The Bungalow

The Bungalow

Chapter 1

August 1942

“Kitty Morgan, you did not just say that!” I set my goblet of mint iced tea down with enough force to crack the glass. Mother would be happy to know that I hadn’t spoiled her set of Venetian crystal.

“I most certainly did,” she said, smirking victoriously. Kitty, with her heart- shaped face and that head full of wiry, untamable blond ringlets springing out of the hairpins she’d been so meticulous about fastening, hardly provoked anger. But on this subject I held my ground.

“Mr. Gelfman is a married man,” I said in my most disapproving voice.

“James,” she said, elongating his first name for dramatic effect, “is impossibly unhappy. Did you know that his wife disappears for weeks at a time? She doesn’t even tell him where she’s going. She cares more about the cats than she does him.”

I sighed, leaning back into the wooden bench swing that hung from the enormous walnut tree in my parents’ backyard garden. Kitty sat beside me then, just as she had when we were in grade school. I looked up at the tree overhead, its leaves tinged with a touch of yellow, hinting that autumn was imminent. Why must things change? It seemed like only yesterday that Kitty and I were two schoolgirls, walking home arm in arm, setting our books down on the kitchen table and making a dash to the swing, where we’d tell secrets until dinnertime. Now, at twenty- one, we were two grown women on the verge of, well, something— not that either of us could predict what.

“Kitty,” I said, turning to face her. “Don’t you understand?”

“Understand what?” She looked like a rose petal, sitting there in her dress brimming with pink ruffles, with those wild curls that were getting even more unruly in the late- afternoon humidity. I wanted to protect her from Mr. Gelfman, or any other man she intended upon falling in love with, for none would be good enough for my best friend— certainly not the married ones.

I cleared my throat. Does she not know Mr. Gelfman’s reputation? Certainly she remembered the hordes of girls who had flaunted themselves at him in high school, where he had been Lakeside’s most dashing teacher. Every girl in English Lit had hoped to make eye contact with him as Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “How Do I Love Thee?” crossed his lips. That was all girlish fun, I contended. But had Kitty forgotten about the incident five years ago with Kathleen Mansfield? How could she forget? Kathleen— shy, big breasted, terribly dim- witted— had fallen under Mr. Gelfman’s spell. She hovered near the teachers’ lounge at lunch, and waited for him after school. Everybody wondered about them, especially when one of our girlfriends spotted Kathleen in the park with Mr. Gelfman after dusk. Then, suddenly, Kathleen stopped coming to
school. Her older brother said she’d gone to live with her grandmother
in Iowa. We all knew the reason why.

From THE BUNGALOW by Sarah Jio. Published by arrangement with Dutton, a member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc. Copyright © Sarah Jio, 2011