The Boston Girl(54)

That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I was blubbering, “But he’s gone. He left me.”

Irene crossed her arms. “Didn’t you just tell me he’s coming back to see you next month? If you think he was lying, then you’re better off without him and good riddance.”

That set me off. Aaron was the most honest and decent man I ever met and how could she say such a thing?

Irene laughed. “All right then,” she said. “So let’s talk about what I should cook when you bring him over to meet us. I’ll try to make something that won’t make us all sick. I could send him an invitation, or maybe a warning would be better.”





I say so.

I read Aaron’s first letter a thousand times. He made a list of everything he missed about me: my hazel eyes, my lovely hands, and my red shoes. He said to send him a list of novels he should read so he wouldn’t feel stupid when I talked about books and writers he’d never heard of. As if he was stupid. A college man. A lawyer!

We sent each other two or three letters a week. He wrote about what was going on at work and what it was like to live in Washington. I didn’t have anything interesting to say about my job, so I introduced him to my friends. Gussie was making so much money she bought herself a big house in Brookline and was renting rooms to Simmons girls who needed a cheap, decent place to live.

Irene was so bored at home, she spent the whole day talking to her belly and when she ran out of things to say she read out loud from the newspaper. She said the kid was going to come out of her wearing a Red Sox rosette.

I wrote to Aaron about the postcards Filomena sent from New Mexico and Betty’s love affair with her electric mixer and how my sister was already planning Jake’s bar mitzvah, which wasn’t for months.

I started checking off days on the calendar until his visit, but then he wrote that the other lawyer in his office had quit and unless someone else got hired, he might not be in Boston for another month or maybe more. He said he was sorry three or four times and that he felt terrible.

He felt terrible? I was holding my breath until I saw him again and now I didn’t even know when that was going to happen.

I started wondering if maybe Aaron wasn’t so honest after all. Look at how stupid I’d been about Harold and Ernie. What did I really know about him? Who knows? Maybe he’d met someone else in Washington.

I wrote back, very polite, and said thank you for letting me know. I think I made some crack about how I hoped he’d enjoy the cherry blossoms and that I looked forward to his next letter.

Well, Aaron got the message and his next letter was three pages long about how much he missed me and how he hated being away from me and how bad he felt about keeping me waiting. He said he’d started working late every night and told his boss that he had to take a few days off to take care of some family business.

He ended with a cute little P.S. I was glad that you ordered pancakes when we had breakfast together. Pancakes are the only things I know how to cook and I will make them for you every day for the rest of your life—if you say so.

I don’t know how many times I read that P.S. before what he was saying sunk in. My letter back to him had only three words. I SAY SO.

Maybe a week later, when I got home from work, my landlady was waiting for me at the door. She waved a piece of paper in my face and blamed me for almost giving her a heart attack. In those days the main reason people sent telegrams was to say that someone had died.

“I only opened it to see if I should get out smelling salts for you,” she said. “Some people waste money like it was water.”

Aaron’s telegram said Tell Irene I will be there on Friday.

The four of us had a great time at dinner. Irene cooked a delicious meal. For dessert she went to the bakery and bought an apple pie. I said it was almost as good as Mrs. Morse’s.

“Oh no,” Irene said. “Once she gets started about those pies, there’s no stopping her.”

“But I want to hear what Addie has to say about pie,” Aaron said.

Joe winked at me. “He’s got it bad.”

Aaron said, “Guilty as charged.”

—

He had to go back to Washington on Sunday morning, so we really only had one day together.

I wanted to go to Rockport but it would have taken too long, so we got off the train at Nahant and walked on the beach for a couple of hours. We talked about where we might get married and how many children we wanted and we decided not to tell our families until Aaron moved to Boston. His plan was to be back by the Fourth of July or sooner if they could find someone to replace him.

That was the day he gave me the gold locket I always wear. Inside it’s engraved, March 29, 1926. The day we met.

You know, if one of my daughters had told me she was going to marry a man she’d only known for a week I would have locked her in her room. But we weren’t kids. I was twenty-five and he was twenty-nine. We were completely sure. And obviously we were right.

Aaron didn’t tell his parents he was in town that weekend. Only Ruth knew. He slept on her couch Friday night, and Saturday night she stayed with a girlfriend so we could be alone, just the two of us, for the whole night.

I’ll leave it at that.





At least she didn’t suffer.

I was counting the days until the Fourth of July and thinking about the best way to introduce Aaron to my family. When should I tell Betty, and would it be better to have her tell Mameh that there would be company for a Friday dinner or should I just have him come to the house on a Sunday afternoon?