Recessional: A Novel by James A. Michener Read Free Book Online Page B

push.”
    Krenek blushed: “I hope they know what they’re talking about. We’ve really needed you, Dr. Zorn.” Then he said, deferentially, “Would you like a tour as we talk?”
    “Great. Let’s go.”
    Because Krenek had worked at the Palms since the blueprint stage, he proved to be a knowing guide: “In this main section called Gateways we have seven floors, offices occupying most of the first one, with double elevators at each end. Twenty-one spacious apartments to each of the upper floors, that’s a hundred and twenty-six apartments plus eleven single rooms tucked away on the groundfloor. If we had two occupants in each apartment, we’d have a total of two hundred and fifty-two plus the eleven singles, but actually we have only about half that number.”
    “Business that bad?”
    “No! Not at all! We’re doing about what we expected.” Zorn could not accept this because in Chicago he had seen the red pin; however, he allowed Krenek to continue: “Remember that about half the apartments contain only one person, usually a widow. We also keep three rooms available for renting to family friends of our residents who come visiting. We could accept maybe four more entrants, but that’s about it.” Zorn wondered where the deficiencies were.
    When they reached the end of the long, handsomely decorated ground-floor hall, Krenek suggested that they ride up to the seventh floor, and from that height at the far end of the building, he pointed out the feature that made the Palms distinctive among the many retirement homes in southwestern Florida: “If you look down there, you’ll see that here our land juts out into the river forming a rather fine peninsula. We’ve built right to the water’s edge on all sides, which means that on each floor we have three suites in what we call the Peninsula, water visible from all windows.” Eager to demonstrate the elegance of these apartments, he went to a hall phone and dialed the number of the middle suite of floor seven: “Chris, this is Krenek. Excuse me for intruding, but I have with me Dr. Zorn, our new man from Chicago. Yes. Just arrived, and I wanted to show him an apartment. Would like to start with our best. Could I bring him in? If Esther will allow it?”
    When the answer was a hearty “Sure!” Krenek led the way to the middle door of the graceful circle at the end of the peninsula. The door opened, with the inhabitants greeting him warmly. Andy soon realized that Ken Krenek was a lot shrewder than one might have guessed, for he had arranged that the first residents of the Palms his new director met would be one of the most remarkably lively pairs in the center. Mr. Mallory, eighty-nine years old, was a Midwestern banker who had amassed a minor fortune through prudent financial dealings, but he was at the same time a bon vivant who loved to entertain and frequent public dance halls, where he and his petite wife of eighty-seven not only did most of the newest dance steps but also charmed the onlookers with their strenuous exhibitions of the old dances like the Charleston. They were, Andy would discover, boundlesssources of energy, and showed every sign that they would continue so into their nineties.
    Andy, meeting them for the first time, thought: These are the sort of people I expected—well-bred, well cared for through the years, probably never had to worry much about money. But Krenek quickly killed that misinterpretation: Chris Mallory was a night-school graduate from the University of Wisconsin who as a young man had progressed in various businesses until he became president of a major bank with eight or nine branches. He now drove a stock two-door Pontiac, but his wife had insisted strenuously that they could afford a four-door so that when they invited couples to drive with them the other wife need not mess her hair climbing into the rear seat. He had told her somewhat mendaciously that he believed they could afford it, and she had bought a Cadillac, but