Florence Adler Swims Forever(77)

The sound caused Stuart to sit up in bed, rub his eyes, and look around for a shirt. He had begun to dig through a pile of dirty clothes when he heard the knock at his door.

“Mr. Williams?” On the other side of the door, Mrs. Tate was doing her best to catch her breath.

“One minute.” Stuart spied a sweater and pulled it over his head.

“You have a package.”

Odd, Stuart thought. Mrs. Tate usually left all mail—packages included—on the table under the stairs. In the three years he’d lived here, how many times had he overheard her telling a tenant that she wasn’t the Pony Express? A dozen times? More?

“You didn’t have to come all the way up,” he said as he opened the door but, when he saw the package in her hand, he knew why she had made the trip.

It was one of The Covington’s gift boxes—the kind that they used in the shop on the first floor, purple with gold lettering foil stamped on the lid—and she had to be curious as to its contents, not to mention the lineage of her third-floor tenant. She handed it to him.

“This didn’t come via post?” Stuart asked, already knowing it hadn’t.

“A nice man in a fancy jacket dropped it off for you.”

Wilson, probably. “Was the man bald, with a dark mustache?”

“No,” she said. “Sandy-colored hair, a clean-shaven face. He was a very sharp dresser.”

The description matched that of his father but that couldn’t be right. Stuart’s father was most definitely not in the business of delivering his own packages.

“Well, thanks,” said Stuart, moving to close the door.

“You’re not going to open it?” she asked, letting her curiosity get the better of her.

Stuart felt bad for Mrs. Tate, bad for anyone who lived vicariously through people she barely knew. “It’s probably just a shirt.”

Mrs. Tate didn’t move an inch. Stuart had no idea what was in the box, but it seemed he would have no choice but to open it with Mrs. Tate as witness. He tucked the box against his body so that he might use a free hand to wiggle the lid up and off. When he had freed it, he looked behind him for a place to put it but Mrs. Tate was quicker than that. “I’ll hold it for you,” she said, her hand already extended.

Whatever it was was wrapped in a layer of The Covington’s custom-printed tissue paper—white with small interlocking Cs. A notecard, snug in its envelope, sat on top of the paper, and Stuart held it aside.

“What’s the occasion?” Mrs. Tate asked as Stuart pulled aside the paper but he didn’t answer. He’d seen enough.

“No occasion—just something being returned to me,” he said, grabbing the lid back from his landlady before she could argue. “Thanks so much for delivering it.”

Mrs. Tate looked crestfallen, though how much was related to the fact that she would never know the contents of the box and how much was related to the fact that she now had two flights of stairs to travel to get back to her apartment, Stuart didn’t know.

Stuart waited for her to turn toward the stairs before softly closing the door behind her. Alone in his room, he tossed the box onto his bed and tore open the note, which was written on his father’s stationery—John F. Williams engraved across the top.

Stuart,

Your friend left this behind yesterday evening. I thought she might want it back.

As ever,

Your Father

P.S. Next time, I’d urge you to keep the covers on the chaise lounges. The frames are made of Teak, which doesn’t hold up well in the rain.



Inside the box was Anna’s pink cardigan, professionally laundered, pressed, and folded. Stuart would have liked to have thrown the box against the bedroom’s far wall but he hated to return a wrinkled garment to her, so he contented himself with ripping his father’s note in half and then in quarters.

The rain had never relented. Eventually, it had started to grow dark and Anna had had to get home, so Stuart darted out from the overhang and across the pool deck to retrieve her dress and his shirt and shorts. He must have missed the cardigan entirely. When he returned to Anna, their clothing in hand, she had already folded the canvas chair cover and placed it aside. The dress was soaked through, so Stuart had wrung it out for her, but even then, it was impossible for her to get into it on her own. The fabric stuck to her skin like seaweed. “Let me help you,” he offered, and she had held up her arms as he pulled the wet fabric over her head, across her breasts—her nipples hard against the bodice of her bathing suit—and down around her hips. Stuart didn’t know what irritated him more—that he hadn’t kissed her then or that his father had likely been watching the scene unfold.





Anna


It was obvious that Anna had done something to upset Esther, although Anna couldn’t be sure what that something was. In the last several weeks, Esther had turned quiet, except when she was ordering Anna around. This evening, after an early supper, she had handed a copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s new book to Anna and instructed her to go to the hospital and read to Fannie. Anna had tried her best to get out of it. “She hardly knows me,” said Anna. “Wouldn’t she prefer you?”

“Probably,” said Esther, putting a hand on her back, “but I just can’t bear it today.”