She's Up to No Good(13)

“Even though Ruthie didn’t go?”

“What do you mean?”

“I called her mother this morning.” Joseph lowered his newspaper. I knew it, Evelyn thought, even as she recognized she was in trouble. Her father claimed never to hear what was happening at the table while he read his newspaper. “Ruthie stayed home last night.”

“I went with some girls from school,” Evelyn lied smoothly. “Ruthie changed her mind at the last minute.” She held up a hand to shield her mouth from her father but spoke loudly enough to ensure he heard. “She’s on her monthlies.” Joseph raised his newspaper quickly, and Evelyn’s chin tipped up in satisfaction. Her mother wasn’t catching her that easily.

“You went with that Portuguese boy from the docks,” Miriam shot back, and Joseph’s newspaper fell to the table with a thud as his hand slammed on top of it.

Evelyn looked from Miriam to her sister, who was whiter than the tablecloth her mother bleached twice weekly, then glared murderously at them both.

“Evelyn,” Joseph boomed. “Explain.”

She looked back at Vivie to try to gauge just how much her sister had divulged and saw a tear slip down her cheek. A wave of guilt washed over Evelyn at Vivie being caught in the middle. It wasn’t her fault; their mother was a tyrant. She gave Vivie what she hoped was a reassuring look and turned to her father, her voice cool.

“I went on a date.”

“You’re not allowed to go on dates.”

“Papa, it’s 1950, not the dark ages in Russia. Everyone goes on dates.”

“Your sister doesn’t.”

“Vivie is sixteen.”

“Your older sisters didn’t.”

Evelyn tried not to laugh. Honestly, she did. But she felt her lips twitching into a smile, and then the laughter bubbled out. “Oh, Papa.” She reached out to put her hand on his. “Yes, they did.”

A cloud of anger crossed his face as he started sputtering, but Evelyn rose from the table and hugged him around the neck. “Papa, darling, don’t get angry. It’s nothing serious. It’s not like I’m going to get pregnant or marry him.” Miriam gasped. “I like him. He likes me. And you’d like him too.”

Joseph ducked out of her grip, but the thunderous rage that had accompanied a similar conversation with Helen simply wasn’t in him with Evelyn. She knew how to manage him, and even when he knew he was being managed, he was powerless to resist his favorite daughter.

“He’s not Jewish?”

“No. He’s not.”

“And he works at the docks?”

“He’s still in school. But his family owns boats, and he helps them sometimes.”

Joseph shook his head. “No. If he was Jewish—but he’s not. I forbid this. You will not see him.”

Evelyn looked at him appraisingly, judging her best course of action. He wouldn’t throw her out, that much she knew. But he could make it significantly harder to see Tony. And she had no intention of giving him up. So what he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him. He’d settle for a simple, “Okay, Papa, I won’t,” and there would be no follow-ups. She glanced at her mother out of her peripheral vision. That one would be a problem. Miriam was standing, arms crossed, watching her second-youngest daughter shrewdly. No, for Miriam, she would have to put on a show to be believed.

She could do that. Evelyn looked longingly at the bread on her plate, wishing she had gotten a couple more bites in first. She was hungry, and no one made bread like her mother. But this was more important than her stomach.

With a sudden motion, she swept her plate off the table, shattering it on the floor. Had it been her mother’s good china, she would never have gone so far, but this was their daily set, easily replaced from Joseph’s store. “I will never forgive you for this,” she said, breathing raggedly. Then she turned and stared at her mother with genuinely poisonous eyes. When Miriam opened her mouth to speak, Evelyn burst into fake tears and ran upstairs to her room, where she slammed the door behind her and locked it.

Then she knelt at the grate on the floor, which led directly to the dining room below her, where she could hear every word said at the table.

“I hope you’ve learned a lesson,” Joseph was saying, presumably to Vivie.

“Yes, Papa,” she whispered, barely loud enough for Evelyn to hear with her ear to the floor.

“She’s a good girl,” Miriam said. “Unlike that one.”

“Evelyn is a good girl,” Joseph said, defending her. “She’s upset. But she’s doing as she’s told.” Her mother started to speak, but Joseph cut her off. “That’s enough excitement for one morning. It’s done now.”

Evelyn smiled and flopped across her bed, then reached into the nightstand drawer for the chocolates Tony had given her the night before. They would tide her over.

Like clockwork, there was a soft knock on her door after she heard the chairs scraping at the table downstairs. Miriam would have tried the doorknob first. Joseph wouldn’t have entered his daughter’s room without making gratuitous noise to make sure she was decent, if he ventured to her room at all.

Evelyn opened the door and yanked Vivie in, then turned the lock, took the pillow off her bed, and wedged it over the floor grate. Miriam undoubtedly knew where that grate led as well.