Florence Adler Swims Forever(65)
“My daughter is gone. Nothing I do will return her to me. I try to tell myself that I am not hurting Florence or her memory by keeping her death a secret. What I am taking from the people who knew her—the chance to mourn her death and memorialize her life—can be returned to them.
“I don’t know if Esther’s right—if this news would prove too much for Fannie to bear. What I do know,” said Joseph, raising his head, “is that this baby, this new life, is the most important thing.”
Joseph looked over at Stuart. “I wish—”
Just then, they heard the long blast of a horn and looked up to see a small steamship making its way through the watery gap between Staten Island and Brooklyn. Was it the Lafayette? Joseph jumped to his feet, binoculars still in hand, but when he put the instrument to his eyes, he couldn’t get it to focus.
“You look,” he said, handing the binoculars to Stuart, who had also stood at the sound of the horn.
Stuart held the binoculars to his eyes, adjusted the diopter, and spent a long moment studying the ship through the lenses. “It’s her,” he finally said.
Joseph stared at the Lafayette, watching as it made its way toward the mouth of New York Bay. He hadn’t thought further ahead than putting his eyes on the French steamship. Now, as he watched it round Seagate and head out past Long Beach, growing smaller and smaller until it eventually become a black dot on the horizon, he tried to recall why this errand had seemed so necessary.
Florence was not on that boat, would never arrive in France. He would not find her on the shores of the English Channel or at the Hygeia or even on the beaches of Atlantic City. He looked over at Stuart, who was openly weeping as he watched the boat disappear from view. Maybe Joseph’s daughter was to be found in the people who loved her the most.
* * *
Joseph offered to drive Stuart as far as the corner of South Carolina and Atlantic avenues, where the Boardwalk National Bank was located on the ground floor of Schlitz’s Hotel. He parked the car and stared out through the windshield at the bank’s window bars, painted green, and the pair of paneled doors that led inside. Was he really going to do this?
“You bank here?” Stuart asked as he swung the car’s passenger door open wide.
“Since the day I arrived in Atlantic City.”
Joseph’s knees cracked as he climbed out of the car. He didn’t like the fact that his body had begun to feel the effects of a long drive or too much time spent in any one position. He patted his jacket pocket, making sure Bill Burgess’s check was still tucked inside.
On the sidewalk, Joseph considered putting an arm around Stuart but, in the end, he settled on a firm handshake. “Thank you, Stuart.”
“For what?”
“For Burgess. For today.”
Stuart didn’t say anything, just squeezed his hand in response.
Once they had parted ways, Joseph hurried into the bank. When the receptionist asked how she could help him, he retrieved the envelope from his pocket. “I’d like to speak with someone about opening a new account.”
* * *
Joseph was back in the office by a little after three o’clock in the afternoon. He walked through the plant, checking on the assembly line, before making his way to the third floor, where Mrs. Simons sat at her desk, typing away at her Underwood. When she saw him come up the stairs, she hit the return, pushed her chair back, and stood to greet him.
“I was starting to worry,” she said as she handed him a stack of checks to sign.
He took the stack, opened the door of his office, and deposited the checks and his binoculars on his desk. Mrs. Simons followed close behind, the most important pieces of the day’s mail in hand.
“The Baker Perkins rep is going to be by on Thursday to talk to you about the dough dividers. I put him down for eleven o’clock. And Katz & Hanstein says they’re no longer manufacturing the eighteen-ounce bread bags. Do we want to go with the next size up or look for a new supplier? They’re promising we won’t even notice a difference.”
Mrs. Simons had been good to Joseph during the past month. Privately, he knew she mourned Florence’s death but, at the office, she had committed herself to making Joseph’s life easier, his days shorter. She no longer waited for Joseph to dictate correspondence; instead, she just left the letters, already drafted, on his desk for review. She was such a talented writer and a thorough editor that Joseph rarely, if ever, changed anything. She knew all of Adler’s suppliers by name, and whereas before she might have just stamped their invoices as received and cut their checks, now she got on the telephone and haggled with them over their prices.
“Let’s order enough bags to get through August,” said Joseph. “In the meanwhile, you can start shopping the order around.”
Mrs. Simons made a note on the steno pad she had carried in with the mail.
“There’s something else,” he said. “Will you call Anna right away and help her send a telegram to her parents? We’ll pay for it. Have her tell them that they should hold off submitting the new affidavits until they receive a bank statement from me.”
“Bank statement?” Mrs. Simons asked, looking up from her pad.
Joseph handed her a thin piece of paper. At the top were the names Paul and Inez Epstein and at the bottom was the account balance—twelve hundred dollars. The money from Florence’s Channel swim plus a little more besides. “Then will you take this down to the post office and send it to them via airmail? Anna can give you the address.”