I wondered again how much she charged for her services. She hadn’t made that clear in the meetings—the mothers handed her a check of a predetermined amount.
I had never seen a woman manage her own business before. Sure, there were domestic workers, and I knew plenty of girls who went into the business world as typists and secretaries—but mostly to meet husbands. No one ran a company or managed their own money. And her age—along with the fact that she had been in this profession for nearly fifty years—made that even more impressive.
And despite myself, I was envious. Yes, I wanted love and passion and excitement. But the idea of being my own person—of doing what I wanted when I wanted and bossing everyone else around—was intoxicating. More than that though, when Ada spoke, everyone listened.
And I vowed, throwing my notebook into my handbag, to learn from that while I had to be here. It was the exact opposite experience that my father would have wanted. But my mother—I began to wonder if she secretly wanted me to learn this very lesson all along.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The door to Ada’s study—her real office—was closed, so I didn’t disturb her as I left the house to explore. I walked down the street. Much like many New York neighborhoods, once you left Ada’s street, it became a mixture of residential and commercial properties seemingly without zoning. The difference was no buildings blocked out the sky this far uptown, and trolleys replaced the unending traffic I was used to.
I found a mailbox easily and dropped my mother’s letter inside. I hadn’t wanted to risk my defiant return address with the cook. The shops were all locally owned, and, from the names, we were in a heavily Jewish neighborhood, delicatessens dotting corners like street signs. Which also answered another question I hadn’t wanted to ask—How did Ada know the tennis men were Jewish and therefore acceptable matches? On this side of town, apparently everyone was.
Yet crossing a single street brought me out of Eastern Europe and into Italy, immigrants hawking their wares and working in their fully mustachioed glory, surrounded by churches instead of the two synagogues of my aunt’s neighborhood. The smells from the restaurants here began to feel more like home, and I inhaled deeply, wondering if there were any areas where cultures mixed as in the city of my birth.
I wandered for close to two hours, observing my new surroundings. My parents had taken me to Washington, DC, and to Florida as a child, but this was my first time as a solo tourist anywhere. After returning to Ada’s neighborhood, I stopped a young woman about my age and asked how close I was to the Liberty Bell—my sole Philadelphia landmark—but she laughed. Apparently it would be a two-trolley ride to get there and therefore not plausible today.
“Doesn’t anyone take taxis?”
“Why? The trolley cars are cheaper.” She looked me up and down. “You’re not from around here clearly.”
“What gave me away?”
“Everything,” she said, laughing again. “Wait. Are you Ada Heller’s niece?”
“Great-niece. How do you know that?”
“This isn’t New York. We all know everyone’s business.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
She held out her hand. “I’m Shirley.”
“Marilyn.”
“We leave for the shore next week, but my parents’ house isn’t far from Ada’s if you want to get together.”
I remembered Ada’s comment about my friends and wondered if Shirley would be an acceptable playmate in her eyes. But it didn’t really matter. A friend would be nice while I was in exile.
“Ada hasn’t mentioned the shore, but if we go, I’ll look you up.”
“Oh, she’ll go. She goes every year. The city empties out, and she follows her business.” She dug into her handbag and pulled out a piece of paper that she wrote a phone number on. “I’ve got to go—but give me a call.” She walked away, her skirt swishing behind her.
Encounters like that wouldn’t happen in New York. We assumed everyone was a murderer. And, quite honestly, she was too cheerful. She might have been one. But I dropped her information into my purse and popped into a delicatessen for a cup of coffee and a sandwich, grabbing a local newspaper at the door to flip through while I waited.
On the block before Ada’s house, I wandered into a drugstore and bought myself a new lipstick. It was a knockoff of mine, but it was better than nothing. And, being a drugstore brand, probably beneath Ada’s dignity to confiscate.
When I arrived back at the house, I heard Sally barking before I even made it up the stairs. She had sat peacefully through every single client who entered the house that morning, but apparently I was an invader and not to be trusted. She growled and backed away from me as I walked through the door.
“Marilyn?” Ada called from down the hall.
“It’s me,” I said back.
“Don’t yell from room to room,” she yelled, oblivious to the irony. “Come to my study.”
I walked in, and she gestured for me to sit. I did, and she proceeded to rip up two sheets of paper. “Two of the men you got information from last night are already engaged. Didn’t you ask any questions?”
“You mean after you almost killed me with a rock? No, I only asked what you told me to.”
“If you die falling into a bush, you deserve what you get. What did you tell them anyway? You were a little too far out of range to hear.”
I hid a smile. She didn’t know everything after all. “That I’d hop into bed with anyone who gave me their number.”
“Bed? I thought defiling holy places was more your preference.” She cocked a finger at me. “Just don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep.” She waved a hand dismissively and bent her head over the large ledger in front of her. “You can go now.”
I turned to leave, but she called my name again. “The lipstick.”
My shoulders sank as she held out a hand. “This one cost fifty cents,” I said. “From a drugstore on the corner. It’d be below you to wear it.”
She wiggled her fingers again, and with a sigh, I handed it over. She examined the tube, then dropped it into the trash can next to her desk.
“If you must wear lipstick, the Guerlain is preferable. But you should be wearing something lighter. You don’t have enough life experience to wear the red, and you look like you broke into your mother’s makeup while she was out.”
“Can you even get Guerlain in this little hamlet you call a city?”
“Careful,” she warned, holding up a finger again. “This ‘little hamlet’ was the nation’s capital for ten years.” She wrote something down on a piece of paper, then handed it to me. “Tomorrow, when we’re finished for the day, you can take the trolley into Center City and go to a department store. I’ll even let you put a lipstick—that’s one lipstick only—on my tab. As long as it’s a more demure color.”