“Who else would it be for? I’m not planning to write my life story anytime soon. You said you wanted to write.”
“This is—” I stopped, afraid the lump in my throat would betray me. “Thank you.”
“Well, don’t get all mushy on me about it,” Ada said gruffly. But she didn’t fool me. I threw my arms around her neck, suddenly understanding the picture of her and my mother. She wasn’t warm and she suffered no fools. But no one had a better heart than this indomitable battle-ax before me.
She squeezed me back once, then peeled my arms from her neck. “Go shower. You smell like you’ve been working on the docks.” Then she was gone. But I sat at the dressing table chair before I went to shower, opened the ream of paper, and slid a crisp, white sheet onto the roller, feeling like a proper writer, envisioning a day when I would be walking along the beach and seeing people reading my novel. Even if I had no idea where to begin.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
That blank paper was still sitting there two days later when Ada walked by my room. She sighed. “You do know it works, right? I didn’t get you a typewriter-shaped paperweight.”
I looked up from where I was sprawled on the bed, my nose in Hawaii. It was engrossing. Ada’s good taste extended beyond clothes, decor, and my lipstick.
“I’ll write the Great American Novel tomorrow,” I said flippantly and turned a page, hoping I had one-eighth of Ada’s sass in page flipping.
“I had you pegged as serious,” she said coolly. “But I can take it away.” She moved toward the typewriter, and I sat up suddenly.
“No, please, don’t!”
She stopped and turned. “Your parents didn’t send you here to lounge on the beach all summer.”
“No. They sent me here so either my mother could smooth my father down or you could marry me off and make me someone else’s problem.”
One hand went to her hip. The other pointed a finger at the typewriter. “And that is your way out of both problems. You said you wanted to write. The only one who is going to make that happen is you. If you lie on a beach flirting with boys all day, the best you can hope for is marriage.”
I was ready to throw that stupid typewriter at her head. Or the copy of Hawaii. At almost a thousand pages, it probably weighed about as much as the typewriter.
“I’m not you,” I said bitterly. “Maybe I just want to fall in love before I get married.”
“That’s well and good,” she said. “But love doesn’t always work out.”
“What would you know about that?”
She let out a short, barking laugh. “More than you do, I know that much. But fine. You want me to be the villain? I don’t mind. As long as you write something.”
She left and I flopped back onto the bed.
Then, after a few minutes, I went and sat at the typewriter. But all I had was the idea of being locked in a tower again. And that was such a baby story. I wanted to write something sweeping like Hawaii or universal about the human condition like my favorite, The Great Gatsby. And all I knew was my own spoiled existence.
The phone rang, and I heard Ada’s bedroom door shut. So I stomped down the hallway, not bothering to be quiet, and went downstairs, then slipped on my shoes and left the house. I avoided the beach—I didn’t want to see Freddy in this mood—and headed toward town instead. I walked up the two blocks to Dune Drive and then turned, almost colliding with Shirley.
“Hello, Marilyn,” she said coolly.
“Hi,” I said, surprised by her lack of effusiveness compared to when I had seen her previously. Shirley moved to keep walking. “Wait,” I said, grabbing her arm. “Are you mad at me?”
She glared. “I thought you wanted to be my friend. Not use me to get to Freddy.”
“Excuse me?”
“That’s the only reason you came to dinner.”
“It is not. I had no idea he was your brother.” She made a disbelieving face, and I mimed crossing my heart. “Swear. I had no idea. And I wasn’t even a little interested.”
“Past tense,” Shirley said. “I don’t understand why he goes after all my friends. Can’t he find his own girls?”
A slight alarm went off in my head, but I needed to know. “All your friends?”
“Most of them.”
“Not the one who looks like a potato though?”
She tried not to laugh, but couldn’t quite contain it. “Honestly, Marilyn, he’s such bad news. I don’t know why you’d want to go out with him.”
I linked an arm through hers. “Darling, I’m having a rough day today. Can we put this behind us? I’ll buy you an ice cream cone.”
She hesitated a moment, then let me lead her into town. “Why is your day so rough?”
I sighed. “Where to begin? Ada got me a typewriter—I told her I wanted to be a writer. You’re only the second person I’ve said that out loud to. And she’s mad I haven’t written something to rival Shakespeare yet.”
“What have you written?”
“Don’t you start now too, Shirl.”
“Well, they say people write what they know. You’ve got this big, glamorous New York life. Write about that.”
“It’s not so glamorous.”
“You know about rakes like my brother.”
I chuckled. “So the glamour girl and the rake? Sounds like one of the paperbacks I have to sneak out of my mother’s closet because they’re off limits.”
Shirley grinned. “My mother has a box of those too.”
“We should trade notes.”
She laughed. “What about Ada?”
“If she has a box of racy novels, I wouldn’t know. Her bedroom is strictly off limits. She probably has suits of human skin hanging in the closet.”
“That’s horrifying. But no. She’s interesting. Write about her.”
I studied Shirley’s profile, an idea forming. Her family actually made the much better story. Imagine marrying blindly into that mess. What if a Freddy-like character met a Marilyn-like character, but away from his family? They have a whirlwind romance and elope, only to meet his parents and—no, that read like a horror novel. I was no Shirley Jackson.
“I’ll think about it,” I said eventually. “And you don’t need to worry about me and Freddy. It’s just a little bit of fun.”
“He likes you.”
I smiled, but I played it off, framing my chin with my hands. “Who doesn’t?”
The idea that had formed with Shirley continued to intrigue me though. What if it was more of a comedy of manners? The two sets of in-laws clashing while the young couple tries to begin a life together? Ada’s bedroom door was still closed when I got back to the house, a murmur through the wall telling me she was on the phone, so I went to my room, closed the door, and sat at the typewriter, where I began to write.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“I wish we didn’t have to sneak around,” Freddy said as we walked to his car Sunday night. I had written three chapters, but I hadn’t yet told him that I was working on a novel. Then again, he never asked what I wanted to do with my life other than the assumed marriage and children either.