Florence Adler Swims Forever(36)

Anna made a face, as if she were carefully assessing Gussie’s secret-keeping attributes.

“I think she will do all right with such a big secret.”

Stuart had to think fast to come up with something. “It’s called ARP Talk, and it’s much more sophisticated than Pig Latin. You have to say ‘arp’ before every vowel sound. So, your name is Garp-u-sarp-ie. And I’m Starp-u-arpart.”

“What’s Anna’s name?”

“Arpann-arpa, of course.”

Gussie practiced for a few minutes. She said the made-up words for beach and sand and home.

“You’re quite good,” said Anna.

“So, the club rules are pretty straightforward,” said Stuart. “Don’t share the secret handshake with anyone who’s not a member, don’t teach anyone who’s not in the club the secret language, and—” He hesitated here. “Don’t tell anyone that Florence is dead.”

“Do I have to tell them she’s alive?” Gussie asked.

Stuart looked at Anna, who shook her head no. “Nope, you can just change the subject. Or say nothing at all.” Stuart eyed the bins of taffy. “Hold on one second.”

He grabbed a large handful of individually wrapped pieces of taffy and put them in a small paper sack, which he took up to the counter to be weighed. When he returned, candy in hand, he distributed three pieces to each of them and instructed them to remove the waxed wrappers.

“This is a very solemn part of the initiation ceremony,” he said, trying to make his face look serious. “I want you to put all three pieces of taffy in your mouth at once and repeat the following after me.”

As Gussie unwrapped her candy, Anna whispered “thank you,” to him over the top of Gussie’s head.

He shrugged his shoulders, to indicate it was nothing. “You’d better unwrap yours, too.”

When all three of them had worked the papers off their candies and placed the soft taffy in their mouths, Stuart said the only rhyme that came to mind, very fast: “One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret, never to be told,” and the girls repeated it, laughing at how ridiculous they all sounded.

They chewed in silence for several minutes, their mouths full of the sticky treat.

Gussie tried to ask Stuart something but it took her three tries before he could make out what she was saying.

“Should we initiate my father and grandparents?”

Stuart swallowed, then cleared his throat. “They’re already full-fledged members of the club. If you want to, just to be nice, you can offer them a piece of candy.”

“But we’ll initiate my mother?”

Stuart tried to imagine a scenario in which Fannie had had her baby, been told about her sister’s death, and recovered from both experiences sufficiently to sit with her daughter in James Candy Company, stuffing her mouth with taffy.

“Sure, after the baby’s been born, and someone’s had a chance to tell her about Florence,” said Stuart, watching Gussie’s face carefully to be sure she understood. He thought she did. Anna patted her head.

“Are we ready to go?” Stuart asked them both.

“Stop!” said Gussie just as he had begun moving toward the door. “What’s our name?”

“Name?”

“Our club name,” said Gussie. “All secret clubs have names.”

“By Jove, you’re right,” said Stuart, smacking his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Anna, why didn’t we tell her the club’s name?” He was clearly stalling, a fact that Anna seemed to pick up on with little problem and that Gussie was willing to ignore.

“I don’t know how we forgot,” Anna said, offering up an apologetic smile but no name to go along with it.

His mind flashed through images: Florence tucking her hair under her red bathing cap, Florence plunging into the waves from the side of the rescue boat, Florence taking notes in the notebook with the pale blue cover. Quickly, it came to him.

“We call ourselves the Florence Adler Swims Forever Society.”



* * *



It was hard for Stuart to extricate his hand from Gussie’s sweaty palm, but at a quarter to ten, he looked at his watch, made his apologies to Gussie and Anna and then Esther, promised to be in touch with Joseph as soon as he heard anything from Bill Burgess, and took off toward the Kentucky Avenue beach tent.

He’d made it half a block before he heard someone calling his name, and turned to find Anna running to catch up with him.

When she arrived in front of him, she was out of breath.

“I wanted to ask you something,” she said when her breathing had returned to normal. “A favor.”

“Sure.”

She straightened, fidgeting with the clasp on a small handbag that had been tucked under her arm but that she now held in front of her like a shield.

“I can’t swim,” she said, her voice so quiet he wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly.

“Pardon?”

She cleared her throat. “I can’t swim.”

It wasn’t surprising, really. Plenty of girls couldn’t swim. In fact, most every girl he met couldn’t—not really.

“You didn’t swim in Berlin?”