CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
December 1950
Boston, Massachusetts
“Let’s go see the lights on the Common,” Fred said. “My parents used to bring me into town to see them when I was a kid.”
“How gauchely gentile of them,” Evelyn said dryly, but she punctuated it with a wink. “Mine didn’t, even though we used to beg them to when our non-Jewish friends would talk about them.” Evelyn had met him at the South Street Diner for coffee, which led to hamburgers as a cup of coffee stretched into two, then three, and was then close enough to supper that they might as well stay. As long as they split the check, it wasn’t a date, and besides, he was engaged, and she was the next-best thing to it. She hadn’t intended to see him again, but after running into him three more times, always near the Simmons campus, she asked if he was following her.
“I have a feeling I’d meet the business end of that hat pin if I were.”
Evelyn shrugged. “Depends on my mood. I’ve got a mean right hook too.”
“I would expect no less.”
“What are you doing this far from home? Harvard is an awfully long walk and across the river.”
“I like long walks.”
Evelyn shot him a suspicious look. “In Boston. In December?”
“I don’t see you curled up by a fire.”
He had a point. She had established a loop that took her about three miles daily, four if the wind wasn’t too harsh or she felt like more. It was a way to keep her figure with the starchy campus food, but moreover she needed to move. She always had. And growing up by the water, she could stand the cold.
“Where are you from, anyway?”
“Plymouth.”
She shook her head. “Plymouth and Harvard. You’re insufferable, aren’t you?”
“You’re the one who keeps bringing up Harvard. I’m extremely modest. And my parents are absolutely frowned upon by the original families. My father was born here, but in Fall River, and my mother came as a baby from Russia.”
“How tragic.”
“I know. I can’t tell anyone at Harvard for the shame of it all.”
Evelyn peered at him to see if he was serious. He wasn’t.
“Where are you from?”
“Hereford.”
“Yet you don’t smell like fish. Look at us breaking stereotypes.”
“Are you this impertinent with everyone you meet?”
“Only the people I like.”
“And how do you know you like me? We’ve bumped into each other three times.”
“Four counting today. We’re practically an item.”
Rolling her eyes, Evelyn stopped walking and turned to face him. “Really now, this is too much. I told you I’m engaged and—”
He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender and interrupted her. “Don’t get your feathers all ruffled—I’m only teasing you.”
“It would take more than you to ruffle my feathers,” she said, gloved hands on her hips.
“Well, either way, settle down. It was a joke, and I don’t need to meet that famed right hook.” She took her hands off her hips, and she and Fred continued walking along the path. “That’s better. And see? This is how I know I like you.”
“Because you might get clocked at any second?”
He grinned, showing off a dimple in his left cheek, the corners of his eyes crinkling into what would become smile lines as he aged. “Absolutely. I like to live dangerously. And I like someone who can keep up with me.”
“Fred, darling, I can run circles around you.”
“I don’t doubt it,” he said, chuckling. “I enjoy being kept on my toes. Do you know how uptight those Radcliffe girls are?”
Evelyn did. “I take it Betty isn’t one of them, then?”
Cocking a finger at her, he smiled again. “And that right there is how I know you like me, too, no matter what you say. You wouldn’t remember her name otherwise.”
“Maybe I just have a fantastic memory.”
He closed his eyes and turned toward her. “What color are my eyes?”
“Excuse me?”
“Let’s test that memory. Come on. What color are they?”
She glanced at his dark hair. “Brown.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, you fool.”
“Well, they’re blue. Now who’s the fool?”
“You really are the most irritating man.”
“I will take being the ‘most’ anything.”