The Inn at Lake Devine (23 page)

“No big deal,” said Linette. “Who wouldn’t?”

Victor was back with several small glasses of juice and my canned figs, asking about eggs. I said, “Lox, eggs, and onions, please. And a toasted bagel.”

“I’ll … try …” Kris said, scanning the list of two dozen possibilities, “… a jelly omelette with a side order of belgian waffles. And what’s in the breadbasket?”

Victor said, “You name it.” He plucked the menus out of our hands, careful to produce a smile for the boss’s daughter. “Anything else from the grill? French toast? Griddle cakes, latkes, blintzes?”

“Bring them an order of blueberry,” Linette said.

“How are her parents doing?” Reenie asked Kris.

“Not too good.”

“Was it the saddest, most heart-wrenching funeral in the entire world?” Linette asked.

Kris said, “It was extremely sad.”

“The saddest,” I said.

“Were you there?”

I found myself, out of loyalty to genteel Robin, who would never have interrogated anyone about anything, describing the bereaved recessional of Nelson as pallbearer.

Linette splashed water into a glass and handed it to me. “I’m asking now,” she confided, “because I wouldn’t bring any of this up in front of Nelson.”

“You never recover from something like this,” Marilyn declared.

Her husband said, “How do you know? People recover from plenty.”

Kris said, “I think work helps, and time.”

“And friends,” I added.

“How old is your brother?” asked Harry.

“He’ll be twenty-seven in May,” said Kris.

“Young,” said Harry. “By thirty he’ll be married with a couple of kids.”

“Is that your father?” I asked Linette.

“Who?”

I pointed to a freckled bald man, wearing a white
HALSEEYON
golf shirt and brown trousers. She shook her head at whatever he was telegraphing.

“Father and general manager,” said Harry.

“I try to ignore him,” said Linette.

“We met your grandmother last night,” said Kris.

“She upgraded us,” I said.

Kris laughed.

Linette said, “She screws everything up doing that.”

“She couldn’t have been nicer,” I said.

“She’s supposed to be retired, but she doesn’t know what that means.”

“What about you?” I asked. “Will you be staying on after you get married?”

“Oh,” said Linette. She looked down at her hand, but didn’t raise it from her lap.

“Is that an
engagement
ring?” asked Kris.

Reenie and Marilyn repeated his question in a kind of coo, as if to say only a male of the innocent Vermont variety could fail to grasp the meaning of such a rock.

“Of course it’s an engagement ring,” said Linette. “Think I’d wear this as
jewelry
?”

“Was it a surprise?” I asked.

She said, without a hint of nostalgia or sentiment, “Yeah,” followed by, “I wonder if Victor got the order in before the grill closed.”

“It’s taking an awfully long time,” said Marilyn.

“They could at least have brought her the bagel,” said Reenie.

Neither Linette, Kris, nor I seconded her observation. We sipped our coffees and tea without comment, as if to say, We’ve included you in this conversation thus far out of courtesy, but we’ve had enough.

Someone among them got the message. They gathered up their pocketbooks and newspapers and unlit cigars and said good-bye,
unoffended. Their easy goodwill made me instantly contrite. I said, “We’re staying another night, so we’ll see you later?”

“We’re looking forward to it,” said Marilyn. She stopped to touch Linette’s shoulder, confided to her that I was a French chef like Julia Child, then said, “
Mazel tov
, whoever he is.”

As soon as they were five steps away—all wearing bell-bottoms of various lengths—Kris asked, “Who’s the lucky guy?”

“No one you know,” said Linette.

“When’s the wedding?” Kris asked.

“Undecided,” she said.

“How long has it been official?” asked Kris.

Linette unpinned and repinned her polka-dotted barrette into the same clump of unruly hair. “We got engaged Thanksgiving before last.”

Kris asked for a name.

“Joel… Taub. He’s a graduate student.”

“What’s he studying?”

Linette called, “Vinny! Go get Victor. These people have waited ten minutes for their eggs.” She turned back to us and said, “Sorry.”

Kris said, No problem; we were still full from dinner.

I repeated his question: The field of her intended?

Linette said, “He’s at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati.”

“Rabbi,” I translated.

“No kidding,” said Kris.

I asked, “How does one take up with a rabbi?”

She smiled. “He wasn’t a rabbi when we met.”

“What was he?” I asked.

“A cabana boy.”

“Isn’t that interesting,” said Kris. “Cabana boy. Did you hire him?”

Linette turned to me. “Is he asking because that’s what his mother does? Takes up with her employees?”

I laughed.

Kris said, “First of all, we barely have any employees. Second of
all, my mother would never dream of taking up with anyone.” He waited a beat and added wryly, “Even my father.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Who the hell knows,” he said.

“Have you met his mother?” I asked Linette.

“I’ve had the pleasure,” she said.

“His father’s a sweetie,” I said.

“The boys take after their father,” Linette threw out with some authority.

Kris rolled his eyes, changed the subject. “Where does your boyfriend do his … rabbiing?”

“He’s graduating this June and he’s spending next year at Berkeley as an assistant chaplain.”

“Berkeley’s supposed to be great,” said Kris.

Linette shrugged, as if she’d heard its praises sung too many times from too many champions of Berkeley.

“How often do you get to see him?” I asked.

“That’s a problem. He’s in school all week, and I can’t travel on Saturdays.”

I said I never thought of that—the problems of a long-distance romance with an Orthodox Jew.

Linette said, “He’s not Orthodox; we are—” which was the moment Victor arrived, perspiring and apologizing, balancing an embarrassing number of plates up and down his arms.

Linette’s father called her name. She rose, touched Kris’s arm, and said, “Nelson’ll be fine. Nothing happens here from sundown Friday till sundown Saturday, so we’ll ease him in.”

I asked if she’d give me a tour of the kitchen later.

“I wanted her to be our chef, but she hates my mother,” Kris said cheerfully.

I thought I caught something in Linette’s reaction, a slight lift of her hairline, as if it were a subject that deserved further exploration. “If I’m not at my desk, dial ‘0,’ ” she advised. “I always have a walkie-talkie with me.… Natalie, we’ll talk some more. Definitely
count on a kitchen tour. Kris, call me when your brother arrives.” She took the small stainless-steel pitcher of maple syrup out of his hand. “Please get Mr. Berry some of ours,” she said to Victor.

She walked back to the Feldman table, recognizable by its telephone centerpiece, and sat down next to her father. I saw him ask a question; witnessed the telling of a pleasant lie that made him beam at us.

Kris, pulling his jelly omelette platter into position, said, “I’m figuring Nelson will get here around six-thirty.”

I asked him if he had known Linette during her college days.

“I met her a couple of times,” he said. “Once on a toboggan in Ithaca at some winter-carnival thing. And once at our place.”

“Lake Devine?”

“A bunch of his friends came for a weekend. The hotel crowd.”

“When did he switch majors?”

“He didn’t. He took an extra year for a master’s and a deferment.”

I tasted my eggs; noted that the onions hadn’t been sautéed in advance. “Were they ever boyfriend and girlfriend?”

“I doubt it.”

“Just buddies?”

“Sure,” said Kris. “Why?”

“No reason,” I said.

“I’m catching on to the fact that she couldn’t have dated him even if she wanted to,” Kris said, between bites of a blintz.

“Because of the religion thing?”

“That’s right,” said Kris. He smiled, his teeth bluish. “Your favorite subject.”

“Was she invited to Nelson’s wedding?”

“Doubt it,” said Kris.

“It sounds like they lost touch after college.”

“That happens,” he said. “Especially when you become engaged to other people.” At that moment, I caught Mr. Feldman studying us. I smiled and he waved back happily.

Kris said, “He must be thrilled she’s marrying a rabbi.”

I said under my breath, “Even if he’s Reform and penniless?”

Kris’s eyes widened over the rim of his juice glass.

“Trust me: Her family paid for the ring. Rich people don’t work as cabana boys. Anyone headed for Berkeley wouldn’t support diamond mining in South Africa, and only a Reform rabbi would take a job as a chaplain there.”

“How do you know all this?” he asked.

“I know these people.” I poked around his breadbasket and came up with a prune muffin, underbaked, all the while watching Linette. She was on the phone, fingering the ends of her frizzy hair. Clearly, she was giving someone orders, repeating two syllables that were undoubtedly “Berry.”

“What’s so interesting?” Kris asked.

“Linette. On the phone. It’s about us.”

She hung up, caught my eye, nodded sternly.

I pointed to my bulky sweater—
me?

She nodded again.

“Clue me in,” Kris said.

“It’s all set, a second night in the honeymoon suite.”

Kris asked, “Think Nelson will mind?”

“Mind what?”

“Sleeping alone, no roommate.”

I touched his face and said, “Too bad.”

L
inette sat beneath a blowup of a stony woman with sharp cheekbones who was ladling soup to boarders.

“Sad, isn’t it?” she said, watching me study the grainy mural. “Just being in the mountains was considered vacation.” She twisted around in her desk chair and looked at the wall above her. “Did you ever see a grimmer bunch?”

I asked when it was taken and whether they were relatives.

“We think nineteen fifteen.” She stood up and pointed to a child seated on a man’s lap. “That’s my father, and we think he was two or three.”

“Who’s the cook?”

“His grandmother.”

“What was it called?”

“Nothing formal—Tilly Feldman’s place in the mountains, or however you say that in Yiddish.”

“Is it still standing?” I asked.

Linette pointed out the window. “There, the white house by the first tee, improved and immortalized.”

I asked what it was used for now.

“Us,” she said. “Home of the famous Feldmans.”

“When did it become the Halseeyon?”

She groaned and said, “I hate this part.” She reached for an open pack of Virginia Slims and knocked one out. “The answer is: when Hal Feldman took over.”

“Seriously? Hal?”

“It’s true, my father”—she pointed above her head—“baby Heinick. He took over during the Depression and named it after himself.” She lit the cigarette that had been bobbing between her lips. “And he’s continuing the family tradition of not retiring until he’s dead.”

I said I assumed she would take over for her dad sooner rather than later, and that she had been sent to Cornell with that in mind.

“They all
plan
to retire. Estelle’s allegedly retired. My dad will retire—let’s see, he’s sixty-two …” She hit a few buttons on her adding machine, then cranked its arm. “Roughly? In thirty years?” She laughed, and repositioned herself, one leg bent underneath her. “What about you? Someone said chef.”

I said, “About to be.”

“You are or you’re not?”

“I have a job beginning May first.”

“Where?”

“Outside Boston.”

“At?”

I hesitated. “Chez Simone.”

“And who’s Simone?”

“Hilda Simone, restaurant dreamer.”

“How so?”

“She thinks it’ll be like having friends over for dinner every night.”

She rolled her eyes. “Spare me.”

I said, “Well, on the bright side, she recognizes that she knows nothing, so she’s promised me a free hand.”

Linette forced smoke out of one corner of her mouth. “Here, there
is
no free hand. We tell cooks when we hire them, ‘People have been coming here since they were kids, and now they’re coming
back with their own kids. They expect pickled tomatoes on the table and sponge cake for dessert. If you need to make quiche, call it a cheese pie. And if you need to make Lobster Newburg, you’d better go somewhere else.”

I said, smiling, “How would you know about Lobster Newburg?”

“I know,” she said, kicking a second desk chair on wheels into position for me, “because I’ve read menus in the big wide world.”

“But not tasted it.”

“Lobster? Nooo.”

“And that’s fine?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

I said, “I guess I meant are you ever frustrated by the constraints of a kosher resort?”

“Kosher resort or kosher kitchen? Because the resort part isn’t that different.”