I fell silent, realizing I was in over my head. Yes, this trip had gotten my mom off my case for a week or two, but what was I actually doing? Had I come along to be helpful or to hide? It was looking like I wouldn’t be able to do either.
Joe returned, and I crossed my arms defensively, trying to make it crystal clear that whatever my grandmother intended, I was the opposite of interested.
“I’ll bring the bags in,” he said, noting my posture and turning to her. “Just let me know which ones go upstairs and which ones stay down.”
“Down?” I asked my grandma.
“The main bedroom is through there.” Joe gestured to another hallway off the kitchen. “Evelyn, I assume that’s where you’ll be?”
“Yes, darling, thank you. Jenna can have her pick of the upstairs rooms.”
When he excused himself, Grandma settled into one of the kitchen chairs. “Will you find me a glass of water?”
“What? Not gin?”
She smiled. “Well, if you’re pouring. Though I prefer vodka.”
I shook my head and began opening cabinets. After locating the glasses, I went to the refrigerator to see if there was a filter. “Tap is fine,” she called. “The water tastes better here. Always has.”
I crossed back to the sink and began to fill the glass, then realized something. “You and Joe seem to know each other well.”
“So?”
“He calls you by your first name.”
“What else would he call me?”
“If he just met you? Mrs. Gold.”
“I tell everyone to call me Evelyn.”
I stopped talking as I heard the front door open again and the sound of bags being set down. Going into the hall, I showed him which ones were my grandmother’s, and he carried them down the hall to put in her room. I started to lift mine when I heard Grandma’s voice. “You let Joe do that,” she said. She couldn’t see me, so I didn’t know how she knew I was bringing mine upstairs. “Men like to feel useful.”
The blood rose to my cheeks. There was no way he hadn’t heard her say that. Embarrassed, I picked up the bags and took them upstairs before Joe could return from the back of the house. I placed them at the top of the stairs, then went back down. I could pick a room later.
His lips twitched like he was trying not to smile when I came back into the kitchen. “Mom said to tell you that you have to come to the restaurant,” he told my grandmother.
“I doubt we’ll go into town tonight, but we will this week, of course.” She looked up at him warmly. “It’s good to see you, Joe.”
Reaching down to squeeze her arm, he said, “You too.” He looked back at me. “I’ll let you two get settled in. My number is on the counter if you need anything at all.”
“Thanks.”
“Give your mother my love,” Grandma said.
“I will. It was nice to meet you, Jenna.”
“You too,” I said through a mouth that felt full of cotton.
Once the door closed, I turned back to my grandmother. “You know his family?”
She gave me that same look, as if I had just said something too bizarre to fathom. “Of course I know his family. He’s Tony’s great-nephew.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
July 1950
Hereford, Massachusetts
Evelyn tiptoed up the porch stairs, avoiding the third step to Bernie’s cottage, which creaked. Shutting the door silently behind her, she breathed a sigh of relief in the darkness, only to gasp at the sound of a match striking, the small flame illuminating her brother lighting a cigarette in the sitting room that opened off the front hallway.
Bernie took a drag and exhaled slowly. “You’re up late.”
“I was helping Gertie with the baby.”
“No, you weren’t.”
Exasperated, Evelyn flounced into the dark room and flopped onto the sofa across from her brother. “What do you want, Bernie?”
“So defensive,” he murmured, flipping on the lamp next to him. “It is a boy, then?”
“Look, Papa knows. It’s fine.”
“Does he know you’re out until all hours of the night with him and lying about where you’re sleeping?”
“I’m not lying about where I’m sleeping. I come home every night. I’m just lying about where I am before bed.”
“You’re only sixteen—”
“Seventeen. Almost eighteen. Vivie is sixteen.”
“Do you know how embarrassing it would be for the family if you got pregnant?” Evelyn glowered at him. “I’d hope with three older sisters, you’d know enough to stay out of trouble, but it is you we’re talking about.”