‘He’s not any boy, he’s Matthew Young,’ Kate said, clutching her hands to her heart. ‘And he says it’s me he likes the best. Imagine, Susie,’ Kate continued, turning to her with stars in her eyes. ‘Matthew Young wants me to be his girl!’
Susannah’s heart sank. She should never have left her sister on Amherst Hill with Matthew Young, because now it was too late.
Matthew already had Kate’s heart trapped, just like one of his lobsters.
Susannah
August 1957
The preparations had been going on for weeks. Kate was obsessed with Rachel Weaver’s summer dance. Carrying on as if they were going to a ball in, say, Boston, or some other big city they were never going to get to.
‘It’s only just a social on the island,’ Susannah kept reminding Kate.
‘But there’s going to be a band,’ Kate would respond. ‘They’re coming from Portland. And dancing. Don’t you want to dance to a real band?’
‘I guess.’
But in truth Susannah did not enjoy dances. They’d only been to a couple organised by the church. She’d hated the small talk amongst all the women, and worst of all, having to wait for a boy to ask her dance. It always made her feel such a loser.
She knew the reason her sister was so excited was because she had a date. Matthew Young. Kate was besotted with him. Kept going on about his long legs, blonde wavy hair like a Viking and his dreamy blue eyes. Susannah had tried for her sister’s sake to like Matthew, but despite his wholesome good looks, there was something about him that made her suspicious. He was always perfectly polite to her, but she could sense the dislike was mutual. He knew Susannah was her sister’s protector as the eldest. He didn’t like the fact that she and Kate were so different and that Susannah wasn’t taken in by all his flirting. Too bad. The only reason Susannah was going to this lame dance was to stick by Kate’s side and make sure Matthew Young didn’t take advantage of her. Most of the boys had left school already to make a living as lobster fishermen, but Susannah wished her sister could fall for someone with a different kind of future. Did she want the same life as their mom? Waiting and watching the sea, praying for the safe delivery of her man every day? And then a war comes along and takes him anyway? Susannah longed to get on the ferry and never come back.
It was the first time they’d been allowed to attend a dance which wasn’t organised by the church. But their mother seemed so taken in by the Weavers. Besides, she’d made Hannah Weaver’s dress for the occasion.
‘As long as you’re chaperoned,’ she’d said to Kate, as her youngest daughter jumped up and down in glee.
‘Oh yes, of course, Matthew says his brother Silas will accompany Susannah, so we can all go together.’
Susannah’s heart sank. She loathed Silas Young even more than Matthew. Couldn’t stand the thought of people thinking he was her date.
‘Say, why don’t you go, Mother?’ Susannah ventured. ‘I could stay here.’ She would rather tackle her mother’s lacing jobs than go on a date with Matt’s oily brother, Silas.
‘Susie!’ Kate wailed, pinching her arm. ‘Don’t be such a bore!’ And, in an undertone: ‘I’ll have no fun if Mom comes.’
‘What a crazy suggestion.’ Her mother looked at Susannah, eyes wide with incredulity. ‘You have a date. You can’t let the boy down.’
Susannah knew exactly what her mother was thinking. If her girls married into the wealthiest lobster fishing family on the island, she was set into old age. She’d have all her family around her. They could all spend the rest of their days on this rocky outpost, protected and imprisoned from the world outside. Susannah had felt like screaming, but instead she crossed her arms, clenched her jaw.
‘We’ve no dresses to wear.’
Susannah spent most of her time in denims on the island. For school she had a hand-me-down circle skirt and twinset from the Olsens, and for the summer, capri pants. The same went for Kate, apart from the fact she hated wearing denims and had a couple of print day dresses like their mother.
Kate had looked crestfallen at the mention of their dresses. ‘Is there anything we can fix up, Mom?’
For the first time in years, a real smile graced their mother’s face. Despite hating the idea of having to go to the dance, it cheered Susannah to see her mom happy for once.
‘I have an idea,’ she said, looking excited.
Kate had been obsessed with looking at advertisements for prom dresses in the magazines the library sometimes got in. She’d happily sit for hours while Susannah worked away, flicking through the fashions, trying to distract Susannah. But now all her research came to fruition. Their mom asked Kate to draw the dress she’d like to wear.
Frilly, fussy and romantic, with a circle skirt and full petticoat.
‘What about you, Susannah?’
She’d shrugged her shoulders. ‘Not as fancy, I guess.’ She didn’t care a bit what she wore, as long as it didn’t encourage Silas Young. Though she doubted there was much danger of that. All the boys liked Katie because she was so pretty, but Susannah was too skinny and with too many freckles. She also wore glasses.
She thought Kate’s dress design looked like a big poof. It was also going to be impossible for her mother to afford to buy the material to make it. Frankly, Susannah would have been happy turning up in pants and saddle shoes. The latter was the only fashion item she did crave.
But their mom, it appeared, was as enthused about Kate’s dress as Kate herself. The sewing machine was in use almost non-stop – if not by their mom, then by Kate. To Susannah’s surprise, their mom decided to turn her old wedding dress, a pale ivory flocked organza, into
