By the time I made it downstairs in search of aspirin and water, it was almost nine.
“It’s alive,” Ada said from the living room.
I blinked at her. She didn’t look like she’d had a drop the night before. That woman probably still woke up at six and went swimming. She clearly wasn’t human.
Lillian looked a little worse for the wear but was more functional than I was. “Frannie has breakfast ready for you. Ada wanted to wake you, but I said to let you sleep.”
“Bless you,” I said. Lillian chuckled, and I staggered into the dining room. A place was set at the table with two aspirins next to the plate.
Frannie poured coffee in the waiting cup, and I topped it off with cream and sugar, using that to wash down the pills. Eggs and toast appeared in front of me. “The food didn’t spoil?” I asked, not sure I would be able to keep anything down even if it was good.
“It did. I stopped at the store on my way in this morning.”
“You really are the best,” I said, gingerly nibbling on a piece of toast. Frannie ducked her head, and I heard the doorbell ring. “She has clients this morning?”
“Of course,” Frannie said. “She doesn’t take many days off.”
“Are there really that many unmarried people?”
Frannie nodded. “They come from all over in the summer.”
I shook my head, instantly regretting the motion. “I don’t know how she does it.”
“I don’t either. But she’s good at it.” She looked at me pityingly. “Drink a lot of water. It’ll help more than that coffee.”
I didn’t think that was true, but I drank as much as I could without risking bringing it back up. How a seventy-five-year-old woman outdrank me, I couldn’t say. But here I was.
After breakfast, I snuck a peek in the living room, despite being forbidden to do so. Lillian was seated at Ada’s side, taking notes. No chair in the corner for her. I shrugged. She could have that job. I preferred daydreaming and concocting stories about the photographs I was cataloging anyway.
By the end of the week, it felt like Lillian had always been with us. She was funny and kind and enjoyed getting Ada’s goat as much as I did. Ada wasn’t softer, exactly, with her there, but she was more likely to acquiesce to Lillian than to me. And Lillian was perfectly happy to take my side in disagreements.
I never would have made it out the window to meet Freddy with Lillian there though. She was a bedtime talker, coming in before she went to sleep, sitting on my bed, and asking a million questions about me and what I was writing.
Then again, I still thought Ada knew what I was up to the whole time.
Thursday night, I handed Lillian a stack of pages. “What’s this?” she asked.
“Chapter one.”
Lillian clutched it to her chest, then pulled me in for a hug. Neither of us needed to say anything. I was sure Ada had told her that I had suggested she send Lillian packing before I met her, and she clearly understood that sharing my work with her was a sign of acceptance.
The pages were at my place at the dining room table when I came down for breakfast the following morning. The two of them stopped talking as I entered the room. I hadn’t had more than a glass of wine at dinner with them since the first night, though they didn’t drink as heavily when there wasn’t a blackout either. And I made sure to be on time. Ada frowned if I entered late, and, despite knowing I had an ally in Lillian, I still craved Ada’s approval.
“When can I see chapter two?” Lillian asked by way of greeting.
I slid into my seat. “Does that mean you liked it?”
“My dear girl—this is what you were born to do.”
I beamed at her.
“You’re going to give her a big head,” Ada said.
The corners of Lillian’s mouth twitched up as she turned back to me. “Don’t you believe a word your aunt says. She’s the one who told me you were a natural storyteller after all.”
Ada picked up her newspaper as I grinned down at my plate.
“What time does this young man of yours arrive?” Lillian asked.
“Tonight. But he’s not my young man. We’ve only been on one date.”
“Two,” Ada said from behind her newspaper.
“Well, I’m excited to meet him. It’s so romantic that he came down here to find you after that whole debacle.”
“They’re a good fit,” Ada said, her face still hidden.
“Where is he staying?” Lillian asked.
Ada lowered the newspaper, and they both looked at me. “Uh . . . I assume at the Princeton again.”
Lillian shook her head with a tsk-tsk sound. “Well, that won’t do, will it? He’ll stay here.”
“Here?” I asked.
“Of course,” Lillian said, a twinkle in her eye. “As long as you two can stay in your own rooms at night.”
Ada let out an actual snort at that. I dropped my fork, staring at her open-mouthed.
“Close your mouth,” Ada said. “You look like a fool.” She looked at Lillian. “Are we sure that’s wise? Marilyn isn’t exactly the epitome of virtue.”
I could feel my cheeks flushing.
Lillian smirked. “Were you? At that age?”
Ada was trying not to smile. “At that age? Yes. You, on the other hand . . .”
“Europe was interesting,” Lillian said to me. She turned back to Ada. “And I married him after all.”
“Yes, well, we didn’t all have that option.”
“Can I hear that story?” I asked.
“Absolutely not,” Ada said.
I tried to picture her at thirty years old, having an affair with a soldier during a war. Then pieces of a puzzle fell into place. My eyes widened. “Ada—did you have an affair with Ernest Hemingway?”
Both women looked at me as if I had grown a second head. “With whom?”
Lillian laughed. “The bell tolls.”
“He was an ambulance driver in the war—you were a nurse. That’s basically the plot of A Farewell to Arms. You have a house in Key West—so did he. And you said you met the Fitzgeralds. You had an affair with Hemingway, didn’t you?”
Ada shook her head. “You have some imagination, I’ll give you that. No. It wasn’t Hemingway.”
“Come on—there’s no way you didn’t cross paths with him with all that in common.”
She shrugged. “If I did during the war, I wouldn’t know. He wasn’t Hemingway then. He was just a kid driving an ambulance.”
“Yeah . . . I’m not buying it.”
Ada shook her head. “Suit yourself,” she said. But she winked at Lillian, who wouldn’t quite make eye contact with me.
I tried to remember if I had seen any Hemingway books when I had been in her room, but nothing stood out. I decided I was going to sneak in and look again the next time she left the house. His writing would definitely not be her style, so if they were there, it was evidence enough.
And even if it wasn’t true, the story in my head was too good. I wouldn’t use Hemingway himself, but the aunt’s wartime affair was absolutely going to find its way into my book somehow.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Lillian and Ada kept up a running commentary while I prepared for dinner with Dan.
“She’s wearing the fuchsia dress,” Lillian called down the hall after peeking into my room.
“Tell her the dark green is better,” Ada yelled back.