Ada rolled her eyes. “Goldman.”
“What’s wrong with Shirley Goldman?”
“Nothing really. The family are social climbers though. Wealthy, but vulgar. No class.”
“Does that really still matter in this day and age?”
“It does in my line of work. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with roots in trade, only with the people who try to hide who they are for appearances. They only want to meet established families, and if I bring them to any of the established families, I’ll never work in this town again.”
Frannie, the cook, brought a plate of eggs, fruit, and toast and set it in front of me. “Coffee?”
“I will never turn down coffee,” I said gratefully. Especially when I had to be up by seven. She got the pot from the sideboard and poured me a cup, bringing it with a small pitcher of cream and a bowl of sugar. “Thank you, Frannie.”
“You should take it black,” Ada said, watching me dump half the pitcher of cream in, along with a heaping spoonful of sugar. “Better for you.”
I looked at her black coffee and shrugged. “I’ll walk it off later,” I said, taking a sip of the delicious sweetness. In reality, I would sweat it out. The day was already sweltering. I understood why the elite left the city for the shore like in New York. “How many clients are coming today?”
“Seven.”
“Is that every day?”
“There are only three certainties in this world, Marilyn. Death, taxes, and Jewish mothers wanting to marry their children off.”
“Why didn’t you ever get married?”
She reopened the newspaper and held it up in front of her face. “Because there were no matchmakers as good as me when I was young.” She lowered the paper just enough to see me over it. “Any other impertinent questions? Or may I continue reading about the election? I certainly hope people are willing to overlook the fact that Kennedy is Catholic. It would be nice to have someone who doesn’t look like a constipated Howdy Doody running the country. And that wife of his is pure class.”
A little over an hour later, I found myself in the straight-backed chair again, notepad on my lap. Opposite Ada was one of the most unfortunate-looking young women I had ever seen. Gawky and tall, she towered over her normal-sized mother, with a large nose and buck teeth that would make a beaver envious. Her mother sat there wringing her hands, bemoaning her daughter’s appearance to Ada.
“I understand if you can’t do anything with her, I do,” she said. “But she’s twenty-six now, and time is running out.”
The poor girl’s eyes were trained on the floor the whole time, her shoulders hunched as she tried to hide her size.
Ada looked from mother to daughter and back to the mother. Then she turned to me. “Marilyn, darling, perhaps you could take Mrs. Stein with you to fetch a fresh pot of coffee?”
I eyed her with confusion. Sending me for the coffee was one thing, but taking Mrs. Stein to the kitchen? I didn’t understand what she was getting at, but I rose and asked Mrs. Stein to come with me. She followed without a word.
When we reached the kitchen, I dumped out the pitcher of still-hot coffee and began to brew a new pot. It was the extent of my kitchen skills. Mrs. Stein sank to the kitchen table while the coffee brewed, and I added fresh cream to the pitcher.
“If only I had a daughter like you,” she said miserably. “You must have men lining up to marry you.”
“Just one,” I said. “And that’s why I’m here. I said no, and my parents sent me to Ada.”
“You’re so lucky. With that figure and that complexion.”
“Looks aren’t everything,” I said delicately. What I wanted to say was that she was an awful mother. She had sat there telling my great-aunt what a wonderful cook her daughter was, how she could sew and mend anything, how obedient she was. Heck, I would marry her if I were a man. Looks fade for everyone—except maybe Ada—but someone who can cook, darn socks, and listen to every inane word you say was forever. “I wish I had half her domestic skills.”
“You don’t need them. You’ll marry well.”
There it was again. That assumption that I would stop existing except to pop out babies and pick up some husband’s dirty socks.
It took every ounce of self-control I had not to let her have it. Instead, I bit my （thankfully un-made-up） lip and kept quiet. When the coffee was done brewing, I let it sit a moment longer, hoping I had given Ada all the time she needed, before leading Mrs. Stein back to the sitting room.
Where I almost dropped the entire coffee tray.
We had been gone six minutes. Maybe seven. But the girl in front of us wasn’t the same girl who had slunk through the door after her abusive mother.
Yes, she was nearly six feet tall, looming over the rest of us, but her shoulders were back now. Ada had belted her dress neatly at her almost nonexistent waist, brushed the hair out of her gorgeous chocolatey brown eyes, and applied rouge and lipstick, which, upon closer inspection, was mine.
She would never be beautiful. But with her mouth shut over her teeth and her posture corrected, her cheekbones stood out, giving her a handsome appearance despite the large nose.
Mrs. Stein’s mouth was open, her eyes bulging. Ada instructed Hannah to twirl around, which she did.
“How did you—？”
“She’s got wonderful bone structure,” Ada said. “You’re going to take her to Gimbels, down on Market Street. Ask for Charlotte. I’ll call ahead. She’s going to take care of you. And I’ll call you later this week with some matches.”
“You’re a true bal-shem,” Mrs. Stein breathed.
When they left, I asked Ada what bal-shem meant.
“Miracle worker. Yiddish.” She shook her head angrily. “The real miracle was me not slapping that awful woman. Who treats another human that way, let alone their own child?” She went to the desk in the corner and made a note. “But she’ll worship the ground any future husband walks on for taking this problem off her hands. Meanwhile most of the men in this city should be so lucky.” She looked back up at me. “When you go buy a lipstick, get me another one in that same shade. I gave yours to Hannah.”
I smiled at this glimpse into her true colors but turned away so she wouldn’t see it.
CHAPTER TEN
When Ada dismissed me for the afternoon, I took the paper from my pocket and began my adventure on the Philadelphia trolley system. We were in Oxford Circle, far from Center City, as the talkative woman next to me on the first trolley explained. I wasn’t used to strangers being so polite and tried to ignore her at first, but she made that impossible. But my aunt had chosen to live in the community she worked in.
I wanted to ask how far Market Street was from the Liberty Bell, but after realizing I sounded like a tourist for asking Shirley how to get to it from Ada’s house, I decided to keep the question to myself.
It was nearly an hour, much longer than when Ada drove at breakneck speed back from the train station, before I stepped out under the gold awning of Gimbels. The store took up a full city block. I had been to the New York one, of course, but with its Philadelphia roots and reputation for skimping on frills, it wasn’t the New York icon that Macy’s, Saks, or Bergdorf Goodman was. But it would do.