Chapter 28
Under the guise of bringing over a frozen kugel that my mother had made in anticipation of another bris, I’d stolen the closest thing to a cocktail dress that Betty had on Saturday afternoon.
Emerald green and sleeveless, belted with a slim fan skirt—paired with heels, it could pass.
While I had zero qualms about Fields seeing me in a repeated dress, I shyly didn’t want someone as glamorous as Maricela thinking I only had the one dress.
I tried to see if I could wear the green dress under a regular dress, but none of my dresses were big enough to hide it.
So I was going to have to figure out a way to smuggle it out of the house and then change in the car, and Fields was just going to have to avert his eyes.
The perils of being an investigative reporter and all that.
Nellie Bly had gotten herself committed to an asylum to write a story after all.
I could change clothes behind Jack Fields.
But by Sunday evening, I was nervous. If he couldn’t keep his cover with my parents, this was going to be the world’s quickest ending to a career.
And I hated relying on other people. I was a firm believer in If you want a job done right, you do it yourself.
As I brushed my hair, I cursed the society that wouldn’t let me, as a woman, prevail without a man’s help.
It wasn’t fair. But I would prove them all wrong yet.
We were going to figure this one out and write the best story possible. And my name would be on it.
That was worth everything.
I checked my new watch repeatedly, knowing full well my mother was stationed by the living room window watching for Fields.
“Fleishman,” I reminded myself out loud. If I slipped and called him Fields, we were sunk. “Jack.”
Why did his first name feel so strange to say? If I liked him romantically, I would want to use it. But I didn’t. That’s why, I told myself.
Then I heard a commotion downstairs, and my mother called, “He’s here! Leonard! Judy! Sylvia! He’s here!”
I came rushing down the stairs, afraid to leave him alone with my parents—and especially my grandmother. My mother and father might not question my story, but my grandmother certainly would. I stopped short at the sight of my mother holding the lamp from the living room end table.
“What on earth—?”
“What?” she asked, panicked. “Do I have something in my teeth?”
“You’re holding a lamp. Are you planning to bludgeon him?”
She looked at her hand, then set the lamp down and grinned at me sheepishly. “I knocked it over when I got up.”
“Mom. Calm down. You’re not going on the date. I am.” She came over to me and smoothed my hair, then pinched my cheeks, hard. “Ow!”
“Gives you a little more color,” she said.
“I have blush on.”
“Well maybe not enough.”
“Edna,” my father said warningly as a knock sounded at the front door. “Leave the poor girl alone. She’s already been on two dates with this young man. He knows what her cheeks look like.” Then my father opened the door.
To his credit, Fields was wearing a jacket and tie and had brushed his typically unruly hair. He did look quite presentable. And he held a bouquet of flowers.
“Mr. Greenberg,” he said with a nod. “Mrs. Greenberg.” He held out the flowers, and I was surprised. They were for my mother, not me. Then he smiled at me. “Judy.”
“Come in, come in,” my mother said, fawning over him and the flowers and practically tripping over her own feet.
“Mom, Dad, meet Jack Fl—”
“Feldstein,” he said. “Jacob, actually, but everyone calls me Jack.”
“Jacob Feldstein!” my mother exclaimed. “And you work at The Digest with Judy?” He nodded. “I know your mother!” She turned to me. “Judy! You said you didn’t know him!”
I was going to murder him. We had a plan. Why would he change the name? He couldn’t have known my mother knew the mother of a Jacob Feldstein, but this was going to blow up when she called her, which was likely happening the second we left. I knew I couldn’t trust him. This was a disaster.
“You know how Judy loves a surprise,” he said with a smile. “My mother sends her love and says she’ll see you for mahjong on Tuesday.”
My mother held a hand to her heart. “This is such a perfect shidduch. I’m kvelling.”
“It’s a third date, Edna,” my father reminded her.
“Unless you’ve been hiding this for longer with that Baltimore nonsense,” he said with a sidelong look at me.
I realized my mouth was open and closed it, then shook my head.
“Judy isn’t exactly known for accurate storytelling,” he told Fields—Feldstein—Jacob. I was so confused.
“I don’t know about that,” whatever-his-name-was said. “She’s doing a great job at The Digest. I don’t want anyone else typing my stories.” He leaned closer to both of them. “I think she’s got a tremendous future in journalism.”
“No, no, no,” my mother said. “She’ll make a much better wife.”
“Mom!” If she wanted my cheeks redder, she was getting it.
“What? I’ll love your in-laws. So much better than Betty’s.”
“We should be going,” I said quickly. “We have a reservation, right, Jacob?”
My grandmother chose that moment to wake up from where she had been sleeping—or pretending to—on the sofa.
“So this is the mysterious Jack,” she said suddenly. I jumped.
“Not mysterious,” I said.
“Well he’s kept you out all hours while making you drive to meet him without meeting your parents.”
If the earth opened up and swallowed me whole right then and there, no one would hear me complaining.
“That was all Judy,” Fields said. He was still Fields to me. “I wanted to do things properly, but because you and my mother know each other, she felt there was too much pressure until we knew we really liked each other.”
“That doesn’t sound like Judy,” my grandmother said. I couldn’t decide whom I hated more in that moment, her or him.
“She has been awfully secretive about dates in the past,” my mother said. Then she realized her gaffe. “Not that she’s dated a lot. I mean, she’s been on dates, of course, but no one serious until this, you know. She just—”
Fields looked like he was trying desperately not to laugh. At least one of us was amused. I glanced at my grandmother. Correction. Two of us were amused.
“You must be Judy’s bubbe,” Fields said, crossing to her on the sofa.
She offered a hand, palm down as if she expected him to kiss it. “I like this one,” she said to my parents. Then back to him, “You may call me Sylvia.”
He looked from her to my parents, then back. “I’m going to go with Mrs. Greenberg, unless I’m guessing incorrectly.”
“You are not. What a gentleman.”
He was a liar and a lout was what he was.
I closed my eyes and counted to five. The story mattered most. I would deal with letting my mother down after the story came out.
Until then, she could make whatever wedding plans she wanted.
My grandmother knew full well this was a sham, and I would see her eventually in hell, if it existed, for the extra hoops she was making us jump through right now.
I had no doubt she would be running the place by the time I got there anyway.
“Judy’s right,” Fields said, with the gall to look disappointed. “We do have a reservation. But it was so nice to—finally—meet you all.” He looked to me. “Are you ready?”
The green dress was hidden under my skirt. I had spent Saturday night sewing—badly—a makeshift pocket into the dress I was now wearing. I could rip it out easily when it was no longer needed without doing any damage. Which was fortunate, because both dresses were technically Betty’s.
And I had additional makeup in my purse—I had taken the bus to the drugstore especially to buy it.
“I am,” I said, trying to keep the iciness out of my tone. But oh was he getting an earful when I got him alone!
“Leonard,” my mother said, putting a hand on my father’s arm. “Give him your keys.”
My father looked at her like she had grown a second head. “Why?”
“They should take your car.”
“Why? He has a car. Doesn’t he?” He peered around my mother to look out the window.
“Yes, but did you see it? They should take yours.”
Fields and I exchanged another look. “Mom—he can hear you.”
“Well I’m sure he knows what his car looks like.”
I grabbed Fields’s arm and practically dragged him out the door. “We’re leaving. Don’t wait up.”
“So nice to meet you,” he called again helplessly as my parents watched from the doorway.