“I don’t need anything new. Especially not for dinner with Daniel Schwartz.”
“He was good enough for you to neck with during services, but you can’t be civil enough to have dinner with him?”
“That was before he proposed.”
“And what’s so wrong with someone who would be willing to save your reputation?”
I threw my hands up, exasperated. “I don’t want to be saved. I want—” I stopped. What exactly did I want?
Ada rolled her eyes but plucked the light green dress I had worn to Cape May with Freddy from the closet and laid it on the bed.
“Not that one,” I said.
“Why not?”
I scrunched up my nose and she held up a hand. “Say no more.” She returned it to the closet. “Unless you want me to burn it?”
“Might as well. Unless you know an exorcist for clothes.”
She pulled the pink dress that she had designated as a “maybe” and put it on the bed, then came and sat next to it. “I know. You want romance and passion and butterflies in your stomach. But you clearly felt some of that two months ago or you would never have gotten yourself into any of this.”
Had I? I tried to remember why I did what I did, other than boredom. I thought back to him turning to look at me in shul, as I counted to see if he would. Yes. There was something there in my stomach that day. But— “It was the forbidden aspect,” I said. “That’s all.”
“That’s what it was with Freddy Goldman, that’s for sure. But what’s actually wrong with this one?”
I didn’t know how to explain that it was what he represented. The stodgy Upper West Side life that left me at the stove with a book. Okay, I probably wouldn’t actually be at the stove. But he could ask what I was writing all he wanted—he would still want me to put the silly hobby away as soon as he had me. And there was so much of the world I wanted to see before I resigned myself to that life. California and Paris and London and Havana and, yes, even Key West. Maybe I could convince him to honeymoon in Havana instead of Niagara, but that wasn’t enough for me. And it wouldn’t have been even if I had never experienced the freedom of living with Ada. But now that I had . . .
“You said you needed more time after Abner died,” I said, reaching desperately. “I need more too.”
“Oh, darling,” Ada said, patting my leg. “Nice try. But no. I’m not saying you have to marry him, but you’re going on this date. Now, are you going to get in the shower yourself, or do I need to join you?” I made a face and she laughed. “You’re so old-fashioned. Even if you married him, divorce is a thing now.” I fought the urge to throw a shoe at her. “Now go get showered.”
At five minutes to six, Ada had me dressed, made up, and sitting in the living room. She refused my request for the red lipstick, saying it made me look “fast.”
“He liked it well enough in June.”
“And he proposed after that. If you want a different outcome, change the way you get there.”
“Do you have to have a comeback for everything I say?”
“Yes,” Ada said without missing a beat. “It’s one of the benefits of age. I can say exactly what I want. And the good lord help anyone who gets in the way of your tongue when you’re my age.”
I would be her age in 2015. We would have flying cars and be living on the moon by then.
She fussed over my hair, and I swatted her away. “I swear, it’s a good thing you never had daughters.”
“For me as well if they’d be as disagreeable as you.”
We were interrupted by the sound of a car door closing. “Now you behave tonight.”
“Didn’t say behave like what,” I muttered as she went to open the door.
“Like a lady,” she hissed back, then threw the door open just as Dan was raising his hand to knock. He held another bouquet of flowers.
“For you,” he said to Ada. “Thank you for arranging things.”
I was in trouble. Ada was smiling up at him.
“You look beautiful,” Dan said as I rose from the sofa.
“Yeah, yeah, let’s get this mess over with.”
“Stay out at as late as you like,” Ada called after us. “I’d say don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, but really it’s better if you do everything I would.”
“Goodnight, Ada.”
I clomped down the front steps as indelicately as possible, pausing when I saw his car.
“Do you have something for your hair?” he asked. “Or I can put the top up.”
In front of us was a canary-yellow Impala. I started to answer, but Ada came running out of the house, waving one of her Hermès scarves at me. “I’m keeping this,” I told her, plucking it from her hand.
“Small price to pay,” she said. “Now go have fun.”
I made a wry face at Dan. “You know she’s going to show up in sunglasses and a scarf and try to hide in a plant to watch us, right?”
He laughed. “Sounds about right. I like her though.”
I do too, I thought. “She’s something all right.”
He opened the door for me and I sat down, then tied up my hair while he closed the door and went around to his side. “It’s a cute little town,” Dan said. “I like the name too.”
“It’s a literary reference.”
“I know. I loved that book.” I stared at him—this was a setup, right? Ada prepped him somehow. Maybe she called the hotel while I was in the shower? “Are you ready to return to New York and claim your throne, or are you planning to stay into the fall?”
“Depends on my father, I guess.”
“Is he still angry?”
I nodded. He hadn’t spoken to me all summer. Granted, I also hadn’t written to him, following my mother’s advice to let him cool down. Her last letter said he was closer to coming around on college, but wasn’t there yet. And had I never laid eyes on Dan, that wouldn’t have been in jeopardy in the first place.
“I’m sorry,” Dan said, genuinely. “If I’d known—actually, wait. Is he most angry about us getting caught or you turning me down?”
“Both.”
“Well, I am sorry. I thought I was helping, agreeing to my father’s plan. If I had realized I was making things worse, I would never have . . .” He trailed off. “I’m just sorry.”
“Yeah, well, that and a dime will get you a Coke.” His shoulders sank and I felt a little bad. I was being mean and his only crime was trying to help. “You don’t need to apologize. I made my own choices. You didn’t coerce me. I was the one who suggested someplace private. And I was the one who said I wasn’t getting married over some kissing.”
“I didn’t stop you either.”
“I don’t want someone to stop me. I want someone who will respect that I made a choice and want to clean up my own mess.”
He was quiet for a moment. “I understand that.”
We rode in silence for another couple of minutes until we arrived at the restaurant Ada had selected for us. I took the scarf off my hair as Dan got out and came around to my side, but I made sure to open my own door before he could.