Don't Forget to Write: A Novel(26)

He looked at me to see what I’d do. And I decided to play offended, for Shirley’s sake. “Take mine, then,” I said, removing his arm and thrusting the glass she had given me into his hand. “I should head home anyway. But please thank your parents for me.” I rose to leave.

“I’ll walk you there.”

“It’s only three blocks. I can find my way home.”

“You could twist an ankle in those shoes. Fall into another bush.”

“I think I’ll manage.”

“What about the Jersey Devil?”

I had gone down the first step, but I turned back at his words. “The what now?”

He nodded wisely. “It haunts the pine barrens a couple of miles inland. And preys specifically on unprotected young women.”

“None of that is true,” Shirley said, rolling her eyes.

“Why do you think Mother and Father don’t want you out alone at night?”

“Not because of some monster, I’ll tell you that much.”

He angled his head knowingly. “Or they just don’t want you to be too afraid at night.” He rose from the swing and took my hand, placing it through his arm. “If the Jersey Devil wants to get to you, he’ll have to get through me first.”

“So gallant,” I murmured. “Shirley, thank you, darling—let’s go to the beach together this week. I’m free most afternoons.”

She was pouting but agreed as Freddy led me down the steps and around to the front of the house. But instead of turning left to go up toward the main road, he turned right. “The house is this way,” I said, gesturing in the other direction.

“But the beach is this way and it’s so much more romantic than a street.”

I stopped walking. “Now, Freddy, that was fun and all, but I told you, I can’t get involved.”

“That’s too bad,” he said, turning to face me. “Because I’m already absolutely smitten.” He grinned impishly. “Besides, you said if we didn’t like Ada’s matches, you’d go on a date with any of us.”

“You haven’t met any of Ada’s matches.”

“I already know I don’t like them. They’re not you.” He tugged my arm to get me walking toward the path over the dunes.

“I definitely can’t walk on the sand in these,” I said as we reached the sand pathway, my heels already sinking in.

“Then take them off,” he said, kneeling to remove first my right and then my left shoe, holding them both in one hand by the heels as he rose to take my hand with his other. “Or I can carry you, if you’d rather.”

“I can walk just fine,” I said. But as we crested the dune, the ocean sparkling below us in the reflected moonlight, I pictured us re-creating Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr’s scene in From Here to Eternity in the surf. I was in dangerous territory, and I knew it. “We probably should have taken the road,” I said quietly.

“I was just kidding about the Jersey Devil, you know. Besides, he hates water.” I laughed, despite myself. “You’re perfectly safe with me.”

“Are you safe with me though?”

He stopped walking, pulling my arm until I was facing him, and wrapped one arm around my waist, his other hand tangling itself in my hair. “You tell me,” he said quietly as he leaned down to kiss me again.

When we finally broke apart, both panting for air, Freddy said he should get me home. As much as I knew he was right, I felt a tingle of disappointment radiating through my body. “I want to win that aunt of yours over. And that means returning you without making it obvious what we’ve been up to.”

His mention of Ada sobered me quickly. Even if he were from a different family, Ada made it quite clear that she would not approve of any romantic liaisons that summer. And the fact that she had his number as a potential match made the situation that much worse. “I’m not sure you’ll be able to do that.”

“Just watch,” he said. “I’ve been told I’m too charming for my own good.”

“You’re not that charming.”

“Oh no?” he asked, pulling me in for another kiss. “Your lips beg to differ.”

I told myself it was the setting, but I couldn’t help it. I kissed him back. And again when we reached Ada’s street. “Not too close to the house,” I whispered. “She sees everything.”

“Then we’ll say goodbye here,” he whispered back. “When can I see you again?”

“Like this? I don’t know that you can.”

“What a terrible answer. Shall I ask Ada for her permission? Like she’s your father?”

“My father would grant it easier than she would.”

He looked down at me in the darkness. “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.”

“Will you be on the beach tomorrow?” I nodded. “We’ll make a plan then.” He kissed me one more time, then turned to walk away, and I went up the path to the house, climbing the steps to the front door that Ada told me didn’t need to be locked.

I didn’t call out. I had no idea what time it was or if she would be awake, but she was in the den, on the phone. “Marilyn?” she asked.