Don't Forget to Write: A Novel(66)

I patted her hand. “You forced me to go out with him, so I think you can take credit.”

“Thanks for the crumbs from your table,” she said, peeling my hand off hers.

“Is it still a match if we don’t get married?” Dan asked. “Marilyn made it quite clear that’s not on the menu.”

“I suppose living in sin counts,” she said.

I choked on my water while Dan hid his smile behind his napkin. “Ada!”

“What?” she asked and took a sip of her own water.

“Don’t say, ‘What,’ say, ‘Pardon me,’” I parroted sarcastically.

Ada leaned in conspiratorially toward Dan. “Are you sure you want to get involved with this mess?”

“Ada!”

Dan leaned in toward her as well. “Yes, ma’am. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

“Well then, Marilyn,” Ada said. “I suppose I can send you back to New York now. I’ve done what your father asked—minus the marriage part. Though I suppose you’ll change your mind on that eventually. Most girls do.”

I could feel the blood draining from my face. She was sending me back? I liked Dan and all but—

“No,” I said. “You can’t do that.”

“Oh, can’t I?”

“Ada, please!”

She smiled wickedly. “Shush. You’re not going anywhere until you finish those scrapbooks. That was just for calling me all vinegar earlier.”

My shoulders sank in relief. “You’re terrible, you know that?”

“In the best possible way.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Dan said. “Now what’s this about scrapbooks?”

“Dan wants to be a photojournalist,” I told Ada. “She’s got me going through all eight hundred years of her life in photographs.”

“Don’t be impertinent,” Ada said. “Photography was only invented last century. And believe it or not, it predates me.” She looked back at Dan. “Tell me more about photojournalism. Why is that worth disgracing your father by refusing to follow in his footsteps?”

Dan glanced at me, hiding a smile at the question. “To be fair, they don’t know yet. I’m breaking the news slowly and hoping they’ll eventually think it was their idea. But it’s—well—I suppose it’s a little like writing.” I tilted my head at that answer, sure he was about to prove he didn’t understand what I wanted to do. “I like being able to tell a story, just in images. There’s so much nuance to a good photograph. It can capture so much emotion, all by snapping the exact right moment and framing it correctly. You get to decide what to focus on and what to blur.” He gestured to the ocean sprawling to his right. “A picture of the horizon doesn’t tell you anything. But look at the family on the beach.”

Ada and I both turned to look at the mother, father, and two children. The father sat in a chair under the umbrella, a newspaper in front of his face, while the mother fed the children sandwiches. As we watched, the little girl dropped her meal in the sand and began to cry. The mother picked her up to comfort her but shot an annoyed glance at her husband, who had not budged.

“Right there—depending on the moment you capture, it tells a different story. You could show a lovely vacation. Or an unhappy marriage. Or something straight out of Norman Rockwell.”

“Close your mouth, darling,” Ada said to me, tapping me on the chin. I hadn’t realized it was open, and I shut it with a snap. Dan was right. That was exactly what I did. Just with the proverbial thousand words instead of a single picture.

“Meanwhile,” Ada continued, “I set that couple up six years ago now. So you’d best not tell the story of an unhappy marriage with that picture or that novel.”

Dan and I both laughed, and he reached for my hand under the table, squeezing it gently.





When lunch was over, Ada drove home, but Dan and I walked back toward the Princeton. “I’m glad you came,” I said.

He pulled me in and kissed me lightly. “I am too.”

“Will you come visit again? We don’t go back to Philadelphia until Labor Day.”

“I would love to. But what happens after Labor Day?”

I bit my bottom lip. “I don’t know,” I confessed. “I guess I’m supposed to go back to college if my father agrees.”

“Would it help or hurt if he knew we were . . . well, whatever we are?”

I thought for a moment. It would help, of course. The prestige of the rabbi’s son would overshadow how we found each other. But then I would have to go back to New York and the rules and expectations that went with being there. And Daddy expected me to get married. But even if I fell madly in love with Dan, I didn’t see a scenario where I didn’t wind up reading a book at the kitchen stove with children screaming in the background.

“I don’t know.”

He put a hand on my cheek, turning my face to his. “Hey—I’m not going to ask you to do anything you don’t want to do. If college—and New York—aren’t where you want to wind up, that’s fine by me.”

“Can we just take it one step at a time? I don’t know what I’m going to do in the fall. I don’t know if Ada will let me stay. I don’t know if I want to go back. And I don’t know if I have a choice.”