Don't Forget to Write: A Novel(81)

She closed her eyes for a few seconds. “He said I should understand that, in my line of work. I think he thought that was why you were coming for the summer. And the fact that I didn’t make a match for you . . . He’s not all too pleased with the way you’ve spent your summer.”

“How much does he know?”

“Only what you’ve told your mother. And that you’re as far from being engaged as you were when you left New York.”

It made sense. If he had even an inkling about Freddy, he would have dragged me back by my hair.

But he had apparently sent me here to find an appropriate husband, a mission in which I had failed miserably and instead spent my summer sunning myself and working on a novel, which he would view as more wasteful than my afternoons on the beach. Reading was fine, but a woman’s place was in the home as a wife and mother—even if she burned the roast.

I swore softly, assuming Ada would admonish me, but she surprised me, saying, “That’s just the word for it.”

“What do I do?” I asked her. She knew everything. She would know how to fix this.

But she shook her head. “You know your father better than I do. Appeal to him.” She rose and went to leave but stopped at the doorway. “I want you to know that I did try.”

There was a lump in my throat, preventing me from replying, so I nodded. Her head bobbed once in return, and then she left me in solitude to cry.





CHAPTER FIFTY


I was no closer to a solution when Dan arrived that evening. But with one look at my face, he took me into his arms. “What’s happened? Is it Ada? Is she—?”

Ada came down the stairs. “Ada is just fine,” she said. “Marilyn’s parents have summoned her home, and she doesn’t want to go.”

He pulled back to look at me, holding my face in his hands. “That’s all?”

I turned and ran up the stairs while he called after me. “Give her a little time,” I could hear Ada say before I shut my bedroom door and threw myself onto the bed.

It took me an hour to come back downstairs. Dan was in the den with Ada and Lillian, each of them with a drink. Ada and Lillian both excused themselves, rising to leave when they saw me. I nodded to them as they walked out but said nothing.

“I’m sorry,” Dan said, standing. “I didn’t mean it like that—I assumed someone was dead from your face. I know you don’t want to go back to New York.”

I sighed. “It’s okay.”

“Ada filled me in some—but let’s talk about it. Or not, if you don’t want to.”

I came and sat on the sofa, and he sank back down next to me. “I don’t think I’m going to be much fun this weekend. Are you sure you don’t want to just go home?”

He shook his head. “I’m not here for the beach and the boardwalk rides, Marilyn. I’m here for you.” I smiled weakly. “Come on. Let’s go for a walk. We’ll get ice cream.”

“But we haven’t had dinner.”

“Since when do you follow rules?”

He had a point.





“I’m not saying we’d have to get married—but if you were in New York, we’d see a lot more of each other.”

“I think we’d see less of each other if they knew marriage wasn’t the plan,” I said over our cones. “And they would harass us nonstop until we caved.” I didn’t think he fully understood my aversion, but I appreciated him not pushing.

“What if we just didn’t tell them we were seeing each other?”

I shook my head. “He doesn’t trust me to live on campus. I’ll have no freedom at all if I go back. I’m not leaving that house unless you come to the door and sit with my father first.”

He reached out and touched my hair. “And I suppose this is too short for me to climb up to get to your window.”

“Hah.”

“Okay, here’s the next idea—we run away together.”

I looked at him warily. “And do what, exactly?”

“Whatever we want. We’ll be bohemians. Live on a beach somewhere. Drink out of coconuts to survive.”

“The world doesn’t actually work like that.”

“What if I work for a year and save up as much as I can, and then we leave?”

A year. A year in that house. I couldn’t do it. Now that I had been free, I couldn’t go back into a cage and sing and pretend I was happy.

He took my hand. “Then actually marry me. It won’t be like your parents. I’ll support you while you write. There are ways to not have kids—we won’t until you want to—if you ever want to. And if I can’t make enough money doing photography, well, I’ll do whatever I need to.”

I looked at him curiously. “Do you actually want to marry me?”

His eyes widened. “I don’t know the right answer here.”

“The truth is the right answer.”

He took a moment before he responded. “The truth is, you’re not like anyone I’ve ever known. I’m alive when I’m with you. And I want to be with you—in whatever way you’ll have me. If that involves rings and a ketubah, yes. If it’s coconuts and sleeping in a shack on the beach, that’s great too. But I’m just trying to find a solution that helps you right now.”