Don't Forget to Write: A Novel(59)

I made eye contact with her, trying to communicate how entirely unwelcome this was through telekinesis or some other psychic ability, but like my nonexistent driving skills, I seemed to lack the power to save myself that way.

And when Ada just smiled at me in response, I realized that if I didn’t go have dinner with Dan, she was going to invite him to stay with us.

“If I agree to have dinner with you tonight and I’m still not interested, will you leave me be?”

For a moment, I felt sympathy for him. He drove all this way, thinking he would get a warmer welcome than I was willing to give.

But they also had these amazing things called telephones and he could have saved himself the effort if he had just picked one of those up and dialed.

“If you really don’t want to, I’ll leave now,” Dan said. “I just thought—you seemed like the type who would appreciate a grand gesture.”

“She is,” Ada assured him. “And she wants to go out with you. She just doesn’t know it yet.”

“Ada!”

Ada smiled broadly. “Go upstairs and start getting ready, Marilyn. Dan, darling, I’ll call the Princeton and get you a room—I’d offer to let you stay here, but I’m afraid that wouldn’t be fitting with two unmarried women and I’d hate”—she winked at him—“to do anything that would force you two to get married to save your reputations—as much as you may still be able to salvage them, that is.” She rose and Dan followed suit. “I’ll make you a reservation for dinner as well. Did you bring a tie? If not, there’s a haberdashery in town.”

“I did.”

“Lovely,” she said, taking his arm and leading him to the door. “The Princeton is just a few blocks over. You could walk, really. I’ll make the call and then you just come back here at six and pick our Marilyn up. I’ll make sure she’s ready.”

Dan looked over his shoulder at me, sulking on the sofa. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“Can’t wait,” I said with as much sarcasm as I could muster.

Ada shut the door behind him and then came back to me. “What are you waiting for? We need to figure out what you’re going to wear!”

“Why are you doing this to me?”

She pointed a finger at me. “Because I can spot a good one a mile away. He cares about your interests. He respects what you want. And he drove all this way to try. Even Sally approves, and I told you, she’s an excellent judge of character. Now you’re going to stop pouting and go set your hair while I call the hotel.” I didn’t budge. “Now. Move.”

Sighing, I pulled myself off the sofa. This was going to be a very long night.





CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE


After Ada arranged accommodations for Dan and made a reservation for our dinner, she marched into my room without knocking.

“Hey! What if I was naked?”

“It’d be nothing I hadn’t seen before,” Ada said as she crossed to the closet and began riffling through my dresses. “No. No. No. Maybe. No.” She looked at her watch. “We probably have time to go get you something new in town.”

“I don’t need anything new. Especially not for dinner with Daniel Schwartz.”

“He was good enough for you to neck with during services, but you can’t be civil enough to have dinner with him?”

“That was before he proposed.”

“And what’s so wrong with someone who would be willing to save your reputation?”

I threw my hands up, exasperated. “I don’t want to be saved. I want—” I stopped. What exactly did I want?

Ada rolled her eyes but plucked the light green dress I had worn to Cape May with Freddy from the closet and laid it on the bed.

“Not that one,” I said.

“Why not?”

I scrunched up my nose and she held up a hand. “Say no more.” She returned it to the closet. “Unless you want me to burn it?”

“Might as well. Unless you know an exorcist for clothes.”

She pulled the pink dress that she had designated as a “maybe” and put it on the bed, then came and sat next to it. “I know. You want romance and passion and butterflies in your stomach. But you clearly felt some of that two months ago or you would never have gotten yourself into any of this.”

Had I? I tried to remember why I did what I did, other than boredom. I thought back to him turning to look at me in shul, as I counted to see if he would. Yes. There was something there in my stomach that day. But— “It was the forbidden aspect,” I said. “That’s all.”

“That’s what it was with Freddy Goldman, that’s for sure. But what’s actually wrong with this one?”

I didn’t know how to explain that it was what he represented. The stodgy Upper West Side life that left me at the stove with a book. Okay, I probably wouldn’t actually be at the stove. But he could ask what I was writing all he wanted—he would still want me to put the silly hobby away as soon as he had me. And there was so much of the world I wanted to see before I resigned myself to that life. California and Paris and London and Havana and, yes, even Key West. Maybe I could convince him to honeymoon in Havana instead of Niagara, but that wasn’t enough for me. And it wouldn’t have been even if I had never experienced the freedom of living with Ada. But now that I had . . .