Tuck a slip of paper into a flimsy envelope, seal it with a swipe of the tongue, then send it on its way. That letter might be handled by dozens of people and journey a thousand miles before reaching the intended mailbox, where it nestles anonymously between pages twenty-nine and thirty of some unwanted catalog, lying in wait for its unsuspecting recipient, who tosses the catalog, with its treasure tucked inside, into the recycle bin with a flick of the wrist. There, next to poorly rinsed milk cartons, an empty wine bottle, and yesterday’s newspaper, a life-changing piece of mail quietly awaits.

That letter was for me.

Prologue

“Hello?”

Startled, I opened my eyes at the sound of a familiar voice—pleasant, but sorely out of place. Jennifer, yes, my granddaughter. But where am I? Or rather, why was she here? I blinked a few times, disoriented. I had been dreaming of sandy beaches and coconut palms—the place my unconscious mind always tries to visit, but this time I was lucky enough to find it in the archives of my memories.

He was there, of course—in uniform, shyly smiling at me as the waves fell into the shore. I could hear them—their violent crash, followed by the fizz of a million bubbles kissing the sand. Closing my eyes tighter, I found him again, standing there amid the fog of sleep that was lifting, too quickly. Don’t go, my heart pleaded. Stay. Please stay. And he obediently appeared again with that beckoning grin, those arms outstretched to me. I felt the familiar flutter in my heart, the longing.

And then, in an instant, he was gone.

I sighed and looked at my watch, scolding myself. Half past three. I must have dozed off while reading. Again. Spontaneous sleepiness was the curse of the elderly. I sat up in my lounge chair, a bit embarrassed, and retrieved the novel I’d been reading before the exhaustion hit. It had fallen from my hands to the ground, spine side up, its pages fanned out in disgrace.

Jennifer walked out onto the terrace. A truck barreled by on the street, further disturbing the peace. “Oh, there you are,” she said, smiling at me with her eyes, smoky brown, like her grandfather’s. She wore jeans and a black sweater with a light green belt around her slim waist. Her blond hair, cut to her chin, reflected the sun’s rays. Jennifer didn’t know how beautiful she was.

“Hi, honey,” I said, reaching my hand out to her. I looked around the terrace at the pale blue pansies in their simple terra-cotta pots. They were pretty enough, peeking their heads out of the dirt like shy, repentant children who’d been caught playing in the mud. The view of Lake Washington and the Seattle skyline in the distance was beautiful, yes, but cold and stiff, like a painting in a dentist’s office. I frowned. How had I come to live here, in this tiny apartment with its stark white walls and a telephone in the bathroom with a red emergency call button beside the toilet?

“I found something,” Jennifer said, her voice prying me from my thoughts, “in the recycle bin.”

I smoothed my white, wispy hair. “What is it, dear?”

“A letter,” she said. “It must have gotten mixed in with the junk mail.”

I attempted to stifle a yawn, but it came anyway. “Just leave it on the table. I’ll look at it later.” I walked inside and sat down on the sofa, turning my gaze away from the kitchen to the reflection in the window. An old lady. I saw her every day, this woman, but her reflection never ceased to surprise me. When did I become her? My hands traced the wrinkles on my face.

Jennifer sat down next to me. “Has your day been any better than mine?” In her last year of graduate school at the University of Washington, she had chosen an unusual subject for a class-assigned article: an obscure work of art on campus. Donated in 1964 by an anonymous artist, the bronze sculpture of a young couple had a placard that read simply, Pride and Promises. Transfixed by the sculpture, Jennifer hoped to profile the artist and learn the story behind the work, yet an entire quarter’s worth of research had turned up very little.

“Any luck with your research today, dear?”

“Nada,” she said, frowning. “It’s frustrating. I’ve worked so hard to find answers.” She shook her head and shrugged. “I hate to admit it, but I think the trail’s gone cold.”

I knew something about being haunted by art. Jennifer didn’t know it, but I’d spent the majority of my life searching in vain for a painting that I’d held in my hands a very long time ago. My heart ached to see it again, and yet after a lifetime of working with art dealers and collectors, the canvas eluded me.

“I know it’s hard to let go, honey,” I said delicately, knowing how important the project was to her. I tucked my hand in hers. “Some stories aren’t meant to be told.”

Jennifer nodded. “You may be right, Grandma,” she said with a sigh. “But I’m not ready to let it go. Not yet. The inscription on the placard—it all has to mean something. And the box, the one that the man in the statue holds in his hands, it’s locked, and the people in the archives don’t have record of a key, which means”—she paused and smiled hopefully—“there may be something inside.”

“Well, I admire your spirit, sweetheart,” I said, clutching the gold chain around my neck, the one that held the locket I’d worn and kept safe for so many years. Only one other soul knew what was tucked inside beyond the protective guard of the clasp.

Jennifer walked back to the table. “Now, don’t forget this letter,” she said, holding up an envelope. “Look at this gorgeous stamp. It’s from”—she paused, reading the postmark—“Tahiti.”

My heart rate quickened as I looked up, squinting to see the letter in Jennifer’s hands.

“Grandma, who do you know in Tahiti?”

“Let me see it,” I said, inching closer.

I scanned the simple white envelope, damp from its brush with a milk carton and speckled with crimson dots from last night’s cabernet. No, I did not recognize the handwriting, or the return address. Who would be writing me from Tahiti? And why? Why now?

“Aren’t you going to open it?” Jennifer said, hovering over me in anticipation.

My hands trembled a little as I turned the envelope over again and again, running my fingers along the exotic stamp, which depicted a Tahitian girl in a yellow dress. I swallowed hard, trying to purge the memories that were seeping into my mind like rising floodwater, but mere mental sandbags could not keep them out.

Then, powerless to resist, I opened the envelope with one swift tear.

Dear Mrs. Godfrey,

Forgive me for my intrusion. It has taken me many years to find you. I understand that you were an army nurse stationed in Bora-Bora during the war. If I am correct, if you are indeed the woman I seek, I urgently need to speak with you. I was raised in the Tahitian islands, but have only now returned, with a mission to solve a mystery that has troubled me since girlhood. A horrific murder occurred on a quiet stretch of beach on Bora-Bora one evening in 1943 I am haunted by the tragedy, so much so that I am writing a book about the events that preceded a happening which, in many ways, changed the island forever.

I was able to locate the army employment records and I noticed that you were blocked out on leave that day, the day of the tragedy. Could you, by chance, remember something or someone on the beach that night? So many years have passed, but perhaps you recall something. Even a small detail may help in my search for justice. I pray that you will consider my request and get in touch. And, if you ever plan to visit the island again, there is something of yours I found here, something you might like to see again. I would love nothing more than to show it to you.

Yours Truly,

Genevieve Thorpe

I stared at the letter in my hands. Genevieve Thorpe. No, I did not know this woman. A stranger. And here she was, stirring up trouble. I shook my head. Ignore it. Too many years had passed. How could I go back to those days? How could I relive it all? I closed my eyes tightly, willing the memories away. Yes, I could just ignore it. It wasn’t a legal inquiry or a criminal investigation. I did not owe this woman, this stranger, anything. I could throw the envelope into the garbage can and be done with it. But then I remembered the last few lines of the letter. “If you ever plan to visit the island again, there is something of yours I found here, something you might like to see again.” My heart, already in poor condition, raced at the thought of it. Visit the island again? Me? At my age?

“Grandma, are you all right?” Jennifer leaned in and wrapped her arm around my shoulder.

“I’m fine,” I said, composing myself.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

I shook my head and tucked the letter safely inside the book of crossword puzzles on the coffee table.

Jennifer reached for her bag and began fumbling inside. She retrieved a large manila envelope, wrinkled and worn. “I want to show you something,” she said. “I was going to wait until later, but”—she took a deep breath—“I think it’s time.”

She handed me the envelope.

“What is this?”

“Look inside,” she said slowly.

I lifted the flap and pulled out a stack of black-and-white photos, instantly recognizing the one on top. “That’s me!” I cried, pointing to the young woman dressed in white nurse’s garb, with a coconut tree in the distance. Oh how I had marveled at the palms the first day I set foot on the island, almost seventy years ago. I looked up at Jennifer. “Where did you find these?”

“Dad found them,” she said, eyeing my face cautiously. “He was going through some old boxes and these were tucked inside. He asked me to return them to you.”

My heart swelled with anticipation as I flipped to the next photograph, of Kitty, my childhood friend, sitting on an overturned canoe on the beach, her feet kicked out like a movie star’s. Kitty could have been a movie star. I felt the familiar pain in my heart when I thought of my old friend, pain that time hadn’t healed.

There were several more in the stack, many of them scenes of the beach, the mountains, lush with flora, but when I reached the last photograph, I froze. Westry. My Westry. There he was with the top button of his uniform undone, his head tilted slightly to the right with the bungalow’s woven palm wall in the background. Our bungalow. I may have taken thousands of photographs in my life, and so many of them were forgotten, but not this one. I remembered everything about the snapshot, the way the air had smelled that evening—of seawater and freesia, blooming in the moonlight. I could recall the feeling I had in my heart, too, when my eyes met his through the lens, and then there was what happened in the moments that followed.

“You loved him, didn’t you, Grandma?” Jennifer’s voice was so sweet, so disarming, that I felt my resolve weaken.

“I did,” I said.

“Do you think of him now?”

I nodded. “Yes. I have always thought of him.”

Jennifer’s eyes widened. “Grandma, what happened in Tahiti? What happened with this man? And the letter—why did it affect you in the way it did?” She paused, and reached for my hand. “Please tell me.”

I nodded. What would be the harm in telling her? I was an old woman. There wouldn’t be many consequences now, and if there were, I could weather them. And how I longed to set these secrets free, to send them flying like bats from a dusty attic. I ran my finger along the gold chain of my locket, and nodded. “All right, dear,” I said. “But I must warn you, don’t expect a fairy tale.”

Jennifer sat down in the chair beside me. “Good,” she said, smiling. “I’ve never liked fairy tales.”

“And there are dark parts,” I said, doubting my decision.

She nodded. “But is there a happy ending?”

“I’m not sure.”

Jennifer gave me a confused look.

I held the photo of Westry up to the light. “The story isn’t over yet.”

Chapter 1

August 1942

“Kitty Morgan, you did not just say that!” I set my goblet of mint iced tea down with enough force to crack the glass. Mother would be happy to know that I hadn’t spoiled her set of Venetian crystal.

“I most certainly did,” she said, smirking victoriously. Kitty, with her heart-shaped face and that head full of wiry, untamable blond ringlets springing out of the hairpins she’d been so meticulous about fastening, hardly provoked anger. But on this subject I held my ground.

“Mr. Gelfman is a married man,” I said in my most disapproving voice.

“James,” she said, elongating his first name for dramatic effect, “is impossibly unhappy. Did you know that his wife disappears for weeks at a time? She doesn’t even tell him where she’s going. She cares more about the cats than she does him.”

I sighed, leaning back into the wooden bench swing that hung from the enormous walnut tree in my parents’ backyard garden. Kitty sat beside me then, just as she had when we were in grade school. I looked up at the tree overhead, its leaves tinged with a touch of yellow, hinting that autumn was imminent. Why must things change? It seemed like only yesterday that Kitty and I were two schoolgirls, walking home arm in arm, setting our books down on the kitchen table and making a dash to the swing, where we’d tell secrets until dinnertime. Now, at twenty-one, we were two grown women on the verge of, well, something—not that either of us could predict what.

“Kitty,” I said, turning to face her. “Don’t you understand?”

“Understand what?” She looked like a rose petal, sitting there in her dress brimming with pink ruffles, with those wild curls that were getting even more unruly in the late-afternoon humidity. I wanted to protect her from Mr. Gelfman, or any other man she intended upon falling in love with, for none would be good enough for my best friend—certainly not the married ones.

I cleared my throat. Does she not know Mr. Gelfman’s reputation? Certainly she remembered the hordes of girls who had flaunted themselves at him in high school, where he had been Lakeside’s most dashing teacher. Every girl in English Lit had hoped to make eye contact with him as Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “How Do I Love Thee?” crossed his lips. That was all girlish fun, I contended. But had Kitty forgotten about the incident five years ago with Kathleen Mansfield? How could she forget? Kathleen—shy, big breasted, terribly dim-witted—had fallen under Mr. Gelfman’s spell. She hovered near the teachers’ lounge at lunch, and waited for him after school. Everybody wondered about them, especially when one of our girlfriends spotted Kathleen in the park with Mr. Gelfman after dusk. Then, suddenly, Kathleen stopped coming to school. Her older brother said she’d gone to live with her grandmother in Iowa. We all knew the reason why.

I crossed my arms. “Kitty, men like Mr. Gelfman have only one objective, and I think we both know what that is.”

Kitty’s cheeks flushed to a deeper shade of pink. “Anne Calloway! How dare you suggest that James would be anything but—”

“I’m not suggesting anything,” I said. “It’s just that I love you. You’re my best friend, and I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

Kitty kicked her legs despondently as we swung for a few minutes in silence. I reached into the pocket of my dress and privately clutched the letter nestled inside. I’d picked it up at the post office earlier that day and was eager to sneak away to my bedroom to read it. It was from Norah, a friend from nursing school who’d been writing me weekly accounts from the South Pacific, where she’d been serving in the Army Nurse Corps. She and Kitty, both hot-tempered, had a falling out in our final term together, so I chose not to bring up the letters with Kitty. Besides, I couldn’t let on to her how much Norah’s tales of the war and the tropics had captivated me. They read like the pages of a novel—so much so that a part of me dreamt of taking my newly minted nursing degree and joining her there, escaping life at home and the decisions that awaited. And yet, I knew it was just a fanciful idea, a daydream. After all, I could help with the war efforts at home, by volunteering at the civic center or collecting tin cans and assisting with conservation projects. I shook my head at the thought of traipsing off to a war zone in the tropics mere weeks before my wedding. I sighed, grateful I hadn’t uttered a word of it to Kitty.

“You’re just jealous,” Kitty finally said, still smug.

“Nonsense,” I retorted, pushing Norah’s letter deeper into my pocket. The sun, high in the summer sky, caught the diamond ring on my left hand, producing a brilliant sparkle, as arresting as a lighthouse’s beacon on a dark night, reminding me of the unavoidable fact that I was engaged. Bought and paid for. “I’m marrying Gerard in less than a month,” I said. “And I couldn’t be happier.”

Kitty frowned. “Don’t you want to do something else with your life before you”—she paused as if the next few words would be very difficult, very displeasing to say—“before you become Mrs. Gerard Godfrey?”

I shook my head in protest. “Marriage, my dear, is not suicide.”

Kitty looked away from me, her gaze burrowing into a rosebush in the garden. “It might as well be,” she murmured under her breath.

I sighed, leaning back into the swing.

“Sorry,” she whispered, turning back to me. “I just want you to be happy.”

I reached for her hand. “But I will be, Kitty. I wish you’d see that.”

I heard footsteps on the lawn and looked up to find Maxine, our housekeeper, approaching, tray in hand. In heels, she walked steadily across the lawn, requiring only a single hand to bear a laden silver platter. Papa had called her graceful once, and she was. She practically floated.

“May I fetch you girls anything?” Maxine asked in her beautiful, heavily accented voice. Her appearance had changed very little since I was a girl. She was petite, with soft features, great big sparkling green eyes, and cheeks that smelled of vanilla. Her hair, now graying slightly, was pulled back into a tidy chignon, never a strand out of place. She wore a white apron, always clean and freshly starched to a remarkable stiffness, cinched tightly around her small waist. Lots of families in the neighborhood had servants, but we were the only household that employed a French housekeeper, a fact Mother was quick to point out at bridge parties.

“We’re fine, Maxine, thank you,” I said, weaving my arm through hers.

“There is something,” Kitty said conspiratorially. “You can convince Anne not to marry Gerard. She doesn’t love him.”

“Is this true, Antoinette?” Maxine asked. I was five years old the day she came to work in our home, and after a quick once-over, she said declaratively, “You do not have the face of an Anne. I shall call you Antoinette.” I had felt very fancy.

“Of course it’s not true,” I said quickly. “Kitty is just in one of her moods.” I gave her a sideways glance of disapproval. “I’m the luckiest girl in Seattle. I’m marrying Gerard Godfrey.”

And I was lucky. Gerard was tall and impossibly handsome, with his strong jaw and dark brown hair and eyes to match. He was quite wealthy, too, not that it mattered to me. Mother, on the other hand, frequently reminded me that at twenty-seven he enjoyed the distinction of being the youngest vice president at First Marine Bank, a title that meant he would come into a fortune when he took over for his father. You’d have to be a foolish woman to turn down a proposal from Gerard Godfrey, and when he asked for my hand, under this very walnut tree, I nodded without a moment’s hesitation.

Mother had been giddy upon hearing the news. She and Mrs. Godfrey had planned the union since I was in infancy, of course. Calloways would marry Godfreys. It was as natural as coffee and cream.

Maxine picked up a pitcher of iced tea and refilled our goblets. “Antoinette,” she said slowly, “have I ever told you the story of my sister, Jeanette?”

“No,” I said. “I didn’t even know you had a sister.” I realized that there were many things I didn’t know about Maxine.

“Yes,” she said quietly, looking thoughtful. “She loved a boy, a peasant boy from Lyon. They were madly in love. But our father and mother pushed her toward another man, a man who made a decent wage in the factories. So she parted with her farm boy and married the factory worker.”

“How heartbreaking,” I said. “Did she ever see him again?”

“No,” she replied. “And she was miserable.”

I sat up and smoothed my dress, blue crepe with a delicate belt on the bodice that was just a trifle too tight. Mother had brought it home from one of her European shopping trips. She had a habit of buying clothing too small for me. “Well, that’s very sad, and I’m sorry for Jeanette. But this does not have any application to my life. You see, I love Gerard. There is no one else.”

“Of course you love Gerard,” said Maxine, reaching down to pick up a napkin that had fallen on the grass. “You’ve grown up with the boy. He is like a brother to you.”

Brother. The word had an eerie pulse to it, especially when used to describe the man I was going to marry. I shivered.

“Dear,” she continued, catching my eyes and smiling, “it is your life and your heart. And you say there is no one else, and that may be true. I’m simply saying that maybe you haven’t given yourself enough time to find him.”

“Him?”

“Your one true love,” she said simply. The four words rolled off her tongue in a natural, matter-of-fact way, implying that such deep, profound feeling was available to anyone who sought it, like a ripe plum dangling from a branch, ready for the picking.

I felt a chill come over me, which I blamed on the breeze that had just picked up, and shook my head. “I don’t believe in fairy tales, or in knights in shining armor. I believe that love is a choice. You meet someone. You like them. You decide to love them. It’s that simple.”

Kitty rolled her eyes. “How horribly unromantic,” she groaned.

“Maxine,” I said, “what about you? Were you ever in love?”

She ran a cloth along the side of the tea tray, wiping up the rings our goblets had left. “Yes,” she said, without looking up.

Blinded by curiosity, I didn’t stop to consider that maybe the memory of this man was painful for her. “Was he an American or a Frenchman? Why didn’t you marry him?”

Maxine didn’t answer right away, and I instantly regretted my line of questioning, but then she opened her mouth to speak. “I didn’t marry him because he was already married to someone else.”

We all looked up when we heard Papa’s footsteps on the terrace. Puffing on a cigar, he crossed the grass toward the three of us. “Hi, kid,” he said, smiling at me through his thick gray mustache. “I didn’t think you were coming home until Tuesday.”

I returned his smile. “Kitty talked me into taking an earlier train.”

I had finished my college courses at Portland State University in the spring, but Kitty and I had stayed on for an additional two months of training to obtain our nursing licenses. What we’d do with these credentials was of great concern to our parents. Heaven forbid we actually use them.

Gerard, on the other hand, found the whole business of being engaged to a trained nurse, in a word, amusing. Our mothers didn’t work, nor did any of the women we knew. He joked that the cost of hiring a driver to chaperone me to my hospital shifts would amount to more than any paycheck I’d ever make, and yet if donning the white cap and tending to the sick was what I wanted to do, he promised to support me.

In truth, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I’d chosen nursing because it stood in stark contrast to everything I’d grown to detest about the lives of the women I knew—Mother, who devoted herself to luncheons and the current state of ladies’ hemlines; and my school friends, who had spent months luxuriating in Paris or Venice upon high school graduation, with nary a worry, save finding a rich husband so they could perpetuate the lifestyles of their youth.

No, I didn’t fit that mold. Its confines stifled me. What spoke to me was nursing, in all of its gritty rawness. It promised to fulfill a part of me that had lain empty for the majority of my life, a part that longed to help others in a way that had nothing to do with money.

Maxine cleared her throat. “I was just leaving,” she said to Papa, picking up the tray with one fluid swoop. “Can I get you anything, Mr. Calloway?”

“No, Maxine,” he said. “I’m just fine. Thank you.” I liked the way he spoke to Maxine, always kind and gentle, never cross and hurried, which was the way of Mother.

She nodded and made her way across the emerald lawn, disappearing into the house.

Kitty looked up at Papa with concerned eyes. “Mr. Calloway?”

“Yes, Kitty?”

“I heard about another wave of men being drafted”—she gulped—“for the war. I read about it in the newspaper on the train. Do you know if any from Seattle have been notified?”

“It’s still very early, Kitty Cat,” he said, using the name he’d given Kitty when we were in grade school. “But the way things are progressing in Europe, I think we’ll see a great deal of men going off to fight. I just ran into Stephen Radcliffe in town and heard that the Larson twins are shipping out Thursday.”

I felt a tightness creep up in my chest. “Terry and Larry?”

Papa nodded solemnly.

The twins, a year younger than Kitty and me, were going off to war. War. It hardly seemed possible. Wasn’t it only yesterday that they were tugging at my pigtails in grade school? Terry was shy and had cheeks speckled with freckles. Larry, a bit taller and less freckled, was a born comedian. Both redheads, they were rarely seen apart. I wondered if they’d be allowed to stand next to each other on the battlefield. I closed my eyes as if to try to suppress the thought, but it lingered. Battlefield.

Papa read my mind. “If you’re worried about Gerard shipping out, don’t,” he said.

Gerard was as strong and gallant as any man I knew, surely, but as hard as I tried, I couldn’t imagine him anywhere but in a suit at the bank. And yet, as much as I wanted him spared from fighting, a secret part of me longed to see him in uniform, to see him stand for something other than dollars and cents.

“His family’s position in the community is too important,” he continued. “George Godfrey will see that he isn’t drafted.”

I hated the conflict brewing inside my heart—the fact that I took comfort in Gerard’s protected position and detested it at the same time. It wasn’t right that men from poor families had to fight a nation’s war while a privileged few dodged the draft for frivolous reasons. Sure, George Godfrey, a bank mogul now in failing health, was a former senator, and Gerard was the next in line to fulfill his duties at the bank. But even so, it was unsettling to imagine the Larson twins fighting in a European bunker in the dead of winter while Gerard rested comfortably in a heated office with a leather chair that swiveled.

Papa could read the anxiety in my eyes. “Don’t let it worry you. I hate to see you worry.”

Kitty stared at her hands in her lap. I wondered if she was thinking of Mr. Gelfman. Will he join the war too? He couldn’t be more than thirty-eight, surely young enough for combat. I sighed, wishing I could will the war to an end. The ill tidings of conflict hovered, creeping in and spoiling even the most perfect summer afternoon.

“Mother’s eating in the city tonight,” Papa said, glancing toward the house with a look of uncertainty that had all but disappeared by the time his eyes met mine. “Will I have the privilege of dining with you ladies this evening?”

Kitty shook her head. “I have an engagement,” she said vaguely.

“Sorry, Papa, I’m having dinner with Gerard.”

He nodded, suddenly looking sentimental. “Look at you two, all grown up, with big plans of your own. It seems like only a moment ago that you girls were out here with your dolls.”

Truth be told, I longed for those easy, uncomplicated days that revolved around paper dolls, dress-up, and tea parties on the terrace. I buttoned my sweater against the wind on my skin—winds of change.

“Let’s go inside,” I said, reaching for Kitty’s hand.

“OK,” she said sweetly. And just like that, we were Kitty and Anne again.

My eyes burned from the haze of cigarette smoke hovering like a low cloud over our table. The lights were dim in the Cabaña Club, the place everyone in Seattle went dancing on Saturday nights. I squinted, trying to make out the scene.

Kitty pushed a box wrapped in blue paper toward me. I eyed the gold ribbon. “What’s this?”

“Something for you,” she said, grinning.

I looked at her quizzically, and then at the box, and carefully untied the ribbon before peeling off the wrapping. I lifted the lid of a white jewelry box and pushed aside the cotton lining to reveal a sparkling object inside.

“Kitty?”

“It’s a pin,” she said. “A friendship pin. Remember those little rings we had as children?”

I nodded, unsure if the stinging in my eyes was from the smoke or the memories of simpler times.

“I thought we needed a grown-up version,” she said, pulling a lock of hair away from her shoulder to reveal a matching pin on her dress. “See? I have one too.”

I eyed the silver bauble, round and dotted with tiny blue stones that formed the shape of a rose. It glistened under the dim lights of the club. I flipped it over, where I found an engraving: To Anne, with love, Kitty.

“It’s perfectly beautiful,” I said, pinning the piece to my dress.

She grinned. “I hope it will be a symbol of our friendship, a reminder to us both that we’ll never keep secrets from one another, that we’ll not let time or circumstances change things between us.”

I nodded in agreement. “I’ll wear it always.”

She grinned. “Me too.”

We sipped our sodas and scanned the bustling club, where friends, schoolmates, and acquaintances reveled in what could be the very last Saturday night before whatever waited in the wings scooped them up. War. Marriage. The unknown. I swallowed hard.

“Look at Ethel with David Barton,” Kitty whispered in my ear. She pointed to the two of them huddled together at the bar. “His hands are all over her,” she said, staring a little too long.

“She ought to be ashamed of herself,” I said, shaking my head. “She’s engaged to Henry. Isn’t he away at school?”

Kitty nodded. But instead of mirroring my disapproving gaze, her face told a different story. “Don’t you wish someone could love you that much?” she said wistfully.

I scrunched my nose. “That, my dear, is not love.”

“Sure it is,” she said, planting her cheek in her hand. We watched the couple saunter hand in hand out to the dance floor. “David’s crazy about her.”

“Crazy, sure,” I said. “But not in love with her.”

Kitty shrugged. “Well, they have passion.”

I retrieved the pressed powder from my purse and dabbed my nose. Gerard would be there soon. “Passion is for fools,” I said, snapping the compact closed.

“Maybe,” she replied. “But just the same, I’ll take my chances with it.”

“Kitty!”

“What?”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like a loose woman.”

Kitty giggled, just as Gerard arrived at our table with his friend Max, a colleague from the bank—short, with curly hair, a plain, honest face, and eyes for Kitty.

“Do share your joke, Kitty,” Gerard said, grinning. I loved his smile, so charming, so confident. He towered over the table in his gray suit, adjusting a loose cufflink. Max stood at attention, panting like a German shepherd, eyes fixed on Kitty.

“You tell him, Anne,” Kitty said, daring me with her smirk.

I cleared my throat, smiling deviously. “Yes, Kitty was just saying that, well, that she and Max made a better dance duo than the two of us, Gerard.” I shot Kitty a victorious look. “Can you believe that?”

Gerard grinned, and Max’s eyes lit up. “Now, we can’t have her carrying on like that, can we, dear?” He looked toward the dance floor and held out his hand. “Shall we?”

The band began playing, and Max fumbled to his feet, grinning from ear to ear. Kitty rolled her eyes at me as she took Max’s outstretched hand.

Gerard clasped his arms around my waist, smoothly, elegantly. I loved his firm grasp, his confidence.

“Gerard?” I whispered in his ear.

“What is it, sweetheart?” He was an excellent dancer—precise in the same way he was about finances, never missing a penny in his budgeting.

“Do you feel . . . ?” I paused to consider what, exactly, I was asking him. “Do you feel passionate about me?”

“Passionate?” he said, stifling a laugh. “You funny thing, you. Of course I do.” He squeezed me a little tighter.

“Really passionate?” I continued, dissatisfied with his answer.

He stopped and lovingly pulled my hands toward his chin. “You’re not doubting my love for you, are you? Anne, you must know by now that I love you more than anything, more than anything on earth.”

I nodded, and closed my eyes. Moments later, the song stopped and another began, this one slower. I nestled closer to Gerard, so close I could feel the beat of his heart, and I was sure he could feel mine. We swayed to the clarinet’s haunting melody, and with each step, I assured myself that we had it. Of course we did. Gerard was head over heels for me, and I for him. What nonsense these feelings of uncertainty were. I blamed Kitty for planting them. Kitty. I glanced over at her dancing unhappily with Max, when, out of nowhere, Mr. Gelfman appeared on the dance floor. He walked straight toward her, said something to Max, and took her into his arms as Max, crestfallen, scurried away.

“What is Kitty doing with James Gelfman?” Gerard asked, frowning.

“I don’t like it,” I said, watching as Mr. Gelfman twirled her around the room like a doll. His hands were too low on her waist, his grasp too tight. I thought of Kathleen, poor Kathleen, and winced.

“Let’s go,” I said to Gerard.

“So soon?” he said. “But we haven’t even had dinner yet.”

“Maxine left some sandwiches in the icebox,” I replied. “I don’t feel like dancing anymore.”

“Is it Kitty?” he asked.

I nodded. I knew there was no stopping Kitty now. She had made that much clear. But I’d be damned if I was going to watch my best friend give away her heart, her dignity, to a man who wasn’t worthy of her—a married man who wasn’t worthy of her. But there was more to the story, something my mind wouldn’t acknowledge just then, though my heart already knew: I envied Kitty. I wanted to feel what she was feeling. And I feared I never would.

The doorman handed me my blue velvet coat, and I tucked my hand into the crook of Gerard’s arm. Warm. Safe. Protected. I told myself I was very lucky.

On the drive home, Gerard wanted to talk about real estate. Would we buy an apartment in the city or something in Windermere, the opulent neighborhood of our youth, near our parents? The apartment would be closer to the bank. And how gay it would be to live on Fifth Avenue, he crooned. But the Buskirks would be selling their home this fall, the big Tudor with the four dormers in front. We could buy it and renovate; build a new wing for the help and a nursery for the baby. For the baby.

Gerard droned on and suddenly the air in the car felt warm. Too warm. The road blurred in front of me and the street lights multiplied. What was wrong with me? Why can’t I breathe? Dizzy, I clenched the door handle to steady myself.

“Are you all right, darling?”

“I think I just need a little air,” I said, rolling the window down.

He patted my arm. “Sorry, honey, am I overwhelming you?”

“A little,” I replied. “It’s just that there are so many decisions to make. Can we take them one at a time?”

“Of course,” he said. “No more talk of homes for now.”

He turned the car in to Windermere, passing the stately, lit columns flanking the entrance. Within was a well-tended sanctuary, where gardeners spent hours manicuring lawns and grooming flowerbeds, not a petal askew, and governesses tended to children in a similar fashion. We passed Gerard’s parents’ home, the gray gable mansion on Gilmore Avenue, and the Larsons’ white colonial, with the clipped boxwood hedges and stone urns shipped from Italy. What is wrong with me? Here was a man who loved me, who wanted to give me a beautiful, comfortable life, a life I was accustomed to. I scolded myself.

Gerard parked the car in my parents’ driveway, and we walked into the house and straight to the darkened kitchen. “Maxine’s probably gone to bed,” I said, looking at the clock. Half past nine. Maxine always retired to her downstairs quarters at nine.

“Would you like a sandwich?” I offered.

“No, I’m fine,” Gerard said, consulting his watch, a Rolex—my gift to him on his twenty-fifth birthday.

We both looked up when we heard footsteps.

“Papa?” I said, peering around the corner, where I detected a female form coming down the stairs in the darkness.

“Mother?” I turned on the hallway light and realized I’d been mistaken.

“Your mother isn’t home yet,” Maxine said. “I was just stocking your bathroom with towels. Francesca wasn’t here today, and I wanted you to have some for the morning.”

“Oh, Maxine,” I said. “Look at you worrying about my towels at this late hour. I will not hear of it! Please, get some rest. You work far too hard.”

When she turned her head to look at the clock, I thought I detected a glint of moisture in her eyes. Has she been crying or is it just the day’s exhaustion?

“I think I shall say good night,” she said, nodding. “Unless you need anything.”

“No,” I said. “No, we’re fine. Sweet dreams, Maxine.” I wrapped my arms around her neck the way I had done as a girl, taking in a breath of her vanilla cheeks.

After she’d left, Gerard kissed me, gently, quickly. Why can’t he kiss me longer? “It’s getting late,” he said. “I suppose I should be on my way too.”

“Do you have to go?” I said, pulling him toward me, eyeing the couch in the living room with other intentions. Why must Gerard be so practical?

“We need our rest,” he said, shaking his head. “Tomorrow’s going to be a big day.”

“A big day?”

“The party,” he said, looking at me suspiciously. “Have you forgotten?”

Until that moment, I had. Gerard’s parents were hosting an engagement party for us at their home, on that enormous lawn, trimmed so perfectly that it resembled the ninth hole at Papa’s country club. There would be a band, croquet, ice sculptures, and platters of tiny sandwiches served by white-gloved waiters.

“Just put on a pretty dress and be there by two,” he said with a grin.

“I can do that,” I replied, leaning into the doorway.

“Good night, darling,” he said, walking out to the driveway.

I stood there watching as his car motored away, until the sound of the engine was swallowed up by the thick quiet of the August night.