“Let the poor girl breathe, Arlene,” he said. “She didn’t come here to be interrogated.”
To be honest, I was wondering what I was doing there at all now. Neither Shirley nor Freddy reeked of the desperation of their parents, so it was no wonder I had accepted the invitation, but it would take a lot more gin and a lot less fizz to get me back here again.
“It’s fine,” I reassured Mrs. Goldman. “But no. I’m not here to find a husband. I have two more years of college left and then—well, we’ll just see what happens. I don’t go in for all that matchmaking business.”
Freddy hid another smile. “No?”
“Not for me.” He winked, and I raised my drink again. At this rate it was probably a good thing that whoever made the drinks had barely waved a bottle of gin over my glass.
A maid in a crisp uniform entered and announced that dinner was served. She stood in stark contrast to Frannie, who wore what she chose. Ada, stickler that she was for so many traditions, seemed to be the champion of workers’ rights.
The meal itself was a preposterous affair of a multitude of courses, all of which were far too heavy for a hot evening, leaving me worried that I would doze off before we even reached the turkey that was finally brought out. I wanted to ask if they ate like this every night or if they had gone all out for little old me. But I knew the answer already. And I wished there was a polite way to tell them to stop trying so hard. It was the primary difference between their family and my own. We had nothing to prove. The Goldmans tried so hard to impress everyone that they failed to impress anyone.
But finally the meal ended with a seven-layer cake, and Mr. and Mrs. Goldman retired to the den to allow me and Shirley to spend some time on the porch swing. The sun was setting over the bay, and the air had finally turned cooler on the porch, which faced the ocean, away from the street, though the view was heavily obstructed by the dunes.
“Sorry about them,” Shirley said quietly while we rocked gently in the breeze.
“All our parents are ridiculous,” I reassured her.
“You’d be hard pressed to find a more ridiculous pair than Howard and Arlene,” Freddy said from behind us, startling me. He struck a match on one of the porch columns and lit the cigarette held between his lips.
“Have another one of those?” I asked.
“Do well-bred young ladies smoke?” he asked, grinning as he passed me the one he had lit and pulled the pack from his pocket.
“I wouldn’t know.”
“What say you, sis? Want to try a puff?”
Shirley shook her head. “You know they’d kill me. And you for offering.”
“Me? Their golden child? Never. You—well, they’d be dredging the bay for your body.”
She looked to me. “I wish he were wrong. But they want me to be absolutely perfect.”
I gave her a sympathetic smile. “My parents did, too, but they gave up on me a long time ago. I’m a bad egg.”
“Make some room,” Freddy said, nudging his sister away from me and coming to sit between us over her protests. “You don’t seem like such a bad egg,” he said softly.
“Frederick Joseph Goldman, don’t you even think about it,” Shirley said, jumping up. “Marilyn isn’t interested. Go smoke your cigarette somewhere else.”
“Why not let Marilyn decide if she’s interested?”
“You said she already did multiple times. You leave the poor girl be.”
I tried not to laugh. I did. But being referred to as a poor girl was too much and I couldn’t hold it in. And once I started, so did Freddy. Shirley’s face fell. “Oh, Shirley. No. Freddy knows I’m not allowed to date while I’m here. They’d be pulling my body out of the bay along with yours. Or worse, shipping me back to my parents, and you’d never find my body in the Hudson along with so many others.”
Relieved, Shirley went to the edge of the porch and craned her neck. “Do you think they’re above us listening?”
Freddy leaned down and planted a quick kiss on my neck, in the hollow where it met my shoulder, before she turned back around, and I looked at him in amused surprise. “No,” he said, like nothing had just happened. “We’d have heard them. Howard stomps about like a hippopotamus.” He waited a beat. “Definitely not. We’d hear them grumbling about that comment.” He looked over at me. “Do you want another drink?”
“Depends. Will it actually have alcohol in it?”
Freddy laughed loudly. “You’re quite the firecracker. Or glass breaker. Which is it?”
“I like to think I’m a polymath when it comes to destruction.”
He grinned. “Shirl—go fetch us some more drinks.”
“You fetch them. I’m not a puppy.”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Wait until Mother hears you’re not taking care of your guest’s needs.”
She glared at her brother, and for a moment I thought she would stomp her foot, but her shoulders dropped, and she opened the door into the house.
Freddy’s arms were suddenly around me. And as much as I knew I should throw them off, I didn’t want to. “I’ve been dying to get you alone since I first found you in that bush,” he said, his face just inches from mine.
“And just what do you intend to do with me?”
His face moved closer to mine. “I’ve got a few ideas.”
“Which are?”
And then he kissed me. This wasn’t a tentative first kiss like Daniel’s. This was a man who knew what he wanted and intended to make sure I was aware that what he wanted was me. I knew I should pull back. Shirley or the Goldmans could walk out and catch us at any moment, but that danger only added to the deliciousness of the moment, and I kissed him back as if my life depended on his lips and tongue meeting mine.
He pulled back, placing a finger to his lips at footsteps that I hadn’t noticed, so wrapped up in the feel of his mouth on my own. My heart was beating so quickly I thought for sure Shirley would see it through my skin. No one had ever kissed me like that before.
“You can get your own,” Shirley said to her brother, handing me a glass and keeping one for herself. “I’m not serving you.”
“I don’t need one,” he said, putting an arm around my shoulders on the swing. “Marilyn here is intoxicating enough for me.”
He looked at me to see what I’d do. And I decided to play offended, for Shirley’s sake. “Take mine, then,” I said, removing his arm and thrusting the glass she had given me into his hand. “I should head home anyway. But please thank your parents for me.” I rose to leave.
“I’ll walk you there.”
“It’s only three blocks. I can find my way home.”
“You could twist an ankle in those shoes. Fall into another bush.”
“I think I’ll manage.”
“What about the Jersey Devil?”
I had gone down the first step, but I turned back at his words. “The what now?”
He nodded wisely. “It haunts the pine barrens a couple of miles inland. And preys specifically on unprotected young women.”
“None of that is true,” Shirley said, rolling her eyes.
“Why do you think Mother and Father don’t want you out alone at night?”