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She was tempted to blurt out a hasty yes, but she knew her mother well If Evie didn’t make it seem like a punishment to be endured, like she had "learned her lesson well," she’d be stuck in Zenith, apologizing to Harold Brodie after all
She sighed and worked up just the right aht relent "I suppose that would be a sensible course Though I don’t knohat I’ll do in Manhattan with an old bachelor uncle as chaperone and all my dear friends back here in Zenith"
"You should have thought of that before," hersrin Like shooting fish in a barrel, she thought
Her father checked his watch "There’s a train at five o’clock I expect you’d better start packing"
Evie and her father rode to the station in silence Nor in her father’s Lincoln Boattail Roadster was a point of pride It was the only convertible in Zenith, the pick of the lot at her father’s motorcar dealership But today she didn’t want to be seen She wished she were as inconsequential as the ghosts in her drea, she felt this way--the shaer at the way these petty, small-town people always made her feel: "Oh, Evie, you’re just too much," they’d say with a polite smile It was not a compliment
She was too much--for Zenith, Ohio She’d tried at times to make herself smaller, to fit neatly into the ordered lines of expectation But soeous--she’d accept a dare to clio riding in cars with boys--and suddenly she was "that awful O’Neill girl" all over again
Instinctively, her fingers wandered to the coin around her neck It was a half-dollar her brother had sent froift for her ninth birthday, the day he’d died She reram from the war departray as he handed it over She reled cry as she sank to the floor, still clutching the yellowed paper with the heartless black type She re after he should have been in bed, a forbidden bottle of Scotch open on his desk Evie had read the telegram later: REGRET TO INFORM YOU… PRIVATE JAMES XAVIER O’NEILL… KILLED IN ACTION IN GERMANY… SUDDEN ATTACK AT DAWN… GAVE HIS LIFE IN SERVICE TO OUR COUNTRY… SECRETARY OF WAR ASKS THAT I CONVEY HIS DEEPEST SYMPATHIES ON THE LOSS OF YOUR SON…
They passed a horse and buggy on its way to one of the farms just outside town It see that was out of place here
"Evie," her father said in his soft voice "What happened at the party, pet?"
The party It had been swell at first She and Louise and Dottie in their finery Dottie had lent Evie her rhinestone headache band, and it looked so spiffy resting across Evie’s soft curls They’d enjoyed a spirited but less debate about the trial of Mr Scopes in Tennessee the year before and the whole idea that the lot of humanity was descended frohtest," Evie had said, cutting her eyes flirtatiously at the college boys who’d just sung a rousing twelfth round of "The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi" Everyone was drunk and happy And Harold came around with his flattery
"Hello,and bowed at her feet
Harry was handso and, despite what she’d said earlier, a swell kisser If Harry liked a girl, that girl got noticed Evie liked being noticed, especially when she was drinking Harry was engaged-to-be-engaged to Norford He wasn’t in love with Norma--Evie knew that--but he was in love with her bank account, and everyone knew they’d e Still, he wasn’t married yet
"Did I tell you that I have special powers?" Evie had asked after her third drink
Harry smiled "I can see that"
"I am quite serious," she slurred, too tipsy not to take his dare "I can tell your secrets si on it" There were polite chuckles aoers Evie fixed the under heavily kohled lashes "I am pos-i-tute-ly serious"