The Inn at Lake Devine (28 page)

Kris looked at me, seeking permission, I thought, to work us into a declaration. I signaled, Don’t.

“I have no patience for this,” said Nelson.

“Why would that never have occurred to you, Mom?” Kris asked. “What is it about Linette that made you rule her out, categorically?”

I thought of saying, “Isn’t it a moot point? Linette is engaged to Joel Taub. She has a ring. Just tell her that.” But I waited, wondering what was next and how he’d word the showdown: You don’t like Jews. You never did. One Jew girlfriend in this family is enough.

“Let her be,” her husband said. “She’s had a terrible week.”

With only that much mercy shown her, Ingrid said, “Linette and”—she hesitated, as if she’d forgotten my name—“… 
Natalie
are welcome here, whatever the reason.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Thanks,” said Linette.

“The guests can go to hell,” Nelson sputtered.

Ingrid stood, but never raised her voice. “I’m saying good night. I can’t seem to say or do anything right as far as my children are concerned, so I’m leaving you to your … party.”

We watched her make the rounds of the dining hall, placing her hand lightly on the backs of guests’ chairs, saying a few gracious words in her pinched fashion, and disappearing out the front door.

Linette finally lit a cigarette, inhaled, and exhaled as if on an overdue break from an exhausting job.

Mr. Berry asked, “Was that necessary?”

“Yes,” Kris said.

Our gray-nylon-uniformed waitress appeared and asked if she should clear Mrs. Berry’s place.

“Do you know what I was getting at?” Kris asked his father as soon as the waitress had left. “Did you grasp the fact that I was referring to Linette being Jewish?”

“I thought that might have been—”

“And to your habit of turning Jews away before there were laws against it?”

Mr. Berry looked down at his plate, then up at me. “We’ve had many families of the Jewish faith through the years … lovely people.”

“Not my people,” I said. “It was only by chance that I slipped in.”

“You took Jews starting when?” asked Linette.

“I never—” Mr. Berry tried, stopped, tried again: “I didn’t make the rules. I didn’t even register guests—that was her domain.”

“You never noticed there weren’t any Jews around? You never got a call from the Anti-Defamation League?” Linette asked.

“I never answered the phones. I worked outside. Not just the grounds, but the outbuildings and the waterfront. I did all the painting myself, and grooming the trails, and all the upkeep on the dock. Of course, the boys helped when they were home, but I had plenty to do without answering a phone or mailing a letter. We weren’t so big that we could say yes to everyone.”

“Is that what Mrs. Berry told you? That you were small so you could pick and choose whomever you wanted?”

“She said it was our home.”

“So?” said Kris. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I thought it meant that we could hold our rooms for the same people year after year, because they were like family … like the Fifes.”

“He doesn’t get it,” said Nelson.

“It’s not that complicated,” said Linette. She turned to Mr. Berry. “A hotel is not a home. It’s a business. You can’t turn people away because of race or religion or anything like that.”

“We weren’t the only ones,” he said.

“No kidding,” said Linette. “Why do you think we had to start our own hotels?”

I was on my feet by now, plotting my getaway through the scraping of plates. No one responded until I heard a plaintive, “Natalie?”

“What’s she supposed to say, Dad?” asked Kris. “All is forgiven?”

“Maybe I could tell her I’m sorry,” said Mr. Berry.

I answered him, knowing I was disappointing Linette: “Remember how you sent me that book about mushrooms and you wrote, ‘Keep it until you come back’? That’s not what an anti-Semite says to a little Jewish girl. That’s how I knew I was welcome.”

He released the whimper he’d been stifling.

“Jesus,” said Nelson. “Not in the dining room.”

Kris hurried away and returned in thirty seconds with a glass. “Brandy,” he said.

“Bring the bottle,” said Nelson.

We tried to resuscitate Mr. Berry. We told him stories about what goes on in big, splashy hotels on the American Plan—dancing, music, and magic every night. He listened, even asked questions about their grounds, their perennials, their flowering shrubs; but I could see he was embarrassed and distressed. After only a few sips of brandy, he announced he was going to bed, adding anxiously, “You’re still planning to spend the night?”

“We are,” I said.

“You’re all set? Kris, you’ll give Natalie that room she wanted?”

“Sure.”

“And you boys will stay in the Inn tonight?” he asked sweetly, absent any subtext other than “Mother and I need the little house to ourselves.”

I felt Kris’s stockinged foot slide onto mine under the table. We nodded solemnly.

“Good night, then,” said Mr. Berry.

W
hen Linette and I sauntered down to breakfast, trying to look like girlfriends who had giggled into the night rather than like outside agitators, no one at the family table took note. Clearly, there was a conference in progress—that is, until Ingrid saw us and clammed up.

“Everyone’s going to find out sooner or later,” Nelson said.

“What are we going to find out?” asked Linette, her curly hair bound into two sprouting pigtails by mismatched novelties.

“Family matters,” said Ingrid.

“No problem,” said Linette, taking the empty chair between Nelson and his mother. “Good morning,” she said to him. “Sleep okay?”

“Off and on,” he said.

I sat down between Kris and Mr. Berry, and touched Kris’s knee underneath the table, which elicited only a blink.

Linette consulted the chalkboard, then asked Ingrid if everything was cooked on the same grill.

Ingrid said, “I don’t understand.”

“Like, eggs and home fries and pancakes
with
the bacon?”

“Oh,” said Ingrid. “I see what you mean.”

“Yes,” I said. “They are.”

“You can make a special request,” said Ingrid. “Or you could ask for your eggs poached or boiled in the shell.”

“We’re very accommodating,” added Kris, still unsmiling.

I assumed Ingrid had asked who had slept where and that Kris had refused to sugarcoat his answer. We drank coffee and worked at our grapefruit halves; didn’t speak, except to note that eight inches of snow had fallen on Mount Mansfield—too bad the trails around Gilbert got only rain.

My eggs, ordered over-easy, arrived with hard yolks and a scoop of cottage potatoes. “They can redo the eggs,” Kris offered, but I demurred.

“Is everything okay?” Linette finally asked the silent table.

The boys looked to the issuer of the gag order.

“Mother,” said Mr. Berry. “Don’t you think we can talk freely in front of these girls?”

Ingrid, furious, bounced a triangle of toast back to her plate, the worst display of temper I had seen since she caught me in the kitchen about to kiss her son. She shot up, knocking her chair back on one leg, which Nelson caught and righted, but not before his mother rushed away.

Guests looked over, then away. Mr. Berry said softly to me and Linette, “It’s not your visit. Please believe me. She has a lot on her mind.”

Nelson finally spoke, impatiently, and with an economy of style no doubt polished in parent-teacher conferences.

“Gretel’s pregnant,” he said.

I looked to Kris for confirmation. He nodded.

“She’ll be getting married, of course,” said Mr. Berry.

“When?” I asked.

“As soon as possible,” said Kris. “The baby’s due in September.”

“How old is Gretel?” Linette asked.

“Twenty,” I said.

“Nineteen,” said Nelson.

“Nineteen can work out,” I said. “My mother was nineteen.”

“It’s going to be a small affair,” said Mr. Berry, “but even so …”

“Who’s the father?” asked Linette.

“A nice boy,” allowed Mr. Berry. “From a good family.”

“He’s a jerk,” Kris burst out. “A zero.”

“Why do you say that?” asked Mr. Berry.

“It’s Chip Fife,” said Nelson.

I
told Linette the whole distasteful story—the midnight rendezvous at the end of my bed, the Grecian goddess getup, the fact that I had offended Gretel when I’d asked if she was using birth control. I was secretly delighted that she’d been caught in her solace-and-companionship lie, but couldn’t voice my satisfaction in front of the family. The news depressed Kris for several reasons, beginning with his antipathy for the groom—apparently lean, tall Chip had been the worst guest tormentor during Kris’s fat phase—and ending, simply, with Gretel, who for all her failings and airs, was still his baby sister.

Nelson was also dismayed, but for a reason more internal than brotherly: The Fifes would forever be the grandparents of his niece or nephew, hovering on the edges of his life.

“
Mekhutonim
after all,” Kris confirmed joylessly.

“Why so glum?” Linette asked the boys. We had the meeting room to ourselves, along with a bottle of scotch that Kris had smuggled from the bar. Linette was marching in place and doing jumping jacks, her daily routine, in a raggedy warm-up outfit. “Sounds to me like Gretel got exactly what she wanted.”

Oh yeah? they said. Chip Fife? That upstanding citizen? Like she knows how many girls he tried to screw in our boathouse?

“Don’t all guys do that?” asked Linette. “Didn’t you guys?”

“
Here?
” said Nelson.

“Us?” said Kris.

“They’re being protective,” I explained to Linette. “We don’t know about this because we don’t have brothers.”

“I can’t handle the Fifes,” said Nelson. “Especially here, for a wedding.”

“Maybe they’ll elope,” said Linette.

“
Gretel?
” Kris said. “Who still plays with her bride dolls?”

“He’s right,” said Nelson. “She’ll want an extravaganza. And don’t forget our mother will be taking great pains to disguise the fact that it’s a shotgun wedding.”

“Look,” Linette said, now rubbing energetically between Nelson’s shoulder blades. “You don’t have to
go
to their stupid wedding and see the Fifes sobbing. Gretel’s got another brother. Kris will go, right? And be an usher. And if anyone asks, he’ll say, ‘Well, you understand. This is a little rough on Nelson.’ ”

I couldn’t help myself. I added, “ ‘He’s very sensitive about mourners fucking in the back of the church during a funeral.’ ”

Linette looked at me, bit her lip. We all looked at Nelson. There was a shine to his eyes that could have gone either way, and some indecipherable emotion pulled at the corners of his mouth.

We stared, poised to do what we had to do. One choked note escaped.

“Go ahead, Jack,” Kris said gently. “Laugh.”

L
inette and I went down to the water alone and sat on the bird-stained dock in bleached canvas chairs. The morning rain had stopped, but a mist had settled between the mountains and us, obscuring views of anything except the shore. Linette said she was leaving; she didn’t think it was right to stay at a once-restricted hotel and break bread with the chief offender, no matter what our being there said about her change in policy.

I asked, “What difference would leaving make? She’ll never draw the inference that your leaving is a protest.”

“She’ll draw the inference just fine if I spell it out for her.”

I told her I’d been coming here ever since I knew it existed, first in my imagination and eventually in the flesh. I said, “I guess I’m of
the temperament that it’s better to muscle my way to the lunch counter than stage a silent walkout.”

“You’re of the temperament,” she countered, “to forgive and forget.”

I said, “I walked out once before, and it was a mistake.”

“Because of Kris, you mean.”

“I mean, what counts is between me and Kris, not me and Ingrid, not me and my parents.”

“That’s not true,” she said. “It never was. And if you think it is …” She shook her head—pity for my woeful misapprehension of history.

I waited a few beats; found moth-eaten mittens in Kris’s borrowed parka and put them on. I moved my chair an inch closer to her and said, “Okay, hypothetically—and don’t bullshit me: Let’s say you weren’t engaged to Joel, or to anyone, but were a free woman. You’re twenty-six years old. You meet a wonderful man and fall in love. He isn’t Jewish. You keep it a secret as long as you can and then you tell your parents. What happens, after the obvious?”

“What happens? They go nuts. They wail, they call the
rebbe
. My father says he’ll never be able to see me again; they’ll have to cover the mirrors, tear their clothes, sit
shiva
, which must be why God gave him four daughters—so he’d have three left after I rip out his heart and spit into the chest cavity. Et cetera. My mother would drop dead, literally. She’d have nitroglycerine under her tongue right now if she knew what you were selling.”

I asked what she thought I was selling besides freedom of association.