“Heck of a way to meet someone,” I said, letting him pull me to my feet. He smiled, and I dusted off my dress, then held out my hand. “Marilyn.”
“Freddy.”
“Freddy, I’m afraid I have a favor to ask you.”
His eyes twinkled merrily. “Ask away.”
“I need you to introduce me to your friends over there.”
“I was hoping it was more along the lines of dinner.”
Under normal circumstances, I would have said yes. He had rescued me from that bush after all. And it didn’t hurt that he stood six feet tall, with a jawline that would have made Gregory Peck jealous. But Ada said no men, and I didn’t plan on staying here long enough to form an attachment, even if it was just for a little fun.
“Maybe another time.”
He offered his arm and I took it. Apparently that path was treacherous. We reached the court, and he called out to the other men. “Hey!” The players stopped and turned to him. “This is Marilyn. She wanted to meet you all.” He turned to me. “Anything else?”
Now what? I thought as they all stared at me. “Right. Not how I wanted to do this, but here goes. My name is Marilyn, and I’m here to help you find the girl of your dreams.”
“Looking at her,” one of them called out, then let out a wolf whistle.
“Cute. I’m not available though. I mean, I am, but not like that. But I’ve got . . . friends.”
“You don’t sound so sure about those friends,” the one with the tennis ball said. He bounced it impatiently. “You working for that Ada woman?”
“Working implies getting paid. No.”
“Then what?”
“Listen, I’m not the kind of girl you want to marry. I can’t cook, I’m a mess, and I got sent down here because I got caught making out with the rabbi’s son during services.” A couple of them laughed. “I wish that were a joke, but it’s not. We crashed through a stained-glass window and everything. Then he asked me to marry him—I don’t think he’d ever kissed a girl before. But Ada’s got nice girls who will actually take care of you. That’s what you really want in the end, isn’t it? Someone to come home to?”
“I don’t know,” Freddy said. “You sound like more fun.”
“I tell you what, you give me your info and agree to go on three dates. And if Ada doesn’t find you the perfect girl by then, I’ll let you take me out instead.”
“What if none of us find girls we like?”
“Then I will have quite a reputation, won’t I?” Three of them chuckled. “Come on, fellas, help a girl out here. She said I need six names and that I’d better get them in time for her to get back and watch Ed Sullivan.”
They all checked their watches.
“Have you got paper and a pen?” Freddy asked. I pulled both out of my dress pocket and passed it to him. “I’m game.”
“Freddy, you’re an angel,” I said and told him to put his height down as well. “Who’s next?”
With eight sheets of information in hand, I walked back to where Ada sat just around the corner on a bench, throwing a quick backward glance at the boys, who were all watching me walk away.
“Done!” I proclaimed, holding the papers out toward her. “And with twenty minutes until Ed Sullivan.”
“Eighteen,” she said. “You’re cutting it close. Good recovery from that fall though.”
I was hoping she hadn’t seen that. “Men like a damsel in distress. Even if they’re just saving her from a bush.”
“I know. That’s why I threw the rock.”
“You—what?”
She grinned. “Don’t ever think that I don’t know what I’m doing.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Back in my sterile room after a “really big shew,” I pulled a notebook from my trunk and sat at the dressing table. Daddy always said my writing was a waste of time—he wanted me to learn to cook and keep a house and become a good little wife. But Mama encouraged it. She was the one who pushed for me to go to college too. Every spare moment, she could be found with a book in hand, often even while standing at the kitchen counter stirring a pot. Daddy bought three different ovens over the last decade, never realizing that the burned meals came from her being engrossed in a good story, not the malfunctioning stove that she blamed it on.
Ada was—I didn’t know how to describe her. But she was an excellent character study. Who was she? How did she get such a large house? Did matchmaking pay that well? Yes, it was a duplex, but so were all the houses in this neighborhood. Why was she so secretive about the upstairs rooms? And why hadn’t she ever married?
While I was curious to learn the real answers, I was also just as quick to make up my own backstory. When I finally stopped to flex my hand, my watch showed that an hour had passed.
I closed the notebook and yawned. I had woken up in New York but would be going to sleep in an entirely different world. And if Ada’s rock-throwing skills were any indication of what was to come, the following day would be another unexpected adventure.
Stifling another yawn, I pulled my toiletries bag from the dresser and went to wash my face and brush my teeth.
At home, I always awoke to the smells of coffee and breakfast being made, the sun peeking through my curtains. The never-ending sounds of the city outside my window.
In Philadelphia, I awoke to a fully dressed and girdled Ada throwing my bedroom door open and telling me I couldn’t sleep all day.
“Clients start arriving at nine sharp,” she said. “Get dressed. Breakfast is on the table.”
“What time is it now?” I asked. The bed was too soft, but that didn’t mean I was ready to leave it.
“Seven thirty.”
“I don’t need breakfast,” I murmured, rolling over to clasp the pillow.
But she pulled the covers off me. “I don’t tolerate tardiness. Get up. Now.”
Glaring at her, I sat up and swung my feet off the bed onto the floor. “I’m going.”
She tapped her foot impatiently until I stood.
An hour and a half later, I was seated in a hard-backed chair in the corner of Ada’s “office,” which was really another sitting room, minus the television of her actual sitting room, while Ada sat across from a mother and daughter, who perched on the edge of their seats with such ramrod-straight posture that I worried they would break in two if they tried to sit farther back.
A notepad was on my lap—Ada had told me my job would be to take notes on the girl’s qualities and concerns. Apparently it was also my job to fetch coffee and the platter of pastries that Ada’s cook had prepared. All of which sat untouched on the coffee table, despite her chastising me in front of the guests for not knowing to bring them.
“So, Stella,” Ada began. “Tell me about yourself.”
Stella opened her mouth to speak, but her mother cut her off. “She’s a good girl. She just needs a husband already.”
“And we will take care of that,” Ada said smoothly. “But I want to hear from Stella herself. What are your hobbies?”
“Hobbies?” Stella squeaked.