I sat up. They were only in the second album. I hadn’t gotten close to photographs from the last fifteen years yet. “Where?” I asked.
Lillian pointed to a picture of a group of women in nurse’s uniforms in front of the Trevi Fountain. Ada was in the middle. I recognized her in her youth easily by now. Lillian’s finger tapped one of the younger women, at the edge of the group. “Right there.”
I turned to Ada warily. “You said you didn’t remember who the other nurses in Italy were.”
She grinned and shrugged.
“You’ve been friends that long?”
“We met in Europe,” Lillian said. “I got married, and we lost touch for a while. Then Don died, and Ada wrote to me when she saw the obituary. We corresponded for a few years, and once my kids were out of the house, Ada asked if I wanted to come stay with her for a bit. Fifteen years later, here we are.”
“You have kids?”
“And grandchildren now. They come to visit most summers, but they went to Chicago instead for the funeral this year.”
I tried to picture children running around this house. There was no way. Ada must have rented them another house. Then again, this was Ada. She probably owned six rental properties in town.
But the war ended in 1919. Which meant they had been friends for over forty years. No wonder Ada reacted that way when I suggested she didn’t need Lillian anymore.
I studied Lillian’s young face in the flickering light. I would look more carefully now to see if she popped up again. But that was a job for the following days as I could hardly keep my eyes open. So I excused myself and stumbled up to bed, the blanket from the sofa still wrapped around me as Lillian and Ada continued drinking and flipping through the photo album.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
I woke up convinced I was dying. Someone was drumming on my head, and my mouth felt gritty, like I had eaten sand. I had drunk too much before, but never wine. And I was pretty sure that a wine hangover was a level of Dante’s Inferno.
By the time I made it downstairs in search of aspirin and water, it was almost nine.
“It’s alive,” Ada said from the living room.
I blinked at her. She didn’t look like she’d had a drop the night before. That woman probably still woke up at six and went swimming. She clearly wasn’t human.
Lillian looked a little worse for the wear but was more functional than I was. “Frannie has breakfast ready for you. Ada wanted to wake you, but I said to let you sleep.”
“Bless you,” I said. Lillian chuckled, and I staggered into the dining room. A place was set at the table with two aspirins next to the plate.
Frannie poured coffee in the waiting cup, and I topped it off with cream and sugar, using that to wash down the pills. Eggs and toast appeared in front of me. “The food didn’t spoil?” I asked, not sure I would be able to keep anything down even if it was good.
“It did. I stopped at the store on my way in this morning.”
“You really are the best,” I said, gingerly nibbling on a piece of toast. Frannie ducked her head, and I heard the doorbell ring. “She has clients this morning?”
“Of course,” Frannie said. “She doesn’t take many days off.”
“Are there really that many unmarried people?”
Frannie nodded. “They come from all over in the summer.”
I shook my head, instantly regretting the motion. “I don’t know how she does it.”
“I don’t either. But she’s good at it.” She looked at me pityingly. “Drink a lot of water. It’ll help more than that coffee.”
I didn’t think that was true, but I drank as much as I could without risking bringing it back up. How a seventy-five-year-old woman outdrank me, I couldn’t say. But here I was.
After breakfast, I snuck a peek in the living room, despite being forbidden to do so. Lillian was seated at Ada’s side, taking notes. No chair in the corner for her. I shrugged. She could have that job. I preferred daydreaming and concocting stories about the photographs I was cataloging anyway.
By the end of the week, it felt like Lillian had always been with us. She was funny and kind and enjoyed getting Ada’s goat as much as I did. Ada wasn’t softer, exactly, with her there, but she was more likely to acquiesce to Lillian than to me. And Lillian was perfectly happy to take my side in disagreements.
I never would have made it out the window to meet Freddy with Lillian there though. She was a bedtime talker, coming in before she went to sleep, sitting on my bed, and asking a million questions about me and what I was writing.
Then again, I still thought Ada knew what I was up to the whole time.
Thursday night, I handed Lillian a stack of pages. “What’s this?” she asked.
“Chapter one.”
Lillian clutched it to her chest, then pulled me in for a hug. Neither of us needed to say anything. I was sure Ada had told her that I had suggested she send Lillian packing before I met her, and she clearly understood that sharing my work with her was a sign of acceptance.
The pages were at my place at the dining room table when I came down for breakfast the following morning. The two of them stopped talking as I entered the room. I hadn’t had more than a glass of wine at dinner with them since the first night, though they didn’t drink as heavily when there wasn’t a blackout either. And I made sure to be on time. Ada frowned if I entered late, and, despite knowing I had an ally in Lillian, I still craved Ada’s approval.
“When can I see chapter two?” Lillian asked by way of greeting.
I slid into my seat. “Does that mean you liked it?”
“My dear girl—this is what you were born to do.”
I beamed at her.
“You’re going to give her a big head,” Ada said.
The corners of Lillian’s mouth twitched up as she turned back to me. “Don’t you believe a word your aunt says. She’s the one who told me you were a natural storyteller after all.”
Ada picked up her newspaper as I grinned down at my plate.
“What time does this young man of yours arrive?” Lillian asked.
“Tonight. But he’s not my young man. We’ve only been on one date.”
“Two,” Ada said from behind her newspaper.
“Well, I’m excited to meet him. It’s so romantic that he came down here to find you after that whole debacle.”
“They’re a good fit,” Ada said, her face still hidden.
“Where is he staying?” Lillian asked.
Ada lowered the newspaper, and they both looked at me. “Uh . . . I assume at the Princeton again.”
Lillian shook her head with a tsk-tsk sound. “Well, that won’t do, will it? He’ll stay here.”
“Here?” I asked.
“Of course,” Lillian said, a twinkle in her eye. “As long as you two can stay in your own rooms at night.”
Ada let out an actual snort at that. I dropped my fork, staring at her open-mouthed.
“Close your mouth,” Ada said. “You look like a fool.” She looked at Lillian. “Are we sure that’s wise? Marilyn isn’t exactly the epitome of virtue.”
I could feel my cheeks flushing.
Lillian smirked. “Were you? At that age?”