“Not because of some monster, I’ll tell you that much.”
He angled his head knowingly. “Or they just don’t want you to be too afraid at night.” He rose from the swing and took my hand, placing it through his arm. “If the Jersey Devil wants to get to you, he’ll have to get through me first.”
“So gallant,” I murmured. “Shirley, thank you, darling—let’s go to the beach together this week. I’m free most afternoons.”
She was pouting but agreed as Freddy led me down the steps and around to the front of the house. But instead of turning left to go up toward the main road, he turned right. “The house is this way,” I said, gesturing in the other direction.
“But the beach is this way and it’s so much more romantic than a street.”
I stopped walking. “Now, Freddy, that was fun and all, but I told you, I can’t get involved.”
“That’s too bad,” he said, turning to face me. “Because I’m already absolutely smitten.” He grinned impishly. “Besides, you said if we didn’t like Ada’s matches, you’d go on a date with any of us.”
“You haven’t met any of Ada’s matches.”
“I already know I don’t like them. They’re not you.” He tugged my arm to get me walking toward the path over the dunes.
“I definitely can’t walk on the sand in these,” I said as we reached the sand pathway, my heels already sinking in.
“Then take them off,” he said, kneeling to remove first my right and then my left shoe, holding them both in one hand by the heels as he rose to take my hand with his other. “Or I can carry you, if you’d rather.”
“I can walk just fine,” I said. But as we crested the dune, the ocean sparkling below us in the reflected moonlight, I pictured us re-creating Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr’s scene in From Here to Eternity in the surf. I was in dangerous territory, and I knew it. “We probably should have taken the road,” I said quietly.
“I was just kidding about the Jersey Devil, you know. Besides, he hates water.” I laughed, despite myself. “You’re perfectly safe with me.”
“Are you safe with me though?”
He stopped walking, pulling my arm until I was facing him, and wrapped one arm around my waist, his other hand tangling itself in my hair. “You tell me,” he said quietly as he leaned down to kiss me again.
When we finally broke apart, both panting for air, Freddy said he should get me home. As much as I knew he was right, I felt a tingle of disappointment radiating through my body. “I want to win that aunt of yours over. And that means returning you without making it obvious what we’ve been up to.”
His mention of Ada sobered me quickly. Even if he were from a different family, Ada made it quite clear that she would not approve of any romantic liaisons that summer. And the fact that she had his number as a potential match made the situation that much worse. “I’m not sure you’ll be able to do that.”
“Just watch,” he said. “I’ve been told I’m too charming for my own good.”
“You’re not that charming.”
“Oh no?” he asked, pulling me in for another kiss. “Your lips beg to differ.”
I told myself it was the setting, but I couldn’t help it. I kissed him back. And again when we reached Ada’s street. “Not too close to the house,” I whispered. “She sees everything.”
“Then we’ll say goodbye here,” he whispered back. “When can I see you again?”
“Like this? I don’t know that you can.”
“What a terrible answer. Shall I ask Ada for her permission? Like she’s your father?”
“My father would grant it easier than she would.”
He looked down at me in the darkness. “You strike me as the type who knows how to sneak out of a house if the mood suits you.”
I laughed quietly. He had me pegged. “Maybe.”
“Will you be on the beach tomorrow?” I nodded. “We’ll make a plan then.” He kissed me one more time, then turned to walk away, and I went up the path to the house, climbing the steps to the front door that Ada told me didn’t need to be locked.
I didn’t call out. I had no idea what time it was or if she would be awake, but she was in the den, on the phone. “Marilyn?” she asked.
“It’s me, Ada.”
“Come in here, please.” I did as she asked, arranging my face placidly as if I had just come from a family dinner with no siblings in the house. Her mouth turned down in a frown as she looked me over. “I believe you had lipstick on when you left this evening.”
My mind was racing, but I kept my face bland. “Came off on my napkin,” I said, thinking fast. “And I left the tube in the bathroom here so I couldn’t reapply.”
She pursed her lips, and for a moment I was sure I was sunk. Then she waved a hand at me to go and returned to her phone call. “Yes, I know. It’s hard for me too.”
I started up the stairs, wondering again who she was always talking to. And what was hard? But I didn’t really care. I wanted to wash my face, change into my nightgown, and dream of Freddy on the beach.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“I think I’ll join you on the beach today,” Ada said the next morning. Frannie was back, and I was beginning to question why she brought her in to make breakfast. She didn’t eat much of it. Not that I minded. I was famished.
I froze, mid-bite, wondering if I was somehow caught. But there was no way she could know Freddy said he would see me there today, was there? No, she would have had to have been outside with us and she was clearly on the phone. She lowered her newspaper because I hadn’t responded, and I composed my face. “Of course,” I said, smiling innocently. Her eyes narrowed, and she made a small hmmph sound.
When she raised the newspaper back to reading level, I felt my shoulders drop, and I pushed my plate away, appetite gone. I had to tell Freddy we couldn’t see each other. For real. I would never be able to get away with anything. Ada was too wily, and she somehow could read my every move before I made it. I didn’t understand how, but she did.
I just hoped he was smart enough to stay away when he saw me with her.
Getting Ada to the beach was much more of an ordeal than tossing a towel and a bottle of Coppertone into my bag. While she dressed, Frannie prepared a light lunch of sandwiches, bottles of soda, and fruit to take with us, which she packed into an ice-filled Styrofoam cooler.
Then, Frannie helped me lug a wagon out of the shed. In it we packed the cooler, my beach bag, a chair for Ada, and a beach umbrella. “Do you know how to put this up?” Frannie asked me.
I did not. But how hard could it be? I could open a regular umbrella. And you just stuck it in the sand. Frannie eyed me warily. “I’ll be just fine,” I assured her.
Frannie wrung her hands. “I can send my husband to help. Let me just call him.”
I put a hand on her arm. “Frannie. I can handle a walk to the beach and setting up Ada’s things. It’s fine.”
“I wish Lillian were here,” she said.