“This is an honor!” said Bump. He grabbed Herb’s hand in both of his and began pumping it. “An honor!” He raised Herb’s arm in the air and said, turning to the crowd, “This is Herb Piper!” There wasn’t much of a reaction to this announcement: puzzled looks, some mumbled speculation. “Herb Piper!” Bump said again, a look of incredulity on his face. “The guy from Boston who fixed those goddamned cup handles,” he said. He turned to Herb. “Boy,” he said, in an apologetic tone, “sic transit gloria mundi, huh?” But the others remembered, now, and they began to draw nearer in a circle around Herb.
“Shake the hand that shook the hand of Black Jack Pershing himself,” said Bump, waving Herb’s arm above the others, who pressed in for the chance to do so.
“I — uh — knew you’d want to meet him,” said Andy, tugging at Bump’s sleeve.
“I didn’t actually shake hands with — ” Herb began. Good sense made him stop. He shrugged and let the claim stand. He reached for the hands extended toward him.
A couple of hours later, after they had chatted with Lorna’s friends and danced and eaten pieces of lemon cake, Lorna whispered to Herb the suggestion that they rent a boat and row around on the lake in the moonlight for a while. They excused themselves, left the crowd that had gathered at their table, skirted the dance floor, and left by the door that led onto the porch.
Adelaide Hooper and her sister Priscilla watched them go. When they were gone, Addy sighed and gave Priss a look that Priss understood at once. It was a look they had exchanged often, ever since they had become interested in boys.
“Don’t you wish — ?” asked Addy.
“Oh, don’t I,” said Priss.
“Hey, wish what?” asked Zack Mitchell. He gave Addy a squeeze. “You’re not wishing you were her, are you?”
“No, it isn’t that,” said Addy. “I just wish we were more like them. They’re so — well — they kind of understand each other.”
“We don’t?” asked Zack.
Addy sighed and frowned. “Did you see the way he looked at her when he came back into the hall with Andy Proctor and all those other guys? Just a little grin, but she knew what he meant by it. Priss and I can do that, but you and I — well — I wish we — I wish we — understood each other like that.”
“And the way they dance together,” said Priss.
“Come on,” said Zack. “They don’t dance well at all.”
“I know,” said Priss, “but they — oh, I know this doesn’t seem to make sense, but they don’t dance well the same way — the way they don’t dance well is just right for them.”
“I know just what you mean,” said Addy.
“Well, I don’t,” said Zack. He went outside for a pull at his flask.
Arnold Abbot Adler, leader of the resident dance band at the Serenity Ballroom, Arnold Abbot Adler’s Triple-A Orchestra, stepped to the edge of the bandstand and said, “Now, folks, we’d like to try something a little different, something that the boys and I have been working on for a long time, something we call ‘Lake Serenity Serenade.’ ”
In Topical Guide 292, Mark Dorset considers Partnership; Teamwork; Collaboration; Concord from this episode.
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🎧 292: “This is an honor!”