The choices of jobs were slim, to say the least, but then again, Edgartown, Massachusetts wasn’t exactly known for their open job market.

Daniella continued to scan the Sunday paper, a cup of lukewarm coffee nearby, and a red pen in her hand. There was little hope of finding anything in this small town. The best she could hope for would be a substitute teaching position until a full-time opening became available. In the meantime, she’d have to find something else to help her pay the rent.

Edgartown only had one school, that made the jobs very scarce, but the surrounding towns on Martha’s Vineyard Island had more schools. Hopefully, she’d find a position at one of them before she was forced to look on the mainland.

Daniella silently cursed herself as she turned the page. She should have started applying for jobs during the winter semester, but her mother had convinced her she would find something suitable when she moved back. After all, she was a Jefferson. Who wouldn’t want a woman with that historic name working for them?

Maybe if she had returned to Edgartown with her parents when she graduated in May, she’d have more options available to her. Instead, she delayed for two weeks so she could say good-bye to her friends and spend a little more time at the beach.

It was her own fault, she thought. She knew she was secretly hoping to find a permanent position at one of the schools she had assisted at over the past four years. Though she did get two very good offers, they weren’t good enough to convince her parents that staying in California was the right move for her.

It was Dotty’s day off, so breakfast was left to Alice to cook. The attractive blonde stood at the stove flipping pancakes as the music from the radio played the latest Katy Perry tune. She moved her hips to the beat while her daughter watched in amusement.

Since Daniella was a child, it had been this way. They would eat breakfast in the kitchen while the radio played, then hurry off to school. Even when she left home for college, she couldn’t start her day without the sound of a radio playing in the background. It was one of the things that made her feel like she wasn’t so far from home.

No matter how long she was away, coming home always held the same fascination for her. Daniella knew her parents’ home was the one place where she could feel comfortable. Even her luxury condo on the beach couldn’t provide the atmosphere she had grown accustomed to. Still, she knew she couldn’t stay. She had to move out and start her own life before her mother had the chance to marry her off to the son of one of her many friends or neighbors.

“Daniella, can I wear these today?” Mary asked as she came hurrying into the kitchen.

She had gone into Daniella’s closet and found her new pair of black mule pumps and had slipped her feet into them. Much to her older sister’s dismay, the shoes looked very good on Mary’s slender legs.

“Don’t ruin them,” Daniella scolded with a frown. “I haven’t worn them yet and I don’t want them scuffed up when I do.”

“Deal,” Mary screeched then turned and ran out of the kitchen, kissing her father’s cheek as she passed him.

“Good morning all,” Scott Jefferson said as he wrapped his arms around his wife’s waist and kissed her neck.

Daniella smiled and returned her attention to the newspaper in front of her. Even though her mother put up a front of sophistication and social dominance in public, in private she was always Scott Jefferson’s wife.

They had been sweethearts all the way through middle school and high school and married shortly after graduation. Jr. arrived eleven months later, while Scott was away at Harvard Business School. By the time Scott had graduated from college, Alice was pregnant with Daniella, followed by Mary who arrived six months after her father became the Assistant Mayor of Edgartown.

Since that time, Scott had served three consecutive terms with Mayor Carver. He retired from politics when Carver lost to Bradshaw and became Post Master to Edgartown’s only post office. It wasn’t the type of job the gracious Alice Jefferson approved of, yet it was exactly the type of job Scott wanted. Still, Alice managed to keep her head held high, repeating the moldy news that the Jefferson name was as old as Massachusetts itself.

Alice served as Secretary to Pastor Turner and was always the first to arrange or volunteer for charity functions, church socials, or city soiree. She headed the semi-annual Ladies Book Club Luncheon, the annual Founding Father’s Banquet, the Families of Massachusetts Annual Ball, and the Mayor’s Summer Barbeque. If she wasn’t volunteering or setting up functions, she was raising her daughters to be responsible, respectable young ladies of Massachusetts. They were, after all, the Jeffersons’.

“Any luck?” Scott asked his daughter as he joined her at the table, coffee cup in hand.

“None,” Daniella answered with a heavy sigh. “I guess I got here too late to apply for this year, and the few positions that were open got snatched up the minute they were posted.”

“Well, there’s still the job at the post office,” her father assured her, taking the funnies out of the stack of papers and settling back to read Garfield.

“I don’t mean to be rude, Dad, but I didn’t go to four years of college, just so I could deliver birthday cards to a batch of old biddies. I’m a history teacher. That’s what I want to do and what I’m going to do. Even if it’s only part-time or as a substitute. Then, next year I’ll be the first to get whatever job is listed.”

“I honestly don’t understand why you feel the need to teach other people’s children when you should be having children of your own,” Alice complained as she set a platter of bacon on the table, moving the papers to the counter.

“Mom, we’ve already been through all of this,” Daniella insisted, folding the paper she’d been looking through. “I’m an adult, I can’t live with my parents the rest of my life, and I won’t marry just to be someone’s wife. I want to be married for love. If I can’t do that, then I won’t marry at all.”

“Love comes with time,” Alice argued, returning to the stove. “You need to find the right man. A man with a name to be proud of, and a history of honor and dignity. That’s what I did, but fortunately, I loved your father before I had the fortune of becoming his wife. I had the best of both worlds. The proud name of Jefferson, and the man of my dreams.”

“But you didn’t even bother to look around and see what else there was, no offense Dad,” Daniella said, glancing to her father.

It had been an old argument between Alice and her oldest daughter, and one Scott had learned to tune out long ago. He simply smiled without looking up from his paper, sipping his coffee as the two continued.

“I didn’t have to look around,” Alice assured her as she set two more platters on the table, one with scrambled eggs, the other with pancakes. “I knew what I wanted at a very young age. That’s what you should have done, instead of wandering clear across the country to California. Lord only knows what sort of people were there.”

“The same kind that are here,” Daniella insisted. “Even Los Angeles has its share of snobs and debutantes.”

“Now see here,” Alice snapped with a deep frown creasing her perfectly applied eyebrows.

“I see Mom and Daniella are at it again,” Mary said as she joined the family in the kitchen.

She sat down at the table and began filling her plate before her mother had the chance to scold her about the short dress she was wearing, or the amount of makeup she had decorated her face with.

“Mary, I would greatly appreciate it if you did not come into the kitchen like some common, gutter snipe. A lady never enters a room noisily, or boldly…”

“She’s dainty and draws attention with her quiet beauty,” Mary remarked, repeating the comment her mother preached to her daily. “If I waited for people to notice I was in the room, I’d be eighty by the time someone looked my way.”

“Scott, are you listening to how your daughters are speaking to me?” Alice snapped, her hands on her hips as she stared down at her husband.

“Yes dear, whatever you’d like,” Scott remarked, causing the girls to laugh and Alice to sit down with a grunt.

“Mom, you raised us to know right from wrong, and we do,” Daniella told her. “But now it’s our turn to see if we can follow your examples. We may seem a little rough around the edges, but only at home.”

“We are the dignified young women you made us,” Mary added quickly as she stuffed her mouth full of bacon.

“Dignified, indeed,” a male voice said as Jr. and his wife Melissa came around the corner of the kitchen. “You’re about as dignified as an old barn owl.”

“At least I’m happy,” Mary commented around her full mouth, as the very pregnant Melissa lowered herself into the chair.

“I swear, you girls are going to drive me to drink,” Alice grumbled as she began filling a plate with food.

Daniella took a plate and placed a small helping of eggs and bacon on it, ignoring the pancakes. Until she could get to the gym and pick up her normal routine, she was not going to eat more than she needed to stop her stomach from grumbling.

“The girls are fine, dear,” Scott finally said as he folded his paper and accepted the plate his wife passed to him. “You’ve done a marvelous job raising them. So, what if they’re a little less refined than you would have liked. They are still fine young women.”

“Thank you, Daddy,” Mary said, batting her eyes.

Daniella rolled her eyes and silently ate her breakfast as the subject turned to the day ahead of them. Sundays were always spent with family, starting with breakfast, followed by two hours in a hot church listening to the aging Pastor Turner who got side-tracked easily, moving from one lecture to the next. Afterwards, they would return home and play croquet in the large back yard or spend the day around the television as they watched an old movie and waited for supper to cook.

It had been this way since she was a child. It was this way with her grandparents, and their parents since the time they settled this uncivilized country. Daniella was certain her brother would continue the old worn out tradition when their child was born. It just wasn’t what she wanted.

To be completely honest, she hadn’t attended church since she started college, four years earlier. Her Sundays were spent at the beach with friends, followed by a night on the town and dancing at a nightclub or two. It wasn’t that she stopped believing in God, it was just that she didn’t see a reason to sit in a hot church for hours, then return home only to sit for hours on end until bedtime.

“I’m not sure why you are so hell fired to get a job, anyway,” Alice was saying, looking at her eldest daughter from across the table. “You should relax and enjoy your summer. You’ve been gone a long time. I don’t think you’ve even called your friends since you came back.”

“I called Angela Mitchell last night and made arrangements to meet her for lunch this afternoon,” Daniella said, suddenly regretting her admission when her mother gasped audibly.

“You’re not going out on the Sabbath,” she said, practically screeching the words.

“No, Mom, I’m meeting her at her place. We’re going to have lunch and catch up on what’s been happening around here while I’ve been away.”

“Thank heavens,” Alice said with a deep sigh. “I’d hate to think of what people might say if they saw you out on a Sunday.”

“They’d say, look, there’s the Jefferson girl. Isn’t she a progressive thinker, breaking the Sabbath while her poor old mother prays for her worthless soul. Her proud ancestors must be rolling over in their graves.”

Daniella knew she’d said too much when the people at the table stopped eating and stared at her with wide eyes. But she couldn’t help it. Her mother had lectured her for twenty-five long years, and she was growing tired of it.

Without another word spoken, Daniella stood up from the table and excused herself, then walked out of the room. She didn’t want to spend her first Sunday back home in church or playing croquet while her mother’s pot-roast baked in the oven. It was the same every week. Surely, someone would have stood up to the old traditions before now. Why was it left for her to do?

In her room, Daniella sat in the window’s box seat and stared out at the world passing her by. This had been her favorite place to sit when she was a child. She’d dream of the world outside of this island and fantasize about seeing it all. She had so many plans for her life when she was eight. What happened to her over the past fifteen years? Had she changed so much that she didn’t feel comfortable, even in her own parents’ home?

She should never have come back here, Daniella thought. She wanted her freedom, she wanted to have fun and enjoy life while she was young enough to embrace it. But her mother had made other plans for her eldest daughter’s future. If Brandon Woodley hadn’t run off and married that tramp Stacy Hamblin, she was certain her mother would be planning their wedding right now. Despite her objections that she never loved Brandon.

Fortunately, he had married Stacy, and she was free to explore the world on her own. In complete honesty, she rather liked it that way. She wanted to see what the world had available for a woman of her age. She wanted to try everything she could before she was forced to settle down and start the next branch of the Jefferson tree, with a man she didn’t love, in a town she was desperate to put behind her, once and for all.

“Have you talked to Brandon since you got back?” Angela asked as they sipped their ice teas while sitting on the balcony of her apartment.

“No, and I doubt I’ll ever see him,” Daniella answered her with a soft shrug of her shoulders. “He made his decision, and I’m free to move forward without him. The fact is, I’m not all that upset. I was when I first got his letter telling me he was marrying Slutty Stacy, but after my ego healed, I started going out and having fun. I don’t think I ever loved him, not true love at least. It was more of a high school crush, and if we had stayed together, I’d be marrying him in a matter of weeks, and most likely divorcing him a few months later.”

“I didn’t think there was any real emotion between you two. Did you have anyone special in all those men you dated?”

“No, not really. I mean, there were a lot of guys, and I had great fun, I even dated a couple of actors, but nothing serious. I just wanted to have fun and concentrate on school.”

“So, are you still a virgin?” Angela asked boldly. “You didn’t let anyone steal your innocence, even a knight from the great town of Hollywood?”

“I always thought I’d know when I found the man I wanted to give my virginity to. I had plenty of opportunities in California, but I never found the right guy. But I can promise you, the minute I lay eyes on the guy, my legs are spreading wide.”

Daniella and Angela laughed at the imagery, as they continued eating.

“And now you’re here,” Angela said a few minutes later. “Why are you here? I mean, if I was dating a movie star, I sure wouldn’t come back to Edgartown.”

“I promised my parents I’d return once school was over. I couldn’t go back on my word, especially since they paid for my schooling and the condo on the beach.”

“Well, if I were you, I’d have found a job tout de sweet, and told them I wasn’t coming back.”

“But you’re different than I am. You’re free and independent. I’m a sucker who follows the rules to the last letter.”

“Boring,” Angela said with a half grin. “He had to get married, you know.”

“Who?” Daniella asked with a frown.

“Brandon. After you left, he claimed he was depressed, or at least he pretended he was. Not that he lacked companionship, mind you, but he made the mistake of taking Slutty-Stacy out and wound up getting drunk. A few weeks later she told him she was pregnant and convinced him that he had stolen her virginity. Yeah, right. That whore was a virgin, like I’m a swimsuit model for Sports Illustrated.”

“Poor Brandon,” Daniella said with feigned sympathy.

“Stacy blackmailed him,” Angela continued with a soft giggle. “She told him if he didn’t marry her, she would tell her brothers and father and they’d come after him. He always was a coward, and she wanted something she couldn’t have.”

“She was always chasing after Brandon in high school,” Daniella said. “She felt she should have the quarterback since she was the head cheerleader. Not the computer geek who spent all of her time in the library.”

“Yeah, that was her. Do you know I heard she even slept with Mr. Hardy, the science teacher, because she was flunking? Funny, she graduated with honors, and she was dumber than Charlie McDaniel. Makes you wonder how many other teachers she screwed to get a passing grade.”

“More than I want to know.”

“Anyway, they were married four months later. You should have seen the wedding. What a spectacle. Her parents must have spent twenty thousand dollars on the thing. Everyone who knew her lie was beginning to wonder why she wasn’t showing. Four months pregnant and still wearing her string bikini. They left on a three-week honeymoon cruise, and when they got back, she told everyone she’d had a miscarriage on the boat. By then, Brandon was working for her father, managing one of his car lots. If he left her, he’d lose his job and the house her parents bought them as a wedding present, and they would all know he married her because of a lie.”

“And everyone knows Harold Hamblin isn’t the sort to let a lie spoil his spotless reputation,” Daniella said with a chuckle.

“I think he stayed more out of greed than fear,” Angela assured her. “I heard they are both screwing other people. As many as they can. Hell, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if they did it together. Stacy loves being the center of attention.”

“That’s gross,” Daniella giggled.

“I know,” Angela said with wide eyes. “Let’s go shopping. We can hit a movie or go to a nightclub.”

“I can’t,” Daniella said in a soft, almost regrettable tone. “It’s Sunday. My mom would have kittens if I broke the Sabbath by having fun.”

“Oh, come on. You did your duty by going to church, and I just got a huge bonus check I’m not going to tell Richie about. We can go have fun and spend an obscene amount of money. I haven’t bought a new pair of shoes in over six months.”

“It sounds like a lot of fun. More fun than croquet with the family, but you know how people talk. If anyone were to see us, they’d tell my parents. I’m trying to keep life calm until I can find a job and my own place.”

“We’ll go to Plymouth,” Angela suggested. “Nobody will see you there. Everyone will be here, doing their duty to the church and God. They wouldn’t think about going out, especially all the way to the mainland. We can stay the night at Max’s. Who’s to know?”

“What would I tell my parents?” Daniella asked as excitement began to bubble up inside her.

“Tell them you’re going to spend the night with me. It won’t be a lie. You’ll be with me. We’ll just be at my Gram’s instead of here. They’ll never know, and you can come back tomorrow and pretend everything is as wonderful as when you left.”

“They can’t object if they don’t know I’m going anywhere,” Daniella said. “And they don’t know where you live. I doubt my mom would be caught dead in a middle-class neighborhood like this.”

“So? Call them, and let’s get going. We’ll take the ferry over and spend the entire afternoon shopping and having fun.”

“I could do with some new clothes to go job hunting in,” she said thoughtfully as she took her cell from her pocket.

“There you go,” Angela squealed. “You call your folks and I’ll leave a note for Richie.”

Daniella smiled as her friend hurried back into her apartment, allowing her time to call her parents without interruption. She knew she’d probably go to hell for lying to them, but it was her life and she was an adult. It was time she started acting like one.