“Homework or a letter?”
Evelyn started and looked up at the young man standing before her. “I beg your pardon?”
He grinned. She was unimpressed, but he sat down next to her. “Looks like you’re struggling with it,” he said mildly, nodding to the three balled-up pages around her. “I’m Fred.”
Under other circumstances, Evelyn wouldn’t have seen the harm in playing along. But she had to finish this letter, and he was breaking her concentration. “Look, Fred, I’m quite busy right now, so if you don’t mind—？”
“Not at all,” he said, making no effort to leave. Instead, he lay on the grass, pillowing his head on his arms, and stretched out, closing his eyes to the sun.
She glared down at him. “Do I need to move?”
“Why? You’re not bothering me. And I’m perfectly content to stay quiet until you’re done.”
“And if I don’t want to sit with a strange man while I write a personal letter?”
He opened a blue eye and squinted at her. “Ah, so it is a letter, then. Let me guess: Stole a friend’s fella?”
“Excuse me!”
He chuckled, closing the eye. “Okay, not that, then. Breaking up with your boyfriend back home?”
“Quite the opposite.”
“Why so hard to write, then?”
“I—why . . . That’s none of your business!”
Fred sat up. “Ouch, what did you do?”
“Good grief, are you always this impertinent?”
“Possibly. My mother always said I asked too many questions.” He shrugged. “Here’s another: What’s your name?”
“Evelyn,” she grumbled.
“Well, Evelyn, you can tell me. I’m perfectly safe. I’m engaged, after all.”
She looked at him sideways. “You are?” He nodded. “Then what are you doing talking to strange girls in the park?”
“Are you strange?”
“To you I am.”
“Fair enough. I normally wouldn’t, but you seemed to be having such a difficult time, and as a gentleman, I decided to offer a friendly hand.”
“By sitting here until you annoyed me into talking to you?”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
She rolled her eyes and put the textbook on the grass, another book on top of the paper to keep it from blowing away. Her hat pin was stuck through the top of her bag, easily accessible if he turned out not to consider his engagement an obstacle. “I’m engaged too.” She saw him glance at her hand, and she looked at him defiantly. “We haven’t gotten a ring yet, but we don’t need one for it to be real.”
“Parents don’t approve?”
This was too much. She started to stand, but he waved her back down. “Stay. I’m just being nosy.”
With a sigh, she resettled herself. “No. He’s not Jewish.”
“I got lucky there. Betty is.”
Good for you and Betty, Evelyn though unkindly. Then she rearranged her face. It wasn’t this man’s fault Tony was who he was. It also wasn’t his fault she was in a sour mood. She had made her own bed there.
“That’s not why the letter is hard.” He nodded at her encouragingly. “I went on a date as a favor to my roommate, and I didn’t think it was a big deal.”
“And he did?”
“Apparently.”
“Do you think it was now?”
“It wasn’t. But I guess I see why he’s upset.”
“So tell him that. He’ll get over it. And if he doesn’t, is that really who you want to be engaged to?”
Evelyn looked at him carefully to see if he was being flippant or making a pass, but he seemed genuine. “I suppose you’re right.”
Fred lay back down in the grass. “So which school are you at?”
“Simmons. You?”
“Harvard.”
“And it took this long to bring that up in conversation?”
Fred let out a hearty laugh. “I could tell I liked you. I admire a girl who speaks her mind.”
“Well, don’t like me too much. Betty definitely wouldn’t approve.”
“No, she probably wouldn’t. But we’re both engaged and away from home, and as I see it, there’s no harm in having a—strictly platonic, of course—friend.”
“Oh, we’re friends now?”
He opened the one eye again. “I’d warrant I now know more about that fella of yours than your parents do. So yes. I think we are.”