pavement, not daring to make eye contact with Stuart.
“Are you nervous?” Stuart asked, forcing her to look up.
Anna let out an uncomfortable laugh. “Yes, quite.”
At the edge of the pool, she crouched down and tried, as gracefully as she could, to sit. Her legs dangled in the water, which was colder than she’d imagined.
“It’s only about three feet deep here. You can stand,” he said, extending his hand to help her into the pool.
She had no choice but to grab it and slide off the pool’s edge and into the cold water. “Oh!” she said, without meaning to. She shuddered as the water hit her skin.
“It’s not bad, right?”
Once she got used to the temperature, the water actually did feel kind of nice. It was an odd sensation, to be standing in several feet of water, much different than soaking in the tub at the apartment.
“I’m only going to teach you one thing today.”
“Oh?”
“Don’t sound so disappointed,” Stuart said, smiling at her. “You’re going to learn to float. If you can float, you can swim.”
Before Anna could say anything, Stuart fell backward and began to demonstrate. “See how my arms are extended and my chin’s up. I keep my chest out, too.”
Arms, chin, chest. It didn’t look that hard.
“The trick with floating,” said Stuart, righting himself, “is that you’ve got to relax. If you’re not relaxed, you’ll sink like—”
A rock? Florence? Anna could understand why he had abandoned the metaphor.
She grabbed hold of the pool’s edge and attempted to dip her head and shoulders into the water.
“Not that way. Come out here,” said Stuart. “I’ll hold you up.”
Anna moved toward Stuart, as if she were walking in slow motion. When she reached him, he placed his hand, gently, on the small of her back and coaxed her to lean backward until she was staring up at The Covington’s roof line and the dusky sky that peeked out between the hotel’s looming towers. She
