She leveled a gaze at me. “Believe me, when my plans become your business, you’ll be the first to know.”
I wondered again about the mysterious caller. The two phones in this house seemed to be on the same line, but when she had gone to her bedroom to take a call the night we arrived, I hadn’t been able to eavesdrop without being caught. Her tone again sounded more like she was talking to a lover than a friend. Was he here, whoever he was? Did she have a date?
But that, too, would be considered not my business.
So I shrugged and called Shirley to tell her it would just be me for dinner.
Wearing a new eyelet sundress that we had purchased at Gimbels, I twirled to show Ada before I left. “It suits you,” she said. “But you really should be sitting under an umbrella. All that sun you’re getting . . .”
“Yes, yes, will cause wrinkles. So will everything else I do.”
She threw up her hands. “Far be it from me to stop you if you want to look like a raisin when you’re thirty.”
“What a lovely image,” I said, refusing to let her get my goat tonight. Instead, I leaned down and kissed her on the cheek, surprising her. “Enjoy your plans—whatever they may be.”
“And you yours,” she said with a knowing smirk. “Just remember the rules, please.”
I didn’t know what that meant because I wasn’t bringing Shirley here. But I shrugged and headed out the door to walk the three blocks to Shirley’s house.
Traversing those blocks in heels, however, was slightly more complicated than I expected. The houses all had the same white stones for a lawn that Ada’s did, but not everyone had a gardener as fastidious, so there were many opportunities to turn an ankle on errant stones. I chuckled, mentally thanking Ada for all the practice she had given me at dodging rocks in my path, and arrived at the house unscathed.
The house rose before me, and I saw what Ada meant about the family trying too hard. Ada’s house was designed to look like a classic beach cottage, if a large one. Shirley’s family’s summer home was a stone behemoth, designed to show off wealth. It lacked the airy windows that provided such welcome breezes and constant sunlight and was built for effect more than comfort. It would have looked at home across from the White House, not here among the clapboard and shake-sided cottages, with its columns and porticos.
I hoped they had fans. I didn’t want to sweat my makeup off before dinner was served.
I climbed the steps and rapped smartly on the oversized oak door, expecting Shirley to throw it open (or a butler, if they were really trying to impress).
But when the door opened, Freddy stood there, dressed in a dinner jacket. “Well, hello there.”
I leaned back to look at the house number. “I must have the wrong house, but hello to you as well.”
“Right house,” Shirley said breathlessly, elbowing Freddy out of the way. “Don’t mind him. He’d flirt with a corpse if it had lipstick on.”
“My sister exaggerates,” Freddy said, leaning against the doorpost.
“Your sister? This just got more interesting.”
Shirley looked from me to him. “Oh no.” She turned to Freddy, hands on her hips. “Can’t I have one friend whose heart you don’t break?”
“First of all you have Julia—”
“Only because you said Julia looked like a potato with hair!”
Freddy turned to me. “She does. Very unfortunate girl—I don’t think even your aunt could save her.” He looked back at his sister. “And second, the only heart being broken here is mine. She’s refused to go out with me multiple times now.”
Shirley threw an arm around my shoulders. “I knew I liked you. Come on, Mama and Papa want to meet you. We have cocktails in the living room before dinner.”
Mr. and Mrs. Goldman rose to greet me warmly as we entered the living room. I needn’t have worried about fans—instead I worried my hair would look worse than after a ride along the coast with Ada driving and no scarf.
“Shirley has told us so much about you.” Mrs. Goldman spoke loudly to be heard over the noise of the fans. I shot a glance at Freddy, wondering both if he had mentioned me and if he had made the connection that I was his sister’s new friend before I arrived.
“All lies,” I said. She looked confused. “I’m kidding.”
“Of course,” she said and laughed loudly to punctuate it. And I immediately understood that Ada would never set foot in this house. They didn’t know my family in New York—they were trying to impress me because Ada was Oxford Circle royalty. And Mrs. Goldman’s desperate laugh to prove she got a joke that went over her head was entirely so I would form a good impression. Freddy and Shirley or no, this was going to be a long evening.
Mr. Goldman insisted I sit in his chair, the place of honor in the living room, which was mildly uncomfortable as the whole family sat on two sofas, staring at me.
“Tell us everything about yourself, dear,” Mrs. Goldman said. “I want to know everything there is to know.”
“Goodness, that would be terribly boring.”
“Not at all,” Freddy said with a laugh. His mother shot him a death stare, and he hid his smile behind his glass.
“You’re from New York, of course. What does your father do?”
“He’s a doctor.”
“And your mother is a Heller.”
If you went back to my great-grandparents that was true, but it didn’t make sense to correct her on the branches of my family tree, especially when she was telling me, not asking. So I nodded, taking a sip of an extremely weak sloe gin fizz.
“Do you have any siblings?”
“A brother, Harold.”
“A brother,” she said, looking at Shirley. “How wonderful. You’ll have to invite him down to meet our Shirley. We could have a double wed—”
“Mama!” Shirley interjected.
“You’re right, of course,” Mrs. Goldman said, smoothing her dress. “He could be twelve. How old is he?”
“Twenty-five and married—sorry, Shirl.” It was my turn to hide behind a drink. There was a good chance I was going to start laughing if I didn’t.
Shirley shook her head. “Mama, really. Enough.”
“Marriages don’t always last—do they seem happy?”
“Mama!”
“What? I’m just trying to look out for you, dear.” She leaned in toward me conspiratorially, as if I weren’t there at her daughter’s request. “You’re not offended, are you?”
“Ah—um—no, of course not.”
Mrs. Goldman leaned back in her seat, flashing Shirley a closed-mouth smile of victory before turning back to me. “And you? Are you engaged?”
“Quite the opposite.”
Mrs. Goldman nodded sagely. “Which is why you’re here, of course.” Then she looked to Freddy, who was glaring at her, and her husband, who was making a stop gesture across his throat. “I don’t mean here,” she said, gesturing wildly around the room. “I meant with your aunt. To find you a match.” She wrung her hands fretfully until her husband reached over and put a calming hand on her leg.