After lunch, I took a break, walking two blocks north to the beach. It was a necessary change. The first day that I chose to return, I went to my normal spot, and Freddy came over.
“Can we talk?” he asked.
I opened a single eye. I had been enjoying a little “siesta” as Ada called her afternoon naps, typically taken on the wicker love seat on the porch.
“I’d rather not.”
He sat in the sand next to me, knowing better than to try to sit on my towel now. “Marilyn, please. I’m miserable without you.”
I pushed my sunglasses to the top of my head and leaned up on my elbows. “What do you want me to say to that?”
He looked perplexed, which wasn’t attractive. When confident, no one was more handsome. When confused, he resembled a chimpanzee.
“That you miss me too,” he said finally.
My eyebrows approached my hairline. “Darling,” I said. “I do not intend to lie to you.” I pulled my sunglasses down and lay back on my towel.
“Marilyn, you have to understand—”
I sat up, annoyed now. “Freddy, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” The chimp face again. “Look, we all make mistakes. And we have to live with the consequences. Yours was not using protection with your new fiancée. Mine was getting sent down here in the first place. Because while I appreciate the life experience, I honestly wish I had never set eyes on you. And if you ever actually cared about me, not just yourself, you’d do me the favor of making sure I never had to again.”
He started sputtering excuses, protesting that he still wanted to be with me, until I finally picked up my towel and left the beach.
From then on, I selected the 16th Street beach, where he wouldn’t think to look, to enjoy my solitary time communing with nature, reading, and processing my next steps.
I brought a notebook to the beach. There was something about lying in the sun, the sound of the waves crashing in the background, punctuated only by the laughter of seagulls, that sparked creativity.
My new story started with a broken heart—while I had told Ada the truth about the state of my own, I felt I could write about such things now with a sense of accuracy. I began borrowing from the photographs as well, though my timeline was modern. The unsmiling mother. The close-in-age sisters. The father who supported them through it all. I didn’t know exactly where the story was going to wind up yet, nor whether it was a comedy, a tragedy, or a biting social commentary. But it was mine to create. Where I had felt trapped my whole life by society and the expectations of everyone around me, I was free in this world that I had begun to spin around my characters.
And I realized that, while I told Freddy I didn’t want to lie to him, I had. My mistake wasn’t being sent to Ada; it was not listening to her in the first place. I didn’t regret being here at all. And truth be told, I didn’t regret Freddy. I needed that experience to write about relationships and the all-encompassing emotions that come with desire.
When I had gotten my fill of sun and sand for the afternoon, I walked the two blocks home and rinsed off in the outdoor shower at the back of the house. It was what Ada did each morning after her swim, and the first day that I tried it, I cowered at every noise. Yes, it locked from the inside, but I was still certain the door would somehow open, and I would be exposed to the world. What world I thought would be gathered in Ada’s shore house backyard, which contained only a shed and a clothesline, I could not say.
But by my third time bathing in there, modesty had been forgotten. I loved the sunlight that I could see through the roof slats as I washed my hair, the feel of the stones warmed by the sun and water beneath my bare feet. I began singing so loudly that Ada later told me I was scaring away small children and cats. I hit her with a verse of “A Bushel and a Peck,” doing my best Vivian Blaine impression until she shook her head and walked away muttering that I’d scare Frank Sinatra away too with that rendition.
We ate dinner together, then when Ada retired to the den to watch television, I went upstairs to write.
“Don’t stay up too late,” Ada said each night, coming to my doorway before she went to bed.
I promised her I wouldn’t, even though I usually lasted past midnight. It was a code between us. Ada would never show me affection, but her admonition was as good as telling me she loved me.
And the reality was, whether she kicked me out of the business or not, I had grown to love her as well.
So I smiled every night when she left my room, giving another zinger to the sassy aunt in my story in her honor.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
I presented Ada with the first scrapbook, which covered the photos before she was born up until her tenth year.
She flipped through the pages, taking her time. I knew if I made any errors, I would hear about them, in great detail. Ada was stingy with her praise and generous with criticism. But it made the actual praise so much more valuable when she gave it.
“Yes,” she said finally, when she reached the end. “This is what I had in mind.”
She rose, setting the book on the coffee table. “Get your purse. We’re going out.”
I looked down at my clam diggers and knotted blouse. “Let me just get dressed first.”
“No need. We’ll do that after.”
“After what?”
She grinned. “Get your handbag.”
Ada’s definition of “going out” was a trip to the beauty parlor in town. I looked up at it warily, uncertain about its ability to live up to my New York hair standards. But I wasn’t about to say that to Ada. And if they butchered it, well, the beauty of hair was that it grew.
We entered a world of pink and turquoise, customers and stylists alike greeting Ada as if she were the mayor. I looked at her as she waved to everyone, scolding a couple of people for not coming to see her, and wondered if maybe she WAS, in fact, the mayor. She knew everyone, their business, and what to do about it.
Ada’s stylist of choice led us toward two chairs, one of which was in use, but the client was quickly relocated to another spot to accommodate us. Ada introduced me as her niece, then gave detailed instructions about her own hair. I let my attention drift to the mirror, observing the women behind me, looking for mannerisms I could use in the book.
Ada was saying, “—a bob, I think. Something like what that Jackie Kennedy is wearing.”
I looked at Ada’s platinum hair, which was already in a bouffant bob. Then realized she was talking about me. The stylist agreed, coming around to put her hands in my shoulder-length hair.
“Wait, what?”
Ada smiled at me in the mirror. “It’s 1960, darling. Let’s make you look like it.”
“And the color?” the stylist asked.
“I’ll leave that up to her,” Ada said. “Marilyn, would you like to look more like your namesake? We can go blonde.”
I held up my hands. “Let’s start with the style.”
Ada laughed. “Probably for the best. They say gentlemen prefer blondes, and we don’t need more of them sniffing around.”
I cringed, but the stylist didn’t seem to notice. “Does that sound good?” she asked.
“Do I have a choice?”
She laughed. “I do what your aunt says.”