“Everything,” she said, laughing again. “Wait. Are you Ada Heller’s niece?”
“Great-niece. How do you know that?”
“This isn’t New York. We all know everyone’s business.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
She held out her hand. “I’m Shirley.”
“Marilyn.”
“We leave for the shore next week, but my parents’ house isn’t far from Ada’s if you want to get together.”
I remembered Ada’s comment about my friends and wondered if Shirley would be an acceptable playmate in her eyes. But it didn’t really matter. A friend would be nice while I was in exile.
“Ada hasn’t mentioned the shore, but if we go, I’ll look you up.”
“Oh, she’ll go. She goes every year. The city empties out, and she follows her business.” She dug into her handbag and pulled out a piece of paper that she wrote a phone number on. “I’ve got to go—but give me a call.” She walked away, her skirt swishing behind her.
Encounters like that wouldn’t happen in New York. We assumed everyone was a murderer. And, quite honestly, she was too cheerful. She might have been one. But I dropped her information into my purse and popped into a delicatessen for a cup of coffee and a sandwich, grabbing a local newspaper at the door to flip through while I waited.
On the block before Ada’s house, I wandered into a drugstore and bought myself a new lipstick. It was a knockoff of mine, but it was better than nothing. And, being a drugstore brand, probably beneath Ada’s dignity to confiscate.
When I arrived back at the house, I heard Sally barking before I even made it up the stairs. She had sat peacefully through every single client who entered the house that morning, but apparently I was an invader and not to be trusted. She growled and backed away from me as I walked through the door.
“Marilyn?” Ada called from down the hall.
“It’s me,” I said back.
“Don’t yell from room to room,” she yelled, oblivious to the irony. “Come to my study.”
I walked in, and she gestured for me to sit. I did, and she proceeded to rip up two sheets of paper. “Two of the men you got information from last night are already engaged. Didn’t you ask any questions?”
“You mean after you almost killed me with a rock? No, I only asked what you told me to.”
“If you die falling into a bush, you deserve what you get. What did you tell them anyway? You were a little too far out of range to hear.”
I hid a smile. She didn’t know everything after all. “That I’d hop into bed with anyone who gave me their number.”
“Bed? I thought defiling holy places was more your preference.” She cocked a finger at me. “Just don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep.” She waved a hand dismissively and bent her head over the large ledger in front of her. “You can go now.”
I turned to leave, but she called my name again. “The lipstick.”
My shoulders sank as she held out a hand. “This one cost fifty cents,” I said. “From a drugstore on the corner. It’d be below you to wear it.”
She wiggled her fingers again, and with a sigh, I handed it over. She examined the tube, then dropped it into the trash can next to her desk.
“If you must wear lipstick, the Guerlain is preferable. But you should be wearing something lighter. You don’t have enough life experience to wear the red, and you look like you broke into your mother’s makeup while she was out.”
“Can you even get Guerlain in this little hamlet you call a city?”
“Careful,” she warned, holding up a finger again. “This ‘little hamlet’ was the nation’s capital for ten years.” She wrote something down on a piece of paper, then handed it to me. “Tomorrow, when we’re finished for the day, you can take the trolley into Center City and go to a department store. I’ll even let you put a lipstick—that’s one lipstick only—on my tab. As long as it’s a more demure color.”
I took the paper, examining the multiple trolleys she had written down, wondering if it was worth it for lipstick. It wasn’t like I was going to see anyone interesting here. But an adventure was an adventure. And I wasn’t going to turn down a chance to see something that resembled an actual urban center.
She was looking at me, an eyebrow raised. “Thank you,” I said finally.
She nodded, then returned to her ledger, and I slipped out into the hall. When I reached my room, an alarm clock was now resting on the nightstand, a piece of paper sticking out from under it. I pulled out the paper, and, written in the same spidery hand as the directions to the store, were the words “Don’t oversleep.”
I sank onto the bed. “Please don’t leave me here all summer,” I said quietly, willing my mother to hear me. Then, realizing no help was coming if I didn’t make it happen, I pulled out my stationery and began a letter to my father.
Dearest Daddy,
I’m writing today to let you know that I have seen the error of my wicked ways. I understand why you sent me away—you were right to do so. But, Daddy, please let me come home. I promise to behave and never pull a stunt like that again.
But then I stopped writing. What if, in coming home, I would be expected to marry Daniel? A summer of torture was better than a lifetime of mediocre marriage.
I balled up the letter. No. I could do this.
CHAPTER NINE
I awoke to the clanging of the alarm clock. I swatted at it, putting the down pillow over my head, but then I remembered Ada’s note and wrenched myself out of bed. It was still too soft, but there was something comforting in being in it. Like a cocoon had enveloped me. I stretched out my arms, but they weren’t wings. And if my work in rounding up young men was any indication of what I was doing here, I wasn’t improving from caterpillar to butterfly. No, I was definitely going from rebellious daughter to procuress.
I thought about the balled-up letter in my bedroom’s wastebasket. Daddy would certainly bring me back home in a hurry if he knew that Ada was employing me to flirt with potential clients. But he might ship me off to a convent then. Better Catholic than soliciting young men.
Me? I’d take the soliciting. It was fun when Ada wasn’t throwing things at me. Although she did offer to help me trip again.
So I pulled the scarf from my head and began unwinding the rollers I had slept in. I knew better than to be late to breakfast now.
Immaculately dressed and made up, sans lipstick, I descended to find Ada drinking coffee and reading the newspaper, a piece of dry toast untouched beside her.
“Thank you for the alarm clock,” I said.
She looked up, taking in my appearance. “Who are you, and what have you done with Marilyn?”
“If I’m going to be here all summer, I want to make the best of it.”
She closed the newspaper. “You won’t be here all summer.”
“I won’t?”
“No. We leave for the shore next week.”
“Shirley mentioned that.”
“Shirley? Shirley Goldman or Shirley Cohen?”
Everyone did know everyone’s business here. “Um—the one whose shore house is near yours?”