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  The idea of a simple family dinner had evolved into a full-blown surprise affair to be held the following week. Bethan had grown so excited over it all that she had scarcely slept a wink. It wouldn’t matter that it would be a bit later than the actual day.

  Finally the last of the guests arrived. Bethan looked around the circle of school friends. Everyone had come.

  She waved to catch the attention of the chattering girls. With a nod toward the mantel clock, she addressed them. “She’ll be coming any minute now. Stay in here and be quiet. She always comes to the kitchen door. I’ll bring her in here to the piano. As soon as I draw up the shades, you all jump up and shout ‘Happy Birthday.’ ”

  An excited twitter passed through the room, followed by a chorus of shushes. Bethan hurried back to the kitchen, feeling her heart pounding with excitement and nervousness. She paced as she waited for the rap at the door. Jodie was always punctual.

  At one minute before seven, Bethan heard steps on the back porch. She wiped damp hands on her skirt and moved to the door. She reminded herself that she needed to try to remain casual through the first few minutes.

  She opened the door almost before Jodie had finished the first knock. For once she was thankful for the porch’s dim lighting, which might help to hide her strained smile. “On time as always. Come on in.”

  Jodie entered and took off her summer hat, setting it on the kitchen table. She sniffed the air. “Has your momma been baking again?”

  Bethan had not even thought about the aromas. She forced a laugh. “You know Momma. She’s always baking something.”

  Jodie nodded. “So where’s the music that has you puzzled?”

  Bethan took a deep breath and steered her toward the front parlor. “In here. I left it on the piano. I’ve been trying to pick my way through it, but you know me. My… my music reading skills aren’t nearly as polished as yours.” She rushed through the explanation and kept up the determined chatter as she led the way across the hall. She gently ushered Jodie in before her, stepping aside and leaving her best friend standing alone at the door of the room. Which was exactly how Jodie was when the shades swept up and an enthusiastic chorus of “Happy Birthday” filled the air.

  Jodie’s head jerked upright. For one moment she looked utterly confused and bewildered.

  As their friends gathered around, chattering and laughing gaily at the effect of their surprise, Jodie turned to Bethan. Her eyes said far more than Jodie, with all her gift for words, had ever spoken. In that instant Bethan knew that her busy week of planning and thinking had been well worth the effort. This was one birthday Jodie Harland would never forget.

  NINE

  “I’M NOT SURE.”

  The words were barely a whisper. Bethan tipped her head slightly and studied herself in the gilt-edged oval mirror by her bureau. Her hair was piled in a strange heap of curls at the top of her head, with a large black-and-white ribbon tied precariously on one side. It made her feel as though it would all come tumbling down if she moved too quickly.

  “I think it is positively beautiful,” Jodie announced.

  It was hard to question Jodie when she was this certain about something. “Don’t you think it’s a little, well, strange?” Bethan dared ask.

  “I think it is stunning.” Jodie patted at a wayward curl. “Not to mention extremely daring. It’s just like that ‘do’ I showed you in the magazine, the one at the apothecary. They say it’s all the rage in New York.”

  “I’m not sure I want to look daring,” Bethan confessed and shook her head. Immediately she realized her error. The heap of curls threatened to spill over her ear.

  “Don’t,” cried Jodie. “You’ll have it all coming down and we don’t have time to fix it again.”

  Bethan watched her reflection as Jodie adjusted a couple of the pins to hold her locks in place. Doubt still plagued her. She didn’t look stunning. She looked silly. “I don’t think I want to go to a picnic looking like this.”

  “Sure you do. Just think what the boys will say.”

  The idea brought Bethan’s head up sharply, pulling a silken curl from Jodie’s fingers. Jodie responded by giving Bethan an impatient little thump on her shoulder. “Stop wiggling. I’ll never get it right if you keep jerking about.”

  The upsweep looked anything but right as it was. “I’ve never seen anyone wear their hair like this,” Bethan protested.

  “That’s the whole point. We want to be daring. Adventurous. The boys will never notice us if we look just the same as all the other girls.”

  Bethan wasn’t sure she wanted to stand out this much. “How are you going to do your hair? There isn’t time before the picnic to pin it up.”

  Jodie poked the last pin solidly into place, then reached into her pocket and drew out a page torn from a magazine. “Like this.”

  Bethan tipped the page so the window’s light fell across it and gasped. “She has cropped hair.”

  “Isn’t it chic!” Jodie enthused. She reached into her pocket and withdrew a pair of barber’s scissors. “Now let me sit down and let’s start.”

  Bethan recoiled in horror. “Your beautiful long hair—Jodie, you can’t be serious.”

  “Oh, hush up and hurry.” Jodie settled herself before the mirror, examined herself critically, and with both hands measured out a length that would scarcely cover her ears. “I think that would be about right, don’t you?”

  Frantically Bethan sought a way out. “What will your father say?”

  Jodie shrugged and brought the measuring fingers up half an inch shorter. “He won’t even notice. He never notices anything about me.”

  “Oh, Jodie,” she sighed. It had to be so difficult, living with a father who did not seem to know his daughter was even there. Jodie’s simple words melted Bethan’s heart. But not her resistance. “I can’t. I just can’t. Look, if we’re not downstairs soon we’ll be late.”

  “How can you be late for a picnic?” Jodie was not giving up that easily. “They last most of the day.”

  Bethan cast a nervous glance at the scissors. “Momma won’t think she’s on time unless she’s the first woman to place her baskets on the table.”

  To her intense relief she heard an impatient tread at the bottom of the stairs, followed by Moira’s voice calling up, “Are you girls planning to go to the picnic today or next week?”

  “Just a moment, Momma,” Bethan sang back, casting an I-told-you-so look at Jodie.

  “If I stood around and waited for you, we’d never get out of the house,” Moira snapped back. “I am now commencing to count to ten.”

  Jodie jumped from the vanity stool, knowing as well as Bethan the folly of attempting to cross Moira. It cheered Bethan greatly to see that she left the scissors on the bureau.

  The two girls descended the stairs and entered the kitchen.

  “Can we carry something, Momma?” Bethan offered.

  “Your father has already loaded…” Moira caught sight of Bethan, and her voice trailed off.

  Bethan froze in midstep. She had forgotten about her hair. She had a breathless sense of waiting for a sharp rebuke but, instead, Moira’s nose began to bother her something terrible. So bad, in fact, that she had to turn away with her handkerchief and wipe it with both hands. When she finally turned back, her face was still pinched, and her voice shook slightly as she said, “You two go out and get yourselves loaded up.”

  Bethan’s father was standing by the side door of their new automobile, watching Dylan as he settled the last basket into the space behind the seat. “Sure you don’t mind taking the horse and meeting us there?” Gavin did not wait for a reply but turned to greet the girls. And saw Bethan. He gaped for a single moment, then swept out his own checked handkerchief and was seized by a paroxysm of coughing. Bethan was about to go over and help with a few whacks on his back but was afraid her hair would fall down if she did.

  “Something must have… must have gone down wrong,” Gavin wheezed, wiping his eyes. “Yo
u look awful pretty, Jodie,” he said, turning to Bethan’s friend.

  “Thank you.” She smiled and raised the hem of her dress in a curtsy. “Mrs. Keane bought it for me.”

  “I know she did and I’m glad of it. Parker didn’t raise any fuss over it, did he?”

  The crisp, matter-of-fact tone returned. “I doubt he even noticed.”

  Bethan glanced at her friend, her heart aching as it always did when Jodie spoke that way. Moira had taken both girls shopping the week before, after several passionate discussions with Gavin when they no doubt thought Bethan was out of earshot. But Bethan had listened carefully to them talk about how Jodie was filling out her dresses to the point that they looked like they were going to burst. It wasn’t right nor proper, Moira had repeated several times, how that father of hers did not even use the eyes God gave him to realize his daughter was growing up and needed new clothes.

  Dylan chose that moment to clamber out of the black Ford’s narrow confines. He straightened up, caught sight of his sister, and his jaw dropped to his chest. But before he could say a word, Gavin turned him bodily in the general direction of the stables. “Don’t just hang about there; saddle up old Jessie or you’ll be late.”

  “I was just going,” Dylan said, his eyes fastened on Bethan as he walked straight into the gatepost. Recovering, he threw one further glance back toward his sister and hustled away.

  Bethan gave her friend a very hard look. Maybe the New York style wasn’t such a grand idea for a Harmony picnic after all. Jodie avoided Bethan’s gaze by giving the distant woods a very thoughtful inspection.

  “What are you all standing around like that for?” Moira clumped down the stairs and walked around the automobile. “We’ll positively be the last ones arriving.” She opened the Ford’s door. “Get into that rumble seat, girls. And, Gavin, I want you to drive just as fast as you possibly can. You know how I dislike being late.”

  They all hurried to obey. Mr. Keane adjusted the control knobs before moving to the front of the automobile. When he began cranking, Jodie leaned over to watch with wide, excited eyes.

  The engine coughed to a start, then sputtered. Gavin pushed his hat back before leaning over to crank again. Moira rapped the steering column with her parasol as she often did when the Ford was misbehaving. This time, the engine took hold with a hearty roar. Mr. Keane ran for the driver’s side and flung himself into the seat.

  They chugged off down the street, stirring up the dust and making the dogs howl in excitement. Bethan could not recall ever having driven this fast before. The wind clutched at her hair with impatient fingers. When Jodie closed her eyes to the cool breeze, Bethan helped things along by giving her hair a good shake. A second shake, and all the tresses came tumbling down. “Oh,” she cried over the engine and the breeze. “Look what happened.”

  Jodie opened her eyes to see Bethan’s entire face covered by half-pinned clumps of hair. The two girls stared at each other for a moment, then began to laugh. Moira turned in her seat and gave a satisfied nod as the girls, shaking with mirth, struggled to find all the wayward hairpins.

  It was a glorious spring day, not yet burdened by the heaviness of humid summer heat. Children romped about the field with the energy of young colts turned out to pasture. Newly greened shrubbery sparkled with a freshness that the countryside dust had not yet tarnished.

  “I’ve been so looking forward to this,” Jodie said calmly, once the girls had helped set out the picnic hamper and were free to wander. “I haven’t been out anywhere in, oh, it seems like years.”

  Bethan hated it when Jodie talked like this, the emotions all carefully stored away. She tried to engage her with, “Look, there’s Annabell Clemens, and all the Morrells. It seems like the whole school’s here for the church picnic.”

  Jodie’s gaze fastened on a group of boys and some of the fathers tossing a ball back and forth. “Let’s go watch them play.”

  Moira called out after them, “Mind you both remember your good upbringings. I won’t have any child of mine acting like a common floozy.”

  “Yes, Momma,” Bethan returned and hastened to catch up with Jodie. “Do you understand about football?”

  Jodie shook her head. “No, but we’ll catch on. Just holler when the others do.”

  The game swiftly turned into a tightly fought match. Many gathered to watch and cheer on the two teams. Bethan wasn’t sure how she felt about football. Even this friendly match between families she had known all her life looked more like a war than a game. Nobody on the field was smiling anymore. And everybody kept shouting things. There was a great deal of bumping and falling and pushing and smacking.

  “Which team is ours?” she finally asked.

  Jodie pointed across the field. “The ones over there. They’ve got the cutest boys.”

  At that moment, one of the tall, strapping lads came rushing over to grab the ball, surprising them so that they shrieked in unison. He paused long enough to flash them both a wide smile before running back on the field. The suddenness of it all left Bethan breathless. She and Jodie shared a wide-eyed look, then turned back to watch the game with new interest. Bethan started to ask if Jodie wasn’t glad she had not cut her hair, but decided to stay quiet on that one. There was no reason to bring a cloud into this beautiful sunny day.

  Bethan sat in the empty church, not wanting the quiet moment to end. Not just yet. She watched the dust motes dance in the afternoon sunlight streaming through the tall side windows and felt so incredibly fortunate. A strange thing to be thinking, she knew, when she lay awake for hours each night worrying. But it was true.

  Finally she sighed and released the moment by rising to her feet.

  As she walked down the silent aisle, she felt yet again how blessed she was to have Jesus to turn to when times were bad.

  She pushed through the church doors and spotted Jodie seated on the bench across the street. She walked over and sat down. A giant magnolia spread sweet-scented shade above the two girls, fresh as the spring in white dresses.

  Jodie watched a great gleaming car purr by. To have something to say, Bethan asked, “What kind was that?”

  “A Packard.”

  “I never can get all the different kinds straight in my head.”

  Some people would have thought it strange, how Jodie knew every make and model of automobile on the road. Bethan knew it was not the cars which attracted her but rather the freedom they represented. Bethan hesitated a moment, then asked because her heart would not let her keep still, “Do you think maybe tomorrow you might come in with me and pray for—”

  “I thought you understood. I really don’t want to talk about it,” Jodie said, her voice calm yet utterly firm. “Not ever again.”

  Bethan nodded sorrowful acquiescence. Almost a year had passed since their journey to Raleigh, and still the only time Jodie ever set foot in church was when her father felt up to going. If he was having one of his “bad spells,” Jodie would still dress up on Sunday mornings, then simply walk the streets until it was time to come home. She refused to discuss her feelings, refused to even let the subject be broached.

  And yet for the three weeks since Dylan had received his call-up notice, Jodie had accompanied Bethan each afternoon to the church and waited outside while she went in to pray for her brother’s safety. Jodie had been there and held Bethan when she had cried herself empty the day Dylan had left, listened to her choked voice pray that God would keep her brother safe and bring him back with his smile intact. Jodie had sat there and patted Bethan’s shoulder and seen her through, as she had every day since then.

  Bethan sat beside her best friend and sent another silent prayer lofting upward that the Lord would find a way to open Jodie’s heart to Him again. And do it soon.

  “The newspapers are growing more positive every day,” Jodie told her. “A delegation has been sent to Berlin and was received by the Kaiser’s representatives.”

  “Really?”

  Jodie nodded. “There
was an article this morning that predicted the Armistice would be signed before long.”

  Bethan’s heart soared. She did not understand exactly what Jodie was saying, but she knew her friend read the papers as hungrily as she did almost every book within reach. “So they might be sending Dylan home?”

  Jodie smiled, and that simple gesture was a remarkable symbol of her flourishing maturity. “I would imagine there will be a lot of work to be done once the war is over. But at least he will be saved from having to face combat.”

  “Oh, thank God,” Bethan breathed, clasping her hands together.

  Jodie rose to her feet. “I have to be going.”

  “Back to the apothecary?”

  “No, Miss Charles asked me to come by this afternoon. Want to walk with me back to school?”

  “Sure.” With any other student, such a summons would have been cause for anguish. But with Jodie so far ahead of everyone else in the school, the teacher’s request had to mean something different.

  They stopped to pick flowers for their hair. It was a daily habit now, and had been for weeks, ever since Jodie had read about it in the Saturday Evening Post magazine. She had shown it to Bethan, a color drawing of a beautiful Parisian lady, out for a stroll on a busy tree-lined street. And the caption read, “The perfect accompaniment to a lovely lady’s wardrobe—the freshness of a springtime blossom in her locks.” Jodie had stared at it so hard and so long that Bethan wondered if perhaps her friend was seeing something that she did not.

  There was no need to take flowers from gardens. Harmony’s streets were lined with blossoms and flowering trees. Veils of honeysuckle were traded for tulip poplar blossoms, and they for dogwood. Brilliant purple flowers from crepe myrtle trees seemed to make Jodie’s eyes darker than they already were. Sprigs of cherry blooms were Bethan’s favorite, with their fragrance so light it appeared almost shy, as though her own spirit had found a home in something as beautiful as this flower.

  Jodie pulled off a magnolia blossom as big as a pie plate. When she put it in her hair the hand-size petals covered her face from forehead to chin, and they laughed so hard they had to sit down. Bethan loved to watch Jodie laugh, and to laugh with her. It did not happen very often anymore, not even in the games of imagination Jodie made up herself. Jodie rose to her feet once more and danced from tree to tree, pulling blooms off in frantic haste, tossing one away to make room for the next, as though one of them might prove to hold some magic strong enough to turn her wishes to reality and fly her off to a fancy Paris street. A place where lovely ladies wore long flowing dresses with tight waists and colorful scarves over their powdered shoulders, and flowers were bought from smiling old women in flower stalls, rather than picked from trees, just like Jodie read about in the magazine.