On Thanksgiving Day, Selene picked at her turkey. She had gotten over being queasy each morning, but her dresses, even relatively loose ones she had brought from New York, felt tight. She would have to send for at least a couple of maternity dresses soon. She dreaded the thought. So proud of her slim figure, she no longer looked good in the linear fashions she adored. At least her condition wasn’t permanent.
She wondered how her friends fared back home. No doubt they planned a big bash at the Algonquin to celebrate on Saturday, according to their custom. Today they’d be dining with their families, and she would have been invited to several of those celebrations. As in Maiden, in New York her friends’ families also seemed to feel sorry for her, always including her in their plans since Father was never home over Thanksgiving. Of course, he’d try to make up for it on Christmas by never letting his latest mistress anywhere near their penthouse. He would devote the day to her, giving her eggnog laced with forbidden bourbon and presenting her with a bauble from Tiffany’s. She wondered if he would send her a piece of jewelry for Christmas this year by post. She didn’t care. His attention would have been better. If only he would visit for Christmas—but she knew without asking that he wouldn’t. His own life and New York friends were too important to him.
She considered her hosts as they dined. The Barringtons had aged well, looking hale and hearty though they were past their prime. They seemed to get along well. Some couples would put on a front of civility for guests though one could feel seething rage below the surface. Sometimes her own parents had acted that way before Mother died. But the Barringtons seemed to care for each other, as though they were close friends near and dear to each others’ hearts. Their marriage seemed enviable. Could she ever aspire to such a match? With her past, she doubted such happiness awaited her in the future.
Booth, meanwhile, couldn’t take his attention away from Hestia. Didn’t he know she’d be going back home in the spring?
Even Aunt Louisa seemed to be having a good time. For once, the lines on her face looked softer, and she laughed. Some moments hinted at what she must have been like as a young woman. Clearly not as strict, or as provincial. She wondered why Aunt Louisa never had children of her own and if she regretted her decision. Or had poor health sealed her fate? She wanted to ask, but the older generation made such topics off-limits, acting insulted if anyone even dared to broach what could be an honest conversation.
As she swirled her fork in a mound of sausage stuffing covered with gravy, Selene’s thoughts turned to Artie. She wished she could have finagled him an invitation to the Barringtons’, but of course to suggest the presence of an extra guest would have been the height of rudeness. She hated breaking the news that she couldn’t accept his invitation. When she did, his disappointment seemed genuine. A fantasy that he might invite her to another event entered her mind, but how could he? The fact that she expected a baby in a few months made such an idea nothing more than a dream.
“I don’t remember when I’ve had a nicer Thanksgiving,” Booth confessed to Hestia after the feast. He had taken her outside to the back porch of the Barringtons’.
“Neither can I.” Hestia looked at the moon. Crossing her arms, she stared at the backyard. “I’ll have to say, your mother puts on quite a meal. I haven’t been so stuffed in a long time.”
“Neither have I.”
“I’m glad Aunt Louisa called off the dessert and coffee at our house. I couldn’t eat another bite.”
Booth groaned. “Maybe tomorrow.” Following Hestia’s lead, he gazed at the yard he had played in many times as a boy. Since it was autumn, he especially recalled how he had jumped into the piles of leaves his father raked. Now Booth did most of the raking, and no one jumped in the leaves. The thought of raking leaves into piles so his children could jump into them popped into his mind. Would they giggle and wave their arms, feeling crisp brown leaves against their hands, hearing the light crackle of them rubbing against each other?
“A penny for your thoughts.”
Considering she’d be leaving Maiden soon, he feared scaring her with such definite thoughts of the future. “I think I’d better let you keep your penny.”
“Oh, I’m sure you underestimate the value of your thoughts.” Sending him an indulgent smile, she changed the topic. “I appreciate how kind you and your parents are being to Selene. Not everyone would be, you know.”
“There are judgmental people anywhere you go. I’m glad Selene hasn’t met any of the ones we have here.”
“Miss Olive is probably the closest I’ve encountered, and though she likes to talk, she doesn’t have a malicious bone in her body.” She sighed. “You have such good people here.”
He couldn’t argue that. “Don’t tell me we’re that much different than Haw River.”
She shrugged. “Of course we have the same ideas about how to live. Most of us love the Lord. But Maiden is a special place.”
With her face shadowed by the moon so that the curve of her cheek evidenced itself, beams of soft light captured the black irises of her eyes. Hestia seemed mystical. He couldn’t resist expressing his feelings. “It’s more special now that you’re here. And it will be lonely once you’re gone.”
“You, lonely? I don’t believe it.”
“I won’t say I don’t have friends. God has been good to me and put many friends in my path. But you do add a spark everywhere you go. I know your friends will be happy to see you return.” At that moment, he wished he could kiss her. But to do so, knowing she would soon be departing, seemed to be taking advantage of her. “Will we have another chance to go to church, at least? Everyone will want a chance to tell you good-bye.”
“Of course I’ll go to church with you again. And they don’t have to tell me good-bye. At least not this Sunday.”
“I heard Miss Louisa mention that she still gets mighty weak.”
“She does get weak. But that’s not the only reason I’ll be here a little longer. I’ve agreed to stay until Selene’s baby arrives this spring.”
He tried not to look like a little boy at Christmas, though he felt as though he’d just gotten an early gift. “Really? That’s swell…if you don’t mind me saying so.”
She laughed. “I don’t mind.”
The idea of kissing her entered his thoughts once more. She had just taken the barrier of an early departure from him, yet he still felt the time wasn’t right. Maybe it never would be. Maybe the whole idea of her ever being interested in him as more than a friendly neighbor and childhood playmate was only a fantasy.
A few days later, the mail brought Hestia a letter from one of her friends in Haw River named Gertie. Wanting privacy, Hestia went to the bedroom and sat on her bed. She opened the letter and skimmed items about friends and acquaintances before reading surprising news:
Oh, and I have such exciting news. Mama and Papa let me bob my hair! Now please don’t be cross with me, my dear friend, because I know we sort of made a promise to each other that we would never let scissors touch our hair. But a few of the girls here have started taking the plunge, and we were so tired of feeling as though we looked like our mothers, we—yes, I said “we”—decided to take the plunge, too. Last Saturday, the week before Thanksgiving, June and I cut each other’s hair! I was so nervous! She was, too, but everything turned out just peachy. Do you know I actually lost three pounds when I had my hair cut? Isn’t that unbelievable? I feel so different, and everyone says it’s a good look for me. June likes hers, too. When you come home, we want to cut your hair, too. Now that we have, I think your parents will allow you to cut yours. Of course, Mama cried her eyes out when she saw I didn’t have any hair. She made me keep a long lock of hair. We braided it, and she’s going to frame it like a picture. She’s such a silly thing, but aren’t all mothers sentimental like that? June’s mother is framing hers, too. I won’t tell a falsehood—it felt very strange to look at myself in the mirror for a while. I had to get accustomed to the new me. But it didn’t take too long. And when I went to June’s annual Thanksgiving party, I got so many compliments! That surprised me the most. Let me correct that. What surprised me most is that now Mama is thinking of bobbing her hair! I wonder if you’ll recognize any of us when you come home.
Her stomach lurched. Now that her friends—and perhaps even their mothers—were bobbing their hair, she would look ridiculous among them, with her waist-long locks. Clearly, fashion was catching up to them all. She wondered about the rest of their new look. Would it be complete without dresses? Gertie didn’t say anything about sewing herself new dresses. Those linear styles tended toward the short side, not as modest as they all wore now. Shorn hair was bound to lead to short dresses. Surely her friends’ dresses would be more modest than the flappers’, perhaps longer. As for rouge, she doubted even the most daring girls in her set at home would paint their faces.
Hestia ran her palm over the top of her hair. Maybe she could get used to the idea of shorn locks. If she didn’t dye hers platinum like Selene’s, then perhaps people wouldn’t look askance at her. On the one hand, she wanted to look modest. Yet if she went too far to the extreme, she would look odd and out of place. Such a stance would be acceptable if she lived in a community known for separation, such as the Shakers or the Amish, but she lived as a doctor’s daughter in Haw River. If she drew stares for being too old-fashioned for her age, would that be honoring the Lord?
“Lord, I know You care about everything concerning me, even something as trivial as my hairstyle. Guide me so I represent You in word, deed, and appearance.”
She didn’t want to think about hair anymore. Looking back at the letter, she took in a breath when she saw Luther’s name.
My dear, I hate to be the bearer of bad news. I know you are aware that that skunk Luther has already begun courting a new girl here, one who couldn’t hold a candle to you. Well, you’ll never guess what. He is now engaged to her! It makes all of us sick to see him. We are doing our best to avoid the both of them, but it’s hard since they’re on everyone’s guest list. I’m only glad you’re not here to witness such a sickening development.
Hestia read the passage again to be sure she’d read it right. She had.
“I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry,” Hestia muttered to herself.
Regrettably, mind did not conquer matter and tears flowed. She had long ago reconciled herself to the fact that she and Luther were through. She didn’t want to see him, and he hadn’t contacted her. In a way, she wished he’d write and beg her to come back to him. Yet that wish was only pride talking. Reading that he was courting someone was bad enough. Of course he’d start courting someone. Why wouldn’t he? She had no claim on him now. Besides, it had all started when he decided being engaged wasn’t enough to stop him from flirting with other women. Surely she would have lived a life filled with insecurity and mistrust had she gone through with her marriage to Luther. Yet reading that he had taken his courtship to the next level—engagement—well, that hurt. Hurt much more than she ever thought possible. She hated the tears she cried and hated herself for caring.
Rising from the bed, she felt the need to release some energy. She peered out the window beyond the lace curtains. Thankfully, many leaves awaited in Aunt Louisa’s yard. The leaves on the maple trees, recently in full red glory, had fallen almost as quickly as they turned. She suspected the oak’s brown leaves would linger into winter, but in the meantime she’d been trying to keep the yard as clean as she could during the past two weeks.
She hid the offending missive in the top drawer of her side of the vanity and headed for the coat closet in the front parlor. With more energy than necessary, she threw on the gray wool coat she wore for work.
“I’m raking,” she called to Selene and Aunt Louisa.
“You’ve been working like a madwoman on those leaves. Don’t overtax yourself,” Aunt Louisa called back.
“I won’t.”
On most days, she enjoyed the musty smell of autumn air, but not today. Today she was on a mission. She headed for the woodshed in the backyard, passing a small load of laundry hanging on the line. She touched the hem of a petticoat, drying as it whipped in the wind. It still felt too damp to bring in, although the chilly weather made it hard to discern exactly when fresh laundry had dried. She decided to let it hang outside a bit longer. She wouldn’t set fire to the leaves until late in the day, when the women had taken in their laundry, so the smell of smoke wouldn’t affect anyone’s clean clothes.
The wind was a bit more energetic than she preferred for her task, but nothing would stop her. Rake in hand, she headed to the front lawn. With vigor she raked and raked, bringing fallen leaves to the small ditch at the edge of the front yard. A neighborhood mutt she recognized trotted through the leaves, and she waved her rake in his direction to shoo him away with more anger than she meant. The poor little thing took off yelping.
At times she raked so hard she almost stripped the grass from the topsoil. She muttered to herself, “Why? Why am I still so hurt?”
“You’re hurt?”
She jumped, almost dropping the rake. “Booth! What are you doing, sneaking up on me like that?”
“I’m sorry. It’s just that you were muttering to yourself and I wondered what you were saying. Who hurt you?”
She wasn’t sure what to say. Embarrassed though she was, the only thing she could do was tell the truth. “Luther. He hurt me.”
“Oh. Your fiancé.”
“Former fiancé.” Frowning, she resumed raking as though a strict employer had issued an urgent deadline for the job to be complete within the hour.
He placed his hand on her shoulder in an unspoken request for her to stop working. “You know, we’ve talked a lot, but you never told me what happened.”
She couldn’t look in his eyes. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Oh, but I think you do. Or, at least, you need to. It upsets me to see you let him affect you this way. You still love him, don’t you?” He sounded almost hurt himself.
“No. No, I don’t.”
“Do you mean that?”
“I—I do. He’s been seeing someone else for quite a while now, but I didn’t think he’d get engaged almost the moment I left Haw River.”
Booth’s eyes widened, reminding her of their blueness. “Already?”
“I must be forgettable.”
“No. Never.”
“Thanks for being a friend, Booth. I wasn’t fishing for a compliment.” He opened his mouth to say something else, but she stopped him. “My pride is hurt more than anything else. Okay, you got me to admit I’m prideful. And upset. Are you happy now?”
“No, I’m not. I’m never happy when I see you upset.”
She kept raking.
“Please stop working long enough to tell me what really happened.”
“No.”
“If you don’t, your aunt won’t have any grass left and I’ll have to come over next spring and plant grass seed. You don’t wish all that work on me, do you?”
“No, I guess not.” She stopped raking.
“So, please, tell me.”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Why do you think? Because I care about you, that’s why.”
“You want to know why he broke it off with me?” She didn’t want to admit her humiliation to anyone, but maybe the time had come to share it with Booth.
“I thought you broke it off with him.”
She swallowed. “I did, formally. It’s just that he had left me long before I drew up the courage to confront him.” She stared at the steps leading to the veranda—anything to keep from looking into his handsome face. She couldn’t stand the thought of witnessing his pity. “You see, he found other women more attractive than me, his future wife.”
“Then he’s a fool.”
Hestia would have protested, but Booth’s vehemence told her he spoke the truth as he saw it. “Thank you for saying so. I wonder if it wasn’t partly my fault. He thought I wasn’t modern enough, with my style of dress, and the fact that I don’t sport a bob.” She touched her long hair. “I can’t help but wonder if things would have been different if I’d been more fashionable.”
“You mean, if you had betrayed yourself? No, that’s never a good idea. An unfaithful man will find any excuse. That just happened to be his. Better that you found out sooner than later what he was really like. And as for fashion, I think you look swell. Only a very few girls dress and cut their hair like Selene does. I imagine bobbed hair and short dresses will be out of style by this time next year.”
Glad for a more cheerful topic, Hestia answered with dash. “I don’t know. I just got a letter from one of my friends back home. Not only has she bobbed her hair, but her mother is thinking of doing the same thing.”
“That’s hard to believe.”
“Maybe it’s not so bad. Gertie—that’s the friend who wrote to me—seems to think she looks very good in the new style. I know you think Selene is pretty. And I do, too. Would you like me to sport such a new look?”
“I’ll borrow a phrase from Selene. You’d look copacetic no matter what.”
She laughed. “So you wouldn’t mind if I bobbed my hair? Or if I wore my dresses a little shorter?”
“Not if it made you feel more comfortable. I look at the heart. And I believe yours is pure. I don’t think dressing in the new fashions and changing your hair makes a person bad. But I do think that if you wore face paint it would cause quite a stir, so I hope you would stay away from that.”
Maybe she could live with that. She looked at the leaves in the ditch and set down her rake. “See that pile of leaves?”
“You’ve been working hard.”
She eyed them and grinned. “Want to jump in those leaves?”
“Jump? In those? Why, sure!” He took her by the hand, and they ran together and leaped feetfirst into the pile. Leaves flew and rustled when they made impact. Booth took handfuls and threw them at her. She threw handfuls in return. Each of them flailed their arms in the air, swishing leaves up and around. Before they knew it, they were laughing together as though they were kids instead of responsible adults. They laughed until they were winded, and Hestia realized she’d needed the emotional release.
Their energy spent, Hestia and Booth dropped into the leaves and laid beside each other. Hestia didn’t want to rise, and Booth made no motion to stand. She looked at the fall sky. From the corner of her eye, she noticed he looked upward, too.
“See that cloud?” He pointed to a fluffy confection. “What does it look like to you?”
“An elephant.”
“An elephant. Yes, I’d say you’re right. I can see the trunk and ears. How about the one beside it?”
She didn’t know what she saw. “Your turn to go first.”
“A heart.”
“A heart?” She noticed that, indeed, it did look like a fat heart. “Yes, I see what you mean.”
She sensed that he had turned his head to look at her. She turned to look at him, too. Those blue eyes. She could look into them forever. His eyes reminded her of the sky, but she didn’t dare tell him so. She longed for the freedom to share such thoughts, but she couldn’t. She had to settle for something anemic. “I’m glad you came over when you did. You always seem to know just when I need you.”
“Do I?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
He drew his face closer. She felt her eyes closing ever so slightly. She wanted him to kiss her. Very much.
“Mercy!”
Hestia jumped and sat up, and Booth followed suit. Hestia hadn’t heard Miss Olive approach, and judging from the way he mimicked Hestia’s shock, Booth had also been oblivious. They greeted the older woman with shy voices and rose to their feet. Ever the gentleman, Booth extended his hand to help Hestia rise even though she didn’t need assistance.
“You had better be standing upright. This is an absolute disgrace! The two of you lying down like that. What do you think you’re doing?”
“We were just playing, Miss Olive.” Booth brushed leaves from his jacket.
“Playing? I’ll say you were playing. Just wait until I tell your aunt, Hestia. She will be very disappointed. Don’t you think your family has enough disgrace with Selene being in the shape she’s in, without you acting in such a way?”
“I’m sorry, Miss Olive.” Hestia felt confident that she blushed enough to show her chagrin. “We really were just having a little innocent fun. Please forgive me. And if you don’t mind, I wish you wouldn’t burden Aunt Louisa. You’re right—she does have enough on her without worrying about me, too.”
“What about you, Booth? I expected much better of you.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry I caused Miss Hestia to appear anything but the most virtuous woman that I know her to be. Please forgive me. And I beg your forgiveness, Hestia.”
She nodded.
Holding a basket of pecans, Miss Olive stood before them like a grumpy schoolmarm. “I came to bring these pecans I had left over from harvesting my trees. I know you have some from Artie Rowland, but mine are the kind that are easy to shell.” Having outdone Artie, she peered down her nose at them. “It seems you two have other things to do than worrying about pecans.”
“No, ma’am. I don’t have anything else to do. I can shell pecans this afternoon,” Hestia hurried to assure her. “Thank you for bringing them.”
“I can help you, Hestia.” Booth sounded as though he were a dull student trying to gain the teacher’s favor.
“In the presence of her aunt, I hope.” Miss Olive squinted her eyes at them.
“Yes, ma’am.” Now Hestia sounded like the dull student.
“Mercy! The two of you are acting as though you’re children.” Miss Olive surveyed the misplaced leaves. “Now just look at all the extra work you two created for yourselves.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Booth surveyed the leaves as though he’d never seen them before. “I’ll help Hestia rake them back.”
“I would certainly hope so.” The topic exhausted, Miss Olive ventured elsewhere. “Is your aunt home?”
Hestia nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I know she’d love to see you.”
As Miss Olive took her leave of them, shaking her head all the while, the two recalcitrant young adults watched her.
“I’ll rake.” Booth grabbed the rake from where Hestia had left it propped on a nearby tree.
“I can do it,” Hestia protested, although her enthusiasm for the project had waned.
“You can take a turn.” Hestia doubted he planned for her to work, but she admired him for saying she could. “If I were a little younger, I’d be tempted to stick out my tongue at her.”
“Now, Booth!” Hestia mocked. “I can’t believe you’d consider such a thing.”
He gave her a sheepish grin.
“Truth be told, I was tempted to do the same thing.” Hestia giggled, and Booth laughed. Hestia looked back toward the house and saw the front parlor curtain open a couple of inches and shut back. “She must be tattling on us now.”
“Your aunt knows Miss Olive pretty well. I imagine since we’re now hard at work raking, she’ll excuse us. Let’s just pray she doesn’t make this out as more than it was.”
“True.” She wondered what would have happened in that moment, had they not been interrupted. Would there ever be another moment like it again?