A week later, Ruth-Ann and Peter sat close together on the brown leather couch in the sitting room. Her mother had been in the chair across from them, knitting a scarf. When she got up to leave, Ruth-Ann leaned her cheek toward Peter for a kiss.
Peter didn’t seem to take the hint. He kept talking about the article he had read in a science magazine. The article said that the wireless would replace all the pianos in living rooms across the nation.
“People will listen to music from far away,” Peter said. “They will no longer have to make their own.” He smiled at her. “That could be very bad for the people who print sheet music,” he said.
Ruth-Ann rolled her eyes. “What makes you think people will want to listen to all the scratchy whistling and static?”
“They’ll fix all that,” Peter said. “The article said it will sound like an orchestra is right in your living room.”
Again, Ruth-Ann brought her face an inch from his. “What do I have to do to get a kiss?”
He gave her a peck on the cheek. Disappointed, she blew on his glasses, steaming up both sides.
He uttered an uncomfortable laugh and drew away from her.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded. He was definitely acting nervous today. Chattering on about a magazine article . . . refusing to kiss her . . .
Peter shrugged.
She playfully flipped his necktie over the shoulder of his sports jacket. “Aren’t you feeling well?”
A burst of laughter from the kitchen interrupted Peter’s reply.
“Who’s in there?” he asked.
“Rebecca and three of her friends,” Ruth-Ann replied. “They’re teaching each other how to make Apple Brown Betty.”
Peter jumped to his feet. “Apple Brown Betty? Hot diggety. Can we see how they are doing?”
Ruth-Ann squinted at him. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay? You hate talking with Rebecca and her friends. You said they were shallow, remember?”
“That’s before there was Apple Brown Betty involved,” he replied. He grabbed her hands and tugged her up from the couch. “Besides, you’re always telling me to be more social.”
“Not with Rebecca and her crowd,” Ruth-Ann muttered.
Ever since Rebecca’s attack on Peter, the two sisters barely spoke. They were like two icebergs passing in the ocean. Ruth-Ann didn’t think she could ever forgive her sister for that outburst.
She’d spent hours trying to figure out what caused it. But she still hadn’t thought of a good reason behind her sister’s attack.
Rebecca was pretending she cares about me. But she was only being vicious.
And now here was Peter, eager to join Rebecca in the kitchen. This was not like him at all. “I can bake things, too,” Ruth-Ann said. “Why don’t we wait till they’re finished and—”
But he was already at the kitchen door, greeting everyone.
If I told him what Rebecca said about him last week, Peter would forget about that Apple Brown Betty.
And then she thought, Do I have to cast a spell to get him to act normally again? Do I have to cast a spell to get him to kiss me?
A few seconds later, the girls were all gathered around the counter, and Peter was slicing apples, and measuring out the cinnamon, laughing and chatting, suddenly at ease and the life of the party.
Rebecca’s best friend, Lily Wayne, was there with a long white apron over her flowery yellow dress. And Jonny Penderman was teasing her, poking her with a spatula, making her squeal each time.
Peter grinned at Jonny and pointed. “Jonny, how did you get flour on your nose?”
Jonny grinned back. “It was easy.” He reached across the counter and poked his finger deep into the bag of flour. Then he rubbed his finger on Peter’s nose, leaving a nice white smear.
“Hey—!” Peter uttered a cry. He picked up the flour bag, and pulled his arm back as if to heave it at Jonny. Jonny ducked. But Rebecca slid her hand over Peter’s bicep and held his arm down.
“Sorry, boys. No flour fights today,” Rebecca said. “It’s the maid’s day off.”
Jonny and Peter both sighed in disappointment. Then Peter dabbed a spot of flour onto Rebecca’s nose. She laughed and backed away. “Just slice apples, okay, Tiger? The dough is almost ready.”
Ruth-Ann didn’t know what to think. She watched Peter and his new personality from a corner of the kitchen, feeling confused, searching for some secret in Peter’s eyes. What on earth is happening here?
A week later, the mystery was solved.
Saturday night, Ruth-Ann, in a short blue-and-white pleated skirt and white silk top with a frilly lace collar and cuffs, paced the living room. She gripped a velvety blue cloche cap between her hands.
“Are you going out?” her father asked. He tapped the bowl of his pipe against his open palm.
“Yes. I expect so,” Ruth-Ann answered, frowning, squeezing the cap. “Peter and I planned to go see some film shorts at the Vitogram, but he’s late.”
A few more taps of the pipe. He raised the stem to his mouth and made sucking sounds. “What are you going to see?”
“Oh, those people Peter likes. Fatty Arbuckle and Mabel Normand. He laughs till he gets hiccups.”
Mr. Fear pulled the gold watch from his waist and read the dial. “It isn’t like Peter to be late.”
Ruth-Ann rolled her eyes. “It’s strange. I haven’t seen him all week. I feel as if he’s avoiding me.”
“Probably busy at the Victrola store.”
“Maybe.” Ruth-Ann sighed and gazed at the grandfather clock in the corner. “Something must be wrong. He’s nearly half an hour behind.” She scowled at her father. “We have to get one of those telephones, Dad. Everyone is getting them.”
Mr. Fear had a cloth pouch raised over his pipe and was carefully emptying tobacco into the bowl. “You know my feelings—”
Ruth-Ann groaned, pumping her fists at her sides. “You think everything is a fad. Telephones . . . the Victrola. Dad, you said that automobiles were a fad!”
Her father laughed. “You know that isn’t true, Ruth-Ann. I have come a long way in my thinking. When I was a boy, no one had electricity. That’s the honest truth. And—”
“Oh, poor you. Please don’t start that again. We all know how you had to light candles to read your homework at night and how the iceman brought big blocks of ice to keep the refrigerator cold.”
She squeezed the cap in her hands. “If we had a telephone, Dad, I could call Peter and see why he isn’t here.”
Mr. Fear tamped the tobacco down with his thumb. “If I had a rocket ship, I could fly to the moon.”
“You’re not funny!” Ruth-Ann snapped, louder than she had intended. “I’m sorry—” She started to apologize, but the front doorbell chimed. “Oh. There he is.”
Mr. Fear nodded and strolled out of the room, still fiddling with his pipe. Ruth-Ann ran to the front door, nearly tripping over the thick pile of the carpet.
She flung the door open. “Where have you been?”
Ruth-Ann gasped when she saw that it wasn’t Peter. She stared openmouthed at Rebecca’s friend Lily. “Oh. Lily. Hi. I—I thought you were someone else.”
A sudden gust of wind fluttered Lily’s long skirt. She grabbed her hat with one hand to keep it from blowing away. Ruth-Ann felt a few cold raindrops in the air.
“Lily, come in.” She stepped back, and Lily slipped into the entryway. “Rebecca isn’t here.”
“I—I know,” Lily stammered. “Ruth-Ann, I thought maybe you could do a favor for her. Is your father’s automobile at home?”
Ruth-Ann squinted at her. “Well . . . yes.”
“Your sister left this at my house.” Lily held up a small, silvery purse. The tiny rhinestones that covered the purse gleamed in the bright light of the entryway chandelier. “Can you take it to her? I’m late for a family party at my cousin’s house.”
Lily shoved the little oval-shaped purse into Ruth-Ann’s hand. Ruth-Ann gazed at it. “Uh . . . where?”
“Rebecca is dancing at the Hot Bunny Club,” Lily said. “She really needs her purse. I’m so sorry to bother you, Ruth-Ann. But can you drive over there and drop it off? She’ll kill me if she doesn’t get it.”
“Well. Sure,” Ruth-Ann said. “That isn’t a problem. It’s very nice of you, Lily.” My Saturday night isn’t working out anyway, she thought bitterly.
Ruth-Ann stood at the doorway and watched Lily run down the gravel driveway to her car. The wind swirled the shrubs in the yard, and raindrops pattered the front stoop.
“When Peter finally shows up, tell him to wait for me,” she told her father. He was finally puffing on his pipe, in his favorite armchair in the den, with a book of Sherlock Holmes stories on his lap.
Ruth-Ann pulled on a rain slicker with a hood, grabbed the little purse, and made her way to the car, a 1922 black Pierce-Arrow coupe, at the top of the driveway.
The drive to the Hot Bunny Club was only about twenty minutes. But Ruth-Ann drove slowly, leaning over the steering wheel, peering through the curtain of raindrops on the windshield. The single windshield wiper was slow, and the wind kept making the car veer from side to side.
Questions slid through Ruth-Ann’s mind. . . . Where is Peter? Why is he so late? Why was Rebecca at Lily’s? Is that where Nelson picked her up to go dancing?
Gripping the wheel in both hands, staring hard into the white light of her headlights, she had to concentrate on driving.
She followed Bank Street to Division Street. Luckily, there were few cars on the road until she got to the Old Village. Her mum said the mayor had promised streetlights for all the major roads in town. But so far, there was no sign of them.
Traffic nearly slowed to a stop. With its small clubs and restaurants, the Old Village was always crowded on a Saturday night. Ruth-Ann wondered if Peter was at her house this moment, waiting for her.
The pink neon sign proclaiming THE HOT BUNNY CLUB, with red flames darting over a giant dancing rabbit, came into view just past the village. Ruth-Ann turned the car into the crowded lot. The tires crunched over the gravel surface. She slid into a parking spot under the neon sign.
She grabbed Rebecca’s little rhinestone bag and stepped down from the running board of the car. The pink-and-red neon of the sign above sent a wash of color over her, and she suddenly felt as if she was inside the darting flames.
She began crunching over the gravel toward the low square building. The rain had stopped, but the wind still carried a chill.
A painted sign over the double doors of the entrance proclaimed: JAZZ DANCING GOOD FOOD NO ALCOHOL. Red flames were painted across the doors.
Ruth-Ann pushed the doors open and stepped into a pulsing room of shadowy bodies dancing in a swirl of purple lights. Blinking, struggling to adjust her eyes to the new light, she saw tables at one side, a long bar, a jazz band in tuxedos filling a small bandstand, and couples dancing. The music was deafening, a trumpet wailing high above the rest of the band, but voices and laughter somehow blared through the din.
A young man with oily slicked-back hair and a pencil-thin mustache, dressed in a checkered suit, moved quickly to greet Ruth-Ann. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “We don’t allow unaccompanied women. You must have an escort.”
“I—I’m not staying,” Ruth-Ann stammered. “I just need to give this to my sister.” She raised the purse to the man’s face.
He nodded and waved her toward the dance floor. Then he turned and headed toward the food tables.
Still blinking, Ruth-Ann took a few steps toward the center of the room. The band finished one number and began the next, a slow romantic waltz.
Ruth-Ann peered into the swirling violet lights, studying the dancers’ faces. There were many couples swaying slowly to the soft song. But it didn’t take long to locate Rebecca.
The purple lights made her blond hair glow. She was moving slowly, in a tight embrace. Her cheek was pressed against her date’s face, and Ruth-Ann saw that she had one hand tenderly cupped at the back of his neck, gently stroking his skin and hair as they moved to the music.
And when they turned, Ruth-Ann sucked in a mouthful of air, felt the purse drop out of her hand, felt her heartbeat stop, felt her heart leap into her mouth.
Her legs started to fold. She stared. Stared at Peter in Rebecca’s arms. Peter’s cheek pressed so tightly against Rebecca’s. Rebecca moving with him through the haze of purple light, moving as if they had danced so many times before, moving as if they were one.
