I imagined him securing my trunk with rope to the back of a horse and buggy. What had I gotten myself into?
“The car’s just this way,” he said, gesturing toward a row across the street. He started walking but turned around when he realized I wasn’t following. “Miss?”
“How do I know you’re actually here to collect me?”
“Excuse me?”
“I don’t know you from Adam. And my mother said Ada would be picking me up.”
“Miss Ada is in the car,” he said slowly, as if explaining to a child. “You can’t expect her to carry your trunk up all the stairs.”
“So you’re her driver?”
He shook his head, chuckling. “No, ma’am. Miss Ada doesn’t allow anyone else to drive that car. And I’m in medical school at UPenn. I just help out when she needs it.”
Served me right for making assumptions. “I’m terribly sorry.”
He smiled broadly. “Words you’ll never hear from that aunt of yours. Come on. Let’s get a move on before she comes after us.”
This time I followed. Even if he did kidnap me, it might be a better fate. Besides, he was handsome. Although I knew better. If Daddy threw a fit at the rabbi’s son, I could only imagine what would happen if I got caught flirting with Thomas—even if he was going to be a doctor.
He stopped at a Daphne Blue Cadillac convertible, the top down, the sun glinting off the absolutely blinding chrome. A woman sat behind the wheel, platinum blonde hair peeking out from under a baby blue Hermès scarf. She wore matching driving gloves, one hand holding the wheel, tapping impatiently with a forefinger, while the other held a lit cigarette that she brought to her mouth periodically. From behind, she could have been Marilyn Monroe.
In the rearview mirror, she lowered her cat eye sunglasses, a web of fine lines around her rich brown eyes dispelling the youthful image.
“Good grief, how much did you pack?” she asked without turning around. “Thomas, we might have to send that trunk along later.”
“I came prepared,” Thomas said, opening the car’s trunk and pulling out a length of rope. “If she’s related to you, she wasn’t packing light.”
“Cheeky,” she said, but there was a smile in her voice. “You’re the only one I let talk to me like that.”
“Don’t I know it,” he said, lifting my luggage with a small grunt. “We have rocks here in Philadelphia, you know. You didn’t need to pack your fancy New York City rocks.”
“We don’t have rocks in the city, we have skyscrapers and taxis.”
“And attitude problems,” Ada said, finally turning her head and removing her glasses to fix a stern stare on me. She looked me up and down. “The dress will do,” she said, looking over my black-and-white checked dress, belted at the waist, then flared out over a crinoline. “But that lipstick makes you look like a tart.” She held out a gloved hand. “Let me see it.”
“Excuse me?”
“The lipstick,” she repeated, waggling her fingers to indicate she expected it. I fought the urge to clutch my handbag to my chest to protect it and instead opened the clasp, found the offending lipstick, and handed it to her. “Much better. See, Thomas? She’s not as bad as her mother said.” She dropped the lipstick into her own handbag.
“No, Thomas,” I said. “I’m much, much worse.” Ada’s mouth turned down at a corner.
I finally held out my hand to my great-aunt. “We haven’t been properly introduced yet. I’m Marilyn.”
“Why, whoever else would you be?” she asked, ignoring my hand completely. “Thomas, it’s not going to fit.” I lowered my hand.
“With all due respect, Miss Ada,” he said as he finished tying off a knot. “You can drive like the devil himself is after you, and that thing’s not going anywhere.”
“More’s the pity,” she said. “Climb in, girl, we haven’t got all day.”
I opened the door and went to sit in the passenger seat, but Ada stopped me. “The back. Thomas rides in front.”
Thomas objected, “The back is just fine—” Ada stopped him with a look. Without a word, I climbed through into the backseat.
Thomas had barely closed his door when Ada peeled out of the parking spot, down the lot, and out onto the street, seemingly without looking. I leaned forward to be heard over the wind of the convertible. “What should I call you?”
She turned to look at me. “What kind of a question is that?”
“Well, Great-Aunt Ada is a little bulky.”
“Don’t you dare put that ‘great’ part in front of my name. I don’t need ‘aunt’ either. Ada will do just fine.”
I stared at her a moment longer, then shrugged, wishing that I had a head scarf as well. My hair was going to be a knotted mess from riding in the backseat, especially the way she drove.
We stopped at a traffic light, and Ada pulled my tube of Guerlain Rouge Diabolique lipstick from her bag, pursed her lips in the rearview mirror, applied it, and then returned it to her bag. I leaned forward again. “What happened to that looking tarty?”
“On you. I can pull off anything.”
This was going to be a very long summer.
CHAPTER FIVE
Ada wound the car through the city, whipping around turns and narrowly avoiding both oncoming trolley cars and pedestrians. We only saw maybe two dozen other cars and no taxis. Thomas seemed unfazed, but I saw his right hand gripping the car door tighter than the rest of his posture would imply was strictly necessary. And I did wonder how much of this was theater for my benefit. Was she actually the kind of woman who would make her niece sit in the backseat so a man of a different race could ride in the front? Or was she putting me in my place? I tended to believe it was the latter, based on the inherent xenophobia I had seen from the older people back home. But none of the septuagenarians I knew looked or acted anything like Ada. So maybe it was real.
Eventually, she pulled to an abrupt stop in front of a large duplex in a neighborhood full of cookie-cutter houses.
“I told you the rope would hold.”
“I stand corrected,” Ada said, smiling up at Thomas. And for a moment, I could have sworn she was flirting. “You don’t mind bringing it upstairs to the guest room, do you, darling?”
Darling. Interesting.
“No, ma’am, not at all.”
She thanked him, then turned to me. “We’re going to have to establish some rules before you get too settled.”
Here it was. My mother warned me she was going to be strict.
“Number one: you’ll do as you’re told. I don’t have time to be disciplining errant children.”
“I’m not a chi—”
She held up a finger, shushing me. “As I said, I don’t have time to be disciplining you. So you’ll behave, or you’ll be right back on that train. And from what I hear, you don’t want that any more than your parents do.”
I crossed my arms sulkily but let her continue.
“Number two: no men. My reputation in this community is my livelihood, and I don’t intend to let something like your stained-glass incident affect that. Am I clear?”