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Cadence

1942

I wore my heart bracelet to see Winnie and company at the Edgartown Yacht Club. The humble little piece that Tom gave me for my sixteenth birthday wasn’t exactly Daisy Buchanan’s pearl necklace, but it had always brought me luck.

I made it past the club manager’s inquisition at the entrance, stepped into the dining room, and took a moment to soak it all in. Bess and her family had been members at the yacht club forever and she’d described it, but it was much more impressive than she’d made it out to be, with its high ceiling and wraparound view of the harbor, all the island’s finest yachts and sailboats moored there. I loved the nautical richness of it all: The dining tables with their starched white cloths. The red, white, and blue ship pennants hanging from the rafters that made it feel like a birthday party. That’s what it was like to be rich. A celebration every day.

To my right, a long mahogany bar ran the length of the room, and men already sat there, so early in the day, smoking their cigarettes and cigars, drinking scotch or something. “Sunday sailors,” my father had called them. I checked my lipstick in the reflection in the glass as I passed through the dining room to the porch beyond, where Mrs. Winthrop stood, her back to the railing. No doubt Winnie would be relieved I’d actually made it.

I headed out to the porch and found Winnie there, looking so relaxed and elegant. She wore a white sleeveless figure-hugging dress with a square collar, and, best of all, she was barefooted and stockingless, her toenails painted the perfect shell pink. Near her sat two women at a grouping of wicker chairs around a low cocktail table.

“Come here this instant,” Winnie called to me, and waved her empty martini glass. “Ladies, this is Cadence Smith. The friend of mine from the beach club I told you about.”

The porch overlooked a lovely panorama of ocean and harbor, the green of the water somehow prettier, the French-blue sky more vivid, than it was on our side of the island. The little On Time ferry shuttled cars to and from Chappaquiddick Island in the distance, using their horns and bells to narrowly avoid sailboats large and small, crisscrossing the harbor. The harbormaster drove his skiff by, a suntanned couple sitting arm in arm in the bow, a sweet little flag at the stern flapping in the breeze. Out to their yacht? It was like a storybook.

“Do sit down, my dear.” A redheaded woman patted the cushioned seat next to her. “Here by me. I’m the most interesting one.”

I smoothed back my hair, feeling like a calf at the ag fair, the subject of their piercing gazes, and wished I’d had something more appropriate to wear than my brown plaid skirt and dingy yellow blouse.

Both of Winnie’s friends were dressed almost as beautifully as she was. The blonde wore tortoiseshell sunglasses and an organdy print dress with the perfect white mushroom cap of a hat. The redhead wore a navy-blue dress and a chic little nautical hat I’d seen while flipping through a copy of Vogue at Leslie’s Drugs. They’d all removed their gloves to show off their rings and manicures, but it was the shoes that caused me to stare. They both wore tan-and-white spectator pumps, the “it” shoe of the moment and impossible for normal humans to find in shops.

The blonde called for a waiter to get me a drink and I sat, suddenly afraid to say a word for fear they’d think me a hick with no business coming to New York City. What did people even talk about in publishing circles?

Winnie waved toward her friends. “Cadence Smith, meet Celia St. Germain, the blonde, and Dolores Reinhart, the redhead.”

“Winnie tells me you are school friends?” I asked.

“Radcliffe,” Celia said, in a most casual way, as if it were the A&P.

Dolores beckoned Winnie. “Then Celia and I went to Putnam. Still trying to get Winnie here to join us.”

Winnie sat next to Dolores. “Cadence lives on a farm. You should see the flowers at their farm stand. Lilies to die for.”

“My Gram sells donuts at the stand, too.” I felt the color rise in my face. “And I sell my beetlebung honey.”

Celia watched a mahogany speedboat cruise by. “Beetlebung? That’s a new one.”

“Beetlebung trees grow all over here. They have very hard wood, and the early British colonists crafted casks known as beetles out of the wood, pounding them together with mallets made of the same wood, called bungs.”

Dolores put out her cigarette. “This island is endlessly fascinating.”

“See what you learn when you leave Manhattan?” Winnie asked.

I felt my scalp sweat. Could I do nothing but recite the encyclopedia?

Winnie rescued me. “We’re all big fans of your column, Cadence.”

“You’ve read it?” I asked Celia.

“Win read a few to us that she’d saved,” she said. “New York has been beset with a plague of allegedly funny columns, but yours is actually good. The one about chicken à la king being the new steak. Dolores almost collapsed a lung laughing.”

I had to take a deep breath, a little lightheaded after hearing that.

Winnie leaned in toward me. “The girls have been lunching with Willis Todhunter Ballard most of the day.”

“ Say Yes to Murder Ballard?” I asked.

“He’s keen to go on safari,” Dolores said. “And we’ve had our fill of discussing the poor water buffalo he’s so eager to hang on his wall.”

“I reviewed Say Yes to Murder in my column,” I said, and instantly regretted it. I’d have to be honest.

“And?” Celia asked.

“I wrote , It’s a Hollywood homicide that detective fans will follow with mounting interest . But to be honest I found it a bit convoluted.”

“ Convoluted is being kind.” Dolores looked me up and down. “Aren’t you a rare bird, a literary thing out here on Más a Tierra?”

How good it was to talk books with people who had actually read all the classics, like Robinson Crusoe, and even knew the real island Defoe had based it on.

“At least there are no cannibals,” I said.

“Beautiful and funny,” Celia said. “They’ll have their knives out for you in the city.”

Winnie lit a cigarette with her gold lighter and snapped it closed with a satisfying little click. “Cadence also writes book reviews. Damned good ones. Charges beach-club members a dollar a pop to do a synopsis of their monthly book-club pick.”

Celia threw back her head and laughed. “That’s a hoot.”

Dolores kept her gaze on her drink. “Look out, Mary McCarthy.”

“I love her book reviews. And her debut, The Company She Keeps. ” I pressed one palm to my chest. “I admire all of Mrs. McCarthy’s work.”

Celia waved at a passing boat. “So does Mrs. McCarthy.”

“Do you type?” Dolores asked.

“Sixty words a minute,” I said.

“Well, don’t tell anyone or you’ll end up being a secretary,” Dolores said. “You want someone else typing your words. All the autumn hopefuls bunk together at the Cosmopolitan Club, like a litter of kittens. You need to get there early this fall to get the good spots at the publishing houses.”

“There’s a whole Vassar wing,” Celia added, lighting a cigarette.

Just the mention of a Seven Sisters school plucked at something deep inside me.

Julia Howe from my class at Tisbury High was the only Vassar student I’d ever known. Julia had been my rival for yearbook editor and got the position because her father owned a camera shop in Edgartown. How could I compete with those girls?

“Where did you go to school?” Dolores asked.

I withered at the question. I hadn’t even applied to college, much less Radcliffe or Barnard, though my English teacher Mrs. Moss had practically begged me to. How was she to know I couldn’t leave Gram and the farm, never mind pay for even part of it? And I’d been too ashamed to tell her. Of course, there was the worst part, too: that I’d never actually gotten my high school diploma. I fell into a terrible depression at the end of my senior year, on the anniversary of my parents’ death, and just couldn’t get out of bed. Tom helped me through it, but the weight of my farm chores and helping Gram with Briar was too much, and I never went back.

“The Tisbury School,” I said, hoping it sounded upscale.

“She means college,” Winnie said.

“I never went—too much going on at home. But I’ve read six hundred and thirty-two novels. I have them listed by a five-point ranking system, from Anna Karenina to Zaynab .”

“Imagine that.” Dolores exchanged a glance with Celia. “I’d like to see your list.”

“Well, that’s quite a curriculum in itself, Cadence,” Celia said. “Better than anything you’d have gotten at Bryn Mawr. You should come work in New York.”

“You mean as an editorial assistant?” I asked. I’d seen that job title in the classified ads in copies of The New York Times that members left around the Bayside Club.

“It’s exhausting work,” Dolores said. “But you’d do a bang-up job.”

I searched their faces. Was this just talk or were they serious about me coming? My whole body buzzed with happiness. “How do I register?”

“All the girls show up and it simply sorts itself out,” Dolores said.

“And you’ll need to have a working knowledge of martinis,” Celia said. “It’s a prerequisite in publishing.”

Winnie tossed a pack of Pall Malls into my lap. “And know your way around a cigarette.”

Dolores stood and offered her martini to me. “Here, take mine.”

“I don’t think—”

At their urging, I tipped my head back, braced for the taste, and let the gin run down my throat, smooth and cold.

Celia tapped her cigarette ash into an empty cup. “And so it begins.”

It didn’t take long to feel like I was floating down Lethe, the river of forgetfulness in The Scarlet Letter, and I suddenly understood why Dorothy Parker was so mad about martinis.

Winnie set her empty glass on the porch railing behind her. “Word around the Bay is, Cadence has a book club.”

I marveled at how quickly I felt the calming effect of the alcohol, warmth spreading outward from my belly. “Yes. It’s only five people so far. We sit on the beach and drink wine and talk about books.”

“Sounds like breakfast at Mother’s house,” Dolores said. “Does this club have a name?”

“The Martha’s Vineyard Beach and Book Club,” I said.

Celia stubbed out her cigarette. “I like it.”

Winnie tapped her watch. “Cadence, don’t you have something you wanted to show the girls? We need to get going.”

Celia opened a compact and checked her lipstick. “Picking up Somerset Maugham at the Colonial Inn to take him over to Chappaquiddick for dinner. He won’t drive, wants to save wear on his tires.”

Somerset Maugham ? What would these women think of our hastily typed little book?

I ran my finger along the hearts of my bracelet for luck and then slid the book from my pocket. “We made a prototype for a special book for the troops. My brother, Tom, couldn’t fit his favorite book in his pack when he was shipping out, and I thought it would be good to make one that the soldiers could take with them anywhere.”

“What’s your brother’s favorite book?” Dolores asked.

“ Emerson’s Essays. ”

Celia crossed her legs. “Is Tom single?”

“Celia, please,” Winnie said.

I slid the prototype from my pocket and held it out in front of me like a butcher showing a choice chop. “It is a whole book and fits in a loaded knapsack. We tested it.”

“ The Sun Also Rises. ” Dolores took it from me and held it by one end and shook it. “Not sure you can call this a book. It’s light as a feather duster.”

She handed it to Celia, who flipped through the pages. “That’s the whole point, dear.” She turned to me. “You got a whole book in here?”

I nodded. “Just about.”

Celia handed it to Winnie. “Are you kidding, Dolores? This will be bigger than pinups.”

Dolores shrugged. “If you say so. You can see right through the pages.”

“It’s a prototype, for goodness’ sake. We’d have to use different paper, of course.”

“Think that’s doable?” Winnie asked, handing the book back.

“Anything’s doable.” Celia held it out and considered the cover. “But is Hemingway too expected?”

“How about Last of the Mohicans ?” Dolores asked.

“Good one,” Celia said.

“How about The Great Gatsby ?” I asked. “Some of the soldiers were asking for it.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Celia said. “It didn’t sell as well as his others. Bit of a flop, I’m afraid.”

“Well, why not include it?” Winnie asked. “And add some Zane Grey and Steinbeck.”

Dolores toasted with her glass. “They’ll feel very patriotic to be included. The authors will be happy, for once.”

Lightheaded, I held on to the rattan arm of the chair. They were actually discussing publishing our books. “We chose this one from Gram’s cookie jar. Folded up six titles on paper scraps and drew one.”

Celia shook her head. “Gram’s cookie jar. She’s just too much, Win. Can we keep her?”

Dolores clapped her hands together, suddenly all in. “I haven’t been this excited about a book since I read Ben-Hur. ”

“ Mildred Young Johnson is a good friend of ours,” Celia said. “Former Navy librarian, and much nicer than any of us. We’ll call her up and make her do this.”

I couldn’t take the country grin from my face. “Wonderful.”

“But you should give serious thought to coming back to Manhattan with us tomorrow,” Winnie said. “Pitch it yourself.”

“We’ll put you up at the Cosmopolitan,” Dolores said. “And come back with us on the Putnam yacht, Never Moor . It’s docked in Menemsha.”

Celia waved for the waiter. “King Carol of Romania once owned it, so the upholstery’s a bit flashy, but it gets us where we need to go.”

“I’d love to come,” I said, numb with joy.

“There’s a Cordon Bleu chef on board,” Winnie said. “He makes the best salmon mousse you’ve ever had.”

As if I’d ever had salmon mousse. But I wanted to try it. I wanted to try everything. I couldn’t wait to tell the book club.

Celia raised her glass. “And in the meantime, let’s have another round to celebrate our Cadence’s move to Manhattan. Mark my words: You’re going to run more than book clubs, my girl.”