“I thought it was a woman’s prerogative to change her mind.”
“It is. But I won’t.”
Marv sank into the sand—or he somehow just looked smaller. “All righty then. Shall we roast marshmallows? As friends?”
A cloud lifted from Betty’s spirit, though it all seemed too easy. “Sure.” She wanted to tell him heck no, but she had to think of her standing as the Stern granddaughter.
Three girls held sticks over the embers, their marshmallows slowly browning. Marv and Betty faced them from the other side of the firepit.
“There’s two left,” a deep voice said from behind, and an open blue and white box of Campfire marshmallows was thrust between Betty and Marv.
Betty turned around to thank this bearer of marshmallows and spun back toward the fire. Holy moly. It was him. Abe.
“Thanks,” Marv said. He reached into the box, then turned to Betty. “I’ll go grab a couple of sticks.” He stepped away. What was Betty to do now? She wasn’t supposed to meet this boy when she was on a date with someone else. But there was nothing wrong with being polite. “Being polite is always right,” Nannie would say.
Betty turned to express her gratitude for the last two marshmallows and stared straight into a square chin covered in fine blond stubble and accented by a dimple. He’d stepped closer. She should have stepped back but did not, so his body occupied all the space that should have existed between them. Betty inhaled the menthol tang of aftershave and wanted to hold her breath and keep it inside. Instead she exhaled deeply.
“Thank you,” she said. She glanced up and was so close that even in the dark she saw his blue eyes were flecked with gold. Or maybe it was the reflection of the fire.
“You’re welcome.”
A chill scurried across Betty’s neck, although his voice sounded like it had been warmed by the fire. It sounded deeper and smoother than she’d remembered from the kitchen window, as if that had been an off-the-cuff remark and these two words were deliberate and thoughtful. The tone rolled over her and calmed her, while at the same time shivers traveled her arms. He smiled, and the dimples in his cheeks appeared as if she’d asked them to come out and play. He wore a button-down shirt, open in a casual beachy way and showing off an undershirt, as if he’d just thrown it on after a swim. The shirt hung loose outside his khaki shorts but did not disguise the shoulders that were as broad as any football player’s she’d seen. The warm, woodsy scent of the fire wafted into their imaginary lair. Betty couldn’t do anything except smile back at him.
“I wondered if I’d see you again,” he whispered. The lowered volume of his voice didn’t change its resonance. “And not just from across the dining room.” Betty’s cheeks flushed, but she couldn’t blame the fire. He had noticed her. He had wondered about her. “You seem to have recovered nicely from your ordeal with the canapés.”
Doris had been right—this voice matched the one they’d heard at the kitchen window. If it was anyone else, it might have seemed creepy, but that’s what she’d wanted. For him to notice her. Betty glanced around the firepit for Marv, who was holding marshmallows over the heat, and talking to Eleanor Rosen, back at Stern’s for her second year as a children’s counselor. Eleanor was popular with the waiters, though Betty knew she shouldn’t believe kitchen gossip.
“Your boyfriend looks busy,” Abe said.
“He’s not my boyfriend. Why does everyone think he’s my boyfriend?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, people don’t usually come to these things alone. And if they do, they don’t leave alone.” He lifted his eyebrows and Betty turned away, clamping her lips. She was flabbergasted. He was so forward! She should have been outraged that he spoke so plainly before they’d even properly met, yet her heart pounded, and her skin zinged with the thrill of being near enough to touch him. And to hear him talk about the romance around them? Betty’s face warmed again, and the flush traveled. Get ahold of yourself!
“I guess I didn’t realize.” Betty turned back. Oh, she’d realized. She’d been realizing for years. That’s why she shouldn’t have asked Marv to bring her here. She’d misled him, perhaps, but if she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have met her bonfire man. Yes, that was more apropos than “marshmallow man.” He was not a marshmallow at all.
Marv returned with one stick, two marshmallows stuck onto its end. He held it out to Betty.
“Thank you,” Betty said.
Betty had tasted marshmallows floating in hot cocoa at Georgia’s house, but she’d never tasted one that had been roasted over a fire. After all, marshmallows were treif—and her grandparents couldn’t serve anything at the resort that wasn’t kosher and wouldn’t have them at home either. Betty hadn’t believed it when she’d learned that marshmallows contained gelatin, and that gelatin was made of pigs’ bones.
But forbidden bites were often the sweetest.
“Who’s your friend, Betty?” Marv asked, pulling marshmallow strings from the stick, and jutting his chin toward her bonfire man.
“Abe Barsky.” He held out his hand. “I’m a new waiter, among other things.”
Marv fumbled the stick and shook Abe’s hand. “Marv Peck. I’m an old friend of Betty’s, among other things.” He slid his nonsticky hand around Betty’s waist and she slipped to the left, away from his grasp. Marv stuck his hand in his trouser pocket. He looked small next to Abe, whose arms looked like the boxers’ arms she’d once seen at an exhibition match she’d been to on a date. It was a bad date, but there were some good-looking boxers (before the match, that is).
“Let me walk you home, Betty,” Marv said.
“For Pete’s sake, she lives right there!” Eleanor said, as she sauntered up behind Marv wearing a floral halter bathing suit covered only by a towel she’d wrapped around her waist. It was much too late and too cold for a swim,
