She's Up to No Good(67)
I glanced down. My bikini top had ridden up when I hit the water, and nothing was covered. The thrill evaporating, I quickly pulled it down as well as I could while trying to stay afloat, also now aware that the bottom of my suit had wedged itself into a position where not much was covered there either.
“Think I’ll wear a one-piece if we try again.”
“I won’t object either way.” I laughed. I should have still been embarrassed, but I couldn’t be after that jump. “Come on. The beach is over there.” He started swimming toward the shore. I followed, pausing to look up at the impossibly high ledge I had just conquered.
I learned to fly today, I thought giddily, swimming after Joe. My teeth were chattering from the chill of the New England water, and I couldn’t have cared less. I had been in suspended animation for six months. No—longer than that. Much, much longer. But now? I was alive now. And I wondered if reviving me was the mysterious business my grandmother had in Hereford all along.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
June 1951
Hereford, Massachusetts
If Evelyn thought she’d find sympathy in her brothers and sisters beyond Vivie, there was none. Not once Joseph and Miriam put their collective foot down to forbid Evelyn to see Tony. Joseph hadn’t spoken to her in the week since the proposal, and Miriam had only to scold her. But her siblings and their children were suddenly attached to her like glue. If she picked up the phone, her nieces and nephews appeared, making such a racket that she couldn’t hear a word, and they were completely unfazed by her cajoling, offers of bribes, and eventual threats.
Joseph’s car keys sat in a basket at the front door when he was in residence. But now they, along with Sam’s and Bernie’s, lived in the men’s pockets and were hidden in their bedrooms at night. Her pleas to her brothers fell on entirely deaf ears.
If she left for a walk, Helen, Margaret, or Sam accompanied her—usually after a furiously whispered conversation with Miriam, but they did it nonetheless. And when they wouldn’t leave her alone about her “mistake,” Evelyn turned on her heel and went back to the cottage, locking herself in a bedroom, where she paced the floor until long after the rest of the house had gone to bed, locking even Vivie out.
There was no word from Tony.
Not that he ever contacted her when she was home with her family. Whenever she called him before, it was always under the guise of talking to a friend from school, while she spoke in coded conversation. They arranged their next meeting at the previous one.
The only evening she successfully evaded everyone and made it to the end of the street, praying his car would be parked there waiting for her, it wasn’t. And just as she was debating begging the Inn to let her make a call, she heard Bernie say her name.
“Be a good girl, and come back now, Evie.” His tone was sympathetic as he put an arm around her shoulder.
Evelyn shook out of his grip. “I thought you were on my side!”
Bernie looked at her levelly. “I’m on your side. Which is why I told you last year that Papa would never let you marry him. And I told Tony the same thing. Why you two couldn’t have been smart about this and tried to meet more suitable people, I will never understand.”
“And that’s why you married Doris? Because she was ‘suitable’?”
“It’s why I went out with her in the first place. Because I wasn’t looking to just have some fun. I wanted to get married and have kids.”
Evelyn had never slapped anyone, but she considered it then. “Fun?” she spat. “You think it’s been fun having to hide the person I love from my family? Especially when I’m in school and can’t even see him without lying when I come home?”
“You know what I mean.”
“And if you can’t tell that that isn’t what this is, then you don’t know me.”
“Are you pregnant?”
“No, you fathead!”
“I had to ask.” Bernie softened. “Ev—you’re a good kid. And I suppose I love you best out of all the girls. Which is why I’m going to tell you the truth right now. You can’t marry him. You were never going to be able to marry him.”
Evelyn scowled. “You just watch me.” She stormed back into the cottage and went straight to the phone. Six-year-old Connie raised the alarm, calling for her siblings to make “the phone noise” with her, but Evelyn ignored them and dialed Tony’s number.
The children screamed, making it impossible for her to hear if anyone had even answered the phone.
“It’s Evelyn,” she yelled into the receiver. “You tell Tony they won’t let me out, but I’ll find a way yet.” And with no chance of hearing a reply, she replaced the receiver, swatting at the child nearest her before climbing the stairs.
She tried to sneak out in the night, determined to hitch a ride or, failing that, walk the five miles to town in the dark. She leaned out the window, looking for any purchase that would prevent her from hitting the gravel below too hard, but found none. Had she been in a room at the front of the house, she could have climbed down onto the porch, but she wasn’t. And a broken ankle would rob her of any chance of getting to Tony for months.
She’d have to go out the front door.
Walking along the side of the hallway, avoiding the creaky middle floorboards, she tiptoed to the stairs. As long as she went slowly, she could be silent. She took a step down. Then another. Skipped over the fifth step entirely because it groaned at any weight. Another step. One more. Almost there now. Just three more.