The Inn at Lake Devine Read Online Free PDF Page B

mission—Robin’s need for company and her bad sleeping habits—rather than setting. Our mothers spoke, and it wasn’t until the end of the exceedingly cordial conversation that Mrs. Fife pronounced the name of their destination.
    My mother could hardly withdraw her permission then. What could she say?—“Uh-oh. They don’t like Jews there. Did Robin tell you we’re of the Jewish faith?” I was sure the reason she didn’t renege, besides the bad etiquette of it, was the crusading impulse running through the Marxes. We all wanted to cross the threshold as guests and not visitors, and maybe I, in my early-teen disguise, was best suited to be a spy in the house of Devine. It was our dutyto show that we—with the blood of Moses, Queen Esther, Leonard Bernstein, and Sid Caesar coursing through our veins—were the equal of any clientele. And if the Berrys still didn’t think so, wasn’t it our duty to set them straight?
    I ’d like to say that my mother and I prepared for my week away with no eye toward outward appearances, no thought to what constituted high-quality Protestant summer clothes. We pressed and packed for days: Bermuda shorts and Villager shirts; a sleeveless shirtwaist dress of a muted plaid with a braided rope belt; a new Catalina bathing suit in blue jersey; a terry-cloth cover-up piped in pinpoint blue gingham; tops, shorts, and something then in fashion called a skort. New Keds and new Peds. A bathrobe of yellow seersucker, and two new pairs of baby dolls. A white cable-knit cardigan for cool evenings and a Radcliffe sweatshirt for cool days.
    The Fifes picked me up at our house in Newton on the Saturday morning of our departure. My parents invited them in for coffee and fruit, but they demurred gaily and said, “Next time! We don’t want to lose a minute.”
    My father looked into the car and said, “No boys? I thought you had a couple of boys!” Pammy, who had sauntered out in her most fetching cutoffs and in bare feet, froze, then retreated at my father’s bald question.
    Mr. Fife explained that Jeff and Donald Junior were driving up separately. My mother said, “I hope that your taking Natalie didn’t change your plans to that extent.”
    “Not at all,” they said, graciously and adamantly. “We need two cars up there, with the suitcases and the boys’ long legs. This is grand.” The Fifes swiveled around to smile at me and Robin, and said, “Are we ready?”
    My parents kissed me through my half-open window, and my mother mouthed, “Be good. Help out.”
    “We’ll give you a call toward the middle of the week,” said my father.
    “Don’t worry,” said the Fifes. “She’s going to have a wonderful week. We’ll take good care of her.”
    My mother said weakly, “It’s just … she just got home from camp.”
    “I know,” said Mrs. Fife. “I know exactly how you feel.”
    My father put his arm around my mother’s shoulders and walked her back to the curb. They waved and smiled bravely. At least in my memory, I winked.
    W e sang in the car. Robin had taught her parents her favorite camp songs, and the Fifes were a family who could harmonize. I learned that Mr. Fife taught music and directed both the a cappella choir and glee club of a private school in West Hartford. After we exhausted our repertoire of camp songs, they asked if I knew any Gilbert and Sullivan. I said
I
didn’t, but please. For the next ninety minutes, except for a sherbet and bathroom stop at Howard Johnson’s, they sang the entire score of
H.M.S. Pinafore
. I smiled and nodded as if this were how my family occupied itself, too, on a long car trip. They awarded themselves an encore, “Edelweiss,” from their best Broadway outing ever,
The Sound of Music
. I began to worry about the week ahead—about the medleys, the rounds, the three-part harmonies, the low speed at which Mr. Fife drove and his reluctance to pass another living soul. They stopped to take photographs from scenic turnouts as if