Ada was sitting at the desk in the living room when I walked in. Sally didn’t even bark at me anymore. “Are you all right?” she asked, rising.
“Too much sun, I think,” I said. “I’m just going to go lie down.”
I didn’t look to see if she believed me. I just went up the stairs. But the tears wouldn’t come. It had to be a mistake. Or a mean joke from Shirley. There was just no way . . . Was there?
No, I knew I wasn’t Freddy’s first, but even if the girl showing up were true, would he—could he marry someone else when just the night before, he was planning for our future?
I went to the bathroom and retched, then returned to my room, where I lay down and stared at the ceiling for an eternity, wondering if this was my punishment for refusing to marry him after what we had done.
At some point, I dozed off. Miserable and curled on my side in the fetal position, I awoke to the sound of Sally barking wildly. Dumb dog, I thought, burrowing further into my pillow. If I was asleep, I didn’t have to feel anything.
But Sally kept barking, and above that, I heard Ada talking to someone. Sally’s barking cut off abruptly in a sound I knew—Ada was holding her mouth shut. I stood and crept to the door and opened it a crack.
“Absolutely not,” Ada was saying. “And even if I were going to allow her an audience with a young man, she’s unwell today.”
A young man. It was Freddy. I knew there was a mistake!
I ran down the stairs, nearly tripping, and then skidded to a stop on the wood floor. They both turned toward me. Freddy looked wretched—like he had aged ten years overnight. There were dark circles under his eyes, he was pale under his tan, and his hair was disheveled. Ada looked from me to him and back to me. A muscle ticked in her jaw, which was set firmly.
She finally turned back to Freddy. “You have ten minutes. On the porch. And I keep the windows open.”
I was frozen in place. The fact that he was here. That he looked as miserable as he did. Shirley had been telling the truth. And if I didn’t go on that porch, I didn’t have to hear it from him. I could run back upstairs and pretend it never happened. But Ada looked at me. “Unless you don’t want to go. I can send him away,” she offered.
I blinked heavily, and then walked forward. The air had turned to soup, too heavy to move through as I normally would, and I was afraid it would drown me.
“Ten minutes,” she reminded us. “And not one second more.”
Freddy held the door for me, and I went and sat in a wicker armchair. Freddy pulled another up to face me.
“Shirley—” His voice was thick, and he stopped himself, cleared his throat, and tried again. “Shirley said she told you. Marilyn, I—” He tried to take my hand, but I pulled them both away and put them under my thighs.
“It’s true, then?”
He ran his hand through his hair, disheveling it further. “I didn’t know. I swear. We broke up almost two months ago. It was the week before I met you. I never . . . It was before.”
“And now?”
He got up and walked to the railing of the porch. “I didn’t have a choice. I wasn’t home when they showed up, and her father talked to mine before I even knew they were there. He’s going to make me a partner in the business and buy us a row house. If I say no, I won’t even be able to finish school. I won’t have a penny to my name.”
Then he crossed back and knelt in front of me. “But, Marilyn—there’s another option. We could elope. You and I. Your parents would never cut you off. And I can finish school, and we’ll be okay.”
I stared at him in horror as he continued. “I was thinking about going to New York anyway—if your parents don’t want to give us a house right away, we can live with them. I don’t mind that. Maybe your father can even find me a position somewhere and—”
I held up a hand. “Stop. Please stop.”
He took the hand I had up. “Marilyn, please, you have to see. This is the only way. I—I can’t marry her. I love you. I know you don’t want to get married yet, but this—this is the way we can be together.”
My chest was rising and falling at a rather alarming rate. “And what about the baby?” I asked quietly. “You’d just abandon your child and the mother?”
Something so ugly crossed his face. “I don’t even know that she’s telling the truth. That baby could be anyone’s.”
I stared at him again, truly seeing him for the first time. You’re not in a fix too, are you? Shirley asked blithely in my head. I could have so easily been this girl. Too easily. Ruination or salvation hanging in the balance of what he—selfish, carefree Freddy—wanted. “You told her you’d marry her.”
“To appease my father until I could talk to you. You have to understand that.”
I stood up. “Go home, Freddy. Go clean up your mess.”
He grabbed my arm. “Marilyn—no! You don’t understand. I—let me explain again.”
“Freddy, let me assure you, I understand completely. And the fact that you would abandon this girl and your own child . . .” I shook my head. “Go home.”
“But I love you.”
“That isn’t my problem anymore.”
I pulled my arm back and went into the house, shutting the door firmly behind me.
Ada rose from where she had been sitting in a chair under the open window. She started to say something, a heavy frown on her face, but I burst into tears.
I don’t know how I got to the sofa, her arms around me as I wept into her lap, but she simply held me, stroking my hair as I cried out all my sorrow.
When I finally sat up, she handed me a handkerchief.
“We have a few problems here,” Ada said finally. “How careful were you?”
This was the absolute last thing I wanted to discuss with her, but I didn’t have it in me to be coy or to lie. “We were careful.”
“Every time? It only takes one mistake.”
I colored, remembering the sunrise on the beach and Freddy’s concern at being caught off guard without protection.
Ada swore, rising from the sofa and beginning to pace, then swore again more forcefully. “You and your mother—two peas in a stupid, stupid pod.”
“Mama—？”
Ada waved a hand in the air, dismissing that. “I assume this was all when I was in Chicago?”
I nodded, and she began counting on her fingers. “When is your cycle due?”
I asked what day it was, doing the math in my head. “Monday.”
Ada set her jaw again. “If your cycle is late, then we go to the doctor for a test.”
A tingle of fear ran down my spine. “And if it’s . . .” I couldn’t say the word.
“Then you decide what you want to do, and we either find someone to help or you extend your stay with me,” she said. “But we’ll cross that bridge if and when we come to it and not a moment before.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
I retreated to my room, too distraught to contemplate dinner. The news would have been enough of a blow without the added worry, and I cursed myself for counting on Freddy to know what he was doing on the beach that morning. There was no solace in knowing I wasn’t the first girl he had been indiscreet with; it only made me feel worse about my own decisions. I was the one who asked him to come in—he refused unless I was sure. This was my fault. And around midnight, I vowed not to let him know, no matter the outcome. He was going to marry the other girl and that was that. I couldn’t ruin someone else’s life for my own any more than I could trust Freddy to do the right thing if it wasn’t what he wanted.