Summer of '69(58)

Jessie removes the necklace from the box but leaves the box itself, closed, on the triangular table. Then Jessie tiptoes out of the room and hurries back to Little Fair, where she wraps the necklace in a hankie and tucks the hankie into her drawstring purse. She will wear the necklace to dinner.

It isn’t really stealing, Jessie tells herself, because the necklace is hers. But taking it without Exalta’s knowledge or permission has done the trick. Jessie feels better.



Exalta leaves for her bridge game at five and Blair orders two pizzas from Vincent’s to be delivered at six. Kate and Blair exchanged words about why Blair ordered two pizzas.

You’re enormous, Kate said bluntly.

I’m hungry, Mother, Blair responded. I’m eating for three.

Jessie puts on her blue seersucker sundress from the year before but it’s tight around the top, so Jessie has no choice but to go down to the kitchen and ask her mother and sister for help with the zipper.

“You’ve outgrown this,” Kate says.

“You’re getting breasts,” Blair says. She turns to Kate. “Have you bought her a bra?”

“She’s only twelve years old,” Kate says.

“Thirteen,” Jessie says. Her cheeks are burning with both embarrassment and pleasure. She’s getting breasts!

“You need to take her to Buttner’s to get her a training bra, Mother,” Blair says.

Kate sighs. “I’m not ready for this.”

“Fine.” Blair turns to Jessie. “I’ll take you.”

“Find something else to wear,” Kate says.

Jessie goes back upstairs to put on her only other choice, a white eyelet A-line sundress, which is a bit more forgiving. She secures the chain around her neck, then studies herself in the mirror. She wishes Pick were here to see her but he has already left for work. Jessie should have suggested they go to the North Shore Restaurant.



When Jessie and her mother arrive at the Mad Hatter, the ma?tre d’ greets Kate with a bow. “Good evening, Mrs. Foley,” he says.

“Mrs. Levin,” Kate says. “Come on, now, Shep, I’ve been Mrs. Levin for fourteen years.” Her tone is light; she seems unbothered. It was a simple mistake, and Shep is an older gentleman who has known Jessie’s mother since she was Katie Nichols. But Jessie can’t help studying Shep. Does he seem like an anti-Semite?

“Of course. I’m sorry, Mrs. Levin. This must be young Jessica Levin, then. If I’m not mistaken, you’re celebrating Jessica’s birthday.”

“Yes, correct, thank you, Shep,” Kate says, and she ushers Jessie forward.

The Mad Hatter is Jessie’s favorite restaurant because walking into it feels like entering another world. There are detailed murals on the walls depicting scenes from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, not only the Mad Hatter himself but also an imperious-looking Queen of Hearts, the White Rabbit, and a rendition of the Jabberwock that Jessie was afraid of when she was younger. The previous year when they came here for dinner, Tiger and Kirby told Jessie that Lewis Carroll, the author, had written the books while smoking opium.

“That’s why this world is so disturbed,” Kirby said. “It’s all about mind-altering drugs.”

“It is?” Jessie said. She wasn’t sure if they were telling her the truth; sometimes they told her things to see if she was gullible enough to believe them. Jessie had thought the Alice books were children’s stories, like “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.”

“Take the Cheshire cat, for example,” Tiger said. “Do you know why he’s smiling?”

At that point, Kate had told them to stop putting ideas in Jessie’s head, which meant, Jessie assumed, that what they were saying was true.

Now their waitress arrives, wearing a blue dress with a white pinafore. She tells them her name is Alice, then she lowers her voice to a whisper and says, “It’s really Alice.”

Something is a little off with Alice, Jessie thinks. Her voice sounds spacey and her eyes are red, like Kirby’s when she smokes marijuana. Jessie remembers one time after Kirby had been smoking that Exalta noticed her red eyes and asked if she had been swimming in a pool. Kirby and Tiger—and even Blair—had cracked up about that later, and “swimming in a pool” became their code for getting high.

Has their waitress Alice been swimming in a pool? Jessie wonders. She wishes her siblings were there so she could make them laugh by asking.

Kate orders a martini with two olives and Jessie orders a Shirley Temple with two cherries and Alice giggles. Kate scans the other tables and the chairs around the sunken Jabberwocky bar, but there is no one she knows, and she seems to relax. When her martini arrives, she loosens up even more. She actually smiles. Jessie realizes she hasn’t seen her mother smile since the letter from the Selective Service arrived.

“Cheers to you, my darling,” Kate says. “Happy birthday!”

It’s ten days after Jessie’s birthday, but this definitely qualifies as a case of better late than never. Jessie touches her mother’s glass with her own, and together, they drink.

The relish tray arrives. Using the tiny, three-pronged fork, Jessie plucks out a piece of pickled cauliflower. She doesn’t particularly care for the taste, but her siblings used to fight over the cauliflower, and because of this, it has become a prize.