“That must have been terrible,” I said.

“Much worse for a lot of other people than it was for me,” he said. “I wanted to go back, but they wouldn’t let me. I hate feeling useless here at home.”

“But you’re in school now,” I said, admiring his patriotism. “That’s not being useless. What are you studying?”

“Medicine,” he said.

“Oh!” I was impressed. “You want to be a doctor.”

“I always have,” he said. “I thought it would have to wait until the war ends—if it ever does—but I guess that was the one bonus of getting injured. Now, my dream’s within reach. And how about you?”

“This is my senior year,” I said. “I’m going to teach.”

“That’s wonderful!” he said, as if I’d said that I, too, planned to become a doctor. “Did you always want to be a teacher?”

“Well—” I smiled “—I’ve actually always wanted to have a family, but I think it’s important for a woman to be able to support herself.”

He nodded. “You’re a very smart girl,” he said. “I want to raise a family myself, but I also want to be sure I can provide well for them.”

What a remarkable man, I thought. I liked that he didn’t denigrate my choice of career. Ross had made light of my studies as though they were inconsequential.

I smoothed my skirt over my legs and wrapped my arms around my knees. “What kind of doctor do you want to be?” I asked.

“A pediatrician,” he said. “I was sick when I was a boy and that’s when I decided.”

“So,” I said, “we’ve both chosen careers that will let us help children.”

He looked suddenly excited and turned toward me, reaching for my hand. “Maria,” he said, “you need to tell me something right now.”

“What?”

“Please tell me you’re Catholic.”

I laughed. “I am, but why?”

“Because in the thirty minutes since I first spotted you across the living room, I’ve fallen in love with you,” he said. “And you being Catholic will make it so much easier. Is there a chance you might like to go to mass with me tomorrow? Then maybe we could have lunch together afterward.”

I liked his impulsiveness. It excited me, and I had to admit that I’d become a girl in need of excitement. A strange little tugof-war was going on inside me, though. Only two days before, I’d been secretly making love to a man. Now I was being invited to mass as a date. My family was Catholic, that was no lie, but we were holiday Catholics, attending church on Christmas and Easter and only occasionally in between. I felt as though God was intervening in my life at that very moment. He was giving me an opportunity to turn myself around and put an end to my deceitful and immoral behavior. I felt the sorrow over leaving Ross turn into a sort of relief and gratitude. This lovely man, Charles Bauer, who had fought for his country and longed to be a physician and raise a family, might be able to save me from myself.

“I would like that so much,” I said.

“Oh, wonderful!” he said, with an enthusiasm I would come to appreciate in him. “Was your boyfriend Catholic?” he asked.

“Yes, but not devout,” I said. An understatement if ever there was one.

“It was doomed from the start, then,” he said. “The gal I broke up with last year was a Methodist. My parents wouldn’t even talk to her. I should have known it wouldn’t work. The values are just too different, you know?”

I nodded, although I didn’t really know at all.

“She was…fast, if you know what I mean,” he said. “I found out she’d had…you know, relations, with the boy she’d dated before me, and I felt sick thinking about it.”

I knew right then that I would be starting this relationship off with a lie. I would never let Charles know the truth about Ross and me. Only a few of my girlfriends knew about Ross, so it would be a relatively easy secret to keep. I thought, though, that I’d better bring my ancestry out in the open before things went any further.

“I’m half Italian,” I said.

“I thought so.” He touched my hair. “You have that rich Italian hair and those big, dark eyes.” It didn’t seem to bother him at all.

Charles and I attended mass the following day and I saw my religion in a new light. I felt the peace that came over him inside the church. The smell of incense, the ritualistic standing and kneeling, the haunting Latin chanting, and the taste of the host on my tongue struck me like never before. I thanked God for giving me what felt like a second chance.

When we left the church and were back in my car, Charles turned to me. “Are you all right?” he asked.

I nodded, wondering how he had known the impact that service had had on me. “I’ve never been to mass with a…” I started to say boyfriend, but it seemed too soon to give him that label. “With a date before,” I finished.

“You never went with your last boyfriend?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“I understand,” he said with a smile. “That’s why it would never have worked out with my old girlfriend and with your old boyfriend. They would have been twiddling their thumbs in there, anxious to get it over with.”

We fell in love quickly. I think I was in love with him that first night outside the fraternity house. My relationship with Ross was becoming clearer to me: It had been based on the physical and the illicit and little more. This was so different. Charles met my parents, who instantly adored him and even attended mass with us the first weekend he visited. Charles and my father were New York Yankee fans, and they occasionally attended games together at Yankee Stadium, while my mother would marvel that I’d found such a wonderful man.

“I’ve been worried about you,” she said, her Italian accent flavoring the words.

“Why?” I’d asked her, surprised.

“You always flit from one boy to the other,” she said. “Never settled on any one of them. It worried me.”

“You didn’t have to worry,” I said to her with a smile. “I was waiting for the right one to come along.”

My relationship with Charles was entirely chaste. His kisses were passionate, but if his hands wandered toward my breasts or my thighs, he would pull back in apology. I craved more, and I found the craving exciting. I felt guilty for the lie of omission I was engaged in. He thought I was a virgin, and there was no reason to tell him anything different. The lie was so thorough that even I began to think of myself as virginal.

On Easter Sunday, 1943, Charles asked me to marry him. Of course, I accepted, but as summer grew near and my parents spoke of having him stay with us at the shore, I became increasingly nervous. The rule between Ross and I that we would be lovers during the summers was unwritten and even unspoken, but it existed nevertheless, and I feared his reaction when I showed up with Charles. I hoped it would be clear to him that I needed to put an end to our illicit relationship, and I prayed he did nothing that might arouse Charles’s suspicions. I was in for a surprise.

Charles and I followed my parents’ car as we drove down the shore, and when we pulled into the driveway of the bungalow, I could see that two cars were already present in front of the Chapmans’ house. My heart pounded as we unloaded the car and walked into our musty-smelling house. When I opened the French doors leading to the porch with its panoramic view of the canal, Charles gasped.

“It’s wonderful!” he said, walking across the porch and unlatching the screen door to step outside.

I could see people in the Chapmans’ yard, although I could not tell who they were, and I felt unprepared to walk into the yard with Charles if Ross was there. I’d wanted a chance to talk to Ross alone first. But with Charles already walking outside, I had little choice but to follow him.

“When will your father get the boat?” Charles asked, motioning at the dock as we walked toward the canal. The wooden bulkheads were in place by then, but it would be years before there would be a chain-link fence to mar our view.

“He’ll pick it up tomorrow, probably,” I said, my eyes on the Chapmans’ yard. Two figures stood in the far corner: Ross and a woman. I should have been pleased that he, too, would be preoccupied with a guest, but instead, a breath-stealing jealousy sprang up in my chest.

“Looks like you share your backyard.” Charles nodded toward the twosome.

Ross had his arm around the woman, but as he turned and saw us, his arm fell quickly from her shoulders. He was just as uncomfortable as I was, I thought.

“Hello, Maria!” he called. He put his hand on the woman’s elbow to turn her toward us. In his other hand, he held a cigar.

“Hi, Ross,” I said.

He said something I couldn’t hear to the woman, and they began walking in our direction. I felt Charles’s hand on my back, lightly pushing me forward until the four of us met in the middle of the yard.

Ross looked wonderful, a little trimmer than the year before. I had trouble meeting his eyes. The delicious, woody scent of his cigar surrounded us.

“This is Joan Rockefeller,” he said. “Joan, this is my neighbor, Maria Foley. And this is…?” He raised his eyebrows in Charles’s direction.

“Charles Bauer,” I volunteered. “This is Ross Chapman.”

The two men shook hands while I studied Joan. She was a blond stunner. Huge blue eyes, carefully coiffed hair, a dress that hugged a very slender frame.

“Any relation to the New York Rockefellers?” Charles asked the question I was thinking. How much was this girl worth?

“I’m about a fifty-first cousin, thrice removed.” Joan laughed. Then she turned to me. “Ross said that your family and his have been summertime neighbors since you were small.” Her highpitched voice was almost childlike.

“That’s right,” I said.

“Maria taught me how to dance,” Ross said.