Florence Adler Swims Forever(72)

“The key to keeping water out of the bilge is to heave the boat out onto the crest of a wave, as fast as you can,” said Stuart as he watched the water. “Push it into the curl of a wave and you’ll damage the boat.”

Isaac gripped the edge of the boat and waited for Stuart to give a command.

It came a few seconds later. “Go!”

Stuart leaned into the other side of the boat and Isaac could feel the boat’s inertia begin to shift. Isaac dug his heels into the sand and pushed hard until the boat began to move, slowly at first and then faster. His ankles were wet and now his knees. He worried he’d soon be in over his head. “When do we get in the boat?” he yelled across the beam.

“Now!” Stuart heaved himself over the edge and into the stern of the boat, then reached down, gripped Isaac’s hand, and pulled him up and over the side. Isaac grabbed for the forward thwart but could make no attempt to sit down until they’d made it through the breaking waves closest to the shore and out into calmer water. When they had both found their seats, Stuart handed him a pair of oars.

“I didn’t think to ask but do you swim, Isaac?”

Isaac was clinging so tightly to the frame that he was sure he’d left permanent marks where his fingernails had pressed into the soft wood. He made a conscious effort to loosen his grip and fold his hands more casually in his lap.

“I’m all right,” said Isaac, which didn’t exactly answer the question. Stuart eyed him cautiously.

“What you’re going to want to do is slip the oars into the oarlocks.”

To think that he had to add rowing to this mix. It seemed unlikely that, between trying not to fall out of the boat and trying to propel it forward, Isaac was going to have any time or energy to talk about the Florida deal.

“You want the paddles to enter the water like knives. Pull hard when they’re at ninety degrees, and then give yourself time to glide.”

Eventually Isaac got the hang of it, and his confidence grew. It wasn’t so bad being out here. In fact, it was nice. All the familiar noises of the shore—the dings of the Boardwalk amusements, the blasts of the lifeguards’ whistles, the organs that played on the piers—fell away, leaving only the sound of lapping water against the boat.

“It’s so quiet,” said Isaac. “I can see why you like it.”

Stuart didn’t say anything, just kept rowing. He seemed content to let silence sit between the two of them, which wasn’t going to do Isaac any good. He tried a different tack.

“So, Anna’s doing well with the swimming?”

“I think so. Considering she’d never swum until a few weeks ago.”

“She’s a pretty girl.”

“Yes,” said Stuart tentatively, as if he wondered where Isaac was going with the comment. Isaac wished he knew. He just knew he had to bring the conversation around to Stuart’s hopes and dreams and—eventually—Florida.

“It’s a shame about her parents.”

“Shame?”

“How they can’t get out of Germany.”

“Oh?”

“Their visa application keeps getting denied. Or at least that’s my understanding.”

“What’s the issue?”

“Aside from the fact that the American consulate probably has it out for Jews?” Isaac could see Stuart wince, so he tried to temper his remarks. “I don’t know the specifics.” If Isaac wasn’t careful, he was going to inadvertently sell Stuart on investing in the American Jewish Committee.

For the next half hour, Isaac concentrated on rowing the boat in a straight line. He didn’t make another attempt to steer the conversation until they passed Absecon Lighthouse and Stuart gave the signal that they were going to turn around. The Covington was a tiny dot on the beach, barely distinguishable from the Traymore Hotel next door.

“All of these beautiful beachfront properties,” he said. “They’re really something, aren’t they?”

Stuart nodded, appreciatively.

“I give a lot of credit to men like your grandfather. They arrived on a barren beach—nothing more than a railroad station next to a pile of sand—and imagined what Atlantic City might become. They were geniuses, all of them.”

“It was actually my great-grandfather.”

Isaac didn’t skip a beat. “Even more impressive.” A seagull cawed overhead. “That’s the way it was in Florida, when I lived down in West Palm Beach.”

“You were down there for how long?”

“Five years. Worked for a great guy—selling real estate.”

“What brought you back up here?”

“When the bottom fell out of the market in ’26, there was no more work.”

“You liked West Palm Beach?”

“I would have stayed forever if there’d been a job for me. The area’s beautiful. It’s what I imagine Atlantic City was like fifty or sixty years ago. Still rife with opportunity.”

“Not since the crash, I suppose,” said Stuart. It was the perfect opening for Isaac’s pitch.

“You’d be surprised. A lot of investors foreclosed in the fallout, and the banks are finally trying to off-load all those properties. Or you’ve got investors who’ve been sitting on land for the past eight years, watching the prices plummet, and are ready to sell even if it means taking a loss. My friend tells me that buyers are getting big parcels of land for a song. Everything’s so undervalued.”