Florence Adler Swims Forever(84)

“Do you have your eye on one American in particular, or will any American do?” Stuart’s voice had a hard edge to it. Anna had never seen him angry, didn’t know it was even possible to elicit such a response from him.

“Stuart, please.” She reached for his hand again, the same hand that had felt like it was another part of her under the table at Bert’s, but he shook it away. “Let’s just swim, okay?”

“It’ll be dark soon,” he said, looking up at the sky and then back at her. “I think we’ve lost our window.”

Anna bit her lower lip. How had she made such a disaster of this?

“Can you make it the rest of the way home?” he asked. “I told some of the guys I might try to meet back up with them when we were through.”

Through? She nodded vigorously, wanting badly for him to know she was fine, although it didn’t look like he was waiting for an answer. He had already scooped up his shirt and shoes and begun walking back down the beach. Anna watched him get smaller and smaller, wondering if at any point he might glance over his shoulder to find her still standing in the same spot. But he never did.





August 1934





Gussie


By the time Anna and Gussie arrived at the beach, on Saturday morning, to watch Atlantic City’s annual pageant swim, a hundred or more swimmers had been corralled behind the start line.

A few ACBP lifeguards had cleared a wide path to the water’s edge. Now they patrolled either side with their arms outstretched. “Move back!” someone called, so Gussie and Anna and several hundred other spectators took a half-dozen large steps backward.

More lifeguards were stationed in rescue boats along the course, ready to disqualify swimmers who cut corners or dive for the ones who had overestimated their own abilities. It’d be easy to do so, as the course was challenging. Swimmers entered the water in a mad dash at States Avenue and, presuming they didn’t get a fist or a foot in the face, swam out into open water, where the waves could be especially unforgiving. The rule was that the swimmers had to make a sharp turn at the orange buoy and swim 220 yards north to Garden Pier. Only after they’d rounded the second buoy, past the pier, could they return to shore.

Gussie scanned the course, looking for Stuart. He wasn’t at the start line but it was hard to tell if he was in one of the rescue boats. A few guards dangled from Garden Pier, where they had a bird’s-eye view of the race and could holler at the swimmers below, but Gussie couldn’t make out their faces from this far away.

At precisely ten o’clock, a man with a megaphone stepped up to the start line and welcomed the swimmers and spectators to the event. The crowd cheered, and Gussie clapped her hands excitedly. She looked over at Anna, whose arms were folded across her chest. She had never looked so miserable.

At breakfast, Gussie had pleaded for someone to take her to the pageant swim but no one had been inclined to do so. “Not this year,” her grandmother said, resignedly, as she passed Gussie the lox.

“But we always go,” Gussie complained, and the grown-ups just looked at each other.

Finally, her father, who was making a rare appearance at the apartment, broke the silence, “Gus-Gus, we always go because Florence always swims it.”

“So?” said Gussie, “I like it no matter what.”

Gussie had always liked attending the pageant swim but it was particularly thrilling last year when Florence had won the whole thing. Gussie and her parents and grandparents had gone down to the beach to witness the spectacle, and everyone had screamed and carried on as Florence made her way out to sea. Gussie could no more pick out her aunt, among the dozens of swimmers, than she could the beak of a bird in the sky but she had continued to yell, “Go Florence!” as the family hurried down the Boardwalk to watch the finish. When Florence emerged from the water, she offered the crowd a thousand-watt smile then ripped off her cap, waving it above her head triumphantly. She’d beaten all the girls, including the girls she’d swum with for the Ambassador Club and the WSA girls who had come down from New York. Mayor Bader gave huge silver trophies to the six best swimmers, three men and three women, and Gussie loved hearing her aunt’s name called last.

“I’m not going to be able to see,” Gussie said to Anna after a tall man in a straw hat moved in front of her.

“You’ll be fine.”

Gussie darted in front of the man just as a gun went off and the swimmers—both men and women—stampeded past her, a flurry of arms and legs flying over the sand.

Last year, Florence had been near the back of the pack but it hadn’t mattered one bit. By the time the first women arrived at the buoy, she was already in the lead.

“Were there this many people here last year?” Anna asked when the last of the swimmers had thrown themselves into the waves and the crowd had quieted slightly.

“More,” Gussie said. The answer didn’t sound right but she liked the idea of the race being better—in every possible way—when Florence had been in the water and her family had been on the sidelines. If Anna didn’t believe her, she didn’t let on.

Gussie could tell Anna liked the race because, as they walked toward the pier, she kept asking questions about it. She wanted to know why the race was called a pageant and what the prize was and how this year’s crop of swimmers compared to previous years’. Gussie answered what she could. When she didn’t know the answer, she just made something up. Anna couldn’t expect her to know everything.