The Road Taken by Rona Jaffe Read Free Book Online

her become a part of his life.
    “I want him,” Rose said.
    “Well, all right,” Maude said. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. It’s about time I entertained at home, so why don’t I give a little dinner party? I’ll invite a few couples, and Tom, and you, and another fellow to make him jealous. . . . I know, Ben Carson is home from Yale, and his sister is a good friend of mine; I’ll ask the two of them. I’ll sit you between the two men.”
    “Tom will like the sister,” Rose said.
    “No, he won’t; she has a fiancé, and of course he’ll come too. You’ll be the only eligible young woman at my dinner party, and both Tom and Ben will have to pay attention to you.”
    “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Rose cried, jumping up and down with joy.
    “Now, no shrieks and squeals or leaping,” Maude said, smiling. “You have to act like an adult.”
    “Oh, I will.”
    “Demure, but not too shy. Friendly but not forward. Mysterious but not too aloof.”
    How could she ever be all of those things, Rose thought. “Of course,” she said, as if she knew just how to do it.
    She wore her good white dress, and Celia helped her put her hair up and lent her violet toilet water, which Rose dabbed on her wrists, neck, and handkerchief. When she arrived at Maude’s apartment the others were already there: Maude’s four former bridesmaids and their fiancés (was everyone in the world over eighteen engaged?), the eligible Ben Carson with his sister Gloria and
her
fiancé, and her beloved Tom Sainsbury. They were fifteen in all, hardly a “small” dinner party, as Maude had described it, and Rose realized that if she got married she would have to learn how to entertain. But Maude and Celia would help and advise her, as Celia had Maude.
    Ben Carson was twenty, a year older than Tom. During dinner he announced that he was going to go on to Yale Law School after he graduated from the university, and Maude cast Rose a significant look. Rose couldn’t have cared less about his future brilliant career. She glanced at him dispassionately. He was of slightly above-medium height, of medium build, with dark hair, and dark eyes that she supposed burned with intelligence, well dressed—by any standard a nice-looking young man, a good catch for someone else. When they finally sat at the table and Tom was next to her, she felt the heat. He smelled faintly of soap and tobacco. If Ben Carson smelled of anything she didn’t notice. But she was very careful to divide her time between the two of them. Demure but not too shy.
    Maude served cold cream of cucumber soup, a standing roast of beef from Papa’s butcher shop, juicy and rare, with crisp roasted potatoes, and buttery beans and carrots, and then a wonderful moist cake in a large glass bowl with fruit and whipped cream between the layers. She said it was called a trifle, and was from a recipe in her new cookbook. Of course Rose could hardly eat a bite, but she pretended.
    “And what sort of law will you specialize in, do you know yet, Ben?” she asked, not caring.
    “Wills and estates,” he said.
    How perfectly morbid, she thought, but smiled brightly. There was probably a lot of money in wills and estates. She had heard that certain old people who felt neglected by their children and grandchildren provided handsomely in their wills for their attentive lawyers.
    “Have you set a date for your wedding yet, Gloria?” Maude asked.
    “September,” Gloria said. “You’ll get an invitation, of course.”
    “I didn’t realize that you had turned into a young lady overnight,” Tom said quietly to Rose, accepting her, young as she was, as a part of this more sophisticated group. Weddings, careers, first dinner parties, and she was still in high school.
    “Hardly overnight,” Rose said flirtatiously, trying to appear mysterious but not aloof. “You just didn’t notice.” Was that friendly but not forward?
    “I did notice,” he said.
    “Oh?”
    “You look very