“You used to go fishing with your grandfather, and I know you wouldn’t get rid of anything he gave you,” Marvin had said.
She’d wiped her hands on her apron. “Please just give me a minute; I’ll do it as soon as I get the cake in the oven.” Boop didn’t want Marvin going through her grandparents’ things. Her things. She’d moved her tackle box into the shed when she’d filled her old bedroom closet with packed-away baby clothes she thought she’d need again one day. She had been only twenty-eight then, and still hopeful for another baby.
“Fine.” Marvin had looked at her askance.
Betty had trembled inside but kept her gaze steady.
“I’ll go fix the window in Stuart’s room,” he’d said.
Marvin had found Boop in the backyard shed, in front of an open metal storage closet. It had been just enough time for Boop to have finished with the cake, for Stuart and his summer friends to have licked the bowl and the wooden spoons, and for her to find what she needed. But not enough time to have hidden it again.
She’d felt like a child caught with her hand in a candy jar, when in fact she had been a twenty-eight-year-old married woman and the mother of a young boy. Still, Marvin had demanded she open the tackle box, as if he’d known what was inside. He had, hadn’t he? He glanced at the box, then stared into Boop’s eyes. He hadn’t raised his voice; he never did.
“I’ll take that.” Marvin held out his hands.
“Everything in here is old,” she’d said. “You should take Stuart to the tackle shop. They can give you some pointers.”
“Give me the box. No need to keep it if it’s old.”
Boop had slammed the box and snapped it shut. Her throat had seared with pain from a muffled scream or a cry or a combination of both. She was angry with him for the first time in a long while, maybe years. She had done as she’d been asked and told for the past ten years. She’d fulfilled her duties as mother, homemaker, and wife. That day in the shed, tears had dripped onto her cotton plaid culottes. She’d kept her head down, maybe in an effort to be submissive, or respectful, or maybe because she hadn’t known what would happen next.
“I’m sorry, Marvin. It’s all I have.” She hadn’t let go of the box until he’d turned and left the shed.
They never mentioned that incident—or the tackle box—again.
And there she was, decades later, with the same box. The one that had been important enough to anger her husband, or maybe to break his heart, just as it was breaking hers at that moment.
Boop looked at Georgia. “It was all I had.”
Chapter 13
BETTY
The next Saturday night, Betty positioned herself sideways on the window seat in her bedroom. She wrapped her arms around her knees and wiggled her toes, to show off her toenails painted Petal Pink. She stared at the dark, clear night. The stars sparkled like rhinestones, glittering bold to the north, twinkling pale to the south over the lighthouse, as if a deliberate design. She supposed it was.
In two hours, she’d look at that sky with her head on Abe’s shoulder, her heart pounding as it whispered a thousand wishes.
Betty glanced at her girlfriends, lying across her bed—as usual—still flipping through the issues of Vogue, Seventeen, and the latest Spiegel catalog she’d handed them thirty minutes earlier. Words like hemline, neckline, and bustline floated around the room with rayon, silk, and tulle. The girls didn’t know much about fashion, but they knew it was important to Betty.
Doris dropped from her side to her stomach. “I can’t believe you haven’t decided on your dress or your swimsuit.” She tapped a page in Vogue as if she were a teacher pointing to a lesson in a textbook. “This one’s sophisticated.” The photo showcased an elegant blond model wearing a black-and-white taffeta ball gown, nothing like what Betty needed for Miss South Haven.
Betty shrugged. “There’s plenty of time.”
“Plenty of time?” Doris asked. “I thought that’s why we were here. The pageant is in August!”
Doris closed the magazine and rose from the bed. She lifted the dictionary from Betty’s desk and held it out toward her. “For posture practice.”
Georgia grabbed the book and placed it atop her own head. She held her arms out to her sides and looked as graceful as a ballerina, though Betty knew she’d never taken a dance lesson. Georgia’s fingers were long and elegant, posed without effort, rehearsal, or knowledge. Those hands would save lives one day, Betty was sure of it. Georgia walked like a circus performer on a tightrope, and the book didn’t fall until she tilted her head.
Betty accepted the book into her hands but laid it in her lap. Her posture was fine.
Doris closed Seventeen and stood. She smoothed out her shorts and sat next to Betty. “I can’t believe you’re head over heels for a boy who doesn’t even take you out on a proper Saturday-night date. And then you gave up the nightclub for this?”
For years, Betty had waited for summer Saturday nights with the eager anticipation of a child walking into the lake, arms up, waiting for waves to crash. But she did not miss the nightclub. Not tonight. Not at all. “We all seem to be on our own tonight,” Betty said.
“You asked us to come,” Georgia said.
“You could’ve said no! I didn’t want you to give up dates or plans for me.”
“Don’t worry, I didn’t have a date,” Doris said. “Maybe next week.”
Doris had always been the most hopeful and romantic of their trio, although Betty seemed to be catching up fast.
“I’m just pulling your leg,” Doris said. “Friends first, right?” She scooped Betty’s hand into hers. They both reached out their hands to Georgia, and the girls linked together the
