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Authors: Elinor Lipman

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BOOK: The Inn at Lake Devine
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T
here was a quarterly newsletter in the off season,
The News of Lake Devine
, which I had signed up for in the clearest possible handwriting before I left. The first one I received was the holiday issue, which had a black-and-white photo of the staff, Nelson included, surrounding Mr. and Mrs. Berry, who were sitting in matching wing chairs.

I spent at least fifteen minutes poring over a Christmas tree formed by the typed names of the Inn’s guests. It was labeled “The 1964 Season.” Long names made up the diagonals of the tree, while shorter names formed the horizontal cuts of the branches. I found “Fife,” at the very bottom, the base of the stump, and, on further study, “Stewart” and “Rice,” fellow sunbathers. I didn’t expect to find “Marx” as part of the framework, but I felt a stab of hope when I saw that the pile of presents under the tree had guest children’s names crisscrossing each package in lieu of ribbons. I found
Chip, Jeff, Robin
bisecting one side of a box but, after a futile examination, no
Natalie
.

I read “Chef’s Secrets,” which revealed that Mrs. K. basted her turkey with Crisco every thirty minutes for the entire length of the roasting; that she put her piecrust dough in the freezer for ten to
fifteen minutes before rolling it out between two sheets of waxed paper; that she saved the wrappers from sticks of margarine to grease her baking pans.


Next issue
,” the last line promised in bold type: “
Mrs. K’s raisin-and-vinegar pie
.”

“Buildings & Grounds” announced that Mr. B., in consultation with the pro at the public golf course, was going to install a putting green around the flag pole. Also, new gutters, a color TV in the public room, and an aluminum canoe by the summer of ’66.

“What’s New with You,” reported two births, one thirty-fifth wedding anniversary, one successful cataract operation, one engagement spawned at the Inn, one change of address, one Eagle Scout induction, one midyear college graduation, one early admission to Clark. “We’d love to hear from each and every one of you,” the Berrys added.

“Mushroom Musings” carried Mr. Berry’s byline. “The woods around the Inn have given me a new hobby,” he wrote, “something I have more time for now that our guests have departed and our children are back in school. I set out with my field guide, a knife, and sometimes with Mrs. B., who carries a basket in the crook of her elbow à la Little Red Riding Hood. A recent foray into the state forest (off Routes 7 and 125) turned up a 20-lb. Hen-of-the-Woods in perfect prime condition on the stump of an ancient oak. (It is pale gray with a ruffled, feathered appearance, and is considered a delicacy in Italy, where it’s known as ‘Griffo,’ and in France, where it is called, not surprisingly, ‘Poulet de Bois.’) We also came upon several gorgeous fruitings of red caps, which we promptly sautéed in butter and ate on toast for lunch. (Remember, never pick every mushroom in an area.) Let me know if you liked the column, or the ‘boss editor’ may yank it! Karl B.”

Within a week, I sent a note to Mr. Berry, reporting that I had enjoyed “Mushroom Musings” and hoped to see more FUNgus columns in the newsletter. He didn’t write me separately, but quoted my pun with attribution in the next issue (“Mushrooms
belong to a group of organisms called ‘fungi,’ ” he explained), and credited me with an interest in horticulture beyond my years.

In order to make that false statement true, I took two books out of the library with chapters on mushrooms. Neither triggered any sincere interest in the subject, but they dovetailed nicely with a science assignment—any topic in the physical world, three to four typewritten pages. I wrote on
Amanita
, the most famous poisonous mushrooms, and made a cover out of construction paper, showing a carefully rendered human skeleton (5 points extra credit I wasn’t even fishing for) eating a chalky white specimen. I found an
Amanita
in the woods off Jolson, or at least something that matched the illustration in the book, and brought it in for the oral presentation, peat clinging to its poison cup. The girls wouldn’t touch it; the boys passed it around and faked bites to its cap. Everyone loved the description of death by toxic mushroom—the illness, the apparent recovery, then the violent relapse and ultimate organ failure. Mr. Noonan gave me an A+. My foray into mycology was my excuse for writing a second letter to my summer ally: “My science paper this marking period was on North American
Amanita
. I found out they’re everywhere, like loaded guns lying in the woods. Hope you don’t sauté any of
them
in butter for lunch!”

Immediately, Mr. Berry sent me a book from his own library on toxigenic fungi, with a note on Lake Devine white stationery, with its unchanged green pointillist etching, saying that he was glad I was aware of the dangers; here were some other killers for me to study; no hurry; keep the book until I came up for my next visit.

The night his letter arrived, my parents asked at dinner—a dinner at which I had picked the canned gray button mushrooms out of my mother’s pot roast—what it was that was making me and Mr. Berry such fast friends.

“Mushrooms,” I said.

“You hate mushrooms,” my sister noted.

I explained that this was the science of fungi, not the
eating
of mushrooms. Mr. Berry and I shared a passion for mycology.

“Since when?” said Pammy.

“She did a paper on it,” said my father.

I said, “Mr. Berry writes a mushroom column.”

My mother postulated that I was quite taken with the hotel owner, her voice and eyebrows signaling to Pammy that little Natalie had her first crush.

I said, “Mr. Berry was very nice to me.”

“They usually are,” my mother said, “to your face.”

My father rebuked her. “You don’t send someone a book and say, ‘Bring it with you when you come back’ if you’re just being polite.” It was meant to shush her and elicit some backpedaling where she’d admit that Natalie was right about Mr. Berry: He was a fine man and the world was, after all, a benevolent and open-minded place.


Are
you going back?” Pammy asked, as if parents didn’t exist, as if I were in charge of my own vacations.

I said yes, someday.

“I think you’re nuts,” she mumbled.

My father stabbed the unwanted mushrooms on my plate with his ever-roving fork and popped the yield into his mouth. It was a display of table manners, I thought, that was unsuitable for public dining. I said, “Can’t you eat off your own plate, or at least ask me before you eat off mine?”

“Yeah, Dad,” said Pammy.

He laughed good-naturedly, as if we couldn’t possibly be finding fault with an honored custom. “Oh, of course, Miss Marx,” he said, mushroom flecks dotting his gums. “I beg your pardon.”

“They’re right,” my mother said. “It’s a disgusting habit. One day you’re going to do it to some stranger in a restaurant—reach over and stick your fork in his french fries.”

Rising to walk his plate to the sink, he asked happily, his spotted
napkin billowing from the neck of his sweater vest, “What kind of a lout do you take me for?”

O
n a Friday afternoon the following April, I came home to find the house spotless, my room tidy well beyond what my mother usually accomplished in one of her bursts of irritation. My eyelet bureau scarves had been starched and pressed, and my stuffed animals were lined up like prizes at a shooting gallery. Inspecting the refrigerator, I spotted a white frosted oblong I knew to be her chocolate icebox cake. I asked what was going on. She said airily, “Nothing. I was in a cleaning mood.”

“Is someone coming tonight?”

She looked at the stove clock and said—cleverly, she thought—“Tonight? No.”

“What did you make for dinner?”

“Spaghetti and meatballs.”

Normal food, except that on Friday nights we had chicken, an echo of my parents’ childhood Shabbat dinners.

“How was school?” she asked.

“Fine.”

“Did you get back your algebra quiz?”

I said not yet. Mr. Hogan was out, so we had had a substitute, who didn’t do any math with us.

A car turned onto Irving Circle and drove slowly, as if the driver were reading house numbers. I went to the picture window in the living room: An olive-and-ochre Chevy with blue license plates came to a full stop in front of our house. Robin Fife bounced out of the passenger side, a blue-and-green kilt visible below her short Tyrolean jacket.

I whipped away from the window and flattened myself against the wall like a parolee on the lam.

“What’s the matter with you?” my mother asked, untying her half-apron from behind her waist.

“It’s Robin,” I hissed.

My mother said, “I know. She’s spending the weekend.”

“No she’s not—”

But we were out of time: Robin and her mother were on the front porch. I could hear Robin asking, “What’s her sister’s name again?”

“Rachel?” Mrs. Fife offered.

Without uttering a sound, my mother ordered me to get the hell over by her side and wipe the scowl off my face. She opened the front door with a gracious sweep and a welcoming smile. Robin cried, “Surprise!” and threw herself against me. I said blandly, “Hi, Robin.” And to her mother, as she crossed our threshold, “Thanks for arranging this, Mrs. Fife.”

My mother served coffee in her bone china cups, and chocolate-covered cherries on a two-tiered candy dish, even though Mrs. Fife had declined with a flutter of her hand. They agreed to call each other Audrey and Sissy and to do this again soon with Eddie and Donald. After a half-hour, Mrs. Fife said she’d be on her way: Her college roommate lived in Lincoln, and they were planning a
wicked
weekend without the hubbies—shopping, a matinee at the Shubert, and dinner out.

“A musical?” I asked.

“Yes!” said Mrs. Fife, amazed as always by such extraordinary intuition. “
West Side Story
, though not the Broadway cast.”

“Can I see your room?” asked Robin.

“I’m leaving in a minute, so give me a kiss if you’re running upstairs.”

There was no upstairs. We lived in a ranch house, but neither my mother nor I corrected her.

I asked—for no reason beyond what my family had begun to call my one-track mind—“Are you going back to the Inn this year?”

Mrs. Fife murmured, “We’re not sure yet.”

I knew that couldn’t be true: The newsletter announced on every page that guests returning for the summer of ’65 must notify the Berrys, as was their standard policy, on January first.

“Are you?” Robin asked.

My mother said, “It’s awfully hard for my husband to get away in the summer.”

“Of course,” said Mrs. Fife gaily. “Your husband is in the produce business. He must wait all year long for summer so he can sell native fruit.”

“You don’t think you’ll be there this summer?” Robin persisted.

“Robin,” said her mother. “You know how far in advance they fill the rooms, don’t you?”

“I bet if you called the Berrys up, or wrote them a letter …”

My mother’s eyes showed that she understood quite clearly what Bunk Eleven had been like, how long seven additional nights of double occupancy at the Inn had felt, and why she’d be making this weekend up to me.

I pointed out to Robin that Mrs. Berry didn’t like to bend any rules, especially where I was concerned. Remember?

Sissy Fife translated with an indulgent smile, “Ingrid Berry can be something of an iron hand in a velvet glove.”

Her own gloves went on, signaling the end of that unpleasantness. Kisses and handshakes all around, and she was gone.

Robin didn’t grasp that we had exhausted the topic of the Inn at Lake Devine. “I had much more fun last summer with Natalie in my room,” she told my mother, “and this year they’re getting a color TV.”

I said, “I can’t go there this summer, Robin. Okay? Your father has the summer off, but not everybody’s father is a teacher. It’s my father’s busiest season, and we all help him out.”

“You do?” said Robin. “You work?”

“That’s right,” I said. “I wipe the fuzz off peaches when a customer wants nectarines.”

Before Robin could express amazement over that piece of science, my mother silenced me. “It’s very nice of you to want Natalie along, but it’s probably not going to happen in the foreseeable future,”
she said, holding out the dish of dark chocolate cherries to Robin, who hesitated.

I bit into one and showed her how it worked: See, a whole cherry inside, runny but delicious. I said, “You’ve had cherry pie, right? And you liked that.”

She took a dainty bite, then another, chewing unhappily, as if she’d been instructed to clean her plate while at the Marx house, no matter how exotic the offering.

“Have another,” I said after her pained last swallow. “The pits won’t hurt you.”

My mother said, “Maybe Robin doesn’t want to spoil her appetite,
Natalie
. Why don’t you show her your room now.”

And to me, in Yiddish, “Enough.”

Part Two
EIGHT
BOOK: The Inn at Lake Devine
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