Authors: Jean Nash
One
Susanna Sterling often dreamed of the sea, living as she did in sight of the
Atlantic Ocean
. On
Absecon
Island
, where
Atlantic City
is situated, one could not ignore the sea. In fair weather it was splendid, majestic. When it stormed, the waves pounded on shore like some mammoth beast from the dark caves of prehistory. The very name of the island,
Absegami
as it was called by the Lenni-Lenape Indians, meant “Little Sea Water.” Susanna loved the
Atlantic Ocean
. She loved its power and mystery, its ever-changing beauty. That she often dreamed of it was not unusual. But always her dreams had been tranquil ones, comforting—until recently. Within the past few months, they frightened her so badly that she feared to fall asleep.
The most disturbing part of her dreams was that they invariably began so pleasantly. She would be on the Boardwalk with her brother Dallas. As always, he was handsomely turned out in a white linen suit, blue shirt and silk tie, and a rakish straw boater tilted low over one eye. In the dream, Susanna wore aquamarine voile trimmed with frothy blond lace. A silk-taffeta parasol shaded her face. The summer breeze loosened some tendrils of hair which blew lightly across her cheeks and nose and tickled the curve of her mouth.
The Boardwalk was alive with color and sound. From the newly opened Steel Pier Susanna could hear the strains of “The Stars and Stripes Forever” played by Mr. Sousa’s band, led by the March King himself. The beer gardens and cafes overflowed with gaily attired vacationers. Mingled aromas of steamed clams, hot buttered corn-on-the-cob, and foamy lager beer wafted enticingly on the balmy air.
Susanna breathed deeply of the familiar scents of summer and lifted a contented face to the benevolent sun, which cast a diamond-bright glow on the gently swelling sea. Offshore, yachts and stately sailboats glided by against a backdrop of dazzling water and crystal blue sky. In the surf, young men in woolen bathing costumes cavorted like sleek frisky porpoises, while on the beach, admiring them, stood proper young ladies in black flannel swim frocks and full-length black hose.
Then, suddenly, without warning, a sharp wind sprang up and ripped the parasol from Susanna’s hand. The parasol skittered down the Boardwalk, which was now ominously empty and silent. The bright blue skies darkened, a gray gloom displaced the sunlight, and the wind chilled Susanna like the icy hand of Death.
“
Dallas
!” she cried, alarmed.
But he was no longer with her. And when she looked out toward the ocean, a great swell of a wave was rushing shoreward, an engulfing tide of destruction from which she knew there was no escape.
Desperately she began to look for her brother. She had to find him, she had to protect him. Up and down the Boardwalk she ran, stopping at beer gardens and cafes, bath houses and concession stands, but all were empty and silent.
Dallas
was nowhere to be found.
“
Dallas
!” she cried again, then looked out toward the ocean. Frozen, helpless, she watched the wave surge relentlessly toward shore, knowing that nothing on God’s earth had the power to save her.
“Sunny, wake up!” Firm hands grasped her shoulders and shook her from her nightmare. “Sunny, wake up, do you hear me? You’re dreaming again.”
Her eyes flew open at the sound of her brother’s childhood name for her. He was bending over her, his eyes dark with concern. With a choked sob Susanna threw her arms around his neck. He was safe. Thank Heaven. It had only been a dream. But she trembled in his arms from the memory of her fear.
“Sunny, for God’s sake.”
Dallas
laughed softly, disentangled himself from her grasp, and eased her down against the pillows. “You’ve
got
to do something about those nightmares.”
The room was beginning to brighten with dawn light. Susanna looked up at her brother, at the hair curling boyishly on his brow, the weary brown eyes, the hard curve of jaw in which the faintest trace of youth could still be seen. How beautiful he was. Just like their mother. Except that
Dallas
, thank goodness, was nothing at all like his mother in character.
Augusta Sterling had abandoned the family when Susanna was thirteen and Dallas only ten. After the desertion, Susanna’s father had barely been able to look at the son who so much resembled the woman who had hurt him. And so
Dallas
’s upbringing had been left in Susanna’s capable hands.
She had cared for him as diligently as any parent, had reared him with discipline and love, chastising him when necessary, tenderly kissing away his outraged tears. He had been exasperating at times, naughty as a child, insolent as an adolescent, but even when Susanna was most angry with him she loved him, for she knew that the reason for his unruly behavior was the double wound of rejection that might never heal.
And yet, for all his troublesome nature, he could be heart-wrenchingly loving, like now, as he sat on the edge of the bed and smoothed the tousled hair from her brow.
“Was it the tidal wave again?” he asked gently.
“Yes,” she murmured, loath to even think about it. “And I couldn’t find you again.”
“Maybe if you didn’t waste so much time looking for me, if you just saved yourself from the wave, the nightmare would go away.”
“If I could control the dream that way,” she said with a shudder, “I’d just will myself not to have it.”
“There’s a simple explanation for it,”
Dallas
said sensibly. “Don’t you remember the nor’easter we had year before last? The waves were gigantic. The meadows were blanketed with sea water. You’re probably reliving that time in your dreams, remembering how scared we all were on the island.”
“You’re probably right.” She didn’t sound convinced. But as the sounds of the hotel staff performing their early morning duties reached her ears, the dream began to recede, and more practical thoughts filled her mind.
“It’s late.” She rose and slipped on a dressing gown. “I have a million things to do today.”
Dallas
went to the window and glanced out at the eerie fog. “It looks like limbo out there,” he said.
It was then that Susanna noticed that he was in full evening attire. “
Dallas
,” she reproached him, “you’ve been gambling all night at Dutchy’s again.”
He turned from the window, slipped his hands into his trouser pockets and gave her a furtive look. “Well...yes,” he said, not mentioning that he had also spent a considerable part of the evening at May Woodston’s brothel. “In fact, that’s why I’m here now. There’s something I need to talk to you about.”
Susanna sighed and thrust her feet into a pair of slippers. “Don’t tell me,” she said. “You owe Dutchy some money.”
“Not exactly.” He watched her as she sat down at the vanity table and began to brush out her hair in short impatient strokes. “Sunny, listen to me, please.”
Her eyes met his in the mirror. His look of appeal alerted her.
Dallas
’s habitual gambling, his love for good liquor and bad women were constant sources of contention between brother and sister. But a sixth sense told Susanna that something far more serious than a gambling debt was troubling
Dallas
this morning.
She put down the hairbrush and turned worriedly to face him. “What’s wrong?”
Dallas
sat on the edge of the bed, one foot tucked under his leg, the other swinging nervously. Despite his soigné attire, he suddenly looked much younger than his years.
“I’ve really done it this time.” He avoided her searching gaze. “I’ve signed away my half of the hotel.”
“What?” The word was a gasp. “Did you say—?”
“Yes.” He couldn’t look at her. “I’ve been playing Faro every night for the past week with some people from
New York
. They were playing for high stakes. Dutchy warned me to stay out of the game, but I owed him six hundred dollars. I thought I could win what I owed, and maybe some more besides.”
“
Dallas
,” she uttered, her mind reeling.
“I kept losing more and more,” he went on rapidly, still unable to face her. “I kept thinking if I could just have one good night I’d win it all back. I increased my bets, but my luck didn’t change. Last night...” He paused and looked up at his sister’s stricken face. “Early last night, the game broke up. I owed a total of five thousand dollars to six different men. They took my markers. I couldn’t believe it. Afterwards, one of the men—Jay Grainger—took me aside and made me a proposition. He said he’d pay off all the markers and tear up his own if I signed over the hotel to him.”
“What?” Susanna cried. “For a debt of five thousand dollars you gave away your half of the hotel? That’s only a fraction of what your share is worth.”
“I know it. But, Sunny, where was I going to get the money to pay them off? I just didn’t know what to do. Grainger’s a hotel man, too. He knows the Sea Star. He said he’s had his eye on it for a while, and—”
“I know he has,” she said, furious.
“You’ve met him?”
Dallas
said in an odd tone that escaped her notice.
“No, I haven’t. But he sent his attorney here with an offer for the hotel which I flatly refused. He must have planned this whole thing. I wouldn’t doubt that the cards you played with were marked— Wait!” she said as a hopeful thought struck her. “You say you signed away your half? On what? A paper he drew up?” And when
Dallas
nodded, she said excitedly, “But don’t you see? That can’t possibly be legal. And if Grainger tries to press the issue by taking it to court, you could say you were drunk or coerced.”
“No,” he said, “I couldn’t.”
“But why not,
Dallas
?”
“Sunny, first of all, I wasn’t drunk. And the reason Grainger’s in
Atlantic City
is because he’s planning to build a hotel on the Boardwalk.”
“What has that got to do with anything?”
“Well, his attorney is in town with him,”
Dallas
explained. “He was playing cards with us. I heard him tell Grainger that as long as the document was witnessed, which it was, and provided I
am
the legal owner, it’s an ironclad contract.”
All the breath left Susanna’s lungs. She stared at him, silenced. It couldn’t be true.
Dallas
couldn’t have lost his half of the hotel. The Sea Star was the
Sterling
legacy. It had been built by their grandfather Jonas Sterling in 1854, the same year a Camden & Atlantic train first thundered across the
New Jersey
flatland bearing dignitaries and journalists who were anxious to behold the beauty of the new resort on
Absecon
Island
. For forty years thereafter, as the vacation spot grew and prospered, the Sea Star remained one of the most popular hotels in the city.
It was the prettiest building on the island, three stories high with a white gingerbread facade, enchanting turrets and towers, and a latticework sun porch where congenial guests passed the time of day with one another. “Your Comfort is Our First Consideration” was the hotel’s watchword. A sampler bearing that thought, worked by Susanna’s grandmother, still hung over the four-poster bed in the presidential suite on the top floor.
“
Dallas
, how could you have done such a thing?” she asked, sick at heart. “Couldn’t you have talked to me first? I’d have gotten the money somehow. I could have mortgaged the hotel—”