She's Up to No Good(89)

“It’s respectful to ask me what I want, not you what I want.”

“We’ve never met this man. How can you expect your father to give his blessing?”

“I don’t care about a blessing! I’m going and that’s all there is to it.”

Miriam’s hands went to her hips as well. “You are not.”

Vivie turned to leave and saw her sister and brother-in-law standing in the doorway. “Evelyn,” she sighed. “You’ll talk sense into them.”

Evelyn looked at her sister’s wild eyes, then at the telegram clutched in her hand. Prying it gently from her fingers, Evelyn took the paper and read the message.


MEET ME TOMORROW. MADE MOST IMPORTANT DECISION OF MY LIFE. YOU HAVE TO COME. GEORGE.





There was as little doubt in Evelyn’s mind as in her sister’s that a proposal was imminent. And from what she had seen of George, no, he wouldn’t think he needed some immigrant’s blessing to marry the woman he had selected to be his wife.

“I’ll try,” she whispered, kissing her sister’s forehead, then went into the living room to her parents, leaving Fred, who was disinclined to enter any Bergman family spat, still holding his hat in the hall.

Vivie flew up the stairs in a fit of angry tears, and Evelyn kissed her father’s cheek, then flopped onto the sofa. “Oh, hello there,” she said, pretending to just notice her parents. “Lovely weather we’re having.”

“Stop it,” Miriam said.

“Hello to you too, Mama. Why yes, we did have a nice drive.”

“You won’t change my mind.”

Evelyn reached up and took her mother’s hand, pulling her down onto the sofa next to her. “Mama. When have I ever been able to change your mind? Papa, pssh, he’s a pushover.” Joseph harrumphed but didn’t object. “But not you.”

Miriam eyed her daughter suspiciously. “She’s not going.”

“What’s your objection? That you haven’t met him? Because I have.” Fred crept gingerly into the room and perched on the arm of the chair opposite Joseph.

“You aren’t her parents.”

“No. But New Yorkers are a different breed, Mama. This George, he . . . Well, he thinks a lot of himself. But he treats Vivie well. He makes her happy. And he’s Jewish. Vivie’s not wrong—his family has been here much longer than ours. His parents don’t even speak Yiddish. But, Mama, let her go. It’s not like she didn’t have plenty of opportunities to be alone with him all year. And he’ll come here once he’s asked her. Fred asked me first, after all.”

Miriam and Joseph both turned to look at Fred, who grinned shamefacedly before making an excuse about needing to bring their bags in.

“It’s how things are done these days. He’ll come and ask Papa once they have things settled between them.”

For a moment, Evelyn thought Miriam would relent. She always had a soft spot for Vivie.

And then her expression changed.

“If he wants to marry her, he’ll come meet her parents. She can’t marry someone we’ve never laid eyes on. She doesn’t leave Hereford.”

Evelyn took a deep breath, knowing full well she was about to anger her parents but hoping everything would work out for the best in the end. She agreed, then went upstairs to help Vivie concoct a plan.





Evelyn knew from experience that Miriam would be sleeping on the living room sofa to prevent Vivie from leaving. But Evelyn and Fred were in the room just over the porch this time. And if the two girls climbed onto the roof of the porch and down the side and left the car in neutral, starting it only once they were down the hill, they could get Vivie to the station for the six a.m. commuter train to Boston, where she could transfer to the New York line.

“I don’t like this,” Fred said. Evelyn stood at the mirror over the dresser, applying cold cream to remove her makeup.

“Well, I don’t love it either, but it’ll work. And they’ll be fine once it’s done.”

“This is really how we’re going to start our vacation week?”

Evelyn wiped the cream away and went to sit beside him on the bed. “Wouldn’t you have climbed out a window for me?”

“Of course, but George is such a pill.”

Evelyn whooped with laughter, then pushed Fred over. “I’ll be back before anyone wakes up. They won’t even know I took her.”

He raised an eyebrow. “And how are you getting back upstairs?”

She grinned. “You think this is the first time I’ve climbed out and back in a window?”

He rolled on top of her. “You don’t need me to make a rope out of tied-together sheets, then?”

“If it’ll make you feel useful, darling, you can.”

Shaking his head, he leaned in to kiss her.





Evelyn woke and dressed before the sun was up, then opened her bedroom door a crack for Vivie, who slipped silently inside, a small valise in her hand. “Be careful,” Fred murmured sleepily. Evelyn kissed his forehead, saying she would be back before he knew it. And the two girls went out the window to the ground below, Evelyn climbing down onto the porch’s roof, then the railing, then taking the bag that Vivie handed her before Vivie climbed down as well. They both froze momentarily, listening for any noise in the house, but there was none.