Читать книгу The River to Glory Land - Janie DeVos - Страница 12

Chapter 1

Waltz of the Water Stains

November 1927

I noticed another water stain on the vaulted ceiling that made a trail down the stucco wall as I was whirled around the Spinnaker’s ballroom. It was one of many stains in my grandparents’ beautiful hotel, sad reminders of last year’s hurricane.

“Slow down a smidge, Mr. Burton,” I said, forcing myself to smile at the foul-smelling millionaire from Rhode Island. “A waltz should be a thing of beauty, danced in a smooth and graceful tempo. Not a race around the room.”

I forced a laugh to match his, then looked back at the damaged ceiling to avoid the old lecher’s whiskey-fueled grin. His eyes strayed to my bosom nearly as often as he stepped on my feet during our thrice-weekly dance lessons. He and I were the only two in the room, which made me a tad uncomfortable. As my eyes moved past a bank of arched windows that looked out at the Atlantic, I noticed there was a small crack in the upper left corner of one. Ah, well, I thought. They’re doing the best they can at getting everything repaired. Restoring the Spinnaker to its original glory prior to the storm had been an expensive undertaking, and slowing the progress of those repairs was the fact that our busy season was starting out as an exceptionally slow one. Far fewer guests were filling the hotel’s one hundred and fifty rooms, and fewer patrons were filling their bellies in its two restaurants.

Staring over Mr. Burton’s right shoulder, I thought back to my conversation with my sister during breakfast in our grandparents’ old home. Immediately following the storm, we stayed at the Spinnaker until my parents could hire a reputable contractor to build our new home. But the Weisses had become hurricane weary, and decided to pack up and move back to Ohio. When they did, we immediately took up residence in the old home place on the Miami River.

I sat across from Olivia while she had her usual breakfast of lightly buttered toast and black coffee, and I thought for the millionth time how very different we were. Though we were close in age (I would turn nineteen in December, and Olivia would turn eighteen in January), that’s where the similarities stopped. Though we both had blond hair, mine was more of a deep gold like Daddy’s. Hers was platinum blond like our great aunt Ivy’s. Today as always, she wore one of her drab suits or skirts, and, as usual, she had her hair pinned up in a bun at the nape of her neck. Though I’d tried to get her to go with me when I had my long, straight hair cut into a stylish bob, she refused. She said that a secretary needed to look more respectable than some flapper out for a night on the town. Lifting my eyebrows at her was my only reaction to her barb; otherwise, I chose to ignore it.

Olivia glanced up at me as she buttered the other half of her toast. Catching me watching her, she smiled a smile that could melt the hearts of the most hardened, Her eyes were ice blue, also like Aunt Ivy’s, while mine were light brown, like Mama’s. I was quite a bit taller than my very petite sister. She’d had the good fortune of being born with delicate features that I’d always envied. My features were more angular and though I wished I could somehow soften them, I couldn’t complain too much. I never lacked for male attention. Although Olivia hadn’t either, any poor boy’s attempt to talk with my sister was met, inevitably, with few words and lame excuses. She wasn’t a snob, just shy.

Our father, Paul Strickland, was a quiet, serious man, but he certainly wasn’t shy.

On the other hand, our mother was nothing less than outgoing—and outspoken at times—yet everyone loved her. To be honest, everyone loved them both. I was somewhere in between our parents’ two distinct personalities, but Olivia was a hard one to figure out. As we finished breakfast, I was trying to convince her to give up her job as secretary at Doxley’s Import Export Company, and come to work at the Spinnaker instead.

Olivia bit off a corner of her toast and chewed slowly as she seemed to be mulling over the idea of coming to work for our grandparents. Finally, after wiping her small, bow-shaped mouth, she said, “Thank you, sister, but no. Truly, I’ve never been one who thought it a good idea to work with family. After all, who can you complain to after a long day’s work if the one you want to complain about is the one spooning mashed potatoes onto your plate?”

Though she sounded like she was about forty-years-old, I had to admit she had a point; however, that didn’t change the fact that my grandparents needed her.

“Olivia, aren’t you bored to tears at that export office? For the life of me, I don’t understand how you can work there. That dreadful railroad embargo brought most everything coming in and out of here to a screeching halt. I know the embargo was lifted last May, but you can’t tell me that business isn’t slow. Lord, there’s been enough bad press up North about it…not to mention our over-inflated land prices, and apocalyptic hurricanes. It’s a wonder anyone wants to come down here anymore.”

“They will once the snow starts piling up,” Olivia replied as she lifted her coffee cup to her mouth.

“Exactly!” I said, slamming my hand down on the table, which caused my sister to jump and slosh some of her coffee. “Don’t you see, Olivia? If anything will keep the tourists coming down here, it’s the lure of the weather, not to mention the nightlife. It’s…well…” I glanced up toward the ceiling, looking for the right words to describe Miami after dark.

“Amoral and hedonistic?” Olivia offered with a smug smile.

“Exactly, again!” I beamed. “And that, dear sister, is what will save this place. Those looking to indulge need hotels, and Grandma and Granddaddy need you to help run theirs.”

“I’m just fine where I am, Lily, and I’ve told you why. I said the same thing to Daddy when he offered to give me a job in the marina office. So, please, let’s leave it at that.”

Mr. Burton’s phlegm-thick cough brought me out of my musings and I decided I couldn’t stand the old geezer another minute. “That’s all the time we have this morning, I’m afraid,” I said, abruptly interrupting our waltz and stepping back from the vile man.

“But, it’s only twenty minutes until eleven,” he complained.

“Yes, but…” I hadn’t thought up a reason for a shortened lesson. “I have…We have fresh seafood coming in, and Chef is…at the doctor’s office. I have to be at the receiving door to inspect it. I’m terribly sorry.”

“Ah, I do hope nothing much ails the chef,” Burton replied, his brows pinching together in concern. “I so look forward to his bouillabaisse on Wednesday nights, you know.”

How typical of him to worry about getting his belly filled, rather than the well-being of the one filling it, I thought. “Yes, well, I’m sure he’ll be at the helm tonight, expertly navigating through his culinary specialties,” I quipped. The name of the restaurant in question was the Helm.

My attempt at humor was not lost on him. “You’re a pistol, you know that, Lily,” he laughed as he pinched my bottom through my lavender satin dress. At that moment, I wished I was holding a pistol.

Slapping at his hand in anger, I started to tell him exactly what I thought of him, but I stopped myself before I could offend one of the highest paying and still-regular costumers we had at our hotel.

Smiling, though I was absolutely seething, I said, “That’ll be enough for today, Mr. Burton—enough of everything.” Turning on the heels of my purple pumps, I left him standing in the middle of our water-stained ballroom roaring with laughter. Before I started my second job of the day, as luncheon hostess at the hotel’s other restaurant, the Hibiscus Room, I needed to shower off the smell of that man.