“I’m not getting into trouble!”
“If Papa knew, and you weren’t doing anything wrong, you wouldn’t be sneaking around, would you?”
“Papa does know. Mama doesn’t.”
Bernie looked at her contemplatively, processing this piece of information. He admittedly did not always see eye to eye with their father. But he had assumed it was Joseph, not Miriam, who was so adamant that the girls not date before college. Then again, everyone knew Evelyn had their father wrapped around her little finger.
Evelyn stayed completely still under her brother’s gaze, refusing to give up anything after letting that slip about their mother.
“Who is he, then? I assume Papa knows that much.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to know who this boy is who takes my sister out and doesn’t come meet her family.” A realization crossed his face, and Evelyn’s stomach dropped. He had figured it out. There was no one in town Bernie didn’t know. And had Tony been Jewish, there would have been conversations between the two families. “Evelyn,” he said quietly. “What have you done?”
“I haven’t done anything! Good grief, you’re acting like I’m the Whore of Babylon out here. He’s a good boy. He’s just not Jewish.”
“Papa doesn’t know that part, clearly.”
“Yes, he does, Bernie. You can ask him yourself if you don’t believe me.”
“And how will Mama feel about it?”
“Don’t you dare.”
Bernie stroked his chin as he thought, saying nothing for long enough that Evelyn realized her life was about to become more difficult.
“Tell me who it is.”
“Why?”
“I’m going to pay him a visit.”
“You’ll do no such thing.”
“It’s that or I’ll tell Mama. Your choice.”
Evelyn glared at her eldest brother again. “What are you going to say?”
Bernie grinned. “Don’t you trust your big brother?”
“Clearly not. I might do better with Mama.”
He laughed loudly enough that Evelyn shushed him, afraid he’d wake the house. The battles between Evelyn and her mother were legendary. “Evie, you’re a child still. I’m going to make sure he is the good boy that you say he is and find out what his intentions are. Maybe scare a little sense into him.”
“He doesn’t need any sense scared into him.”
“If he thinks he can handle you, he does. And you’re impossible to scare. One of you has to be the smart one.”
She swore quietly, mostly because she knew he didn’t approve of her doing so. Saying she was impossible to scare was a compliment, after all. Then she sighed and capitulated. “Tony Delgado.” His face softened slightly in recognition. “But if you do anything to him, I swear before God and all the prophets—”
“I’m a thirty-year-old man with a family and he’s a teenager who works on the docks. You think I’d hurt him?”
She looked at her brother, who wasn’t large or physically intimidating, but he was smart. In another life, he would have been the lawyer or banker their mother had hoped for instead of owning a clothing store in town. And she was under no illusions about the fact that he could scare Tony if he chose to.
“He’s not going to work on the docks forever.”
Bernie examined his sister’s face, seeing something new there. “You’re serious about this boy.” It wasn’t a question, but Evelyn nodded. “Does Papa know that part?”
She exhaled heavily. “Like I said, I’m seventeen. I’m going to college in a couple months. The rest . . . Well, it’ll work out. Or it won’t. I know how I feel now.”
“Papa will never let you marry him. You have to know that.”
“Papa will get over it.”
“Go to bed.” Bernie shook his head, stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray on the wicker coffee table. “I’ll pay him a visit tomorrow.” She opened her mouth to speak, but Bernie held up a hand. “I’ll play nice. Now go to sleep.”
Wearily, Evelyn rose and went to the stairs, her brother shutting off the lamp and following her to the hall before turning toward the back of the house, where his bedroom was.
She tiptoed up, not wanting to wake anyone else, washing her face and brushing her teeth before creeping into the room she shared with Vivie, where she pulled off her dress and changed silently into a nightgown, then inched into the bed to avoid waking her sister.