Dreamland Social Club(63)

Jane was elated and incensed. “But you never said anything or asked me to join or anything. None of you.”

Not that Venus or Minnie would have, but still . . . Leo could have. Or Legs!

“That was the whole idea,” Legs said. “The whole way your mother set it up. No recruiting. No asking your friends. No talking about it, even. Ever.”

All of which would explain why Beth wouldn’t talk about it. Freddy Claverack, too.

Leo said, “New members have to turn up on their own and they have to be let in, whoever they are. So it never becomes cliquish.”

Babette pulled out a beat-up notebook, opened to the front pages, and read: “I hereby found the Dreamland Social Club as a haven for the wayward and curious, for those interested in the strange in the normal, the normal in the strange, the old in the new, the new in the old.

“Anyone who walks through the door must be accepted with the following refrain: ‘Gooble gobble. Gooble gobble. We accept her. We accept her. One of us, one of us’—preferably recited in the style of the scene in the film Freaks—even if the person is technically not a her, but a him.

“Or generally despised.

“Or too popular for his or her own good.

“The Dreamland Social Club is, therefore, a safe haven for outsiders and outcasts of all kinds. Even those who appear to be insiders.”

Jane went closer to Babette and saw that the club’s mission statement had been written in her mother’s own hand. “So that day when I knocked on the door . . .”

Babette said, “We thought you’d caught on.”

“So I could’ve become a member back then?”

“All you had to do was walk in. And my God. The clues!” Babette shook her head. “I left the questionnaire at your house.”

“You did?” Venus protested.

“And I gave you that old photo,” Legs said.

“Against the rules,” Minnie said, but Legs just shrugged.

“And I started rewriting the posters just for you,” he said. “To try to get you to come in.”

“My mother wore combat boots,” Jane said. “Are you daft?”

“Exactly,” Legs said. “Actually, Leo came up with those two.”

“Did the trick!” Leo said. Jane wasn’t sure, but he seemed happy she was there. His gooble gobbles had seemed especially spirited.

“I didn’t know!” she said to them all.

“Obviously!” Babette said.

Jane studied the flier. “So what’s the emergency?”

“The emergency,” Babette said, turning to the group, “is that we’re all set for Electric Bathing, but we’ve got no ideas for the Mermaid Parade.”

H.T. came in then and sat down, then spotted Jane and said, “Gooble gobble. Gooble gobble.” He flashed a smile. “Finally.”

But Jane’s brain was like a record that had skipped, back at the words Electric Bathing.

Stuck on four letters in particular.

Bath.

She hadn’t actually thought all that much about the key over the winter, but now that a possible clue had presented itself, she felt a phantom itch.

“Come on, Babette,” Venus whined. “It’s March. It’s Friday and I want to go home. We’ll think of something.”

“Seriously,” Minnie said. “There’s plenty of time.”

They had both said their own gooble gobbles. But did it really mean Jane had been accepted?

“That’s what we always say, and then we were totally scrambling last year.” Babette furrowed her brow and said, “I know! Let’s meet Sunday at the Anchor, just for a little bit. It’s opening day. The boardwalk. Fresh air. Maybe we’ll be inspired.”

Everyone grumbled agreement, and a noon meet time was decided upon.





“What’s Electric Bathing?” Jane asked as she and Babette walked home. “It sounds sort of familiar but—”

“Every year, last day of school,” Babette cut in, “since your mother’s year, we rig up a light on a pole in the water, and there are ropes that lead you out and then we wade in and swim by the light of a forty-watt bulb. They used to do it back in the thirties or something.”

And just like that . . .





I’m in the bathtub and the lights are out except for a flashlight that my mother is holding up high over me. Through the skylight in the ceiling I think I can see stars and even part of the moon, and my mother is saying, “Gosh, ain’t electricity grand?”





“Earth to Jane,” Babette said. “Come in, Jane.”

“Sorry,” she said. There hadn’t been much more to the memory anyway. “Any keys involved?”

“Keys?” Babette said. “Like to what?”

“I don’t know. Never mind.” Jane tripped on one of the boardwalk’s uneven planks but recovered quickly; one of her middle toes panged. “So that’s all you do? Weird Coney-related stunts?”

“Yeah, pretty much.” They stopped by a bench and sat. “But don’t blame me, your mother started it.”

Jane looked out at the empty beach and wondered how Sunday’s crowds would compare. It wasn’t warm enough to swim yet but it was a mild March so far, more lamb than lion. She said, “What kinds of things have people done before?”