“Not all the time. Viktor Olofsson had a nasty habit of always beating me on the ice. I used to get very mad.” Saying this, an image of him from the night before played before my eyes. His earnest eyes and warm hands and surprising softness of his lips. A delicious shiver went up the back of my spine.
“I like to win too,” Delphia said. “I like everyone to pay attention to me.”
“We know.” Addie smiled as she looked over at her sister with fondness.
“Do you hate it?” Delphia asked. “That I’m always getting attention?”
“Not at all,” Addie said. “I prefer they look at you and ignore me completely.”
“Why do you want to be ignored?” I didn’t like the idea of her being ignored simply because of her vivacious sister.
“I like to be left alone to read my books,” Addie said.
“Or write in that silly journal,” Delphia said.
“It’s not silly.” Addie’s fair skin flushed. “I write about life in there.”
“If your nose was ever out of a book, you’d have more to write about,” Delphia said, sounding suspiciously like me and my big, bossy mouth. I made a vow to be more careful around my little sisters. They were impressionable. Giving them ideas about how to be sassy served no one, especially them. Why did everything bad about my family always lead back to me? Would they all be better off if I disappeared?
We were in the main part of town by then. A sleeping town waking up. Shopkeepers were outside their front doors sweeping the wooden sidewalks. Mrs. Johnson was outside her dry goods store watering pots of yellow mums. She raised a hand when I beeped the car horn. Mr. Olofsson was already hard at work, bent over his latest project in the window of his tailor’s shop. Several men were getting a shave in the barbershop. My uncle Clive seemed deep in thought as he put the open sign in the window of Higgins Brothers Butcher Shop. Aunt Annabelle was going to have a baby any day now. After years without children, they’d been quite surprised by the pregnancy. Mama had told me her sister and Clive had resigned themselves to a childless marriage. They’d always been so in love, and Annabelle had her own successful business making wedding gowns for the elite of Colorado that their lives had been full. Still, my aunt and uncle were thrilled that a baby would come sometime around Christmas.
I pulled into the lot next to the school and turned off the engine. “Do you want me to walk you in?” I asked, already knowing they would decline my invitation. Last year, Delphia loved when I walked her up to the front doors, but she’d announced on the first day this year that she would be escorting herself into school. “I’m not a baby,” she’d told me.
“No, thank you,” Delphia said.
I caught her eye in the rearview mirror. “Don’t forget what Mama said about teasing.”
Delphia’s face sobered. “I won’t.”
“Have a good day,” I said as they climbed out of the back seat.
For a moment, I sat in the car, watching them walk up the steps of the schoolhouse. How different it was now from when I’d been Delphia’s age. Our little town had grown up.
Poppyand I spent the morning with the Fredericks’ sheep, who were indeed infested with worms. We prescribed our usual remedy, which Poppy had concocted from tar and vinegar. By noon we were on our way down the dirt road in Poppy’s truck. The air was crisp but sunny, and we decided to stop by the river to have our sandwiches. Lizzie always packed two of everything, knowing that Poppy would need a lunch as well. Having grown up with us, Poppy was practically another of the Barnes siblings. When we were young, she and Josephine had been best friends and remained so to this day.
We sat at one of the picnic tables on the lawn that overlooked the river. During the warm weather, this was a popular location for the youth of Emerson Pass to congregate. We often had bonfires on the sandy beach. In the summers, children swam and played in the water. Today, however, the park was empty other than us and the ducks.
While I unpacked our lunch, Poppy took off her hat. Her glossy brown hair had grown out a few inches from the shorter bob she’d come home with a few years ago and nestled just shy of her shoulders.
Poppy tilted her face toward the sun and closed her eyes. Her skin was a few shades darker than my own alabaster complexion and looked luminous under the blue sky. She stretched her legs out and yawned. A dried piece of mud fell from the sole of her boot.
“Are you tired?” I asked.
“A little. I was out late with Neil last night. We drove out here to look at the giant moon.”
“It was a nice evening.” I handed Poppy one of Lizzie’s ham-and-butter sandwiches and took one for myself. There were two apples and several cookies as well. We would not starve on Lizzie’s watch.
I studied my friend before taking a bite of my sandwich. Small and strong, she moved with ease and speed but was graceful, too, like a dancer. Today, she’d been fidgety and distracted. She’d barely said two words all morning. “Everything peachy?” I asked.
“What? Oh, yes.” She pulled her hat back over her glossy hair. As modern as we were, we still coveted our complexions and didn’t want to get too much sun. “I’ve news. I suppose you could call it that. But I’m nervous to tell you.”
“Yes?” I braced myself for what was coming.
“Neil has asked me to marry him. Can you believe it? An old maid like me? Getting married at twenty-eight?”
“You said yes, then?” Neil Hartman was Emma’s brother. A perfectly nice man and not hard on the eyes, but this was our Poppy. The Hartman siblings had opened a feed store in town. Poppy had met Neil when she went in for supplies for her horses. She’d been smitten almost immediately. I’d not predicted it. Not at all. I’d imagined that she and I would be the last women standing. The only ones in this town who would resist convention. Would Neil stifle her? Keep her from her work?
“I said yes.” Her dark eyes sparkled. “Isn’t love the most remarkable thing? Turning an old workhorse like me into a blushing bride?”
“I suppose.” I took another bite of my sandwich, which now tasted of river rocks. What would happen to me if Poppy stopped working to stay home and raise babies?
“Don’t be like that.” She nudged my shoulder with her elbow. “Nothing’s going to change.”
“You say that now.”
“He understands about my work,” Poppy said. “We’ve agreed I’ll keep working.”
I nodded as if I believed it all to be true. However, I wasn’t so sure everything would go as planned. Married people had a habit of having babies.
“What about you?” Poppy asked. “Have you come to your senses about Viktor yet?”
“It depends on what you mean.”
“What happened?” She nudged me again. “Spill it. I know he was at dinner out at your house last night.”
“How did you know that?”