Six months later—summer 1929
“Does everyone have a drink in their hand?” I asked loudly, making sure everyone in the group could hear. It was almost noon and I had dressed in a royal-blue-and-white polka-dotted, dropped waist dress. Who cares that we’re at the camp out here in the middle of the woods? I thought. If I was hosting my family and friends, it was going to be fabulous.
“Mother?” I called over my shoulder, to be sure she could hear me. She was standing at the back with my father and Junior, while my friends were crowding around the barkeep, who’d set up shop by the firepit as I’d instructed, and George was getting friendly with the girls. “We have mimosas made with fresh-squeezed orange juice and French champagne—thank you, Canada. And for anyone who needs a cocktail while we’re walking, you’ll find bar stations set up along the way.”
We were once again at full capacity, as we had been every week since summer started. Along with my family, who, as I’d anticipated, were far more cordial with me now that I was almost a married woman, there was Ruthie and Lawrence—Ruthie hadn’t wasted any time, she’d married him in December and was now almost seven months pregnant—Emily and Lou, Willis and Anne-Marie, and Lillian, Gladys, Lara and Pauline. Archie would be joining us that weekend along with a few of his guests, and Alberto was there with his friends Chester and Michael, but they’d been here before and knew their way around just fine. We were already halfway through summer, and I’d made sure that each and every week had been a riotous good time. The wedding was only a month away, and there was still work to be done to get the camp ready, but I supervised that while entertaining our guests—intent on keeping myself busy at all times.
“I’m going to start the tour so that you’ll know your way around this place and will feel perfectly at home during your stay.” I did this whenever we had a fresh round of guests. I remembered Anne Belmont making us feel so welcome when we arrived, and I intended to carry on her spirit of warm hospitality, while making things a whole lot more fun.
“There’s so much I’m eager to tell you about, so let’s get started,” I called out, raising my glass in the air. It was noon, but I’d been drinking mimosas for the past hour while getting ready that morning. “We’re going to start at the boathouse, come along.” We stood next to the first cabin and looked down at the boathouse, the perfectly still lake behind it mirroring the sky. “As you can see, the roof of the boathouse is under construction. It had a peaked roof, which was pretty, but I’m having it flattened—can you guess why? It’s going to make an ideal deck for sunbathing, with a perfect view of the lake, don’t you agree?” I looked across to Ruthie, but she was chatting with one of the girls. The deck and the stairs leading up to it would be ready just in time for the wedding weekend. “And there are plenty of rowboats and canoes available anytime you please, just come on down, and take one out for a spin.”
I continued on, leading them down a trail that passed by the boathouse, and then took a left over a walking bridge we’d built that led to an adorable Japanese teahouse nestled on a tiny island with windowed doors on all four sides, providing the most beautiful panoramic view. It was one of my favorite places to take in some solitude—though, to be honest, that never really happened these days, I was too busy entertaining.
“Gentlemen, you can fish off this bridge, all fishing gear is at the boathouse.”
I stumbled just a bit as we crossed back over the bridge. “Whoops,” I said, my heel caught between the boards. I was laughing and grabbed the rail to steady myself. Maybe I should have had some toast before I started in on those mimosas, I thought. Emily’s husband, Lou, stepped forward to help me, but I yanked my shoe free and waved him away. “I’m all right.” We continued up the trail around the back of the main lodge and down to the bowling alley and billiards room.
“Anytime you want to bowl, simply let the staff know and someone will come down and pick up your pins for you. We have three, or maybe it’s four lanes—so I highly suggest making a party of it, and there’s almost always someone down there serving drinks, so don’t be shy.”
We went inside and I showed them the bowling alley. George picked up a perfectly smooth, carved ball, rolled it down the left lane and knocked down all the pins. We all cheered. Lillian and Lara gave him a kiss on each cheek at the same time and his face flushed. He was in heaven. The barkeep came around and topped up our glasses. I was feeling warm and happy, just the way I liked it.
I’d made many changes to the camp that summer. I felt that if people were going to come all this way from the city to spend a week here for relaxation, they shouldn’t have to walk more than a hundred yards for a drink, so I set up bar carts throughout the grounds. We kept walking on the trail that led us to the highest point on the property and allowed us to look out onto all sixteen of the cabins, the lake, and the treetops.
“By next week, I’ll be watching and waiting for bathtubs to be brought up this very river by tugboat, where they’ll be delivered right onto the lakeshore down there and installed in every one of these cabins. You can’t have a retreat into the Adirondacks without a fabulous bathtub to soak in, don’t you agree?” I wasn’t talking to anyone in particular, I was just performing my routine to this small audience.
I showed everyone where to go for meals, where to play tennis and boccie ball, and then directed them to some of the best hiking trails on the property. Ruthie looked rather exhausted after all the walking, so I took everyone toward the main lodge, where lunch was being served.
Reluctantly, in early June, I’d informed Ziegfeld that I’d be getting married at the end of the summer and after that would no longer be able to perform in the Follies or the Frolic or any show at all. I’d justified it to myself with the promise of seeing the world—Paris, Florence, London. I’d wrapped up the June show, spent almost all of July at the camp throwing one monthlong party and planned to return to the show for my grand finale toward the end of August, one week before my wedding. Everyone would be there for my final, farewell show. I tried not to think about it too much by maintaining a steady stream of visitors. As one group left, another arrived, so I never had a chance to dwell on this decision that I’d grappled with for months. The constant visitors and the constant party, as well as the hooch that I drank pretty much continually, helped to ensure I wasn’t too saddened by it all.
Lunch was served, drinks kept flowing, and by four P.M. that afternoon I was knockered and needed a nice long siesta so I could rouse and get the party started again for dinner.
“Mother,” I called out rather loudly when I got up to walk back to my cabin and saw her sitting on a carved wooden swing and looking out to the lake. “Are you having fun?”
I plonked down next to her and the swing shuddered in my clumsiness. She shook her head but didn’t take her eyes off the lake.
“What is it?” I asked, wishing I’d gone directly back to my cabin, where my head would be hitting the pillow at this very moment.
“What are you doing, Olive?” she asked with a sorrow in her voice I wasn’t expecting. I’d thought everyone was having a grand old time. “And what is all this?” She motioned to the cabins and the main lodge.
“I thought you’d love it here,” I said.
“Why are you making all these changes, flattening the roof so you can sunbathe, shipping claw-foot bathtubs up the Hudson River, a bar at every corner? It’s absurd, how much does that even cost you?”
“What difference does it make how much it costs? We’re getting it ready for the wedding,” I said. “That’s what you wanted for me, isn’t it, for me to get married so you wouldn’t have to worry about me anymore?”
She shook her head. “You’re drunk all the time.”
“I am not drunk,” I said, trying to sound as sober and as offended as possible.
“Is this what you gave that poor baby up for, this life of debauchery?” she said in a low whisper.
“Mother,” I said, looking around to see if anyone was nearby, “don’t speak of such a thing again.”
My mother slowly peeled her eyes off the lake and glared at me.
“What choice did I have?” I asked. It was the question I’d been asking myself over and over ever since Archie had proposed. It was the question I’d been trying to quiet, to ignore with a constant flow of new guests to the camp and a constant flow of champagne. It wasn’t until I fell for Archie that I could even fathom what it could mean to have a baby; but now it was too late, and worst of all, he didn’t even know the truth. No one did, not even my mother.
“I don’t know, Olive,” my mother said, standing up from the swing. “Maybe I led you astray—it just seems as if it was all for nothing.”
All the champagne I’d consumed seemed to have drained from my veins, and I felt horribly sober. I couldn’t be alone with my thoughts in the cabin, but I didn’t want to be around any of our guests either. I walked through the towering pines to the farm to find Jose or Eugene. I’d asked Eugene to organize a group hike the following day, and I thought I’d take my mind off things by checking on the itinerary. He wasn’t there. No one was there, in fact.
There were eggs in the coop, but I wouldn’t have anything to carry them in on my way to the kitchen. I’d hoped to see Lady in the stable, but she was out in the field with the other horses. She looked rounder, her stomach fuller and dropping.
“Can I help you with something?” Eugene asked, startling me as he rounded the horse stable with a bucket and a rake, sleeves rolled up, galoshes caked in mud.
“Oh, you gave me a start!”
“I apologize, ma’am. I was just refilling the horses’ feed.”
“I was only wondering how Lady’s feeling.”
“She’s started walking about quite a bit now,” he said. “Doesn’t want to stand still, you see that?” He pointed out to the field, and sure enough she was pacing. “That could mean a couple of days or even less now,” he said. “I think after today we’ll have to separate her from the rest.”
“Why?” I asked.
“If she foals with the other horses around, they might get too close. We had a mare foal a few years back and the male got up close and stepped on the little one’s leg. We had to put her to sleep before the foal was even a few hours old, very sad day that was.”
“Oh, Eugene,” I said, suddenly overcome with sadness. “That’s just terrible.” A chill came over me and I looked around to see where I could sit for a minute.
“It was sad,” he said, beginning to rake out the stable. “Sorry.…” He looked back at me, seeing the pain in my face. “Sorry, you see things like that happen all the time when you’re with the animals this much, probably a bit startling to regular folk. Have I upset you?”
“No, no, I’m fine. I’m sure you see all kinds of things.” I felt a sudden desperation to get back to the privacy of my cabin. “Let me know how it goes with Lady,” I called out as I backed away. “I’d like to know when things start happening.” I walked briskly back to the cabin, hoping I wouldn’t see anyone.
I couldn’t get through the door quickly enough. I shut it behind me, bolted it and then, wrenched by heavy sobs, crumpled to the floor. Everyone was here at the camp—my friends, my theater girls, Alberto, my parents, even my brothers. Archie would be here in just a few days, and our wedding plans were coming together. My grand finale would be a huge success and a final celebration of my time as a Ziegfeld girl, and yet everything felt so horribly, horribly sad. I loved Archie so very much, but I was leading him, unknowing, into a trap. Into a cruel, deceitful lie.