“Well, she’s not. I am. And I’m not an imbecile. Truly. I’m in college. I can figure out an umbrella and a chair.”
She looked unconvinced, especially as I began trying to drag the wagon over the white rocks of the yard. That part took her pushing while I pulled. But once we reached the sidewalk, it was smooth sailing. “See? Right as rain.”
“You just come back to the house if you need me to call my husband,” she said.
“Shoo,” I said, waving her away. “And don’t you sit at the house waiting for us. Go enjoy the day. I’ve got everything under control until dinner.”
Ada descended the stairs in a caftan covering everything except her head, hands, and feet, and a sun hat so gigantic that I wasn’t sure how she fit through the front door. It took a lot of effort not to laugh.
“What are we waiting for?” she asked. “It’s a beautiful day!”
“Miss Ada, let me send my husband to bring your things. I can call him in a moment.”
“Traitor,” I said quietly. “I can handle it.”
“Take the afternoon off, Frannie,” Ada said gently. “I’m sure Marilyn is quite capable of getting me situated.”
“But—”
“No buts. I want to hear all about the lovely time you had with your family later. Go.” She turned to me. “Don’t prove me wrong.”
“It’s an umbrella, Ada.”
Ten minutes later, I was heavily regretting my words as it fell over for the third time. I stabbed again at the sand. “Why—won’t—it—go—in?”
Ada stood, arms crossed in irritation, as I had also been unable to unfold her chair. And dragging the wagon up the path over the dunes had almost been the death of me.
“There!” I exclaimed finally as the pole seemed stable. I bent to open the top and—the whole thing toppled into the sand and blew away, leaving me to run after it, expelling a stream of profanities that made a mother near us cover her child’s ears and glare at me.
But someone else reached the umbrella before I could. “Need a hand?” Freddy asked.
I glanced over my shoulder. Ada had her sunglasses on, but she appeared to be looking in our direction. “Ada’s here. Pretend we don’t know each other.”
“She knows you got my phone number and knows Shirley is my sister. Probably not the best plan.”
“Fine. Pretend you didn’t kiss me last night.”
“Should I pretend you didn’t kiss me too?”
“Freddy!”
He smiled and picked up the errant umbrella, jogging it over to where Ada stood. “Miss Heller,” he said, nodding his head. “As a member of the Avalon Beach Patrol, it would be an honor to help you set up today.”
She lowered her glasses. “Freddy Goldman?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She looked to me. “Suspicious timing.”
“Ma’am?”
“You two having dinner last night and then you showing up here?”
He feigned an excellent look of confusion. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mea—wait.” He looked at me. “Are you the same Marilyn my sister is friends with?”
I wasn’t sure what game he was playing, but I nodded.
“That explains it. I ate at the pizzeria on the boardwalk last night with a friend from school. And I work the Eighteenth Street lifeguard chair.”
I didn’t think Ada bought it, but she allowed him to set up first her chair and then the umbrella. I watched as he dug out a small hole, then borrowed a bucket from the child whose mother I had offended with my blue vocabulary and poured water after planting the umbrella, patting the sand to make it firmer. He looked up and noticed me watching him. “Aim it against the wind,” he said. “That way a gust won’t pull it out and hurt someone.”
“I knew that part,” I said tartly.
He suppressed a smile.
“Thank you, Freddy,” Ada said. “You can go back to your actual job now.”
“Yes, ma’am. And don’t forget me if you find anyone as pretty as your niece here.” He winked at her and jogged back to the lifeguard stand.
As soon as he was out of earshot, Ada turned to me. “No.”
“No what?”
She wagged a finger at me. “You know what. Once you gave me his information, he became off limits. And I said no men from the get-go.”
“Ada—”
“Not up for discussion.”
I threw my hands up. “Can I say anything at all?”
“Not if it’s about Freddy Goldman.”
“And if it’s not?”
Ada settled into her chair in the shade of the expertly assembled umbrella. “Then I’m all ears. What would you like to say?” But I had nothing to say anymore and just stood there sputtering. “That’s what I thought. Close your mouth, please. You look like a fish when you keep standing there doing that.”
Angrily, I shook out my towel, taking small pleasure in some sand flying onto Ada, and spread it in the sun several feet from her. I pulled out my book.
“Are you reading a hunting manual?” Ada asked.
I rolled my eyes, then realized she couldn’t see them through my sunglasses. “No.”
“Then what on earth is that?”
“A new book that Mama sent me.”
“You remind me of her. Nose in a book at every opportunity. Except when there’s a boy around.”
I raised my sunglasses to the top of my head to make sure she saw my eye roll this time. “The only time I’ve been around boys, except for Freddy helping with the umbrella, was when you made me go talk to them. That’s not a fair assessment.”
“And what brought you here again?”
I lowered my sunglasses and returned to my book. At least it didn’t insult my virtue.
So wrapped up in the trials and tribulations of Maycomb was I that I didn’t even notice Ada had removed her own novel and was reading—quite a large one at that. I squinted to see the title. Hawaii, by James Michener.
“I didn’t know you read,” I said.
“How impertinent,” Ada said without looking up. “Of course I read.”
“I meant for fun. You don’t keep books around.”
“I do,” she said, turning the page. “But they’re not on public display.”
What does that mean? “Uh, okay.”
“Don’t say uh. It makes you sound uncertain. Speak with assurance and people will treat you as intelligent.”
I willed her umbrella to blow away and land on her head. “Where are your books, then?”
“I have a shelf of them in my room. The rest are boxed in the attic. I donate most of them to the library on the island at the end of each summer.”
“There’s a library here?” I yelped, sitting up. “Where?”
Ada looked at me curiously. “In the basement of the elementary school.” I smiled at the thought that I wouldn’t have to depend entirely on the generosity of my mother for entertainment this summer. Even if it was located in a school’s basement and largely Ada’s hand-me-downs. She sighed. “I suppose you can browse my collection as well.”
Freddy forgotten, I returned happily to reading, the sun shining on my back, the surf crashing in the background, and Ada grumbling periodically about wrinkles.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Eventually, Ada rose from her chair, stretched her arms over her head, and removed her hat and voluminous caftan. “I believe I’ll go for a swim,” she said.
I looked at her curiously as she pulled on a bathing cap. Her swimsuit was a green one-piece, which clung to her wiry frame.