But Tabor in staking the miners got a share in whatever they found. The mines began to pay off and Tabor became rich. From “Little Pittsburgh” alone he made five hundred thousand dollars in fifteen months. He bought other mines. He was civic-minded, gave Leadville the Opera House and a Grand Opera House to Denver, was spoken of as the future United States Senator. But the Tabors were unhappy and their quarrels increased.
At the age of forty-seven he met the beautiful blonde, Mrs. Harvey Doe, known as Baby Doe. It was love at first sight! Tabor begged Augusta to give him a divorce. She refused. He offered her mines, properties. “Never,” she repeated. After five years of wrangling in court, she gave him the divorce and accepted the mines. “Some day,” she told the newspapers, “Tabor will return to me when that blonde hussy grows tired of him.”
Judy wondered what became of Baby Doe. No doubt, somewhere among the pages of the book something more would be told.
She went over to the desk. “I’d like to take this book home.” The librarian looked at the title and raised her eyebrows. “Don’t you think this is a little technical?” she smiled indulgently. “We have a copy ofLorna Doone,Jane Eyre.”
“Thank you,” Judy smiled, “but I read those.”
“Dickens?” The librarian suggested helpfully.
“This book’s history, isn’t it?” Judy said, holding the book possessively. “I like history and since I’m staying in Aspen, I think I ought to look into—”
“Very well,” the librarian said kindly. “How shall I make out the card? There’s a deposit of one dollar, which will be returned to you when you leave Aspen.”
“A dollar!” Judy exclaimed. To give up so much money even if only temporarily—she emptied the contents of her bag on the librarian’s desk, although she knew all the time that it contained only twenty-five cents.
“May I take the book for a quarter and bring the rest of it tomorrow?”
“No, dear. You come tomorrow and in the meantime I’ll put the book aside for you, although,” she added with a smile, “no one has taken it from the shelf in years.” Her smile was so friendly, Judy wondered how she could have thought her grim and forbidding.
Judy stood there in a quandary. It was much too early to go anywhere for her lunch and she no longer wished to remain in the library. The Wheeler Opera House again obtruded itself upon her thoughts. It was just around the block. Since she was here—
“Miss...” Judy began. “Wilkes,” the librarian finished for her.
“Miss Wilkes,” Judy began again, “would it be all right for me to go into the Opera House now? That is, is one permitted to just go in to look around?”
“Yes, of course. The entrance is at the extreme end of the bank building. There’s a sign, ‘Wheeler Opera House.’”
“Yes, I saw the sign.”
“The Opera House is at the very top of the building. It’s a steep climb and the door may be locked, but you can try.”
Judy felt grateful to the librarian who had assisted her in this happy solution. She could spend an hour “exploring,” her favorite expression for any walk or errand in Aspen. She reached the entrance of the Opera House and ran up the wooden steps that led into the hall. It was dingy, not in the least what she had expected. An enormous, an apparently never-ending flight of stairs appeared ahead of her. Worse than anything was the deafening sound of musical instruments coming at her like waves from every part of the building, like a giant orchestra forever tuning up. As she stood there irresolute a pianist could be heard, the music coming from under the staircase. For a little while it drowned out the din of the other players.
A light now dawned on Judy. This was where the students practiced! She recalled her father speaking of them as the lucky ones who didn’t have to go to private homes such as theirs. He surely must have been joking! Bank, library, practice rooms, and Opera House, all in one old brick building! Her eyes measured the staircase. She began to climb and increased her speed to get there quickly. By the time she reached the landing, she was out of breath. More doors leading to more practice rooms. If anything, the cacophony had increased.
Another staircase stretched ahead, seemingly to go to the roof. She slowly ascended. The sounds of the instruments grew muffled, then almost ceased. On the landing there was only one door, marked “Entrance.” She gently turned the knob, pushed the massive door, and stepped within. There was a prolonged whine as the door closed behind her. She stood there, blinking at the glare of white lights on the stage. Four musicians were sitting before their music stands and were playing with such absorption that her mouselike entrance went unnoticed. A quartet—she recognized the instruments.
She looked about her diffidently. A glow from the windows in the balcony shed a soft light over the auditorium. She saw the walls, papered in deep red embossed with gold medallions. But there were no gold and plush boxes, nor hundreds of gilded chairs!
She couldn’t remain standing there like a statue. If she sat down in one of the orchestra seats, she might be seen. The balcony would be best; besides, from that point of vantage she could see everything better. She moved quietly along the wall, tip-toed up the circular stairs, and gently lowered a seat. The hinge snapped and the seat fell with a bang. The quartet was playing softly, which made matters worse, and only when it began its brilliant finale did she slide into the seat. She looked about her. It was easy to picture the one-time audience, all satin and brocade, glittering with diamonds and jewels. She was jolted out of her pleasant fancies when one of the musicians stepped forward to address the empty auditorium.
“In order to give the student body and our guests some greater insight into the music of Bartok, each member of the quartet will play a solo passage and follow it with his interpretation. In this way, we feel that those unfamiliar with the work of Bartok will learn to understand its profound meaning and—”
The voice of each of the successive players was pleasant. They explained long and difficult passages, preceded by equally long and difficult excerpts from the music. Judy sighed. And this is what her father had promised would be a wonderful evening! She sat there, her lips compressed. If this is what the Juillard Quartet was going to play Thursday night, wild horses wouldn’t drag her here again!
Her eyes ached from the harsh lights on stage. One could hear as well with eyes shut. Her father often did. The musicians’ faces, their voices and their music faded, then melted into an exciting vision....
She recognized immediately the figure of Horace Tabor. His thick, silky mustache was unmistakable. And that was Augusta, his wife, as she upbraided him as she swept the stage, her long, black skirt swishing about her, her eyes flashing, her hair like a tower on her head.
“Is that how you repay me for the many years of hard work, traipsing all the way from Maine to Colorado? And now that you are rich, you think you can desert me for that baby-faced blonde, Baby Doe?” Her voice quivered with anger and disdain.
“Be reasonable, Augusta,” Tabor’s voice was firm, yet sad.
“Reasonable! I will never give you a divorce. Never!”
“But, Augusta, you forget. I have my divorce!”
“One that I will never recognize!” she wildly interrupted.
“Baby Doe is now my wife. I love her!”
And there clinging to Tabor was Baby Doe, her soft curves pressed close to him, her head crowned with golden curls resting on his breast.
“She, that creature, will be your ruin!” Augusta said and pointed her finger derisively. “You’ll never become Senator tied to her! You’ll never be anything! You’re finished!”
“Augusta,” Tabor spoke with sorrowful dignity. “I have made you rich. I’ve given you mines. You want more money, very well! Only I will have Baby Doe....” And he clasped the silent clinging figure closer to him.
Augusta rose to her full height, like an angry prophetess of old. “She’s after your money, your fortune. And when that is gone, she’ll leave you! Some day when you are ragged and poverty-stricken, you will wake up. Wake up!”
Judy felt someone shaking her arm. “Wake up!” the voice repeated. She opened her eyes with difficulty. A boy was bending over her.
“The rehearsal’s over. The quartet will be leaving in a few minutes and lock up.”
Judy looked at him, her mind still hovering between the past and the present. “Who are you?” she asked.
“My name’s Karl. I’m a violin student. I’ve been listening to the rehearsal. Please come along. I don’t want to get locked in here.”
uncaptioned
“I just closed my eyes for a minute,” Judy said as she followed him down the balcony steps.
“It was a long minute, closer to thirty,” he laughed. “I saw—or rather heard you—as you lowered that seat—sort of crash landing.”
“I know. I was petrified when it fell. A broken spring, I guess.”
They neared the entrance door. The music stands were folded and the players were talking and laughing among themselves. Judy and Karl left unnoticed and ran swiftly down the two long flights of stairs.
“They’ve stopped practicing!” Judy said, surprised at the silence in the halls.
“Of course, lunch time. Most of the students eat at the houses, you know, the dorms where they live.”
“You too?”
Karl shook his head. “I came weeks before the Music Festival started. I live with my uncle.”
They stood for a moment. The sun felt warm and pleasant after the mustiness of the Opera House. They looked at each other curiously.
“Well,” the boy smiled, about to leave.
“Karl,” Judy said hesitantly. She didn’t want him to go, not just yet. He was nice—didn’t treat her like a child.
“Karl,” she said with a little more confidence, “where are you going to eat your lunch?”
“Anywhere,” and he shrugged his shoulders as he tapped the pocket of his coat bulging with a yellow bag.
“I have my lunch along too. The Chairlift is where I nearly always go. There are benches and one can buy something to drink right there.”
“O.K.,” Karl said. “It’s one of my favorite spots too.” They started walking.
“By the way, what’s your name?”
“Judy.”
“Judy,” he repeated. “I once knew a girl who was called Judith.”
“You did? What was she like?”
“It was a long time ago when I lived with a family abroad,” he said quietly and quickly changed the subject.
“How did you like Bartok? Or didn’t you hear any of it?” he said with a good-natured smile.
“Of course I did!” Remembering how little of it she had really heard, she went on carefully choosing her words. “I found it difficult to understand—to—”
“You’re right,” he interrupted, much to Judy’s relief. “I’ve heard it now five times and each time I discover something new in it. It’s great music. Like Milhaud and the other moderns, you’ve got to hear them again and again. I came especially to hear Bartok’s piece because I’m studying it. I can’t wait to hear it again on Thursday night.”
“Oh, yes, Thursday night.”
“Expect to be there?” Karl asked.
“Naturally,” Judy answered. “My parents count on my going.”
Her recent resolution flashed through her mind. “Wild horses wouldn’t drag me here again!” But it was different now. Now there was Karl!
They walked on, Judy matching with ease Karl’s long stride. One block, then another. She gave him a quick sidelong glance. He was much taller than she was. His appearance was all that she could have wished. His eyes—well, she had noticed them from the first, blue and dreamy. Even his chin came in for some scrutiny. Her grandmother had often summed up a person. He’s got a weak chin, vacillating, will never amount to anything—or he’s got a strong chin, shows character. Karl’s, she thankfully noted, was of the strong variety. So absorbed was she in her appraisal of Karl that she was scarcely aware of the silence between them.
When he began to whistle, a sad, plaintive melody, she realized at once that she must say something. Silence could be devastating! How often she and her friends discussed this very problem! What to say to a boy you hardly know, especially when dancing, when it takes all your ingenuity to keep your mind on those intricate steps, or when walking, as at the present moment. She must say something—anything, if only something brilliant or clever came to mind.
“Er—Does your uncle live around here?” she asked brightly.
“No,” Karl said, leaving off his whistling. “If we were walking in the opposite direction, I could have shown you his place on Main Street. He has an apartment over his business. Maybe you’ve seen it? It’s called the Swiss Shop.”
“Yes, I think I have, if it’s the one with the window full of carved peasant figures, gnomes and cuckoo clocks!”
“Yes, that’s it!” Karl interrupted. “I arranged that window display myself,” he added with a touch of pride.
“Really?” Judy tactfully refrained from saying how ugly she had thought it. “I’ve passed it many times. Does the name Swiss Shop mean that your uncle imports these things from Switzerland?”
“Yes, and lots of other articles besides; jewelry and scarves, sweaters for skiers and mountain climbers. Of course, cuckoo clocks are his real hobby.”
“I can’t imagine who would want to buy a cuckoo clock,” Judy ventured to say.
“No, neither could I, at first, but they do. Tourists, lots of them, especially from Texas—they’re our best customers. Personally, I think they’re a nuisance, a mechanical bird popping at you every hour. It can be quite annoying when you practice.”
The jinx of silence was broken for the moment. Judy knew she had to keep the talk flowing. The subject of clocks could be pursued.
“The kind of clocks I like best,” she said, “are the antique ones from our American Colonial days. My grandmother collects them. She has one on every mantel, over every fireplace in her house! They’re really beautiful, usually of mahogany, with delicate pointed spires, like a church steeple. Of course, none of them work. When you really wish to know the time, you have to dash into the kitchen to look at the electric clock fastened to the wall.”
“Well, what’s the good of them—just ornaments?”
“Grandma says they can be made to work if she ever got around to finding a really dependable clockmaker,” Judy finished, rather crestfallen. The subject of clocks was definitely exhausted.
It was while they stood at a crossing, waiting for some cars to pass, that Karl, as if struck by some original idea, said, “How do you like Aspen?”
Judy frowned, summoned up all her dramatic fervor, and in deep, reproachful tones declaimed, “Et tu, Brute!”
Karl turned to her, a puzzled smile on his face, then he laughed outright. “Why do you spout ‘Julius Caesar’? What do you mean?”
“Because that’s all anyone has asked me ever since I came to Aspen! Nor do they ever bother to listen to an answer.”
“So, I’m in their class!” Karl gave her a quick look. “You’re a queer duck!”
His pleasant and forthright manner, above all his acceptance of her as a companion, put her at ease. The ice was broken. They reached the Chairlift, found a bench, and ate their sandwiches. Judy shared her malted milk and consumed most of Karl’s chocolate bar. The empty chairs of the lift went monotonously skyward, unnoticed by the girl and boy.
Judy, now uninhibited by any barrier of self-consciousness, pursued her usual method of satisfying what she termed her inquiring mind. She asked questions and Karl spoke freely.
She learned he would be eighteen in October and would enter his last year at Music and Art High School in New York. That he had private instruction in violin and in theory and practiced three hours a day, week ends longer.
“What will you do after graduation?” the young inquisitor went on.
“I don’t know—I can’t say. College, perhaps? It’s a hope, but a dim one. If I’m to pursue music as a career—things are a bit mixed up just at present.” He paused, as if weighing the matter.
“You see,” he said in a serious voice, “I owe it to my father to become a fine musician, if possible a great one. That’s my mother’s dream. It’s mine also.”
Judy shook her head. It all sounded very dull and depressing.
“Then all your life is just school, music lessons, and practicing. You never have any time for any fun—for sports, for nothing except work!”
“No, perhaps not,” Karl said cheerfully. “But it all depends on what you want to do—to accomplish.” He went on. “But I don’t lack for exercise, if that’s what you mean. I have a bicycle and a newspaper route. I get plenty of fresh air. I even have a pupil. Maybe I’ll get another,” he said hopefully. “The money will be very useful.”
“Money!” For the first time Judy was critical of her new, much-prized friend. Idealists didn’t worry about money. “Is that all that matters? Money?”
“Yes, money is important,” Karl said emphatically. “My mother works at a music shop. She spends two hours and more each day traveling on the subway. When she gets home at night, tired as she is, there’s dinner to prepare, things to do in the house, people to see—a few friends. Concerts, of course. Someone I should hear—always my interests guide her. So it’s up to me to do well in my studies, in my music, and earn a little money to justify her sacrifice. She doesn’t call it sacrifice. She loves what she’s doing and is buoyed up by her ambition, her certainty of my success.” Karl had spoken with considerable heat, but now he added quietly, “So you see how important are the few dollars I earn, to pay part of the cost of my lessons.”
“You didn’t understand me, Karl,” Judy said humbly. “Money is important to us too. But what I meant is that there are other things that don’t cost anything and are important too.” She spoke diffidently, trying to formulate thoughts she had never seriously considered but accepted as the air she breathed.
“There are books—and friends—and art.” Still struggling to express herself, she raised an arm to the mountains. “And nature!”
Karl nodded his head in agreement. “Of course, I like all those things. Who wouldn’t? I love to read, although the only time I have is usually late at night when I should be asleep. As for friends, I would be untruthful if I didn’t admit I miss having close friends, even one. At first, even though I could speak a little English, I was considered a foreigner.”
At Judy’s exclamation, “That’s so narrow-minded!” Karl calmly said, “That all passed in a year or two. I’m friendly with boys in my class and I know a few of the girls. But they’re just as busy as I am, in different ways, perhaps. There are some in the class, of course, who don’t take their future careers seriously and they look down upon those of us who do. They manage to have a good time, sports, girls, movies, everything!” He shrugged his shoulders. “I have to go my own way. Someone has said that to be lonely makes one strong. I’m not so sure. One misses an awful lot.”
For once Judy was at a loss for words. She was touched by Karl’s simple, unaffected words. To think that she had complained of being lonely! Her mother and father led busy lives, but she knew she was never far from their thoughts. They filled the house with gayety. Yes, they worked, her mother and father.
“What about your father, Karl? Doesn’t he....”
“I thought you understood,” Karl interrupted her sharply. “He’s been dead for eight years. He died four months after he was liberated from a concentration camp.”
“Oh!” was all Judy could say.
The floodgates of memory were loosened.
“He was a great violinist.” The boy’s face was transfigured by a passionate devotion. “He had made a great name for himself. My mother told me of his triumphs. And he could have escaped in time as he advised others to do, but he refused to leave until he succeeded in getting my mother and me out of Austria. Then it was too late. He was picked up with others and sent to the Polish border—”
“But you say he was freed, taken from that—that camp—”
“Yes, for three, perhaps it was four wonderful months we were together. But he was a shadow, thin, emaciated, sick. But his spirit was exalted. Something I couldn’t understand, being the child I was. But I felt his excitement, that poured itself out in his love for me. I could feel his eyes bore into me as he talked. His faith was something unbelievable. In spite of all he had gone through, he believed in the goodness of people, the mercy of God. While he was in there, in daily expectation of—you know—he wrote a piece of music—for himself and for the others waiting to die. He sang that piece to me. He played it over and over. ‘Some day,’ he said, ‘it will be the theme of a larger work for the land of our hope—Israel!’ He was only thirty-five when he died.”
“I didn’t mean to bring back all those terrible memories. I’m sorry, Karl,” Judy’s voice trembled.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about any more. What happened to my father was the fate of six million others! Just because they were Jews and other brave ones who dared to risk their own lives to help them!”
He turned to Judy as if to brush away these thoughts. “Even my mother could not dwell on her miseries. When Uncle Yahn asked us to come to America, we were glad. I was even happy.”
He got up, then sat down again. “I never talk about that which has happened. One cannot forget. The present is to be lived—the future lies before us. I believe as my father did that a better world is at hand.” He paused. “I have told you more than I’ve told anyone in the seven years we’ve lived in America. So, enough about me!” He seemed determined to change the subject.
“What are you studying in Aspen, Judy? What instrument do you play?”
“Instrument?” Judy repeated. She found it difficult to make the transition from his tragic story to her own self.
“I’m not a music student. I’m just here because of my parents. I did study the piano for years, but I didn’t enjoy the drudgery of practice.”
Then seeing the disappointment on Karl’s face, she went on, “I love music and I like to play for my own pleasure. But, you see, there’s enough music in our house and some to spare! Father’s a violist and Mother’s a singer. I thought I would round out the picture and try something else.”
“Such as what?” Karl asked smiling, but persistent.
“If you promise not to laugh at me, the fact is I can’t make up my mind! Sometimes I want above everything to become a writer. I love everything about books, biographies, history, poetry, plays and novels, of course. My teacher at school has been very encouraging.” She paused, her brow furrowed in thought. Some instinct warned her not to speak of her more recent passion for acting. “But for the last two years,” she went on, “I’m mad about painting! Last summer and on all vacations I sketch with my grandfather. He says I have talent. Maybe he only says that to make me keep on painting. I asked him for his advice, which shall it be? Do you know what he answered?”
Karl was interested. “What?”
“‘You’ve got a big appetite. Go ahead, do both! There’s no law to prevent an author from illustrating his own stories!’”
Judy shook her head. “You see, darling as he is, he doesn’t take me seriously either.”
Karl laughed. “I like that grandfather of yours. He just wants you to make up your own mind. You still have lots of time to decide. But it’s a long, hard road. A true artist lives only for his art.”
“That’s just the trouble with it. There’s so much I want to see and do, not just be a person dedicated to art! Take my mother and father. They live for their art!” Judy grimaced, “Some day when father’s old, forty-five or fifty, perhaps he’ll get recognition! Everyone says Mother has a wonderful voice. She has engagements all year. But is that enough? No! She has to study languages, acting, and her singing. Lately her manager suggested she take up dancing! Did you ever hear of anything so crazy, at her age!”
“Some fine singers go into operettas and musicals.”
“But she hasn’t time as it is, ever to enjoy herself! At least Father once or twice a year takes off a week end and goes on a ski trip or a mountain climb. But Mother, no! She’s either too tired or must rehearse or the house has been neglected and she wants the chance to catch up on it, or her—well, it’s always something! Even here at Aspen, which she tells everyone is simply idyllic, she works and worries.”
“Worries about you?”
“Me? Of course not! She’s worrying about the concert at which she’s to be the soloist. I couldn’t bear such a life!”
Karl was deep in thought, analyzing, as was his nature, all that Judy so impetuously revealed. “I don’t think you really understand your mother, Judy,” he said. “She possesses that inner fire that drives her on. She’s probably far happier than you think. I’m willing to say, without knowing her, that excepting her family, singing is the biggest thing in her life.” Judy seemed unimpressed. “What are your parents’ names?” he asked.
“Lurie. My father’s John and my mother, Minna.”
“Your father is John Lurie? I’ve heard him play. The students worship him. He’s a wonderful violist! He’ll be a second Primrose, someday.”
“Tell that to Father and he’ll love you. Primrose is his hero,” Judy said airily.
Karl looked at Judy and shook his head. “With such parents, to throw away the chance of being a musician!”
“If everybody did exactly what their parents did, there’d never be any progress or change in the world. Shoemakers would continue to be shoemakers, plumbers would go on plumbing.”
Karl burst out laughing. “Say, little philosopher, how old did you say you were? Sixteen?”
For a moment Judy thought of correcting this slight error. I’m going to be sixteen, but she quickly concluded, one needn’t be too exact! She smoothed her new plaid skirt, looked at it with satisfaction. How lucky that she put it on this morning before her mother had a chance to shorten it. It certainly added distinction—even dignity.
The church bell rang and Karl looked hastily at his watch. One-thirty! “I have to get along.” He got up and threw his coat over his shoulder. “Must be at theAspen Timesby two.”
“Aspen Times?” Judy inquired eagerly, her eyes large with curiosity.
“No, I’m not the music critic,” he said. “I have an easy, pleasant little job there twice a week. Today I distribute posters to hotels, stores, the inns, and nail some on telegraph poles. A boy I know, Fran, is taking me around on the bus.”
“Fran who drives Little Percent?”
“Yes, you know him?”
“Mmmm. Mother says he drives like a madman. He brought us from the Glenwood station to Aspen and he certainly gave us an earful, Aspen—past, present and future.”
Karl was amused. “He knows Aspen all right. Of course, he should, living here all his life.”
“He missed his vocation. He should be driving a large sightseeing bus, a megaphone to his mouth—”
“Nonsense,” Karl said. “I like Fran. He calls himself dumb, but he isn’t. He’s awfully kind and—”
“Oh, you mean he’s got a good heart?” Judy interrupted.
“I mean he’s a good guy generally. You should see him ski! He’s wonderful. He took me on. I hadn’t been on skis since I was nine years old. Before I knew it, he had me doing jumps. A late April day, the snow was perfect, like powder—”
“I’m only joking. I know he’s all right. Remind him for me that I still haven’t climbed any mountains.”
“O.K. I’ll give him the message. By the way, Judy, do you usually eat your lunch here?”
“Yes, I do,” was Judy’s all too prompt answer.
“Then, if I don’t see you at the concert Thursday night, I can find you here sometimes.”
“Not see me at the concert?” she swiftly considered. To listen to Bartok with Karl would be pleasant. Without him....
“Why don’t you come to dinner with us Thursday night?” she said. “Then we can all go together.” She smiled, not a little pleased at her brilliant inspiration.
“I don’t like to barge in on your parents. They don’t know me—”
“That doesn’t matter. Mother adores me to have company. You see, we never fuss.”
“Well, if Uncle Yahn doesn’t feel deserted, it’s a deal. I’d love to know two such artists as John and Minna Lurie!”
When he was long out of sight, Judy recalled she didn’t even know his name or his uncle’s. She thought how she would inform her mother. “I’ve asked Karl whose uncle owns the Swiss Shop to have dinner with us.” “Karl who?” her mother was sure to ask. “Oh, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” Judy’s solution to any vexing problem.
She went back to the bench. There was still an hour or more before her mother would arrive home. With considerably less enthusiasm than usual, Judy took out pen and paper to continue the letter to her grandparents begun the day before. She was filling pages, so she imagined, but the pen remained quiet in her hand. Her thoughts were of Karl. What was his life like, living with strangers who took him in out of pity? And his father! She shuddered. She knew something of those vague, unbelievable horrors of the Nazis. But it was all so long ago. Nobody seemed to remember any more. Why?
She folded the still unfinished letter and put it in her bag. Tomorrow, she promised herself, she would write a real letter to them—tell them about Karl. They will understand his sufferings. They will love him.
They will love him! Why only “they”? Why not—“There I go letting my imagination run wild.” And smiling to herself, she collected her possessions and walked leisurely toward her home.
Mrs. Lurie mounted the sagging steps of their villa, which she cheerfully if a bit resignedly called her Victorian relic. Elated that she had managed to finish her classes and her teaching ahead of schedule, she was particularly pleased with herself at having resisted the temptation to rehearse her aria.
“No,” she had said with a faint tinge of regret. “I have a date with my daughter. We’re going to the Pool. She’s been looking forward to it for weeks. Tomorrow, perhaps?”
The front door of the house was unlatched as was the trusting custom of all dwellers in Aspen. “Judy!” she called. There was no answer. Even the piano was silent, the warm sunny day having apparently won the battle between the students’ struggle, duty versus pleasure.
Mrs. Lurie was annoyed at not finding Judy at home, but she knew she herself was to blame. In the argument over the camp this morning, she had overlooked telling Judy she would try to be home early. It was only two-thirty. There was ample time, she reflected. She would, in the meanwhile, get ready: put on her yellow sunback cotton, long reserved for this occasion, her yellow and gold sandals. She lightly brushed her brown hair, yellow where the sun had bleached it. She was grateful that nature had provided her with hair that fell in soft, natural waves. Mrs. Lurie was far from vain, but she was pleased at her image reflected in the mirror.
Another trip to the sidewalk and still no sign of Judy! Mrs. Lurie re-entered the house, laid out Judy’s shorts and sleeveless blouse. This was a slight risk she felt impelled to take. Her daughter had for years made a fetish of selecting her own things and rebelled at any infringement of her rights. Mrs. Lurie had encouraged her to do this. But time and again she wished Judy’s taste wasn’t so lurid. That skirt, for example, she wore this morning—not even shortened. Mrs. Lurie glanced at the clock and concluded this was no time to think about such matters. The car that was to fetch them to the Pool would arrive in ten minutes.
She made her third trip to the sidewalk, scanning the street as if by sheer wishing she could conjure up Judy into appearing. At last! There she was, dawdling along at a snail’s pace, walking with an abstracted air as if in another world.
As soon as Judy was within hailing distance, her mother called in a voice that would have roused a Valkyrie from her mountain fastness.
“Hurry, Judy! You’re late!”
Judy looked around, startled at the familiar voice, then seeing her mother, she quickened her steps to a run. There was no thought or remembrance of a visit to the Pool. Her mother was home. She would tell her about Karl. The need to talk was overpowering.
“Mother, I want to tell you something exciting!”
Mrs. Lurie tried not to show her annoyance. “Judy,” she interrupted. “I made such an effort to get home early. Mrs. Freiborg and her daughter will be here in less than ten minutes. Go in and wash up quickly. I’ve laid out your things on the bed. Brush your hair. We can’t keep them waiting.”
But Judy wasn’t listening. Her face was still glowing as she followed her mother into the house. “I’ve got to tell you something quite wonderful that happened. I met the nicest boy—”
“Boy?” Mrs. Lurie turned to her daughter. “What boy? Where?” There was a perceptible note of sharpness in her voice.
“We ate our lunch together at the Chairlift. He’s a music student and studies the violin.”
“That’s nice, dear,” Mrs. Lurie interrupted, giving Judy an indulgent smile. The boy, thank goodness, wasn’t some nondescript. A music student had an open sesame to Mrs. Lurie’s regard.
“But now, hurry, dear,” she said brightly. “You’ll tell me all about him later.”
“Later, always later,” Judy grumbled to herself, her high spirits dashed for the moment. “You know, it only takes me a few minutes to change.”
“And,” Mrs. Lurie added, following her own train of thought, “please don’t wear that skirt again until I’ve taken inches off the hem. It’s bad enough without trailing your ankles.”
Mrs. Lurie gave a noncommittal grunt as she packed bathing suits and caps into a zippered bag. Judy put on the shorts and blouse without any audible objection and stood near the mirror.
“In this sort of thing you’ll have to admit, Mother, everyone looks alike. But a skirt like my plaid gives one a certain air—personality!”
Her mother shrugged her shoulders. She knew it was useless to argue, but she couldn’t resist saying, “I think you’re more appropriately dressed as you are now, for a warm summer day. As for that skirt which you chose against my better judgment, all I can say is that it rivals the crazy quilt on your grandmother’s Colonial bed.”
An impatient honk of the horn ended the argument as Judy and her mother hurried to the walk just as the dusty blue sedan pulled up in front of the door.
Judy sat in the back seat next to a pale, freckled-faced girl with straight honey-colored hair. Her large hazel eyes were continuously fastened on her mother.
“This is Anne,” Mrs. Lurie smiled at both girls. “I know you’re going to like each other.”
Mrs. Freiborg, a slight, distinguished-looking woman whose manner reflected the importance her husband had achieved in the music world, also turned and said affably, “I’m glad, Judy, you and Anne will get acquainted at last.” Immediately both mothers were engaged in an animated conversation and promptly forgot the existence of their daughters.
The girls sat in strained silence. Judy wondered why her mother was so sure she would like this girl. With an effort she broke the silence.
“I’ve never been in the pool as yet, have you?”
“Yes,” Anne said in a flat voice, reluctantly shifting her eyes from her mother’s back to Judy’s face. “I take swimming lessons.”
“I’ve been swimming for ages,” Judy said with a slightly superior air, “but I would love to learn how to dive.”
“I used to be so scared of the water,” Anne confided, “but I’m not anymore. Mother says lots of girls are afraid—”
“Did she? I guess I belong to the foolhardy type. You still scared?”
“No. I find it easy in the pool. I wonder why it’s so different from the lake where I just used to sink.”
“If the pool’s salt water, that would explain it.”
“What difference would that make, being salty or not?” Anne asked with a puzzled look.
“Because in salt water, you’re buoyant, that is light. If you ever tried swimming in the ocean, you would immediately see the difference.”
Anne shook her head still uncomprehending. Judy tried to remember the explanation in her science book. “You—er—that is, the body displaces less water when it’s salty. You sort of float, being so much lighter.”
She tried to elucidate her point more clearly. Science, she knew, wasn’t her strong point. Then she dismissed the subject with a shrug.
There was no further conversation, scientific or otherwise, and the girls seemed unfeignedly delighted to part company at the parking area.
As they walked toward the hotel, Mrs. Freiborg discovered several acquaintances. She stopped with each, just to say a word, but the minutes lengthened and added to Judy’s impatience.
“Mother, must we wait for them? Can’t we go ahead?”
Mrs. Lurie unexpectedly agreed and tactfully informed Mrs. Freiborg they would meet later.
Entering the hotel with her mother, Judy felt considerably more at ease than on her previous visit.
The sunny terrace dotted with tables and gay umbrellas was a lovelier sight too than she remembered. To her surprise everyone seemed to know her mother. Their progress toward the pavilion was a sort of slow triumphal procession. “Come back and sit with us—” “We’ve saved room for you at our table.” Again and again they were stopped and Judy introduced. There followed the kindly inquiries, “And how do you like Aspen, Judy?” And as usual, before the girl could think of a reply, the talk drifted into other channels.
At last they reached the pavilion. Dressed in their bathing suits, they stepped gingerly on the wet, slippery stones of the pool. Instead of the longed-for plunge into the water, Mrs. Lurie suggested they first get a good sunburn. “Besides,” she added mysteriously, “someone’s coming here especially to meet you.”
Judy slumped down on the thick carpet of grass near her mother’s table. She gazed at the water, enchanted by the azure color that was achieved, as she learned later, by the paint on the bottom of the pool.
At an adjoining table, two women were playing Scrabble with fierce concentration, but their absorption in the game didn’t prevent their cross-table conversation with numerous friends.
“How did you like the concert, Minna? I admit there’s no one who can conduct the way Izler Solomon does—”
Judy was left with her own thoughts. She barely noticed her mother leave her seat to meet a young girl coming toward her. But she looked up sharply when she heard her say, “Lynne, I’m so glad you were able to make it. I almost gave up!”
So that was Lynne! Judy watched as they stood talking. She’s pretty, and very young looking, Judy admitted grudgingly. Yes, for once, her parents were right. She was beautiful! Judy admired the slender, graceful figure in the black skin-tight bathing suit. She noticed the coal-black hair and how Lynne wore it in a chignon low on her neck.