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On seventeen, his head started to move, and by eighteen, his blue eyes were locked on mine.
The genders sat together, and services weren’t nearly as long as at the neighboring orthodox synagogues. Still too long for my liking, but when I was home from college, those Saturday mornings were nonnegotiable no matter what I had been up doing Friday night.
My stomach full, I lay down and fell asleep quickly, unbothered by any of the twinges of conscience that should have accompanied my misdeed.
My mother had always been on my side. I was a daddy’s girl when I was younger—what little girl wasn’t? But he didn’t have a lot of tolerance for my rebellious streak. And she always smoothed him down when I broke the rules.
I wasn’t naive enough to believe she had sprung out of the ground prim and proper and had done nothing until she married my stodgy father. But it also never occurred to me that the reason she took my side so often was that she had gotten herself into trouble as well. And I was determined to pry that story out of Ada if it took me the whole summer to do so. What had Mama done?
“Men like a damsel in distress. Even if they’re just saving her from a bush.”
Daddy always said my writing was a waste of time—he wanted me to learn to cook and keep a house and become a good little wife. But Mama encouraged it. She was the one who pushed for me to go to college too.
“Mrs. Edelman, with all due respect, I’m not looking for a husband for you. Let the girl speak.”
“Yes. You, for example, need someone who will stand up to you. You’ll never respect anyone who caves too easily. And you’ll bulldoze over anyone who gets in your way.”
I had never seen a woman manage her own business before. Sure, there were domestic workers, and I knew plenty of girls who went into the business world as typists and secretaries—but mostly to meet husbands. No one ran a company or managed their own money. And her age—along with the fact that she had been in this profession for nearly fifty years—made that even more impressive.
But the idea of being my own person—of doing what I wanted when I wanted and bossing everyone else around—was intoxicating. More than that though, when Ada spoke, everyone listened.
Shirley.”
delicatessen
A summer of torture was better than a lifetime of mediocre marriage.
I thought of Mama, some hundred and fifty miles away, and shuddered slightly. Mothers should live forever.
“Your mother always had her nose in a book. I suppose it’s an escape from the tedium now.”
We can only teach them to fish. We can’t also teach them to cook, chew, and swallow.”
But I knew the answer already. And I wished there was a polite way to tell them to stop trying so hard. It was the primary difference between their family and my own. We had nothing to prove. The Goldmans tried so hard to impress everyone that they failed to impress anyone.
“You strike me as the type who knows how to sneak out of a house if the mood suits you.” I laughed quietly. He had me pegged. “Maybe.”
wily,
I did not. But how hard could it be? I could open a regular umbrella. And you just stuck it in the sand. Frannie eyed me warily. “I’ll be just fine,” I assured her.
profanities
feigned
tartly.
“Then what on earth is that?” “A new book that Mama sent me.” “You remind me of her. Nose in a book at every opportunity. Except when there’s a boy around.”
impertinent,”
Freddy forgotten, I returned happily to reading, the sun shining on my back, the surf crashing in the background, and Ada grumbling periodically about wrinkles.
I knew better. I did. I knew anyone who talked this smoothly was trouble—and I knew it because it was how I had hooked Daniel with no intention of following through on anything. But there was something in the way Freddy never took his eyes off me. The way he watched my mouth as I spoke, as if he wanted to devour my very words. The way he made me feel like the most irresistible girl in the world—the only girl in the world. I couldn’t hold out against that.
But Freddy reached over and took my hand around the exit for Ocean City, and I felt a shiver up and down my spine as he traced a thumb along my palm.
Ada would never allow it. But I didn’t want to spoil the fun.
“Doesn’t matter. I still know I like you better.”
He put an arm around me, pulling me to him comfortingly with a squeeze.
I leaned against Freddy, my shoes off and legs up, feet hanging out the open window. My posture was drowsy, but I was awake with the possibilities of what life could be like if we just escaped.
“Every day is a gorgeous day here.” “And when you’re my age, you’ll learn not to take that for granted.”
behemoth.
She glared at me. I shrugged innocently back. “You shouldn’t make that face. It’ll cause wrinkles.”
Social class—that one can sometimes be negotiable, but often not in this business.
“If she were a reader, she would have mentioned a book, not a movie, when she
said she didn’t have a television. And her choice of a movie tells me she likes to laugh and is more modern than her mother.”
I looked at her in awe. I had never known a businesswoman before. I had known secretaries and nurses and teachers. But not someone who fully managed her own finances for a lifetime without the help of a man.
“It still is. But the only things in life that are worth it are hard.
When I retreated to the kitchen to make myself coffee and some toast, I mulled over her system, thinking about how I would grade Freddy. He certainly didn’t seem to be particularly attached to his family. I hated the idea of not living in New York or near Mama, but he could probably be convinced. Neither of us showed much interest in religion.
Then I realized how foolish I was being. We had gone on one secret date. I shook my head. A little fun was one thing, but I wasn’t planning to fall in love.
Apparently the talkativeness of the previous morning had not extended to today.
I observed both Ada and the girl, this one plump and cheerful, confident Ada would have no trouble finding her someone, through new eyes having gotten a glimpse at Ada’s methods.
“I’ll have to watch my back. You’ll be my competition before long.”
If a girl came in with a domineering mother, I’d probably tell the girl to run away and start her own life. And I could never knowingly send someone into a meeting with someone I found repugnant.
cantankerous
“Well, don’t get all mushy on me about it,” Ada said gruffly. But she didn’t fool me. I threw my arms around her neck, suddenly understanding
the picture of her
