Fran Schumer: NADINE AND HER MOTHER ON THE BEACH

Fran Schumer is a shortlist winner nominee of the 2024 Adelaide Literary Award Contest in the category of Short Stories, with her work titled NADINE AND HER MOTHER ON THE BEACH.

Fran Schumer’s poetry, fiction, and articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, The North American Review, Vogue, New York Magazine, and other publications. She won a Goodman Loan Grant Award for Fiction from the City University of New York and in 2021, a Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing poetry fellowship. Her first chapbook, Weight, was published in 2022. Other poems have appeared in Hole in Head, One Art, Paterson Literary Review and elsewhere. Most recently, her poem, Grandmother in the Bath, was awarded a monetary prize from Third Wednesday, A Quarterly Journal of Literary and Visual Arts. She is also the writer of Powerplay (Simon and Schuster; NYT bestseller) and author of Most Likely to Succeed (Random House). She was the Underground Gourmet for New York Magazine and wrote restaurant reviews and columns for the New Jersey section of the New York Times. A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., she studied social studies at Harvard but wishes she had spent more time reading Keats. www.franschumer.com

NADINE AND HER MOTHER ON THE BEACH

Nadine’s mother was saying that she would have killed the baby.

“Absolutely. The minute that doctor walked out of the room I would’ve taken a pillow and put that baby out of its misery.”

Nadine looked at her pale face reflected in her mother’s round, black sunglasses. She squinted because the reflection was so bright. At noon the sun was white at Sea Point, the southern tip of Long Island where the Bennetts had their summer cottage. Noon was the best time to get a tan, Mrs. Bennett said. Nadine’s face looked broad and pasty in her mother’s glasses. Her nose looked flat, too pug. Nadine could tell that her mother was still talking, for she could see Mrs. Bennett’s even white teeth appear and disappear behind her glossed lips, but she caught only one word: vegetable. Nadine examined the smooth surface on her mother’s legs. Perfectly tanned and hairless. Mrs. Bennett took special wax treatments so that she didn’t have any after-shave stubble. There was not a birthmark or a scratch on them. Nadine herself took after ‘your grandma Bennett,’ her mother often said, pointing out that it was from that side of the family that Nadine had inherited her beauty marks and dark body hair. And her pale skin. Nadine would get burned sitting in the sun with her mother. She knew it.

She imagined her mother, bronzed and oiled in a strapless black one-piece, lifting a pink frilly pillow high above her head – her gold bracelets falling up her arm – and suffocating the baby.

“What if you got caught, ma?”

“Oh they’d know why I did it. They’d know, Nadine. And if the doctors took me to court, the judge would understand. I mean how could you go through life like that, with a child that you’d have to take to the bathroom when she was 21? She’d never be able to speak or to read or to feel. Oh the heartbreak. The heartbreak of having to watch your own child be like that. I’d kill that child for its own sake. I’d be doing that baby a favor.”

Nadine thought it would be an awful thing to have to have your mother go to the bathroom with you when you were 21. She was nine and could go to the bathroom by herself. In fact, she liked to excuse herself and get up to go to the bathroom herself, particularly in restaurants. You could get up and walk around and imagine that everyone there was thinking how lovely you looked in your Best & Co. jumper. Perhaps people watching would think you were a young actress, a child star, maybe a relation to royalty. Yes, that was that she liked about getting up and going to the ladies room by herself: People could imagine that she was anything she wanted them to. But if her mother had to come with her all the time – Ugh. Then they would know that she was just Nadine.

“What was wrong with the baby, ma?”

“There was something wrong with her spine. She was born without a spinal cord, something like that. The doctor said she would be retarded all her life, a vegetable. You know. Like that girl Helene. Remember? Mrs. Marks’ daughter. The one who drooled all over the table even though she was as old as you.”

A waiter came down the cabana steps to the beach to take their lunch orders. Mrs. Bennett ordered her usual: shrimp salad on one slice of bread, iced coffee and saccharin. Nadine ordered a hamburger and french fries. Nadine once asked her mother why she didn’t get the sandwich on two slices of bread and give the piece she didn’t want to Nadine, who loved bread. Mrs. Bennett had said she didn’t even want the extra slice on her plate. Didn’t want it near her. Would rather just not have it there to tempt her. Nadine didn’t understand. Really. Her mother was quite thin. Too thin, her father always said.

Nadine thought she saw her face getting redder in her mother’s sunglasses. She checked under her bathing suit strap and saw a thin white line. A bad sign. A sunburn beginning.

“Ma. I think I’m getting burned. Maybe we should go now.”

“Nonsense, Nadine. You’re white as a ghost. It’s your first day out here since camp and I think you should try to get a nice tan before we go back to the city. Nobody wants to be pale in New York in September.”

Nadine remembered the blue-white skin of Helene. Mrs. Marks said it was because most days Helene stayed at home with her nurse. Helene drooled. Nadine was disgusted when she remembered all that dribble. She thought Mrs. Marks would have been very embarrassed for having her daughter mess up the lovely luncheon table Mrs. Bennett had set. But no. Mrs. Marks didn’t seem to mind. She smiled and cheerfully wiped Helene’s chin with Mrs. Bennett’s good linen napkins – apologizing once, no more. Nadine thought she rather liked that. Mrs. Marks didn’t nag Nadine to take Helene into her room and play like her own mother kept doing during lunch. What did her mother expect her to do with Helene in her room. What if she drooled? And on Nadine’s shag carpet? But Mrs. Marks didn’t encourage Mrs. Bennett’s suggestion. No, she said she’d prefer to just sit with Helene on her lap while she and Mrs. Bennett chatted. She was quite firm about that. Nadine was relieved. She moved a little closer to Mrs. Marks and Helene. Really, Helene was rather sweet. You just had to think of her as a baby instead of a nine-year-old. Nadine talked to her in baby talk. Helene giggled. Nadine liked that. She took the napkin from Mrs. Marks to wipe Helene’s chin. Helene looked up at Nadine. She had very pretty blue eyes.

The cabana boy brought their lunch.

“You’re getting awfully pink, Diney,” he said, pulling the waistband of her bathing suit and letting it snap back.

“Cut that out, will ya, Tony?”

God, Nadine hated when he did that. It hurt. And she had a beauty mark under that strap that she didn’t want anyone to see.

Nadine’s mother balanced the shrimp salad on its one slice of bread and took a bite. Nadine ate a french fry.

“Ma, could I have some salt?”

“I don’t have any.”

“What’s in those packets over there?”

“That’s diet sweetener. For the coffee.”

“Mrs. Morris told us in school last term that stuff can give you cancer. It gives cancer to rats.”

“They say that about everything. Besides, I’d rather die ten years earlier and ten pounds thinner. And it’s not rats, Nadine. It’s mice.”

“Don’t you think you’re thin enough, ma?”

“You’re never thin enough. Besides, you have to watch it. When you get older, you’ll have to watch it too. You won’t always be able to eat french fries like that.”

In the pictures of when she was Nadine’s age, Mrs. Bennett was plump. Nadine’s father laughed and laughed when he looked through those old photos. He said he liked women with meat on their bones. He said Adrienne was like that when they first married – pink and plump and just so cute. He reached out to pinch Mrs. Bennett but she swerved away.

“Cut it out, Lew,” she had said. “I wasn’t cute. I was fat. And I looked awful.”

Nadine’s father always joked that his wife was half the woman he married. Nadine had heard her mother tell her father she was sick of that joke.

It was two hours after lunch when Mrs. Bennett noticed Nadine’s color. She dropped her Times in the sand and peered over her sunglasses.

“You are getting pink, Nadine. I think I’ll call your father and see if he can meet us early for dinner. Go back to the cabana and dress. I’ll be up soon.”

Nadine liked that idea. She liked meeting her father in the city for dinner Friday nights. Usually they’d go out to eat and then her father would ride back with them to the beach and stay the whole weekend. It wasn’t half so bad when her father was there. He didn’t just lie on the beach all day. He took her into the ocean and rode the waves with her. He let her sit on his shoulders and hold on to his shiny bald head as the white caps surged over them. Just the two of them. Nadine’s brothers were away for the summer, still at camp like most of her friends. Mrs. Bennett said she wanted Nadine home in August to keep her company at the beach, since Lew stayed in the city all week.

Nadine hoped they would go to L’Etoile tonight. It had a pastry cart and Nadine adored pastry. Her mother said Cote Basque was much nicer, though; quieter. Cote Basque did not have a pastry cart. “They’re vulgar,” Mrs. Bennett had said. Well, Cote Basque would have rolls and butter anyway, Nadine thought. And second to pastry, Nadine loved rolls and butter. Nadine thought she felt a little better, even though she was now more than a bit pink.

She turned on the shower in the cabana but the spray hurt her sunburn. She shut off the water and dried off. That hurt too. She put on some of her mother’s powder and got dressed. She had read two chapters of her book on Madame Curie when her mother finally arrived.

“You look lovely with that nice healthy burn. Come here. Let me fix your shirt.”

Mrs. Bennett untucked the white blouse from Nadine’s sailor pants and tied it in a knot above her midriff.

“There. Now you look like a real beach beauty. Bring me the Noxema. I’ll put a dot on your nose.”

Nadine stared down at her pink stomach while her mother dabbed at her nose. She dipped her finger into the blue jar and scooped out some cream.

“Nadine. What are you doing?”

“I’m just putting some stuff on my beauty mark. It shows when you tie up my shirt like that.”

“For goodness’ sake. Don’t be silly. No one will notice it. Besides, I told you when you get older you can have it removed. Now wipe that cream off and take a look in the mirror. You look adorable. Lovely. A little model. Color does marvelous things for your face.”

Nadine thought she looked stupid with that cream on her nose, and she didn’t like the idea of parading around with her beauty mark sticking out. She put on her mother’s sunglasses. That looked better. Very chic. She couldn’t wait to show her father.

Well, don’t we look delightful,” he said when Nadine and her mother strolled into the restaurant. “My two beach beauties.” He kissed Nadine on the cheek and pulled the chair out for his wife.

“Actually Nadine felt a little sick on the train, Lew. I think maybe I let her sit in the sun too long.”

“Well, is she too sick to have dessert?”

Nadine grinned. This new restaurant didn’t look too bad, although she hadn’t seen any dessert cart yet. All grownups. Not a single other girl her age. She liked that. Just she and all these adults. The women all looked very pretty, except her mother really did look the most beautiful. Nadine was wondering whether to take her first stroll to the bathroom now or check the desserts on the menu when she noticed a woman wave to her mother from across the restaurant and walk toward the table. She picked up the menu and began to go down the list of desserts when she heard the woman mention the baby.

“Well, I know how awful you must feel,” she heard her mother say. “I didn’t want to bring it up, you know. I know how difficult it must be for you and Alex. But look. Maybe it’s the best thing after all. You would have had a life full of heartache. You’ll get over it….”

Nadine looked at the list: mousse chocolate, tarte aux fraises. She didn’t feel very hungry. Her stomach hurt. She looked up. The woman had gone.

“What a shame,” her father said. “The little girl didn’t even make it out of the hospital. And the other Paley kids are so healthy.”

“Ma? What happened? Did that lady kill her baby?”

“Of course not,” her father said. “The girl was born very sick. She was retarded. She would have been a very sick girl had she lived. What ever made you think Mrs. Paley would have killed her?”

Mrs. Bennett interrupted. “You weren’t very polite, Nadine. You could’ve managed a smile when I introduced you. C’mon, Lew. Let’s order. I’m hungry.”

Nadine looked at her menu again. She wasn’t sure she felt like eating tonight. Her skin was burning and her stomach hurt.

“And the young lady?” the waiter said.

“C’mon baby. What do you want?” her father said. “You can have anything you want.”

“I don’t think I’ll order anything. I’m not hungry. I think I’d like to be excused.”

“Not even a dessert? What did you do, fill up on rolls already?”

“Let her be, Lew. I told you she wasn’t feeling well on the train. She said her stomach hurt.”

Nadine felt the saliva gathering in her mouth.

“Diney. Drink some water.”

She let her mother tilt the glass into her mouth but the water wouldn’t go down. She started gagging.

“Dammit, Adrienne. She’s got sun poisoning, Jesus, anyone would have more sense than to let the kid sit in the sun all day like that. You and your ideas about how she ought to look. Like some model. Well for Chrissakes…”

Nadine didn’t hear the rest. She felt her mother’s nails digging into her arm. She felt her legs dragging across the carpet. She saw the faces of all these grownups, staring. The she saw it: She saw herself drool. And a terrible burning inside her rushed out.

Fran Schumer